Watch Dogs PR Epic Fail

Before we get to this epic fail, something I wanna point out.

Last week Tuesday, Nintendo and GameSpy ended their partnership completely, meaning as of then, you can no longer play your Wii or DS games online.  But it's not just the Wii and DS that will forever lose its official online service.  Some other gaming services will be gone at the end of this month when Gamespy shuts down its gaming servers completely. 

 Games like the Star Wars Battlefront games, Saints Row II, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, Bulletstorm for the PS3, Crysis 1, 2 and Crysis Wars, and even 3 Command and Conquer games will be taken offline.

Later, I will talk more about the Gamespy shut down when the servers are no more and which games are affected.

Meanwhile, in Ubisoft land, Watch Dogs has released onto a number of system: The 360, PS3, PS4, XBone and PC with a Wii U version due out later this year.  Unfortunately, it seems something went horribly wrong.

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A PR stunt for Ubisoft's new Watch Dogs game has backfired, with a Police bomb squad called to the offices of an Australian news station.

A package arrived at the offices of Ninemsn yesterday, containing a letter and a small safe. Media industry site Mumbrella reports that the letter told the addressee to check their voicemail, only that reporter didn't have a new voicemail. When they then punched a pin code into the safe, the safe started beeping.

Growing slightly concerned it might be an explosive device, Ninemsn started calling other newsrooms to see if they'd gotten a similar package.

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Now as you are aware, Ninemsn is a joint effort between Nine Entertainment Company and the Microsoft Network, founded in 1997. The company also acquired mobile publishing leader HWW Limited and leading Australian SMS and mobile marketing service provider 5th Finger Pty Ltd in 2006.  This allows the site for much better

But something like what's going on is freaking me out a bit.

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"This is definitely the other side of the line in terms of what it's safe for a PR company to send anonymously to a newsroom", Ninemsn's Hal Crawford told Mumbrella. "The thing was black, heavy and slightly creepy.1

"We did check with other newsrooms to see if they had received a similar package as we thought it was a PR stunt, but no-one else had. We weren't panicked at any point, but given there was no note explaining what it was, we had to take sensible precautions."

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This is getting nerve wrenching.  I mean who would be stupid enough to leave something like that?

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That meant evacuating some staff and calling the bomb squad, who opened the safe (you can see it pried open up top) to find...a copy of Watch Dogs, a baseball/iconic cap and a beanie.

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.......

EPIC FAIL!

Ubisoft, what were you think driving Ninemsn to calling in the Bomb Squad?  You should be ashamed of yourselves resorting to this kind of negative publicity. 

If anything, this is going to look bad on their part and on Watch Dogs.

Works cited: Reddit user Stevoisiak
Electronic Arts
Kotaku

Fight for the Internet begins

Anyone here who has been reading the news about Net Neutrality knows that it has been a rough year.  First it was struck down by the United States Supreme Court.  Then a rumored merge between Comcast and Time Warner were announced.  And even more so, the FCC proposed rules that would add in speed tiers to the internet.

And despite protest, it seems the FCC is winning the battle.

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U.S. regulators on Thursday advanced a "net neutrality" proposal that would ban Internet providers from blocking or slowing down access to websites but may let them charge content companies for faster and more reliable delivery of their traffic to users.

For four months now, the public can weigh in on the rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in what promises to be an intense tug-of-war between some tech companies and consumer advocates on one side and Republicans and broadband providers on the other, over the extent to which the agency can regulate Internet traffic.

Dozens protested the vote at the FCC on Thursday as many consumer advocates have rejected FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal that may allow some "commercially reasonable" deals in which content companies could pay broadband providers to prioritize traffic on their networks.

Critics worry the rules would create "fast lanes" for companies that pay up and mean slower traffic for others. Wheeler pledged to use all of his powers to prevent "acts to divide the Internet between 'haves' and 'have nots.'"

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 Anyone here who knows what Net Neutrality is all about, knows that by adding tiers, it would make the internet less equal and more favoring those with huge amounts of cash in their bank accounts.  Especially companies like Comcast and AT&T. 

Folks, we are at an impasse.  We need to tell the FCC that this is not acceptable as part of Net Neutrality.  No speed of ANY website should be faster than the other.  Let them know that this is not Net Neutrality.

In the meantime, read the rest of the article at Reuters and stay tuned.  We'll talk more about the Net Neutrality situation in the future.

NPD March 2014: It's back Baby

Before we get into the NPD of March, I have some good news for you.

UNREAL TOURNAMENT IS BACK, BABY

That's right, folks.  The last time Epic Games game out with an Unreal Tournament was in 2007, and it didn't do well.  So the folks at Epic are gonna try again with Unreal Tournament 2014.  Only this time....It will be free.

And not just Free-to-play.  Free completely.  The only money you'll spend is for the mods that will be for sale on the marketplace.

If you want more information about Unreal Tournament 2014, go to https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/the-future-of-unreal-tournament-begins-today for more information.

Now with that out of the way, here are the Top 10 games of March

At number 10: Minecraft by Mojang and Microsoft for the 360.  RUN!  IT'S A CREEPER!

At number 09: The LEGO Movie Video game by Warner Bros Interactive for the 360, PS3, 3DS, Wii U, XBone, PS4 and Vita.  Right now the best Batman movie game of 2014

At humber 08: Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster by SquareEnix for the PS3 and PSVita.  Seymour ain't no Kefka.

At number 07: NBA 2K14 by Take 2 Interactive for the 360, PS3, Xbone, PS4 and PC.  And I don't see Madden on the list.  Oh well

At number 06: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeros by Konami for the 360, PS3, XBone and PS4.  Exactly why did they not do a PC version?

At number 05: Dark Souls II by Namco Bandai for the 360 and PS3.  The PC version is highly recommended

At number 04: Call of Duty: Ghosts by Activision Blizzard for the 360, PS3, XBone, PS4, Wii U and PC.  Not as huge as it use to be

At number 03: South Park: The Stick of Truth by Ubisoft for the 360, PS3 and PC.  Oh my god, they killed Kenny.

At number 02: inFAMOUS Second Son by Sony for the PS4.  Still won't justify buying a shoddy new console with zero backwards compatibility.

And at Number 01: Titanfall by Electronic Arts for the XBone and PC.  Personally, I don't justify paying money for an online-only game when you can play Unreal Tournament 2014 in the future for free.

Software Sales are down 28% this year compared to the same month last year.  Overall retail sales are up 3%.

Meanwhile, it seems that, despite Titanfall doing better than InFAMOUS, the former can't help the XBone keep up with the PS4 even with both systems doing more then 300K.  The Wii U had a small fall from last month at 70K while the 3DS is steady at 159K.

How will Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls stand compared to the competition?  Stay tuned?

Works Cited: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=803922

The woes of Net Neutrality continue

Ever since the beginning of this month when a U.S. Appeals Court Judge struck it down, Net Neutrality has taken a nosedive.  Many have hoped that the FCC would take action in restoring the Open and Free Internet.

That is, unfortunately, not the case, according to the Wall Street Journal article courtesy of Kotaku's sister site: Gizmodo

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Initial reports about the FCC's hotly anticipated net neutrality rules are out, and they are foreboding. While they'll prevent broadband providers from blocking legal content on the internet, it does not explicitly ban companies from paying for better service. While that's bad for net neutrality, it's not entirely a surprise.

Net neutrality advocates have long hoped that the FCC would rise up to protect the free and open internet, after a U.S. Appeals Court came down on the side of big telecom and threw out an earlier version of the FCC's rules. That version did make it illegal for telecom companies to offer pay-to-play deals to internet companies, but the FCC chose not to appeal. Not long after that, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said that the commission would write new "Open internet" rules. On Wednesday, he said that he'd circulate a draft of the new rules on Thursday and that the agency will meet on May 15 to discuss everything. 

Wheeler has said in the past that the new net neutrality rules would not address pay-to-play deals, also referred to as interconnection. And by not addressing interconnection, the FCC is more or less opening the floodgates for more backroom deals between service providers and corporations that can afford to pay for preferential treatment. This, many say, will create an uneven playing field for business on the internet, since big companies can gain a competitive advantage over start ups with the power of their checkbooks. It's already happening.

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Basically, the internet is going to be tiered.  The big companies will dominate the internet while start ups die out because of favored treatment.  It is as bad as it sounds, maybe even worse. 

But, there might be a bright light at the end of the tunnel.

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There is hope. We don't know exactly what the FCC will propose, because they haven't proposed it. The Journal could be wrong. Or the government could have something else up its sleeve, some other way to protect net neutrality. After all, when the last set of FCC rules were tossed out, the White House did say that President Obama "remains committed to an open internet, where… online innovators are allowed to compete on a level playing field based on the quality of their products." 

So dig in, folks. This is going to be a long fight. It already has been. [WSJ]

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What we don't know is if these rules will be implemented.  But one thing's for sure, the fight to restore Net Neutrality is going to be a hard one.  If we lose, we can kiss the open internet good-bye

Works Cited:

Gizmodo

NPD February 2014: Countdown to the March NPD

The March NPD is in two days and it's all about the fight between Infamous and Titanfall.  But what about February's NPD?  Well it goes like this



At number 10: Bravely Default by Nintendo/SquareEnix for the 3DS.  SquareEnix, take note that gamers would actually want to play something like this.

At number 09: Minecraft by Mojang/Microsoft for the 360.  Personally, I prefer playing it on the PC

At number 08: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII by SquareEnix for the PS3 and 360.  So, uhh, when are we getting a more traditional Final Fantasy again?

At number 07: Assassin's Creed IV by Ubisoft for the 360, PS3, PS4, XBone, Wii U and PC.  Shiver me Timbers mateys.

At number 06: Battlefield 4 by Electronic Arts for the 360, PS3, PS4, XBone and PC.  Warning: a new bug where your weapons may end up killing you.  Go to http://kotaku.com/battlefield-4-bug-kills-you-when-you-try-to-shoot-1563138274 for more information

At number 05: GTA V by Rockstar for the 360 and PS3.  So how come they can't have a female protagonist?

At number 04: Thief by SquareEnix for the 360, PS3, PS4, XBone and PC.  Not as good as the original.

At number 03: NBA 2K12 by 2KGames for the 360, PS3, XBone, PS4 and PC.  Betcha Shaquille O'Neal would slam dunk a monster into that one

At number 02: The LEGO Movie by Warner Bros Interactive for the 360, PS3, 3DS, Wii  U, XBone, PS4 and Vita.  And believe it or not, the Movie was great.

And at Number 01: Call of Duty: Ghosts by ActivisionBlizzard for the 360, PS3, PS4, XBone, Wii U and PC.  Shares the same popularity with Clash of Clans and Candy Crush.

If you saw at number 10, it seems a game that SquareEnix hesitated on releasing in North America made the list.  According to NeoGAF, it sold over 200K in both Physical and Digital sales.  One wonders why SquareEnix isn't doing alot of oldskool JRPGs.

The PS4 and the XBone are still duking it out.  The PS4 leads with around 286.7K units sold with the XBone at 258K units sold.  The 360, the highest selling Generation 7 system is dipping down at 114K units.  Strangely, due to the sales of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, the Wii U got a small boost to 82.5K.

Now the big question is: Will the PS4 maintain its lead, or will the Call of Duty with Mechs game Titanfall push the XBone to number 1?  Stay tuned

Works Cited: NeoGAF

The whole Oculus Rift Facebook thingy

At the end of last month, the unthinkable happened that no other Kickstarter could have felt.

  The Oculus Rift originally started out as a Kickstarter campaign to get the device into developer's hands and raised over $91 million.  As a result, the true jump to VR Video Games began that day with the Rift in mind.  Games like Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, and even games from the Unreal Engine would be created with the Rift in mind.

But recently, a rift was formed in the Rift when Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook company bought out the rights to the Oculus Rift for $400 million in cash.

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In a Tuesday afternoon shocker, Facebook announced it is buying hot virtual reality gaming company Oculus VR for $2 billion. That includes $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook stock. There’s also an additional $300 million potential earn-out in cash and stock based on “the achievement of certain milestones.”

Fresh off Facebook’s $19 billion purchase of WhatsApp, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is showing the world that he isn’t afraid to use his company’s skyrocketing share price to get an edge in Silicon Valley. Facebook stock is up over 150% in the last year and both the WhatsApp and Oculus deals took advantage of that with large stock-cash splits.

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 Which meant that Oculus VS was no longer an independent company and is now integrated into the Facebook Empire.  And not everyone is taking this well.  As a matter of fact, it isn't just Kickstarters who have flipped out over the announcement.  The whole gaming community who pre-ordered the Rift are now cancelling it out of protest, according to this Huffington Post article.

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Video gamers who preordered the forthcoming Oculus Rift, the company's flagship virtual reality headset, blasted the social media giant for gobbling up a product they genuinely loved. Facebook, they said, will just turn the headset into another device for mining personal information and selling advertising.

Reddit's r/gaming section, a well-trafficked hub for online video game discussions, lit up with angry threads where people said they were canceling their orders. "How to CANCEL your Oculus Rift Pre-Order," with a prominent link to Oculus VR's cancellation webpage, was voted up to Reddit's massively popular front page shortly after the deal was announced.

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BTW, kinda ironic that the Huffington Post now requires Facebook to even comment in it.

Also, with the Oculus Rift now in the hands of Facebook, one company has opposed the idea itself: MoJang.  Markus Persson, the creator of Mincraft was in talks about bringing Minecraft to the Oculus Rift.  But the moment the buyout by Facebook was completed, they cancelled their plans simply because Facebook creeps him out. 

On the other hand, the Oculus Rift got an unlikely defender: Cliff Bleszinski.

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Industry veteran Cliff Bleszinski, who most notably worked at Epic Games for 20 years, has written a lengthy blog post addressing the $2 billion Oculus/Facebook deal wherein he also calls Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson a "pouty kid" for canceling the virtual reality version of the sandbox game.

Bleszinski made clear upfront that he participated in an early round of venture capital funding for Oculus VR and said he stands to make a "very sizable chunk of money" from Facebook's buyout. With that out of the way, Bleszinski said he was a believer in VR when he first saw the tech and he remains one today.

"When that dust settles my heart says that I really, genuinely care about VR and I want to experience and enjoy it myself, and I have faith that it will still happen, and it will be better than ever," Bleszinski said.

Many have criticized Facebook in the past for being intrusive with regards to the private information it collects from users. Zuckerberg is not blind to this concern, but said the "Internet Outrage Machine loves to pile on something like this."

"Maybe Zuck sees what everyone else has seen--the future--and wants to make sure it's more than just great games and saw that it would add value to his business?" he said.

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In addition, Cliffy B took a potshot at Markus Persson

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"Notch, your cancelling Minecraft makes you look like a pouty kid who is taking his ball and going home. It's a bratty and petty move and it saddens me greatly," he said.

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Talk about burn by the Gears of War Vet.

Also, it seems Valve is also working on its own variation of the VR headset since the announcement was made in November of last year.  We do not know how it will perform.  What we do know is that two members of their team jumped ship to the Oculus Rift Facebook team

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Oculus VR already snapped up a couple of Valve veterans last month -- and today the company said that it has hired yet another Valve developer to help steer its virtual reality business in the right direction.
The company has announced the addition of Aaron Nicholls to its team. Nicholls has previously worked as a developer at Valve for the last four years, and in particular is known for his research into virtual reality tech.
This follows the news that Oculus has hired both Atman Binstock, Valve's lead VR engineer, and Michael Abrash, another big name in VR at Valve. Nicholls took to Twitter to say that he "can't wait to continue working on the future with Atman, Michael, and the Oculus crew tomorrow."

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And there you have it folks.   It seems that all our boycotts, all our protests may be for naught because Facebook is one step closer to dominating everything around us.  Ether that or the whole VR thing may be overblown.  Just ask Jim Sterling of Escapist Magazine.

Works Cited: Forbes
HuffingtonPost
GameSpot
Gamasutra

A Double Whammie: EA not the worst and Leland Yee under fire

There has been a double whammy of news going on this week.  So much that it will drive you mad.

First off, is Electronic Arts. In the last two years, EA was declared the worst company in America by Consumerist, no thanks to the Mass Effect 3 ending drama and the SimCity debacle.  But this year, it seems EA met its match.

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Video game giant Electronic Arts stepped into the Worst Company In America nonagon of unpleasantness this morning crowned with two Golden Poos and with the confidence that the tournament’s only two-time winner deserves. But in the end, it wasn’t EA that was carried out of the arena in victory — it was Time Warner Cable.

In the narrowest margin of victory since 2011, when BP beat Bank of America for the WCIA by less than one percent, Time Warner Cable upset EA’s attempt at a three-peat by eking out 51.2% of the vote. 

Despite its cock-up of the Battlefield 4 and Titanfall releases, EA just didn’t have the all-out support that it had received in the previous two tournaments. And while Time Warner Cable has always merited a spot in the WCIA brackets, the company’s pending merger with former WCIA champ Comcast undoubtedly played into readers’ voting decisions. Judging by the absolute crushing that Comcast brought down on Yahoo in its first round match, there is a lot of hatred out there for the nation’s largest cable/Internet provider, and today’s TWC result confirms that voters are more than happy to spread that hate around. 

In theory, there could be a final Death Match showdown between merger partners TWC and Comcast, but there are some big speedbumps in the way. Before we can even start planning that contest, TWC will need to defeat Koch Industries in Round Two.

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What an upset.  But when you go up against a company that wanted to merge with Comcast and make itself the most powerful Cable/Internet company in the world, it's no contest to why Time Warner Cable managed to squeeze out EA.

Our second whammy comes from Leland Yee.  Many know this fellow at the California State Senator who wanted to regulate violent video games like tobacco and alcohol, is now under fire when he was arrested on March 26th on bribery and corruption charges.  What did he do for bribery and corruption?   Well GamePolitics has this to say.....

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In the fall of 2012, in exchange for a $10,000 campaign donation to help pay down the debt from his failed mayoral campaign (the legal limit on individual donations applied to retiring such a debt is $500), Yee put in a good word with the Department of Public Health and wrote an official letter of support for a software consulting company that desired to expand into the San Francisco Bay area.
  
On March 29, 2013, in exchange for a $6,800 campaign donation towards his bid for Secretary of State, Yee had a staff member present an official State Senate proclamation on his behalf at the Chee Kung Tong's 165th anniversary dinner.  What's the Chee Kung Tong?  Essentially the Chinese mafia.  Seriously.


So wait a minute.  Lemme get this straight.  You mean to tell me that Leland Yee doesn't like violent games getting into the hands of kids, but he favors a mafia?  What kind of hypocrisy is this anyway?  But it gets worse from here.

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During the summer of 2013, Yee introduced a medical marijuana businessman to two state legislators that could help him expand his business into California in exchange for $21,000-worth of donations to his campaign for Secretary of State.  In this case, $6800 is the legal limit for individual donors.
In an attempt to solicit even more donations, from August 2013 right up until about two weeks ago, Yee tried to broker a deal between an arms dealing acquaintance of his and a Jersey businessman with admitted mob ties (another undercover FBI agent).

Yeah, didn't see that one coming, did you?

There were talks of $50,000 for the first successful arms deal (that would have brought weapons from the Philippines to a port in New Jersey) and Yee using his position as Secretary of State to help ship weapons to Africa and launder money from the proceeds made by future sales of weapons.
As it happened, Yee's weapons contact fell through but it turned out he knew another arms dealer in the Philippines.


 You know, I'm beginning to think that Leland Yee gets his ideas from Grand Theft Auto of all games.  For someone who wanted the game to be sold like cigarettes, he sure shows he ain't a moral champion.

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Summing up, Yee could be on the hook for one count of "Conspiracy to Deal Firearms Without a License to Legally Import Firearms" and six counts of "Wire Fraud of Honest Services" (the illicit campaign donations).  The former carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and the latter 20 years.  Both carry a $250,000 fine.  Add all that up and that could possibly amount to 125 years in prison along with a fine of $1.75 million.

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 I'm not the one to laugh it up, but I gotta say this.

HAH HAH!

There was a third whammy that went on.  Earlier this week, Facebook bought out the Oculus Rift and that lead to a fury of flames.  However, due to the complexity of this story and the drama surrounding it, I cannot cover everything in this one page.  Keep your eyes peeled for my Oculus Rift Drama update.


Works Cited:
Consumerist
GamePoltics