March 2, 2005

Rep. Mark Foley
Member of Congress

Well, how about that. It's not known how big a Trek fan Foley is; the former
Republican member of the House of Representative has checked himself into an
alcohol rehabilitation clinic, and will probably be out of sight for quite a
while. In addition to being an avid Star Trek supporter, Foley ironically was a
former co-chair for the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and was
one of the leading activists against child pornography in Congress.

Honestly, you can't make this stuff up.

Anyway, the Congressional letter of support obviously didn't save "Enterprise,"
which was cancelled after four seasons last year. Yes, indeed these are dark
days for Trek.

"I'm going to be completely reduced to a mess of carbon ash and caramelized
fat for saying this, I find it alarming that the ESRB does not bother to base
its ratings on the entire experience of playing a game, instead relying far too
much on submitted clips-not even complete gameplay run-throughs, mind you. Even
if you think the idea is unnecessary or even absurd, there's no getting around
that failing to do so lends an impression of incompleteness and an ad hoc
quality to the system that invites skepticism. It's like rating movies based on
storyboards."

If you think that Ruby is some fringe critic who has a grudge against gaming,
well, that couldn't be further from the truth. I interviewed Ruby earlier this
year about Smartbomb, and in addition to being a gamer himself, Ruby has a
wealth of knowledge about gaming after spending several years researching and
writing a book. Here's an excerpt from the href="http://www.twitchguru.com/2006/02/09/an_inside_look_at_the_video_game_indu
stry/">interview:

RW: Speaking of content, I've heard you're not fond of the game rating
system.

Ruby: I really don't have much respect for the ESRB. There is a serious problem
with the system when the people that are in charge of rating the games don't
actually play them. Playing a game and watching someone else play a game are two
totally different things. There are some things that can't be accurately
observed by watching. So the whole rating system approach is to observe the
content. But you have to ask yourself why video games are considered learning
tools. Is it the content or is it the design and the mechanics of the game? It's
not the content. Take Grand Theft Auto; I don't think the game teaches you how
to murder people. But Full Spectrum Warrior, which nobody ever criticized
because it doesn't have content that people deem offensive, shows you how to
shoot people and blow things up. So I think the uproar is part of a lack of
knowledge about games, and that's why the level of debate on the issue is so
low.

How low is the level of debate on video games? Check out my summary of a recent
Congressional hearing on
video games.

IGNcube editor in chump Matt Casamassina has said that he thinks that the Nintendo Wii is too expensive at $250 and three weeks late (in the US of Zod, of course). He's wondering what Nintendo is up to, pawning this shoddy, underpowered console off on us for $50 more than expected and weeks after the PlayStation 3 comes to market (not in Europe, mind you, where it'll beat the PS3 by several months. But the pricing issue stands universally.)

"As a gamer," Matt tell us, "I want Wii to sell for $200 for a number of reasons. It has about one tenth the processing prowess and one fifth the RAM of, say Xbox 360, and it also lacks a true hard drive. It doesn't play DVDs. It doesn't play music CDs. Yes, you read that correctly and yes, it's true. In fact, in many ways, it could be called a turbo- charged GameCube. So why the $249 price point?"

He continues, on the issue of timing, to say that Nintendo should launch earlier to capitalise on the vastly superior supply it has over Sony's expected paltry 400,000 units or so on launch.

I don't think that either the issue of pricing or timing will harm the Wii one tiny bit, for two reasons:

1. As Casamassina points out himself, the added $50 sticker price is not going to deter the early adopter crowd who crawl over one another around the Christmas period to get the next big thing. Anyways, $250 is still $250 - $350 less than the PlayStation 3 will be going for, and the Xbox 360 is no charity giveaway either. The Wii remains the cost effective console for the mainstream audience, and anyways they can just drop the price fifty quid come January.
2. The Wii is in a class of its own compared to the other two competing consoles. It is unique and so most of those thinking of buying a Wii have an Xbox 360 and intend on getting one, intend on buying a PS3 and a Wii; or else they intend to buy a Wii and ignore the other consoles. Therefore, the other console makers are, relative to Nintendo's calculations, irrelevant to the largest degree.

The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are in a premium category of their own. Some might say a bit too premium. They cater to a particular audience, have a particular style of game in mind and will compete with one another. The Nintendo Wii is a different experience, and a damn sight cheaper at that. It will succeed by virtue of ignoring any perceived competition.

But the real kicker here is Brownback's Truth in Video Game Rating Act will
bring the video game industry under federal government regulation. First, the
bill would give the U.S. Federal Trade Commission control over describing and
defining video game content. The second and even more chilling proposal will
give the Government Accountability Office (GOA) the authority to evaluate the
ERSB ratings and, if the GOA disagrees with its findings, the potential to
create an "independent" ratings board - and I write "independent" because it
will have no financial interest or ties to the video game industry but will
apparently be a government controlled body.

This is troubling because video games are the current boogyman for Congress - as
opposed to, I dunno, Osama Bin Laden - and video game legislation is gaining bi-
partisan support from the like of Sen. Hilary Clinton (D-NY). I'm astonished how
quickly Republicans will turncoat from their anti-regulation free market
platform when they find a divisive business issue they can portray as a social
crisis. Similarly, I'm astonished that Democrats can't find something better to
do that to demonize video games. While I think the ESRB's system for rating
games is laughably bad, excessive government regulation and censorship isn't the
answer for this or any other matter. But that sure looks like this is where
we're headed.

For further reading, check out the excellent href="www.gamepolitics.com">GamesPolitics.com.

So it's easy to understand why fans of the Battlefield series are a little
ticked off these days, since EA finally completed its contested acquisition of
Swedish developer Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment (DICE). Originally EA
proposed the buyout in 2004, but two DICE shareholder groups controlling 28
percent of the stock opposed the deal. Nevertheless, DICE's board of directors
recommended that its shareholders accept the deal. After buying the majority
stake in DICE last year, EA sealed the deal this week. Thus, DICE became an EA
subsidiary studio.
Of course, EA announced today that it has closed down DICE's Canada operation,
Digital Illusions Canada in Ontario. So those Canadian developers didn't last
too long. EA has tried to put a nice face on this by saying that many Digital
Illusions Canada employees are being interview for other employee opportunities
in EA's Canadian locations. The only problem is, those locations are Burnaby,
Montreal and Vancouver, not Ontario.

The perception is that once EA buys a game developer the games will never be the
same because the publisher keeps the intellectual property but guts the studio
and dumps the employees. The scuttling of Digital Illusions Canada does little
to dispel that notion. I have a feeling that Battlefield 2142, due out this
month, may be the last Battlefield title many fans buy now that there's been a
changing - and dumping - of the guard.

For answers -- or at least some opinions and suggections on possible answers --
I go to one particular source: Filmfodder.com, .
If you do watch the show, then do yourself another favor and check out
Filmfodder, a great pop culture and entertainment site (which I wrote for in the
past on a few occasions). Filmfodder's master and commander Mac Slocum does one
hell of a job staying on top of all the rumors, casting news, Web site stuff and
other junk that makes up the "Lost" universe. And his "Lost Blog," which
features an amazingly detailed summary of every episode the day after it airs,
is a true delight. A lot of other Web sites and magazines have caught "Lost"
fever and done their own blogs and episode guides, but I still think Mac's work
is head and shoulders above the rest -- well written, insightful, hilarious, and
irreverant. I read the "Key Points from..." episode summaries, even if I've
watched the entire episode already, because you never know what other people
might pick up on in a show as complex as "Lost." So if you're a fan, give it a
look. It's great stuff.

Check out Key
Points from "A Tale of Two Cities" on Filmfodder's "Lost Blog."

The

British

First up, the game of the year. Obviously the headline title, it went to Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, which was pitched against Black, Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?, Guitar Hero, Hitman: Blood Money and Lego Star Wars II. Personally, I would have gone with Hitman: Blood Money - for me it had all the excellent production values one expects of a game in its category (as does Ghost Recon), and it was also the most addictive and sickeningly fun game I've played yet all year.

Unfortunately for my choice in games, Hitman was nominated for a further two gongs, Artistic Achievement and Character, and lost out to Shadow of the Colossus and LocoRoco respectively. Developers of said games can expect to find themselves dying in all manner of hilarious and sickening ways over the coming weeks.

It's not really until you look over the nominations for something like the Bafta awards that one really appreciates the year that has preceded. I find myself drawn towards my shelves and the budget bins already... If you haven't played any of these games yet and you're like Rob in that the coming console frenzy of AAA titles isn't floating your boat then I'd suggest picking up some of the nominated and award winning games on that list.

Ohh dear, it's that 11am Monday morning feeling - all you've done is drink coffee and reply to emails. So, let's be productive for a bit and tell you about the good and the bad films I've come across this weekend.

First up, the bad. If you haven't gone to see "The Devil Wears Prada" then it might be best not to buck the trend now. It's a feel-good, predictable "comedy" (I use the term only to apply to the script writers original intentions, not the end result) which sees a down-to-earth aspiring journalist heading off to work as a PA to the frosty editor in chief of a top fashion magazine.

Cue haw-haw moments as Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway) rushes about to fulfil the demands of Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), the inevitable depressing downturn, love interest (not with Streep, let me assure you) and trouble with the boyfriend. I'll let you guess the ending. The movie is a half an hour too long, at around 106 minutes you feel bored as we enter into the final act in Paris, and the only performance worth mentioning is, of course, that of Meryl Streep.

To be honest, I can think of better things to do with my evenings than watch another generic comedy with a big name attached to draw in punters. One of them is to watch a Sofia Coppola movie.

Daughter of Francis Ford, Sofia has only actually made three feature films of her own to date - "The Virgin Suicides" in 1999, "Lost in Translation" in 2003 and "Marie-Antoinette" in 2006, which I'm keenly awaiting the release of to these shores. "Lost in Translation" is obviously her best work, having won many high accolades, but before that came the less-awarded but not less-acclaimed "Virgin Suicides", which I picked up over the weekend.

Adapted from the book of the same name, the story is the narrated tale of the suicides of five sisters in a well-off part of Michigan suburbia in the 1970's; told from the point of view of the neighbourhood boys who became obsessed with them. It's an emotional, intriguing and sometimes quite funny look at teenage life, womanhood and the intricacies of suburbia (the nosey neighbours discussing the Lisbon family over chatty telephone calls and doorstep ruminations.)

What always amazes me about Sofia Coppola, apart from her quite unique style and a taste in music that I don't disagree with, is her ability to pull in half-decent casts. Bill Murray gave her the performance of his then waning (to be kind) career in "Lost in Translation", and Scarlett Johansson became the apple in everybody's eyes after it. "The Virgin Suicides" brings onboard James Woods in the role of Mr. Lisbon, the father and math teacher quite thoroughly whipped into place by his staunchly Catholic wife, Mrs. Lisbon (naturally) played by Kathleen Turner, who is quite probably the best casting in the movie.

Danny DeVito delivers his dry, smoking performance as a doctor looking after the youngest daughter, Cecilia Lisbon (Hanna Hall); Scott Glen plays the Irish priest reminding us of the important distinction between a "suicide" and an "accident" where Christian burial is concerned; and the movie is a great introduction to modern-day Hollywood starlets in Kirsten Dunst (Lux Lisbon) and Josh Hartnett (Trip Fontaine).

If you have any interest in decent, thought provoking movies; enjoyed "Lost in Translation" and intend to go and see "Marie-Antoinette" then this is an essential and enjoyable primer for Sofia Coppola's work.

If you happen to be into this sort of thing then you could have picked yourself
up a model of the Enterprise D, used in the opening shots and "Generations", for
a mere $576,000. Too rich for your tastes? Then perhaps the USS Excelsior would
be more to your taste, at $110,000? No? Alright, well how about Kirk's jacket
from "The Wrath of Khan", at $17,000.

Jeez, you are a hard sell. Alright then, two tribbles, a bargain at a mere
$4,000. Come on, you know you want to.

Alright, so the market value of Star Trek memorabilia is not in question. What I
don't get is why auction houses always put such low estimates on this sort of
stuff - the Enterprise D model I was touting to you for $576,000 looked more
reasonable at the $25,000 - $35,000 that Christies was estimating. The whole
three day auction fetched more than double what was expected. It seems that
either the auction houses are very, very conservative; or they know just how
much news they can drum up with "An item expected to go for X fetched X, Y style="font-style: italic;">and Z this weekend..."

Pssht, PR tactics.

It turns out that I'm of two minds about it, which is why I say you should
reluctantly go to see it - if even just so that you can bear witness and make
your mind up. It's such a politically charged picture that it would have to be
absolutely dire, on top of not sitting with my personal political convictions,
to attract a "Don't bother" rating from me.

Early into the final act of the film I was ready to give you an unabashed "Don't
bother" for "Death of a President", as it seemed to be turning into a
politically clich馘 piece of claptrap in which the main suspect is essentially
jailed in a put up job and the real shooter goes unrecognised.

It is not an implausible scenario - the British proved it when the likes of the
Guildford Four, Maguire Seven and Birmingham Six were all falsely convicted of
IRA bombings on mainland Britain via a conspiracy involving police officials,
eventually to be exonerated after some had died in prison. The way in which
"Death of a President" presents this scenario at first riled me up, but then
tempered this with some interesting twists.

Ultimately I don't like "Death of a President", for its politics more than
anything else. I would not discourage somebody from spending an hour or two of
their lives digesting it however, as it is interesting and at the least, thought
provoking.

To the issue of US cinemas refusing to show the film and politicians such as
Hillary Clinton terming it "despicable" and "outrageous", I would say two
things: Firstly, you're playing into the marketing hands of the film makers,
well done. People who are going to go and see this film are probably going to
feel more inclined to do so now, and you've introduced it to a wider audience;
whilst those who were not going to see the film in the first place might drum up
a bit more PR for the movie if they, I dunno, burn down a movie theatre showing
it or something.

Secondly, don't be so uptight. If this were a film endorsing the assassination
of a world leader (which, among many things it is, it is not) then I'd have a
different standpoint, but to be frank the assassination of the President of the
United States is a valid political catalyst and, let's face it, it's always a
distinct possibility that somebody will make an attempt upon a President's life.
I hardly think that such people will gain their motivation or training from
watching this movie, and as to the content, so be it.

Decide if you want to go see this movie or not. I daresay your personal politics
will dictate what impression you come out of it with even before the opening
credits roll.

But it could be bad because of potential lawsuits regarding copyright issues
with music, television and feature film content. For example, the entire World
of Warcraft-themed "South Park" episode wound up on YouTube (albeit in three
separate segments) the day after it aired. Well, that episode is copyright
material for Comedy Central. But now, millions of people are able to view the
content online without paying for it (not that you'll ever prove that I did such
a thing!). That's a concern for television and movie studios, who are making
more and more cash on DVDs. So will this be a problem for GooTube?

Well, if the copyright material prevention system that Google is going to put in
place actually works, then I can see the traffic on YouTube -- and other video
sites -- declining. Even with GooTube signing agreements with Sony BMG, CBS and
Universal Music Group this week, there will be plenty of other content owners
out there that can fire lawsuits at Google, which will be a huge target for
litigation happy lawyers because of the company's financial success. And let's
not forget that there's skepticism around YouTube's ability to make money since
it is giving away content for free.

Perhaps the scariest of all issues is the so-called "safe harbor" rulings of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which means that YouTube can claim that,
"hey, we're just hosting the video, not uploading it," and then point the finger
in the direction of whatever user uploaded the copyright material to the site.
While it's unlikely that Comedy Central will come after me and my small bank
account for posting "South Park" episodes instead of Google, it's still a
frightening prospect for YouTube members who regularly post clips of their
favorite T.V. shows.

All of these reasons, of course, led Internet entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks
owner Mark Cuban, to state that anyone that buys YouTube is "a moron." While I
don't agree with everything Cuban says, he has one of href="http://www.blogmaverick.com/">the best blogs around and his href="http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/10/07/some-thoughts-on-youtube-and-
google/">opinions on YouTube, copyright material and the Web are quite
compelling. He gets into the href="http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/09/29/riddle-me-this-copyright-
gurus/">implications of the DMCA and sites like YouTube. And yes, he still
thinks Google is crazy for buying YouTube.

In any event, the MySpace guys must be kicking themselves for selling out to
News Corp. for $580 million when Google buys YouTube for nearly triple that
number.

Though Codemasters officially owns the "Operation Flashpoint" brand, "Armed
Assault" is a follow-up to that game in all but name. Bohemia had been
struggling to find a publisher until recently, but it would seem that 505 will
be publishing the game in Europe, excluding Eastern Europe and Germany for some
reason. No word yet on a US publication date, but with a European release
secured, a US release becomes an inevitability sooner or later.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and do backflips around the town.
"Operation Flashpoint", though buggy on release, is the best soldier sim out
there, and one of the most gripping games I've ever played. "Armed Assault" will
hopefully live up to the high standards set by its predecessor.

Armed
Assault image preview.

If we sit back and take stock of what this "next-gen" in gaming has delivered, and will be delivering, to us I would say that the entire thing is one major cock-up, and gamers have been fools to be taken in by it.

The Xbox 360, the first herald of this next-generation of loveliness. What did we get with it? A whole heap or PR tripe, leading up to a disastrous launch pockmarked by shortages; alleged price hiking by retailers, via forced selling of expensive bundles to consumers; and then a first year of operation which basically saw Microsoft and partner developers sitting on their hands waiting for the launch of the PlayStation 3 to be, coincidentally, also marked by the launching of big-name titles for the 360.

Ohh, and one other thing: All new games now cost about ten or fifteen quid more than they used to, depending on where you live. Having been around games for such a long time, I recall when around €30 (before we switched to Euro in these parts, so I'm calculating a little there) was the norm for a new game; then €50 and now, for the pleasure of new titles on the Xbox 360, €75, and more such price hikes expected for the PlayStation 3 games. Allow me to give you another view of €75. It's €25 short of €100, and we're seeing such price inflation all over the world. (I could complain that while €1 is worth about $1.25, we get a 1:1 conversion ratio on these prices, so a $600 console actually costs Europeans $750.) The next-gen is late, not up to much and expensive.

Over the past year and a half alone we have witnessed some amazing cock ups where video game hardware launches have been concerned. You may recall the PlayStation Portable launch, particularly if you happen to be a European left out of pocket for six months after Sony panicked and sent all its European units to sit in warehouses in what turned out to be a soft US market.

More vividly, perhaps, folks might recall the launch of the Xbox 360 alluded to above, which saw panic buying and retailers like BestBuy allegedly hiking prices and profiteering by forcing consumers to buy expensive bundles instead of just the console and the game they wanted.

Shortages and extortionate pricing seems to be the order of the day where modern console launches are concerned, and for the launch of the PlayStation 3 Sony execs seem to have studied these debacles carefully and chosen all the worst elements to emulate in their launching of the "Next-generation"; which won't be starting until they say so, apparently - November in North America and sometime in the misty sands of 2007 for Europe (don't tell me you're not expecting further delays?)

Shortages? Check, as we've already seen with the pushing back of the European release. Something like 400,000 units for the lucky North Americans, who will actually be getting to crawl over one another for the console this side of Yule... 400,000 units is about one for every 1,285 people, I believe. If you ignore the Canadians, or just divert their shipments, that's one unit for every 750 people... still a lot of bodies to clamour over to get that special "value" bundle that'll be waiting for you.

Shortages lead to price hiking even in the pre-order stages, and considering the PlayStation 3 is expensive to begin with you can now expect to pay around $2,500 on eBay for a $100 pre-order slot that's not even a guarantee that you'll get a PS3 on launch (same, incidentally, as it was with the Xbox 360... a pre-order isn't worth much more than $100 these days, eh?)

As much as retailers took a good bit of flak for the dogs dinner they made of the Xbox 360 launch, will anyone in this room, cynical or not, stand up and tell me that with a comparatively tiny launch allocation, extremely high demand and really expensive peripherals and games to tout; we won't be seeing a repeat of the Xbox 360 "value bundles" come November?

What, at the end of the day, are gamers scratching one another's eyes out to get at? Fancy graphics, online capabilities and a game or two that'll still be worth playing in six months time. There are better things to get excited about in life, I daresay (and the most amusing thing about it all is that the one console that looks truly innovative, the Wii, is the cheapest and least sophisticated looking of the lot.) I for one don't intend to buy into it. Unfortunately for those of you who are intent on wasting your money, I'm in Europe and so I'm not actually one less person for you to bid against on that $2,500, non-assured unit, pre- order.

What an eventful day. TwitchGuru now has a filled out MySpace profile. Go look, and add us. We're your friends, remember. I say we now have a "filled out" profile because Rob created that back in late September, but it fell to the responsible one to actually put more than a fancy logo onto it.

Expect more pictures and suchlike, to be cross posted here of course, in the near future (as I beat Roberto into it, and get around to filling out the "Who I'd like to meet" section. Be really, really nice and I'll put you into it.)

The second, possibly more interesting, thing I picked up on today was a service called "Shelfari." The whole world seems to be about putting your life online these days, and Shelfari is an online bookshelf which is (I think) linked into Amazon. You basically find the books you have and put them on your "shelf." The social networking aspect obviously then comes from linking up with other people who read the same stuff.

Let me say here and now that there are an awful lot of Discworld readers in the world at large. In almost all of the links to profiles of "People who share some of your books" I've come across Discworld novels. Odd. Still, I can say that it's addictive stuff, adding dozens of books to your collection and racking your brains to stick in more titles. I've been coming back to it all day and adding books in spurts.

I shall be researching this Shelfari further in the hopes of doing another of my no-doubt enlightening and enthralling in-depth looks at such things which, it occurs to me now, I've not yet given a name to. It's an informal series of articles (you may recall Gamer sGate and ZYB?), but I really should give it an identifiable name. Suggestions on the back of a postcard to the usual address, or the comments box below, appreciated. With regards to Shelfari, I want to see what extra features this lot will be implementing post beta, and where they intend to make their money (IE, where's the catch.)

The other "Unnamed profile article" I'm working on concerns Games For Windows. Microsoft launched this initiative last year, lamenting about how they feel they'd almost killed PC gaming by focusing their attention on consoles (the PC gaming industry looked up, bemused, from behind its stack of gold at this proclamation.) Again, I want to know what the catch is beyond a simple logo on boxes. What's the benefit for having your game classed as a "Game For Windows"? What's the downside to not having it classed this way? A Microsoft takeover, Simpson's style?

Hrms, stuff to ponder. Well, I'm off to add more books to my Shelfari. Feel free to add me there, and feel compelled to add TwitchGuru on MySpace.

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