Stardock Says You Have Rights, PC Gamers

In the boldest, wisest, and frankly coolest collection of axioms I've ever seen a developer lobby in three decades of PC gaming, Galactic Civilizations designer Stardock today released a 'Gamer's Bill of Rights' describing what gamers should expect from developers, publishers, and retailers going forward.

In just 10 succinct points, Stardock simultaneously identifies a lot of what's wrong with the PC games industry while courageously suggesting that:

Gamers shall have the right to return games that don't work with their computers for a full refund.

Me: You know, we used to have this right a decade ago. Remember the era when stores like Babbages and Software Etc. gave you 30 days on opened software with a valid receipt?

Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.

Me: I'd add an important corollary: Game developers have a right to demand that publishers never, ever force them to release a game in an unfinished state.

Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game's release.

Me: I'm assuming Stardock means updates = expansions, and not the sort of optional free content a developer should never feel obliged to offer if the game adheres to point number two. But yeah, if we're going to pay from one-half to two-thirds the cost of the original game for an add-on, it needs to deliver at least commensurately.

Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.

Me: I religiously uninstall third-party download managers the second I've finished pulling down a file or game (exceptions being Stardock's and Valve's).

Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.

Me: This one's a toughie, because "adequately" is still so vague. Adequately for me is Crysis with everything set to "max." Adequately for someone else might be Crysis in a tiny window with everything set to "low." This gets even trickier when you consider how completely anarchic benchmarks are in terms of morphing drivers and elusive one-off optimizations. Unless hardware vendors counterintuitively agreed to develop to an independent performance index, getting a good definition of "adequately" will probably remain the purview of one-size-fits-all consoles.

Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won't install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.

Me: 'Nuff said. Well, and maybe something in there about serious legal threats against anyone who violates this point.

Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.

Me: Another tricky one, because bandwidth costs publishers money, and games aren't getting smaller. If you could convince me that publishers are paying less than pennies on the dollar to maintain download servers, I might bite, but with PC gaming vectoring toward total digital-distribution, I'm conflicted.

Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.

Me: Hear hear. Begone, StarForce and all your misbegotten hasn't-stopped-a-single-pirate-to-date progeny.

Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.

Me: I've been an advocate of this since Valve launched Steam and made this mandatory. Valve eventually wised up and made it optional. So bravo (again) Valve, thank you as well Stardock, and the rest of you need to follow suit, because going online should always and forever remain an option and not a requirement.

Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

Me: Color me ambivalent on this one. But speaking as a laptop gamer, games that don't require discs tend to play (a) much more quietly and (b) generate far less heat. The latter can be crucial if you're utilizing a high-end mobile GPU.

One last "right" I'd like to add...

Gamers shall have the right to expect members of the gaming press to challenge game companies when they violate any of the above principles.

Me: The press is an engine of inquiry, not a press-release patsy. There's supposed to be an element of bias in expert reporting. You wouldn't accept on its face what a politician tells you, and you shouldn't uncritically accept what a game company does as in everyone's best interest. As history shows us, time and again, that's not always the case.

Lawsuit: Show us the Money, or Pull the PlayStation 3

Last Wednesday another no-name company with a suitcase full of patents opted to fling one at Sony in another attempt to cash in on Sony's Blu-ray technology. According to Edge, which obtained the court filing, Orinda Intellectual Properties USA Holding Group (bet you'd never guess what they do) is alleging that Sony violated their patent number 5,438,560, titled "Apparatus and method for recording/reproducing optical information and optical disk-shaped recording medium."

Named as defendants: Sony Corporation, Sony Entertainment Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., and Sony Electronics Inc.

Orinda apparently wants a jury trial, the cessation of PS3 manufacturing and sales, as well as pretty much anything else containing Blu-ray technology. The company also wants royalties.

Of course others have already tried...and failed. In May 2007, Target Technology sued Sony in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana for violating patent 7,018,696, titled "Metal alloys for the reflective or the semi-reflective layer of an optical storage medium."

The result? Dismissed, just a few months later.

What's different this time? The lawsuit was filed with the Texas Eastern District Court, which earlier this year denied Nintendo's appeal to scuttle a $21 million patent-infringement verdict favoring Anascape Ltd., which had claimed NIntendo violated a dozen controller-related patents related to its Wii and GameCube systems.

Xbox 360 Prices, Come on Down

Blurry snaps of sales flyers are fanning speculation that come September 7, Microsoft will drop the price of all three Xbox 360 models by at least fifty bucks a piece. From top to bottom, the Xbox 360 family currently ranges from $450 to $280 in variants ranging from a high-end "Elite" model with a 120GB hard drive down to an entry-level "Arcade" without a hard drive or high-definition video cables.

Ars Technica started a rumor in early August suggesting the 360 would shed 12 to 29 percent of its retail sales cost in early September. The rumor gained some credibility in recent weeks as various blogs snapped pics of sales flyers from Best Buy to Kmart to Radio Shack showing the same thing: price drops a-comin' across the board.

Assuming the rumor is true, and it looks likely to be, how do the new numbers affect the bottom line when you plug them into an accessory and services lineup?

Let's see...

Current pricing in black, new rumored pricing in red.

What's changed since I ran this comparison back in early July?

1. Microsoft and Sony added new hard drives to a few models. The PS3 jumped from 40GB to 80GB, and the Xbox 360 "Premium" hopped from 20GB to 60GB. Also: The 20GB hard drive upgrade went away, so irrespective of the used market, the only hard drive upgrade Microsoft currently sells is the $180 120GB model.

2. Sony's added its DualShock 3 (force-feedback) controller to the PS3 (it's $55 standalone). Alas, the company still refuses to slip either a component or HDMI cable into the system. A Sony HDMI cable will set you back upwards of $60, though you can pick one up from a third party vendor for a fraction of that cost. you shouldn't add the cost of both component and HDMI, since you'll pick one or the other, making the PS3's high-def cable delta (shopping frugally) about $20. Same for the Xbox 360 "Arcade."

3. Sony has Blu-ray and movie downloads, Microsoft has movie downloads. A standalone Blu-ray player baselines in the $300 range. Make of that what you will.

4. Sony just announced a 160GB version of the PS3 at GCDC in Leipzig for $500, bundled with the terrific albeit pithy Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (a $60 value) as well as a voucher for Idol Minds' ragdoll-chaotic PAIN (a $10 value).

What hasn't?

1. Microsoft's still outrageously overpriced in terms of upgrade costs if you plan to buy all at once. The notion that customers should pay $180 for 120GB when you can get a 250GB 2.5" SATA hard drive for $130 is ridiculous. So is paying a hundred bucks for an 802.11g USB wireless network adapter worth less than half that in the form of a PC USB key. The upside? Microsoft's cheaper up front, and gives you upgrade options over time, where Sony's an all or nothing proposition.

2. Still no PS2 backward compatibility. Shame on Sony for not including this just to sell more PS2s and clutter up entertainment centers.

3. The best deal going is probably the Xbox 360 "Premium," which manages to be $20 cheaper than the PS3, $100 cheaper than a fully configured "Elite," and a whopping $120 cheaper than the "Arcade." Word to the wise, the "Arcade" is only a good deal if you plan to never, ever upgrade anything.

Update: Everyone has their own "optimal" configuration based on what they think is important, superfluous, or just plain irrelevant, so bear that in mind -- I'd never dogmatize about which configuration is "best," because that's something only each one of you can determine. And of course a chart like this doesn't say a thing about the subjective value of exclusives like a Halo or a Metal Gear Solid 4, as well as whose online or interface schemas deliver more bang for your buck. Some people would gladly pay more or less for access to a given franchise, or to work within the strictures of one platform's architecture versus another's.

Exclusives are Dead, Long Live Exclusives

The era of exclusive video game deals is winding down, says an analyst for Reuters, citing rising development costs making third-party studios gun-shy about putting blockbusters like Grand Theft Auto IV on one-platform leashes. It's a situation exacerbated by a kind of console trifecta, a third-party software publisher's worst nightmare, where no one console establishes a dominating lead over the others and mutual success harms everyone.

Welcome to a future in which hardware manufacturers like Sony and Microsoft increasingly fund their own exclusives and justify their platform's existence by threading meta-services into proprietary operating systems, a future where independent studios struggle to maximize returns by hedging major releases across the entire hardware spectrum.

It's been awhile since the games industry looked as fractious. The last time was arguably the early 1990s, the so-called 16-bit era's heyday, where the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System went chip-to-chip battling for hearts and dollars. Nintendo eventually clawed its way to victory to beat Sega by about 20 million systems worldwide, but in the U.S., the SNES only surpassed Sega's Genesis by six million units, a trifling victory by today's standards.

The so-called 32-bit era in the middle and late 1990s was Sony's to lose with its dark horse, record-shattering, over 100 million selling PlayStation. The PS's preliminary competitor, Sega's Saturn, was developmentally inhibited -- a dual-processor architecture that proved nightmarish to code for -- leading to crippled ports, a general dearth of titles, and total sales of less than 10 million units.

Even the vaunted Nintendo 64, with paradigm-shifters like Shigeru Miyamoto's Super Mario 64 and Rare's GoldenEye 007, failed to seriously threaten Sony's PlayStation. The Nintendo 64 -- nigh legendary in the minds of gamers -- only sold 33 million units worldwide.

Sega's superbly designed gun-jumping Dreamcast was a critical darling, but failed to get its hooks in before Sony's PlayStation 2 hit the market in 2000. Despite plenty of early garbage-ware, the PS2 went on to break the original PS's record by selling over 140 million units worldwide (and like the pink little bunny with the drum and sunglasses, that engine's still a-chuggin'). Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube took their turns in the spotlight with franchise-launchers like Halo and Metroid Prime, but the Xbox itself only sold around 24 million units and the GameCube about 22 million worldwide. Add them together and they're but a third of Sony's mammoth cut.

So here we are in 2008, unexpectedly awash in hardware, with one console (Nintendo's) pulling slightly ahead of the rest, but the market essentially split thrice and only tepid forecasts about where any of it goes because so many analysts have been so incredibly wrong about what's happened to date. If you're a third party developer with costs soaring upwards of $50 million, designing for both the 360 and PS3 literally doubles your returns. And if your game's not CPU and GPU intensive, add in the Wii to go for triplicate or more. The incentive to build for just one platform isn't there, and the cost to snare developers in exclusivity contracts just can't match the revenues gained by spreading your product around.

Given that, the future of exclusives is probably either what the Reuters piece suggests -- that exclusives will be increasingly first-party driven...or something arguably less satisfying: the demise of major first- and third-party exclusives altogether in favor of meta-service exclusivity, e.g. Xbox Live, PlayStation Home, and Nintendo's Mii Network. The latter entails a shift away from pure gaming and toward social networking and casual gaming services, kind of like MTV dropping music videos in favor of reality shows and celebrity exposes other sorts of mass appeal material. While I see the value in aspects of the latter, I worry that it could drive the industry's foundation -- enthusiasts and mainstreamers -- out of the picture. And in such a scenario, if gaming's newer, purportedly casual, who-knows-how-committed audience decides it's suddenly no longer interested? Market crash, big and messy.

A third scenario, certainly more intriguing, involves Microsoft and Sony sinking R&D into a steady stream of inexpensive but potentially groundbreaking properties. Maybe one catches, maybe three don't, but the one that does could be another Blair Witch Project, and when that gets old, whatever comes next on the low-cost innovation scale. Giving developers less to work with forces them to be more creative. Publishers need to remember that games aren't movies, and the best ones needn't have a single Hollywood voice-over or George-Lucas-like CGI-drizzled cinematic.

500,000 in Developing Nations Earn a Living Selling Virtual Loot

Half a million people, most of them in China, earn about $145 a month crafting virtual gauntlets, cloaks, swords, tunics, leggings, and more, in a business estimated to be worth $500 million globally, according to research by a University of Manchester professor. It's called "gold farming," and it refers to the legally precarious practice of exploiting a repetitive mechanic in a game to get the best possible outcomes, with the express purpose of collecting valuable virtual loot for very real cash.

The practice isn't new, but the metrics surrounding it seem to be snowballing.

The BBC reported last Friday that the practice is flourishing, despite efforts by game companies to quash trade in virtual items for cash. According to Professor Richard Heeks, gold farming may even be comparable in size to India's outsourcing industry.

"The Indian software employment figure probably crossed the 400,000 mark in 2004 and is now closer to 900,000," Prof Heeks told the BBC. "Nonetheless, the two are still comparable in employment size, yet not at all in terms of profile."

There's even an evolving hierarchy. Security firm Secure Play chief Steven Davis say Vietnamese gold farmers are accepting low wages to do for Chinese gamers what the latter does for those in the West.

This, despite moves by some to police virtual worlds and tax virtual income. In some countries, the practice has even been legislatively banned.

Of course the whole issue's a philosophical quagmire. Does gold farming alter the experience of other players or damage a game world's economy, and if so, to what extent? Is it tantamount to gambling? Can a company legally forbid someone to engage in extracurricular transactions that indirectly involve intangible digital wares? Should a company have the power to prevent you from selling your account and/or related materials to someone else, the way you might resell books, CDs, comics, furniture, cars, or any other material item in meatspace (this gets into the whole "is a EULA really valid" imbroglio)? And do you have a moral obligation to determine whether that Level 60 WoW Warrior plus CD key comes from an exploitive "sweatshop"?

Rock the Vote on Your Xbox 360, but Who Benefits?

We know a little bit about the age and gender of the average Xbox 360 owner, and a little more about where those demographics are skewing in terms of Obama versus McCain. We also have this intriguing new initiative by Microsoft which launched yesterday in conjunction with the Democratic National Convention to bring youth vote-recruiter Rock the Vote to Xbox 360 owners through the console's dashboard.

How's it work? Nothing to it, just...

1. Log into your Xbox Live account.

2. Go to the 'Marketplace' tab, then click on the Rock the Vote splash picture.

3. In the Rock the Vote overlay, choose 'Register', download a tiny 108 KB 'I Registered' gamer pic, and a registration form will be automatically emailed to you.

4. Don't forget to actually register.

Microsoft's goal? Register "2 million young Americans" by this fall. Their target demographic? Voters under 30, a group that Obama carries commandingly.

However...

Consumer research firm Experian pegs the majority of Xbox 360 owners as between 35 and 44 years old. And while women are a rising force in gaming -- the ESA's 2008 Essential Facts lists overall gender demographics as 40% female to 60% male -- Xbox 360 owners remain predominantly male, though I'm having difficulty locating statistics that show by precisely how much.

According to a June Zogby poll, Obama leads among voters under the age of 35, while McCain leads among voters ages 55 to 69. The two are deadlocked among voters ages 70 and older, and essentially at percentage parity when it comes to the largest bloc of voters (and the most salient one here) ages 35 to 54.

In terms of gender, according to a Gallup poll in April, men ages 18 to 49 tend to favor McCain over Obama 48% to 45%, while women favor Obama over McCain 53% to 39%.

Assuming the above data's accurate, the law of averages suggests that voters registering via the Xbox 360 may slightly favor McCain over Obama based principally on gender disparity (the sampling error in the Gallup poll was only +/- 1 percentage point). I say "suggests," but cautiously. I have no idea what the gender composition of Xbox Live members is, whether it differs from general console ownership, or whether a survey of "gamers most likely to register to vote through a console gaming service" might reflect something entirely different.

So who benefits? Everyone, never mind the demographics. Whichever candidate you favor, the more people registered to vote and the more opportunities and avenues to get our electorate involved, the better.

July PC Game Sales: Nancy Drew Tops The Sims 2, World of Warcraft

I've played every single one of the games in NPD Group's July US top 20 PC game bestsellers, except for the number one spot-stealer, Nancy Drew and The Phantom of Venice. It's an adventure game designed by Her Interactive, based on the now apparently out of print book of the same name, about a masked thief responsible for various thefts in Venice.

But wait, read that again: An adventure game.

Sold more than Call of Duty 4? Spore Creature Creator? World of Warcraft: Battle Chest? The Sims 2 Double Deluxe?

That's right.

Now here's what's even wilder. Nancy Drew and The Phantom of Venice is actually the eighteenth installment in the Nancy Drew computer game series.

There's a Nancy Drew computer game series?

I know!

How many people have reviewed it in PC gaming-dom? Only one mainstream games outlet.

Shame on all the rest of us?

The numbers...

1. Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice (Her Interactive)
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe (EA Maxis)
3. Spore Creature Creator (EA Maxis)
4. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest (Blizzard)
5. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff (EA Maxis)
6. Diablo Battle Chest (Blizzard)
7. World of Warcraft (Blizzard)
8. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade (Blizzard)
9. The Sims 2 FreeTime (EA Maxis)
10. Warcraft III Battle Chest (Blizzard)
11. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward)
12. Civilization IV (Firaxis Games)
13. The Sims 2 Kitchen & Bath Interior Design (EA Maxis)
14. Starcraft: Battle Chest (Blizzard)
15. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (Funcom)
16. Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut Edition (Ubisoft Montreal)
17. Age of Empires III (Ensemble Studios)
18. Crysis (Crytek)
19. Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword (Firaxis Games)
20. The Sims 2 Seasons (EA Maxis)

Amazon.com Offers Day-of-Release Delivery for Video Games

The company that claims to offer Earth's Biggest Selection says it's ready to scratch your zero-day itch, if you'll scratch theirs for a nominal shipping fee. "No lines, no waiting, no fuss," claims Amazon.com's press release, which goes on to promise customers can now receive select games including Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Gears of War 2 "on the first day of availability."

What's the damage? Six bucks on top of overnight shipping fees for everything including shipping fees will get you stuff like Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 (8/26) and Fable 2 (10/21) the same day they hit stores. And if you're already an Amazon Prime member -- an $80 per annum subscriber service -- release-date delivery is completely free.

Technically software retailers like Gamestop.com have been providing (if not necessarily guaranteeing) day-of-release delivery of games for years. It's not uncommon to trawl message boards and find customers who pre-ordered a game and simply paid for next-day service landing copies before the game's even on store shelves. GameStop has a warehouse that receives product at least a day prior to its retail due date, and ships directly to online store customers at the same time it's sending product to stores. Getting a game day-of-release costs nothing extra.

Here's GameStop's street date policy:

Pre-order [insert game name] by [insert cutoff date -- typically the day prior to street] with overnight shipping and get guaranteed delivery on the street date [insert street date]! If your product does not arrive on the street date, we will fully refund your shipping charge!

What's overnight shipping at GameStop.com? $10 for orders up to $75 plus $1.50 for each additional $75.

Is six bucks for the whole enchilada at Amazon.com worth it? Probably not. Probably, even if the press release on the service confusingly fails to distinguish itself from simply being an additional fee on top of existing overnight shipping charges. It's not, and as far as I can tell having tried the service, it really is just six bucks to get the game day-of-delivery, no hidden charges or "insurance gimmes."

Now let's get cracking on that fee-free digital distribution (for consoles as well as PCs) model and obsolete the need for any kind of fee-based shipping "service" altogether, 'kay SonyNintendoMicrosoft?

Rumor: Xbox 360 Arcade to Ship with Motion Controller

Don't bet on it, but that's the rumor du jour stumbling drunkenly from the gossip mills today to land on the splash pages of blogs everywhere. According to the aptly named Xbox360Fanboy, they've received a tip "from a source close to Microsoft's marketing department" that Microsoft is planning to position its forthcoming $200 Xbox 360 Arcade bundle in direct competition with the Wii.

So far, so good, so not a revelation.

Continues Xbox360Fanboy, the new SKU will come with all the usual Arcade paraphernalia as well as the new fall update and a motion controller with a couple motion-control mini-games, purportedly developed by Rare. For existing 360 owners, Xbox360Fanboy says the motion controller is set to be sold separately and bundled with a pricey stash of "mini motion controlled games." I think they meant motion-controlled mini-games, but I digress.

Nothing's as delectable as eating my own words, but I'm thinking probability levels on the scale of a meteor striking the planet in the next 60 seconds and making this post blazingly irrelevant.

GCDC 2008: 'Space Invaders' Pummel World Trade Center

On a dim electroluminescent screen splayed across an entire wall, row after row of electric green invaders march inexorably downward, slowly dissolving two gray pylons one fiery chomp at a time. In the holes left by their rampage, tiny forms crouch like the "jumpers" remembered with horror on September 11, 2001, the day members of a terrorist Al Qaeda cell flew two planes into Manhattan's twin towers, acts which ultimately caused two of the world's tallest skyscrapers to pancake into rubble, killing over 3,000 people and injuring thousands more.

No, it's not some deranged homage to terrorism, but it is an actual game premised on Taito's classic Space Invaders, playable as I type this at the Games Convention occurring this week in Leipzig, Germany. I'm describing an art project designed by French-American self-described "artist, theoretician, and researcher" Douglas Edric Stanley, Professor of Digital Arts at the Aix-en-Provence School of Art in Paris.

How does it work? Players stand in front of the screen and make arm movements which are read by a sensor that translates them into shots fired by the game's notorious cannon. According to the game's official convention website, "like the original, this trial is ultimately unsuccessful, thus creating an articulated and critical commentary about the current war strategy." The game's creator sees this as his way of conveying "a social tale that can be related to historical tales without losing its poetic power."

This video from the game's Laboral Gameworld exhibition in 2007 illustrates how physical interaction works.

It's also nothing new. According to a a blog post on Stanley's site, Abstract Machine, the GCDC display is simply the most recent iteration of a project he's been retooling and exhibiting since 2001. The GCDC 2008 version is essentially a recycled version to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Taito's original.

I caught the news this morning via Fox, which sourced it from Kotaku, which led by saying "let's file this one under 'too soon'" and only updated the story post facto to acknowledge it was in fact an art project and not just "weird" or "what the f***." I say there's no such thing as 'too soon' when it comes to public discussion about issues as serious as 9/11. Whether this qualifies as discussion-worthy or just plain exploitive isn't my place to say (I'm not sure it's anyone's who hasn't played it or taken more than five seconds to knee-jerk about it) but I'd cautiously counter with "file this one under 'make up your own mind'," and don't let the media on any side of the issue lead you around by the collar.

GCDC 2008: PC Gaming Rebounds! (Except Not Really)

Not really, because PC gaming was never really down, according to PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) president Randy Stude, who at the Games Convention Developer's Conference in Leipzig claimed the industry was worth $10-point-7 billion worldwide in 2007. Far more important, only 30 percent of that revenue came from retail sales, i.e. 70 percent came from online and other retail alternative transactions.

Why the long media faces about PC gaming in the U.S.? Well for one, it's important to note that most of the growth in 2007 came from Asia, the largest market in the world, with nearly half of total worldwide sales. The actual state of U.S. PC gaming (relatively speaking) isn't entirely clear, though Yankee Group estimated earlier this year that online PC gaming in North America generated $1.6 billion in 2007, and predicts online PC gaming will reach $3.89 billion by 2012. Still, you'll want to be aware that Stude's numbers are likely inclusive of games like "Habbo Hotel" (a Finland-based social MMO with 7.5 million active users) and the pay-per aspects of extremely popular kiddie MMOs like "Club Penguin" and "Webkinz." That's fine and representative, but if you're thinking he's talking $10.7 billion in traditional PC games, Doom to World of Warcraft, think again.

Second, online PC gaming revenues were $4.8 billion, nearly double worldwide retail PC game sales, a number monthly revenue analysts like NPD haven't (yet) started reporting. Digital distribution alone was close to $2 billion, and ad revenue is poised to grow as vendors look increasingly at gaming as a way to reach potential consumers.

Breaking gamers into categories like "casual" and "hardcore" has always been controversial. You know how the ESA reports the average gamer is so old and plays these many hours a week and purchases such-and-such many games a month in their annual "facts" reports? Instead of pumping out general numbers that don't tell the public much, or which mix national with worldwide sales in a way that confuses the question, how about a detailed study that correlates game sales (by title, genre, etc.) with those groups.

Still MIA in these numbers? PC games specific piracy rates (by region), historical trending relating sales declines to piracy rate increases (Asia has piracy rates that boggle the mind compared to U.S. rates, and yet Asia is cited above as accounting for nearly half of total worldwide PC games revenue, while piracy is routinely fingered by U.S. publishers as the number one reason a PC game "undersells"), and estimates of the size of the market for used PC games in terms of legitimate resellers on Amazon, eBay, etc.

Emily is Not Real: The End of "Real" Actors?

I have seen the future of computer-generated video game animation, her name is Emily, and Emily is not real -- or is she? See for yourself in the following clip just released from 3D facial animation company Image Metrics, and which I read about in The Times Online ("Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games") this morning.

Meet Emily. The face on the "person" talking in this clip. Emily is not real. (Credit: Video created by OTOY and Paul Debevec.)

Some of Image Metrics clients: Capcom, Activision, 2K Games, ATI, EA Games, Epic Games, Konami, Eidos, THQ, Vivendi, Sony, and more. They've also done significant animation work for movies like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and dozens of video games, from Devil May Cry 4 and Grand Theft Auto IV to Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Unreal Tournament 3.

So what do you think? Has Emily "overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley'"? The perception that computer-generated faces look less real as they approach human likeness?

Driving Force in Video Gaming: Women and Baby Boomers

A new report out today claims that 38 percent of US gamers are women, the average player is 35 years old, and 24 percent are over 50. According to Los Angeles-based intelligence group IBISWorld, the percentage of female video gamers climbed from 33 to 38 percent in five years bolstered in part by Nintendo's Wii, but also "interactive group games" such as Singstar, Rock Band, and Lips, as well as The Sims, The Movies, Nintendogs and NeoPets, games IBIS says "women flock to purchase." Also: Games that target girls explicitly, like Bratz Rock Angels and Dora the Explorer.

The report boldly claims that "women and older adults -- not the proverbial nerdy teenage boys -- are the new driving force behind the success of the video games industry."

"When video game consoles began to appear in the 1980s, they were dismissed as a short-lived craze, or at the very least, the domain for awkward adolescents," said senior IBISWorld analyst George Van Horn. "How astonishingly wrong we were. Our research has revealed that the teenage boys that played Atari back then are still playing video games now, largely being drawn in to new, advanced electronic gaming that simulates real-life interaction that their kids love as well."

Van Horn also says that while IBIS doesn't mean to suggest the market for teen and young adult men isn't strong, it's the other demographics (female, older) that are showing significant growth.

IBIS's number correspond very closely to the ESA's 2008 demographics, released earlier this summer. The ESA's 2008 numbers jibe with IBIS's on the age of the average game player (35), and only vary by two points when highlighting female gamers, which the ESA lists as 40 percent of the total population (up from 38% in 2007).

Van Horn sees all the major players "frantically at work" to develop games that appeal to older adults and women of all ages:

With these games' party-style format, and innovative products, such as the phenomenally successful Wii Sports, IBISWorld believes the major market players such as Sony and Microsoft, are sitting up and taking notice that there is an untapped market which could substantially enhance the industry's current and future growth.

My two cents: We've known about these "extracurricular" markets for years now, were already assuming decades ago that they might at some point be tappable. Well here they are, we know with scientific certainty that they exist, that there's a growing appetite for digital entertainment which can address a panoply of recreational and even "serious" interests.

Question is, will the gaming press -- still largely composed of writers who think about an action-RPG like Too Human as a sprawling event, but a puzzle game like Bejeweled with over 10 million copies sold as just some daftly amusing little time sink -- get off its duff and step up to cover in proportion these other demographics as well?

July NPD Sales Numbers Fire, Industry Volleys

July video game sales leapt an appreciable 28 percent over last year, the 360 and PS3 finished in a dead heat, and Nintendo creamed everyone, as usual. Overall video game sales were up an astonishing 35 percent year-to-date, prophesying trumpets and torrents of angels singing digital hosannas when 2008 finally thunders to its unprecedented close.

The numbers...

July Hardware

608k - Nintendo DS
555k - Wii
225k - PlayStation 3
222k - PlayStation Portable
205k - Xbox 360
156k - PlayStation 2

- Context: The Wii = 13.5 million units in North America (~31 million worldwide), the 360 = 12 million (~20 million worldwide), and the PS3 = 5.5 million (~15 million worldwide). Not much is changing here, save for the Wii, which recently passed the 360 in total unit sales, continuing to pull well ahead of the competition.

- Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter says Wii sales were 100k units below estimates, suggesting Wii availability was again constrained, but that monthly production should now begin to increase incrementally. (I wonder if the slightly rebounding dollar will also incentivize Nintendo to ramp up stateside for the holidays.)

- Gamasutra reports this morning that in Japan, the PSP and PS3 have fallen behind the DS and 360 respectively. The DS apparently outsold the PSP for the first time all year (this, despite the release of Phantasy Star Portable for the PSP), and 360 sales rose nearly 20,000 units to outsell the PS3 for the first time ever for only the second time since launch on sales of Namco Bandai's Tales of Vesperia, now the "fastest selling Xbox 360 title ever in Japan."

July Software

398k - NCAA Football 09 (360)
370k - Wii Fit (Wii)
310k - Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS)
284k - Wii Play (Wii)
243k - NCAA Football 09 (PS3)
219k - Soul Calibur IV (360)
175k - Mario Kart (Wii)
166k - Rock Band (Wii)
156k - Soul Calibur IV (PS3)
148k - Civilization Revolution (360)

- Software sales rose 41% in July over the same month last year, while year-to-date sales clinched nearly $5 billion, up 48 percent.

- Multi-platform monthly sales continues to favor the 360. NCAA Football 09 for the 360 outsold the PS3 by nearly 2-to-1, while Soul Calibur IV for the 360 beat its PS3 contender by 25 points.

- Microsoft PR claims the 360 accounted for four of the top ten games in July. That's an error, because according to NPD data, they in fact only accounted for three.

Microsoft Responds

Microsoft's spin on NPD's numbers includes claims it "dominated the E3 landscape" and "closed out a profitable year with $2.1 billion in growth in the Entertainment and Devices Division." Also, interestingly, the company claims it "has a record-setting attach rate of 7.9 games per console, the highest attach rate in history for a console at this point in its life cycle."

This jibes with NPD third-party sales data, which suggests that 360 third party game sales to date (~68 million) are double Nintendo's (~33 million), with Sony bringing up rears (~20 million).

While the Wii's a year younger than the 360, it's also surpassed the 360 in unit sales. If it were selling at an attach rate equal to the 360's, it would need correspondingly high third-party sales to claim parity. Of course it doesn't, which suggests something elusively disappointing about the Wii's player demographic. I'm thinking once more about Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, where a bazillion people bought the book, but only a handful of those actually picked it back up off their shelves and coffee tables to read.

Sony Responds

Sony's response highlighted the role Metal Gear Solid 4 played in driving PS3 sales and pointed out that the company experienced year-to-date growth of virtually 100%. "PS3 software sales showed growth of 206% year-to-date," said Sony, adding that it plans to introduce "more than 140 first and third-party titles" this holiday season and through its fiscal year. Sony also claims the PlayStation Network numbers more than 10 million registered users as of June.

Transform Your Xbox 360 into a PC

Fed up with your 360 doubling as a space heater? Sick of muzzling the thing with barricades and enclosures when it's whirring like a leaf blower? Don't mind taking up a bit more space around your entertainment center? Know the difference between a Philips and Torx screwdriver?

Lian-Li Industrial may be able to help with its forthcoming PC-XB01, a boutique aluminum PC-style chassis that reportedly attenuates heat and mitigates noise by slapping a 1500 RPM fan on the backside and wrapping the optical drive in sound-dampening foam to mitigate obnoxiously noisy vibrations.

The case is designed in "black hairline brushed anodized aluminum," which parses like gibberish to this metallurgical dilettante, but hey, it sure sounds cool. Stays cooler too, and not just because of the 120mm fan. According to the feature page, the PC-XB01 even includes holes for water cooling solutions.

The only catch? You have to disassemble your 360 and perform the transfer surgery yourself, one diode-covered component at a time.

Some of you've already come up with some pretty wizard Xbox 360 case mods, but most of us don't have the leisure time (or, you know, a degree in industrial machining). For the latter bunch, which surely includes yours truly, Lian-Li's case will let you permanently invalidate your Xbox 360 warranty in trade for thermal and acoustic piece of mind, all for a measly $150 when it goes on sale later this month.

Space Siege: 1,001 Clicks of Excitement!

You know the game kick the can? Space Siege is kind of like that, but with bullets and tchotchkes. What I do, between sniping aliens and cyber-dudes and making trips to the level-up bank, is pulverize thousands of crates and barrels and propel canisters of compressed gas down empty corridors at nothing in particular. Okay, okay, you got me. Ha ha. Occasionally I tweak my sidekick Harvey-the-robot for kicks, but he just whirrs a little and bursts into flames and takes it on the chin. He's a champ.

He's also Eastwood in a dust up, but the little guy needs a leash. He's a soldier, not a sapper, but he keeps charging headfirst into mines like they're track lighting.

I've been trashing all my crew's equipment, the terminals and video screens and hibernation pods. One of them finally radios in and tells me to ride easy, that we might need some of this stuff later. Uh-huh. Fat chance. Shooting makes me happy. I mean, it better -- it's all I'm good for.

Occasionally I find scattered messages from crew members. Some guy can't find his wife. Another's been "screwing around with Sanibots," the ship's saucer-shaped mechanical maids. Some other guy -- I can see his dead body still -- flags a mine field conveniently splayed to let me turn a bunch of dumb aliens into giblets. They've been waiting just for me to trip their trigger, then trip the explosive network beneath their oblivious little spider-legs. Everything's laid out as such, all signs and handholds and "shoot here!"

"Let's go," says the game. "Hustle!"

Fine, whatever. Gimme some upgrades.

Speaking of those, they look a little like bug guts and Legos. I grab what I can, ignoring the ones that get stuck weirdly inside walls, and carry them back to health chambers, where I walk into save-cylinders like Samus in Metroid. You have to appreciate the aid stations. They're literally everywhere. I can't get two steps out of one before I'm running into another. Four health pack carry maximum? Who needs one. Do not go gentle into that good night? I can't go stupid-reckless-wild.

Also: I take things pretty seriously for a dude flogging aliens like The Flash with a weed-whacker. Wish I had a couple funny one-liners, instead of melodramatic pablum like:

"Those aliens will pay for this, one way or another."

I know. Right up there with gems like "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it."

My pals back at command central are egging me on to swap body parts for cyber gear. It's the moral crux of the game, with an obvious and sadly cliched narrative payload.

"I recommend you install that cybernetic gizmo-whatzit as soon as possible, sergeant," goads the ship A.I. Okay. Yeah. You trying sticking your hand in a box that chews it right off. "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer." Uh-huh. Whatever Frank Herbert.

Still, the perks of going Robocop are much clearer than the negligible little two-percent upgrades to all the combat and engineering abilities I hardly even pay attention anymore. Leveling up in this game is like working your biceps with five pound curl bars.

One of my guys radios out of the blue:

Him: "How you holding up out there?"

Me: "It's bad, really bad." I'm soooo serious. "Bodies everywhere." Oh the humanity.

Unfortunately the game has now become a lock-key quagmire. I can fix a robot like gangbusters, but I've got to slog through half the ship to find some guy just to open a dopey door.

Space Siege: Deja Vu, but Don't Drive Angry

Call me sergeant Seth Walker, call me Ishmael, call me Bill Murray in a David Twohy version of Groundhog Day, waking to misery after misery. Smoke. Klaxons. Guttering machinery. Spider-legs of electricity skittering across paneling. Scorched plasteel. Guts splashed like pea soup across walls.

Also: Aliens. Aliens that swarm. Aliens that lob grenades. Eventually even aliens that are grenades. Aliens on a human colony ship, like snakes on a plane, and, you know, about as intimidating. (Somewhere in a trunk with x-ray glasses and sea monkeys and moon monsters are Actually Scary Video Game Aliens. But not in this game.)

Did I say misery? Loves company. So I went and got some named "Harvey," which is long for HR-V, sort of like WALL-E, except not remotely. He's ix-nay on the conversation-ay, but that's alright, he'd rather just tag along and sign with his fists, which, by the way, are also guns. Nothing says "buddy" like the lumbering chug of servo-mechanics on your six. Go dual-wield gatlings!

Me, I'm the awesomely awesomest multi-tasker in the multiverse. Or on this ship, anyway, which it's looking more and more like I won't be leaving anytime soon. That's alright. I like it here. And now it turn out I'm a robotics specialist. Well, a robotics specialist with the improbable wizard skills of Tony Stark born on the planet Krypton with jedi powers. I'm like that guy in Man vs. Wild. You know, the one who gets his face stung off by a bee and pees in a snakeskin then has to drink it while his camera crew are just a couple feet away, probably sitting under umbrella tents with those little battery-powered squirt-fans, chugging plastic six-packs of Gatorade G2. Bring it on, Bear Grylls. I'm Teen-rated and I can still kick your butt.

I've been running all these missions to find people who can open doors that I, despite my ability to conjure robot grunts from scrap, can't. Instead, I have to walk from one side of a level all the way to the opposite end, scouting neon-lit corridors, sniping aliens, and snapping up "parts" scattered in battle or sprung from lockers and toolboxes. Did I say snap? I meant suck. Anything lying around, I just tap a button and wham, sticks to me, sort of like The Swan in Lost.

I saved this damsel a few minutes ago and escorted her over to a "safe hub" control center with gizmos and workbenches that let me fiddle the attack and defense ratings of all my kit. Then I left to go save someone else. Now she wakes up my headset.

Damsel: "Where are you? The navigational A.I. face thing. You know, the floaty hologram..."

Me: "Pilot?"

Damsel: "Yeah. It's kind of staring at me. It's really creepy."

Me: "Uh, lemme get back to you. I'm in a hallway somewhere. With aliens. Lots of aliens."

Story of my so-called life.

Next: Legos, weed-whackers, sappers, and "do the hustle!"

"Extreme Gamers" Game More Than They Work?

Full time employment in the US commonly computes between 32 and 40 hours a week, but a new study from NPD claims "extreme gamers" are spending an average of 45 hours a week plonked in front of glowing screens. That's a whole-lotta-gaming. "Extreme gamers' reportedly constitute 3 percent of the 174 million gamer who play games on a PC, Mac, or console, i.e. 5.2 million, greater than the individual populations of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston, or the populations of Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, and San Diego combined.

Of the rest, 9 percent are "avid PC gamers," 17 percent are "console gamers," 14 percent are "online PC gamers," 15 percent are "offline PC gamers," 22 percent are "young heavy gamers," and 20 percent are "secondary gamers."

"Young heavy gamers" -- unintentionally ironic given that 32 percent of American schoolchildren are overweight -- number 38 million strong, the largest gaming group in the U.S. "Extreme gamers" prefer the PS3 and 360, while "young heavy" strongly prefer portables.

After portables (say thank you, Nintendo DS) consoles have the second largest ownership segment of any system.

Significantly: While the PC is used more than any single console for gaming, "console gamers," "young heavy gamers," and "extreme gamers" are more likely to use consoles than a PC to play video games.

"Although Extreme Gamers are heavily involved with the industry, they represent a small portion of the potential market for any new game that comes to market," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst for The NPD Group. "In order to promote continued growth, we must better understand all of the gaming segments."

Other bits:

- PS3 owners are more likely to own other next-gen cosoles than Wii and 360 owners.

- 45% of PSP owners also own a Nintendo DS, while only 21% of DS owners own a PSP.

- Only 10% of PS2 owners own a PS3.

- "Extreme gamers" bought nearly 24 games over the past three months, while the next leading purchasing segment, "console gamers," only bought 3.2 games during the same period.

- 14% of all games purchased in the past three months were digital downloads, while PC gamers reported the highest incidence, with 27% of their purchases occurring digitally.

John Carmack: PC Sales Aren't What They Used To Be

Tom's Hardware, the site that coached me through cobbling together my first homebrew rig over a decade ago, quizzed John Carmack yesterday on why id Software has its sights trained on consoles with its upcoming shooter Rage.

"The ground truth," replies Carmack, "is just that the sales numbers on the PC are not what they used to be and are not what they are on the consoles."

You can almost set your watch by what id Software gets up to when it comes to PC gaming, though Doom 3's 3.5 million record sales (for id Software, anyway) are fractional compared to franchises like Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, and all of Nintendo's sundry Pokemon and Mario games.

PC gaming looks increasingly asymmetric of late. It's a platform with an install base hundreds of million strong, reduced to less than a handful of gaming bestsellers in recent years: The Sims (70 million), Lineage 2 (14 million), and World of Warcraft (13.5 million).

But after those, sales drop dramatically. Age of Empires sold some 3 million copies, but Age of Empires 3 only sold 2.5 million. Half-Life sold 8 million but Half-Life 2 only sold 4 million. Even The Sims 2's extremely respectable 20 million in sales plus expansions are a shadow of its predecessor's.

And where today's console majors like Halo 3 and Gears of War are hitting figures like 8.1 million and 4.7 million respectively, critically-acclaimed PC games like Crysis and Civilization IV are only selling 1.5 million and 3 million respectively. If you look at the top 20 all-time PC games in terms of sales, they're all either The Sims, one of the big MMOs, or games like Diablo, StarCraft, Myst, and Populous -- entries from another era.

Carmack says it's hard to second guess what the reasons for the decline in PC sales are.

Certainly, piracy is a contributor to that. I also think a lot of the people that bought PC games have bought consoles and are happy with them. We still think the PC is a market worth supporting, but we're not making decision around the PC. It's probably more of the junior partner in the cross-platform strategy, although obviously, our day-to-day development is predominately on the PC.

So will Doom 4 be console-exclusive?

Says Carmack: "I would be stunned if we did not do Doom 4 for the PC...it would just be wrong."

In the meantime, I guess we're just waiting for the number crunchers to get their arms around online PC game sales, so we can put claims that PC gaming's unsung sales triumphs are happening direct-digital through the crucible.

Ready for the $12 Nintendo Computer?

You've heard of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) with its bid to put a $100 laptop in the hands of children the world round, but how about a tiny slice of silicon that only costs twelve bucks? According to ABC News, it's already in the cards, thanks to a 27-year-old graduate student named Derek Lomas, who plucked a couple of cheap game-playing gadgets off the street while kicking around Bangalore, India, last February.

His idea? Take the notion of a $10 to $20 game machine using an NES processor and turn it into a $12 quasi-computing contraption with modifications like flash memory, wireless connectivity, and educational software. A kind of "Sharp Wizard" for the 21st century.

The Doctor PC Junior, essentially a Nintendo Famicom (NES) clone with a built-in disk drive, designed as a learning tool for children in China and Hong Kong.

OLPC's laptops today actually costs $187 -- nearly double their PR-friendly price -- and when you start adding extras to Lomas's proposal, you can bet it'll cost more than its promotional twelve bucks too. But according to Silicon Valley Tech analyst Rob Enderle, it's more importantly about redefining the floor, then introducing modularity.

"Twelve dollars is an awful lot of money to [emerging countries], and they might only need certain capabilities. If you start with a $12 core you can probably add a lot of that stuff and stay under $50," he says.

While no one's (yet) talking about games for Lomas's $12 concept, OLPC has its own list of dozens, as well as a dedicated game development wiki. Making even casual games an optional component for a simplistic $12 computer would almost certainly help drive sales.

And to think, twelve bucks this side of the pond barely covers the cost of a movie ticket with small popcorn, a copy of The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, or one-fifth the cost of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Madden NFL '09.

Want to keep tabs? Check out the project's official website.

Grand Theft Auto, Murder Most Foul, and the Fallacy of Misleading Vividness

The world is full of crazies with nutty agendas and lethal intentions, but none quite as collectively cuckoo as a media that can produce the illusory bulge of a bell curve trend from thin air. Case in point, a couple days ago the media pounced on a story about Thailand banning Grand Theft Auto after a 50-year-old taxi driver was allegedly murdered by a 19-year-old. Allegedly -- and given the fact that all the reporting on this so far has depended on statements from Thai officials, I do mean allegedly -- the teen confessed to robbing and murdering the taxi driver while attempting to recreate a scene from Grand Theft Auto.

Which Grand Theft Auto? Who knows. Incidentally, I don't recall an actual "scene" in any of the GTA games where someone robs a taxi driver, much less kills one. Sure, you can haul people out of cars, then go out of your way to dispatch them, but taxi-killing is neither required nor rewarded. Killing in the GTA games is in fact penalized. Nonetheless, the Thai government has decreed pending imports of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV are illegal, as well as existing copies of prior versions, which distributor New Era Interactive Media has said must be pulled from shelves.

I'm not sure how much any of that will ultimately matter. Thailand's software piracy rate has hovered between 78 and 80 percent for years, though that's down in recent years from as high as 87 percent in 1994, according to the BSA.

What we don't know? Much else about this case. So rather than speculate baselessly, I want to highlight the insanity of what we do know. And I mean insanity as a euphemism for that word preceded by the adjective total.

Some nut allegedly robbed and killed a taxi driver, the police claim he's blaming Grand Theft Auto, prompting the government of Thailand to completely ban the series.

One guy, one murder, a police statement alleging that the teen blames it all on a video game, and hilariously bad coverage suggesting it could get worse before it gets better and that "the incident makes GTA look like a mix of the worst elements of trashy media and crack cocaine."

Have Thailand and (at least a few in) the blogosphere gone completely bonkers?

Let's change the subject. Ever heard of something called the fallacy of misleading vividness?

1. A dramatic or "vivid" event occurs.
2. Said event is not in accordance with the majority of statistical evidence.
3. People nonetheless conclude events of this type are likely to occur.

Thailand as a whole has around 64 million people. One of those 64 million people may or may not have committed murder (remember, allegedly) of a taxi driver. Said murder may or may not have anything at all to do with the series Grand Theft Auto (remember, police statement alleging a statement made by someone who may be trying to make this about anything but his own independently depraved worldview -- after all, Grand Theft Auto is the media's favorite whipping boy).

How to handle? Prevent the other 63,999,999 people from playing it. You know, just in case.

Confession: I worry a lot. I mean, take driving. Two enormous hunks of metal hurtling in opposite directions down a two-lane highway at 60 to 70 miles per hour, and all it would take is a slight course correction by either one at the right moment to cause a net 120 to 140 miles per hour collision. Think that doesn't happen? Think again: academic studies have concluded that about 1.7% of all fatal crashes are suicides, with as many as 2.7% of fatal single-car crashes believed to be drivers with suicidal intent.

Make you sit up a little straighter next time you're cruising down a twilit highway? It probably shouldn't, but I know one thing: 1.7% to 2.7% is a heck of a lot higher, statistically speaking, than one-one-70-millionth.

Oh yeah, anyone planning to ban cars? Trucks? Highways? Driving in general?

Let's say anything from government rankling to infidelity is the cause of someone's murder spree: Should we scrap the legislative branch? Terminate the presidency? Outlaw marriage and sex?

The fallacy of misleading vividness is seductive. It drives the blogosphere (and by proxy, the mainstream media) into a feeding frenzy. It ignores statistics because statistics aren't sexy. It ignores demographic realities because demographic realities don't generate hits.

Thailand's police system needs to bring this taxi driver's murderer to justice. But the rest of us need to be thinking about two things:

1. The stupendous folly of Thailand's government for banning a game based on unproven allegations about a single person's alleged actions.

2. The fallacy of misleading vividness, and taking sweeping action on the basis of virtually no actionable evidence at all.

(Care to read more? Check out ECA blog GamePolitics' Thailand coverage here.)

Grand Theft Auto IV Belatedly Confirmed for PC

Doth I protest too much, or does this business of anxiously pining after game majors ported to PCs months after their ballyhooed premieres on console bricks coupled to scintillating TVs in sprawling entertainment centers taste more and more like flat soda?

Yes, PC game wonks, today Rockstar -- which ironically lists "PC" first in its "distributor of and publisher of interactive entertainment software games for" lineup -- "proudly" confirmed that Grand Theft Auto IV will arrive on PCs on November 18th and 21st in North America and Europe, respectively. That's only seven months after it arrived last April for Xbox 360 and PS3 owners the world round.

And there was much rejoicing?

Almost certainly among those of you who've not yet played it on one or the other console-which-shall-not-be-named.

That would be what, all two or three of you?

I mean, hello guys, 11 million copies sold to retailers already back in May? Rockstar gets that PC gamers with the oomph likely necessary to run a game as sprawling as GTA4 smoothly already own an Xbox 360 or PS3, right?

So what's the deal? Why the delay? And why are PC gamers who'd prefer to play the game on their PCs not more vocal about getting simultaneous treatment?

Isn't that a big part of what's ailing PC gaming of late? The idea, exceptions made for the same-ol'-MMOs we've been hearing about for years, that the PC is just a second stringer? An "echo" platform? A place for expensive-to-develop hits to appear six months to a year after splashing noisily onto economically jazzier consoles?

GTA IV reportedly cost some $100 million to make. It's the Waterworld of video gaming (if, you know, Waterworld hadn't sucked). No doubt it would have cost even more to launch simultaneously on the PC, but that argument's also self-fulfilling. Besides, since when did the PC become a receptacle for leftovers?

Make that leftovers with "benefits." That's right, the PC version of GTA4 -- otherwise identical to its console cousins -- is getting "newly expanded multiplayer." How flooring.

Nothing against Rockstar, and -- see here -- nothing whatsoever against GTA4. The game was and remains a hilarious send up of some of the wackiest aspects of American culture.

But come on: Knights of the Old Republic? Mass Effect? The Halo series? Devil May Cry 4? Assassin's Creed?

Add GTA4 to the list of reheated entrees.

I'm sure it'll be fantastic anyway. Heck, you'll probably even be able to play it with your Xbox 360 gamepad.

Spoon Plus Fork = Spork, Spore Plus Porn = Sporn?

EA's sandbox-y Creature Creator's been out for a month and it's already packing a melange of oddities like chameleon droids, demonic elephants, two-legged grapes, and pigs with schnozes the size of hoovers.

It's also, thanks to some lascivious digital sculptors, become a magnet for internet porn.

Well...make that internet sporn, also known as "Spore-plus-porn," as in comically carnal creatures with, ahem, "conspicuous anatomical features." Use your imagination, and maybe a smattering of adjectives like "prodigious," "manifold," and "waggly," or employ a little ingenuity and reverse-engineer monikers like "Dongzilla," "Horny Little Creature," and "Phallic Fornication Machine."

A few folks have even wrestled letters from featureless flesh, fashioning "living profanities," i.e. creatures literally shaped like four-letter-words.

But does it really constitute pornography? Or creative expression? Porn isn't merely showing naked people, even naked people with their naughty bits exposed. Nope, not porn, any more than Michelangelo's "David" or Eugene Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People."

What is? That would be naughty bits exposed for the express purpose of stimulating erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.

Clear as mud? It gets even more confusing when you're talking about a hypothetically "alien" species, where what looks like your average Dirk Diggler appendage may or may not be.

EA's response: Shut it down, YouTube videos et al. Which, while predictable, is also curiously anthropomorphic, i.e. attributing human characteristics or behavior to decidedly non-human creatures or objects. It's a way of saying, perhaps without intending to, that on the one hand, Spore is about creating totally new forms of life, but on the other, that anything resembling human sexuality -- human or no, aesthetic or just plain prurient -- is taboo.

It also raises the specter of product ratings. Remember the ridiculous Oblivion ESRB ratings scandal? The one where a user released a mod that let you pull the shirts off characters to reveal "anatomically correct" upper bodies? The ESRB re-rated the game "M" for Mature and compelled Bethesda to pull existing copies off shelves to be relabeled, despite the fact that the only way to view a partially nude character in the game required user interaction with the product in violation of its terms of use.

With Spore's Creature Creator -- rated "E" for Everyone -- the only way you get from G-rated extraterrestrials to "The Creature From Planet Nooky" is, likewise, user interaction with the product in violation of its terms of use. In fact Spore goes one further than Oblivion: It places no technical restrictions on what you can or can't do with that hunk of formless blob waiting for your creative spark.

I guess it comes down to the proverbial tree in the woods (sounds unheard, sights unseen). If a guy or gal under opaque digital clothing is anatomically correct, does he/she constitute "mature" entertainment?

I mean, no one thinks all those cartoon Disney girls and guys are just formless mannequins under their clothing, right?

The Selfish Video Game: Play Games, Change Your Biology?

Conventional wisdom paints games as mildly comforting but physically toothless palliatives when employed as agents in the treatment of life-altering illnesses. The Wii can help us lose weight but it won't cure genetic propensity toward obeseness. It can complement physical therapy, but in cases where someone's lost a limb, it won't grow new body parts. And it might ease the suffering of those with a terminal illness, but it can't magically sweep the illness away.

On the other hand, we know games are more than mere "bread and circuses." Playing online puzzlers from sudoku to solitaire is supposed to keep us mentally agile as we age -- pop an aspirin a day for your heart, then play a dozen rounds of Freecell for your brain (leading to silly neologisms like "neurobics"). And everyone's heard how playing games improves basic hand-eye coordination. In fact the link between gaming and real-world applications is so strong, the military's designing future combat systems with gamepads and game-like interfaces in mind. Check out this Popular Mechanics article published in late May of this year about Xbox 360 controllers used to fly UAVs and Wii Remotes potentially being used in basic training.

Now a new study from non-profit health researcher HopeLab (which blends custom-tailored video games with medical cancer treatment) published in the medical journal Pediatrics, suggests that playing games can actually alter your biology.

The study -- the largest randomized, controlled survey of a video game intervention ever conducted, involving 375 cancer-afflicted teens and young adults at 34 medical centers in the U.S., Canada, and Australia -- evaluated the impact of a game developed by HopeLab called Re-Mission, a third-person "shooter" in which players pilot a microscopic robot through the body of a fictional cancer patient, zapping cancer cells and mitigating the debilitating side effects of cancer treatment. Patients who played Re-Mission exhibited markedly improved behavior, from taking their antibiotics more consistently and learning about the disease more quickly, to increased self-confidence in their ability to attain certain goals.

"We now know that games can induce positive changes in the way individuals manage their health," said Dr. Steve Cole, vice president of research at HopeLab. "The game not only motivates positive health behavior, it also gives players a greater sense of power and control over their disease -- in fact, that seems to be its key ingredient."

The most intriguing result? The study showed that cancer patients who played Re-Mission actually maintained higher levels of chemotherapy in their blood. Chemotherapy generally operates by targeting fast-dividing cells: maintaining the desired level in a patient's bloodstream is critical in terms of maximizing a treatment regimen's efficacy.

But playing games is only part of the story. In fact, says Cole, "this study shows that a strategically designed video game can be a powerful new tool to enhance the impact of medical treatment by motivating healthy behavior in the patient."

The critical distinction? Strategically designed.

The study used the PC version of the action-adventure game Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb as its control, due to the game's play structure and control interface similarities to Re-Mission. Patients who played Re-Mission showed notably better results than patients in the control group, implying that the biological and behavioral benefits of game-playing depend significantly on the strategic design of the game itself.

Now take that one speculative step further. Last week I was reading a New Scientist piece about "epigenetics," a term which refers to changes in gene expression brought about by environmental factors (see "Rewriting Darwin: The new non-genetic inheritance"). Think "the ability to potentially impact your offspring according to nurture, as opposed to nature." While that impact in the form of certain characteristics acquired during your lifetime may not last beyond one or two future generations, it nonetheless suggests lifestyle alterations may at least be temporarily communicable to future offspring. And when I say "nurture," I don't just mean what you eat, i.e. diet, I'm also talking about everything from smoking to drinking to wildly capricious intangibles like "stress."

See where I'm going?

Imagine "strategically designed" games that could be shown to epigenetically impact you on a scale that ranges from stuff like your cholesterol and blood pressure levels to your mental health. Play a game, then have a kid and maybe pass on your gains. Extremely speculative, granted, and I suspect any research that might causally link certain games with positive epigenetic effects, e.g. better hand-eye coordination or enhanced auto-immune responsiveness, is far in the future. Still, it's fascinating to think about where something like HopeLab's results taken with speculative epigenetic research might lead us, especially when you consider the increasingly predominant role gaming plays in our everyday habits and interactions.

QuakeCon 2008: First RAGE Screenshots Released

In the first official shot from the game, we see a sewer with a couple zombies styled after The Toxic Avenger, or maybe John Matuszak as Sloth in The Goonies. They're mugging (one growling, the other half-snarling) in this just-released first official screenshot from id Software's upcoming first-person shooter (oh, and "driving" video game!) titled Rage, or RAGE, which is at least not R.A.G.E. (as in Really Angry Guys Emoting).

Mmm, me so hungry, me chomp you long time. (Click the screenshot for the high-res version.)

Rage (the game, not what you feel when you see the latest political campaign ads) purportedly takes place after a near-future catastrophe involving a comet smacking into the earth. Somewhere along the lines, these guys must've either hopped out of the comet crater or were mutated by who-knows-what emanating from the blast.

Or I could just be talking nonsense. Maybe they're the good guys, for all we know. I just wish they hadn't named a game starring what certainly look like zombie-things after the virus in the "28 Days/Weeks Later" movies, a virus that infects humans in the near-future and turns them into blood-eyed, hotfooting, err, zombie-things.

Oh, and here's number two.

"He who controls the Spice, controls the universe!" (Click the screenshot for the high-res version.)

NFL Hall-of-Famer to EA: Stop Using My Likeness in Madden Games

Madden NFL '09 is spoiling for raves with the biggest overhaul of the perennial franchise in years, but Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown is crying foul, claiming the series used his likeness without his consent. Not his face or photographic physical features or even his actual name, mind you, but simply the number 32 slapped on a jersey and attached to an avatar with awesome stats and moves. According to the suit, the version Brown's most miffed about is Madden 2001.

The suit also takes issue with Sony for distribution of the game, though why Microsoft and Nintendo aren't named is unclear.

Brown, known for his record-setting nine-year stint with the Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965, is considered by many to be the best running back of all time. He retired from professional football in 1966 at the age of 29 to work as an actor and appeared in films like The Dirty Dozen (1967), I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1987), and Any Given Sunday (1999). He currently works with the Amer-I-Can nonprofit organization, which he founded, "offering social support and services to underserved populations and cities."

According to a Bloomberg article, which inexplicably attributes creation of the Madden football games to Sony as well as Electronic Arts, Brown filed a complaint on Wednesday with the state court in New York alleging that a character -- part of the "Real Old School Teams and Players'' series -- is a muscular, African-American running back wearing the number 32 jersey featured in the game's "All Brown's Team." Brown says that he "never signed away any rights that would allow his likeness to be used," and is seeking unspecified damages along with a court order to "stop the use of his likeness."

When contacted, EA declined to comment on legal matters, but said that in Madden NFL '09, Jim Brown's likeness is not used.

The tug-of-war between game companies testing the limits of "personality rights" and individuals pushing back isn't new. In July 2006, John Facenda Jr. sued the NFL for using his deceased father's voice in a film entitled "The Making of Madden 2006." Earlier that year, seven World Poker Tour players took umbrage with WPT Enterprises for using their likenesses in a WPT video game, claiming they were forced to sign a rights-waiver in order to enter the World Poker Tournament. The same year, Hall of Fame pool player Mike Sigel went after Interplay for reportedly using his name and likeness without permission in the game Virtual Pool 2. And back in 1999, Uri Geller (the guy who claims he can bend spoons by staring at them) sued Nintendo claiming they used his image in a Pokemon game without his permission.

Let's assume for the sake of a hypothetical that the guy wearing the number 32 jersey in the Madden football games bears only a passing resemblance to Jim Brown. Like any other muscular dude sporting a 32 jersey, in other words. One of the questions, and I'm assuming this is where the legal crux is, is what exactly constitutes "likeness"?

Personality rights or the "right of publicity" in its broadest usage is the right to profit from (or deny entirely) the commercial use of one's name, likeness, voice or "personality." It's not governed by Federal law, and the degree to which it can be thus applied varies widely from state to state as well as circumstantially.

What do you think? If a company sticks some famous sport figure's trademark, e.g. a jersey number, or something like Jim McMahon's infamous headbands on a virtual character in a sports game without reference to the person's name or use of distinguishing physical features, is that okay? Or is the unsolicited use of anything conceivably associated with a sports figure, e.g. gestures or clothing or signature field moves like end zone boogies, used without consultation and remuneration by the profiting company, fair legal game?