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Jeff Brown to the TV Networks: We’re eating your lunch!

EA’s Vice President for Corporate Communications, Jeff Brown That smack talkin’ mack daddy of corporate “we pwnz u”- speak was at it again last month, this time claiming that the TV networks were history, cuz giant game companies already pwn the eyeballs of young males, and soon they will get the advertising dollars as well. [...]

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Jeff Brown to the TV Networks: We’re eating your lunch!

EA’s Vice President for Corporate Communications, Jeff Brown That smack talkin’ mack daddy of corporate “we pwnz u”- speak was at it again last month, this time claiming that the TV networks were history, cuz giant game companies already pwn the eyeballs of young males, and soon they will get the advertising dollars as well. [...]

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Entertainment Jessie Style: The Ultimate Dive Bar

After a rough day of working on the Bedford Sim, I decided to go to Jessie and relax at my shipyard — recently acquired at auction when the Lindens booted Falcon and seized all his property. I was pleasantly surpised to see that my neighbor Davvy Knox had opened a classic dive bar named “Dirty [...]

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EXTRA EXTRA, OMFG! Stratics Thought Police decree that links to sites that link to The Second Life Herald violate Stratics ROC!!!

Those wacky little thought police at Stratics have done it again! Dyerbrook was recently charged with a violation of the Stratics Rules of Conduct (ROC), because in his profile he has a link to his ?Sims Out of Line? page, which in turn has a link the Second Life/Alphaville Herald. Never mind that Dyerbrook (a [...]

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The TSO Task Squad: Stasi-styled group promises to rat out fellow players

In a disturbing and shocking development on TSO, several plays have formed a group “devoted to seeking out and reporting sims that violate the EA Terms of Service.” Called the “TSO Task Squad” the stated motive of the group is to “help restore TSO to an enjoyable and challenging game for all”. But let’s be [...]

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The MMORPG within the MMORPG: Part 1

While TSO remains all atitter over the fact that EA has introduced a new server/city (Dianastan, or Tigger Town, or Dragons Hangnail or whatever it is), Second Life had the idea that people should be able to buy their own servers in the SL grid (avatars can actually move between servers freely in SL) and [...]

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Fallen Angel: AVG Groping Victim Falls in with One Song

Many of our dedicated readers will remember the case of the young Aphaville Government intern Gina, spoiled in the flower of her youth by the salacious advances of Mr-President. Sadly that incident has precipitated a moral decline in the young woman to the point where she has now taken employ as a dancer/camera girl with [...]

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Dragon Empires Project bites dust.

According to this report in GamesIndustry.biz, Codemasters has terminated development of their Dragon Empires game. It thus joins the great dust bin of cancelled projects that incude Ultima X, Warhammer Online, and many others. There are many interesting issues here. Will they open the source? They should. Also, if these projects are failing now, what [...]

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The Virtual Burning Man

There is a tribute to Burning Man in Second Life. I haven’t had a chance to get there yet, so I refer you to the ever excellent reporting of Hamlet Linden in New World Notes. And Hamlet even usese the phrase “temporary autonomous zone”, which basically guarantees that I will blog the story.

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Program for State of Play II: Reloaded

I was looking for a slow period to blog the program for the State of Play conference, and this looks like the time. The State of Play is a conference that brings together people from the game industry and academia to discuss legal and conceptual issues in the development of MMORPGs like TSO and Second [...]

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