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An anonymous reader writes "Ron Gilbert, co-creator of classic games Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island 1 and 2, and many more, has spoken out against corporate censorship — the way of large companies getting a say on what does or does not get published on the distribution channels they control. Although his insightful rant applies to a number of corporations (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and Comcast are mentioned), most of the direct examples single out Apple. Quoting: 'Apple has maintained an almost North Koreanish dictatorial control over the devices, becoming the arbitrator over what is good and bad, what is allowed and not allowed. They don't have this control over the Mac because it is a real computer and an open device, but they can do this with the iPhone because we (as consumers) were convinced by the cell phone carriers that they needed this control to protect their networks (in the same way they wouldn't let us own our own telephones in the '70s) and Apple was happy to jump on that ship because they could finally control everything that went on the device and we bought it into it. Apple apologists say that Apple needs this control to maintain the "specialness" of the device. I say that's a load of crap.'" He also mentions Adidas dropping out of iAds because they couldn't accept Apple's excessive creative control, and a photography app that was rejected because it used the volume buttons as trigger."

Briareos was one of several readers to write with news that TellTale Games, along with LucasArts, will be bringing new Monkey Island games later this year. Tales of Monkey Island will be a series of episodic games released for PC and WiiWare in the coming months, and The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition will be a remake of the original 1990 game, available on the PC and Xbox Live. A trailer is available for the former, and this is what the press release says about the latter: "The development team at LucasArts is bringing the game into the modern era with all-new HD graphics, a re-mastered musical score, full voiceover, and an in-depth hint system has been added to help players through the game's side-splitting puzzles. Purists will also delight in the ability to seamlessly switch between the updated HD graphics and the original's classic look." Grumpy Gamer has a nostalgic look back at the franchise.

Over at the Grumpy Gamer site, Rob Gilbert is reminiscing a bit about the making of Maniac Mansion, prompted by a YouTube video depicting a 9 minute speed run for the game. "I found it fascinating to watch this video. It's was like thumbing through an old family album of childhood photos. Memories long forgotten are jarred to the surface by the smallest of details. An old and forgotten toy. The front grill of your fathers car. Things you could never have remembered if you tried become so clear they could have happened yesterday. I'd see little things like Dave hitting the edge of the porch, turning around, then walking forward and then continuing on his way. I remember this from development. It was a weird bug having to do with the walk-boxes that told the character where they could walk. I knew how to fix it, but it would have broken oh-so-many of other things. It always drove me crazy that he did that." Many thanks to Mr. Gilbert for his work on the game; Bernard's Theme still pops into my head every once in a while for no particular reason.

Via Game|Life, an article on the Variety site that sees something rather novel: a film writer defending games. Unhappy reviews of the film 300 sometimes cite the film's 'game-like' nature as a measure of it's poor quality, and Variety writer Ben Fritz calls those authors out on their poor grasp of modern media. Ron Gilbert, at the Grumpy Gamer site, has a few words of commentary on this issue. Coincidentally Gamasutra chose today to post a discussion of games as art which begins with the phrase "here we go again".

Ron Gilbert, well-known for his work during the golden age of LucasArts adventure games, is also well known as The Grumpy Gamer. Gamasutra has up an interview with Gilbert, discussing his career in the post-Threepwood period of his life. From the article: "It's actually kind of frightening, you know. You sit down with a publisher and the minute you mention anything like an adventure game or something story-based or adventure-game-like in any way, the meeting's basically over. So the publishers do have a huge resistance to this. And I think a lot of it is that they cannot point to anything like this that is successful in the market today. So it's very difficult for them to put anything behind it. It's a very difficult process."

trueneutral writes "SCUMMVM is a project that has ported a large number of the Lucas Arts adventure games. But what's amazing, is that Ron Gilbert of Grumpy Gamer, the creator of the majority of these games, actually supports it. He applauds their efforts, and seems to have no problems with the project. It's really refreshing to see a good attitude about these things. I think Gilbert realizes that this is a fan based effort to play his games on modern platforms. From the article: 'As the person that created SCUMM and along with Aric Wilmunder coded the original system, my hat is off the SCUMMVM team and contributers for this undertaking. I am in awe. Especially since I could never get anything to run from one version of the system to the next...'"

trueneutral writes "SCUMMVM is a project that has ported a large number of the Lucas Arts adventure games. But what's amazing, is that Ron Gilbert of Grumpy Gamer, the creator of the majority of these games, actually supports it. He applauds their efforts, and seems to have no problems with the project. It's really refreshing to see a good attitude about these things. I think Gilbert realizes that this is a fan based effort to play his games on modern platforms. From the article: 'As the person that created SCUMM and along with Aric Wilmunder coded the original system, my hat is off the SCUMMVM team and contributers for this undertaking. I am in awe. Especially since I could never get anything to run from one version of the system to the next...'"

Ron "the Grumpy Gamer" Gilbert has up an opinion piece discussing his frustration with the new realistic footage of Zelda shown at this year's Game Developer's Conference. He makes some excellent points counter to most opinions I've seen up so far. From the article: "If you look at the trailer, it's filled with creatures, textures and buildings that could be seamlessly exchanged with any other 3D boy-mass game, which in my opinion, is the real failing of 3D games. This crazy quest to attain realism just serves to water everything down until it is all indistinguishable from anything else. An off-white paint that covers the walls of cube-like apartments in cookie-cutter neighborhoods."

The normally Grumpy Gamer has gotten into the spirit with a most excellent send-up of the perennial holiday favorite, The Twelve Days of Christmas. Entitled The Twelve Days of Crunch Time, it features components from the average game development experience. The last element of the piece goes up tomorrow.

The Grumpy Gamer has a counterpoint to the oft mentioned argument that the games industry is bigger business than the movie industry. From the article: "The domestic US box office is estimated to be around $9B for 2004, and this is where the myth starts to take life. The problem is the movie industry is a lot bigger then just the U.S. box office. DVD sales and rentals for 2003 topped $16B. VHS sales and rentals for 2003 was $6.4B. VHS sales are declining fast, but most of that will just shift over to DVDs, which brings the grand total for non-box office movie sales to over $20B, twice the figure for the entire game industry."

Thanks to The Grumpy Gamer (Ron Gilbert of Monkey Island fame), for his excellent look at The Economics of 2D Adventure Games. "First, this is only a thought experiment. This is not something I am planning on doing, or even have a huge interest in doing, so please don't feed the rumor mills. Second, this article contains gory and gruesome details about the games business and, in particular, marketing and distribution. If you'd rather remain blissfully oblivious to the horrors of what goes on behind the scenes, this is the place to stop reading. If you're one of those people that can't help but stare at a car accident, read on."

Thanks to Ron Gilbert's weblog for pointing out a GameDev.net article discussing the topic of "Designing Games for the Wage Slave" . The author explains: "We balance on the knife's edge between our glorious time-squandered youth, and the commitments of inevitable middle age... If games can adapt to the needs of the working gamer, they can find a lucrative niche." He goes on suggest practical tips for game developers, including 'Don't Waste My Time' ("Make every moment count. I don't play games to punish myself. I play them to be entertained, rewarded, and challenged"), 'Curiosity Killed The Cat...' ("Constant death was a necessity in the days of video arcades... Now, in the comfort of our lounges or offices, what reason is there to keep dumping us out of the game we bought with our hard earned cash?"), and 'I Need Help' ("Make any necessary information available from within the game.")