1up is running a piece entitled Digital Delivery, which looks at alternate distribution models for new titles in the here-and-now of fast download speeds. They cover outfits like Steam and GameTap, in addition to the ever popular Xbox Live. From the article: "Steam's birth came with some controversy, though. It was only in late 2004 that this happened, but if you missed it, a brief explanation might be in order. When Valve decided to embrace digital distribution, they didn't do it in half measures. The retail version of the game that shipped to stores was more like a formality to appease Vivendi Universal Games, Valve's megalithic publisher: for $50, gamers got a box containing five discs inside a sleeve. If players wanted a manual, they had to refer to the PDF version on the disc, and the irritation at this was nothing compared to the real bombshell."

Gamespot reports that RPG maker Square-Enix reported an almost 70% decline in net profit for most of last year. From the article: "Square Enix attributed most of its financial difficulties to its primary business--games. The company had a profitable nine months, releasing a number of hits: Kingdom Hearts II, which shipped 1.1 million units in Japan since its release in December; Romancing SaGa for the PS2, which shipped 500,000 units (Japan: 450,000, USA: 50,000); and Dragon Quest VIII, which shipped 430,000 units in North America. However, the numbers couldn't match those of the previous year, when Dragon Quest VIII shipped 3 million units in its first three days of release in Japan. The segment's sales fell 43.3 percent to 21.2 billion yen ($180 million), and its operating income plunged 95.1 percent to 974 million yen ($8.28 million)."

Adding to the growing list of S/F Massive titles on the market, Gamecloud reports that a studio called Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment will be attempting to bring the Stargate franchise to the Massive gaming genre. From the article: "Stargate Worlds provides players with a form of ranged combat unique to MMORPG that will take full advantage of modern and science fiction weaponry, cover, and terrain. Players will be able to form squads with their friends or use bots for players who want to go solo. Squad leaders will control maneuvers and objectives through an innovative combat control interface. Players may choose to create characters that are members of either the SGC (the Good Guys) or the System Lords (the Bad Guys). Characters are equipped with varied and mixed skills, with the choice to form such classes as Research, Combat Marine, Medical, Scientific, Diplomatic, Engineering, Archeological, and Exploration. PVP will be possible between the two alliances on many contested worlds, actually swaying the balance of power on those planets, and unlocking hidden content." No release date, and an ambitious plan. Hope it works out for them.

mfh writes "StarForce has issued threats to Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow in retaliation to Cory's post about the anti-copy malware that installs itself along with many popular (and unpopular) video games." From the BoingBoing post: "Yesterday, I posted about StarForce, a harmful technology used by game companies to restrict their customers' freedom. StarForce attempts to stop game customers from copying their property, but it has the side-effects of destabilizing and crashing the computers on which it is installed. Someone identifying himself as 'Dennis Zhidkov, PR-manager, StarForce Inc.' contacted me this morning and threatened to sue me, and told me that he had contacted the FBI to complain about my 'harassment.'"

Edge Online reports that Blizzard has responded to the issues raised by a gay guild trying to recruit in public chat. From the article: "We encourage community building among our players with others of similar interests, and we understand that guilds are one of the primary ways to forge these communities. However, topics related to sensitive real-world subjects -- such as religious, sexual, or political preference, for example -- have had a tendency to result in communication between players that often breaks down into harassment." We discussed this story when it first came up last week.

We've already covered Cisco's push into the home electronics market, but CNet is reporting that they may be planning even bigger purchases to come. The article speculates that Cisco may be planning on purchasing Tivo or Nintendo to add to their growing portfolio of companies. From the article: " Another possible acquisition candidate for Cisco is Nintendo, the No. 3 game console maker in the U.S. A stretch? Not really. Microsoft, which is emerging as a key competitor to Cisco in the home entertainment market, is already in this market with the Xbox 360. Gaming has already proved to be a strong application for broadband, so it makes sense that Cisco would want to own a game device to help drive more traffic on its network. With its popular GameBoy product, Nintendo would also provide Cisco an entree into the mobile-handheld market." Some commentary at GameDailyBiz, which finds it unlikely that Nintendo would sell to Cisco.

Darniaq writes "Scott 'Gallenite' Hartsman, Senior Producer for Everquest 2, has announced the pending combination of ten servers with ten other others. Normally, this sort of announcement would be met with immediate derision, a collectively vindictive sneering about a game that wasn't successful or is dying. However, because of when this combination is coming, and how it is being handled, I have a slightly different view." Additional commentary at Aggro Me.

Next Generation is running a short piece detailing some highlights of an interview with John Carmack, set to run in the February issue of PC Gamer UK. From the article: "For the last year I've been working on new rendering technologies. It comes in fits and starts. Our internal project that'll incorporate it hasn't been publicly announced. We're doing simultaneous development on Xbox 360 and PC, and we intend to release on PlayStation 3 simultaneously as well, but it's not a mature enough platform right now for us to be doing much work on."

Ant writes "This Revolution Advanced article takes a look at the evolution of controllers from the days of Atari 2600 to Nintendo Revolution." Tragically the Intellivision controller is missing. But oh the nostalgia.

John Tynes, a tabletop RPG developer well-known for work on products for Pagan Publishing and Wizards of the Coast, has a piece in this week's Escapist about the power of the tabletop roleplaying experience. He compares it to the experience of roleplaying in a Massive game, and finds it lacking. From the article: "There is no golden age here. There's just another group of players who tried to tell some stories and couldn't bend the tools to their will. The tools even made things harder in some cases - as in the contentious area of IC vs. OOC chat. Endsong says the guild started with local chat being in character. But more and more members switched to using voice communication via TeamSpeak. If you thought roleplaying online via text messages was a challenge, try it with a headset." Please note - this article contains some disturbing descriptions. No sarcasm, reader beware.

Gamasutra reports on the update to the Xbox 360's Live element, which fixes a number of bugs and smooths out certain elements of the system. It, allegedly, is also intended to shut out folks trying to hack Microsoft's new console by making the demo disc unusable on retail machines. From the article: "The demo disc in question was produced for Xbox 360 retail demo kiosks, and was found not to contain any copy-protection when hackers obtained their own unauthorized copy of the software in mid-December ... meaning it was possible to run demo versions of the Xbox 360 software on the disc on burned media. Several commenters on website Xbox-Scene seem to confirm that the disc is no longer functional."

Via Joystiq, an article on Mercury News discussing the possible benefits to disabled gamers via use of Nintendo's unique Revolution control scheme. From the article: "Like many people with spinal-cord injuries that affect all four limbs, Taft retains some use of his arms and hands. But it's not enough for effectively operating the typical two-hand game device. He's confident his relatively strong right hand will be able to manipulate the new controller, which is part of the Revolution game system that's still under development by Nintendo."

Vivendi Universal Games, the publisher for games from Blizzard Entertainment and Valve Software, posted high revenues for last year. The company showed an increase of almost 35% over 2004. From the article: "Vivendi also reported its revenues for the fourth quarter of 2005, VU Games' revenue actually dropped from 2004, down 7 percent from 264 million euros ($319 million) to 245 million euros ($296 million). The company blamed the slide on 'an exceptional quarter in 2004,' in which Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft both debuted." Update: 01/30 21:12 GMT by Z : It helps if I pay attention to what I'm typing.

MMORPG.com has an interesting piece on major franchises and their relation to massive games. They take a look at the question of whether or not virtual worlds are appropriate venues for IPs. From the article: "It's precisely because of that 'famous world' that we run into trouble. The more famous it is, the higher the expectations that players put on it. This leads to the developers having less and less flexibility in the way that their world is built, the rules that they choose to use, and the content that makes the game interesting."

Consumed_Crustacean writes "GameDaily has an interview with Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock Systems. In the interview, they discuss Stardock's transition from a smallish independent developer to a full-blown publisher (both retail and online). Of particular interest is the discussion on DRM and their online distribution, which Wardell opposes, and said 'Software piracy is something that tends to be overblown. The question for us boils down to the number of sales lost due to piracy versus the number of sales lost due to people not wanting to be inconvenienced.'"

An anonymous reader writes "After nearly 30,000 votes were tallied, Mod DB has posted its 2005 Mod of the Year winners. Source engine mods really cleaned up with the occasional Unreal, Doom and Battlefield mod making the cut. What started out as a slow mod-making year quickly gained momentum as mod teams made the switch to the next generation games, and began learning the in-and-outs of these new engines. 2005 was an exciting year with lots of great mods and games. Now it's time to look forward to a fresh year of creative minds formulating engines into masterpieces as we enter the next generation of gaming."

onethumb writes "The video game industry may be on the brink of a sea-change just like music has seen and movies are in the middle of now. Valve began it by selling millions of copies of Half-Life 2 online with Steam, and Ritual's about to really turn up the heat by proving that online episodic game development really works. We'll get better games, more frequently, and with new, innovative gameplay. I spent some quality time with SiN Episodes and it looks like everyone wins - Ritual, Valve, and you." From the article: "Everyone wants episodic games. Developers want it because they get to make better games (by listening to their fans suggestions every 6 months and incorporating it directly into the next chapter) and do it more cheaply (6 months of game development vs years. Do the math). Gamers want it because their favorite games will be more frequent, higher quality, and more innovative since developers can now take some risks with different & new gameplay. But figuring out if it's a money-maker is a big risk. Someone's gotta put their hard-earned dough on the line and try it out."

If shaking your groove thing or laying your thing down is something you enjoy, you might be interested in Gamespot's Rhythm Game 10 Spot, looking at the 10 Best Rhythm games. From the article: "Some of these rhythm games never made it outside of Japan, and others require you to purchase an expensive peripheral controller, but all of the greatest rhythm games are characterized by a few elements--a noteworthy soundtrack, a unique method of interaction, and an addictive gameplay. To be truly great, the game can be responsible for pioneering the genre or merely perfecting the established formula, and whether you're using your feet, hands, or stylus to map out the beat, we guarantee that in the following 10 games, the rhythm is going to get you." Played Guitar Hero for the first time this weekend, and it is as good as everyone says it is. Highly recommended.

Lord Satri writes "The WarCry Network lead me to the world's only ultra-high resolution map of the World of Warcraft universe. From WarCry: 'The site leverages the powerful Google Maps API to create a revolutionary scaled map with detail and precision never before seen on the Internet. A user can display any number of ore, herbs, or, treasure. Currently there are more than 15,000 resources in the database. All this, on one easy to navigate page.'"

reidman writes "The unusual Japanese RPG Mother 2 (later released as "EarthBound" stateside) was a huge success in Japan. Hints about the development of the game's sequel were everywhere (even in the game itself). Originally developed for the ill-fated 64DD, the sequel was downgraded, delayed, and eventually cancelled. The fans, however, were too obsessed to let it be - and the game was quietly picked up again. Earlier this month an official announcement was finally made - the obsessive pursuit of the fans has made Mother 3 a reality (in Japan, at least) - it will be released on April 20, 2006 for the GBA! Now to get it translated..."