Slashdot Mirror

Via the Gamers with Jobs Press Pass, an article on The Australian site claiming that the Dutch gaming addiction clinic is swamped with fearful parents and glaze-eyed children. From the article: "Although experts are still debating whether excessive game playing counts as an addiction, Mr Bakker has no doubt that the symptoms are the same. 'If we see a car burning outside, we don't sit around wondering what to call it,' he said. 'It is not a chemical dependency, but it's got everything of an obsessive-compulsive disorder and all of the other stuff that comes with chemical dependency.' Tim, a 21-year-old from Utrecht, said he had hardly left his bedroom for five years because he was so obsessed by his computer games. "

GamesIndustry.biz has details from a UK government report on energy wasted by consoles in standby mode. The information comes from a larger study by the government on energy wasted by consumer electronic devices, and confirms statistics gather here in the states. From the article: "Last month, a group of bloggers in the United States reported that while the original PlayStation leaked just 0.2W - accounting for some 1.752kWh wasted each year - the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 both leak a massive 2W, or 17.52kWh each year. The energy review proposes a number of measures to minimize energy waste, including working with electronics companies to phase out costly standby routines that drain energy while the device is not in use." The Gamers with Jobs site has some insightful commentary on the issue.

The Gamers With Jobs Press Pass is reporting on a rumour that the code for Hellgate:London has been stolen. 'Reliable sources' indicate that Flagship Studios' servers have been taken down (and hopefully secured) in the wake of the incident. From the article: "My source indicates that the virtual break-in was conducted by a Chinese individual who is currently attempting to sell the code from a personal website. For those of you who don't know, Hellgate: London is the first project by ex-Blizzard developer Bill Roper and his new studio, the game has been at the last two E3's and looks to be shaping up very nicely."

Luke Smith, news editor over at 1up, recently posted a protesting blog entry which openly defied a draconian edict laid down by Square/Enix. The company required news organs to refrain from discussing many aspects of the Valkyrie Profile title, coming out in the U.S. later this year but already available in Japan. Gamers With Jobs has a good synopsis of the situation. From that article: "Is he being a bit overly dramatic on this issue? Perhaps. But it is an interesting illumination of a larger issue, to do with the quality of communication between the industry and games journalists. Smith is certainly not the first to express dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs."

Sony has announced that their first model of Blu-Ray player will release in August, not later this month as originally announced. The BDP-SP1, retailing for $1000, will now ship on or about August 15th. Bad news for fans of the new format, and even worse news for the PS3. Since Sony's lackluster E3 showing, a string of bad news has seemed to conspire against the company's next-gen console. From the Gamers with Jobs article: "With the PS3's high-end model coming it at a whopping $400.00 less than a stand-alone Blu-Ray player, Sony needs to release these players as soon as possible. If they wait too long, the PS3 will begin looming on the horizon, causing even devout early adopters to question the intelligence of buying a stand-alone Blu-Ray unit. Sony also needs the largest possible installed base, come launch-time for the PS3. For the Blu-Ray player to be the PS3's version of the PS2's DVD player, casual technophiles need to be able to see the virtues of the Blu-Ray format. If there are few players, and few titles, this might not happen."

Gamers with Jobs has word that a patch for Oblivion should be expected sometime in the near future. The future official content downloads, at the same time, should be cheaper to obtain. Meanwhile, the game has been burning up the charts, according to Next Generation: "The title has become the fastest-selling Xbox 360 game in North America, and according to The NPD Group, it's currently the best-selling PC game, with the Oblivion Collector's Edition following behind at number 2. NPD also reports that the RPG made up 13 percent of PC game sales during its first week on the market -- more than four times the sales volume of the next best-selling title."

Via a Gamers With Jobs Press Pass post, an interview with Dorian Richard, the Atari external producer for Neverwinter Nights 2. The Game Tycoon piece discusses the relationship between publisher and developer, and touches on some of the challenges of creating a sequel to a title like Neverwinter Nights. From the article: "GT: What are the most common challenges you face when interacting with developers? DR: There's inexperienced developers, and there's experienced developers. Inexperienced developers tend to lack staff with sufficient scheduling and managing experience. They might be good at certain development tasks, but they don't know how to read warning signs and manage people, so they frequently fail to recognize when a big slip is looming. They don't plan for likely emergencies, like a key team member getting sick or having a family emergency."

Press the Buttons has the news that, thankfully, this year's E3 will attempt to return to the 'industry only' event it was always intended to be. From the post: "The first day of the show is only for authorized media (meaning no more paid-by-the-hour GameStop clerks roaming the floor just for fun and taking up a journalist's valuable time in line for the next big thing) and, as Portico points out, there's now a more dignified dress code in place for the 'booth babes'." I'm glad that PAX exists for everyone to attend, just as I'm glad there are events like E3 where game journos can do their thing. Update: 01/23 17:56 GMT by Z : Joystiq posits that these new guidelines may lead to censorship for mature games. Update: 01/23 22:16 GMT by Z : Additional opinions on this are available from Gamers with Jobs and Heroine Sheik. There's an official response to discussion of this decision from the E3 media relations team over at Gamecloud.

Last week we mentioned a Guardian post about secondhand games, with some industry commentary that the secondhand market was lowering the innovation expectations of developers. Today, the Gamers With Jobs: Press Pass reacts to the whining of the poor underpaid developers: "The always candid David Jaffe wrote: 'You know what? Why the **** should we even try anymore?' while Epic's CliffyB noted: 'What other entertainment medium that's mass market is at $60 a pop?' Cliffy would seem to have the right of it. The used market for DVDs, or CDs is relatively small. Why? Presumably because getting a five dollar discount on a fifteen dollar DVD is not as enticing as thirty dollars off of a sixty dollar game; when it's only five bucks, the natural desire to buy something perfect and new will, in most cases, outweigh thriftiness. While I certainly sympathize with Mr. Jaffe's frustration on this matter, his concerns are a result of working for an industry which refuses to intelligently adapt to a changing marketplace."