Archive for December, 2004
EA buys 20% of Ubisoft
EA’s Corporate Headquarters According to TheStreet.com and NewsFactor, EA has purchased approximately 20% of the French software company Ubisoft — makers of Myst, Tom Clancey’s Splinter Cell, and Star Wars Trilogy. EA’s Vice President for Corporate Communications, Jeff Brown, told NewsFactor that “”This does not represent a consolidation in the game industry,” … “This is [...]
Full StoryStratics hacked/defaced
It appears that the entire Stratics network was victimized by a defacing worm earlier today. No word yet on whether the worm is sophisiticated or just the work of a garden variety h4x0r script kiddy. For sure these worm writers need to think of more creative messages. We are awaiting further information, but given that [...]
Full StoryOp/Ed: Saw it Coming – anonymous gaming as a training ground for sociopathic behavior
In this essay, our reader DigitalGaia takes us back to the early days of virtual communitites and contends that griefing and predatory behavior (especially by teens) has always been with us and should come as no surprise now. Sample quote: “It was then that I began to observe the frighteningly real effect a life without [...]
Full StoryJeff Brown vs. Jeff Brown
EA’s Vice President for Corporate Communications, Jeff Brown, and the other Jeff Brown (aka ButteredNinja) Turns out there is another Jeff Brown with ideas about the game industry and he is not all that happy to share the name of EA’s corporate spokesperson (“to be honest, it makes ME look bad when someone who shares [...]
Full StoryUO Death Watch Begins
Folks on Terra Nova are now speculating that the end may be near for Ultima Online, what with its declining user base, aging technology, and aborted attempts to upgrade. Well, we do know one thing: EA is excellent at wrecking MMORPGs. My question would be: which does EA pull the plug on first — UO [...]
Full StoryBlack Hand Mafia Opens Club in SL
by Gina Fatale Former denizens of TSO remember the Black Hand Mafia. Sonny Satriale, as the Godfather of the BlackHand Mafia was known in TSO, has been spending his days in SecondLife under the name Santino Molinari. Santino has started a chapter of the BlackHand mafia in SL his first family operated business is the [...]
Full StoryTreasure Island Sale Evokes Memories of Old Alphaville
A couple of days ago, someone paid the equivalent of $26,500 US for a virtual island on the European MMORPG Project Entropia. I didn’t cover this at the time because it was another MMORPG after all, and it seemed well covered by Terra Nova and Slashdot. But yesterday The Register published an article on the [...]
Full StoryLooking up Taco Rubio at the Upskirt Museum
virtual peeper Taco Rubio In this interview Miravoir and Urizenus talk to Taco Rubio about his upskirt museum at Whinlatter 168, 78 in Second Life. Is it an invasion of privacy for him to take candid pictures up the skirts of female avatars? Or have we lost our minds for even asking the question.
Full StoryClickable Culture Casts Wary Eye on SL’s Teen Grid Plans
Last week, the Clickable Culture blog posted an interesting analyis of the Linden’s plan to open a teen grid on SL, and they raised some points that I haven’t seen discussed here. They raise the security issue of teens and predators, but they also offered that the Linden’s really need to pay experienced SL-ers to [...]
Full StorySimcast acquires Third Simulator
The SimCast group, one of the PvP games under development in Second Life, today announced the acquisition of a third sim to its combat arena — this one owned by team member Mystic Templar. In a press release, SimCast CEO Prong Thetan said that new combat simulator is named Midgard, and is positioned between the [...]
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