The g-news (I lay copyright claim on that, by the way, but pronounce it gnews, with a silent G, so you don’t nerd out your coworkers) summarized in five paragraphs:
Schild of f13 caught wind of some Wall Street presentation by Castle Blizzard warning of discussing their plans to create MMOGs from all their franchises: “All Blizzard franchises will become MMOGs.” (f13 link reblogged around the world) No other details are immediately available like, oh … where on Wall Street this was or to whom was it directed — I spent five minutes of fruitless googling, that seems plenty. Hey. f13 redesigned their site. Looks good.
Penny Arcade, the comic lifestyle, has inked some sort of deal with the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) for a public service ad campaign targeted at gamers. From GameDaily BIZ, the purpose of the campaign is to “… inform the gaming population why the video game rating system is important to them.” (GDBiz link) Is it? I don’t really think it is. It’s important to me the citizen, it’s important to parents certainly, but me the gamer, it’s only important so far as I avoid the “E – Everyone” games, like I avoid the “G – General Audiences” movies. Y’might think this is exactly why I need to be educated about the benefits of the ESRB, but I think it’s just a “W – Waste of Money”.
That combat revamp many months ago in Star Wars: Galaxies just might go down in history as the worst business decision ever in gaming — and I am hopeful because I like to witness history in the making, like I enjoyed being part of the Anarchy Online launch. Unlike the typical major retool where players become resigned to their new fates and move on with their lives (usually elsewhere), there’s a solid core of old school SWGers committed to resurrecting the pre-CU/NGE SWG world. (ShardWire SWGEmu link: The First Step into a Larger World) Sony, there’s opportunity knocking. Also, a SWG-classic-ruleset server would eliminate future emails in my inbox from the old SWG gang about getting the pvp guild back together for some wtfpwnage and I would very much appreciate that. Thanks.
The Wall Street Journal, the spam of American offices everywhere, published an article last Friday about gamers that meet in game and get married in real life. GOD NO! When did this start happening?!? (Uhh, back in Ultima Online … seven years ago.) You know all that. What caught my eye were some stats they quoted, courtesy of Nick Yee, game industry voyeur of Stanford University: 29% of women players and 8% of men said they had gone on to date someone they met in a game. Edge Online and We Make Money Not Art chased down this additional stat from Yee’s website: 80% of females and 60% of males have engaged in a little light flirtation [in game]. Holy gender gap. Age? Lying? We’ve got some real playahs in MMOs who are too busy working the shemales to log out and complete a survey?
Lastly, no patch this week in World of Warcraft. Still. It’s like watching a glacier carve a new landscape — which makes me think I’ll be buying that Starcraft MMO for my grandkids, and I haven’t even started yet.
