GnomeIllusionist writes “In their continuing tribute to Gary Gygax, Wired has created character sheets for nine celebrities. Apparently, Stephen Hawking can do 10D6 radiation damage to his enemies and Rick Astley is a 20th-Level bard. Steve Jobs’ black turtleneck is actually magical armor with +6 against edged attacks.” Most of them are kinda cheesy and obvious- I wonder if you can do better..
azuredrake writes “NCSoft’s City of Heroes has just announced that in-game ads are being added to the game, provided by an advertising firm Double Fusion. However, unlike in many games, the ads being brought to CoH have been defined as ‘always optional’. The publishers see the ads as a purely additional revenue stream, not as something that will ever allow advertisers to affect game content. Commentary is available at Gamasutra. Is making advertisement volunteer-based a viable way to get around cynicism? The tone of these ads seems to be ‘check them out to help the game’. Are there any sites or services in which you’d voluntarily look at ads to lend a hand? “.
Ant writes “Colin Stewart’s OC Register Inside Innovation blog has up a post discussing Blizzard Entertainment’s success in the games industry. According to the site, Blizzard has learned eleven lessons on innovation that can help almost any business. The industry leader used these innovation methods not only to create the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft, but also to keep the game fresh and challenging for more than 10 million players. Because many of those customers pay $15 a month to continue playing, Blizzard’s ongoing creative achievement is worth more than $1 billion a year in revenues, not counting the multi-millions it tallies from its other games.”.
Stony Stevenson writes “A new study of computer gamers has found that a session in front of World of Warcraft can make players less stressed and more calm. The study questioned 292 male and female online gamers aged between 12 and 83 about anger and stress. They then played the game for two hours and were retested. “There were actually higher levels of relaxation before and after playing the game as opposed to experiencing anger, but this very much depended on personality type,” said team leader Jane Barnett from Middlesex University.”.
netbuzz writes “A new survey finds that more than half of K-12 students believe that educational video games in school would help them learn (no surprise), although only 15% of teachers and 19% of parents agree. Adults might not want to scoff, however, because 11% of teachers are already using video games in class and they report great results. ‘Only 3% of elementary school students say they do not play video games of any kind. Students surveyed say learning via video games would help them better understand difficult concepts, become more engaged in the subject matter and practice skills. There’s no mention of the games being fun, but that goes without saying.’”.
simrook writes to tell us that World of Warcraft’s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, has entered closed alpha testing, as reported by WoWInsider. Wrath of the Lich King, which we’ve discussed previously, will raise the level cap to 80 and introduce a new class: Death Knights. World of Warcraft remains the most popular MMORPG on the market with over 10 million subscribers. WoWInsider notes, “Various players are being invited to check it out, under a strict NDA.”.
Vigile writes “Despite all good intentions, Intel continues to see a lot of its work on ray tracing countered not only by their competition, as you’d expect, but also by the very developers that Intel is going to depend on for success in the gaming market. The first major developer to speak on the Intel Larrabee and ray tracing debate was id Software’s John Carmack, who basically said that Intel’s current plans weren’t likely to be implemented soon or ever. This time Cevat Yerli, one of the Crytek developers responsible for the graphically impressive titles Far Cry and Crysis, sees at least 3-5 more years of pure rasterization technology before moving to a hybrid rendering compromise. Intel has previously eschewed the idea of mixed rendering, but with more and more developers chiming in for it, it’s likely where gaming will move.”.
NewsFactor - What would it be like if you could combine the best of an Xbox 360 and the best of the Nintendo Wii? Gamers may soon find out if the latest rumors are true.
TechWeb - MTV’s Web site first reported Microsoft’s supposed plans, including pictures, to develop a Wii-style controller.
Reuters - Horror writer Stephen King has criticized plans by a U.S. state to ban violent video games, saying such a move would be undemocratic and it was up to parents to monitor their children’s entertainment.
AP - Purists who play the silver ball might say pinball should be enjoyed on full-sized machines, but few of us have the money or den space to house an arcade-size collection.
AP - A judge has suspended the sale of the video game “Bully” in Brazil on the grounds that its content is too violent for young children and teenagers, a prosecutor said Thursday.
Macworld.com - Blizzard Entertainment reported Friday that its game World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade recently surpassed one million concurrent users in China. That’s the highest concurrency since the game was launched in China in 2005.
Nintendo revealed today that Steven Spielberg\’s and EA\’s Boom Blox will be released on May 6th in the U.S. The game will be hitting Europe on May 9.
Cammie Dunaway of Nintendo of America has said that they have seen their Wii inventory start to improve over the last few weeks. \”We continue to be committed to getting as many into the marketplace as we can.\” said Dunaway. Analysts had previously predicted the inventory would improve to support the release of big games such as Wii Fit and Boom Blox in May.