South Korea May Ban Steam

For a country so heavily involved in online gaming, I am surprised to report that South Korea's Department of Video Game Rating Board has expressed the possible action of completely banning Valve's Steam in the country. The claim is that Korea wants every game with Korean language support to have been rated by Korea, including indie and flash games, but this would be quite a feat to accomplish with over 1,000 titles available (even though not all have Korean language support). I can appreciate that a crackdown on unrated games shows that the country is taking responsibility in regulating the industry, but I am suspicious of Korea's intentions; it turns out that the fee charged to rate a game can be thousands of dollars, something smaller developers cannot afford in their budgets. The board is still looking at alternatives to 100% banning Steam, but it is doubtful that Korean gamers will have access to anything near the full library of games and that makes me a sad consumer.

Are We There Yet?

Everyone gets pretty excited about new gaming technology whether it be as simple as shiny new graphics and sound or as futuristic as 3D gaming (although you all know my thoughts on the latter). Sometimes, though, it seems as though hardware developers and manufacturers are getting a little ahead of themselves, so taken with a great idea that the proper QA isn't completed and so a flawed product is introduced. I am at the moment concerned with Kinect, Microsoft's controller-free game device due to come out in North American markets on November 4. Rumors have been circulating that there is a major problem with interference that prevents Kinect gaming from functioning except in the most barren and matte locations (see this comic for details). Microsoft has alarmingly not issued any statements as to how it will deal with the issue. I have the feeling that the developers feel pushed to get this highly hyped product out on time and just deal with any bugs later (oh Microsoft, have you learned nothing from the red ring of death?) but in my opinion, consumers are tired of paying full price for products that are pretty much just the beta versions. Please, Microsoft, fix it and then deliver - we'll wait.

Another Microsoft Money-Maker

Microsoft has finally decided to respond to the strong consumer demand for a controller with a non-sucky D-pad. Let the world rejoice! ...As long as you have $65 lying around to buy one of them since it will only be available as part of a play-and-charge bundle out November 9. The product itself is pretty cool-looking as you have the choice of using the normal (sucky) flat D-pad or switching (via a neato twisting motion) to a more defined (non-sucky) D-pad a la Wii, PS3 and pretty much every other console controller ever. I just continue to be boggled by Microsoft's tyrannical pricing decisions. When the majority of your customer base hates an easily modifiable part of your product, you'd think a low-cost alternative might make a top 10 list of development ideas somewhere. Instead, if we want an improvement, we're saddled with a bundle that (let's be honest) we're not really interested in. Booooooo. I suppose with Kinect out we may as well wait for controllers to be rendered obsolete anyway?

Microsoft Raising XBox Live Gold Subscription Prices

In a questionable move, Microsoft is increasing its XBox Live Gold subscription prices starting in November. A one year subscription will cost $59.99 (up from $49.99), three months will cost $24.99 (up from $19.99) and one month will cost $9.99 (up from $7.99). This seems to be that favorite corporate action of charging consumers more and delivering less - in direct opposition to all major competitors. Online services are free for the PS3 and the Wii (and of course, for PCs), so aside from mulitplayer online gaming being free, this means that Netflix and hulu streaming are included at no additional cost from Nintendo or Sony, making the consoles versatile at a much lower overall cost. Granted, XBox Live is arguably the best online platform available, but when competitors are providing the service for free, I just don't feel the need to burn a hole in my pocket for slightly better quality. What is the fee for, anyway? Most games are hosted locally, not on their service, so it's hard to explain a monthly subscription fee and even harder to explain a price increase for it. Sadly, the popularity of online gaming on the XBox 360 doesn't look like it's going to be dying down anytime soon and as such, Microsoft will continue to reap the (increasing) profits. I'll be sticking with my PS3 for online content until (if ever) the tides change and gamers start refusing to be hosed.

Man Sues NCsoft Corp: No Warning of Possible Addiction to Mediocre Game

No, really. Apparently Craig Smallwood (name indicative?) is proceeding with a lawsuit against NCsoft as a result of his addiction to the game Lineage II. If I were the judge, I would throw this case out on the grounds that Lineage II is not even a particularly good game - it got a 6/10 from GameSpot and a 6.7/10 from IGN, and its unique user base is well under a million. For comparison, WoW also came out in 2004 and has a user base of roughly 11.5 million - try that for addictive, Mr. Smallwood. Looking at the larger issue, however, I just don't see how anyone can define a non-chemical-producing product as addictive. Cigarettes have nicotine and coffee has caffeine, but MMORPGs have... a power switch for those times you need to "function independently in daily activities, such as getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends." An analogy to this case would be a man with a rage control issue breaking his TV and blaming it on Sesame Street because there was no disclaimer that Elmo might really piss him off. All I'm saying is that the problem seems to lie with the user in these cases - learn some self control or get help, don't blame an industry that already suffers from massive amounts of scapegoating.

Blizzard Makes a Good Decision

So, for those of you not in the know, Blizzard recently decided that gamers would have to use their real names - yes, real, first and last - in order to participate in their online forums. For those gamers who are at all concerned with privacy, who maybe have jobs or girlfriends or are in the market for jobs or girlfriends, or who just love being anonymous jerks, this was a pretty big misstep on Blizzard's part. The interwebs were in an uproar. In a shockingly rational and well thought-out move, Blizzard has decided not to enforce the Real ID idea. This is a great marketing ploy - get everyone upset and talking about a potentially bad move and then you look like a hero just by not following your plan. Nice work.

Ebert: Slightly More Rational This Time Around

So Roger Ebert has posted a follow-up piece to his inflammatory diatribe wherein he claimed that video games could never be considered art. He has now (sort of) admitted that he can't make such sweeping statements about a medium he has never experienced, he (grudgingly) accepts that it is possible that future video games could be classified as art, and he even (kind of) allows for the possibility that current games can be experienced as art by some gamers. My final thought on this whole debacle, a quote from TV Tropes: "Art isn't about making you feel good. Art is about making you feel." And now, I feel like playing the original Final Fantasy.