Censorship Affects Global Unity

One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about playing MMORPGs is that you will never know who you might meet. One day you’ll be chatting with guildies from your own country and culture, the next you’ll be grouping up with someone from a completely different culture. If you keep your eyes and mind open, you can learn a lot about other people.

Unfortunately, that’s been changing over the last few years. World of Warcraft effectively divides players between the European and US servers (Aussies effectively play on US servers.) Now it appears that Funcom are going a step further.

The folks at  Gaming Shogun emailed Funcom for an update on the censorship issues of the last week or two. What they were told was that Age of Conan will be heavily regionalized. It turns out that players who buy the game in one region will not be able to play it in any other regions.

So if a German player buys AoC from the United States because he wants to experience the full impact of the games combat, something his government doesn’t like, then he will not be able to play it on the European servers. The same goes for players in other regions who want to experience the game in a way not pre-determined for their part of the world.

I’m still not sure what restrictions will be placed on Age of Conan for Australian players. I emailed Funcom the other day, but haven’t yet received a reply. I originally thought that I’d be able to buy the game online and do a digital download, but if Funcom are this serious about restricting how players can play the game based on regional censorship codes, then maybe us Aussies will be out of luck.

I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

While we’re on the subject, don’t forget Februarys Poll on Game Ratings. Head over and have a vote, or add your opinion in the comments.

Popularity: 33% [?]

AOC Uncut

In North America at least…

It looks like the ESRB has rated Age of Conan and yes you can all relax… There will be nipples.

I can hear the cheers go up from here. Unless it’s a Super Tuesday celebration I can hear.

This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. I never expected the North American release of Age of Conan to be censored. Don’t get me wrong, there will be controversy, after all this is an election year which means that some game somewhere will get targeted for being the corrupter of all innocence. It might as well be AoC.

I’d expect Age of Conan to be censored in some countries. Germany has a track record of banning games that the censors deem to be too violent. I’m not sure about nudity or sex though. I seem to recall reading about a TV game show where the contestants are completely nekkid. If that’s true, a few nipples won’t worry them.

Here in Australia though. Well, that’s another story. Our nations busybodies, also known as the OFLC (Office of Film and Literature Classification) have been hard at work in recent years denying the right to adults throughout our sunburned land the right to choose the games they play.

They did this way back in 1996 with Duke Nukem 3D. 3D Realms were forced to censor all the content with the strippers and turn off all the blood. Luckily 3D Realms did this using a software flag, and after the game was released here, posted the details on how to turn everything back on.

Hooray for common sense.

Reminiscences aside, I expect the boxed version of Age of Conan to be banned by the OFLC here in Oz, unless Funcom somehow guarantee to censor the game for Australians. Even if Funcom does this I suspect there will be a relatively easy way to get an uncensored client.

If not, digital purchase and download, here I come.

BTW, there is a poll this month asking what rating you are prepared to play up to. Appropriate for the topic don’t you think. Please take the time to vote.

Update: I just fired off an query to Funcom asking them about the rating, and possible censorship, of the Australian release of AoC. If I receive a response I’ll let you know the details.

Popularity: 17% [?]

SMMMOG

I’ve played a few Sid Meier games over the years. Civilization 2 and 3, Alpha Centauri, Colonization, and Railroad Tycoon. Sid Meier games have that ability to keep me going until the early hours of the morning. "Just one more turn", I say. And then another, and another.

There may be another one of these time grabbers to play in the next few years.

SMMMOG, aka Sid Meiers Massively Multiplayer Online Game.

Yep. That’s right, I don’t know what it will be called. But the SM branding does seem like a sure thing to prefix to the name. Sid Meier himself hinted that it may be a Civilization based MMO, could it be called SMCO?

In any case, it is an interesting choice to turn the Civilization franchise into a massive persistent world.

I’m wondering how it will be done. For instance will players control entire empires, or will that be guild based?

How do you translate an effective turn based gameplay into realtime gameplay and slow it down enough to give players who don’t log on regularly the ability to be competitive?

Come to think of it, I do like the idea of empires being guild based. Guild members can take on the various roles of citizens of Civ cities that we know and love. Some guildies can be scientists, others can be entertainers, and of course there are the military options.

Even as I’m writing this I keep thinking of the challenges that the designers will have in developing this game and keeping it true to the Civilization experience.

If the hints and rumors turn out to be true, I’m looking forward to keeping track of this one.

Thanks: Ten Ton Hammer.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Activist Gamers are Massively Effective

Okay. I’ve used the "Massively Effective" line before, this is the last time… maybe.

A few days ago now, a print media author by the name of Cooper Lawrence appeared on Fox News and had a go at Mass Effect. Ms Lawrence claimed that the game was full of pornography and full frontal nudity. Hmmm. I played it through and didn’t see any of that. What was I doing wrong?!

The game community reacted to the show with predictable outrage. After all, the game does not contain any of the content that Cooper Lawrence claimed was there. At worst, the player was rewarded with a sex scene that even the FCC would have been hard pressed to find anything wrong.

It turned out later that she was told by some anonymous third party that the game contained obscene material. She actually hadn’t played it at all.

What happened next was terribly interesting. A large number of gamers headed over to Amazon where Ms Lawrence’s latest book is on sale and voted it down, leaving comments describing the book as a bunch of tripe (my paraphrase.) At this point Ms Lawrence retracted her statement saying:

I recognize that I mis-spoke. I really regret saying that, and now that I’ve seen the game and seen the sex scenes it’s kind of a joke.

Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography," she added. "But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.

I’ll bet she regrets making those comments. After all those comments have probably cost her a lot of money. I don’t think that I’m alone in using the Amazon rating system to decide if I’ll buy a book. Even if I’m interested in a book description, lots of bad ratings stop me from going ahead and buying. Currently, Ms Lawrence’s book The Cult of Perfection is rated at one star. She ain’t gonna sell many of those.

So why is this interesting?

Gamers, until now, have been a pretty easy target. Old media like Fox News doesn’t care about them because the average gamer isn’t in their demographic. So Uncle Rupert’s TV network can afford to do some muck raking to rake in the ratings. He’s not going to lose any viewers.

While gamers have expressed their outrage at the unfair treatment they have received from old media, busybodies, and ever-so-outraged-in-an-election-year politicians determined to ‘think of the children’ I’m not sure I’ve seen gamer activism like this before.

It also coincides with a recent report about a US parents group called the Parents Television Council who are very, very upset that the Entertainment Software Association will be making political donations. They’re upset that the ESA will be ‘buying clout.’

Okay. I’m not a huge fan that lets special interests bribe donate to politicians in order to curry favor, but let’s face it, that’s exactly what these parents groups have been doing for years.

This particular group, as I understand it, represents a fairly small percentage of the American population, but makes the largest proportion of complaints to the FCC each year. They’re noisy, and it appears that they don’t want anyone horning in on their racket. Sorry about the pun… no, not really.

Maybe they do realize actually how big the gamer community is. Recent reports have World of Warcraft passing ten million subscribers, and the WoW numbers are a drop in the bucket when it comes to everyone who plays computer games. Maybe, just maybe, the Parents Television Council realizes how noisy millions of gamers could become.

That’s an awful lot of people to get offside.

Gamers have been treated pretty poorly by the traditional media, politicians, and groups with agendas for years. Maybe now the tide is turning. Cooper Lawrence and her book may be the first casualty in the new wave of gamer activism.

She won’t be the last.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Are You Subversive? Brazil Thinks So.

There were a few reports this weekend about the banning in Brazil of two computer games. Those games were Everquest and Counterstrike. That’s the first Everquest mind you.

Apparently a judge in one of the provinces managed to get a bee in his bonnet about these two games. This judge, Carlos Alberto Simoes, ruled:

that the games encouraged the subversion of public order, were an attack against the democratic state and the law and against public security.

What can you say about that?

Never mind that this is Everquest 1 he is banning, which was released March 1999, and Counterstrike, originally a Half-Life mod released before EQ. Not sure of the exact date for CS. These two games have been played by thousands of players for the  better part of a decade.

Never mind that there are a bunch of games out there that in viciousness and realism make EQ and CS look like a child’s bedtime stories by comparison.

Never mind that there are other forms of media that are quite legal that contain subversive themes and *gasp* challenge the citizenry to think about their world.

This particular judge appears to be a little out of touch with both his country and reality. I’ve never read stories about hordes of Counterstrike and Everquest players roaming the Brazilian countryside carrying out subversive acts against democracy. In all likelihood, these gamers were happily keeping out of trouble while indulging their favorite hobby.

Unfortunately, Brazil has a somewhat strange legal system where a judge can make a ruling in one province and have that ruling apply across the country. I’m wondering where the checks and balances are in the system to prevent a judicial wacko from implementing some really nasty laws.

Banning games is one thing. But this sort of system could lead to some widespread abuse of civil rights. The question becomes: When does the book burning start?

For now though, EQ and CS gamers in Brazil will have to resort to secretive and subversive means to hide themselves and their hobby from the video game police.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Ice Age Online Announced

This one came right out of left field.

According to Gamers Hell, a South Korean company called Gravity Co, Ltd has forged an agreement with 20th Century Fox to create a MMO based on the Ice Age Movies. The game is expected to be released  in the third quarter 2009.

Well. What can I say about that.

My first response was to check the calendar. Nope. Not April 1.

Aside from the fact that I did enjoy both movies, even though I thought the first was much better, I’m not sure that this can make a good game.

See this is the problem with games that are based on movies. Ice Age is a character movie. It’s about a group of friends who overcome personal differences to overcome a problem. It’s also about this crazy rat thing that’s obsessed with his nuts. How do you take that dynamic and apply it to a MMO where each player is in charge of their destiny?

Perhaps that is why there are so many crappy games based on movies.

There are some good ones. The Aliens vs Predator games worked in part because they took elements from each movie world and combined them well. But they didn’t try and emulate the story from each of those movies.

Perhaps the other indicator that Ice Age Online  is not going to be that great is the release date.

It’s only a bit more than eighteen months away.

I suspect that they will be aiming at the much younger audience. After all, most kids don’t really know when they’re being dished up poor quality entertainment. If IAO goes the way it’s looking just from the press release, that’s what is going to be delivered.

Pity. Kids deserve better.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Star Trek Licence Beamed Up – Red Shirt Doesn’t Make It

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to the planet. They need a little extra help so they take the bloke in the red shirt. We all know who isn’t beaming back up.

In the meantime Kirk loses his shirt and seduces the beautiful alien priestess.

No tears are shed for Mr. Red Shirt.

In the same way, I doubt there will be any tears shed for P2 Entertainment (formerly known as Perpetual Entertainment) losing the Star Trek licence.

The news is out today (Massively, Warcry, Disgruntled Gamer) that P2 Entertainment has ceased development on Star Trek Online and has transferred the Star Trek licence to an unnamed developer. This developer is supposedly in the San Francisco Bay Area, and may be Cryptic Studios according to rumors uncovered by Massively.

So, the good news is that Star Trek Online may have beamed up just in time to escape the Deadpool.

There is bad news though.

Originally slated for release this year, only the Star Trek licence and the art assets have been transferred to the new developer. The program code has not been transferred. This means the new developer now has to redevelop ALL of the code from scratch. That’s not just the client, it’s the server software as well.

This could easily take another three years, unless a turnkey solution is used. If not, expect that the art assets will also be redeveloped. Three years is a long time in the computer graphics field. That’s also not taking into account the fact that a new developer may have a new philosophy on what they want to see out of the Star Trek licence. I expect the developer to start completely from scratch, graphics, code, everything.

On the upside, if it is Cryptic Studios who have won the Star Trek licence, then expect a decent game to emerge at the end of all this.

Cryptic brought us the acclaimed City of Heroes/Villains MMO which is still going strong. They recently sold of the rights to CoH/CoV to NCsoft (who published them) and have announced that they are working on new projects.

It’s possible that Cryptic could fast track the development of Star Trek Online, as they have the domain expertise. If they have a client and server that could be used for development, then all the better.

Still, it’s a sure thing that STO won’t see the light of day this year.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Rumor and Innuendo – WoW Consolidated?

QJ.net is reporting on some buzz from the recent Consumer Electronics Show, that Blizzard may be working on a port of World of Warcraft to the world of consoles.

The idea resulted from the preview of a product called Prototype being developed by Sierra Entertainment.

Reading the article on QJ.net, it’s pretty clear that this is exactly what it appears to be… a rumor. Started in the time honored way that most rumors get started, by taking what someone in authority is saying out of context. In this case, the director for product globalization for Radical Entertainment, Chris Ansell was merely talking about how his company was exploring ideas and taking some of those ideas from WoW.

By all accounts, this years Consumer Electronics Show wasn’t anything to write home about. This was Bill Gates last year delivering the keynote speech on behalf of Microsoft. A lot of folks were disappointed that no major announcements were made.

Personally I doubt we will see World of Warcraft appearing on the XBox 360 or Playstation 3. or even the Wi for that matter.

Popularity: 8% [?]

World of Warcraft is an Online Gaming Gnome

A story on TechCrunch is reporting on figures just released by comScore that the worldwide online gaming community has reached over 217 million players. The study took into account all the sites that provide online or downloadable games, but excluded gambling sites.

It seems that online games are extremely popular. 217 million users is approximately a quarter of the total worldwide online population. It also dwarfs the number of subscribers of the most popular MMO gaming worlds, World of Warcraft and Second Life. The biggest gaming site with over 53 million unique visitors is Yahoo! Games. MSN came in at second place with 40 million unique visitors.

Granted, most of these players play games like Bejewelled and cards, but it goes to show that online gaming is big. Much bigger than what we see with our favorite games, and much of it is casual.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Starcraft 2

Excellent.

Blizzard made the announcement the other day in Korea, the land of Starcraft, that Starcraft 2 is on the way. It’s been a long between drinks for this game. The original Starcraft was first released in 1998 to much acclaim, and amazingly it still sells very well, especially in Korea. My friends and I have had many a LAN party with Starcraft as the guest of honor, and we are hugely pleased about this announcement.

There was a lot of speculation that Blizzard would announce Starcraft 2 as a MMO rather than as a RTS, and I’m rather glad that they didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, the Starcraft universe would likely make a great setting for a MMO, but not every game can be a MMO and Starcraft works really well as a real time strategy game. I’m hoping that Blizzard doesn’t change the formula too much though, like was done with Dark Reign. The first Dark Reign was a great and innovative RTS, and even though Dark Reign 2 was one of the first fully 3D RTS’, it lacked much of the fun of the first game. However, I think I’ll give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt for this one.

No date was given for the release. It was, as usual, given as "when it’s done." I expect that it will probably be before the end of the year, in time for the Christmas season. From what I’ve seen so far, it looks like Blizzard have been working hard at it for quite some time. Here’s hoping anyway. My friends have already indicated that a LAN party during the Christmas break is in order.

This just leaves one more thing up in the air. I’ve heard some rumours recently that Blizzard has been developing a new MMO. Maybe these are just rumours and have no real substance. Given the Starcraft 2 announcement, that may very likely be the case. On the other hand, it’s a pretty good bet that Blizzard developers are feverishly working on Diablo 3, sweating away in the darkest dungeons of Blizzard. Maybe Diablo 3 is that new MMO that Blizzard is developing.

Popularity: 10% [?]