From Time:   5 Things That Went From Buzz to Bust

PS3 Coverage:

TO PLAY’S THE THING

The big story in computer games this year was HOW TO BLOW A HUGE LEAD, by Sony. Its PlayStation 2 was the champ in the last round of the console wars. This time Sony bet on a chip called the Cell and a disc format called Blu-ray. They’re probably awesome, but how would anybody know? The PS3 is hideously expensive–it goes for up to $600–and Sony manufactured only a piddling few hundred thousand for the U.S., fewer for Japan. Plus it’s hard to write games for; the launch titles were lame. You know you’re in trouble when you get beat by something called a Wii.

It is interesting to see the backlash.  I am really curious to see how this turns out.  If one of the Halo games comes out about the time the PS3 supply loosens up that could be ugly for Sony.  I’m also curious to see if they break down and release a non-Blu-Ray PS3 (if they even can, I’m not sure if the PS3 game discs are Blu-Ray).

Another related article from Time:  Sony’s Playstation 3 is Not Worth the Hype

Anyway, I’m just the messenger and I’ll continue to keep you informed.

World of Warcraft accounts for sale on eBay:  210 (down 49) 

High Price: $1,599 [Buy It Now] (0 bids at $899, 4/9 T3 Warrior with Thunderfury) (down $400)

2 Accounts with min bid / buy-it-now prices >= $1000 (down 11)

Highest Price w/Bid:  $760 (1 bid, 5/9 T3 Rogue)

Accounts with Kel’Thuzad weapons:  2 (down 2)

Accounts with Legendary items:  21 (This number is somewhat inflated because it counts splinters of Atiesh and a lot of people have those – not too useful though unless you’re in a guild that can kill KT.)  (down 12)

Gold (1000g Tichondrius): $188-$228.40 (up $27) (1000g Frostmane) $130-$212 (up $38)

(Gold prices from IGE, EZgaming.   Alliance.)

eBay doesn’t have much gold on sale this week so I wasn’t able to include it this week.

NOTE:  I’ve found an issue with my search for accounts for sale – it relies on 60 being in the title and I’m noticing a lot of accounts don’t have 60 in the title.  So it turns out this search is really difficult to construct.  After messing around with it, it looks like there are about 600 accounts for sale, but I’m working on refining the search to make it more accurate.  Once I create a new search I’ll post the results.

This is a pretty cool article from Bungie’s website: Et Tu Brute?!

It’s got a video about the brutes (a minor race in Halo 2) that will apparently play a major role in Halo 3.  It’s really cool, not just because it features some nice clips from Halo 3 but also because it talks about how they developed the brutes.  Interesting insight into how they developed this new race and gave it its own unique feel / character. 

Definitely worth watching.

From CNN:  Attorney argues FCC rules on profanity unfair

Favorite quote:

In an unusual move for a federal court, the judges allowed C-Span cameras to broadcast the hearing, which led Judge Peter W. Hall to ask Eric D. Miller, the lawyer for the government, whether a news broadcast on the case would draw FCC scrutiny.

Too funny.  Society’s view of profanity and what’s acceptable is changing faster than the law (and I guess the politicians) can keep up with.  This case relates to the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards – and it’s just now getting to court!  Speedy.  Anyway, I thought this was interesting and plays to my people are too easily offended theme.

This is a new thing I am doing.  I’ll track RMT (gold sales) and CRR (character sales) for World of Warcraft with weekly updates to see how the market is moving.  You will immediately see high variance (especially in gold) between servers and vendors.  I think the numbers for accounts and related information is pretty accurate, but I didn’t actually go count 259 accounts.  I’ll use the same searches every week for consistency – unless I spot a glaring error.

World of Warcraft accounts for sale on eBay:  259

High Price: $1,999 (0 bids, 7/9 T3 Mage)

13 Accounts with min bid / buy-it-now prices >= $1000

Highest Price w/Bid:  $999 (1 bid, 5/9 T3 Priest)

Accounts with Kel’Thuzad weapons:  4

Accounts with Legendary items:  33 (This number is somewhat inflated because it counts splinters of Atiesh and a lot of people have those – not too useful though unless you’re in a guild that can kill KT.)

Gold (1000g Tichondrius): $161-$199   (1000g Frostmane) $130-$212

(Gold prices from eBay, IGE, EZgaming.)

Well that’s what this article says 83% of people surveyed believe:

 The average 12 year old knows more than your Congressman about the Internet / web.   

I believe it.  They certainly know more than Ted Stevens.

Speaking of delusional politicians.  This article is even better:  Reality check: 95 percent of Americans had premarital sex.  My favorite quote: 

However, Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America, a conservative group which strongly supports abstinence-only education, said she was skeptical of the findings.

“Any time I see numbers that high, I’m a little suspicious,” she said. “The numbers are too pat.”

While I do agree that statistics can be pretty heavily manipulated, I think this is pretty close to accurate.  What I think this quote highlights is the fact that we have a sub-section of the U.S. population who lives in a fantasy land where tubes deliver the Internets (that thing most of us call e-mail) and where people don’t have premaritial sex.  

I love how they always have someone to contridict everything though.  There is always some Executive Director of some random association who is totally convinced of their weird view.

Some good news:  School board abandons evolution sticker case.   The key point:

“The settlement brings to end a long battle to keep our science classes free of political or religious agendas,” parent Jeffrey Selman said in a statement

A few more notes on politicians:

Church and State:  Lawmaker won’t apologize for ‘Islamophobic’ letter

I don’t think this guy gets the separation of church and state idea.  I think we should get rid of Bibles and Qurans for this kind of stuff.  Religion (any religion) should have no place in government.  [Plug:  Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Being an idiot:  Senator questions judge’s role in lesbian wedding

Neff has said she attended the commitment ceremony as a friend of one of the two women, a longtime neighbor.

She insisted in an October 12 letter to Brownback that the ceremony had no legal effect and would not influence her ability to act fairly as a federal judge.

Wow!  She went to commitment ceremony (I guess that’s a gay marriage?) and now this guy is running her through the ringer?  I like how the article says “role” like she had some important role in it and wasn’t just a guest.  (I don’t know since I wasn’t there, but all I can see is that she just went because she was friends with one of the women.)  So it’s not like she presided over it or was in it or anything.  She just went and boom! this guy is all over her.  That’s a little out of hand.

/rant

From BusinessWeek: Virtually Addicted

This is ridiculous.  If you put TVs in people’s offices they’d watch them all day too and not get any work done.  Then people would complain about TV addiction and sue when they got fired for being lazy. 

Why in the hell don’t people understand PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY?

It’s easy enough to find excuses not to work.  There are infinite ways to waste time and the Internet certainly delivers them by the truckload.  People need to get a grip and be accountable for their choices.  Internet addiction?  It makes me want to scream!  Or maybe cry.  (For the decline of modern civilization.)

/rant

From Reuters:  Video games ease pain for sick kids, parents

It’s good to see video games being lauded for helping people instead of being accused of driving game players into killing rampages.  I think this illustrates what games are good at:  helping people escape.  Books, movies, music, games – they help people escape from reality.  In this case the media could put a postive spin on it.  In other cases, they put a very negative spin on it. 

This CNN|Money article:  How an iPhone could rock wireless is pretty interesting because it discuss how the Apple iPhone could represent a very disruptive force in the mobile market.  I think this is fascinating on two levels:

• As a consumer:  I’m a gadget fan and am well known among my friends for rabidly acquiring the latest mobile phones.  Right now I have a Motorola Q, but I could easily see switching to an Apple iPhone if it was really cool.  This might be the thing, or even more compelling if combined with an iTV, that gets me to switch to the Mac OS.  Regardless, I’m always excited to see new, really cool gadgets, and I have no doubt the iPhone will fall in that category.
• As a business guy:  I like to see distrupting new business models.  Apple could really shake up the mobile phone space – either as an MVNO (basically a private label mobile carrier – they buy their time from the big networks at wholesale and resell it) or by forcing new relationships with the carriers.  Or even better by forcing the existing carriers to accept a new business model by either ignoring them and using the unlimited data plans that seem common or structuring deals that are more favorable to Apple.  I have no doubt they can negotiate such deals because the right phones (like the Q) do drive people to change networks, which is a big deal.

I’m looking forward to seeing the new iPhone and the new i Business Model – should be interesting.

I envision a world ten years from now where no one talks to anyone else because they are afraid to hurt someones feelings.  That all entertainment is happy pink bunnies that dance around, but never touch or talk to each other – because, well, that might be offensive or encourage someone to do something they shouldn’t.  You’ve read about this world before in books like George Orwell’s 1984, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World. 

Well, we’ve seen a lot of moves towards control of distribution of video games here in America.  Personally, I don’t see why they are any different from movies.  So if R rated DVDs require that the buyer be guarded, I would be ok with M rated (see ESRB ratings) games getting the same treatment.  Why should they be different?  (Other than that the MPAA probably has more lobbiest and movies have been around longer.)   Promoting ESRB ratings and parental responsibility are good things.  What we haven’t seen, yet, is a move to actively censor games.

Germany looks to be moving in that direction.  This article, German gamers face jail for acts of virtual violence, discusses proposed legislation that would impose fines and up to a year in prison for “promotion or enacting in-game violence”.  They quote the law as saying:

“cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters”

What is a human-looking character?  Are undead creatues human looking?  Hmmm, seems like a problem there.   But, let’s continue.  My favorite part is this quote:

“It is absolutely beyond any doubt that such killer games desensitise unstable characters and can have a stimulating effect.”

Which attributed to Gunther Beckstein who is apparently the Bavarian interior minister.   Of course, scientifically speaking, this is open to a lot of debate as there is no concrete proof of this.  But, that is not what I like the most.  I like “densistise unstable characters“…. Let’s think this through – if they are unstable, a lot of things could set them off.  Because they are already unstable.   That’s just dumb.  I mean, what if the unstable character watched Hostel?  (Which from what I understand is a pretty disturbing movie.  I’m too chicken to see it.  Although I do enjoy a good game of Unreal.)  I bet that would set him off too.  I won’t even mention all the violence in books from Harry Potter to, ahem, the Bible, that are open to all ages.

Anyway, this was all set off when an 18-year old kid, that not surpisingly played violent video games, shot and wounded 37 people in his old school and killed himself.  Just like America.  A high profile event and some jackass politician jumps on it and starts spewing out non-sensical crap to grab headlines and fuel the fire.  One high profile event caused by a psychopath and boom, it’s the fault of games.  What about the millions of other people that play violent games that don’t do this?  Ah ha, no mention of them because that isn’t a good media story. 

Well, soon enough all these politician who are too old to understand computers (and think the internet is made of tubes) will be out of there and maybe we’ll get some people who are connected to modern reality in office who won’t make such stupid grandstanding comments.

Sometimes politicians scare me.  Uhm, I mean most of the time.

/rant