Daily News Spin — February 16, 2001 (Friday)

Plenty of smoke at Imagine Media

Undoubtedly related to our story below about parent company Future Publishing, we're now hearing rumors that Imagine Media is axing magazines and websites. The magazines that will be spared include PC Gamer, NextGen, PSM and their upcoming Xbox magazine. If the rumors we're hearing are true, that means that magazines like Dreamcast and Maximum PC may be history.

We don't have word yet on what websites are being closed, but with the difficulties in the online advertising market, Imagine may take a long look at those properties. The most prominent gaming website Imagine owns is Daily Radar.

This implosion of the web and print publishing scene makes us feel like we're craning our necks looking at a highway accident. Then we realize we're part of the accident. Medic! Medic!

Bill Roper talks about Warcraft 3

We talked to Bill Roper and have part one of a two part interview. Bill has some interesting things to say about Warcraft 3 in our interview.

Qt3: So would Blizzard be upset if fans make Warcraft 3 mods that are designed to replicate Warcraft and Warcraft 2?

Roper: If people want to make their own mods or total conversions, as long as its the community doing it for the community, that�s great. We don�t want someone to sell it, though. So yeah, if you want to go and make Warcraft 2, that�s great.

Read the first part of our interview here.

The division formerly known as Hasbro Interactive

Infogrames has renamed Hasbro Interactive with the catchy "Beverly, MA" moniker. To celebrate this christening, they sent us a list of Beverly's upcoming PC games instead of a bottle of champagne. Here they are:

Can't wait for that 'NSync Hotline! It should be noted that Monopoly City is the game formerly known as Monopoly Tycoon. Also, since this list goes out to Q4 2001, it looks like X-COM Alliance probably is dead as has been rumored.

Other Infogrames titles of note from other divisions include the following:

Future Publishing to lay off 350

Future Publishing, publishers of a number of magazines including PC Gamer UK, are laying off 350 of their approximately 2000 employees due to lower than projected revenues, according to CTW. Ninety are being laid off today, with the rest to follow as they restructure. Twenty magazines will also be discontinued. Here are the titles that have been announced as getting the guillotine. Others will follow.

The UK magazines to be axed are the recently launched Video Gamer, DCUK, WAP, Digital Camera User, Quick and Easy Windows, Your iMac, as well as the suspension of two occasional titles Best Games Ever and PlayStation Tips.

Several websites are being shuttered also, but we don't have any details.

Crime family

Proving that the family that scams together may serve time together, CNET is reporting (warning! giant animated ad spotted!) that a father and son made over $100,000 selling PS2s over the holidays. They had a nice profit margin, too, since they didn't actually have any PS2s to sell.

The auctions were conducted on Yahoo, Amazon.com and eBay, authorities said.

"These purported 'winning bidders' sent money to the Garays but never received the PlayStation 2 consoles they had paid for," according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney's Office, which filed the charges. In all, the Garays took in $113,982 for the auctions, authorities said.

They operated their scheme under a variety of Internet identities, including "compucraze2000," "judgementday404" and "gamemasters2001," the statement said.

And we thought the story of the empty PS2 box selling for $400 was bad. At least they got a box!

Game Grrls

Newsday has a lengthy story about computer and video games, the thrust of which is that they are apparently marketed towards males, if you can imagine that.

"There is a cognitive difference between the way men and women approach games. For young men, it is the action, the aggression, the violence that turns them on,� said Janice Kelly, a professor of technology and popular culture at the private DeVry Institute in Long Island City which offers college degrees in technological fields.

"Across the board, young women say they want strategy and logic,� she said.

Or as Haag put it, "In short, they want high skill, not high kill.�

The article makes some hay over a Nancy Drew game being the biggest selling children's game for Amazon.com over the holiday season. Of course, holiday purchases tend to be gifts, so we really don't know how many copies of Nancy Drew got played for 45 minutes and have been dust bunny magnets ever since.

The issue about games and girls is really one of those chicken and egg things. Are there so few female gamers because games aren't aimed at them, or are there so few because girls don't like computer and video games as much as boys?

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on the PS2

Black Isle Studios, the RPG division of Interplay, announced that a new Baldur's Gate game is being created for the PS2 and will be out this fall. From the press release spotted on Yahoo:

...Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance will be an entirely new action adventure experience opening the Baldur's Gate franchise to a much wider gaming community. Faithful adaptation of the new Dungeons & Dragons rules set, customizable player characters and character development allows for an engrossing gameplay experience new to console gamers. Dramatic new spell effects and powerful new abilities have been included....

And:

Played from a third person perspective Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance immerses players in the port town of Baldur's Gate. Darkness has fallen upon the town and rumors of a Thieves' Guild civil war brew beneath the streets of the city. Entering this desperate situation, the player finds himself fresh to the city of Baldur's Gate and new to the world of adventuring. He soon learns that he stands in the way of one of the greatest threats ever to strike the town of Baldur's Gate and The Sword Coast.

Certainly interesting news. There are a few questions we have, however. First, will there be a PC version? Second, will there be other console versions? And finally, is BioWare involved? There's no mention of them in the press release so we're guessing not. We'll try to get some more information and post an update.

And finally as an aside, can you imagine playing either of the first two Baldur's Gate games with a gamepad instead of a mouse? Yuck.

3am

Wired has a story about the recent and abrupt dismissal of the Asheron's Call volunteers. We think paying people to do work is generally a good idea, especially for a company the size of Microsoft. It's too bad the volunteers are squeezed out in this equation, though. What we really need are more flexible labor laws that can apply to situations like this where people who don't mind spending some of their leisure time to serve as game guides can do so and receive compensation less than the law would normally require.

Click here to read the yesterday's news

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