Avalanche: DRM helps no one
Christofer Sundberg says developers and publishers need to stop complaining about piracy and punishing legitimate consumers.
3Christofer Sundberg says developers and publishers need to stop complaining about piracy and punishing legitimate consumers.
3Nokia temporarily closed its developer network after it was hacked and user information compromised. The company said members' personal information including dates of birth, email and Skype addresses may have been stolen, but that no credit card details were taken. "A database table containing developer forum members' email addresses has been accessed, by exploiting a vulnerability in the bulletin board software that allowed an SQL Injection attack," the company said. "Initially we believed that only a small number of these forum member records had been accessed, but further investigation has identified that the number is significantly larger.”
To promote its upcoming shooter, Sony has enlisted the services of Punchdrunk, an alternative theatre company, whose show "…and darkness descended" takes place in London next weekend. The audience form part of the titular resistance, tasked with getting a message to a group of US survivors who feature in the early scenes of the game itself. Punchdrunk's artistic director Felix Barrett said: "We are fascinated by the level of immersion that is inherent within videogame and the possible interface with the real world…we get a chance to apply PlayStation's game mechanics and transpose them to a live environment." The firmware update jokes write themselves. We'll have a man on the ground at Waterloo Station Arches next weekend, and assuming he's not disembowelled by grumpy Chimera his report will be in a future issue.
The publisher has pulled a series of volte-faces regarding From Dust's PC DRM, with conflicting statements and forum posts promising the DRM would be removed or toned down. If the latest one is to be believed, however, the controversial always-on DRM is to be removed. "We recognise that one of our posts in the From Dust forum regarding the need for authentication in the game was not clear," it reads. "We sincerely apologise for the misunderstanding. Our tech teams are working on a patch that should release in approximately two weeks that will eliminate the need for any online authentication."
Markus "Notch" Persson has confirmed to our friends at PC Gamer that a Minecraft convention, creatively dubbed Minecon, will take place at the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas on November 18 and 19. The convention coincides with the release of the final version of Minecraft, and Notch said: "I’m really looking forward to getting up on stage and pushing the button to upload the final build. We’ll just go back home and keep working on Minecraft directly after Minecon, but it does represent a huge milestone where the game finally leaves beta, something we’d never been able to do without our fans, so it feels natural to celebrate it with them.”
Company president publishes contrite letter to early adopters, admitting global price cut is a "drastic step."
5Norwegian retailer Coop Norway has temporarily removed 51 game and toy brands from its shelves following last months bombing and massacre committed by Anders Behring Breivik. The move comes in response to the mention of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and World Of Warcraft in Breivik's manifesto, who wrote: "I see MW2 more as a part of my training-simulation than anything else." Speaking to the Norwegian press, Coop Norway Retail director Geir Inge Stokke said: "The decision to remove the games was made around the time we realised the scope of the attack. Others are better suited than us, to point to the negative effects of games like these. At the moment it's [appropriate] for us to take them down. I wouldn't be surprised if others do the same. We have to think very carefully about when to bring these goods back. The economy involved is of no importance." Other titles removed from sale include Homefront, Sniper Ghost Warrior and Counter-Strike Source. It's important to note that non-game items such as toy guns have also been taken off shelves. We've contacted the publishers involved for comment.
Ubisoft has confirmed, in a tweet from the game's official Twitter account, that the PC version of the upcoming Driver San Francisco will require a constant internet connection to play. Ubisoft's PC DRM has been the source of some controversy since its debut in 2010 and in January, the publisher said the inclusion of its DRM in future titles would be decided on a case-by-case basis. In a bizarre attempt to head off a fan backlash, a subsequent tweet reads: "Bear in mind though that the PC version of Driver San Francisco is released simultaneously to consoles."
Zeboyd Games calls on Microsoft to better promote quality titles on Xbox 360's indie download service.
6Co-founder Mark Healey says developers motivated solely by money risk wasting their lives.
1A post on the Quakecon website reveals that its ageing forums have become the latest videogame website to be hacked. "In recent days, a hacker carried out an unlawful intrusion of the old forums.quakecon.org site, compromising usernames and passwords," the statement reads. It goes on to sound an increasingly familiar refrain, advising affected users who use the same login details elsewhere to change their passwords.
When Schafer announced Double Fine's next project, Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster, at E3 last month it was widely assumed that it was the studio's legacy of playful humour that got it the gig. Instead, as the below video shows, Schafer actually had to endure an arduous pitch meeting with one of the toughest executives in the business. And, as if we didn't already over-identify with Cookie Monster, we also zone out when we play with those executive toys.
CVG reveals that Marc Doyle, co-founder of reviews aggregator Metacritic, has dropped one publication from his listings after uncovering evidence of corruption. "On one occasion I did discontinue my coverage of a publication's reviews because of what I considered to be corrupt practices," he said. "There are many reasons why I would drop somebody. There's corruption - people can be bought, absolutely."
While Hollywood was left starstruck by British royals, stars from the game industry were struck by BAFTA's support of gaming.
But CCP's massively multiplayer shooter may go fully free-to-play eventually.
3Naughty Dog has thanked players after more than one million Uncharted fans signed up to the multiplayer beta of Drake's Deception last week. "One day after the beta went fully public, we passed one million unique players in the Uncharted 3 multiplayer beta," writes Naughty Dog community strategist Arne Meyer on the PlayStation blog. "Not only that, but the player count is growing with each passing day! We couldn't be prouder of our community coming out in such numbers to play in the Uncharted 3 multiplayer beta." The beta will come to an end on Thursday (July 14). Last week, Sony announced that the UK release date for the game had been moved forward three days.
1Sledgehammer Games VP and COO Michael Condrey has revealed, in a response to a player's question on the studio's blog, that Modern Warfare 3 will offer a Colour Blind Assist mode. "[The number of people with Colour Vision Deficiency varies] depending on which source you quote, but we estimate that nearly a million gamers are playing Call Of Duty every day with this issue," he writes. Modern Warfare 3 is due for release on November 8.
3Portable “will not become widespread” unless “harmful rumours” about negative effects are dispelled.
4Opening as usual with a keynote address given by Id co-founder John Carmack, this year's QuakeCon will see the first public presentations of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Prey 2. Rage, the Id shooter set for release in October, will be playable on the show floor, design director Matt Hooper will host a special presentation of the game. QuakeCon 2011 will run from August 4th to 7th at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas, and entry is free. To register, click the source link below.
GamesPlant justifies its 15 per cent cut of fan funding: "We offer a lot more than other platforms."