Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 - Anticipation and Controversy
From 'murder simulators' to homosexual references, Infinity Ward, the developer behind the 13 million copies of Call of Duty 4's; have been taking quite the heat with its upcoming Modern Warfare 2. The most prominent controversy behind the game is the inclusion of a airport massacre by the actual player. After the tutorial in the first Modern Warfare, the story immediately begins with a tense, five minute introduction in which the player is dragged out into a crowd and is assassinated. Seeking to intensify the narrative, the campaign of Modern Warfare 2 places the player behind an armed terrorist at an airport. However, it is up to the player themselves if they wish to kill any of the defenseless civilians - or to even play this scene at all.
Activision, the publisher of both Call of Duty games, responded by stating "players encounter a 'checkmark' in which they are warned that an upcoming segment may contain disturbing elements and they can choose not to engage in the gameplay." Activision also notes that the company stresses the Mature-18+ ESRB rating, both on its box and in advertising. It has also been rumored that choosing not to kill civilians will have positive outcomes later in the game. Video Link (Warning: Contains Violence)
Only a few days later, Infinity Ward fell into another rut with its release of a viral video depicting Cole Hamels, the Philadelphia Phillies pitcher, giving a public service announcement about 'grenade spamming'. For those unfamiliar with gaming jargon, 'grenade spamming' either involves randomly throwing grenades or continuously throwing extensive amounts in one location - often considered cheap tactics. Infinity Ward managed to pull the video extremely early to minimize the backlash - not because of the video's profanity, but because of it's psuedo-service announcement: "Fight Against Grenade Spamming". The title intentionally spells out FAGS, which in most online gaming, is used devoid of its actual meaning; or in other words, it is often just another insult people shout behind faceless characters. Video Link (Warning: Contains Profanity)
The last shocking news, mostly for 'hardcore' gamers, was the decision to remove dedicated servers from the PC version of the game. With the rise of online console multiplayer, it has always been a core concept of computer games featuring player hosted servers. These servers provide friend, or 'clan' support, that allow for user specifications and modifications, called 'mods', to the game. And in the past, these servers were extremely important when internet connection speeds were a problem (ie dial-up). The removal of this has prompted more than 75,000 signatures for a petition in a matter of 2 days after the information was released. Interestingly enough, online petitioning has has very mixed results for gaming, ranging from absolute silence from companies to prompted responses from the company.
And while some may call the controversy as means of garnering more attention, nothing can describe the $150 Prestige Edition that contains functional night-vision goggles. I kid you not.
Anti-Wifi Paint
Have you ever been completely absorbed at a movie theater, to the point that your mindlessly stuffing popcorn down your throat; when all of a sudden someone's phone goes off and completely ruins the movie? Well fear these invisible waves/particles no more! Created by masterminds in Tokyo, the Anti-Wireless paint contains an aluminum-iron oxide that cancels out wireless and radio frequencies. The paint has been designed specifically to lower the cost of expensive security systems, software and hardware, simply by preventing signals to enter and exit buildings. The research team also argues the paint has broader uses, such as implementing at the movie theater, the hospital, and even into your clothing. Mark Jackson, security engineer at Cisco UK, argues that this technology has been available for quite some time, but he hopes that companies do not start painting entire buildings instead of providing software security, the much safer alternative. However, if the paint is marketed correctly, it might be ending in your nearest hardware store's shelf.
Another controversial Sony Advertisement
Since its launch into the world of video games in 1994-5 with the PlayStation 1, Sony Computer Entertainment has always had a rocky relationship with its advertising. Over the recent years, Sony's abstract advertisements have been under attack by being deemed offensive, racist, suicidal, and just plain weird. Whether it is to shock or to mentally please, the next batch of PlayStation 3 Slim advertisements feature the theme of sharing - quite literally. The first picture of the Chilean advertisements features a gamer donating his heart to Jeanne D'Arc. The other, as seen above, has created controversy by depicting a gamer giving a blood to a Nazi officer. However, the officer depicted is actually the German field officer Erwin Rommel, who is recognized for his humane treatment of captives and Jewish civilians. Whether this will remedy the situation is still unknown. But one can only imagine what bizarre advertisement Sony will think of next.
See also: top 10 worst PlayStation Ad's
Sources: Engadget, Joystiq affiliates, New York Times
White Male Characters dominate video games
Look like's it time to forget about trying to define the gender of your favorite Pokemon. A recent census conducted by Dmitri Williams at the University of Southern California, LA has determined just what gender and race your favorite character is. While technically this census was from early '06, its insightful information had been revisited by the laborers at NewScientist. And the results are quite interesting. As seen from the above graph, the central characters tested feature 89.5% males who are generally 85% white. However, there are some very important parameters to mention:
The survey was only conducted on the 150 top selling games in 2006 (on the last-generation consoles ie Playstation 2, Gamecube ect.). And the weight each game carried was based on how many copies were sold: that means Madden 07, which sold 1.6 million copies, would have a larger impact than Kingdom Hearts 2, which sold 1.5 million copies.
So from the 30 minutes the researches interacted with the game, they had to conduct a "demographic study of each character that appeared on the
screen", specifically the 'main character'. While this sounds simple, just take the top two selling games above: how can one consider a main character in a NFL team? And what would one define Goofy or Donald Duck as? And what about games like Brain Age, where you are the main character, or Elder Scrolls: IV where you create your own character?
US Bluetooth Headset Usage Decreases
Whether they are praised for their accessibility or blamed for inducing conversations to the wrong person, the Bluetooth Headset has created quite a niche into today's society. In a recent survey conducted by Strategy Analytics, this niche might fade away as the total daily usage in the United States has dropped from 48% to 26%. Interestingly enough, the percentage in Europe increased to 36%. Chris Shreiner, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, comments that it is the style and design that has dicontented many customers: “The number of Bluetooth headset owners that are satisfied with the style of their device dropped 27% since 2008.”
If the age of Bluetooth Headsets is at it's end, what will replace it?
Global Gaming Factory X approve purchase of The Pirate Bay
The legacy of the internet pirates may be at its end – at least that's what the MAFIAA (Music and Film Industry Association of America) and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) have been hoping for in the long drawn out political battle between that which is copyrighted and that which is the Pirate Bay. Such an end has been foreseen through Monday’s court case of the Pirate’s Bay Internet Service Provider (ISP)’s ISP and the recent plans of Swedish-based company Global Gaming Factory (GGF) to purchase the Pirate Bay itself.
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If all this technical swashbulckin’ seems to have too much jargon, here’s a quick overview:
Torrenting functions through what is called Peer-To-Peer (P2P) file transferring. The concept is simple: as one person
downloads parts of file, say the ‘end’ of the file; they also upload what they
have downloaded. If another user has
been downloading the ‘start’ of the file, then these two users can transfer
their respective data while still downloading the main file; thus, the download
speed is proportional to amount of uploaders, contrasting the previous method
of hosting a file and simply downloading it.
Like any file sharing system, however, users have abused this legal process
to distribute their bootlegged music, movies, software, and other files. The Pirate Bay is one of the best known
websites that hosts "pathways" for these uploaded files, called torrents. The Pirate Bay does not actually recognize or
support the files on their servers; instead, it is up to the users to determine
what legal/illegal content they upload/download. The Pirate Bay also does not make any profit
from the files on its website; instead, their profit for maintaining their servers comes from the endless amounts of advertisements.
Despite these important factors, most American copyright industries were extremely annoyed about the extensive pirating and decided to press charges against the Pirate Bay in April 2009. The founders of the Pirate Bay were trialed in a Swedish court for nine days and were found guilty of “assistance to copyright infringement” along with a year of prison and a fine of $3.6 million dollars.
At this point, it is important to note two important opinions and facts expressed by many people against the outcome of the trial:
- Perhaps the most notable complaint was the fact that it was most American companies that were trying to push their copyright laws on a company based in Sweden; the premise of a country enforcing any regulations on another is a highly debatable topic to begin with.
- Secondly, there have also been many accounts stating the Judge and Jurors were biased – and some have even claimed that they were bribed by multiple industries
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A few weeks after the trial ended, the media was stunned when the Global Gaming Factory announced plans to purchase the Pirate Bay. The GGF states that they hope to provide a 'subscription based service' in which users must pay for downloading their torrents, a la Rapster. This statement has caused rumors to run rampart, mainly because of the ambiguous past of the company. Most advocates of the Pirate Bay believe that the GGF is just the front company for the website. Essentially, this means that they believe GGF is merely a company the owners of PB have invested in so that their money is not traced back to them. The owners of the PB have jokingly admitted that they are broke, and it is true that they make little - if any - from the website; but people believe that they must have their money elsewhere.
Another reason for this view is because many people find the 'subscription' method to be heavily flawed: the GGF wants to charge users money to essentially attach their trackers, the "pathways" for the file, onto user's torrents. That means only paying users can get the access to specific uploaders/downloaders of the torrents, which would ignore the thousands of other users pirating on free sites; thus, severely limits the speed of downloads. Many people deem that such a method seems impractical and financially disastrous.
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In current news, the Pirate Bay is still fully operational despite the case’s ruling. The MAFIAA decided to change this and sued the Pirate’s Bay ISP’s ISP. In other words, the internet service providers (ISP) that provides service to the company that hosts the pirate bay was sued; or in the Layman terms by the pirates themselves:
“TPB
[The Pirate Bay] can be compared to the organisation that builds the roads for
cars to drive on. The ISP can be compared to the organisation that creates the
asphalt for the roads. The ISP's ISP can be compared to the organisation that
creates the tools needed to the asphalt to be created. You would normally not
sue that organisation if a car speeds.”
“And you know what? They
won.”
The MAFIAA indeed won the court case against the second ISP and the site looks like it is reaching its eminent end.
Or perhaps it’s rebirth. Just today, the GGF stock holders have finally approved plans to purchase the Pirate Bay, a process that will take a couple of weeks.
And in the next couple of weeks, the internet will surely be in turmoil: will the copyright owners receive their legal money? Will the people of the internet continue to claim that 'the legacy of the pirates will always live on'? Time will surely tell, but you know what they say. "Where there is a sea, there are pirates."
On a side note, the Pirate Bay continues their black humor by sending the industries that sued them with the a shirt that says: ‘I spent countless hours and millions of dollars trying to shut down the Pirate Bay and all I got was the beautiful t-shirt.'
Sources: Almost every facet of the Internet
Q1 2010
The Video Game industry is perhaps the most bizarre, convoluted, and unique mutli-billion dollar industry that exists today. From its slew of internal public and private conferences to its brutal dog-eat-dog competition, the world of game design is a sight to behold. Yet as strange and innovative it can be, developers naturally make questionable choices that always seem to raise a few eyebrows. The recent issue is the dreaded "Q1 2010 delay". Like any good industry, the life of video games goes through dynamic changes every year. The gaming industry generally cycles through several months of highly anticipated games (AAA games) and several months of "droughts", featuring mostly games designed for money - not fun. The fourth quarter (Q4) is particularly noted for containing many AAA titles that have been in development for quite a while. Understandably, the companies gamble where their game will sale the best: should they rush their product and try to sale their game amongst a sea of bigger titles? Should they pump more money into development and wait until the summer months where there aren't many games?
This year, however, the following companies are making a very interesting decision by delaying their titles (including multiple projects for various platforms) to the first quarter of 2010:
Capcom
Electronic Arts
Warner Bros.
BioWare
Eidos
Activision
Ubisoft
Platinum Games
2K Games
Raven Software
Sources: Kotaku, Google, Gametrailers, Joystiq
