Tonight, I went googling around the various gaming info sites, trolling for new material … I’ve grown weary of reliving, in technicolor horror, the daily dramas that are my gaming life. Even Diogenes took a day off here and there. Probably.

Anyways, I googled myself right into an article just chock full o’ subscription numbers, break even points and renewal figures. (the horror, the horror) Which normally I would hate — it’s not MY job to worry about MMOGs staying afloat, after all. It’s Their job.

This analysis of MMOG subscriptions is more than just an exercise in mathematics. The author wrote an adequate history of The Bigs, et al, and drew some interesting conclusions about the saturation of the market, competition, blah blah … *snoring noises*

City of Heroes is doing better than I had realized. (why? why??) Shadowbane, no shock here, is not doing well by anyone’s standards. That they have ANY subscribers is the true mystery, but the author doesn’t address that end of it. Probably that part IS my job … well, hobby, since I don’t get a paycheck for this.

Apparently, some gaming think tank (I’m not making that up, there is such a thing) was hired by Anarchy Online’s Funcom to rescue them when they started bleeding subscriptions out of every orifice. Cute name, (which they explain on their site ’cause they’re that geeky), although after I read through their manifesto, I get the sneaking suspicion they should have named their tank “Mephistopheles”.

I don’t even know ANYTHING about these guys, but anyone spending that much time in bed with game developers cannot be good for my gaming enjoyment. I can’t imagine Lucifer’s think tank would ever tell a client “Listen. Your game sucks. This isn’t rocket science. Build a better mousetrap, and the world will come.”

And to think I can make up that shit on the fly. And for free.

Recently, I was skimming through the various other (*cough*lesser*cough*) gaming blogs and ran across this lengthy, but extremely well told gaming scam from Eve Online.

GOD DAMN, this is a good read and is as fine a caper as anything David Mamet has written, but without the annoying stilted dialogue. Better yet, no legal consequences!

I read some comments about how this is a morality play about “the emotional salience of interactions” (I won’t embarass the poor s.o.b. by linking that) . Am I taking crazy pills here? I don’t even think that is anything, and I do know what all those words mean. If that’s the kind of crap they teach in college in the 21st century, the future is dead.

Usually the scammers aren’t very literate, or literate AT ALL, which makes this story all the more appealing — but ultimately, it is just another scam. He makes no apologies; he asks for no forgiveness. And he certainly doesn’t give a clown’s ass about emotional salience.

There’s a sucker born every minute. And two to take him.