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Video game industry seeks political clout
The strange relationship between the video game industry and politics just got more complicated. Mike Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association, spoke with the New York Times today about his intentions to start a political action committee (PAC) for making campaign contributions. The PAC -- which represents major publishers like Disney, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony -- was approved by the board last fall and will reportedly be ready to go in March.Gallagher estimated the PAC would donate $50,000 to $100,000 to national candidates this year, a number which he labels as small, but a good start. He also talked about combining contribution efforts with the ESA initiative Video Game Voters Network. "If I can walk into the office of a member of Congress and tell them we have 20,000 voters in their state who are already signed up to write letters and act based on game-related issues that concern them, that's powerful," he said. You know what also helps? Money; good thing that's covered too. We're interested in seeing how game rhetoric on Capitol Hill changes, if at all, following the PAC initiative.[Via Game Politics]
NYTimes names Mass Effect game of the year
A little lesbianism goes a long way as the New York Times names Mass Effect its game of the year for 2007. The NYT bestowed Mass Effect with the honor for its "focus on character development, personal growth and moral tension, all fueled by a graphics system created to evoke emotional empathy." Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction was honored for being the shining star on the PS3 and BioShock was named the "best newcomer." There's also digs at Halo 3 and Super Mario Galaxy for being "unambitious representations of the state of the art."Speaking of unambitious, for the second time in less than a month the New York Times copyeditors took a nap (albeit a minor one) on a video game-related story, which is slowly becoming inappropriate in covering an $18 billion-plus industry. There's no telling when reporter Seth Schiesel submitted his copy for this piece, but E3 2008 was already confirmed for the Los Angeles Convention Center last Tuesday, so the article's suggestion that "the solution for [E3] next year can be summed up in one word (or is that two?): Las Vegas" is just about 1,000 New York minutes behind the times.
'Remember ALF? He's back! In crosswords form.'
This late-night post marks the fourth time we've referenced Milhouse's ALF quote from "Bart Sells His Soul," the Simpsons episode in which Bart trades in his soul for five bucks. Out of all the ALF pog allusions, however, we can confidently hold up this one as the best. How is that, you ask? Two reasons: Check out this screenshot that Gray Whitten took from a New York Times Crosswords puzzle on his DS! Any game that makes an effort to mention furry, large-nosed Melmacians sounds like an obviously fantastic game to us! We've finally obtained a video clip of that classic scene from when Bart confronted Milhouse about getting his soul back. We've embedded it right after the five-letter word for interruption.
More information on the Activizzard merger
The strange timing of this massive announcement aside, details are starting to come to light about what the merger of Activision and Blizzard means to all involved. First, Blizzard has made an official announcement in their forums, followed by a separate post with a FAQ about the merger. The FAQ basically says absolutely nothing will change on the Blizzard side. No layoffs, no managerial changes, no ship date changes. This is no surprise since no one in their right mind is going to mess with the success that is the Blizzard name and the team behind it.The official press release mentioned in our first post today is a bit dense on the corporate speak, but the interesting parts are: The new Board of Directors will have 11 seats: 6 of those filled by Vivendi, 2 by Activision and 3 by independent directors from Activision's board. There will be a live webcast with the management of the two sides tomorrow morning at 8:30am EST and can be viewed at www.vivendi.com and www.activision.com The BBC site has a very good summary of the merger along with a brief background on both companies. And The New York Times site has a deeper analysis from a business perspective. It points out that Activision is trying hard to compete with EA Games and adding Blizzard will not only put its annual revenue on par with its main competition, but will give it a criticial foothold in the online gaming and Asian gaming markets.Kudos to our own Art Orneck on the "Activizzard" reference. It sure beat out my "Blizzvision" for cleverness.
NYTimes: PS3 is $299, GT5 'best seller,' and Xbox uses Cell chip
Talk about all the news that's fit to copyedit. The New York Times has a hat-trick of errors in a recent technology piece discussing video game options. They manage to make it through the Wii spot on -- but then the real fun comes. First the Old Gray Lady says Gran Turismo 5 is "a hyper-realistic, high-speed journey, [and] is one of the best sellers for [the] Sony console." One little problem, the game isn't out yet. Next up they say the PlayStation 3 is $299, which would be awesome and perhaps the Times has some incredibly privileged info about Sony's holiday strategy, but we're pretty sure the system is going to be starting at $399 for a while. Oh, but they're not done yet. Did you realize the PS3 and Xbox 360 are both powered by the Cell processor? This is being reported by the venerable New York-freakin'-Times, so it must be true, right?[Thanks, Murph]
The New York Times finds EVE Online intriguing
The New York Times published an article on EVE Online this morning. NYT writer Seth Schiesel focused on EVE's growth and emphasis on player freedom.Hilmar Petursson (CCP's CEO) told Schiesel in a phone interview that there are "basically two schools of thought for operating an online community. There is the theme-park approach and the sandbox approach. Most games are like Disneyland, for instance, which is a carefully constructed experience where you stand in line to be entertained." He said that CCP takes the sandbox approach, creating a world where players are free to define their own experiences.The article also describes the current political climate in EVE Online's worth, including the Band of Brothers blueprints scandal and other things. If you're already an EVE player, you won't find anything new in the article, but if you're not, it's bound to be an eyebrow-raising read.
Simon says: no to settlement
Rase Kenzo (aka Thomas Simon) has rejected settlement with the parties represented by lawyer Frank Taney. The settlement offer involved $2,000USD compensation to each of the six plaintiffs, and $5,000USD in legal fees. It probably doesn't get much cheaper than that, in the USA. Nevertheless, Kenzo has rejected the settlement, indicating that he thinks it's too much, and besides, he doesn't have the money. Instead, he's opting for a potentially much more expensive court case - though he is trying to find a lawyer who will take the case pro-bono.
Black Friday online bargains for the Nintendo DS
Stuck at home while every one else is out shopping, reaping the savings of Black Friday deals? Or maybe you just didn't want to deal with the crowds, afraid that you'll end up in a fist fight over the last Gold Nintendo DS Lite bundle? No need to worry -- there are a few sales you can still take advantage of online!Amazon New York Times Crosswords - $9.99 Circuit City Cake Mania - $9.99 Cooking Mama - $9.99 EB Games Konami Classics: Arcade Hits- $9.99 New York Times Crosswords - $9.99 [Via CAG]
Halo: Contact Harvest lands #3 on NY Times list
See, mom? Video games do encourage reading. The novel Halo: Contact Harvest, which was released October 30, has this week landed on The New York Times' Best Sellers list for Paperback Trade Fiction, just behind Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera and Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants. Contact Harvest was written by Bungie's Joseph Staten and tells of the human race's first encounter with the Covenant. Next week's bestseller list has already been tabulated it seems, as the Paperback Trade Fiction list for November 25 places Contact Harvest in the number four slot, swapping places with Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner.
David Pogue on Macro programs
NY Times tech columnist David Pogue has done it again. I'll admit that more than once I've wondered about David after watching one of his whimsical video reports for the Times, but then he offers up a gem like the one in his latest column and I realize why he is a powerful tech columnist and I'm a lowly blogger.Pogue takes a look at several Macro programs for both Mac and PC (a Macro program is one that allows you to assign certain actions to corresponding key strokes. Launch an app with a push of a button, have a script fire off, things of that nature). He takes Keyboard Maestro, iKey, and QuicKeys for a spin on the Mac side. They all fare well, but QuicKeys is the one the gets the highest marks, and the one that spawned the tip which has me believing in Pogue all over again. QuicKeys allows you to remap the tilde key (pictured to the right) to any button you would like. David uses it as a left hand delete button so he doesn't have to move his hand off the mouse whilst editing. Brilliant.
World Wide WoW: The New York Times, gold farming, and righteous anger
The New York Times has an interesting article about gold farming, which does a lot to help us understand what gold farming is really like. The author is very insightful, both in his grasp of how WoW works (though he seems confused on details, like "night-elf wizards"), and he is able to communicate well with the Chinese who work as gold farmers. The article goes into greater depth than I've seen so far in any report on the issue, and even includes a video, apparently part of the gold-farming documentary we reported on a while back, to give you a first hand look at what the farmers' lives are like.There are many interesting things in the article, but I'd like to highlight one particular insight here, regarding our relationship to these seemingly strange people in a far away country. "On the surface," the Times reporter observes, "there is little to distinguish gold farming from toy production or textile manufacture or any of the other industries that have mushroomed across China to feed the desires of the Western consumer. The wages, the margins, the worker housing, the long shifts and endless workweeks - all of these are standard practice." Many of the Chinese who moved to the cities from the poor villages scattered all about are facing the same problem. The system provides little to no opportunity to arise out of poverty fueling the demand for cheap products to be sold in the West. Understood in this context, gold farming looks just one of many industries arising out of the relationship China has with the US, providing everything they can as cheaply as possible -- a relationship neither country is quick to change. (Some of my own friends from the countryside work under similarly grueling conditions running their own small restaurant near where I live in China. They seem happy enough but it may be that they just put a good face on things for me every time I see them. Their lives are not easy.)This is different from the usual textile sweatshop job, however: these people work in the same virtual space that we play in, and we the players are not happy about it: "In the eyes of many gamers, in fact, real-money trading is essentially a scam - a form of cheating only slightly more refined than, say, offering 20 actual dollars for another player's Boardwalk and Park Place in Monopoly." So true.
Nintendo learns to play nice with third party developers
The Wii is ushering in a new era for Nintendo, not just technologically, but also in their business relationships with third party developers. Not only is Nintendo poised to smash their "kiddie" image (Resident Evil 4 helped on the Gamecube, but it in no way compares to Manhunt 2 for Wii), but it's looking like third party developers won't have to justify their love for Nintendo anymore. The company is opening up and letting them learn how to use their Wiimote for the most pleasurable experience possible.The NY Times explores Nintendo's sudden outreach using Namco Bandai as an example, saying that the "usually aloof executives" came to the publisher a year ago with an "appeal for their support." Namco Bandai's COO, Shin Unozawa says, "I had not seen that attitude from them before ... Nintendo was suddenly reaching out to independent developers."We've seen some arrogant statements from American Nintendo execs, but the Wii seems to be Nintendo's contrition machine. Despite being more open to publishers, Nintendo refused to comment on their new approach to the NY Times. Although the Wii is selling incredibly well, the games haven't broken out of the gimmicky mold yet. When Metroid and Mario Galaxy hit later this year, we'll get the first real dose of what a game designed for the Wii can offer, instead of the Gamecube techno-ports we've had so far. And by next year, we may begin seeing solid titles from third party developers. Here's to hoping Nintendo learned from their past mistakes and makes the Wii what the Gamecube could have been with support form third party publishers.
Apple and Sony stores face off in the New York Times
It seems funny now, but Apple's 2001 decision to open a chain of glossy white boutiques was thought to be pretty risky at the time -- there was no shortage of pundits declaring that the stores would fail spectacularly. (To be fair, no other manufacturer made it work except Sony, kind of. Read on.) Six years and several million iPods later, of course, the stores are a resounding success, and flagship stores are suddenly all the rage. Not every manufacturer's getting so lucky at the mall, however -- Randall Stross of the New York Times compared his experiences at a couple of Sony's 39 retail stores with a visit to an Apple Store, and came away less than impressed. Stross found both Sony outlets virtually deserted except for inattentive salespeople and security personnel, while the Apple Store was packed with shoppers and friendly staff. The Sony stores, according to the "retail consultants" Stross later talked to, are merely "places of stuff," a condition which makes them not "shop-able," while the Apple outlets "extend an emotional connection." Stross concludes that Sony would do better if they had a hit product (duh) but we think the real secret is something a little different (no pun intended) -- Stross quotes a consultant who says all you need to do is "absorb the fumes" at an Apple Store and you "feel like the smartest technophile in the world." Man, that RDF is some pretty powerful stuff, eh?[Via TUAW]
NY Times compares Apple and Sony retail experiences
Remember when Apple's "retail experiment" was viewed as a risky, borderline-nutty strategy? Recall how Gateway and other technology companies were running away from their mall outposts while Apple was rolling out its first stores back in 2001? Randall Stross at the New York Times remembers [registration required], and he says that "[o]f the many predictions in the world of technology that have turned out to be spectacularly wrong, a prominent place should be made for what the pundits said in 2001 when Apple opened its first retail store in Tysons Corner, Va." Apple has succeeded tremendously in retail, partly due to a strategy of supporting a positive customer experience (Genius Bar!) and partly due to an unexpectedly popular product (the iPod).Stross quotes Apple's quarterly report on retail numbers -- over 180 stores, sales of $855 million -- and compares the Apple retail mojo to the Sony Style stores' relatively low impact. He also notes the impending return of Dell to the retail channel; not through Dell-branded stores, but through Wal-Mart... there's a really positive retail association for you. As long as Apple continues to make an emotional connection with buyers at the point of sale, it'll be hard to beat the Apple Stores.via Philip Elmer-Dewitt at Apple 2.0
The New York Times Garden Expert: garden like it's 1993
While you gotta wonder who at the Gray Lady thought this thing up, the New York Times Garden Expert does seem like it might actually be kinda useful now that spring is finally here. Looking like a cross between a novelty fridge magnet and a circa-1993 RadioShack discount PDA, the Garden Expert contains 1000 answers to common gardening questions culled from the NYT's Garden Expert column, like "What flowers attract butterflies?" Not the highest of high-tech, but for $20 it's pretty hard to complain. And say, isn't a certain day coming up?[Via OhGizmo]
Blast from the Past: Apple Introduces "Easier to Use" portable music player
October 2001. Apple introduces a new portable music player that it declares is much easier to use. So much easier, in fact, that it may "broaden a nascent market in the way the Macintosh once helped make the personal computer accessible to a more general audience". This new device is called iPod. The New York Times article that describes the iPod is pessimistic. The iPod-buying market would probably be limited to the 7 million existing owners of Apple Macintosh computers since no Windows support was provided at the time. And the new iPod might support piracy, although CEO Steve Jobs assured the music industry that steps would be taken to prevent songs from being transfered from the device to other computers. The 2001 iPod's 5GB hard drive was large enough to store 1000 songs.
How did various media outlets report the FTC gaming report?
Here's some light weekend reading about politics, the media and gaming. Earlier this week the U.S. Federal Trade Commission released a report about the gaming industry. The real fun for industry folk was seeing how all the various media outlets would report the news and what their headlines would be. Below is the list, shamelessly ripped-off from Dennis McCauley over at GamePolitics, of various media outlets and their take on the report: FTC says content curbs fall short - L.A. Times Report says the young buy violent games and movies - NY Times FTC: self-regulation of violent content working - Beta News Children still see ads for violent content - Advertising Age FTC scolds marketers about violent content - AdWeek FTC: violence still marketed to youths - Hollywood Reporter Report: Violence still aimed at kids - Variety FTC violence marketing report show general compliance - Broadcasting & Cable FTC Report: Violence Still a Problem in Marketing - TV Week FTC: game industry self-policing improving - GameSpot FTC: M-rated games still marketed to minors - Next Generation FTC: games are better regulated than music, movies - Ars Technica FTC report: mixed reviews on industry's ability to self-regulate - Joystiq FTC: game industry stricter than movies, music - Kotaku FTC report praises, spanks video game industry - GamePolitics As McCauley asks in his headline accompanying the list above, "Were these media outlets reading the same report?" The various headlines make us think of the classic question: If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to see it, does it make a sound? Some say yes, some say no, some say it explodes into various pieces, some say the Earth Mother picked it back up, some say there is no tree. The various headlines and the stores with them is a good read on the diversity of voice in the media -- especially when it comes to gaming.
NYT goes to Japan, discovers QR codes
Don't get us wrong, we have a special place in our robo-hearts for the Grey Lady, but you know we're gonna get a little chuckle about today's billowy two-pager on this totally new thing called QR codes that the Japanese have been using for, um, years. (And that we've been writing about for some time as well.) Still, we're not exactly balking since we do love QR so very, very much, and anything that could be done (including New York Times exposure) to faster integrate it into connected lives is something you know we're down with. Next up from the NYT's Japanese dispatches: a new phenomena sweeping the nation, an adorable character named "Hello Kitty".
Pogue on the Apple TV
Uncle Walt likes it, but what does David Pogue, NY Times tech columnist, think of the now shipping Apple TV? The short answer: he likes it.Pogue compares Apple's offer to the XBox 360 and the Netgear EVA8000 (seen to the right). The XBox 360 is big and noisy, but offers you HD downloads. Pogue also found navigating the menus a little clumsy with the joystick. Speaking of clumsy, Pogue says the EVA8000, which can stream content from any folder on any of your Macs or PCs and can even play tunes purchased from iTunes (though that's a PC only feature for some reason) has the stink of a 1.0 product all over it. The menu system is ugly, setup was difficult, and overall the experience was not pleasant.Pogue also included a little tidbit I hadn't seen anywhere else. Thanks to the magic of iTunes/iPod syncing if you are watching a video on your iPod, pause, hook you iPod up to your Mac, and then turn on your Apple TV it will remember where you paused that video and start from that point on the Apple TV. Nifty.The Apple TV wins based on design, ease of use, and ease of setup. Who cares that it only works with iTunes (though on both Mac and PC) and that there is no HD content to be had at the iTunes Store (not yet, anyway)?
NY Times crossword puzzler headed to DS
If Dr. Kawashima can do it, so can Will Shortz. The New York Times crossword puzzle editor is poised to become the next DS icon when Majesco releases The New York Times Crosswords, a collection of 1,000 wordplay puzzles for Nintendo's handheld. Well, that's if developer Budcat decides to pixelize Shortz.Even without another goading head, Crosswords has the makings of a DS crossover hit -- you know, popular with the old folks -- with its proper usage of the touch-screen (allowing wordsmiths to scribble in answers or use an on-screen keyboard), progressive difficulty modes, and head-to-head wireless battles ... yeah, we said battles!The New York Times Crosswords ships this spring. Wurd.[Via 4 color rebellion]
