Author Archive | Jared Newman

Gamefly Accuses Postal Service of "Discrimination"

Posted by Jared Newman on April 24, 2009 at 10:43 am

Video games tend to be frowned upon as second-class media, but the US Postal Service is taking that stance literally, according to a complaint by Gamefly, which rents video games through the mail.

In a 17-page complaint filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission (via Ars Technica), GameFly says that 1 percent to 2 percent of its games are breaking in transit. Even more interesting is Gamefly’s allegation that the postal service gives “preferential treatment” to Netflix and Blockbuster.

Gamefly takes issue with the use of an automated sorting system that has a tendency to damage discs. While the postal service manually sorts out “a large percentage” of DVDs from Blockbuster and Netflix, it refuses to do the same for Gamefly under equal terms.

Adding insult to injury, the postal service boasted in a July 2008 press release that it was helping Gamefly prosper when the company opened a new shipping center. “GameFly may be a relatively new company, but it’s using an old idea— getting USPS to help it grow,” the statement said.

Gamefly filed the complaint on four counts, among them “Unlawful Discrimination Among DVD Mailers” and “Unlawful Discrimination Among Flats Mailers.” The company says it wants the same terms and prices that Netflix and Blockbuster are getting and may seek “additional forms of relief as the evidentiary record justifies.”

With 590,000 discs going out per month, Gamefly is shelling out almost $300,000 per month to replace broken discs if you assume a cost of $50 per game. That hurts enough on its own, but as Gamefly points out, Blockbuster is getting into mail-order game rentals now, allegedly without the same shipping headaches.

This explains why I’ve received a few different varieties of mailers during my two years of membership with Gamefly. I used to get cardboard inserts in the mail, but that practice was abandoned last year at one point abandoned, and has since continued again. Apparently, it was too expensive because of the weight increase, and it didn’t the extra cost still doesn’t stop all the discs from breaking.

4 comments

VHS Lives On Through Mail-Order Arthouse Rentals

Posted by Jared Newman on April 23, 2009 at 4:09 pm

Netflix it’s not, but a new mail-order rental service from Chicago-based Facets Multimedia has something for the super-dedicated indie niche.

The Facets service rents DVDs and, more interestingly, VHS tapes of independent, experimental and world films, and launched last month with little fanfare, Video Business reports. While Netflix and Facets overlap a bit on the DVD side, some of Facets’ offerings are so obscure that they only exist on VHS.

Among these films are Johnny Guitar (1954), a campy cult film about two women trying to control a frontier boom town; The Devils (1971), a film based on Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun; and The Emigrants (1971), about a young Swedish family setting out to America. Not all the picks are that obscure: The Cable Guy and Caddyshack are among the lighter fare offered on VHS. For DVDs, you’ll find import rarities such as Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale (2000) along with mainstream titles like 2006’s Oscar-nominated Babel.

Facets hosts over 30,000 titles in all, 500 of which come from the 26-year-old company’s exclusive release and distribution catalog. The volume and wide appeal of the films is important, because it’s conceivable that someone with enough offbeat tastes could rely on this service instead of Netflix and still satisfy an occasional mainstream urge. Pricing is competitive at $8.99 per month for a one-movie plan and $14.99 for two movies at a time, with a variety of other packages and prepaid options available.

I’m wondering if a service like this will catapult VHS to the status of music’s vinyl records. Sure, you can’t make any arguments for video quality, but maybe there’s a tactile satisfaction to sliding one of those bulky tapes into the player and fiddling with the tracking button.

2 comments

Japan's Wii Video is No YouTube or Hulu

Posted by Jared Newman on April 23, 2009 at 2:38 pm

wiivideo1

There appears to be a world domination plot afoot with Nintendo’s “Wii no Ma” video service, which will launch next week in Japan.

Until now, details on the service were slim, other than an announced partnership between Nintendo and media giant Dentsu to produce original content. The full scoop, revealed on Nintendo’s Japanese Web site and conveniently translated by Andria Sang, talks of a virtual world that blends eerily with the real.

The channel places Mii characters in a living room, where time passes by in equal proportion to the outside world. This is the hub for various other services offered in the channel. Foremost is the video channel, providing paid and ad-supported shows, as previously reported. Partner companies will have their own content, accessed by clicking on a plant in the room, as well as product samples that can be delivered to a pre-entered real world address. Weirder still, celebrities will occasionally visit the virtual home as “concierges” peddling additional programming.

In addition, DSi owners will be able to sync the handheld to the channel and download virtual coupons, which can be redeemed at participating retailers.

This is all pretty wild stuff — sort of like Second Life, but much more restrained — and you have to wonder how much of it, if any, will make it out of Japan. I can see the original content coming west, as it allows Nintendo to bypass the licensing kerfuffles that are making a mess of existing online video sites. And the delivery system is smart, drawing families in with another channel for their Miis.

But samples in the mail? Celebrity avatars invading your virtual home? They could be failures stateside, or Nintendo could strike gold again. I won’t venture a prediction.

One comment

The New Flavor of MMOs: Shooters

Posted by Jared Newman on April 22, 2009 at 1:03 pm

Traditionally, Massive Multiplayer Online games are not the avenue for testing one’s reflexes.

World of Warcraft, the quintessential MMO, follows the typical formula of managing health and attack skills through a system of statistics. EverQuest does the same. Even EVE Online, which abandons the typical fantasy setting in favor of Sci-Fi, is a game of resource management and overarching strategy.

As you’d expect, the Halo and Call of Duty crowd (e.g., me) are turned off. Massive multiplayer shooters exist, but only on the fringes of MMO culture, where your average shoot-em-up fan isn’t likely to find them.

MTV Multiplayer ran a nice round-up today on five games that are trying to change the status quo: APB, The Agency, Combat Arms, CrimeCraft and Earthrise. Reporter Tracey John asked one developer from each game to basically justify what they’re doing. I won’t summarize each of developers’ elevator pitches here; the important takeaway is that a wave of MMO shooters will hit over the next few years, aimed at the set that thinks World of Warcraft is for squares.

It’s funny, however, that none of the pitches sound much different from one another. They all claim the same predictable formula — take straightforward shooter, add community features and character building, stir — and I was surprised to hear very little about the games themselves. After all, once you strip away all the MMO features, you still need combat that’s good enough to draw people in. Leveling up only becomes addictive after the initial hook. Avoiding the stigma of MMOs with convoluted terms like “persistent world next-gen shooter” only goes so far.

I don’t want to pre-judge these games, but I’m worried that they’ll rely too heavily on community features instead of focusing on the actual act of play. To truly avoid lure shooter fans toward MMOs, it should be the other way around.

4 comments

What Does the PSP Want to Be?

Posted by Jared Newman on April 20, 2009 at 7:10 pm

Ask Sony for some thoughts on the state of the PSP, and it seems you’ll get a profoundly different answer than that of third-party interests.

In an article titled “Sony’s Forgotten Console,” Edge did a bit of quote gathering on what’s wrong and right with the handheld, and though the authors don’t explicitly point this out, it seems there’s an identity crisis going on. Sony continues to insist that the PSP provides deep, immersive video games, while at least one publisher believes it’s just too costly and risky to do that sort of thing anymore.

The key quote comes from Sebastien Rubens, a former SCEE employee who left to found Anozor, which makes download-only PSP games. “If you look at the market for PSP developers, it’s impossible to find a publisher that will put money into making games for PSP,” he said.

Rubens adds that the investment to make a full-featured PSP game is too high. Meanwhile, a game like Brain Age for the Nintendo DS performs wonderfully and is dirt-cheap to produce.

I’ve talked about the issue of “hardcore” gaming on the PSP before, but in a different light; this was back when Sony marketing executive Peter Dille called the iPhone “largely diversionary” and said PSP owners want a 20-hour game by comparison. Now it seems that even the game makers are turning against this idea. If Edge’s article is any indication, PSP developers want to make iPhone-like games — cheap to produce and easy to distribute, maybe even free from the old brick-and-mortar model.

Shelf space is competitive, after all, and when it comes to selling those big and fancy games, Sony’s first-party offerings — the ones created by its own studios — are finding the most success. Titles like God of War: Chains of Olympus and Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters perform well, but that’s no consolation to the third-party game makers.

To be fair, this is a crisis that all handheld game makers are facing. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS, widely regarded as a monumental stretch on the console’s resources, only sold 89,000 copies in its first month. While there are lots of potential explanations — poor marketing, piracy, GTA overload — there’s always the possibility that a lot of people aren’t interested in “hardcore” handheld gaming.

The difference is, Nintendo and Apple aren’t talking about 20-hour games as a major selling point, while Sony remains fixated on it. As the most powerful handheld with the most straightforward design, the PSP has no choice but to play to those strengths. Ironically, that muscle is dragging the PSP down.

5 comments

E74 and Red Ring of Death: Same But Different

Posted by Jared Newman on April 17, 2009 at 2:13 pm

They go by different names, but sometimes it’s the same hardware failure that causes the Xbox 360’s “Red Ring of Death” and the newer “E74.”

In an interview with Kotaku’s Brian Crecente, an unnamed Microsoft representative discussed the latest console-killing error, which on Tuesday became covered under the same three-year warranty Microsoft issued to fix the Red Ring of Death.

Crecente was trying to figure out if the “three flashing red lights” and E74 are the same problem with different indicators. Microsoft denied that claim, but said that in some cases the error messages are referring to the same hardware failure. “However, it is not the same failure mode in all cases and there is no single root cause for these malfunctions,” the representative said.

Microsoft didn’t elaborate much further than that; as I said last time, the company has nothing to lose by playing this close to the vest. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Xbox personalities can claim that the worst has come to pass.

Here’s another interesting tidbit from the short interview: Microsoft said the Red Ring of Death is not out of the picture, even though hardware improvements have reduced the likelihood of the problem.

In that light, I wish Microsoft would reset the clock on its warranty coverage for customers whose consoles have bricked. A set time limit of three years is unsettling when customers can’t rest assured that their console won’t break again, even with the latest hardware.

One comment

Boom! Madden Games Will Stick Around

Posted by Jared Newman on April 16, 2009 at 8:18 pm

John Madden may have stunned the sports world today by announcing his retirement from broadcasting, but football video game fans shouldn’t be surprised that the Madden game franchise is staying put.

Speaking to Gamasutra, EA Sports spokesman David Tinson said the company has a “long-term contract” with Madden.

Tinson didn’t elaborate, but EA Sports President Peter Moore posted some thoughts to his blog: “We all obviously knew this day would one day come, when John would walk away from the booth, but he certainly leaves a lasting legacy that we’re proud to be able to carry on through our Madden NFL videogame franchise for years to come,” Moore said.

Madden took a backseat role in last year’s game, in which Tom Hammond and Cris Collinsworth handled broadcasting. It was the first time Madden didn’t provide color commentary.

I wonder for how long Madden will continue to be the face of EA Sports’ golden franchise. At first, I figured his name will eventually fade from popularity, and EA will want to move on, probably when the contract runs out.

On the other hand, we could see an interesting phenomenon in which the video game keeps the Madden name alive. A brand that sells 70 million copies in its lifetime doesn’t fade away so easily, and no other video game franchise has become so synonymous with its genre. (It helps that EA holds exclusive rights to use real-life players, stadiums and teams in its games, effectively locking out any competition, but that’s beside the point.)

This could certainly be the first time that a video game keeps a sports icon in the limelight, long after his retirement.

No comments

iTunes Price Hikes Treating the Industry Just Fine

Posted by Jared Newman on April 15, 2009 at 5:42 pm

ituneslogo If you thought the recording industry would suffer for pushing higher prices on iTunes and other download services, you’d be wrong.

Billboard reports weaker sales for iTunes tracks whose price changed from 99 cents to $1.29 a week ago, but overall revenues for the Top 100 still rose by roughly 10 percent.

iTunes adopted a “variable pricing” structure on April 7 as part of a new agreement with record labels. While most tracks still cost 99 cents, some popular songs became 30 cents more expensive, while a selection of random classics were priced at 69 cents. Forget about storming off to another service; Amazon, Napster, Lala, Rhapsody and Wal-Mart. The deal also marked the end of Digital Rights Management on iTunes tracks.

Looking at some of the $1.29 tracks whose sales were holding steady in the weeks before variable pricing, you can get a pretty clear picture of the effects. Sales of “Beautiful” by Akon dropped from 57,941 last week to 52,760 this week. That means the song generated an additional $10,699 at the new price level. The less-popular “Stanky Legg” (what?) by GS Boyz slipped by 2,994 in sales but still earned an extra $2943.54.

Missing from Billboard’s report are statistics on the songs whose price decreased. Along with the costlier tracks, iTunes launched two compilations — Rock and Classic R&B — at 69 cents per song. I have a feeling revenue increased for those songs, simply because they were lifted from obscurity and offered on sale.

All of this makes me wonder whether the recording industry will try to push prices even higher in the future. Thus far, the “voting with your wallet” concept hasn’t worked, so what’s the threshold at which consumers will resist? $1.50 per song? How about $2?

2 comments

iPhone Gamers Rejecting the Same-Old? Not Really.

Posted by Jared Newman on April 15, 2009 at 4:52 pm

The games industry has a reputation for being risk-averse, often tacking on numerals to existing franchises or spewing out endless iterations of solitaire and poker. While that strategy flies in the console and computer gaming world, one game company exec claims the landscape is different on the iPhone. I’m skeptical.

“We notice that brands don’t do that well on the iPhone, nor do generic games like poker or bowling,” Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins — who has long since moved on and now owns Digital Chocolate — said in an interview with VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi.

I want to believe this, but the data I’m finding doesn’t support what Hawkins says, especially in regards to “generic” games. Looking at comScore’s recent App download chart, iBowl and Touch Hockey: FS5 are the second and fourth-most downloaded games, respectively. Pac-Man came in third place. Slightly down the list, you find Hangman, So! Solitaire and Sudoku, which are about as generic as you can get. (First place, admittedly, belongs to Tap Tap Revenge, a wildly popular rhythm game.)

Additionally, you can look back to a game-specific chart from last July and find seven sudoku and five solitaire titles in the top 100.

Before poking around for these charts, I almost wrote a piece taking Hawkins’ remarks wholesale. It’s enticing to cheer on the iPhone as a pillar of creativity, especially when Hawkins talks about games that “make social connections.” The idea that original content has the best chance of going viral sounds good in theory.

And there are holes in my argument, too. Digital Chocolate has hit number one in the sales charts with four different games, always relying on new IP, so Hawkins isn’t totally off base. There’s also the issue of free vs. paid, which the above charts don’t take into account. Finally, we have seen a few really cool games, regardess of sales.

But at least in terms of mass popularity, you can’t argue with the tried-and-true.

2 comments

NBC Using Authentication Wall for Olympics

Posted by Jared Newman on April 14, 2009 at 7:51 pm

At the rate online video is growing, I imagine there will be a lot of people wanting to watch the Olympics online come 2010. If that’s the case, they’d better not abandon their TV subscriptions.

Using an advanced authentication method, NBC Universal will require online viewers to prove that they subscribe to a cable, satellite or telecom subscription TV package. Even then, the customer’s service provider must agree to this deal with NBC Universal beforehand.

The report in Sports Business Journal says the authentication will be limited to live footage, while some archived footage will be available for free.

Though much of NBC’s coverage will appear over the airwaves (free to anyone with an HD tuner and antenna), the paywall is probably meant to placate service providers due to the coverage NBC spreads to its subscription channels, such as MSNBC. Without being privy to the interactions between the network and service providers, I can’t say outright that authentication is a boneheaded move on NBC’s part. It could just be a necessity in the crazy world of content licensing.

But there should be some option for non-subscribers to watch the games online, and it should be robust rather than a second-class medium. Look at what Major League Baseball is doing with its MLB.tv offerings: Picture-in-picture, live highlights, DVR, player tracking. These are luxuries that go far beyond what the TV can do, and in my opinion, they’re worth paying for.

Give me a menu of which games are happening right now, and let me open a few of them in separate frames. Give me reminders of when the next Curling match is set to air and let me watch later if I miss it. I want a clickable ticker packed with highlights from around Vancouver. Please don’t give me the same thing I could get on cable, but harder to watch. As a cable divorcee, I’d throw $20 on this hypothetical service for the duration of the games.

But these are fantasies, to be sure. Maybe NBC Universal will learn after it endures another year of subpar viewing numbers.

One comment

← Previous 1 … 87 88 89 … 96 Next →