Video Games

Cyan Worlds has decided to release all of the Myst Online: Uru Live assets to the public as open source, including the client and server architecture.

Cyan will also hold one Myst Online server shard open for players to have a centralized world, while others can now freely put up their own Myst Online servers.

This will be an interesting experiment to see whether a development community forms around this massively multiplayer online game. Unlike many open-source projects that solve developer problems (and therefore have a direct audience), a game casts a broader net to a nondeveloper community.

I also … Read more

If you're in the market for more hyperbole and absurd government news, take a gander at this long-winded transcription of a speech by Federal Communications Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate at the Telecom Policy and Regulation Institute

The speech offers a glimpse into the viewpoints of our governmental policies of helping and fighting technological advancement at the same time.

With the explosion of educational resources available online, one might think parents would be 100% pleased with the internet's role in their children's lives. But surveys show just the opposite: a late 2006 survey that showed 59% of parents … Read more

The buying and selling of virtual goods is an extremely nascent market that seems to be heating up dramatically. Almost daily there are announcements pronouncing large virtual good revenues on the horizon and new forms of payments and rewards for the intrepid user.

Just today social network Hi5 introduced multicultural holiday gifts along with a new payment system. Virtual world Habbo also introduced a new type of currency and reward program for loyal users.

With all of this interest and efforts toward monetization, is this a bubble waiting to burst?

So far, my answer is no.

Virtual goods are part … Read more

EA's Spore topped the list of most pirated video games for 2008, according to TorrentFreak.

Spore suffered from a serious PR problem when Electronic Arts introduced an archaic DRM technology that infuriated thousands of users and led to a piracy tsunami. EA, however, said the downloads didn't hurt Spore sales.

Most people agree that EA's heavy-handed DRM helped to push Spore to the top of the list. The initial outrage (500k downloads in the first 10 days) was obviously curtailed over the next several months, but these download numbers are still quite astounding.

1. Spore (1,700,… Read more

The South Korean government announced that it will invest 350 billion won ($236 million) in the computer game industry through 2012.

Culture, Sports and Tourism Minster Yu In-chon said the emerging game industry had proved to be a future growth engine by accomplishing its initial billion-dollar export goal for the year 2010 two years early.

Sixty projects are slated to help grow the industry, including a $200 million game fund with an end goal of becoming one of the top three countries in gaming, along with the United States and Japan.

I've been in NYC this week freezing to death and suffering with random wi-fi access. I have been running around all day so here's some links just so you know that I still care. My Virgin America flight out here didn't have Wifi. I am hoping to score tomorrow on the way back.

Links of the day 12/3/08:

Should Microsoft buy itself some cool? -- Yes, Microsoft should buy Twitter.

Microsoft's Massive ratchets up in-game ads -- In-game ads are the next big thing until they get annoying (they will)

Shoot to Thrill: Bio-Sensory Reactions to 3D Shooting Games … Read more

I wrote previously about China's attempt to tax virtual goods and currency, and now the BBC reports that Sweden and South Korea have also moved to clarify the tax rules for virtual money.

In April 2008 Sweden's tax office published a clarification to its tax laws which said that in-game transactions are taxable--in theory. I am sure Ben Franklin was referring to Linden dollars when he wrote, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

The taxation subject seems to be more a case of what happens when virtual money … Read more

The PC gaming market is much larger than the console market, and it is growing at a torrid pace, according to new research.

According to a report from Jon Peddie Research, "the total market value for PC gaming hardware in 2008 was just over $20 billion, and that will grow to over $34 billion by 2012--and those systems pull in an additional $6 billion in software and services sales."

Most PCs can play games, but for the serious gamer, the equipment matters. PC gaming hardware includes things like specialized keyboards and mice, as well as sophisticated graphics cards … Read more

When Take-Two Interactive Software's executive chairman envisions future revenue for the video game industry, he sees microtransactions and downloadable content as the "biggest opportunity" and calls subscription revenue the "holy grail."

"The holy grail is taking a business, already a very large and successful business that's focused on packaged goods...and turning that into a subscription business or a semi subscription business where we have an ongoing relationship with consumers, giving them products that they want," Strauss Zelnick said Thursday at a BMO Capital Markets' conference in New York. "Who's … Read more