Slashdot Mirror

simoniker writes "According to an Ubisoft statement, the company has obtained an injunction against Martin Tremblay, who recently left as Ubisoft Montreal head to run Vivendi Games, in an attempt to enforce a non-compete clause. This is particularly notable/ironic because Tremblay was in charge of Ubisoft Montreal's previous aggressive attempts to enforce its non-compete for game developers who left to join EA Montreal - the whole situation again brings up the discussion of whether non-compete clauses are at all sensible."

Gamasutra has reactions from game developers to the announcement of the Revolution's new commercial name, 'Wii'. From the article: "It doesn't change my personal opinions of the console in the slightest. It changes my opinion of the Nintendo marketing department considerably. Did they even bother to research this? Why do they do these things? What was wrong with 'Revolution'? It's bad enough that the Japanese have a drink called "Sweat," but at least they don't try to export it to the English-speaking world with that name. Am I supposed to be happy about having to go down to the game store to purchase the 'Nintendo Wee'? For God's sake, where was Miyamoto? I can't believe he would have let this get by. - Ernest Adams"

RotoGo writes "A new survey done by GamerMetrics shows that 38% of gamers prefer the Playstation 3, making it the most anticipated system. The Wii only got 22% of the audience as their number one choice. Perhaps more interesting are the 'lifestyle' choices reported by the survey. Nirvana was cited as the favorite band for those loyal to the Xbox brand and Eminem was the top pick for the Playstation brand. The Nintendo camp prefers Gorillaz and Smallville for entertainment. The study also discovered that people that like the Xbox brand are the most likely to own an iPod and a TiVo while it is the Playstation gamers who are most likely to go outside to see a movie."

The shift to the next generation of consoles is costing their parent corporations dearly. GameDailyBiz has an article up claiming that the gaming division at Sony may lose almost $900 million this year, thanks to rollout costs for the PS3. The 360, already in the marketplace, is looking pretty solid. However, in among increased Microsoft revenue announcements (up 13% for the quarter over last year) and a healthy number of shipped systems by the end of June (almost 5.5 million) is a hard statistic. From the Gamastura article: "As for specifics on the Xbox 360 and Xbox's financials, the company's Home and Entertainment division, which includes the Microsoft Xbox video game console system, PC games, the Home Products Division, and TV platform products for the interactive television industry, lost $388 million for the quarter on $1.06 billion in revenue, a sharp increase from the $175 million loss the previous year." A reminder that these systems may be successful, but they're costing to get out there.

Retroneous writes "The Nintendo Revolution has had its name changed to the Nintendo Wii." Confirmation on the official Revolution site. Update: 04/27 16:32 GMT by Z : More information available from a Gamasutra article: "New details on the disc format have also been revealed: 'Instead of a tray, a single, innovative, self-loading media bay will play both 12-centimeter optical discs used for the new system as well as Nintendo GameCube discs. Owners will have the option of equipping a small, self-contained attachment to play movies and other DVD content.'"

calzones writes to mention a Gamasutra article, which reports on a WSJ claim that Microsoft will be buying Massive, Inc. at some point in the near future. From the article: "The article indicates that Microsoft is expecting to acquire the entirety of the New York City based company, which currently employees around eighty staff. Microsoft is reported to be keen to control how adverts are placed within a game and to try new business models which could allow the ads to subsidize lower prices or particularly expensive titles, such as massively multiplayer online games. No specific mention was made of the Xbox 360, which already displays advertising-like banners on its dashboard operating system, but has not yet permitted in-game ad companies to stream advertisements into games through Xbox Live. However, it is implied that Microsoft would not be using Massive's technology purely for Windows based games."

simoniker writes "Electronic Arts has officially revealed that it's working on a standalone version of its Madden football franchise for Nintendo Revolution, made by a new Revolution-specific internal studio within Electronic Arts Canada. EA's John Schappert explained the gameplay: 'You grab the controller, and you pull it up. And you snap the ball, without pushing a button. To throw, you take your hand and you gesture a throw motion. ... I don't think a winning approach on the Revolution is to port games to it, and I don't think you'll see us taking that approach. I think that approach will yield inferior software for the Revolution, and I don't think publishers will be rewarded for that.'"

Heffenfeffer writes "Gamasutra reports that Electronic Arts is settling their class action suit with their programmers to the tune of $14.9 million. It also turns out that one of the named plaintiffs of said lawsuit was the spouse of the formerly anonymous blogger "ea_spouse" who wrote a scathing commentary on EA over a year ago which may have formed the basis of this suit."

errorjustin writes "More Pre-E3 news is coming out - Bethesda's 2006 line-up has been revealed, and on the list is are PS3 and PSP ports of Oblivion. Both are currently slated for a November release, which further backs up Sony's insistence that the PS3 will launch in November. A formal announcement is expected in a couple weeks at E3."

With E3 coming up on us fairly fast now, we're going to start seeing some of the larger company's expected lineups for the event. eToyChest has the titles Square/Enix will be showing off at the event. Gamastura reports on one additional title that didn't make the list; A collaboration between Square/Enix and Nintendo. From that article: "The application in question combines an email application with virtual pet-like interaction abilities, and features various Pokemon characters heavily. Although Nintendo has been relatively reticent to enter the burgeoning mobile content market, which is particularly active in Japan, it has recently started to enter the segment, with the recent licensing of ring tones and animated images for a 'Nintendo Mobile' service on Japanese cellphone providers, and now this announcement of a Square collaboration."

In unsurprising news, Gamasutra reports that Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all have pre-E3 events planned. From the article: "These conferences, which taken place during the two days preceding the three-day expo, have historically laid the groundwork for the entire week's events, revealing key information about the company's plans for the next year. 2005's press conferences revealed many initial details about the upcoming Revolution and PlayStation 3 consoles, as well as the Xbox 360 which launched later that year."

simoniker writes "Tired of doom and gloom from pundits predicting the sky falling on the video game industry? Long-time Gamasutra design columnist Ernest Adams offers up a contrary view in his new column, commenting: 'The industry may be as conservative as Pat Buchanan, and it may be going through a rocky transition between consoles right now, but video games are doing very well, thank you very much.' He goes on to make points such as 'The mass market is here', 'Games are getting easier to make thanks to inexpensive tools', and 'Game development education has arrived'."

Gamasutra has an article on Keita Takahashi's reaction to the Revolution controller. From the article: "Takahashi commented of the Revolution, which has drawn widespread praise for its underlying concepts from other Eastern and Western designers: 'I'm not really interested in it. I don't think a controller should have that much influence on the enjoyment of games.' He continued: 'I see what [Nintendo is] trying to do, but they're putting such emphasis on the controller; 'Woah, this controller lets you do this!' and I'm thinking - are you messing with us?'"

Gamasutra has their weekly industry response column up, and this one deals with the best moments at this year's Game Developer's Conference. From the article: "I found one session particularly inspiring. It was refreshing to hear the speaker talk about the inspirations behind his product. Most inspiring, though, was the way he talked about the ideological goals he specifically wanted to express with it, that he had something larger about the world he wanted to show through his entertainment. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, that speaker had nothing to do with the game industry - it was Ron Moore at his Battlestar Galactica keynote. -Borut Pfeifer, Sony Online Entertainment"

Gamasutra reports that the Major League Gaming organization has signed a deal with the USA network to televise some of their competitions. From the article: "League programming, available at MLGpro.com all year long, will culminate in seven one-hour episodes that will air on the USA Network during the holiday season. In addition, the company also announced a MLG Pro Invasion Bus Tour, which will kick off in the summer and make 100 stops around the country. The Tour features MLG pros traveling across the U.S. in search of the next generation of professional gamers."

Gamasutra reports that Jack Thompson has sued the Florida Bar Association, for "hector[ing] plaintiff Thompson for 19 months with SLAPP Bar complaints filed by opposing counsel (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participants). Continually, during that time, Thompson and his counsel in these Bar matters have repeatedly asked The Florida Bar to sit down with him and his counsel to try to resolve, once and for all, this dispute, which goes back more than 18 years when other baseless SLAPP Bar complaints were filed, resulting in the payment of money damages to plaintiff Thompson."

Gamasutra reports that, like here in the states, Japanese games are coming under increased scrutiny by law-enforcement and politicians. From the article: "Japan's National Police Agency is currently investigating the effects playing video games and watching anime have on children. Currently being led by former deputy governor of Tokyo, Yutaka Takehana, the police-sponsored group met on April 10 in Tokyo to discuss topics such as violent video games and sexual content on the internet."

xIcemanx writes "Microsoft has announced that it will be sponsoring the World Cyber Games through 2008, providing the world's largest e-sports competition with software, hardware, and marketing. let's hope this doesn't mean radical changes in the games we see at the championships."

Gamasutra reports on an update to the Pirates of the Carribean MMOG currently in the works at Disney. The current plan is for a 2007 release, with some teasers and information upcoming at this year's E3. From the article: "The game will allow players to interact with movie characters such as Jack Sparrow, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, as well as allowing users to create their own custom pirate avatar, form a crew and captain a ship."

Gamasutra reports on an update to one of the longest running jokes in the games industry, Duke Nukem Forever. The title, already ten years in development, may (possibly) see release this decade. From the blurb: "3DR's George Broussard also demonstrated world interactivity that includes Duke standing in front of a computer and emailing the player, if he provides his email address for the game. But, according to the piece, Broussard was bashful, overall, about showing off the game, commenting: 'The problem is that when we show it, people are going to be like, Yeah, whatever. Honestly, at this point we just want to finish it.'"

A joint University of California, SFO/University of Pittsburgh study has been released which finds "playing violent videogames can lead young men to believe it is acceptable to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol", Gamasutra reports. Reuters is also carrying the story, with some information about methodology available in that piece. From the article: "Brady and Matthews had a group of 100 male undergraduates aged 18 to 21 play either Grand Theft Auto III or The Simpsons: Hit and Run. In the Simpsons game, players took the role of Homer Simpson and their task was to deliver daughter Lisa's science project to school before it could be marked late. In Grand Theft Auto III, players took the role of a criminal, and were instructed by the Mafia to beat up a drug dealer with a baseball bat."

Survey firm Piper Jaffrey has results saying that teenagers are losing interest in videogaming. From the Gamasutra article: "Interestingly, almost 80 percent of teens indicated that they intend to spend less time playing video games in 2006 and nearly 70 percent indicated that their interest in playing video games is decreasing." What do you think could be causing this drop in interest from young people? Sequels? Mature themes? Sequels?

Gamasutra has a piece looking at the story so far for the newly buddied up Bioware and Pandemic. They sit down with Pandemic CEO Josh Resnick, and BioWare joint CEOs Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk to talk about the future of their alliance. From the article: "I'm actually hoping that our coming together will at least open the door, or challenge other developers to start thinking along similar lines as well. The big thing that we did here is we capitalized the business. And by capitalizing the business, that has allowed us to have a much longer time horizon for our products. We're hoping it's going to give us more creative control over our products, and less encumbrances for our original IPs we're developing. And it's allowed us to come to the table with our publishing partners truly as partners with them."

Some more great writeups of GDC events are now available. Gamasutra's coverage continues to be comprehensive, with articles on the localization of Counter-Strike, the development of God of War, and the a design postmortem on the Xbox 360. God of War: How the Left and Right Brain Learned to Love One Another discusses the ways the dev team balanced the needs of the artists, designers, and programmers to create a cohesive title. The Localization of Counter-Strike in Japan gives the reader some object lessons in what it's like to take western ideas and translate them to an eastern culture. Finally, Ophelea wrote to mention a GamersInfo.net story on the design of the Xbox 360. From this last article: "The user interface was one of the more difficult designs to accomplish. While the original Xbox had 250MB of space to utilize, the Xbox360 had only 4.5MB uncompressed or 1.5MB in total! Not only this, they expanded on the original Xbox's 45 screens and grew it ten fold to 450 screens! Several iterations were gone through with the end result being a combination of several of these schemes."

Some more great writeups of GDC events are now available. Gamasutra's coverage continues to be comprehensive, with articles on the localization of Counter-Strike, the development of God of War, and the a design postmortem on the Xbox 360. God of War: How the Left and Right Brain Learned to Love One Another discusses the ways the dev team balanced the needs of the artists, designers, and programmers to create a cohesive title. The Localization of Counter-Strike in Japan gives the reader some object lessons in what it's like to take western ideas and translate them to an eastern culture. Finally, Ophelea wrote to mention a GamersInfo.net story on the design of the Xbox 360. From this last article: "The user interface was one of the more difficult designs to accomplish. While the original Xbox had 250MB of space to utilize, the Xbox360 had only 4.5MB uncompressed or 1.5MB in total! Not only this, they expanded on the original Xbox's 45 screens and grew it ten fold to 450 screens! Several iterations were gone through with the end result being a combination of several of these schemes."

RobinH writes "Sony Online Entertainment hopes to recruit more players to its aging MMOFPS title Planetside with the launch of its new play-for-free version Planetside: Reserves. According to a story in Gamasutra, 'The freeplay option limits players to a "battle rank" of six, with higher ranks only available to those with a paying account. PlanetSide is already part of the Massive in-game advertising network, and has been running billboard and other adverts since August 2005, presumably helping to fund the game's continued operation via this alternative model.'"

Gamasutra has a few great writeups of some of the sessions I didn't make it to. Murder, Sex, and Censorship covers some of the moral elements that go into game creation. Creating a Global MMO was a talk given by some of the folks behind FFXI, on the challenges of creating a multi-hemisphere online title. All about Ninety-Nine Nights was an examination of the character design put into the 'massive warfare' title for the Xbox 360. Interesting stuff. The morals session actually became quite heated, thanks to the presence of CA Assemblyman Leland Yee. From the article: "'How many people do you think have been hurt by video games? How many people have been helped by video games?' Gee asked. 'This technology will allow us to have a full spectrum chemist, or a full spectrum virus,' which school children, scientists, or doctors are able to experiment with in a safe environment. Gee also noted that, socially, legislators should care not only about keeping children from harm, but also about helping them."

Gamasutra has a few great writeups of some of the sessions I didn't make it to. Murder, Sex, and Censorship covers some of the moral elements that go into game creation. Creating a Global MMO was a talk given by some of the folks behind FFXI, on the challenges of creating a multi-hemisphere online title. All about Ninety-Nine Nights was an examination of the character design put into the 'massive warfare' title for the Xbox 360. Interesting stuff. The morals session actually became quite heated, thanks to the presence of CA Assemblyman Leland Yee. From the article: "'How many people do you think have been hurt by video games? How many people have been helped by video games?' Gee asked. 'This technology will allow us to have a full spectrum chemist, or a full spectrum virus,' which school children, scientists, or doctors are able to experiment with in a safe environment. Gee also noted that, socially, legislators should care not only about keeping children from harm, but also about helping them."

Gamasutra has a few great writeups of some of the sessions I didn't make it to. Murder, Sex, and Censorship covers some of the moral elements that go into game creation. Creating a Global MMO was a talk given by some of the folks behind FFXI, on the challenges of creating a multi-hemisphere online title. All about Ninety-Nine Nights was an examination of the character design put into the 'massive warfare' title for the Xbox 360. Interesting stuff. The morals session actually became quite heated, thanks to the presence of CA Assemblyman Leland Yee. From the article: "'How many people do you think have been hurt by video games? How many people have been helped by video games?' Gee asked. 'This technology will allow us to have a full spectrum chemist, or a full spectrum virus,' which school children, scientists, or doctors are able to experiment with in a safe environment. Gee also noted that, socially, legislators should care not only about keeping children from harm, but also about helping them."

Wednesday night at the GDC means awards time, for the Game Developer's Choice Awards. The nominees are chosen by members of the IDGA, and then voted on by every member of the organization. Some very deserving games got the nod last night, and Gamasutra has coverage on the winners. They also have a piece looking at the winners of the Independent Game Festival, a program looking at the best games from outside the normal commercial experience. The winners from that event not only get recognition, but a cash reward to continue their development. From that article: "Dan Paladin and Tom Fulp's stylish Flash game Dad 'N Me won for Best Web Browser Game, and the Audience Award, which was conducted by GameSpot and saw over 2000 votes, was won by French strategy-MMO Dofus. Elsewhere, the $5,000 AdultSwim.com award was given to RabidLab, who developed finalist Dodge That Anvil!."

Wednesday night at the GDC means awards time, for the Game Developer's Choice Awards. The nominees are chosen by members of the IDGA, and then voted on by every member of the organization. Some very deserving games got the nod last night, and Gamasutra has coverage on the winners. They also have a piece looking at the winners of the Independent Game Festival, a program looking at the best games from outside the normal commercial experience. The winners from that event not only get recognition, but a cash reward to continue their development. From that article: "Dan Paladin and Tom Fulp's stylish Flash game Dad 'N Me won for Best Web Browser Game, and the Audience Award, which was conducted by GameSpot and saw over 2000 votes, was won by French strategy-MMO Dofus. Elsewhere, the $5,000 AdultSwim.com award was given to RabidLab, who developed finalist Dodge That Anvil!."

It's the second day of the Game Developer's Conference 2006, and so far there isn't much to relate. Yesterday saw some interesting talks, with Linden Labs CEO Philip Rosedale offering up a discussion on serious games entitled You Can (Not) Be Serious. There was also some Talk of Mobile gaming with Nokia offering up some views on that part of the industry. Earlier today Jesper Juul gave another view of serious gaming, A New Kind of Game. He discussed how games have evolved, and where they're going now that they've begun to gain broad cultural acceptance. I got into San Jose earlier today, and so should have a rundown on the press preview event later tonight. Things to look forward to during the rest of the week include the Sony (Wednesday) and Nintendo (Thursday) keynotes, a talk by Battlestar creator Ronald Moore (Wednesday), and Will Wright's talk about the future of Game Design (Thursday).

It's the second day of the Game Developer's Conference 2006, and so far there isn't much to relate. Yesterday saw some interesting talks, with Linden Labs CEO Philip Rosedale offering up a discussion on serious games entitled You Can (Not) Be Serious. There was also some Talk of Mobile gaming with Nokia offering up some views on that part of the industry. Earlier today Jesper Juul gave another view of serious gaming, A New Kind of Game. He discussed how games have evolved, and where they're going now that they've begun to gain broad cultural acceptance. I got into San Jose earlier today, and so should have a rundown on the press preview event later tonight. Things to look forward to during the rest of the week include the Sony (Wednesday) and Nintendo (Thursday) keynotes, a talk by Battlestar creator Ronald Moore (Wednesday), and Will Wright's talk about the future of Game Design (Thursday).

Eric Zimmerman, head of the Gamelab development project, has announced on the eve of the Game Developer's Conference that they're moving to a self-published format. From the article: "I think we have something else to offer ... and we've decided that it's hard finding partners that share this kind of vision and that want to take the risks that we're talking about to really create new sorts of games. And additionally we're working in a field right now of online games with a downloadable distribution model, which means that we can self-publish. It's relatively straightforward for a small company to publish."

Gamasutra reports that the team behind Katamari Damacy, We *heart* Katamari, and My My Katamari has dissolved. The official Katamari site states that there are no plans for sequels to the hit rollin' games. From the article: "The official announcement does mention that 'Professor Katamari' (presumably Keita Takahashi) is currently working on a new game design, though apparently not with the core Katamari Damacy team. 'You don't roll things up, or get bigger, but you might find it interesting anyway,' says the site." Which is good news, considering his earlier comments about making playground equipment.

According to analyst firm Strategy Analytics, the PS3's delay is unlikely to have much of an effect on the next-gen race, reports GameDailyBiz. From the article: "While 2006 sales will clearly fall short of previous expectations, Strategy Analytics maintains its previous forecast of PS3 sales of 121.8 million units through 2012 ... This compares to expected sales of Microsoft's Xbox 360 of 58.8 million units over the same period." Gamasutra reports that, from Steve Ballmer's perspective, the opposite is true. From that article: "In every other generation, the first guy to 10 million consoles was the number one seller in the generation ... Did we just get an even better opportunity to be the first guy to 10 million? Yeah, of course we did." This all assumes the console launches this year.

Gamaustra reports on the decision by Shadowbane developer Wolfpack to make their PvP MMOG title free for the taking. From the article: "Despite the growing acceptance of [the no monthly fee] revenue model, it's not yet certain that it's the one Ubisoft has chosen for Shadowbane; the announcement makes no reference to any alternate form of revenue for the title. In-game advertising has also been an option for allowing free play in titles including Funcom's Anarchy Online, but Shadowbane's fantasy setting may preclude contemporary ads. The company indicated that a more detailed explanation of the free-to-play scheme will follow shortly."

Gamasutra has details on the gaming network that will underpin the PlayStation 3 online offering. From the article: "Co-developed by Sony Online Entertainment, the company's MMORPG development arm, and GameSpy Networks, the PlayStation Network Platform will allow players to compete online even in its free iteration, unlike Xbox Live. Sony will enforce integrated online capabilities between games, but publishers will be free to run their own servers." The folks on the 1up podcast were just talking about this topic last week. I'm personally not sure 'free' is the way to go. I'm willing to pay if it means I'm getting a quality service. Obviously you'd prefer not to pay but if it means the difference between an unreliable service and one the quality of Xbox Live, are you willing to pay?

Gamasutra has a piece looking at the background behind the awarding of medals by the French government to Shigeru Miyamoto, Frédérick Raynal, and Michel Ancel. From the article: "'They deserve it don't you think? You know their work, their talent.' Of course, but still, how come? 'Well, you know, we're always talking with the Ministry of Culture, and it's our job to explain our industry to the political body.' So the idea just 'emerged' during casual conversations between some minister and some video game representative. And when two French game designers were picked, it suddenly seemed obvious that it couldn't be a serious initiative without including Japanese legend Shigeru Miyamoto."

The same folks who brought us Age of Ornithology have returned to Gamasutra with a postmortem on their smash hit Accordion Hero. From the article: "Although most of us had played the accordion, we had never designed a game controller before! I quickly threw together a prototype made of dryer ducting, two cheese graters, tape, buttons, and a few Werther's Originals. It took a great deal of imaginary accordion playing to determine where the buttons should ultimately go, and the cheese graters scratched Crispin's hands up pretty horribly. But we told him that one must suffer to become a game tester, and one must be a game tester before one can be anything in this industry (of course we did not tell him that the rest of us were never game testers. Ah, it is to laugh)."

Gamsutra has a writeup of a recent Austin Game Developers meeting. Damion Schubert, Allen Varney, and Scott Jennings took the stage to discuss games as art and Roger Ebert's opinions. From the article: "McShaffry then asked the panel to consider whether Ebert was picking on youth culture in general, and assuming technology wasn't an issue, whether popular games like Grand Theft Auto would be played 500 years from now, like the works of Shakespeare are enjoyed today? Jennings didn't want to speculate that far into the future, but he admitted to still playing and liking the Final Fantasy games released for the Super Nintendo."

Immersion Corp, which owns the patent on 'rumble' technology, has won another round in its suit against Sony. Sony's 'dualshock' controller has used rumble technology for years, and in 2005 a judge awarded $82 Million to the patent-holder in payment. From the article: "Sony's defence was the alleged nondisclosure of some of the inventions of key employee Craig Thorner. who has been a consultant both for Immersion and subsequently for Sony. But, according to the report, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken was unhappy with Thorner's testimony supporting Sony, given that he had also been paid by Sony, and so dismissed this line of defence."

Gamasutra reports that Canadian developer Bioware has opened a studio in Austin, Texas. The new studio will be the base of operations for development of an as yet unnamed MMORPG. From the article: "Joining the Austin team as lead designer is James Ohlen, BioWare's creative director, whose previous credits include lead or co-lead design roles on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II. Also leading the BioWare Austin team are MMO veterans Richard Vogel and Gordon Walton." That's some serious firepower. Can't wait to hear what that's about.

Gamespot reports that Senators Clinton and Lieberman have asked the Centers for Disease control to investigate how games impact us poor deluded citizens. From the article: "Even though the legislation--called the Children and Media Research Advancement Act--does not include restrictions, it appears to be intended as a way to justify them. That's because a string of court decisions have been striking down antigaming laws because of a lack of hard evidence that minors are harmed by violence in video games. The original version of the bill earmarked $90 million for the study, but Lieberman press secretary Rob Sawicki said that the committee had approved the measure without any dollar figure and that such a figure would be added later during the appropriations process." Gamasutra has some background on the bill, which was originally proposed in 2003.

Gamasutra has responses to its weekly question of the week, this time looking at whether there will ever be an Oscars for games. The responses focused on some of the current crop of awards currently handed out, from the GDCA to Spike's debacle. From the article: "No one in the industry has taken the previous attempts at an award show seriously because they shows seem to offer up an award to the highest bidder and not the one most deserving. The only exception that I've seen come close to being a decent awards show is the Interactive Achievement Awards put on by AIAS. So how about we stop having rappers involved with the award shows based on the grounds that they like to play their Xbox? Or if we must have them involved, how about having Will Wright host the BET Awards Show? That makes about as much sense."

It's March, and that means that Women's History Month has rolled around again. The latest event put on by 'Women in Games International' was held in February; Both Wired and Gamasutra have rundowns on the event. Wired's coverage highlights the two camps of female gamers, the 'Frag Dolls' and the 'Casual Gamers' that populated the event. Gamasutra's piece discusses the exploration of women in all gamer roles. That, indeed, was the focus of the event: Women as players, designers, and gamers. From that article: "Margaret Wallace (Skunk Studios), also on the panel, railed against the industry for disenfranchising women. 'There's a push against women gamers from within the game industry,' she said. Games have been made 'with puke-humor' thought to be edgy, she said, wondering why developers don't see the direct correlation between the 'sophomoric' humor put into the games and women not liking them. 'They treat women as a mysterious nut to crack.' Wallace's advice: 'Make a game mechanic accessible.'" GameSetWatch also a blog post linking to some advice for female FPS players, especially 'aggressive young girls'.

Gamasutra reports on Texas technology company Bigfoot networks, which just received a $4 Million investment to develop a lag-reducing hardware PC card. From the piece: "According to the firm, it will bring to market the world's first Gaming Network Accelerator card, which will allow online gamers to play their favorite games with less lag. The company explained: 'Lag is the number one problem in online video games today, and Bigfoot Networks is the only company in the world whose sole mission is to fight lag', but gave no specific technical explanation about how it intends to do this." Greg Costikyan spells it out on the Games*Design*Art*Culture blog: "So yes, there might be a business here. But if so, it will be a business built largely on bullshit."

Gamasutra reports that a hospital in Japan has begun renting out DSes and suggesting the title Brain Training to older patients, in an effort to stave off dementia. From the article: "Sixty-seven year old retiree Isamu Shishido is quoted as saying, 'I don't want to end up some crazy old man. I want to play a little everyday before going to bed.' Neurosurgeon Dr Takeshi Kihara comments that, 'The game won't cure dementia. But it's a good form of stimulation, especially for old people living alone.'"

Gamasutra has a piece looking at the good news in digital distribution. Getting games to consumers with bits, rather than boxes, seems to ensure that we'll have a wider variety of titles to choose from in the future. The path looks at indie title Red Orchestra on its path to our desktops. From the article: "Of course, with a digital distribution deal, there is usually no big marketing push from the distributor like there is with a big publisher. But, through Steam we would be selling into the hardcore FPS gamer market. And as a result of the Valve deal, Red Orchestra got solid editorial exposure in major PC game publications, including two page 'preview' articles in PC Gamer US and UK."

A report released yesterday indicates that this console transition is far worse than previous hardware iterations. From the Gamasutra article: "This console transition, he said, is 'far worse' than that seen from the years 1999 through 2001. Additionally, Lowell points fingers at the increased popularity of online games, a general lack of creativity in game development, and 'no Halo or Grand Theft Auto-type blowout titles launched in 2005,' echoing the sentiments of many other analysts." Next Generation has an analysis of what makes this transition so bad. (this last piece is satire)