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Xbox One wins an Emmy (but no, not that kind)
The Xbox One may have received an Emmy this week, but don't worry about Master Chief stealing the spotlight from <your favorite actor here>, because these are the Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, and the award was in the category of Television Enhancement Devices. "Microsoft is in good company with the likes of fellow award recipients Apple, Roku, Sony, and TiVo – and we're proud to be awarded this honor by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences," a post on Xbox Wire reads. It would seem that, despite the shuttering of Xbox Entertainment Studios, Microsoft's investment in the Xbox One as a multimedia device has still paid off. At least as far as awards go. [Image: Microsoft]
The Game Archaeologist and the Nights of Old Winter
Here's a question for you: How much do you really, really have to love a game to pay $8.00 an hour to play it? Considering how much we tend to whine about a flat $15/month fee, I'm guessing the answer is, "Only if it loved me long time." And yet, in 1991 this wasn't considered crazy extortionist practices -- it was dubbed "Being a pioneer." While online RPGs were nothing new by then, nobody had tackled the jump from text-based RPGs (MUDs and BBS doors) to graphical games due to the technology (limited modem speeds and access) and funding involved. It took the efforts of a Superfriends-style team to make this happen with Neverwinter Nights: Stormfront Studios developed the game, TSR provided the Dungeons & Dragons license, SSI published it under its Gold Box series, and Aol handled the online operations. Thus, 19 years ago -- six years before Ultima Online and 13 before World of Warcraft -- the first multiplayer graphical RPG went online and helped forge a path that would lead to where we are today. With only 50 to 500 players per server, Neverwinter Nights may not have been "massively," but it deserves a spot of honor as one of the key ancestors to the modern MMO.
The Virtual Whirl: A brief history of Second Life
Second Life has just seen its seventh anniversary (called its seventh birthday, only it technically isn't -- the original birthday is in March, but the anniversary is in June. There's history there). It's also traditionally a time when Linden Lab and Second Life users most often treat each other as enemies and obstacles; and it is a time for retrospectives and for considering the future. With the departure of Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon (the press release release says "stepping down," but the day prior to the release many Linden staffers were saying that Kingdon was fired) Linden Lab has hit a turning point -- or the end of another era. Accordingly, over the next couple of weeks, we're going to look at the history of Second Life, starting back in 1999 and continuing to the present day. Or at least as much as we can cover the ten-year history of something so rich and diverse in the available space. Second Life is quite legitimately a phenomenon (and even won an Emmy award). It was also something of an accident, since it wasn't what Linden Lab started out to make.
Make Love, Not Warcraft wins Emmy
The South Park WoW episode: "Make Love, Not Warcraft" won the Creative Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour). Though the Primetime Emmys will not take place until Sunday, September 16th, the Creative Arts Emmys were awarded yesterday, September 8th at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, CA.South Park beat out episodes from The Simpsons, Avatar, Robot Chicken and SpongeBob SquarePants for the award.This episode is on the 10th season DVD which recently came out and don't forget you can get a discount just for typing in the code WARCRAFT if you order it from Comedy Central.This isn't the first Emmy that South Park has won, but perhaps this kind of attention will get WoW more positive (or at least humorous) attention in other television shows. Though, when it comes to TV ratings, 9 million people worldwide does not a target audience make. For example, American Idol was considered slipping when it only had 30 million US viewers for an episode.Would you like to see WoW references appear more often on TV? Or are you too busy playing to care?
