Daily News Spin — April 16, 2001 (Monday)

Starcraft to be DVD-craft

Blizzard is remixing the cutscenes from Starcraft and Brood War and selling the 36-minute DVD for $15. Here's the content you get:

36 minutes of cinema-quality digital animation

Exclusive director's commentary

Original development artwork and never-before-seen storyboards from theBlizzard Film Department

Cinematic trailers for StarCraft, Brood War, Diablo II, the Diablo II Expansion Set, and Warcraft III

EverQuest bringing families together

Wired is reporting that the family that plays together stays together.

In many of the families, it�s the kids who are spreading the EverQuest addiction to the game to their parents. Kate Holtkamp of Laguna Hills, California, bought the game for her two sons Brendan, 16, and Conner, 12, and they in turn got her to play. In addition to the fun, Holtkamp said it's a way to stay in contact with her sons who during the week live with their father 100 miles away.

Interesting. We wonder what these kids think when they see their mom in the game as a scantily clad elf with a serious rack?

Atlantis: The Lost Empire game free

Disney's giving away 12 million copies of this 3D game, according to Gamespot.

Disney Interactive has announced that it will give away 12 million copies of a 3D online multiplayer game as an introduction to its upcoming film, Atlantis: The Lost Empire. The promotion marks the largest free distribution of an interactive game to date. In addition to serving as an introduction to the film, which will open in theaters in mid-June, the game will serve as an introduction to the retail PC game, Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Trial by Fire, which is scheduled for release in mid-May.

Babies causing software game boom

Call them the new baby boomers. The fastest growing segment of the computer game market is in kid games aimed at pre-schoolers, according to the Times.

People who took up computer games as teenagers in the mid-1980s are now having their own children, and are increasingly steering them towards computer games before they can read or write.

Sales of computer games for pre-school children have risen by 40 per cent in the past year, compared with a rise of 6 per cent for the entire market, according to the latest figures from the market research company Taylor Nelson.

It's a Telly Tubby world.

3am

The Chinese love a George W. Bush virtual pet game. Most of the 2000 downloads per hour are coming from China. We wonder if the pet apologizes?

Lord British is nutty! Here's some of his royal nuttiness from a CGO interview:

.... I purchased Lunakod 21 from the Russians. I am now the world's only private owner of an object on a foreign celestial body. Though there are international treaties that say, no government shall lay claim to geography off planet earth, I am not a government. Summarily, I claim the moon in the name of Lord British!

IGN is trying to add a subscriber service. IGNinside costs $30 per year and gives users a monthly PDF magazine, a weekly comic, a spy cam of their offices, and other exclusive content. Uh, no. This won't work. Spotted this story at Stomped.

Inside has a nice look at the story behind Dean Kamen's IT, the mystery invention that has sparked so much discussion. This article looks at how the furor started and how Kamen may be feeling the heat from the auto industry.

Finally, good luck playing that deadliest game -- getting your taxes filed on time. Just be careful and try to avoid the temptation to use cheat modes.

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