California Appeals Overturned Video-Game Ban To The Supreme Court

from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed dept

Politicians in California keep trying to push through a ban on the sale of violent video games to minors -- despite the fact that every state that's passed a ban has seen it get tossed out by the courts. The latest setback for California came in February, when an appeals court upheld a lower court's ruling that the ban was unconstitutional, but the state's not finished. Its attorney general, Jerry Brown, now says he's asked the Supreme Court to hear another appeal of the original ruling. It's fairly annoying that Brown sees fit to waste even more taxpayer money (especially given the state's budget woes), but perhaps the only saving grace is that the Supreme Court might take the case and reaffirm what other courts have said all along, and finally put a stop to some of this political grandstanding.

Filed Under: appeals, california, first amendment, video games

Square Enix Shuts Down Fan Game Effort

from the shut-down-the-fans-and-they-may-shut-you-down dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in various versions of the story that video game maker Square Enix has forced a fan mod community to shut down a years-long project to create a mod called Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes based on the Chrono Trigger world. The game was set to be released at the end of the month before the legal nastygram forced the volunteer fan group to shut down.

It's difficult to fathom how this could possibly make sense. These were fans who were playing up how much they loved the original game universe, and wanted so badly to help spread that, that they spent years developing additional game action, only to have it totally shut down. In an era when treating your fans badly has been shown to backfire badly (especially in the video game world), you would think that Square Enix would have thought twice before sending a legal nastygram threatening huge legal fines.

Once again, this seems like a case where people sent a legal nastygram because they could, not because it was a smart business idea.

Filed Under: chrono trigger, fans, mods, video games
Companies: square enix

Game Developers Embracing Connecting With True Fans

from the good-for-them dept

JohnForDummies points us to an article in the Wall Street Journal about video game developers who are embracing business models that focus on getting a core group of fans to pay. While the article credits Kevin Kelly's well-known essay on 1,000 True Fans, I have to admit I'm having a little trouble seeing how this is really all that different than the old "shareware" market. While these developers are focused on adding more value for paying subscribers (and are only targeting a small and attainable number of paying users), I still think it's a risky business model to focus on selling anything that can be easily copied. The focus should be on finding real scarcities that can be sold...

Filed Under: business models, true fans, video games

Despite Piracy Worries, Stardock's Demigod Did Quite Well On The Sales Front

from the not-so-bad... dept

While many people falsely claimed that the server troubles Stardock dealt with recently, due to unauthorized copies of its new game Demigod effectively pinging its servers, showed how Stardock's trusting (no DRM) model doesn't work, that was clearly incorrect. Even throughout the stories last week, the execs at Stardock didn't seem particularly upset or worried about the fact that so many unauthorized copies were out there -- but about getting the servers set up properly to handle the load. And, now, as reader Christopher Chapman points out, Demigod has debuted as the number 3 best selling PC game, suggesting (yet again) that you can get plenty of sales even when you don't treat your customers like criminals.

Filed Under: demigod, piracy, sales, video games
Companies: stardock

Demigod, Piracy And Good Business Models...

from the let's-walk-this-through... dept

Lots of folks have been submitting variations on the story about how Stardock's new game, Demigod, has been widely pirated, and that's resulted in server troubles for the company, as many of these unauthorized users try to connect to Stardock servers. Many are claiming that this shows that Stardock's customer friendly approach to video games fails. But, that's not true or accurate at all. It's just an issue of properly lining up the incentives and the infinite goods vs. the scarcities. In this case, one of the key scarcities was server access -- but Stardock set things up such that unauthorized copies could drag that down. The good thing, though, is that the company quickly got on top of the problem and has been implementing a technological fix rather than screaming and complaining about pirates. Meanwhile, some others have sent in links to the Demigod forums, where people recognize that many of the unauthorized users got the game to test it out, and are encouraging people to buy it to support Stardock and its fan-friendly attitude.

In the end, though, it does seem like Stardock has set this up a bit as a "give it away and pray" setup, which we tend not to agree with as a good business model. Since a big part of the game is the mutliplayer aspect, where you have to connect to a server and play against other players, why not give away the software itself (many people are getting it this way already) and charge a nominal fee for access to the server. That access is a scarcity -- and then you can scale based on users, since more users means more money. It seems like that's a reasonable business model that aligns everything much more nicely.

Filed Under: business models, demigod, piracy, video games
Companies: stardock

Atari Apparently Learns Nothing From EA's Bad Experience With DRM

from the head-in-the-sand dept

Last September, (despite warnings to avoid overly cumbersome DRM), EA discovered just what sort of backlash annoying DRM could have when thousands of reviewers on Amazon slammed the game Spore for its overly limiting DRM from Securom. EA eventually backed down (somewhat), and on newer games seems a lot more sensitive to community concerns about DRM (though, many would argue not sensitive enough). Apparently, some of EA's competitors, however, haven't been paying much attention. Reader Tyler Hipwell sends in the news that Atari recently released the game Chronicles of Riddick with similarly awful DRM (requires online activation, limited to three total activations) and a ton of negative reviews are flowing to the Amazon listing. Either Atari didn't pay attention to EA's experience with Spore... or it somehow thought that the same thing wouldn't happen to its game as well. Neither one of those options says anything good about Atari.

Filed Under: chronicles of riddick, drm, reviews, video games
Companies: atari, ea

When People Talk About How Video Games Cause Violence, This Probably Isn't What They Mean

from the overreaction dept

The evidence that violent video games cause violent behavior remains lacking, but that doesn't stop the games from being blamed for all sorts of violent acts. Usually, this blame is suspect, but perhaps in some cases, you can make a link between video games and violent behavior. Like in England, where a man has just been convicted of killing his partner, apparently because she stayed up late playing Grand Theft Auto on a TV in their bedroom. Of course, one would be hard pressed to argue that the game really made him do it; the fact that he attacked the woman with two knives and stabbed her in the chest 20 times would indicate the guy had some other issues. But we've seen plenty of cases where video games get blamed for abhorrent behavior, while other causes get ignored, so why not here, too?

Filed Under: video games, violence

Nintendo Boss: Used Video Games Aren't Good For Consumers

from the oh-really? dept

The folks over at GamePolitics are highlighting the most ridiculous part of a VentureBeat interview of Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America:

VB: Used games are coming up as a big issue again. Why?

RFA: More and more retailers are experimenting with the used game model. We don't believe used games are in the best interest of the consumer. We have products that consumers want to hold onto. They want to play all of the levels of a Zelda game and unlock all of the levels. A game like Personal Trainer Cooking has a long life. We believe used games aren't in the consumer's best interest.

VB: Because?

RFA: Describe another form of entertainment that has a vibrant used goods market. Used books have never taken off. You don't see businesses selling used music CDs or used DVDs. Why? The consumer likes having a brand-new experience and reliving it over and over again. If you create the right type of experience, that also happens in video games.

First off, it's rather stunning to claim that a vibrant used market isn't in the best interest of consumers. As studies have shown repeatedly, healthy second-hand markets actually help both consumers and original producers because it adds more value to the product. That's rather obvious once you think about it. If someone knows they can resell the product at a decent price later, then it both lowers the risk and increases the value of the original product. On top of that, the used market also helps better differentiate on pricing, again benefiting both customers and producers.

Second, it's quite odd to claim that there's no used book, used CD or used DVD market. A few years back we noted that the used book market had become a multibillion dollar industry, and you just need to look on, say, Amazon or eBay to see thriving sales of used books, CDs and DVDs. To claim that there's no such market either shows ignorance of the market or is an outright lie -- neither of which is a good thing.

Filed Under: consumers, reggie fils-aime, used video games, video games
Companies: nintendo

Another Study Shows That Action/Violent Video Games Improve Vision

from the and-yet... dept

Nearly six years ago, we wrote about a study showing that playing video games can help improve your vision, and now there's another study showing that such video games can help improve vision -- specifically contrast sensitivity, which is noted to be "important in situations such as driving at night, or in conditions of poor visibility." But, of course, rather than paying attention to all that, we get stories about how all violent video games must be banned.

Filed Under: eyesight, video games

German Police Union Leader Adds To Chorus Calling For Video Game Ban

from the fingering-the-blame dept

After the tragic school shooting in Germany a couple of weeks ago, politicians almost immediately (and predictably) called for a ban on the sale of violent video games. Now, a leader of the German police union has also called for a ban, claiming that in "every" violent episode like the school shootings, the shooter has had an "addiction" to violent video games. Proof of the link between violent games and people acting out violence in real life remains tenuous, but the union boss says "when a chance to remove a probable cause exists, it must be used." Okay, sounds good. Violent people probably eat sandwiches, so let's ban them, too. I bet they have all ridden in cars, too, so riding in cars must cause violent behavior -- ban 'em. This correlation/causation thing is easy, isn't it?

Filed Under: ban, germany, video games