Virtual New York City

New York City Journals is documenting one person's project to replicate New York City in Sim City 4.

This thing is indrecible. It is extremely well done. The amount of work gone into it already must be ridiculous.

-TPP

Online gaming to be the first casualty if net neutrality is scrapped

RampRate.com has published an excellent paper on the likely impact of lack of net neutrality on online gaming.

The paper argues online gaming will be killed, if net neutrality is not enforced. The argument made in the paper says unlike for practically all other low latency services over the Internet, online gaming has no other alternatives, so it will be effectively killed, if ISPs start charging premium fees for online gaming packets.

-TPP

Screw the Customer - Reality Life Show - The Video Game Episode

This week is big in the video gaming industry. There are two new video game consoles coming out in the US this week. The Sony PlayStation3 (PS3) is getting released this Friday, and the Nintendo Wii this Sunday. The demand is expected to be high, and the supply, especially for the PS3, is expected to be low.

Nobody really was surprised to see scalpers (*spit*) crawling out of everywhere and reselling PS3 and Wii pre-orders on eBay for more than 100% profit. What people didn't really expect is to see mostly reputable retailers getting in on the act and royally screwing up their customers.

Let's start with our first contestant: CompUSA

CompUSA has decided it doesn't want to just sell the PS3 (at $600 + games and accessories) to customers. No, no, $600 is way to little money to spend on a gaming system. Instead they're bundling their PS3 with a 40" Sony HDTV. If you don't order the 40" TV, which has a 15% restocking fee in case you decide to return it, you can not buy a PS3 from CompUSA. How brilliant is that?

Our second contestant is Fry's Electronics.

Fry's wants you to REALLY enjoy the PS3, so they have you buy 8 games for your PS3 (see upper right corner of the ad). What makes this forced bundling really interesting is that there are only 13 games available for the PS3 at launch. Furthermore BestBuy got into a LOT of trouble with forcing bundles on their customers when the XBox 360 was launched. You'd think retailers would've learned from their mistakes. I guess not.

Our third contestant is NovaDataCom, a "network technology warehouse" (aka technology product distributor).

NovaDataCom is holding a PS3 launch party at a dance club called Ultra Bar in Washington DC this Thursday night. Each party goer has the privilege of buying one of the 1,000 PS3s available through NovaDataCom for the low, low price of $1,200 (MSRP is $600). Way to go NovaDataCom!

Our fourth contestant is GameStop / EB Games.

Their chances of winning the contest are somewhat difficult as they got some help from Sony on this one. Just like with the pre-orders for the XBox 360, GameStop recently announced that a lot of people who pre-ordered a PS3 from them are not getting one on the first day as promised. It turns out Sony cut the shipment quantities quite dramatically earlier this week. Still, you can't help but wonder what exactly did GameStop learn from their mistakes during the XBox 360 launch. I have friends who waited for four months for their pre-ordered XBox 360 from EB Games.

Our fifth, and final, contestant is Toys'R'Us.

Toys'R'Us was wooing potential Nintendo Wii buyers with some attractive offers for free games and other goodies. Well, they changed their minds. No more free games for you, our valued customer. Go Toys'R'Us!

Who will the winner be? Will we get new contestants? Who knows, but we do know, the customer always gets screwed.

[Update 1, 11/15/2006 4:22pm]

We have a new contestant! I'm so excited!

Our sixth contestant is an enterprising scalper scum from Inwood/Washington Heights in NYC.

He's selling his spot on the PS3 purchase line for a mere $2,000. He's not selling a PS3 that he owns, or a pre-ordered PS3...he's selling his spot on the line to buy a PS3. For $2,000. You still gotta pay the $600 to actually buy the PS3. The thing is...he's 30th in line at this retailer. Very few retailers are getting that many units to sell on Thursday. There is absolutely no way in hell whoever buys his spot is getting a PS3 at this location. Consider this Craigslist ad gone as soon as the content cops at Craigslist get to it.

[Update 2, 11/15/2006 4:34pm]

That was quick. The Craigslist ad is now gone.

[Update 3, 11/19/2006 9:35pm]

Another new contestant, FYE.

FYE is running a classic bait-and-switch scam on Nintendo Wii pre-orders. When people who ordered a Nintendo Wii try and pick up their system, the retailer is forcing them to buy accesories and games with the system bringing the total price of the package from $250 to about $400. No mention of the bundling was made at the time of the pre-order. Scamalicious!

-TPP

Kontrol Freek - reprieve for gamers' thumbs

If you play a lot of video games, you're undoubtedly familiar with what the controllers do to your thumbs. Marathon sessions in games that require a lot of lateral movement (e.g. racing games and tennis games) will completely destroy your thumbs. Your thumbs will literally hurt after a few hours, and they will continue hurting well into the next day. It's very uncomfortable.

A friend of mine has a great little product that almost completely eliminates the soreness. It's a little U-shaped add-on that attaches itself on top of the thumbstick. It'll allow you to control the thumbsticks with less pressure and force. It works with the "S" controller for the XBox and the XBox 360 controllers.

I beta tested the product for my friend and found it doing exactly what it was designed to do.

His company is called Kontrol Freek and the product is called U-150. Go take a look and pre-order one, if you like what you see.

You can also read a review on IGN.com.

-TPP

Jack Thompson makes up with Bully

Video gamers' favorite lawyer, Mr. Jack "Thumper" Thompson, has been caught schmoozing with the main character from the video game Bully.

We're eagerly anticipating further developments in this breaking story.

-TPP

Just say no to EA

You know, every time I start thinking EA might've done the right thing and I'm considering taking them off my shitlist, they do something so completely boneheaded you have to wonder if all their people have sold their souls to the devil.

This time, instead of f***ing their employees, they're f***ing their customers. That's not really new to EA, but the way they're doing it this time is pretty incredible.

Battlefield 2142, a new shooter game from EA, is accompanied by a piece of spyware that scans your PC for your browsing activity and "other computing habits", whatever the hell that means, and then send all that data to EA. You can not play the game without installing that piece of software on your computer.

-TPP

The Gizmondo story

Wired has an excellent article about the rise and fall of Stefan Eriksson, a one-time organized crime boss in Uppsala, Sweden.

Mr. Eriksson was first convicted of a crime when he was 19. He tried robbing an armored van. He continued progressing on his criminal career until 1993 when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for fraud and trying to spread counterfit currency in Sweden. He got out at 2000 and dissappeared for a year or two.

He joined Gizmondo, a manufacturer of a portable video gaming device, with some of his fellow criminals soon after his release from prison. His compensation in this startup that had no revenue was almost $3M in 2004. Interesting way to run a startup. Not surprisingly Gizmondo filed for bankruptcy soon after it became apparent their portable gaming device would never be able to compete with the Nintendo DS and Sony Playstation Portable. The creditors' accounting people are now wondering how did this company manage to spend nearly $400M USD in three years while generating little or no revenue. One can only assume the several luxury cars and over-the-top compensation of the company directors has something to do with it.

The downfall of Mr. Eriksson begun when he crashed his (stolen) Enzo Ferrari in Malibu last February. The police thinks he was driving the Enzo at more than 160mph at the time of the crash. Some estimates even say the speed of the vehicle might've been as high as 190mph. Mr. Eriksson first tried lying about who was driving the vehicle. He told the police at the accident scene a man named Dietrich had been driving and he had fled to the surrounding hills. Too bad the driver's side airbag in the car had Mr. Eriksson's blood on it. That's not the only thing his blood revealed...his blood alcohol level was .09. The legal limit in California is .08.

That would've made the accident pretty routine, although expensive and high speed, DUI, but that's not all that happened on that highway. Soon after the accident two vehicles stopped and two people stepped out. They flashed some official looking badges and identified themselves to the police as DHS officials and demanded they speak with Mr. Eriksson immediately. The following morning, a motorist who had stopped to help found out that a revolver had found itself under the front seat of his car. Apparently Mr. Eriksson's associate who had come to the accident scene had dumped the gun under the seat while borrowing his cellphone.

The police investigation that followed soon found out that most of the Eriksson's associates, incl. the two "DHS officials" were members of a police force for a local bus company, which owned not a fleet of buses, but one bus. Everyone was puzzled as to why a bus company operating a single bus would need a police force. It turns out Mr. Eriksson had made a business arrangement with the owner of the bus company. In exchange of installing free security equipment in the bus company's premises, the owner of the bus company agreed to hire Mr. Eriksson and his former crime buddies as his police force. California state law allows bus companies to operate their own security forces and gives them some of the same powers than regular police forces have. Specifically it is easier for the members of such security forces to acquire guns, which is apparently why Mr. Eriksson and his buddies were attracted to the idea of becoming police officers. Several guns were confiscated from his and his associates' homes. Some of the people involved are now charged with impersonating police officers.

As if that wasn't quite enough, it turns out the Enzo Mr. Eriksson crashed wasn't owned by him, but a bank in United Kingdom, which leased it to him. Mr. Eriksson had smuggled the Enzo, along with a second Enzo and a McLaren SLR, to United States when he moved there. His leasing agreement prohibited that, and additionally he had stopped making car payments, so all cars techincally belonged to the banks. One of the cars was, in fact, had already been reported as stolen by the bank financing it.

As a result Mr. Eriksson is now looking at seven felony and two misdemeanor charges.

Fascinating story of high life, crime and video games.

-TPP

The Virtual President

Mark Warner, former Governor of Virginia, had an interview in Second Life, a virtual world game (kind of like MMORPG, but without leveling and fighting), earlier today.

He's the first politician in the US, and possibly in the world, to hold a political event in a virtual environment. The interview is a precursor to a virtual town meeting he's holding in Second Life later this year.

Governor Warner was interviewed by James Wagner Au (aka Hamlet) of New World Notes (NWN). NWN has the transcript of the interview.

It's certainly an encouraging event when most politicians seem to be more interested in scoring family-value points by scapegoating video games and social media for all the sins in the world.

The Washington Post also has an article about the interview. Looks like there're a few things they might want to sort out before the town hall meeting.

-TPP

Out-of-touch, insane jackasses in Minnesota

Yesterday a Federal District Court Judge James M. Rosenbaum ruled that the Minnesota Restricted Video Games Act is unconstitutional. Specifically the judge ruled that the State of Minnesota has not proven violent video games lead to violent behavior. Here are some quotes from the ruling:

The State’s concerns are inchoate. It is impossible to determine from the data presented whether violent video games cause violence, or whether violent individuals are attracted to violent video games.

Further, there is no showing whatsoever that video games, in the absence of other violent media, cause even the slightest injury to children.

GamePolitics.com reports (via St. Paul Pioneer-Press) on the reaction to that ruling from various Minnesota legislators.

State Senator Sandy Pappas (D) had this to say about the ruling:

"The whole ruling defied common sense. I am so disappointed. The federal court said we don't have a right to protect our children, but we protect our children from other things. We don't let them smoke or buy liquor. You score points (in video games) for how many women you rape, how many cops you kill. How could that not affect them psychologically?"

Say what?

She's, of course, talking about Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the current favorite whipping boy of politicians and insane lawyers from Miami. The problem is that's not what the game is about. You don't get more points for raping women or killing cops. In fact, you get into quite a lot of trouble (in the GTA game world) for killing cops. Furthermore smoking and alcohol have known and PROVEN negative effects to the well being of children. Somehow she failed to notice the part of the ruling that stated there is no evidence that says video games are harmful to kids.

Maybe the good Senator would like to also introduce bills protecting children from the baby-eating monsters that live under every child's bed. They are, after all, just as real as the video games she's trying to protect children from.

-TPP

Today's best bad idea pt II

Not content on charging gamers $60 every 12 months for a roster update, EA Sports and ESPN are putting up a preview video of their upcoming Madden 07 video game on pay-per-view TV for $20 per pop.

That's, like, so rad kewl.

If anyone who's not stoned or underage or both is willing to pay for watching a 60-minute advertisement, I'd be very surprised. But you can't fault EA for trying. After all Greed Is Good (tm).

-TPP

Out of touch jackasses leave a whiff of dickishness behind them

The US Congress has been busy fighting important issues lately.

Jon Stewart ran a pretty insightfully insulting segment on the Daily Show about their War on Video Games.

Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-PA) takes the cake though. He comes on at around at the 4:10 mark. Protect us from the ghetto kids!!!

-TPP

Pizza Hut - we gotta talk

Pizza Hut is sponsoring the Cyberathlete Professional League and they've used Gorbachev in their marketing before:

Pizza Hut ad w/ M.S. Gorbachev

Come'on guys! Give me a call. It's a win-win situation. I already like your pizzas, I am a pretty effective communicator and I excel at (certain types of) video games. What more is there to talk about?

LET'S DOOOOEEEE IIIIT!

-TPP

My PGR3 Tournament elimination round 1 race video

Here's the video capture of the race. Lots of bumping going on. The first few corners are just impossible.

It was close, but I made a bunch of mistakes that cost me the race, including the big crash at the end.

-TPP

PGR3 Tournament elimination round 1 completed

7 racers showed up for the 3-lap race. I came in 6th and got eliminated.

Here's how the race went from my perspective.

I started at last place on the inside. I went into the first corner taking an inside lane and then cars just started coming in from all directions. I'm sure I hit my fair share of cars as well. I use the in-car view when racing, so visibility is pretty bad. I don't even know how I ended up on the 3rd place after the 2nd corner.

I approach the 4th corner side by side with the 2nd place car. He is slightly in front so I slow down to take the line behind him. The 4th place car catches up on me, bumps me, then starts swerving and falls behind. I'm in the third place and stay there until midway through the second lap.

I scrape an inside wall on a chicane, and the 4th place car gets ahead of me and I fall back to 4th. The 5th place car is WAY back. The race is pretty much in the bag at this point.

That all changed in the first corner of the final lap, however. The 2nd place car screws up the corner pretty badly and I basically get stuck behind him while the 5th place car catches up on us and overtakes me.

We race right at each others' bumpers until the 3rd last corner where I'm feeling pretty good at my chances of overtaking these two guys. Bad idea...

I go into the corner with way too much speed and collide with the 3rd place car. The 4th place car somehow manages to avoid the brunt of the crash. The 6th place car catches up on us and overtakes me to come in 5th. I finish 6th.

Thankfully my boneheaded move didn't affect the race results as the 3rd and 4th place cars end up finishing at those positions.

I'll post videos of the race later. Here's The Crash footage as an appetizer:

The Crash from Sackamonjaro's viewpoint

It's a good one! :)

-TPP

PGR3 Tournament elimination races tonight

I'll be racing at 12:20am tonight.

All the races are broadcast in PGR3's Gotham TV Tournament Channel. If you own PGR3, tune in and watch me make a complete fool out of myself racing against all these pros.

-TPP

The Mad Finn as a pro-gamer?

Bizarre Creations, Global Gaming League, Inc. and Microsoft are running a worldwide tournament in Project Gotham Racing 3 (PGR3), a racing game for the XBox 360.

Top 64 qualifiers in each of the three regions - North America, Europe and Asia - make it to the elimination rounds for their region. There're four elimination rounds using a bracket of 64 competitors. Top 4 racers in each elimination race move onto the next round. The top 4 racers of each region are going to the Finals run at the Lamborghini factory in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy.

The qualifying was run using a Lamborghini Gallardo on Tokyo Nishigushi Short track. Unlimited amount of laps, best lap time counts.

The qualifying ended last night and I made it to the top 64 in North America!! My best lap time was 53.62 secs in 43rd position with the last qualifier having a time o 53.67 secs. Overall I came in at 149th position of 9,397 total competitors.

I've always been good at racing and sports games, but I never imagined I'd be able to compete as evenly as I did with the very best of PGR3. Some of the top qualifiers do this sort of thing professionally and they're freakishly talented.

Before the tournament begun I thought I'd have a small chance in making the top 64, if some of the top racers wouldn't participate. But everyone turned up, and the competition was simply fierce, especially in Europe. Not in my wildest dreams did I think I'd make it as high as top 50 among all these great racers.

The elimination rounds begin this Thursday evening and continue every evening until this Sunday. Let's see what happens. I don't think I'll make it very far. I'll be lucky, if I make it through the first round.

But it's been an absolute blast so far. I can't wait till the real competition starts.

-TPP

Finding correlation where there is none

Yesterday we get news of a foiled Columbine-style shooting.

Five teenagers were planning on a shooting rampage at Riverton High School on 4/20, which is Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of the Columbine shooting.

Sheriff Steve Norman has this to say about the boys:

"I think there was probably some bullying, name calling, chastising," he said. He also said investigators had learned the suspects were computer buffs who liked violent video games.

What the fuck did video games have to do with this?

As the editorial about the news on a gaming blog, Joystiq.com, says:

Now understand, about 110% of male teenagers in America play "violent" video games, so what's the real connection?

Indeed. It seems the mere fact that these boys happened to play violent video games, just like roughly every other boy of the same age, discounts anything else these boys might've been up to.

It Just Must Have Been The Video Games, right?

-TPP

Culture War - or how everything good is bad for kids

One wonders how kids ever survive among this sea of corruptive influences. By God, as early as 1790 they were getting corrupted by romance novels! There is no hope for any of us!

Hmm...kids must be a little smarter than they're given credit for.

Hear that Hillary Clinton?

-TPP

Mario is a terrorist

Here a terrorist
There a terrorist
Everywhere a boom boom
Old McDonald had a scare
Ee i ee i o

High Scores:

Osama Bin Laden   12,000 pts
Ravenna, Ohio          0 pts

-TPP

Why are people such asses on XBox Live?

Josh Smith, with entirely too much free time on his hands, decided to study the vulgarity on Halo 2 online matches.

These f***ing n00bs only said damn 0.53 times per hour.

-TPP