Consensual Sex Mod In GTA Not Disturbing Enough To Get Many To File For Settlement Payment

from the really-not-so-bad dept

For years, we've been mystified by the "scandal" surrounding the "Hot Coffee" mod in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Here was a game that very overtly included all sorts of violence, killing, carjacking, drugs, robbery, prostitution and general mayhem. And, then someone slips in a modification that adds in some consensual sex? How dare they! Yet, it became a big issue for politicians and lawyers, who eventually worked out a settlement that gives those offended $5. The lawyers, in the meantime, stand to take home $1.3 million. And, now, it turns out that not very many people cared enough to join the settlement. There are probably two reasons for this: (1) most people really weren't particularly offended and (2) $5? ($35 if you actually kept the receipt) Not worth the time. So, once again, we have a situation where a class action lawsuit basically just moves a bunch of money to some lawyers, rather than doing anything useful.

Filed Under: class action, consensual sex, grand theft auto, hot coffee, mods, video games
Companies: take two interactive

Atari Sues Websites Over Pre-Release Reviews Of Games

from the what's-illegal-here? dept

Slashdot points us to the news that Atari has started suing various websites that posted reviews of new games prior to the release date of the games. The reviews are negative, but the real problem, according to Atari, is that there was a press embargo on reviewing the games, and if someone has a copy of the game prior to the embargo and hasn't agreed to the embargo, then it's clear that they pirated the game. At least one site has explained that it purchased the game legally from a retail source who mistakenly sold the game before the release date -- which would suggest the problem is with the retailer, not the reviewer. No matter what, the whole thing seems ridiculous. Suing those who review your games (even if the reviews are not good or if the reviews come out early) is a sure way to make sure many sites refuse to review anything you do again.

Filed Under: pre-release, reviews, takedowns, video games
Companies: atari

Video Gamers Sue EA Over Exclusive Sports Games

from the yes...-but... dept

Sports video games are a huge business -- and for many years, it was an extremely competitive space. I remember a few years back trying to wade through half a dozen different baseball video game titles to figure out which one was worth buying. However, a few years back, video game giant EA started signing "exclusive" deals with a variety of sporting leagues, including the NFL. These "exclusive" deals supposedly meant that only EA could produce games with the names and stats of real players -- a huge selling point among most fans. And, of course, in gaining exclusivity, EA has completely cashed in. However, a bunch of angry video gamers are now suing the company for anticompetitive conduct, noting that these exclusive deals killed off all the competition, allowing EA to drastically raise its prices.

Of course, there's a separate issue that might make these gamers (and other video game companies) happy: with the recent rulings concerning fantasy baseball, it appears that the court system recognizes that player names and stats are public domain data. Thus, even with the "exclusivity," other video game companies should be able to include real player names and data. They probably still cannot use real league logos, and even player likenesses may be out (which, again, is often a big selling point) -- but hopefully it at least brings some competition back to the market.

Filed Under: competition, exclusivity, sports, video games
Companies: ea

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor Gets Into... Video Gaming?

from the didn't-see-that-coming dept

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor made a statement at a conference that I think we can all agree with:

"If someone told me when I retired from court that I'd be talking at a conference about digital gaming, I'd think they'd had one drink too many."

However, not only did she talk at a conference about digital gaming, she's working on a project to create a video game about the court system, to try to make students more informed about the judicial system and some of the difficult decisions it makes. There have been many similar "civic education" video games out there, like the UN video game to teach kids about world hunger and, my personal favorite, a video game to teach kids how to gerrymander voting districts to get political support. It's not clear how successful any of these sorts of games really are, but it's nice to see a former Supreme Court Justice taking an interest in these sorts of things. Though, some might point out that this could be seen as something of a gimmick, and students might just be better served by adding a decent civics curriculum back into school (it's apparently gone thanks to No Child Left Behind).

Filed Under: civics, justice system, sandra day o'connor, video games

Bad Ideas: Instituting Artificial Scarcity To Annoy Fans Into Buying Now

from the economics-of-destroying-value dept

The more you look at the economics of abundance, you realize how ridiculous it is to ever artificially create scarcity. It only serves to shrink a market and leave open huge opportunities for competitors to wipe you out. Most of the time, though, we're talking about things like copyrights and patents -- which many people (who haven't considered the matter thoroughly) don't think of as artificial scarcity. However, it's quite rare to see someone be totally open in defending artificial scarcity as a smart business model option. Reader Mart writes in to point to just such an editorial, over at Gamasutra, where Matt Matthews tries to make the case for why video game makers should create artificial scarcity in an attempt to have more control over their markets.

Specifically, he suggests that games should only be released and available for limited times before being pulled, with the idea being that this artificial scarcity would cause people to rush to buy now. This is part of the common misconception about artificial scarcity. It assumes a somewhat static market, where all the scarcity does is make the same number of people want to buy in a smaller window. That's simply untrue, and plenty of economic research in the space has shown that to be false. It's not difficult to understand why either. A purchase decision involves a variety of different factors, and if one of those factors is that the company selling the product is toying with you by putting extremely annoying limitations on the product, that's going to turn a lot of people off. It also opens up much wider opportunities for competing companies who don't toy with their customers and offers a product to whoever wants -- embracing the wider opportunities of the long tail, rather than shutting them off. The whole point of the long tail is that it expands your market -- whereas Matthews seems to want to destroy that expanded market in favor of additional control over a smaller market.

What seems to really get Matthews are two things, which he notes as being the core of the problem: "An infinitely long tail gluts the market, confounds the consumer, and commoditizes developers." As for "gluts" the market -- that's not a problem that you solve by artificial scarcity (limiting choice), it's a problem you solve by having better filters and better recommendation systems. As for commodtizing developers, that's shorthand for "I don't want to compete." But, of course, the second you do something so silly as limiting the timeframe in which your fans can buy your games, the faster you hurt your own business by letting your competitor get their business. That seems a lot worse than having to actually compete.

Filed Under: business models, markets, scarcity, video games

Microsoft Apparently Still Confused About The Long Tail Concept

from the there's-no-shelf-space dept

The concept of "The Long Tail" seems so common to be almost a cliche these days. While it used to be a part of nearly every startup's VC pitch, it's long passed the point where VCs now roll their eyes when they hear about a "long tail" company. However, it appears that plenty of folks are still unfamiliar with the concept. For example, Microsoft seems to be killing off Xbox Live games that aren't performing well, even if they have some audience. Microsoft claims that it's because it's too confusing to find games, but as Chris Kohler points out in the link above, that's a problem of Microsoft's Xbox Live interface -- not the fact that there are too many games. Cutting off the games doesn't make much sense. It doesn't "cost" Microsoft much to keep them on the shelves, and these unwanted games can bring in plenty of revenue in the aggregate. The real problem is that Microsoft needs to fix its UI.

Filed Under: bad interface, long tail, shelf space, video games, xbox, xbox live
Companies: microsoft

GTA IV Actor Complains About His Salary After Game's Success; So Why Did He Take The Job?

from the jealousy-isn't-a-business-model dept

We've already written about the rather ridiculous campaign by actors to make sure they get a cut of every time their work is used. As we pointed out, the various entertainment companies have no one to blame but themselves for this state of affairs -- as they're the ones who have made the same claim in pushing to get paid for every use of their content. However, the more people all demanding their slice of the pie, the more difficult it gets for these companies to really embrace new business models. Now, we have the NY Times playing along with the actors claims, presenting an absolutely ridiculous and extreme "example." It takes on the cause of the voice talent performing as the lead character in Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko. The actor in question made $100,000 for his voice work and motion capture work, which took parts of 15 months. That seems like a rather reasonable fee -- and, clearly, it was reasonable to Michael Hollick, or else he wouldn't have taken the job. And, of course, if he demanded more, it's likely that Rockstar would have moved on and found another perfectly capable and willing actor to do the work for $100,000.

Yet, thanks to news reports that note that the game has raked in $600 million, Hollick is being put forth as an example of those poor actors not getting "their cut" of work they do in video games. This is after-the-fact arguing. Hollick had a deal that was worthwhile. It's only after the fact, based on the lofty sales numbers being bandied about that it makes for a good "story" to suggest that he was somehow underpaid. It's surprising that the NY Times would even play up that side of the story when even Hollick himself admits that the $1,050 per day fee he received was 50% higher than the union's negotiated rate. In other words, he was paid a premium for the work, making over $1,000/day (hardly a pauper's salary), got a ton of publicity for his work in the role... and only after the fact complains about the salary based on the overall revenue the game brought in, and the NY Times puts out an article with a headline suggesting he was underpaid.

Filed Under: grand theft auto, jealousy, royalties, video games, voice talent
Companies: rockstar, take two interactive

Nintendo Loses Patent Suit In East Texas, Of Course

from the prior-art,-anyone? dept

The latest in a long line of patent lawsuits in every patent hoarders favorite district of East Texas involves the game controllers used by Nintendo. A company holds a patent on a 3D controller and sued Nintendo (and Microsoft) for supposedly violating the patent. Not surprisingly, the jury found in favor of the patent holder. Juries quite often side with the patent holder, no matter how questionable the patent may be. In this case, there would seem to be a ton of prior art raising validity questions. The patent itself was filed in November of 2000, at which point there were already numerous game controllers that seem to meet most of the criteria outlined in the claims. Whatever minor differences there may have been between what was on the market and what's in the claims should be seen as an obvious iteration of game controllers. As for Microsoft's involvement, it paid up to settle last month, once again showing how it's often cheaper to just pay up rather than to fight questionable patents. And, that, of course, is why we will keep seeing more and more questionable patents being filed. It's just so lucrative.

Filed Under: east texas, game controller, patents, video games
Companies: nintendo

EA Backs Down On Controversial DRM

from the power-to-the-people dept

It amuses me sometimes when people get angry at a position we take, and say to us something along the lines of "well, if you're so upset about it, stop talking about it and do something," as if talking about it doesn't help to bring about change by getting many others interested as well. Thus, it's always nice to see when a story does help generate change. Last week, one of the stories we had that got the most traffic was about EA's use of controversial DRM on some hyped up new games. The DRM would require a regular internet connection and would regularly check in on users. The comments on that post were harsh, with many swearing never to buy those games -- and many wrote EA about those concerns as well. A bunch of other sites picked up on the uproar as well, and late Friday, EA agreed to cut back on the DRM plans. It's not a total capitulation, as there will still be some DRM used -- it just won't be quite as onerous as originally planned.

Filed Under: drm, spore, video games
Companies: ea

EA To Use Controversial Internet-Required DRM On New Games

from the pissing-off-your-customers dept

SteveD writes "PC Gamers are in an uproar over a new copy projection system announced by Electronic Arts for use on their upcoming titles. The PC-port of the successful Xbox title Mass Effect, and the eagerly awaited Will Wright title Spore will be two of the higher profile games to use this new system. The new system is the latest iteration of the SecuROM protection, which has caused problems in the past over technical issues with several popular titles. The version of SecuROM that shipped with Bioshock was even accused (but never proven) of installing a root-kit on users PCs.

This new version is causing controversy due to an online verification system connected to its CD key. The system requires a connection to the internet during installation to check the CD key is valid, and then registers the key with the users' computer. After this the game will try to re-check the CD key every 5-10 days to ensure it hasn't since been found posted on a forum, or used in some form of piracy. If the game can't verify the key within this period it will continue to try for a further 10 days, after which it will stop working until the key is checked. The protection will also only allow the game to be installed three times.

A lot of gamers consider this intrusive and inconvenient, and that the publishers are effectively assuming their customers are pirates and looking over their shoulders every 10 days to check. Other concerns have been raised over users who don't play with machines permanently connected to the internet (such as laptops), or how the system will work in regards to resale. A comprehensive help-line has been promised to help people deal with these issues and the developers have mentioned the new system will remove the need for a DVD to run the game, but these potential problems combined with SecuROM's past have made some call for a boycott of the titles and others to declare an intention to pirate the game out of spite."

Seems like more short-term thinking. If the effort is to reduce "piracy" it won't work. People will figure out other ways to pirate the games -- that's almost guaranteed. So, in the end, all this will really do is piss off the legitimate customers who paid for something that suddenly doesn't work, though no fault of their own. That hardly seems like a good way to build up a strong supporting fan base.

Filed Under: drm, video games
Companies: ea