xfire
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Xfire Summer Movie Contest
While the contest only appears to be linked from the EU site, Xfire's own rules seem to allow entry from movie-makers from both sides of the globe. This is the second time Blizzard and Xfire have teamed up to offer some incredible prizes to would-be filmmakers - and, if you missed the first one, do go check it out, because the movies are all excellent. If you're a would-be film-maker yourself, this is a great opportunity to give it a shot, with the chance of winning (of course!) fabulous prizes. For my part, I'm going to sit back and wait to hope the resulting machinima is as good as last year's.
Xfire's E3 Coverage
Xfire has posted a video of their E3 interviews. It's not really focusing on news (which we've probably all seen by this point already), but commentary (some interesting and some just for comic value) from Jeff Kaplan (Tigole), Caydiem, Ordinn, and Eyonix. It's an entertaining watch with a few interesting tidbits, though I must admit that I had to laugh when Tigole commented, "We know the honor system is a bit of a grind."
Live Anywhere bad news for gaming IM
Being able to seamlessly connect with your friends while playing games is becoming increasingly important, both to gamers and to games companies. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony all emphasised the importance of online as well as offline play, but Microsoft's announcement of Live Anywhere must surely have struck a nerve with a few niche companies.Niche up till now, that is. Companies like Viacom and Verizon who are heavily investing in the gaming IM space -- bringing social networking and gaming closer together -- are now in direct competition with a company that can reach multiple platforms easily. By connecting Xbox Live, Windows Vista, MSN Messenger and mobile phones together, Microsoft will make it hard for others to encroach on their territory.
Xfire joins MTV family [UPDATE 1]
Combining instant messaging with games seems to be a magic formula for Xfire. The popularity of the program hasn't gone unnoticed, and today Viacom -- which operates the MTV brand -- announced the acquisition of Xfire, Inc for $102m. Not bad for a company with a free product and "no desire" to advertise. Xfire joins Viacom's other gaming assets Neopets and GameTrailers, both of which continue the "gaming community" theme, which means we can guess at MTV's plans for the future. They want gamers, whole communities of 'em, to extend their reach to those disaffected generations who shun the TV for games. Either that, or they've a nefarious plan that involves an evil robot gamer clone army -- you decide.[Update 1 - fixed typo, thanks SeNiLe]
Xfire reaches three million users
Xfire is a free gaming application that seems to do everything--keep track of your friends, send messages to other players that pop up in-game, log how many hours you spend gaming, download patches and more. It's useful for boasting about your PC gaming prowess to others, although it's unfortunately not psychic and therefore can't track time spent on other platforms.We featured it in our list of essential applications for gamers, and it's just managed to top three million users worldwide, so quite a few people must agree with us. Viral applications like this just go to show how important other people are to us as gamers--keeping tabs on others, and tracking our own stats (even if they are only in the form of hours spent playing World of Warcraft) are very popular pursuits indeed.
