The World Turns for Kevin Smith

Popular nerd-director-slacker Kevin Smith is famous for some of his anecdotes about the making of films in Hollywood, including the story of his battle with Jon Peters around the script of Superman Lives. Peters wanted many odd inclusions to the script, including the demand that Superman not appear in the suit, not fly and fight … Continue reading →

Great Moments in Online Game Advertising, Part 1

When it comes to the female form, I can safely say that I’m a fan. Not a face-painted, stripped-to-the-waist, half-drunk fan screaming “BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOBS!!!” because they just scored a goal, but more the quietly appreciative kind of fan. But there is a time and a place for T&A, with that time apparently being “any time we … Continue reading →

The Trials of UnSub: Realm of the Mad God

Browser-based MMOs don’t get that much respect, often seen as the poorer, weaker, simpler cousins of client-based MMOs. In many cases they are, but with that simplicity comes the ability to experiment more because mistakes might only cost a few thousand dollars compared to the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars required to … Continue reading →

DCUO: A Week Is A While, Right?

DC Universe Online’s launch week sales figures are out. As far as physical units go, DCUO shifted: 151 000 PS3 boxes; and 45 000 PC boxes. DCUO apparently did good business on the PC in digital distribution, but I don’t have any good sources for numbers there. It does make Sony Online Entertainment’s comments that … Continue reading →

The Parable of the New Game Experience (NGE)

Jon Wood, Managing Editor of MMORPG.com, posted an interesting article this week – in broadly discussing a game I said I’d stop talking about, he stated that linking Sony Online Entertainment to the Star Wars Galaxies New Game Experience (NGE) was unfair in today’s market. His three key points behind this were: It’s been five … Continue reading →

My Last DCUO Post For A While, Really

DC Universe Online launched on Tuesday 11 January 2011, the culmination of 5.5 years and US$50m in development costs. Barring any major events, I’m going to try to lay off direct DCUO posts for a while – I’m not playing it and yelling from the sidelines gets a bit dull. Plus, I’ve got other things … Continue reading →

Still No R18+ Consensus; Plus Stats! Stats! Stats!

There was a brief flurry of excitement among Australian gamers before Xmas when the Attorneys-General of each state met on December 10 – some of them hadn’t declared outright opposition to implementing an R18+ classification for video games! Surely it would go ahead this time! Of course it didn’t. There wasn’t outright rejection, but simply … Continue reading →

DCUO Gets A TV Ad

I’ve just found out that Sony Online Entertainment did launch a TV campaign around DC Universe Online’s launch. The Facebook page shows one of the variants. If you’ve followed this title at all, you’ve probably seen the parts of the ad before. It’s certainly a better step than not having one (and I’d be curious … Continue reading →

DCUO: Countdown to Crisis

I’m going to start 2011 the way I ended 2010: publicly wondering what is going on at Sony Online Entertainment with DC Universe Online. SOE looked to be in a pretty good place to develop DCUO – they had a larger IP than its competitors in City of Heroes / Villains and Champions Online, it … Continue reading →