Daily News Spin — October 3, 2001 (Wednesday)

Art of Magic team using black magic?

Freelancer has reported that Climax, the developers of Art of Magic, have been accused by the British Software Alliance of using illegal software.

Makes us wonder if there's anti-piracy measures in Art of Magic?

Freelancer also interviews Julian Gollop of Codo Games about the upcoming Laser Squad Nemesis game.

UGO lays off staff

UGO, one of the last remaining ad networks for gaming sites, has laid off a large number of its staff. This is from the Wall Street Journal.

Online entertainment company UGO Networks Inc. said it laid off 40 of its 77 employees in recognition of the dramatic cooling of the Web advertising and hosting businesses.

Closely held UGO publishes entertainment content targeted at young men and offers hosting and infrastructure services to affiliated Web properties.

Ad sales, which have been slow all year, have deteriorated further since the attacks on Sept. 11, according to J Moses, president of UGO, necessitating the cutbacks. "The ad market for the fourth quarter -- which historically is the prime month for entertainment companies -- looks softer than we were hoping it would be," he said.

The company is exiting the hosting business altogether, and laying off the employees in that division. There aren't enough viable Internet companies looking for hosting and bandwidth services for the operation to thrive, said Mr. Moses.

This is the second round of layoffs for UGO this year. The company laid off 40 employees when it raised $25 million in March. Mr. Moses said he regretted the timing of this round of layoffs.

"It's a really difficult time in New York. It's always very difficult to make changes to personnel who have been very loyal to the company, but our intention as a company is to get to profitability. Certainly the way to get there is to be around as a functioning company."

UGO had sales of $15 million last year. The company hopes to be profitable by the second quarter of 2002, Mr. Moses said. UGO had previously said it expected profitability by the end of 2001.

Sites that are affliated with UGO include Voodoo Extreme, Blue's News, Shacknews, Old Man Murray, and others.

3am

Desslock takes apart Pool of Radiance at Gamespot. Good review.

Voodoo Extreme has posted some new screenshots of Master of Orion 3.

C&C Renegade is slipping to January of 2002. They must be coding it left-handed.

Fighting Legends has gone gold. It's a beat 'em up MMOG.

Gaming Intelligence Agency loves Silent Hill 2. Take that, Senor Tom!

Grab some popcorn and watch a City of Heroes flick. That's the newly announced superhero MMOG.

There's a petition for Microsoft to revive the Tex Murphy series. The plan seems to be that if 15,000 signatures are gathered, Microsoft will "review" the series.

Namco expects profits to drop 30% due to the sluggish economy and terrorist attacks, according to the Nando Times.

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