Interview: 'This Gaming Life' Travels Online Game Culture, Attitudes

Veteran UK game journalist Jim Rossignol, currently one of the Big Four at the Rock Paper Shotgun blog, has just published a book called 'This Gaming Life,' documenting his experiences in three different cities pursuing and documenting the culture of online games.

He covers the widespread competitive game scene in Korea, looks into Quake's evolving role in the London game scene, and visits Iceland to see the birthplace of EVE Online, to develop what he says is a story of "how games change the lives of gamers."

I thought the idea of a "travelogue" of game culture was interesting, so I asked Jim a few questions about the book, and his experiences.

I don't have time to waste this weekend, sadly, but if you do, there's a challenging little puzzler called Putty Puzzler, found over on the interestingly named 'Coke and Code.' It's putty. It's a puzzle. It's kinda hard. I spent a little bit of time with it and was pleasantly challenged — I'll come back for more after I've got a little time to waste.

Putty Puzzler [Coke and Code via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Designing 2D Avatars for Games

China's Online Gaming Market Up 71%, Hits $1.7 Billion

Just about everything in the Chinese gaming market is on the rise, according to a new report by Niko Partners: with the exception of internet cafés (numbers are down thanks to a ban on issuing new licenses), everything is growing by leaps and bounds. The online market jumped 71% in the past year, which is no great surprise, but the grey market success of consoles may be:

Console game sales were up 75 percent on a per-unit basis to 2.48 million, but Hanson noted that due to a Chinese console ban in place since 2000, the entire segment persists through the gray market ....

"The big boom this year came from the easier availability of the new next-gen consoles ...."

She pointed to PlayStation 2 as being more popular than its successor, on the strength of its affordability, game library, and backwards compatibility, with Wii seeing popularity for similar reasons. Between PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Hanson claimed Xbox 360 is more popular in China for its price point and library.

Other details and explanations can be found in a nice wrap up over at Gamasutra.

Niko's Hanson On Chinese Game Biz Growth [Gamasutra]

Play Game, Combat Malaria In Africa

The challenge: race the sun and hand out as many insecticide-treated bed nets as you can to African families. The more nets you deliver - before the mosquitoes come out - the more lives you save. Once you're done playing the game, sign up, confirm your email, and a life-saving bed net will be sent on your behalf!

Playing the AIDS Game in China

The AIDS epidemic in China is huge and of serious concern to a lot of people (the best work I've seen to date is the wonderful and heartbreaking To Live Is Better Than To Die, an underground documentary by Chen Weijun on a hushed-up tragedy in Henan), but the Ministry of Education is using computers and 'games' of the quiz variety to fine effect:

Launched by the Ministry of Education and sponsored by the China AIDS Roadmap Tactical Support Project, the contest ran for three months last year, yet its effect continue - the site remains up and nearly 19 million people have logged on.

In a survey of participants, 95 percent found the test enhanced their understanding and concern for the HIV-infected and AIDS patients; the same proportion felt better equipped to protect themselves against the disease; and more than 83 percent thought the contest should take place regularly.

Students take up AIDS challenge [China Daily via PlayNoEvil, photo Wu Shuibin]

Apples to Oranges: Comparing Online Gaming Businesses

Piracy and Casual Games

A couple of weeks ago, Reflexive's director of marketing Russell Carrol issued a 'startling installment' of his regular Gamasutra column. The issue? Piracy, DRM and casual games. His conclusion, based on data from Reflexive, was that 'for every 1,000 pirated copies we eliminated, we created 1 additional sale.' Well, some people had a hissy fit and he's back with some more data and discussion of the issue of piracy:

The 1000:1 ratio is really, I think, the key takeaway of the article. Several people have grasped that and started applying it to different numbers in the industry, and the results are very disappointing.

Clearly, if we could always have a big gain from a fix that maintains itself, it is worth spending the time to fight piracy. However, since that isn't always the case, it can sometimes (often?) be pretty discouraging to try and stop piracy.

One of my favorite blogs deals with the issue of piracy relatively frequently, and I'm interested in the pirated goods market in Asia - but Mainland bootleggers are the least of some companies' worries. I think as long as people are selling things, there are going to be people out there trying to figure out how to get it for free; but I'd be curious to know what companies have found to be most successful in terms of trying to stem the tide.

Piracy & Casual Games - The Follow-Up [GameSetWatch]

SOE And Vivox Go Way Beyond In-Game Voice Chat

China Trying To Keep Out Foreign MMORPGs

It's no secret that foreign games, be they WoW or Korean imports, are wildly popular in China - thus, in a clear case of local protectionism, the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) has instituted new regulations to keep out foreign game companies:

Under the new regulation, the [GAPP] will postpone the examination, approval and licensing of foreign company products if the companies are sued or targeted for arbitration actions by Chinese online game companies.

It sounds to me like this is dealing with new products and WoW is safe from frivolous lawsuits for the time being - but this is still rife with potential problems, since many domestic games are introduced to China via partnership between foreign companies and domestic operators. The potential negative impacts on domestic companies if games are unfairly held up is huge; and some of the most recent lawsuits involving Chinese and foreign game companies have involved disputes over licenses and operations. Considering Chinese companies have proved they have absolutely no compunction about illegally operating foreign games outside set corporate agreements, I'm not at all convinced this will actually do anything in the long run other than encourage domestic companies to commit IP theft.

China Adopts New Regulations to Keep Out Foreign Online Game Companies [Virtually Blind]

Creepy Swiss Right-Wing Xenophobic Game

Battle of Shadows Open Beta Starting Today

Some New Offerings For the Skill Gamers Among Us

Fascinating Yet Horrifying: The Barbie & Bratz MMOs

MapleStory to Get Card Game

Timewaster of the Day (Week? Month?): Sharkrunners

On Kongregate and Indie Development

ESPN Arcade