Daily News Spin — April 27, 2001 (Friday)

Shoot Club, starring Truculent Trevor

It's always a good day when a new Shoot Club arrives. Today Shoot Club plays Serious Sam and kills a bazillion bad guys.

Another Atari 2600 hand-held project

Here's another site where someone is working on making an Atari 2600 hand-held system. Kind of a neat project. Spotted this at Joystick101.org.

One ring to bind them...but not to sue them

Although lawyers may be more powerful and scarifying than even Sauron, they apparently are being called off in the MM3D-Sierra lawsuit, according to MM3D's website.

MM3D is happy to announce that we are dismissing the lawsuit (without prejudice) on 04/26/01. We are grateful to Sierra for their good faith and for the efforts they are taking to resolve this matter. --Thank you.

And they all lived happily ever after (without prejudice).

Update: We've been informed that "without prejudice" is a legal term that means the lawsuit can be reinstated. Thanks Andrew T.!

Here they go again

Hillary and Joe, as in Clinton and Lieberman, are pushing a bill that will allow the FTC to fine companies that market mature games at children. From Eurogamer:

The new "Media Marketing Accountability Act" would allow the Federal Trade Commission to fine companies for marketing adult rated products towards children under the age of 17. Former First Lady Hillary Clinton denies that the bill amounts to censorship, insisting that "it plainly and simply tells those who market entertainment that they should not try to get kids to buy what [they] have already decided is too violent or sexual for kids to see or hear".

The problem that we see is that the standards that the ESRB uses to assign a mature rating aren't very realistic. Many games get the M rating due to violence, but the violence isn't realistic and probably doesn't really make the game objectionable for children.

The Webby nominees are out...

...and we're not among them for the games category! Oh, the ignominy! Here they are:

3dgroove.com
Gamasutra
GameLab
MyVideoGames.com
SiSSYFiGHT

We're not really sure what these awards are for, but we want one anyway, especially if there's a "major prize" involved like the leg-lamp from "Fragile, Italy" that the dad received in Christmas Story. Thanks Murph!

Army to use hand-held computers to fight wars

From the LA Times:

Eventually, Pentagon officials plan to outfit infantrymen with hand-held personal computer devices like the Palm, giving each soldier similar capabilities as the tank crew. The hand-held devices tap the video-game skills of young soldiers, enabling them to instantly pinpoint their position, find enemies and aim weapons.

Hmmm...another link between videogames and violence. This game sounds like it's an RTS.

Sony turns $127 million profit for recent quarter

Despite a shaky PS2 launch, Sony managed to turn a profit for its most recent quarter, according to this AP story:

Shrinking losses in its PlayStation 2 video-game business combined with robust electronic sales helped Sony Corp. turn profits of 15.7 billion yen ($127 million) for the quarter ending in March.

The Tokyo electronics giant made a strong recovery from losses of 36.7 billion yen ($295 million) for the same quarter a year ago, largely caused by the huge costs of launching the PlayStation 2 console, Sony said Friday.

The article says that Sony expects profits to grow as their videogame business rebounds with stronger sales of PS2 units and games.

Possible Majestic beta test scam

We're looking into this story, but we thought we'd post a cautionary note. There's an email flying around inviting gamers to beta test Majestic. That's no big deal, but it asks for your credit card information. We've put a call into EA to find out if this is legitimate. Our recommendation is to not reply to it with your credit card number until more is known about the legitimacy of this email.

Thanks Rob.

3am

Gamasutra has an interesting column looking at the differences between US and Japanese videogame sales.

The Onion has a personal advice column with a bit of a game twist. "Ask the Cheat Guide to Bloodlair" helps people with their personal issues. Or maybe not.

UGO is reportedly going to renege on contracts and do a revenue sharing split starting in April, according to a rumor posted at Lum's. The rumor also indicates that their $10 million in financing isn't finalized yet.

Dot com stuff again from Yahoo. "The number of dot-com layoffs nearly doubled in April from the previous month to reach an all-time high of 17,554, according to employment search firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas."

The Skull and Bones ceremony finally is revealed in this Electronic Telegraph story. Find out what Junior and Senior had to do. Hint: They had to look like idiots.

Click here to read yesterday's news