Well, IStC readers, it does seem that we’ve been fairly dormant lately, but I bet there are a few of us that will attempt to stick out this drought. You will notice, however, that I continue to cross post my thoughts here on my other site.
For those not in the know, the ESA, or Entertainment Software Association is a U.S. based lobbying and representative group with membership largely compromised of videogame companies. They have done quite a bit of research related to market demographics of gamers in the U.S. More recently they have turned to “educational” programs aimed at school children to teach them the dangers of copyright violation and piracy. Their educational programs contain no mention of “fair use,” however.
The ESA is also the parent organization of the ESRB or Entertainment Software Ratings Board. The ESRB is the organization which all console manufacturers require licensees to acquire ratings through prior to distribution. Most computer game software goes through this process as well, primarily because most distributors (WalMart) will not distributed un-rated entertainment software.
Recently, numerous large organizations have begun pulling their ESA memberships. This means that they will not be paying their rather large membership dues which keep the ESA in operations.
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"The Industry", Oops...unintended consequences, videogames
Oh dear. XNA (and the more closed DS and PSP) might actually have a run for its money, in the form of an “open” game platform on the iPhone. Admittedly there are all sorts of less than open issues associated with the iPhone, but for $99.00 you get registered and make games for the iPhone. The same price oddly enough for full XNA tool usage on the Xbox 360.
While the development environment forces you to use Objective-C, you can use OpenGL ES and OpenAL, which is also more open than DirectX 10 on XNA. So there are some interesting aspects to this device. I’ve also heard people making jokes about it being a Wii that you can make phone calls on.
Gamasutra - Apple Unveils iPhone SDK with Spore, Monkey Ball
Using the iPhone SDK, “third party developers will be able to build native applications for the iPhone with a rich set of APIs, including programming interfaces for Core OS, Core Services, Media and Cocoa Touch technologies,” leveraging iPhone aspects such as its Multi-Touch user interface, animation technology, storage, three-axis accelerometer and geographical location technology.
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"The Industry", casual games, videogames, web2.0
Apple, iPhone, iPod, SDK, video game development, video games, XNA
Yes, usually I am writing about how no one in the videogame industry is sharing much. This time, however, I am happy to be writing about a new collaborative effort amongst one game company. Fitingly, its the same company that back in 2003 wrote about how much they benefited from a similar sharing opportunity. The following is a quote from the original Gamedeveloper Magazine Postmortem for Ratchet and Clank:
Sharing technology with Naughty Dog. … Naughty Dog didn’t want anything from us other than a gentlemen’s agreement to share with them any improvements we made to whatever we borrowed plus any of our own technology we felt like sharing. In an industry as competitive as ours, things like this just don’t happen. (Price 2003, pp. 55-56)
So perhaps a little “gentleman’s” head nod toward Naughty Dog in all of this as well. Personally, I’m ecstatic to see this kind of thing beginning to happen. Its about time really. In their own words:
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"The Industry", (co)production, intellectual property, videogames
Collaboration, Development, Open Source, Sharing, videogames
I’m not that big into the use of massive punctuation, but I really couldn’t help myself in this case. Apparently, 90% of US Nintendo DS users are using devices like the R4 or the DSTT to pirate software for the Nintendo DS. That would mean that only one of my fellow friends with DSs should NOT have one of these. Except that as far as I know, I’m the ONLY person with one of these in the area, and I don’t use mine for piracy.
PocketGamer.co.uk - 90 Percent of US Gamers are Playing Pirated Software
UK trade body ELSPA has claimed that an astonishing 90 per cent of of all DS users in North America are playing pirated games using devices such as the notorious R4 cartridge.
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"The Industry", (co)production, intellectual property, videogames
Nintendo; DS; Piracy; Stupid
This is why “the game industry” doesn’t get any better at what they do. Because there is no opportunity to share and grow. Instead everyone must homegrow every piece of technology. Web developers on the other hand? Looks like they remember those lessons about sharing momma told them. Nintendo? Did momma never sit you down and talk about sharing?
Joystiq - Unofficial Wii Opera SDK now Available
An unofficial software development kit for making Wii-compatible browser games is now open to the public, thanks in large part to the work of Daniel Gump. More than simply tracking the position of the Wii-mote cursor, the custom Javascript libraries will detect the remote’s distance from the sensor bar, the pressing of any remote buttons, and the movement of the device along the Z-axis.
The SDK can be found here.
"The Industry", (co)production, videogames, web2.0
game development, homebrew, Nintendo, Opera, SDK, web, Wii
Well, it probably isn’t as cool as Hector’s self promotion, but I recently did an interview which has become a two-part podcast. The pages linked have both the actual podcast and associated transcripts. Wes Unruh of Alterati ran the interview. He’s recently developed an interest in DIY (Do it Yourself) forms of media production. In this case he and I are talking about DIY game development, particularly on consoles.
Part 1 and Part 2.
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"The Industry", (co)production, Mergers/Acquisitions, intellectual property, videogames, web2.0
consoles, DIY, game development, podcast, video games
Since I pay a lot of attention to the game industry, and less time paying attention to lots of other things, I’ve been impressed by the amount of coverage the recent acquisition/merger of Blizzard (who was owned by Vivendi/Universal) and Activision. For the most part gamers (and those that study games and gamers) remain pretty unaware of this sort of thing.
But just using the number of news and blog posts related to this event as a kind of metric, this event has really caught the eye of gamers and game developers alike. I believe Darius Kazemi’s post sums up what most game developers are thinking about the event.
I Have But Two Words
Holy crap.
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"The Industry", Mergers/Acquisitions, videogames
Acquisition, Activision, Blizzard, Conglomerates, Merger
There’s been some argument over the internet lately about the “sad” state of games journalism. Basically, the argument is that the system is fundamentally broken and reviews are bought and paid for.
May seem like old news to some, but at the moment those rumblings have manifested a rather large earthquake.
Jeff Gerstmann, editorial director and reviewer for 11 years at Gamespot was recently fired. The rumor, as reported by sites like Kotaku and Joystiq, is that he was canned for an overly negative review of Eidos’ recent release Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. Even Penny Arcade, whom just recently have had their own little tiff with the games journalism crowd, are putting in their 2 cents.
The current official line is “no comment,” and most insiders are keeping their mouths shut either because they don’t know all the facts, or they’re worried about repercussions.
Is this all just an ugly coincidence? If so, that doesn’t change the fact that game reviews and integrity are likely going to be seen as larger oxymorons then they are already.
And if the rumors are true? Well, things might just start to get real ugly soon…
-k
(Edit) Hey, remember when I said that things would get ugly? Check out this Newsweek article from N’Gai Croal
"The Industry", casual games, videogames
