Funcom has put in a request/application to the Norwegian stock market! They feel, quite rightly, that they’ve established themselves enough to go public. It’s a fantastic way for them to gain capital and I wish them the best of luck! They’ve struggled long enough and I admire the way the company’s victoriously conquered a reputation of quality, innovation, creativity and popularity! A true Norwegian success story and definately an inspiration for future entrepreneurs.

Of course as all great companies going public do…Funcom also revealed a little tiny peek into their other project, The World Online – which Christer Aasen at Computer World describes as “Dan Brown’s Da Vinci-code on speed”!

I’m very excited about this! Finally a MMO not involving fantasy or, I’m sorry but over excessive testosterone! I mean, as much as I think Conan looks beautiful and I know Funcom can guarantee spectacular and involving gameplay, it’s just too much testosterone for me. I’ll leave Conan to the ‘real’ fans! But what little we’ve heard of The World Online, sounds like this may include people of all colors and ages AND have intriguing gameplay! Well..my heart is pounding with excitement!!¨

Funcom has proven to be one of the most daring and innovative companies in the gaming industry. They were the first to integrate advertising into their online world of Anarchy Online, and they did it in such a classy manner, who can’t respect them? And seriously, if you haven’t played The Longest Journey, have a chat with someone who has, you’ll find that they speak of the game as one of their closest and dearest friends! Seriously…I challenge you to find someone who disliked it!

(Huh….I should work on Funcom’s marketing department shouldn’t I?…he,he…not much objectivity here, sorry about that, but I just can’t help myself!)

I’ve wanted to keep this blog Jack Thompson free, but I found myself reading Game Politics today and I was in stitches. Tears are still rolling down my cheeks from laughing so hard!

I’m finding it very hard to boil it all the background information down to basics, but here goes nothing.

In my opinion this is what’s going on in the US at the moment.

1) There’s a debate about enforcing laws to regulate that computer games which are rated 18+ should not be sold to children. Which, in my opinion, is fair enough. Those age ratings are there for a reason and although I feel they are way too harsh at times, I wouldn’t be too wild about the idea of my 9 year old nephew going to a store and being able to buy F.E.A.R., for example. This is the way it is here in Europe and it distresses me that the European gaming press is in such an uproar. But the uproar stems from Jack Thompson’s statements, I suppose!

2) From what I can gather Devin Moore killed 3 police officers in June 2003 and for his trial he pleaded insanity because he had been playing Grand Theft Auto. Now! From what I can gather, the judge has dismissed the insanity plea because there wasn’t enough evidence to prove GTA could cause this kind of behavior.

But this hasn’t stopped Jack Thompson, who’s gained much publicity and popularity because of his involvement in the above points. Sony, Take-Two/Rockstar, Wal-Mart, GameStop and Devin Moore are now being sued because of the police murders.

Maybe I should round up and get to my point here somewhere. Let me just point out that Wal-Mart is in this group of defendants because they sold the game!

The reason why I’m laughing is that Jack Thompson has now issued a press release in relation to this trial which starts on Thursday. And just to keep things short, I’m going to quote the bit that made me laugh:

“Oh, and certain regional governments in Japan have banned the sale of the Grand Theft Auto games to minors, but Japan’s Sony has no problem whatsoever dumping this garbage into American kids’ brains. Looks like Pearl Harbor 2 by Sony/Take Two…”

This is a perfect example of why this debate in the US has just gone way overboard. And I suppose the press and us bloggers are just amazed by the ridiculousness!

The press release is a classic and should be read by anyone interested! This just seems bizarre to me and I think that it’s a shame that the true issues are completely lost in these banalities.

The Escapist is dedicated to women and gaming this week! Looks like a good mix of writers! I’m looking forward to reading it this week!! I haven’t yet…but I know some of you are interested in gender and gaming…so just thought I’d mention it before I forgot!

Aren’t these Halloween pumpkins just adorable!! Several more where these came from!
Urgh! I know! Being a media student I really should say something about gaming culture and the art and blah blah blah! But right now I’ll just let you think about that – while I continue to work.
Yet again, it’s thanks to Wonderland…Alice’s Place, that I found this site!

Oh hell! We knew this was coming, didn’t we?!! BBC Technology news has an interesting article (I think I’m becoming a fan) and it all has something to do with Blizzard and a program called The Warden, which is a program to stop World of Warcraft players from running cheat programs while playing.

Greg Hoglund has designed another program called The Governor to keep an eye on what The Warden actually reads from your computer. And to his amazement it read too much.

The EFF (The Electronic Frontier Foundation) has now become involved and have branded The Warden as ‘spyware’. Now, this is all terribly complicated for such a technologically dyslexic non-WOW player as myself, so if I misunderstood something here, I’m terribly sorry!

What I find interesting is that players agree to this in their EULA. But as we all know, no one actually reads those, because if you don’t agree, you can’t play, which is a shame because you’ve already payed to play.

The BBC reporter has obviously toured some of the WoW websites and decides to quote Jason Justice from The Low Red Moon guild; “It is entirely Blizzard’s responsibility to protect their intellectual property and the fairness of the game experience, and if they have code sophisticated enough to detect when a cheater is running illegal programs on their computer, they’re doing a right good job of it.”

Well I disagree!!! I ofcourse support Blizzard of protecting their game from cheats (because I despise them myself), but isn’t this just taking things a bit too far? I mean, am I taking things too far if I say that they’re basically invading my privacy to protect their intellectual property rights?

I don’t know…I always overreact and overdramatise things…but I definately think something EXTREMELY questionable is going on here. And let me put another conspiracy theory in you’re head – could players be supporting Blizzard so well in these forums because they’re scared to tick them off and be thrown out of the game? He he! I really have lost it now haven’t I? Back to work I think!

Hmmm….so I’m re-reading Lastowka and Hunter’s “The Laws of the Virtual Worlds” and I can’t help noticing that they always refer to the player as ‘she’. And come to think of it, EVERYONE does! Wikipedia, journalists, academics…everyone who writes about gamers always refers to the player as she. Is there some universal decision made that I don’t know about? Was there a secret meeting at some point where they concluded that gamers should always be referred to as female in order to demolish the stereotypical male pimple faced gamer geek? Or is there some language thing going on here that I just haven’t picked up on? Is the word player or gamer feminine?

Huh…just a thought that I’ll be sure to investigate further when I’m REALLY bored! But for now I’m just gonna let the thought waver out here on my blog. But I really should know this, shouldn’t I?

BBC News Technology has an interesting article on yet another Robbie Cooper project. I love these little ‘who’s behind the avatar projects. This one seems to focus on the people making ‘real’ money playing MMORPGs in China and Korea. I’m a bit disappointed however because he seems to focus on the economies we already know about like, powerleveling, avatar clothes and niche ‘virtual’ objects. I’m disappointed because I’ve started to think about the innovating minds that are making money from the more social/cultural attributes of online gaming. Such as private investigators, marriage ‘priests’ (whatever the taste of the game world), prostitution and those that provide basic in-game entertainment (music, literature, games a.s.o.). There’s a market here as well and it should be investigated a little more…but I’m not sure how. Which I suppose also reminds me that I should get caught up on my T.L. Taylor reading.

I love this quote from Robbie Cooper:

“We live in a virtual world anyway, ” says Mr. Cooper. “Democracy is virtual, politics is virtual; all this stuff and information we get in the newspaper – a lot of it is public relations stuff.”

It kinda reinforces my curiosity of what the word ‘virtual’ actually entails in our era.

There’s also two confirmational points that screamed out to me from the article.

1) That Chinese and Korean online guilds meet up regularly in the ‘real’. Which brings me back to my trip to Korea. This was at a time when I hardly knew what online gaming was, but even then I was mesmerised by how sociable internet cafés were. There was always a sociable couch or/and bar element. And they sat there in groups with their own laptops having a great time with drinks, laughter and computers. It amazed me and I’m wondering if this is the big difference between the west and the east. Here, online gaming is considered to be a geeky loner type hobby, while over there it seemed to be a group activity both in reality and virtuality (oh dear, what a word!).
2) That it seems to be generally accepted that gameplay is utterly and miserably boring in the beginning of MMORPGs and that the power levelling ‘commodity’ is an accepted solution. Instead of calling for the game designers to make the beginning more ‘fun’. On the subject of power levelling Mr Cooper states; “From their point of view it is understandable. When a new game comes out, do you want to start at the bottom or have someone do that for you to get to level at which it is fun to play?”. Personally, I find power levelling annoying. The beginning is painful and slow, but in that process you also learn so much about socialising and language, which I think is essential. Power levelling kinda ruins this and I think we should be focusing on making things more ‘fun’ for beginners. But that’s just my opinion!

Speaking of power levelling one of my favorite blogs, Wonderland, has picked up on yet another ‘sexy females and gaming’ site. This one is ‘Enjoy WoW’ which offers ‘sexy vixen consultants’ who sell powerlevelling in World of Warcraft. You should take a look, it’s quite funny really!

Anyways! Cooper’s exhibition will open in Amsterdam on November 9th and I’m hoping it will go on tour!!!

Water Cooler Games has yet another post on a great new competition:

aniMOweb

This one is about creating a flash game where the theme is ‘peace games’. There is also a contest for an animated intro with the theme ‘conflicts, war and peace: solidarity and justice to guarantee human rights and peace’ and an animated short film about ‘conflicts: between the cult of war and the culture of peace’. First prize is 8000 Euros and international, so anyone can submit!

Unfortunately the entries have to be in by November 30th – so I probably noticed this a bit too late. Sorry about that! But maybe be on a look out for it next year!

A great initiative and yet another inspiration as to what we can try and do here in Norway to get the industry going. Hmmm….I’m also thinking that this would be a great inspiration for design classes. Just a thought!

Note: I bought my laptop in August this year and Im wondering…I can’t find the Euro sign anywhere on my keyboard. Is it hidden somewhere? It seems just absolutely ridiculous that it’s not available!

Now see, I’m so lost I had never heard of MTVu, and I’m wondering, has any Norwegian?!
Anyways they’re offering $50K for the best proposal on an online video game about the crisis in Darfur, Sudan. They’re calling for ‘digital activists’ (what an american word)! I think it’s a pretty cool initiative, although it may be just a tad consumer panicky!

There’s also a competition for creating a game on diplomacy – seems very American, but anyone can apply!

You game?

I’ve been too busy playing journalist (and finding out I’m crap at it) so I hadn’t noticed the events in Korea! And OMFG!!!! It’s happening! It’s really happening! The Korean Fair Trade Comission has undergone an extensive investigation on consumer complaints of MMOG companies and have now released their conclusions. I’m too excited to actually take the time to understand the details (I am literally jumping up and down here, how sad am I?!) so:

“…the comission published its findings based on the Adhesion Contract Act, and they are sweeping: of twelve tos/coc clauses examined, eight were declared legally void”

I think this means that some of the things listed in the article have actually become law!! And get this, they’re actually saying that “Avatars are promoted to human, while God like developers descended to human”! WOW!!!!!!

They’re talking about compensation to the player for time lost when servers are down!!!! It’s just madness!! I really don’t think they’ve thought this through. I mean, I know I’m writing a thesis on player’s rights and all, but COME ON! This is insane!!

Anyways…there’s a new fantastic site/blog on Korean gaming news called Gamestudy.org. Absolute gold!!!!

Sigh…I’m still in shock!!