Steve Ballmer Tasked With Fixing The Deficit -- With A Video Game

from the you're-going-to-need-a-bigger-laser-gun dept

The Obama Administration has appointed Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson to lead an 18-person, bi-partisan commission tasked with tackling the country's deficit. USAToday is running a fairly typical piece looking at the multitude of moving pieces that contribute to the nation's fairly-staggering $12.8 trillion debit load, and the variety of partisan and often factually-challenged bickering that surrounds the debate. Buried down at the bottom of the piece is an odd solution to a very complex problem. According to Bowles, the commission has contacted Microsoft's Steve Ballmer about Microsoft creating "a deficit-reduction video game" that would allow the average American to attempt balancing the budget. Details are scarce, but it would appear that the likely browser-based game would act to "virally" educate the public on how reducing the deficit isn't easy. In other words, it's a PR move designed to seemingly justify why we continue to fail -- instead of solving the problem. And here we were busily waiting for a Tea Party MMORPG, or Halo 4: Die Deficit Die.

Filed Under: deficit, steve ballmer, video games

South Korea To Shut Some Video Games Off For Six Hours Every Night

from the go-to-sleep dept

For quite some time, authorities in South Korea have contended that a lot of kids there are addicted to the internet. One of the more misguided steps take to try and "cure" these kids was to put them in a boot camp where they couldn't use computers, but apparently that effort failed. So, now, the government is mandating a six-hour nightly curfew (via Gizmodo) for 19 online role-playing games that account for 79 percent of the Korean online game market. Apparently the curfew will help "eradicate video game addiction", and will apply only to underage users. However, it's not clear how the government will ensure users are accurately representing their age. It'll be great that some kids will be prompted to get their sleep, but once again, it seems like the curfew will just treat a symptom, not the underlying problem that leads people to get unhealthily immersed in online games.

Filed Under: internet addiction, south korea, video games

Japanese Video Game Guru Says Console Days Are Numbered

from the can't-hold-back-progress dept

We've talked in the past about the differences between open and closed platforms in driving innovation and adoption. Unlike some, I'm not against inherently closed platforms. I just don't think that they will survive long-term. In fact, I think that closed platforms often do a very good job of defining initial markets, and convincing people to leap into those markets. However, in the long term, it usually seems that the open platforms, which may start out a lot less polished and useful, not only catch up, but surpass the closed platforms. It's not difficult to understand why this happens. When you have a closed platform, the company putting it out has to account for everything -- and thus, initially, it's a lot more advanced and well thought out. However, with an open platform, the initial offering is often chaotic and messy and difficult for new users to understand and adopt. But over time, with many more people able to work on that platform and to innovate on that platform, it gets better and better and better. And it becomes more difficult for the closed platforms to catch up.

Does this always happen? No. But it's happened enough that you have to have a good reason for why it won't happen in any particular market. Of course, one of the examples that people have used for where this has not happened is in the video game market. There, it's the closed platforms -- PS3, Xbox and the Wii -- that have continued to dominate, while the more open PC platform has languished in comparison. There could be a variety of reasons for this -- including the fact that there is a fair bit of competition between the three platforms and the fact that no one has really built a credible open competitor (the PC may be too general purpose). But, apparently, some still think the era of the closed video gaming console is unlikely to last much longer -- and at least one prognosticator is certainly someone who knows the business quite well.

Hideo Kojima, the creator of Metal Gear Solid surprised a lot of people by saying that the video game console is dying, and the future is a much more open solution, that involves games that you can play on any device: computer, mobile, TV, etc.

"In the near future, we'll have games that don't depend on any platform," Kojima said at a news conference announcing the latest installment in a game saga that began in 1987.

"Gamers should be able to take the experience with them in their living rooms, on the go, when they travel -- wherever they are and whenever they want to play. It should be the same software and the same experience," he said.

Who knows if this is true or not, but it would certainly fit the pattern we've seen elsewhere...

Filed Under: consoles, video games

Careful What You Wish For: Greater IP Enforcement In China Being Used Against Foreign Companies...

from the you-asked-for-it... dept

Supporters of stronger intellectual property laws in other countries ought to be careful what they ask for... they just might get it, and then discover they didn't really want it after all. For example, for many, many years, US companies have been screaming loudly about how the US should pressure China to be more respectful of intellectual property. China, for example, regularly makes the "priority watch list" of the USTR's "Special 301" report, which is effectively a catalog of what countries US companies are complaining most about. However, China has suddenly taken an interest in intellectual property in the last few years, and it doesn't seem to be turning out quite like US companies expected.

First, a few years back, we wrote about a high profile counterfeit DVD bust in China, where the "culprit" was actually a rich American. Then, we noticed in 2008 that China was starting to talk about China cracking down on video game piracy, but only when it concerned others copying China's video games. Finally, late last year, we noted that a French company had lost a patent lawsuit in China.

It turns out that was just the beginning. Joe Mullin points us to a story about how there have been a series of recent patent and trademark rulings in Chinese courts all of which appear to be going against large multinational companies and in favor of Chinese companies.

Of course, this isn't a surprise at all. Various studies have shown that greater copyright, patent and trademark protections tend to follow a period of great innovation, when the companies that did that innovation look to protect their position from upstarts elsewhere. In other words, it acts in the exact opposite manner as it's supposed to. It's not an incentive to innovate, but a tool used to stop competition and innovation from others. The situation in China is playing out exactly according to that formula. The country is growing into a bigger believer in intellectual property laws -- but only for the sake of using it to protect against foreigners -- which, we assume, is not what US companies wanted, but which they should have expected if they ever bothered to look at the actual history of stronger intellectual property laws.

Filed Under: china, copyright, intellectual property, piracy, video games

Screenwriters Claim Sony Copied Their Plot For A Video Game

from the judge-explains-basics-of-copyright-law dept

The entitlement some people feel because someone else had a somewhat (but not really) similar idea to what they had, and then actually executed on it better, is really astounding. For years, we've seen people claim that various filmmakers, TV producers and authors had "stolen" their ideas and sued over it. These lawsuits almost never get anywhere. In almost every case, the similarities between the stories are marginal at best, and clearly were developed independently. It's just that the creator of the less-well-known work is jealous of the success of whoever came up with a better version that got a lot more attention.

Apparently, those kinds of lawsuits are now moving to video games as well -- as two screenplay authors tried to claim that Sony copied their screenplay for its game, God of War. Of course, both the video game and the screenplay are apparently based on ancient Greek mythology, which, you know, are sorta in the public domain by now, and the general concepts are rather pervasive in an awful lot of modern storytelling.

No matter. The screenwriters insisted that the gamemakers must have seen their screenplay. Thankfully, the judge is having none of it:

"No one can own the basic idea for a story. General plot ideas are not protected by copyright law; they remain forever the common property of artistic mankind."

Filed Under: copyright, god of war, plots, video games
Companies: sony

Can You Still Say DRM Is Effective When It Creates Security Vulnerabilities, Performance Degradation, Incompatibilities, System Instability And 'Other Issues'? [Update]

from the seems-like-a-stretch dept

Modplan alerts us to a developer at Wolfire games who wrote a blog post claiming that DRM can be "effective," and giving the example of StarForce's DRM on Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory, which supposedly took over a year to crack. But, for this to happen, there were all sorts of problems and even lawsuit threats over people reporting on those problems:

StarForce 3.0 used a plethora of controversial methods to achieve this, most notably, it secretly installed mandatory device drivers. This obviously was highly controversial and there were many reports of new security vulnerabilities, performance degredation, incompatibilities, system instability, and other issues. As an aside, StarForce actually threatened to sue BoingBoing and CNET for reporting on these issues.

Massive consumer issues aside, it worked.

Wait, what? You can't just toss aside those massive consumer issues. "Security vulnerabilities, performance degradation, incompatibilities, system instability, and other issues," does not sound like it "worked" at all. It sounds like the exact opposite. It pissed off and potentially put at risk tons of paying customers. That's not DRM "working" -- though, that is how DRM works. Anyone who reads about "security vulnerabilities, performance degradation, incompatibilities, system instability, and other issues," and thinks that's an example of a system to be emulated, is not someone who you should ever trust to do business with. I'd consider that fair warning to stay away from Wolfire games. As pointed out in the comments, we may have been too quick to judge on this one. Wolfire makes it clear they don't believe that DRM makes sense. The folks from Wolfire also reached out and pointed out that this post was actually a small "correction" to an anti-DRM piece written earlier. As for DRM, Wolfire makes it clear: "We have never used DRM, we hate DRM, and we never will use DRM!" On top of that, they "encourage all other game developers to remove DRM." My apologies for jumping to conclusions on that one. Ok, now go support Wolfire Games...

Filed Under: drm, effective, security, software, video games, vulnerabilities

Long Time Video Game Critic Claims Conclusive Evidence That Violent Video Games Cause Aggression; Conclusive Except That It Isn't...

from the except-for-the-details dept

Well, the back and forth over the impact of violent video games continues. Every so often someone comes out with a research paper, claiming that violent video games are dangerous for kids, but the details never seem to support those exaggerated claims. Studies have shown that kids playing violent video games have more aggressive thoughts while playing the games (uh, duh!) and that they can become desensitized to the violent images on the screen (but not necessarily desensitized to actual violence). Then there are studies that show that kids who play violent video games tend to be emotional about those video games (again, duh). But none of that suggests the video games actually lead to increased violence or any increased risk of violence. They just suggest that kids get into video games. And, for all the claims of violent video games increasing youth violence, it seems rather damning that as violent video games have increased in popularity, incidents of youth violence have dropped. Other studies have actually suggested on-screen violence may actually decrease real violence, by acting as an outlet.

So it seems a bit ridiculous for anyone -- especially a professor who has been solidly on one side of the debate for many years, to stand up and claim that he has conclusively shown that violent video games make kids more "aggressive" (found via Slashdot). First, note the choice of words: not violent, but aggressive. Iowa State psychology professor Craig Anderson, who has already staked his reputation on saying that violent video games have a negative impact on kids, isn't about to back down. He claims that he went through 130 studies and concluded that the support is unequivocal:

"We can now say with utmost confidence that regardless of research method -- that is experimental, correlational, or longitudinal -- and regardless of the cultures tested in this study [East and West], you get the same effects," said Anderson, who is also director of Iowa State's Center for the Study of Violence. "And the effects are that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in both short-term and long-term contexts. Such exposure also increases aggressive thinking and aggressive affect, and decreases prosocial behavior."

Of course, reality is a bit more fuzzy. The same journal that is publishing Anderson's new paper is also publishing a commentary from other researchers who disagree and suggest that Anderson has a pretty bad selection bias problem. But the biggest problem -- as we noted above, is that all of these "violent video games are bad" studies seem to show incredibly weak effects that don't appear to be significant in any meaningful way. As the commentary shows:

Psychology, too often, has lost its ability to put the weak (if any) effects found for VVGs on aggression into a proper perspective. In doing so, it does more to misinform than inform public debates on this issue.

Meanwhile, just last year, two Harvard Medical School professors also went through a whole bunch of different studies on violent video games and came to the exact opposite conclusions as Anderson did. It found little actual evidence to support Anderson's claims, and found significant problems with research suggesting there was a serious link between violent video games and actual violence. Among that report's findings:

• In the last 10 years, video games studies have been overwhelmingly popular compared to studies on other media.
• Less than half of studies (41%) used well validated aggression measures.
• Poorly standardized and unreliable measures of aggression tended to produce the highest effects, possibly because their unstandardized format allows researchers to pick and choose from a range of possible outcomes.
• The closer aggression measures got to actual violent behavior, the weaker the effects seen.
• Experimental studies produced much higher effects than correlational or longitudinal studies. As experimental studies were most likely to use aggression measures of poor quality, this may be the reason why.
• There was no evidence that video games produce higher effects than other media, despite their interactive nature.
• Overall, effects were negligible, and we conclude that media violence generally has little demonstrable effect on aggressive behavior.

Which report seems more credible?

Filed Under: craig anderson, video games, violence

Activision Kills Fan Game Project, Despite Fan License Granted By Previous Rightsholders

from the evil dept

Apparently some fans of the video game series King's Quest have been working for eight years on a fan-made sequel to the last such game. Back in 2005, Vivendi (then the rights holder) sent them a cease and desist, but eventually worked out a "non-commercial fan license" that allowed them to continue. Fast forward to today, and Activision now owns those rights and has decided that the fans' efforts should all go to waste. The company has told the fan group to shut it all down:

After talks and negotiations in the last few months between ourselves and Activision, they have reached the decision that they are not interested in granting a non-commercial license to The Silver Lining, and have asked that we cease production and take down all related materials on our website.

This is "promoting the progress"? You have to hand it to Activision, though. Not only has it pissed off a large group of fans, it's stomped out eight years of their hard work as well. I'm sure that will make those folks that much more excited about purchasing Activision games.

Filed Under: fans, king's quest, non commercial license, video games
Companies: activision, vivendi

Ubisoft DRM Gets Worse And Worse: Kicks You Out Of Game If You Have A Flakey WiFi Connection

from the lovely dept

Last month, we wrote a bit about Ubisoft's bizarre anti-consumer policy of using DRM on games that requires an internet connection to check in (even if you're just playing locally). But, it gets worse. As a whole bunch of you sent in (but compgeek was first), apparently it doesn't just check once to see if you have an internet connection, but regularly checks, and if you've lost that internet connection, it will boot you out of the game and you'll lose everything that you've done since your last checkpoint or save. This is a serious problem for anyone who has even slightly flakey WiFi or an internet connection that goes down frequently (all too common these days). Ubisoft's history with DRM is filled with similar missteps, and it's really amazing that the company seems to be so oblivious to why treating fans badly is such a bad idea.

Filed Under: drm, internet connection, video games
Companies: ubisoft

Australian Politician Claims Video Gamers Are A Bigger Risk To His Family Than Angry Biker Gangs

from the maybe-in-a-game... dept

South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson, last seen around these parts supporting a law that banned anonymous political commentary during election season (though he later said he'd repeal it after the election), is apparently now taking on video gamers. Slashdot points us to the news that Atkinson has claimed that video gamers are a threat to his family, after he found a note from a video gamer left on his doorstep:

"I feel that my family and I are more at risk from gamers than we are from the outlaw motorcycle gangs who also hate me and are running a candidate against me... The outlaw motorcycle gangs haven't been hanging around my doorstop at 2am. A gamer has."

I like how he automatically lumps all video gamers together into a single group because one gamer left him a note. Atkinson appears to have a way with words -- including those against both bikers and video gamers. In the past he was forced to apologize after falsely suggesting that a group of motorcycle gang members had used a local park to "cook a cat for human consumption". Turns out it wasn't true: "The animal was not a cat, the incident happened at another location and bikies weren't involved." So, he's good with the details, it seems.

The specific issue when it comes to video gamers is that Atkinson has been an adamant opponent to allowing any sort of "adult" or "mature" rating for video games. As you may or may not know, Australia censors video games, and will simply not allow games they don't feel are appropriate for those under the age of 18. Yes, if you're an adult and make the conscious choice that you want to play a violent video game, you are legally out of luck in Australia.

At times, Atkinson has supported this position to ridiculous levels. When the football video game "Blitz: The League" was banned from Australia, Atkinson supported this because one option in the game was that a player could take performance enhancing drugs, and apparently, he prefers to keep reality out of video games. When asked by a constituent why he wouldn't support a mature rating for adult video gamers who want to play such games, his response was quite dismissive:

"I think you will find this issue has little traction with my constituents who are more concerned with real-life issues than home entertainment in imaginary worlds."

And now he's claiming that video gamers are a threat to his family? I think the person dealing with the "imaginary worlds" might be Mr. Atkinson.

Filed Under: australia, michael atkinson, video games