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04.23.2008

Bruce Everiss on video game piracy

Bruce Everiss, a UK-based video game industry veteran, and author of the blog Bruce on Games, has penned a comprehensive essay on video game piracy through the years. I recommend you read the entire piece, but here's the take away:

And the game industry continues to grow and prosper, despite the piracy. This is because the proliferation of platforms allows publishers to more easily abandon platforms that are pirated to the point of being uneconomic. Instead they concentrate on platforms where there are windows of opportunity to run a viable business. Either because the anti piracy technology is on top or because there is a sufficient number of honest customers to get a return, even sometimes with a heavily pirated platform. Games with an online element can often be made very pirate proof which has been a major incentive for developers to go down this route.
So for 25 years or so game players have been stealing games in truly massive numbers with zero chance of being caught and punished for their crime. Very often far more copies of a game title have been pirated than have been bought. This self evidently causes harm to the games industry, ultimately leading to less money being invested in games for the pirated platform. So, the game player suffers for his theft by having less games and lower quality games. All pretty obvious to anyone but the pirates who make all sorts of feeble excuses to justify their stealing.

[My own views on video game piracy can be found here and here.]

posted by Adam Thierer @ 8:52 AM | Games , Media: Video, Music...

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07.31.2007

Real Estate Troubles

Commentary on recent real estate woes in Second Life. I've been thinking of opening an office there. Sort of a retreat. An asylum, as it were.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 9:24 AM | Games

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03.19.2007

Top 10

Stanford has a project going on "How They Got Game: The History and Culture of Interactive Simulations and Videogames."

It has come up with a list of the 10 most important games of all time:

The chronological list, submitted for review and potential permanent preservation to the U.S. Library of Congress: Spacewar (1962), Star Raiders (1979), Zork (1980), Tetris (1985), SimCity (1989), Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990), Civilization I/II (1991), Doom (1993), the Warcraft series (beginning 1994) and Sensible World of Soccer (1994).

Just think of the generations of happy wrangling that await us, akin to wars over the all-time all-stars of baseball or football.

posted by James DeLong @ 7:00 AM | Games

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03.13.2007

Doom, Quake CEO on Piracy

Todd Hollenshead is the CEO of id, the developer of the DOOM and Quake series. He gave a talk at GDC about piracy. Unfortunately no transcript or video are available, but here is a summary of his talk (warning, this page’s color selection is hard on the eyes.)

Continue reading Doom, Quake CEO on Piracy . . .

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 9:18 AM | Games

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01. 2.2007

Judge Posner Speaks to Audience of Racoons, Cubes

Judge Posner's avatar appears in Second Life, with entertaining results.

Hat tip Daniel Drezner, Will Baud.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 9:43 AM | Games

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11.22.2006

Doll Fight

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Mattel Inc., maker of the notorious Barbie doll, is suing a rival toy company for stealing trade secrets. (A WSJ article, for you subscribers, is available here.) In a nutshell, the former employee of Mattel who developed the Bratz dolls claims that he designed them when he was in between jobs. Mattel is claiming they actually started production on the dolls before the defector went to MGA Entertainment, who now produces the dolls. Mattel is now suing the employee and the company itself for "copyright infringement, violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (or RICO), misappropriation of trade secrets, aiding and abetting breach of duty of loyalty, and unfair competition."

On a side note, have you ever had the opportunity to actually see those Bratz dolls in person? While visiting my sister for the holidays last year, we ended up at Toys R Us for a few last minute gifts. Her middle child requested some sort of Bratz band set, which included four or five of the dolls complete with instruments. My sister and I were rolling in the aisles over how, well, slutty the dolls were. The dolls had us uttering phrases such as "hooker" and "hoochie mama" while gasping for air between fits of laughter. So, if you haven't had the chance to view these fabulously inappropriate dolls, please click here. If you ever thought Barbie outfits were a bit risqué at times, you are in for a real shock.

posted by Amy Smorodin @ 11:53 AM | Games

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11. 3.2006

XBOX 360 as a High-Def Movie Hub?

Here's what I've been waiting for since the day I bought my Microsoft XBOX 360. If these rumors are true, Microsoft could soon be making downloadable high-definition movies available via its XBOX Live / XBOX Marketplace service. You'll need a pretty fast Internet connection, of course, but luckily I do via Verizon’s outstanding FIOS (fiber) service. I currently download all sorts of HD movie trailers and game demos via the XBOX Marketplace and they look great and work perfectly. I can just leave my XBOX running overnight and order up a bunch of content and it's all sitting there when I wake up in the morning. Or I can just download that content while I’m playing games and the system notifies me once the clips and demos have finished downloading.

So, it's only natural that Microsoft would want to take the next step and allow users to download entire movies at some point. This would be a welcome alternative to the somewhat cumbersome MovieLink and CinemaNow systems that I've looked into. They don't have much HD material on their services.

Continue reading XBOX 360 as a High-Def Movie Hub? . . .

posted by Adam Thierer @ 12:55 PM | Games , Markets: Business, Investment & Innovation

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09.19.2006

Who Can Film Video Clips at a Pro Football Stadium?

I discuss that question over on the PFF Blog today.

posted by Adam Thierer @ 9:35 AM | Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain , Games , Media: Video, Music...

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07.28.2006

Video Games & Innovation

I suppose you could argue that a 37-year-old father of two shouldn't still be playing video games, but I love 'em and just can't give them up. I'll probably still be playing when I'm 80 inside a virtual holodeck down in some lame Florida retirement community. (God I hope my Golden Years are that exciting).

These days, I just don't have the time to play the more sophisticated action & adventure games that I used to love the most, so I now spend most of my time with "single-session" games, especially sports games that allow me to play a quick game and then put it aside for awhile. Last night, while I was sitting in my basement with my kids playing an intense Michigan vs. Ohio State matchup on EA's marvelous new "NCAA Football 2007," my mind started drifting back to all the other football games I've played through the years on multiple platforms. In particular, I remembered the very first sports game I ever bought was "Atari Football" back in the late 1970s. At the time, I thought it was about the most cutting-edge thing ever invented. Today, of course, it looks absolutely primitive. Just look at this! ...

Continue reading Video Games & Innovation . . .

posted by Adam Thierer @ 12:54 PM | Games

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07.20.2006

Gamers

GigaOm has an interesting post on online distribution of games. Attention grabber: “All told, Steam gamers are generating more Internet traffic than all PC users in Italy combined.”

This is the start of continuing coverage of online gaming and MMOGs. Suggested title for the series, which was rejected on the grounds of staidness: Low Ping Bastard. (To find out the meaning, in case you are not among the gaming cool kids, click the link.)

It seems timely. As broadband expands, the gamers will be the first to push out into the new tech territory -- they always are (along with the porn purveyors, of course).

posted by James DeLong @ 11:13 AM | Games

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07.18.2006

Opening and Closing the Xbox

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 1:45 PM | DMCA , DRM & Watermarks, etc. , Free Culture Movement , Games , Prices, Terms, and Licensing , Software

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06. 6.2006

David Friedman on Copyright, New Art Forms

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 8:15 AM | Academia , DRM & Watermarks, etc. , Games

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05.12.2006

Video Games and IP