Slashdot Mirror

jones_supa writes "Apogee Software/3D Realms alleges that Gearbox has refused to pay more than $2 million owed to 3D Realms from royalties and advances Gearbox received from publishers for Duke Nukem Forever. In a lawsuit filed June 7 in Texas district court, 3D Realms insists that its agreement with Gearbox permits it to conduct an audit of Gearbox's royalty statements, which the studio has not allowed. 'Gearbox is simply stonewalling here in an improper attempt to conceal information from 3D Realms that it is absolutely entitled to receive,' the suit alleges. The company also alleges that Gearbox has refused to pay the agreed-upon portion of revenue Gearbox received after Duke Nukem Forever was released. 3D Realms has asked for a jury trial. This suit is apparently the end result of a friendly deal gone wrong."

mvar writes "According to Kotaku, a hacker named SuperDaeE who breached multiple gaming companies (Valve, Sony, MS to name a few) has released a 1.7TB treasure trove file for download. The file which contains source code for older titles plus development kits for the PS4 and Xbox One consoles, is encrypted and SuperDaeE claims that it is his insurance in case he gets arrested."

An anonymous reader writes "The Xbox One was revealed earlier, and Kotaku was able to get some answers about the always-online rumors that plagued the console before its announcement. Microsoft VP Phil Harrison said Xbox One doesn't need a constant connection in order to play games, and you won't be dropped from single-player games if your connection cuts out. However, it does require check-ins with Microsoft servers. This echoes the Xbox One FAQ, which cryptically says, "No, it does not have to be always connected, but Xbox One does require a connection to the Internet." The number Harrison gave was once every 24 hours, but Microsoft's PR department was quick to say that was just one potential scenario, not a certainty. Microsoft also provided half-answers about how used games and game sharing would work. Players will be able to take a game to a friend's house and play it (using their profile, at least). Players will also have some mechanism to trade and sell used games, but it's not yet clear exactly how it would work. If one player uses a disc to install a game on their Xbox One, then gives the disc to a friend, the friend will be able to install it, but needs to pay full price to play it. That scenario, however, assumes both players want to own the game — the second one would essentially be a unique copy. Microsoft said they have a plan for trading used games, which would involve deactivating the game on the original owner's console, but they aren't willing to elaborate yet." Several publications have hands-on reports with the new hardware: Engadget, Ars Technica, Gizmodo.

An anonymous reader writes "The Xbox One was revealed earlier, and Kotaku was able to get some answers about the always-online rumors that plagued the console before its announcement. Microsoft VP Phil Harrison said Xbox One doesn't need a constant connection in order to play games, and you won't be dropped from single-player games if your connection cuts out. However, it does require check-ins with Microsoft servers. This echoes the Xbox One FAQ, which cryptically says, "No, it does not have to be always connected, but Xbox One does require a connection to the Internet." The number Harrison gave was once every 24 hours, but Microsoft's PR department was quick to say that was just one potential scenario, not a certainty. Microsoft also provided half-answers about how used games and game sharing would work. Players will be able to take a game to a friend's house and play it (using their profile, at least). Players will also have some mechanism to trade and sell used games, but it's not yet clear exactly how it would work. If one player uses a disc to install a game on their Xbox One, then gives the disc to a friend, the friend will be able to install it, but needs to pay full price to play it. That scenario, however, assumes both players want to own the game — the second one would essentially be a unique copy. Microsoft said they have a plan for trading used games, which would involve deactivating the game on the original owner's console, but they aren't willing to elaborate yet." Several publications have hands-on reports with the new hardware: Engadget, Ars Technica, Gizmodo.

Dawn Kawamoto writes "Electronic Arts has been slashing jobs in recent weeks and according to Kotaku the size of the layoffs has reached as much as 10 percent of its workforce. The game maker says it's making the move to align its workforce closer to mobile and new technologies. For the console dinosaur that's trying to fight extinction by evolving into a bigger mobile player, this process has been a painful transition with a number of employees ending up in the tar pit - as well as its CEO."

jones_supa writes "The cartoon heroes are back, with even stronger superpowers. Deep Silver Volition has announced Saints Row IV for an August launch. From the press release: 'In the next open-world installment of Saints Row, Deep Silver Volition continues the story of the Third Street Saints by elevating their status to the highest level – the leaders of the free world. In Saints Row IV, the head honcho of the Saints has been elected to the Presidency of the United States. Saints Row IV lets players delve into an arsenal of alien weaponry and technology that will turn each Saint into an ultimate entity of destruction. The player utilizes out-of-this-world superpowers to fight all the way to the top. With intensified action and enhanced customization, the protagonists can use their newfound superpowers and leap over buildings, outrun the fastest sports cars, or send enemies flying with telekinesis in the most insane installment of Saints Row yet.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Stephen Totilo at Kotaku has a long article detailing the exploits of an Australian hacker who calls himself SuperDaE. He managed to break into networks at Microsoft, Sony, and Epic Games, from which he retrieved information about the PS4 and next-gen Xbox 'Durango' (which turned out to be correct), and he even secured developer hardware for Durango itself. He uncovered security holes at Epic, but notified the company rather than exploiting them. He claims to have done the same with Microsoft. He hasn't done any damage or facilitated piracy with the access he's had, but simply breaching the security of those companies was enough to get the U.S. FBI to convince Australian authorities to raid his house and confiscate his belongings. In an age where many tech-related 'sources' are just empty claims, a lot of this guy's information has checked out. The article describes both SuperDaE's activities and a journalist's efforts to verify his claims."

First time accepted submitter DiscountBorg(TM) writes "An employee of the Canada Revenue Agency lost his job after releasing a humorous game in which the player answers customer service calls for the Agency, usually leading to his termination. In an email National Revenue Minister Gail Shea said: 'The Minister considers this type of conduct offensive and completely unacceptable. The Minister has asked the Commissioner (of Revenue, Andrew Treusch) to investigate and take any and all necessary corrective action. The Minister has asked the CRA to investigate urgently to ensure no confidential taxpayer information was compromised.'"

jones_supa writes "Shawn McGrath, the creator of the PS3 psychedelic puzzle-racing game Dyad, takes another look at Doom 3 source code. Instead of the technical reviews of Fabien Sanglard, Shawn zooms in with emphasis purely on coding style. He gives his insights in lexical analysis, const and rigid parameters, amount of comments, spacing, templates and method names. There is also some thoughts about coming to C++ with C background and without it. Even John Carmack himself popped in to give a comment."

An anonymous reader writes "An irritated father of a 23-year-old gamer hired 'In-game assassins' to attempt to make his son quit playing video games and have him get a job. 'Feng's idea was that his son would get bored of playing games if he was killed every time he logged on, and that he would start putting more effort into getting a job.' While the son recently had a job at a software development company he quit because he decided he didn't like the work."

symbolset writes "The Verge is reporting that the Steam Console we discussed in November is a real thing. Gabe Newell said it will be a locked down platform for the living room. The source is a Kotaku interview with Newell at the Video Game Awards. Newell said, 'Well certainly our hardware will be a very controlled environment. If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general-purpose PC. For people who want a more turnkey solution, that's what some people are really gonna want for their living room. The nice thing about a PC is a lot of different people can try out different solutions, and customers can find the ones that work best for them.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Kotaku reports that two employees of Bohemia Interactive have been arrested while on a photo-tour of the Greek island of Limnos, on charges of spying. The developers were taking reference photos for the upcoming military simulation game Arma III, which is to feature Limnos as it's primary setting, when they were arrested (Google translation of Greek original)."

Lashat writes "News of trouble at cloud gaming provider OnLive is trickling out of various sources. According to Forbes, all employees received their walking papers today. Rumors of a shutdown, buyout, or re-formation as a new company are plentiful, but the company hasn't announced anything yet. The article quotes an email sent to InXile CEO Brain Fargo from an employee within the company: 'I wanted to send a note that by the end of the day today, OnLive as an entity will no longer exist. Unfortunately, my job and everyone else's was included. A new company will be formed and the management of the company will be in contact with you about the current initiatives in place, including the titles that will remain on the service. It has been an absolute pleasure working with you and I'm sure our path with cross again.' OnLive's Director of Corporate Communications told Forbes, 'No, let me be clear. We are not going out of business.'" While the question of whether OnLive-as-an-entity will continue is still up in the air, an internal source confirmed to Gamasutra that OnLive's entire staff has been laid off, and OnLive employees were seen outside headquarters with 'moving boxes.' Kotaku says the company has filed for protection against creditors in California (not bankruptcy, but similar).

zacharye writes "Using nothing more than a few common tools, hackers can reportedly recover credit card numbers and other personal information from used Xbox 360 consoles even after they have been restored to factory settings. Researchers at Drexel University say they have successfully recovered sensitive personal data from a used Xbox console, and they claim Microsoft is doing a disservice to users by not taking precautions to secure their data. 'Microsoft does a great job of protecting their proprietary information,' researcher Ashley Podhradsky said."

silentbrad writes "Kotaku reports some 'details' about Sony's next console given to them by a 'reliable source.' They say that the console's codename is Orbis, and it is planned for release by the 2013 holiday season. Developers are reportedly being told to plan for an AMD x64 CPU and AMD Southern Islands GPU. Further on, they mention that there will be no PS3 backwards compatibility and, like rumors about the next Xbox, will have anti-used game DRM. Specifically, 'new games for the system will be available one of two ways, either on a Blu-Ray disc or as a PSN download (yes, even full retail titles). If you buy the disc, it must be locked to a single PSN account. ... If you then decide to trade that disc in, the pre-owned customer picking it up will be limited in what they can do. ... it's believed used games will be limited to a trial mode or some other form of content restriction, with consumers having to pay a fee to unlock/register the full game.'"

silentbrad writes "Kotaku reports some 'details' about Sony's next console given to them by a 'reliable source.' They say that the console's codename is Orbis, and it is planned for release by the 2013 holiday season. Developers are reportedly being told to plan for an AMD x64 CPU and AMD Southern Islands GPU. Further on, they mention that there will be no PS3 backwards compatibility and, like rumors about the next Xbox, will have anti-used game DRM. Specifically, 'new games for the system will be available one of two ways, either on a Blu-Ray disc or as a PSN download (yes, even full retail titles). If you buy the disc, it must be locked to a single PSN account. ... If you then decide to trade that disc in, the pre-owned customer picking it up will be limited in what they can do. ... it's believed used games will be limited to a trial mode or some other form of content restriction, with consumers having to pay a fee to unlock/register the full game.'"

itwbennett writes "Microsoft dropped a bomb yesterday: they won't be showing new hardware this year or 'anytime soon.' Microsoft told Kotaku that '2012 is all about Xbox 360.' Meanwhile, Bloomberg's mysterious sources are saying that Microsoft 'may show the successor to its Xbox 360 in June 2013 at the E3 conference and put it on sale that same year.' This would 'be a fast journey from announcement to launch,' says Peter Smith, 'but it'd mean we'd still get a new Xbox for holiday 2013, which is about the earliest anyone has expected it to arrive anyway.'"

RogueyWon writes "According to reports in Kotaku and Forbes, Sony is planning to ditch the Cell processor that powered the PlayStation 3 and may be planning to power the console's successor using a more conventional PC-like architecture provided by AMD. In the PS3's early years, Sony was keen to promote the benefits of its Cell processor, but the console's complicated architecture led to many studios complaining that it was difficult to develop for."

hypnosec writes "Several of Ubisoft's biggest titles won't be playable as of next week thanks to a server move by the publisher and the restrictive DRM that was used in their development. This isn't just multiplayer either. Because Ubisoft thought it would be a smart plan to use always on DRM for even the single player portion of games like Assassin's Creed, even the single player portion of that title won't be playable during the server move. Some of the other games affected by this move will be Tom Clancy's HAWX 2, Might & Magic: Heroes 6 and The Settlers 7. The Mac games that will be broken during this period are Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell Conviction and The Settlers. This move was announced this week as part of a community letter, with Ubisoft describing how the data servers for many of the publisher's online services would be migrated from third party facilities to a new location starting on the 7th February. The publisher didn't reveal how long the transfer would take."

A few weeks back, you asked gaming-world academic and game designer Ian Bogost questions from the business, philosophical, and aesthetic sides of gaming; below, find his responses. Thanks, Ian! Is it all just absurd?
by Anonymous Coward

You satirize the meaninglessness of compulsive-click based games, but what would you say is your larger point in doing so? Do you think that "big" video games (for instance, ones with complex plots and characters, cooperation among players, etc) are all that much better, or would much of the same critique apply?

(Sure, they're not quite as mindless, but they still mean that people are spending time and money to withdraw from reality to some extent, and substituting made-up, arbitrary goals for interacting with other people. Is it purely happenstance and convenience that means you've made a certain point with social games, rather than, say, remade Catch-22 as a FPS?)

Ian Bogost: In my original essay about Cow Clicker, written when the game launched in the summer of 2010, I made a similar observation about "big" videogames: they seem to destroy time. (My exact words were, "Many of today's console games exert a time crush. They demand tens or even hundreds of hours of attention to complete, some or most of which often feels empty"). As I see it, one difference between "traditional" games and social games is that the former don't try to infect the time we spend away from them as well as the time we spend with them. Surely there is something compulsive about console games too, but at least the end. The service-oriented component of social games, along with the fact that companies like Zynga require regularly renewed attention to make money, these are important differences that may not seem fundamental at first.

Still, some cultural trends are more like cracks in a wall than like monuments. It's likely that Cow Clicker is more akin to picking away the plaster to find the veins of a complex structural issue than it is like uncovering a simple fact about its foundation. I don't think that structural issue is limited to games. Whether we noticed or not, we've created a media environment driven by compulsion. Email and instant messaging are examples unbound to specific companies, but Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram — all of these services and many more build value by monetizing our repeated and regular attention, and now we have so many different ways to ask, "Is something new? Am I missing something?" that it's possible never to stop asking those questions, all day long.



Procedural Rhetoric in morally-gray big name games?
by siphonophore

What do you think of AAA studios exploring more moral grey areas (e.g. hostage shooting airport level in COD:MW2 ) as a form of procedural rhetoric? Do you think players' natural tendencies of (in this case) non-violence toward innocents is solidified or shaken by simulating such acts?

IB: For those who don't know the reference, "procedural rhetoric" is a concept I developed in my 2007 book Persuasive Games . We have verbal and written rhetoric, which uses speech and writing to make arguments or express ideas, and we have visual rhetoric, which deals with the way images do so. I suggest procedural rhetoric as a way to describe the use of systems and models to make arguments. Videogames (and software in general) are media that are built largely out of processes, and so we can use this framework to design or evaluate how games make arguments.

Of course, the commercial games industry hasn't been very interested in making arguments with games, in taking strong positions on topics of any sort, let alone controversial ones like politics. We have begun to see some efforts to push harder at this boundary COD:MW2 is one example, but so are Deus Ex, Homefront, Farcry 2, Bioshock. I'm glad to see this progress, but of course I'd like to see more. In particular, we only seem to get the very faintest sense of an argument or position in these games. It's almost like it's just there for the publicity, but not too much publicity, because that might turn some players off.

In fact, that's the usual explanation for why we don't have AAA games with strong positions. They're expensive to make and the publishers are said to be conservative. It's true, of course. I was recently talking to some of the team responsible for securing the publishing deal for Bioshock, and they told me that even they had trouble, and that's for a game that's really just another sci-fi shooter with a very thin layer of contra-Ayn Rand dystopianism wrapped in gorgeous art deco environments.

But to believe that "the market" is the reason we don't see more of these games doesn't tell the full story. The truth is, the AAA game industry doesn't really have much to say about politics or social issues. Not only is traditional sci-fi and fantasy entertainment in books and movies far more political than the average game, even children's animated films are more political than the average game. I mean, there's more political commentary in Wall-E than in the last decade of AAA games. I'm generalizing, but game developers and executives are technolibertarians rather than artists. For them, what's good for the world is what people vote for with their wallets. And once we get enough of that position fed to us over and over again, it's no wonder that AAA shooters risk becoming just the empty power fantasies they are sometimes accused of being.



Skinner Boxes
by Catiline

I have long described both MMO gaming and Facebook social games as being a "well-padded Skinner box" for their staggered/random reward system. Do you see any possibility for anything else to eventually replace this model?

IB: I don't know. Certainly the gold rush associated with a very bare version of these mechanics isn't helping. If anything, the Skinner boxes seem to be finding their way into other genres. I haven't played Diablo III yet, but someone who tried the beta opined that it's "Farmville for hardcore gamers." Then again, I suppose we might have said the same thing about World of Warcraft half a decade ago. These features have always been in games, but there's no question that we've begun refining them in the way one refines oil, making them more pure and useful to drive the engines of commerce rather than experience.

We can't just will ourselves out of this situation. It's not simply a matter of developing a new design philosophy that will replace the old one through pure unfettered rationalism. Since the games industry responds only to economic incentives, perhaps what we need is an implosion. Just as the housing bubble was burst by the revelation of inviable lending and the related artifice of constantly-inflating property values, so perhaps something similar needs to happen to the behaviorist bubble. It may already be starting, thanks to the apparently disappointing performance of Zynga's IPO. Still, it's worth remembering that the founders and executives of today's big tech companies have been enjoying the privilege of making liquid parts of their equity on secondary markets, so the tech investment community may not have the same deterrent to bubblethink that the market in general does.

In any case, this trend should remind us that the whole media ecosystem has been built on this promise of high-leverage value derived from the aggregated behaviors of a very large base of patrons who are actually the product of these services rather than their customers. Google and Facebook are the obvious examples, but Zynga derives all of its revenue from 2.2% of its players. The remainder are there as viral marketing infrastructure. Is it even possible to opt out of this situation? Not if you also want to live productively in contemporary society.



Interesting Mechanics?
by spektre1

Hi Ian! Can you comment about game mechanics that you wish designers explored in more depth?

IB: Certainly I have my own tastes. I've said a bit about them here, such as my interest in games that offer political opinion or commentary. And I tend to prefer "systemy" games to narrative games. But at some point, all of that is just a matter of taste. And as the aphorism goes, there's no accounting for taste.

So instead of specific mechanics or styles or genres, what I'd most like to see is more earnestness and more personality in games. I'd like to see more of the creators expressed in the works, not because I want to "receive" the "messages" they are sending, but so that I can feel like the work is not being stamped out by a machine in a factory. Part of that process would have to include more conversation about and framing of games. If you compare games to other forms of creativity, there's just far less deliberate, public discussion of games than there is of painting or novels or films or even sports. Filmmakers go on talk shows, novelists give interviews in magazines. What do game makers do? They send their lowest-common-denominator PR agencies out to put words in the mouths of the enthusiast press.

I'm often more engaged by games with styles I don't particularly like, for example the games of That Game Company or Tale of Tales, because those creators make an effort to frame and personalize the work, to give players a sense of how they might approach them, an invitation to care about the logic of their weird, tiny world. There was a time when Activision shipped their videogames with photos and notes from their creators. True, that was a time when the equivalent of "AAA" games were created by individuals, but the point stands. Indie games have a greater capacity for this sort of thing, thanks to their smaller and more compact teams, but that doesn't make independent games automatically more inviting than AAA games, either (a lot of indie games are starting get that stamped out in the factory feel, too). In the AAA scene, I think Naughty Dog, Valve, PopCap, and Blizzard offer examples of culturing a style and a design sensibility.



Persuasive game elements
by Anonymous Coward

My question revolves around trends in the "gamification" of tasks as used by government, corporations and others. I am curious what you feel about the persuasive elements that may or may not be used in these endeavors. I've noticed this holiday season to some sites seem to have attempted to use some gaming elements in very persuasive ways. I haven't really looked to closely into government sites lately, but I'm sure governments around the world are already starting to adopt them. Understanding the power of this is kind of disturbing, particularly when you see how governments, etc. can abuse this. So my question is what, if any recommendations would you give to social activists looking to develop counter-gaming or ways to identify and inform others about these elements? Given the subtle nature of some of these elements, how difficult a task is it to identify these elements in games?

IB: I've been a pretty vocal critic of gamification, which I think is bullshit, and which I've suggested we reframe as exploitationware. In both of those articles about the trend, I point out that the thing governments and corporations and other organizations like best about gamification is its facility, how rapidly and undisruptively it can be integrated into their current practices. Whereas, when I write about persuasive games and procedural rhetoric and the like, I'm interested in the idea that games might be particularly useful frames for complex issues, precisely because good games make complexity and ambiguity and trade-offs central, embracing them rather than rejecting them. Systems rather than soundbites.

The problem is, most governments and even most social activists don't really want to concede that point—that hard problems are hard, that simple answers are usually wrong, and that solutions are less likely than messy, stochastic progress. Instead, they are more concerned with reproducing the conditions of their own existence. For example, I've written before about the White House's "Apps for Healthy Kids" contest. On first blush, this effort looks like an earnest attempt to create games and software about an issue of great concern and great complexity—health and nutrition. But the results are trite and meaningless, just more bad kids software about choosing the carrot instead of the candy bar. They contain no admission of the entrenched, intractable issues at the heart of healthy eating, like food subsidies, industrial farming, population growth and density, socioeconomics, and so forth. And that's because the White House didn't really launch the contest to solve anything. They launched it to make themselves appear contemporary, engaged with the current "app economy," able to make websites with big form fields.

So, the most important lesson for governments or activists or anyone else is that the subtlety is very rarely there, in fact. So either we have to show the reasons why explanations are insufficient and not just "earnest attempts" at a reasonable solution, or we have to create the subtlety in our own media, be they games or books or blog posts. We have to do that in the games themselves, but also in relation to the medium of games, which we ought to position as a medium against simplicity in the first place.



Places where 'gamification' is good?
by oneiros27

At the closing plenary for the 2011 IA Summit, Cennydd Bowles called out the whole 'UX' (User Experience) community as a whole, in that the role that most of them play is in trying to get people to spend more time on websites and buy more stuff, rather than doing stuff that really improves the world. You've taken a similar stance on 'gamification', but there's at least two groups (Zooniverse [zooniverse.org] and FoldIt [fold.it]) using it for good as they're helping to advance science. Can you think of any other situations where we could use video games to improve the world at a grand scale, and not just simple 'edutainment'?

IB: Sometimes general explanations are helpful, and other times more specific ones are required. So despite everything I just said about the games as windows into complex systems, there are other ways to think about the usefulness of games. In my most recent book, How to Do Things with Videogames , I try to make this case, showing a couple dozen or so different applications of games, from art to tools.

Zooniverse and FoldIt are what you might call "games for work." They are games deployed in the pursuit of specific outcomes in the case of both of those titles, the outcomes are identification and analysis in very large scientific data sets, for which automated (computational) analysis is unlikely to be successful. Some people have used the name "human computation" to describe this process, and Louis von Ahn at Carnegie Mellon is probably the best known proponent of it. Others use the term "playbor," and they usually mean it derogatorily.

That mind, here's a question: does human computation in games really improve the world? I know what you're thinking: how could scientific progress not be good? Well, projects like FoldIt and Zooniverse are also massive distributed outsourcing efforts, offering free labor to the research establishment. Sure, you could make a utilitarian argument for why such work is progressive and not exploitative. And it may seem reactionary and dystopian even to intimate that collaborative work might lead to a nightmarish prison state in which tiny doses of satisfaction replace both gainful employment and crafted distraction. Or it may not.

This leads me to my answer, which may disappoint: the world gets improved in fits and starts, in small ways more than in large ones, and thanks to the unseen, unthought infrastructures that undergird it more than the civic or scientific or artistic victories we celebrate in the streets or in the theaters.



Start with a 'Facebook' game or a regular website?
by Anonymous Coward

I lead an enthusiastic clan of RuneScape players, and they tend to have a pretty broad interest in gaming and game development. As the lead programmer/IT guy for the clan, I'm frequently asked about programming and how to go about doing it.

I'm considering setting up a fairly basic Mafia wars type of game for them to expand and update, coded in python/html5 and running on google app engine for simplicity's sake. Python has a huge amount of self learning resources out there, and putting a python project on GAE is my go-to method for getting a project up and running quickly.

Should I encourage them to move into building a Facebook app, or should I encourage them to keep it a standalone website?

On the one hand Facebook gives better potential for expanding their user base, but on the other there's the 30% fee for using Facebook credits and their horrible API documentation. While I want to keep things as straightforward as possible for them, I would like to see their game accumulate a decent number of players so they can show it off.

IB: A pragmatic question! For those of you who haven't developed on the Facebook platform, let me tell you: it is a fucking train wreck. Badly documented (really, the worst documentation I can imagine), works in fits and starts, infrastructure changes constantly, updates roll out weekly, features constantly deprecated and removed, support non-existent, opaque bug and issue reporting. It's a nightmare. It's the Great War of software development, with tangled barbed wire and constant cross fire.

But, in exchange for tolerating that terror, you get access to some 800 million people and the promise that the small fraction of those you can reach will bring their friends. The 30% take for Facebook Credits is a lot compared to a credit card transaction fee, but the entire system is automated and works without any need for special merchant accounts or fears of PayPal retribution. Facebook is a piece of infrastructure, and the benefits it offers as infrastructure are undeniable even if the platform's viral free-for-all days are over.

Which to choose? It sounds to me like you can get your project working without Facebook, and then consider strapping in the social and payment features as you need them. That makes you less reliant on the platform, but also allows you to explore its benefits for your situation, if indeed there are any. In any case, I think being reliant on Facebook is a terrible situation for anybody to be in, whether they are a large company or independent creator.



Tabletop Gaming?
by Anonymous Coward

Is there a bridge between tabletop gaming and video gaming?

I design tabletop games and RPGs, and sometimes when I'm designing something I realize it would all work better as a video game. Do you feel the same way sometimes when you're designing real time games to want to make them turn based or tabletop games? Is there a link between the two industries in a professional way? Can workers from either industry cross over?

IB: There are a few different ways to think about videogames. One situates them in the long history of games, from folk games through wargames through tabletop games on to videogames, and to find similarities in design, use, and application. Another places them in the history of computing, asking how videogames relate to other kinds of software and hardware media for productivity and expression. Another compares them to creative media like literature, film, art, theater, opera, puppetry, and so forth, finding opportunities for adaptation across material form, or obstacles to such adaptation. Another asks how videogames participate in cultural traditions of play, like festival, conflict, sport, and ritual. These are just some of the possible vantage points from which one could seek to understand or design games. And of course, they are not mutually exclusive.

There is a fairly strong tradition of inspiration between tabletop games and computer games. The relationship between Dungeons & Dragons and certain genres of videogames, especially adventure, RPG, and MMOs is well-known. But tabletop wargames (like those published by SPI and Avalon Hill) also inspired many computer game designers, as did the type of strategy games sometimes called German-style board games. Games like Carcassonne and Puerto Rico used to be unheard of among the general public, but thanks to the success of Settlers of Catan, thoughtful tabletop games are becoming increasingly popular, even in this age of computerization.

All of which is just to say that there are a number of successful game designers who take the tabletop-to-computer spectrum as their primary creative axis. Rainer Knizia has created many successful tabletop games as well as videogames (many of which were adaptations of his board game designs). Designers like Greg Costikyan, Brenda Brathwaite, Eric Zimmerman, Nick Fortugno, and Frank Lantz are also frequent players and designers of other types of games — not just tabletop but in some cases large-scale "big games" played in urban spaces, and installation games played in museums or galleries. And many other developers in the videogame industry also play and make non-digital games in their spare time.

There's also a technique called paper prototyping advocated by designers like Raph Koster and Stone Librande, which draws a strong material connection between tabletop and computer game design. Designer and USC professor Tracy Fullerton's book Game Design Workshop is based on this method, and a game design workshop is held every year at the Game Developers Conference that uses non-digital materials exclusively. So, in short, there is a lot of cross-over, even if that crossover isn't always expressed through published tabletop games.



What do you think of James Franco?
Anonymous Coward

I understand you may be working on some sort of joint project with him in the academic world. Is he the rockstar that he appears to be?

IB: Perhaps one day I will be fortunate enough to have James Franco nap in my classes. Until then, I'll have to be satisfied to click on his likeness in the post-cowpocalypse version of Cow Clicker.



Re:Yo, Ian!
by Hatta

I actually read your book Racing the Beam. Fantastic book. The only thing I really want to know is when we can expect the NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis to get the same treatment.

IB: Thanks for reading! For those who haven't yet, Racing the Beam is a book I wrote with Nick Montfort about the ways the hardware design of the Atari Video Computer System (VCS, aka the Atari 2600) influenced game design. The book was the first in a series Nick and I edit called Platform Studies [http://platformstudies.com]. Books in the series discuss the relationship between the hardware and software design of computer platforms and the creative works produced on those systems. These books are meant to be technically detailed but in an explanatory and accessible way, one that doesn't require any particular background to read.

We have a number of new books lined up in the series. Two books will be published this spring: Codename Revolution: The Nintendo Wii Platform by Steven E. Jones and George K. Thiruvathukal, and The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga, by Jimmy Maher. Other books at various stages of progress do include the NES, SNES, Flash, and a number of other more esoteric platforms. We're actively looking for more books and authors, so if any readers here have projects that match our vision for the series, please get in touch. Keep in mind that we're interested in computer platforms of all kinds, not just videogame systems.

silentbrad writes "Online passes are a recent staple in staving off used sales. Limiting what used buyers can access is a protective measure for publishers, much to the chagrin of parts of the gaming community. Chris Kohler of Wired argues that the death of used games is inevitable, and passes are the first step toward something exactly like a native anti-used game something integrated into consoles. He notes, of course, that digital is the future of buying games, but in the meantime we may be looking at 'an interim period in which the disc as a delivery method is still around but ... becomes more like a PC game, which are sold with one-time-use keys that grant one owner a license to play the game on his machine.' Also at Kotaku, the source for the Wired article (which is the source for the IGN article)."

SharkLaser writes "A video game developer working for Kuma Reality Games has admitted that the company has been receiving money from the CIA to design and freely distribute special movies and games with the aim of manipulating public opinion in the Middle East. Amir Mizra Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine, moved to work for Kuma after working for DARPA and has said the goal of the company was to convince people that whatever the U.S. does in other countries is a good measure. Kuma officials have declined to comment, while Hekmati himself is locked in Iran. The United States government has demanded the release of Hekmati, but Iran has sentenced him to death for spying, which he confessed to."

First time accepted submitter Narnie writes "Follow up to Tuesday's story of a PR rep's lack of professionalism. Kyle Orland provides a follow up interview with Paul Christoforo after a simple email chain escalated into internet infamy. N-Control official response to Paul Chrostoforo's actions can be found here. Kotaku.com even has a whole section devoted to covering the entire ordeal. I for one found myself caught following the news releases and in awe of the combined load forced on penny-arcade's servers from Slashdot, Reddit, Digg, Kotaku, and other news sites covering the story."

mayberry42 writes "Finally, the wait is over — for European fans, anyway. After months (well, over a year) of delays, the latest adventure of Link is finally out. Reviews for the game are consistently favorable. Famitsu magazine has given it a perfect score. IGN says it's 'the greatest Zelda game ever created,' and even the best game for the Wii. Of course, some of you may have already known this, given that it has already been hacked to run on an emulator (and yes, it looks even better in HD). I would love to hear the opinions of you Europeans who've played it. Is it as good as they say?" (Skyward Sword doesn't come out in the U.S. until Sunday, and not until next week for Japan and Australia.) While still complimentary, Giant Bomb's review goes into a bit more depth on the game's shortcomings.

SharkLaser writes "Minecraft, the most widely known and best selling indie game in the history, is now finished. Minecraft creator Notch tweeted yesterday that Minecraft has gone gold and will be released at the end of the week at the first Minecon, a gathering of Minecraft fans. So far over 4 million people have bought the game, generating over 50 million dollars in revenue. Minecraft has also had a rapid modding community around the game, developing gems like the Millenaire mod, Builders and Tornadoes. Minecraft also brought back the interest in voxel based engines, introducing games like Ace of Spades (build, make tunnels, capture the flag FPS) and Voxatron [note: you might want to turn down your volume for this video]. It also opened up many ways for new indie developers, as Minecraft showed development can be funded solely by making something new and giving out early access to the game for those who are interested in the project. The upcoming Steam-like IndieCity-platform will also employ similar feature where, in addition to normal indie game store, players can look at unfinished projects and choose to support their development."

Game development studio Cyanide launched their real-time strategy interpretation of George R. R. Martin's acclaimed fantasy series A Game of Thrones yesterday. You can see a trailer and a few screenshots if you're so inclined. Cyanide also confirmed one of their other offices is working on a completely different RPG based on the series as well. It's still a ways out, but they say it will be "Mass Effect-style," and will pick up at the start of the first book. "True to the style of Martin's books, it will tell the story of two different characters, switching back and forth between them as their tales move alongside the events of the first book (and occasionally intersect with one another). None of the characters from the book will be playable, though the game's protagonists will cross paths with plenty of familiar faces over the course of the game."

An anonymous reader sends word that Apple has removed from the App Store a game called Phone Story, which walks players through the creation of a smartphone, highlighting many of the negative aspects. There are four brief stages: running a mining facility in the Congo, saving suicidal factory workers, handing out phones to oblivious consumers, and generating e-waste through planned obsolescence. Apple said Phone Story violated sections 15.2, 16.1, 21.1, and 21.2 of the App Store guidelines, which make reference to "objectionable or crude content" and "offensive or mean-spirited commentary." A short video of the game has been posted at Kotaku.

Electronic Arts used their E3 press conference to show off a number of upcoming games and provide release dates for a few of them. BioWare's Mass Effect 3 is due out March 6th, 2012, at which time Commander Shepherd will return to defend earth from the Reapers. Battlefield 3 is closer to launch, currently planned for October 26th, with a beta in September. Some new video clips of the game are available. Star Wars: The Old Republic got impressive new trailers, but not many hard details (though they did talk about raiding not long ago). Gamespot's liveblog of the event has more information about the various presentations, including snippets on Need for Speed: The Run, FIFA 12, The Sims Social for Facebook, and Curt Shilling's Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which is planned for next year.

Today Microsoft held their E3 press conference, announcing a number of major new games and services for the Xbox 360 platform. Halo 4 was briefly revealed, and is currently planned for a holiday 2012 launch. In addition, the original Halo is getting an HD remake. Smash indie hit Minecraft will be coming to the 360 this winter, with support for Kinect. In fact, there is a huge push from many game-makers to bring Kinect integration to the next level — from a new Fable game where you can use your hands to cast spells, to EA Sports titles, to Kinect Star Wars. Topping it off is an update to Xbox Live which will bring live TV to the console (including DVR functions), controllable by voice through Kinect. YouTube and voice search through Bing are coming as well. The update is planned for this fall. Those interested can catch a video of the press conference, which includes all the relevant game trailers, at G4TV.

Today Microsoft held their E3 press conference, announcing a number of major new games and services for the Xbox 360 platform. Halo 4 was briefly revealed, and is currently planned for a holiday 2012 launch. In addition, the original Halo is getting an HD remake. Smash indie hit Minecraft will be coming to the 360 this winter, with support for Kinect. In fact, there is a huge push from many game-makers to bring Kinect integration to the next level — from a new Fable game where you can use your hands to cast spells, to EA Sports titles, to Kinect Star Wars. Topping it off is an update to Xbox Live which will bring live TV to the console (including DVR functions), controllable by voice through Kinect. YouTube and voice search through Bing are coming as well. The update is planned for this fall. Those interested can catch a video of the press conference, which includes all the relevant game trailers, at G4TV.

fysdt writes "Details on the next Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 3, have not simply leaked onto the internet; they have flooded. Among other details, a November 8 release date was mentioned. According to a report coming from Kotaku, what was just a month ago among the best kept secrets of the gaming industry — information on the next Call of Duty game — has now become anything but."

eldavojohn writes "It's no secret that Final Fantasy XIV took a lot of heat early on, which required extensive damage control. And the Japanese tsunami (which appears to have added $7.5 million to their losses) certainly didn't help. But if what early investor reports are saying is true, then Square Enix is expected to report $148 million in losses for the closing fiscal year. Expect title cancellations (which might add to the hurt) and a very painful realization for the owner of Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior (PDF). Perhaps a move to re-releasing classics will prove more fruitful than high development cost MMORPGs?"

Several readers have noted that outages on Sony's PlayStation Network have prevented online play for the past few days. The company has now blamed an 'external intrusion' for the trouble, saying they took down the network to "conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward." Some suspect an attack by Anonymous, who declared war on Sony earlier this month, but Anonymous has disavowed knowledge of such an attack. Meanwhile, others are asking whether Sony should compensate users for the inability to play PS3 multiplayer modes, and even single-player modes on a few downloadable games.

Several readers have noted that outages on Sony's PlayStation Network have prevented online play for the past few days. The company has now blamed an 'external intrusion' for the trouble, saying they took down the network to "conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward." Some suspect an attack by Anonymous, who declared war on Sony earlier this month, but Anonymous has disavowed knowledge of such an attack. Meanwhile, others are asking whether Sony should compensate users for the inability to play PS3 multiplayer modes, and even single-player modes on a few downloadable games.

itwbennett writes "Sony on Wednesday confirmed rumors that it is ending production of the PSPGo, the 'slider' version of their handheld gaming system that was introduced back in 2009. Meanwhile, Kotaku posted an article saying that Microsoft and Sony probably won't be launching their next generation consoles until 2014. Whether the Kotaku prognostications are true or not, 'it's fun to think about what a console will have inside it in 3 years,' writes blogger Peter Smith. 'Will it support physical media? Probably. That seems too early for a pure digital delivery system. But I bet they'll have either terabyte hard drives or some kind of cloud storage for digital media.'"

itwbennett writes "Sony on Wednesday confirmed rumors that it is ending production of the PSPGo, the 'slider' version of their handheld gaming system that was introduced back in 2009. Meanwhile, Kotaku posted an article saying that Microsoft and Sony probably won't be launching their next generation consoles until 2014. Whether the Kotaku prognostications are true or not, 'it's fun to think about what a console will have inside it in 3 years,' writes blogger Peter Smith. 'Will it support physical media? Probably. That seems too early for a pure digital delivery system. But I bet they'll have either terabyte hard drives or some kind of cloud storage for digital media.'"

A speculative piece at Kotaku looks at the release cycle of Nintendo games over the past 10 years, pointing out a current lull that's quite similar to the one near the launch of the Gamecube. They suggest this could be because first-party developers are busily working on games for the Wii 2. Quoting: "The spring of 2002 was the longest Nintendo game drought on record, and has a number of characteristics in common with the season we're entering now. Nintendo has launched a major piece of technology (the 3DS) and is initiating the gradual retirement of a console with a large and reliable installed base. While we entered into this data mining project with the presumption that we could recognize a pattern that presaged a new console release—the Wii 2, obviously—the last time there was a Nintendo game drought this pronounced was after the release of the Gamecube. Still, you can neatly overlay the release history of the Gamecube overtop the current release history of the Wii—they match that closely."

A gameplay trailer has been released for Batman: Arkham City, the upcoming sequel to 2009's Arkham Asylum. The game is due out this October, and according to a preview at Eurogamer, the game's developer, Rocksteady Studios, is taking seriously "its role as the Dark Knight's caretaker." Another trailer comes from Bethesda, this time a non-gameplay teaser of Prey 2, after the game's existence was officially confirmed. Kotaku reports that the game will have some significant differences from its predecessor, but details are vague and the game won't be released until 2012 — not unlike Prototype 2, for which there is also a new trailer.

RogueyWon writes "Kotaku is reporting that a Dragon Age II gamer banned from BioWare's forums for an allegedly inflammatory post has been locked out of the (singleplayer only) game for the duration of the ban. This is a consequence of EA's backend systems, which link forum accounts to the accounts that players use to access their games. This would appear to be a worrying new development; while trolling forums has led to bans from massively multiplayer games in the past (arguably with some justification), the extension of the principle to singleplayer games, where an abusive player cannot affect the enjoyment of others, must surely be a step too far."

itwbennett writes "Sony may be planning to have three platforms (Android devices, NGP, PS3) running PlayStation Suite content and needing access to the same saved data stored in the cloud, says blogger Peter Smith. At last week's PlayStation Meeting, game developer Hideo Kojima said his 'dream' was to offer the same game on the PS3 and the new PlayStation Portable with saves in the cloud. If Kotaku has it right, that dream may be coming in firmware version 3.6. Also, in an interview with Engadget, Sony's Jack Tretton first said that PlayStation Suite games would work on the PS3. He then retracted that comment, but it's sounding a lot like Sony just isn't ready to talk officially about plans to bring Suite content to the PS3, says Smith."

An anonymous reader writes "The PlayStation 3 'root key' used for code signing has been found by GeoHot. This enables running homebrew without the need for psjailbreak-style USB-devices, and also provides hope for those at firmware version 3.55 that currently cannot be downgraded. The key also cannot be changed without hardware modifications. Oops."

After Final Fantasy XIV's troubled launch and subsequent attempt to placate angry fans, Square Enix has decided that the game's leadership needs to be replaced. They've asked players to patiently stick around until they're ready to unveil their new plans for the game, extending the free trial period to compensate. Square also announced bad news for PS3 owners who were still somehow interested in the game: "Regarding the PlayStation 3, it is not our wish to release a simple conversion of the Windows version in its current state, but rather an update that includes all the improvements we have planned. For that reason, we have made the difficult decision to delay the release of the PlayStation 3 version beyond the originally announced date of March 2011."

An anonymous reader writes "As discussed on Slashdot earlier this year, the lack of a next-generation Wii may be hurting Nintendo. That doesn't seem to concern the company's US chief, Reggie Fils-Aime, who said this week that a Wii 2 might not appear until 2012. He wants to sell a few million more consoles before a successor is launched. So, no Wii 2 for 2010 or 2011 — meanwhile, the PS3 and Xbox consoles get motion control support and other content enhancements. What does that mean for the success of Nintendo's gaming console business? Has the innovator been out-innovated due to a sluggish product roadmap?"

donniebaseball23 writes "In a move that will instantly conjure up memories of the infamous 3DO failure, Panasonic has once again decided to throw its hat into the gaming ring, unveiling an online-focused handheld called the Jungle. It features a high-resolution display, a D-pad, a touch pad, and a full mini-keyboard in addition to standard gaming shoulder buttons. Wireless support is a given, as Panasonic is talking heavily about the console's online features, but whether that's Wi-Fi or 3G remains unclear. M2 Research analyst Billy Pidgeon said, 'The Jungle is a highly specialized dedicated portable for a non-existent market. This is an unprecedented hardware strategy, and probably for good reason. If MMO players want to go more portable than a laptop, I guess this would be the way to go. Frankly, this looks like a non-starter.'" An anonymous reader notes comments from NetDevil's Ryan Seabury, who thinks the decision to have the device run Linux is a mistake.

glenkim writes "Kotaku has posted their liveblog of the QuakeCon 2010 keynote, with some big announcements by game developer and Slashdot regular John Carmack. Highlights include a video of the id Tech 5 engine (aka Rage) running on the iPhone 4G at 60fps, with claims that it also runs on the iPhone 3GS. Carmack noted that performance on the iPhone was able to 'kill anything done on the Xbox or PlayStation 2.' He also announced the source code release of two games, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Also, Carmack finally admitted that Doom 3 was too dark!"

glenkim writes "Kotaku has posted their liveblog of the QuakeCon 2010 keynote, with some big announcements by game developer and Slashdot regular John Carmack. Highlights include a video of the id Tech 5 engine (aka Rage) running on the iPhone 4G at 60fps, with claims that it also runs on the iPhone 3GS. Carmack noted that performance on the iPhone was able to 'kill anything done on the Xbox or PlayStation 2.' He also announced the source code release of two games, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Also, Carmack finally admitted that Doom 3 was too dark!"

sfraggle writes "Kotaku has an interesting review of Doom (the original!) by Stephen Totilo, a gamer and FPS player who, until a few days ago, had gone through the game's 17-year history without playing it. He describes some of his first impressions, the surprises that he encountered, and how the game compares to modern FPSes. Quoting: 'Virtual shotgun armed, I was finally going to play Doom for real. A second later, I understood the allure the video game weapon has had. In Doom the shotgun feels mighty, at least partially I believe because they make first-timers like me wait for it. The creators make us sweat until we have it in hand. But once we have the shotgun, its big shots and its slow, fetishized reload are the floored-accelerator-pedal stuff of macho fantasy. The shotgun is, in all senses, instant puberty, which is to say, delicately, that to obtain it is to have the assumed added potency that a boy believes a man possesses vis a vis a world on which he'd like to have some impact. The shotgun is the punch in the face the once-scrawny boy on the beach gives the bully when he returns a muscled linebacker.'"

Wes found a preview of one of the most anticipated upcoming releases by the inhabitants of my office: Civ V. It starts "This preview of Civilization V is incomplete. It takes more than nine Earth hours, you see, for the great Arabian empire — land of Mecca, Rio De Janeiro and Beijing — to assume dominance of the globe."

Today BioWare announced a sequel to Dragon Age: Origins, titled Dragon Age 2. They've opened an official site for the game, which shares some vague details and concept art, and promises a trailer in mid-August. The story will apparently span an entire decade and involve a new hero, but it will be located in the same world as the original game. The site says there will be "dynamic new combat mechanics," though the same three basic classes will be available. More information should be forthcoming in this month's issue of Game Informer.

Nintendo gave a keynote presentation at E3 today, showing off a wealth of upcoming titles for the Wii, the DS, and the 3DS. Shigeru Miyamoto started things off by demonstrating Legend of Zelda: The Skyward Sword for the Wii, due out next year. While playing it, you hold the Wii Remote and Nunchuck like a sword and shield, and swing naturally at enemies. There's also a bow and arrow, a whip, and a flying bug you can control to go drop bombs on enemies. Nintendo also briefly showed an NBA Jam game, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, and a new set of party games that uses the Wii Remote in unusual ways — for example, multiple players balancing it to disarm a bomb, or seeing which player can be the first to pick up the right controller from the table. Continuing on, they revealed GoldenEye 007, a long-awaited successor to the popular N64 game, due out this holiday season. It will feature split screen play, online multiplayer, and several different game modes. Next, Disney came out with a presentation on their upcoming Epic Mickey game. In it, Mickey can interact with the world using paint and paint-thinner, effectively adding onto or removing objects and characters. In addition to the 3D environment, there is also a part of the game that exists as a sidescrolling platformer, with levels based on classic cartoons. Read on for more about Metroid, Kid Icarus, Metal Gear Solid, and the 3DS.

A major theme for Nintendo's presentation was the arrival of classic franchises on new systems. This includes a new Kirby game for the Wii, entitled Kirby's Epic Yarn. It's a sidescrolling platformer with a new art style based on a yarn theme, and it's due out this fall. In sharp contrast to Kirby's cartoony graphics was Nintendo's next presentation on Metroid: Other M, which had visuals in the same vein as other popular shooters, showing Samus fighting her way through intricate 3D stages to fight some nasty-looking alien monsters. Other M was given a release date of August 31. Just in case that wasn't enough nostalgia for you, they next showed a new project from Retro Studios: Donkey Kong Country Returns. It's (another) platformer, but with its own unique style and feel, and it's planned for the holiday season.

From there, Nintendo shifted its focus to the upcoming revision to their portable console, the 3DS. Since it's impossible to show the 3D effect on stage, they contented themselves with showing off software and features, but they also brought a massive amount of test consoles, so you can expect to see hands-on reports coming out in a day or two. The 3DS has a slightly larger screen on top — 3.5" instead of 3" — and the bottom screen is a touchscreen. There's an analog nub, an internal gyro-sensor, and a 3D slider, which will control the level of depth you see on screen. You can turn it to maximum, turn it off, or anywhere moderate level of depth in between. There are two camera lenses on the back, which will allow you to take photos in 3D. In addition to the 3D effect, they've also made more standard improvements to the graphics hardware, which has apparently impressed some of the developers working on games for the 3DS. They also briefly touched on the 3DS's communications capabilities. Apparently it will silently look for updates, new maps, ghost data, rankings, and more regardless of what game you're playing, communicating over Wi-Fi or through connections with other nearby consoles.

Headlining the software side of the 3DS was the announcement of Kid Icarus: Uprising, another return to a very popular franchise of old. Granted, it's tough to judge a game by its trailer, but the graphics looked extremely good for a portable system. Nintendo said that in addition to games, the 3DS would play 3D movies as well, though details are sparse as to what will be available and how. But their real concern was the perception that the system would have too few games to interest customers, so they went out of their way to list a bunch of developers and game projects that are targeting the new system. The list is really, really impressive: Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil, Assassin's Creed, Metal Gear Solid, DJ Hero, Saint's Row, Madden, FIFA Soccer, Nintendogs + Cats, Ridge Racer, Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Mario Kart, Star Fox, and more.