A long while back there was a big stir about PowerPlay (and follow-up here and a PR here) being a revolution in how multiplayer games were done online. There was a big old list of big name software and hardware companies signed on endorsing the movement and then.... nothing. Well it turns out PowerPlay is just going to be an ISP with some special features for gamers (If you have 10 guys sign up you get your own clan server) VoodooExtreme has word on what's up with the dial-up ISP (cable and dsl to follow later)

Pricing will be $19.95 a month for the basic service (ed: Modems) [...] "We are not doing anything special from a business perspective," she said, "It's a straight forward ISP." She added that even if a fraction of the people who sign up for the beta test turn out to pay for the service they expect it to be profitable.

The service is being called Game2K1 now and has an all your base reference. Ugh.

Here's an AP story discussing emotional attachment and games work together (Thanks VE) and of course how this translates to the bottom line. There is also a bit in there about how the face of gaming is evolving and some speculation on what the catalyst for it all is.

Some software designers attribute the changes to an aging market that's careering toward a third decade of gaming. Others say this simply the technology evolving naturally, that more computing power means pixilated heroes and villains can be smarter, faster and vulnerable. In short, more lifelike than ever before. [...] ``Players have experienced in-your-face shooting in the past, and now they want more,'' said Todd Hollenshead, chief executive of Id Software, a developer in Mesquite, Tex. ``Call it 'been there, done that.' Players are looking for the next thing that is going to wow them.''

I'd say it has a lot to do with the original computer/arcade gamers getting older and more mature. Kids naturally gravitate towards new things so when arcade gaming started out it was easy to target that age group. Now 20 years later those kids have grown up and still play games. You've got a much wider demographic now. Seems simple enough.

According to very reliable sources close to ION Storm, ION Storm Dallas is shutting down today. Eidos apparently didn't feel like spending more money on the game development company of John Romero and Tom Hall. However much fun was made of the company and some of its products, it's never cool to see people lose their job. ION Storm Austin will continue to develop Thief 3, Deus Ex 2 and whatever other products they have going there.
So what has happened to Anachronox? It is currently in duplication, so it's 'done' but right now we don't really know in what kind of state the final version is that ION delivered to Eidos. Seeing how it was supposed to be done really soon anyway, hopefully it will be playable out of the box. This is also why Anachronox wasn't at E3, the team choose to take all the time it could get to finish the game. We hope to get some comments from (former) ION Storm employees soon.
Update: We are aware of sites trying to dispute the story. We stand by it. Look for Eidos to put some PR spin to it though.

Update 2: Some more info, since more people have been emailing us now (thanks for the all "it's not true fuckface" emails too). According to one of the emails, Eidos financials are a big part of the decision to shut down ION Dallas (see this story for the great first quarter results) and shove out Anachronox since Eidos isn't sure of a hit like with Deus Ex 2 or Thief 3. But the good news is Anachronox is apparently running great with the team having worked day and night for the past 2 weeks to make it perfect (though of course not as perfect if they hadn't been for the finish-or-die deadline), so it won't be some shovelware product, which would've been an incredible shame.

The local hero here CliffyB from Epic Games has a .plan update pointing to a quick article of interest to anyone wanting to get a job in the gaming industry. Just some common things that you should know and ask and think about before signing your life away.

AVault has an article looking at those darn 'massmarket' games that tend to show up on the top10 sales lists for PC games all the time. While you're there have a look at their take on the whole online website turbulence.

According to a report at EuroGamer a 'violent game tax' has surfaced in a town in Germany which equates to a 700% tax hike. Germany has been known for quite a while to be pretty harsh on videogame laws.

So it's perhaps no surprise that the German town of Goettingen has taken the natural next step by imposing a 700% higher tax rate on violent shoot 'em up arcade games than it charges for non-violent ones, in an apparent effort to discourage local arcade owners from using the games. And last week a court in the city of Karlsruhe ruled that the Goettingen council was within its rights, saying that violent games were a "threat to the public good"

Anyone think we'll ever see laws like this spread outside of Germany? I dont suppose we really have a violent movie tax or anything?

Doh! Tolkien fans begin your mourning again. Tolkien Online is once again in jeopardy. Not because of development or team members leaving or anything but much worse... A lawsuit with the publisher. The Well-Rounded guys spotted an update from MM3D (the developers) with this brief note:

MM3D has re filed. Despite our (MM3D's) best efforts, we were unable to resolve this matter.  Thank you for the ongoing support and interest. - Bridgette
The case was filed on 05/17/2001 , Case number: BC250758 , Los Angeles Superior Court - Department 21

A while back we carried the story of the lawsuit first being filed which generally pointed towards the publisher deciding they wanted more of the profits than originally agreed upon from the massive multiplayer game according to MM3D. Three days later the suit was dropped. Until now.

Gamespy has an interview with CliffyB. They have lunch with him (like we care), and talk about E3, the state of the industry, and other tantalizing tidbits of information.

A little while back we pointed the way to the NerveSoftware website which Brandon James lead us to. It was blank at the time but now they have the website online. Guess what they are working on? Thanks jer

The GameSpy guys got a hold or Richard Garriot (Lord British) long enough to talk to him about his new game company assembled from a lot of the ex-Ultima guys.

Something that popped up over on RedHerring is an interesting quick profile of id Software who is believed by Red Herring to be among the top 100 most important companies in the world. Considering how much id pioneered in the industry that isnt much of a stretch, but then I saw this bit at the end of the article which answers a question people have been asking for a while. How much money are they making?

FINANCIALS Profitable. Owned by artists Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud, and John Carmack. Has not accepted venture capital and has no plans to go public. Last year's revenue exceeded 1999's $22 million. Revenue in 1998 was $19 million.

Now you know. Thanks Mikey for the link. Also here's the full list for the curious. Speaking of this kind of stuff, AVault ran a story this morning about the size of the gaming industry that is kind of relevant. Here's a quote:

Myth: The Game Industry is now larger than the Movie Industry.
With enough qualifications, any statistic can be made true. The legend is specific in that the game industry now out-grosses the domestic box office grosses in the movie industry. That's one heck of a qualification. So worldwide game sales from consoles and PCs is greater than movie revenue from the box office in the United States? Big deal. Let's compare apples and apples: How does the worldwide game industry compare against worldwide movie, tape, DVD, cable and TV movie revenue? Oops, doesn't look so impressive then.

The article was pretty interesting and made some good points, but then I saw this and it made me wonder what the developers think:

"A modern, AAA title can be done with a half dozen full time people easily and then contract out for the cutscenes you need."

Rumors have been swirling around about a new company formed of a few ex-Rogue ex-Ion ex-othercompany game developers doing their own thing. Well I recently got an email from Brandon James formerly of id Software and more recently of Rogue sending me this url to a game development house being called Nerve Software. Not much about the company has been revealed just yet (ok nothing) but there is a date listed on the website which goes along with the date of E3. What does this mean? Chances are they have been working on a project that they plan to announce/unveil at the E3 show. Whatever they do announce or possibly (doubt it) show Maarten and I will be on hand at the expo.

A couple of weeks ago a rumor was floating around about a possible Counter-Strike2 project in the hands of Rogue or ex-Rogue guys. Although last I heard no such project had been approved I'd give it a 10% chance that these guys are working on something related.

GamersDepot (who was a victim of the CNET alliance fallout) has posted an article discussing the "Dot.Crash" and if they think all us here gaming website thingies are gonna come out alive.

Gamespy Daily is reporting about the fact that Vivendi Universal Publishing has struck a deal with Tolkien Enterprises to develop and publish games based on Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. There will be multiple games on multiple platforms. The only game mentioned in the deal is a console action-adventure game called The Fellowship of the Ring, which is being developed by The Whole Experience and will be published by Sierra in early 2002. Then there's also that Tolkien MMORPG (if the developers don't sue again) and Tolkien fans should be pretty happy.

It seems like only yesterday that DailyRadar showed up. Despite what many people felt was some questionable things they have done and posted DR has also managed to fairly consistently come up with some pretty good scoops and videos and information on upcoming games. Well they are closing up shop. A few people have forwarded along the email that was sent out. Here's a bit of it:

Both DailyRadar and the Computing Network achieved many successes in their relatively short lives: these were high traffic sites with decent revenues and - better still - we were proud of them because of what they did for consumers. Sadly though, we're currently in an economy that is incredibly unforgiving of investments in the Internet that are not on very fast tracks to profitability. DailyRadar and the Computing Network were on track to profitability but we couldn't devise a plan that would deliver it anything fast enough...

Ok this is getting a little scary.. eek. A notice should be up on DailyRadar later today as they are closing immediately, also the guys at GameSpyDaily have gotten confirmation of the reports.

Hey it's stupid patent day! Finally got my email back up and running thanks to some help by the man Dan at Verio and this showed up in the old inbox from Reid. Worlds.com has been awarded a patent for what equates to every 3d multiplayer game being played right now.

"a highly scalable architecture for a three-dimensional graphical, multi-user, interactive virtual world system. A plurality of users can interact in the three-dimensional, computer-generated graphical space where each user executes a client process to view a virtual world from the perspective of that user. [snip]"

... and what Worlds.com is saying:

"Our intention is to market this technology to our current partners as well as to organizations, companies and other sites that have been looking for new and unique ways to involve mass audiences in their products, applications and services" ... "We will also review other 3D sites who may be using our technology to ensure we are fully compensated."

I do believe this will be shot down with the whole 'prior art' clause but its amazing what guys can get a patent on.

A few days back we carried a story about Sierra and MM3D getting in a squabble over Sierra asking for more money than they originally agreed to in a contract they had with MM3D in mid-development of the game. MM3D has posted this update (Thanks Stomped) though that they appear to be settling out of court:

MM3D is happy to announce that we are dismissing the lawsuit (without prejudice) on 04/26/01. We are grateful to Sierra for their good faith and for the efforts they are taking to resolve this matter. --Thank you.

It would be interesting to find out if public pressure had anything to do with Sierra's change of tune. We'll probably never know. :)

Oh joy! US Senator Lieberman has just introduced a bill to congress that will (if passed) give authority to the FTC to punish people in video game companies (as well as music&movies) for what they deem as maketing products towards children. The entertainment industry in general has been getting quite a bit of pressure lately from parents and 'experts' about how many feel these industries influence and corrupt younger kids. (Thanks Choolz)

The FTC said this week that while film and video-game producers have curbed marketing of adult-content material to young people, the music industry continues targeting under-17 customers with products that have explicit and violent material. [...] The legislation would allow the FTC to issue a cease-and-desist order or levy fines and against companies that engage in false and deceptive advertising [snip]

This can basically be equated to what I'd call a "Joe Camel law". Joe Camel was fresh though and made me want to go out and get cancer!

A follow-up to our April 22 story on the Columbine lawsuit against the entertainment industry; while the original Denver Post article (now only available after payment fyi) didn't name id Software as one of the companies in the suit, this new CNet article does. They even took the time to contact id's Todd Hollenshead, but he couldn't comment on the $5 billion lawsuit.

Other companies named in the lawsuit include ID Software, Atari, Sega of America, Virgin Interactive Media, Activision, Polygram Film Entertainment Distribution, New Line Cinema, and GT Interactive Software.
Todd Hollenshead, chief executive of Mesquite, Texas-based ID Software, which developed "Doom," said he hadn't seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment on it. ...
Hollenshead, whose company released "Doom" in 1993, described it as a self-defense game, with the player as a space marine stationed on Mars.
"It's basically a shooting game," he said.