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League of Legends cheating controversy puts $2,000,000 on the line
The competitive e-sports scene has exploded in the past two years, with top MOBA teams competing for prizes of up to an incredible $1,000,000 US from a single tournament. This weekend, MOBA fans tuned in to the League of Legends World Championship tournament, streamed live from Los Angeles. The crowd attending the event got front row seats to see the game's best teams battle it out over a total of $2,000,000 US in prize money, and with so much money on the line, it's no surprise that accusations of cheating have already surfaced. A huge screen showed the match in action to event attendees, with two smaller screens showing each team's in-game map with the positions of their players. Competitors were told to face forward at all times, but controversy erupted last night when livestream viewers at home noticed players turning their heads and looking up away from the screen. It was argued that those players were cheating by looking at the opposing team's minimap to check the positions of their players. Riot Games e-sports coordinator RiotTiza was lead referee for the tournament and released the following statement: "We keep a constant watch on all the players on stage at all times. We have cameras as well as live people walking onto stage to keep tabs in everything. All players are told that they need to remain sitting, facing forward, and with headphones on at all times, including during pauses. I can personally confirm that no WE player looked at the minimap at any point during the match."
OpTic Gaming wins the $400,000 prize in the Call of Duty XP Million Dollar tourney
The prizes have been passed out at the Call of Duty XP Million Dollar Tournament in Los Angeles, and the US' OpTic Gaming has taken home first prize, totalling a whopping $400,000. OpTic picked up the lead early in the round of final matches, capturing flags on the Dome map in the first game, and picking up and holding two out of three points in the two Domination maps on Resistance after that. The UK team Infinity caused some trouble in the Kill Confirmed round (after winning a tiebreaker Team Deathmatch to make the finals), but OpTic dug in for the final rounds in Search and Destroy to win the tourney. "No college debt -- that's how I feel, baby!" said one of OpTic's players right after the match. Infinity is stuck with second prize, which is "only" $200,000. Almost a quarter of a million dollars for playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3? Still not a bad weekend. The other big winner at the conference was Call of Duty fan Brandy Miller, whose picture won a competition on Facebook, and allowed her to take home that brand new Call of Duty edition Jeep Wrangler. Everybody else? They won a few bruises from the paintball court outside. And oh yeah -- everybody who paid the $150 for a ticket (the proceeds of which go to the Call of Duty Endowment) also picks up a Hardened Edition of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Along, of course, with all the hearing damage of listening to gunfire and explosions all weekend long.
Plants vs. Zombies breaks records on the iPhone
PopCap has released some sales information on their latest iPhone game, Plants vs. Zombies, and it's a runaway hit: the game has sold over 300,000 copies in just the nine days it's been out on the App Store, which means the company has garnered over $1 million in sales already. Very impressive -- first, we had an app make a million total, then a company was making a million a month, and now PopCap has done the same in just over a week. So what's their secret? It's a high quality game, first of all, and PopCap has a reputation for making those already. Second, the game itself had a fairly high profile even before release, since it was extremely successful on the PC as well. And finally, you have to think that the price figures in as well -- I thought the game would sell for PopCap's usual $5, but they actually sold it two dollars less than that. They'd probably have still made a lot of money, but I don't know if they'd be talking about 300,000 sales at a price just two dollars higher. Then again, the game is already available for free online, so maybe the quality and PopCap's profile played a bigger part than the price did (they also trumpet the fact that Bejeweled 2 is also one of the top five grossing apps on the App Store). Congrats to PopCap on all their success. Oh, and our free time called, too. It surrenders.
MLB 2K10 demo available on Xbox Live, coming to PSN next Thursday
Regardless of whether or not you're a fan of ludological interpretations of America's pastime, you should really plan on grabbing the demo for MLB 2K10. See, you're going to need as much practice as you possibly get in order to pitch a perfect no-hitter once the game's released, effectively netting yourself a cool million bucks. However, though the demo is currently available on Xbox Live, PS3 owners won't have access to it until March 4 -- two days after the full game is released. By that time, the 360-owning populace will have had over a week to turn their pitching arms into Randy Johnson-esque baseball cannons. Depending on how you look at it, that's either a huge handicap, or the makings of a fantastic underdog story.
Why do crap apps still exist? They sell.
The Wall Street Journal's Digits blog takes a look at "crap apps" -- those pieces of junk on the App Store that do one thing and do it pointlessly, whether that thing be farting or belching or making the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard (yes, really) or what have you. And they come up with a very intriguing, albeit obvious, reason that the App Store seems so filled with completely terrible and silly apps. Why? Because they sell.Yes, even "legitimate" iPhone developers -- those people working hard to create an innovative touchscreen interface, or bring some crucial functionality to the iPhone -- are finding that of all the apps they release, the crudest and most stupid are the ones that sell. They profile a guy whose serious movie apps aren't selling, but whose cobbled-together-in-five-minutes gimmick apps are making a mint. In short, the reason our App Store is full of way more fart apps than apps like Twitterific 2.0 is because people are paying for the fart ones. The message we're sending with our wallets is that if you want to make a million dollars on the App Store, don't toil away to polish your groundbreaking award-winning puzzle game. Just give us a gag we can show to our friends.Is it right? I'd say no, but then again, even I have been pulled in to a gimmick app or two: I bought Cat Piano (in my defense, I've gotten enough entertainment out of it to find an easter egg: shake your iPhone while playing). But next time your finger is poised over the "Get App" button on that 99-cent belching app that you just know the friend you're seeing later will get a total kick out of, think to yourself: is that two-second gag worth an App Store full of crappy apps?
A million bucks of MacBook Pros
Ever wonder what a million dollars of MacBook Pros look like? It's something like this. 500 MacBook Pro laptops. One truck. 15 palettes. And this is just the first of several shipments. Which inspires that famous song: "A million bucks of MacBooks on the wall...you take one down, pass it around...$998,000 of MacBooks on the wall..." Or something like that. We forget the tune but I'm sure if someone starts humming it we can digitize it onto our iPod.[Via Digg ]
