Daily News Spin — April 5, 2001 (Thursday)

IEntertainment network to be delisted

The iEntertainment network has been notifed by NASDAQ that they will be delisted due to their failure to keep their stock price above $1. IEntertaiment, which once upon a time was Interactive Magic, has not announced any plans to contest the delisting. Thanks to Mystery Man for the news.

No Team Fortress 2 at E3

Stomped is reporting that Valve and Sierra will not show Team Fortress 2 at this year's E3, meaning that 1999 was the last time it was shown.

All we can say is sheesh -- stop being creatively constipated, Valve. Meanwhile, Havas execs over in France are saying, "Sacre the fucking bleu! We are ruined! Ruined! Hey, don't bogart that wine bottle, monsieur dude!"

Ziff Davis to launch gaming sites

No surprise here, given the promotion of CGW Editor in Chief George Jones to Editor in Chief of the Ziff Gaming Group's Internet operations, but ie Magazine has a few further details.

...Ziff Davis Media indicated that it�s on the verge of launching new Internet businesses in the coming months, �including ones based on the media company�s leading magazine brands and editorial content.� Among those properties include game-related publications Computer Gaming World, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Expert Gamer and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine.

Now the real trick will be to see how they turn a profit with these Internet properties given the current business climate.

X-COM: The Last Hope mod

Normally we don't post news about mods, but this one caught our eye. It's a Half-LIfe mod where one team plays the X-COM squad defending their base and another team plays as the aliens attacking it, as well as some other variants. It's not done yet, but they have some screenshots up. Sign us up for this one. Read more about it here.

Real pirates get Serious

The Register is reporting that a truck containing 4000 copies of Serious Sam was stolen in the UK.

All third truck contained 4,000 copies of Take Two Interactive's not-yet-released PC title Serious Sam, all together worth around �120,000, Elspa reckons. With the official launch date set for 13 April, Elspa is asking anyone who sees copies of the game before then to report the matter. Chances are, though, the thieves will wait a week or so and then sell the software.

Take Two's roster of titles includes, ironically enough, Grand Theft Auto and Smugglers' Run.

We're never sure what figures like �120,000 really translate as, but it's probably more than we made at our website last month.

IDSA annual report

The anti-piracy, E3-running organization has released their annual state of the industry report. Some interesting stuff.

- the topselling genre was racing games at 23.5% of the market
- women make up 43% of the gaming audience (this seems weird; no telling if they're including online Hearts and stuff and counting the people who buy games (mothers often) as the people who play them)
- the largest group of computer gamers at 42% is over 35 years of age -- rock on my aged brothers!

The article is in Acrobat format.

Sausage anyone?

Computer Games Online has the latest installment of Inside the Sausage Factory, the column written about game development by PopTop's Phil Steinmeyer, this one on user interafaces.

Programming the interface, for the most part, means programming a series of scripts. Unfortunately, to describe even the relatively modest interface of Tropico, a total of 10,000 lines of script had to be written. The lines are grouped into bunches of 10 or so, each describing a single button, icon, or listbox somewhere in the game. About half of the lines contain positional data�the screen coordinates and size of the object in question. And every single one of these had to be accurate to within a pixel or so.

Xbox behind schedule?

The Financial Times says that the Xbox is behind its development schedule.

Microsoft has fallen behind schedule in shipments of a software development kit for its XBox game console.

The US software giant told third-party game developers to expect the "Beta" version of the development kit in March. But on Tuesday Japanese and European games groups said they were still waiting for the kit and Microsoft had told them it did not know when it would be shipped.

We don't find this surprising, but next month at E3 should reveal more about Microsoft's readiness for a fall launch. The news did have an adverse affect on the share price of game companies stocks like Electronic Arts, though.

In a related FT story about how Xbox fared at the recent Tokyo game show, the reception was mixed.

But the propaganda blitz, intended to demonstrate Microsoft's commitment to Japanese game fans, left some observers cold. "The show did not change my impression of Xbox at all," says Takiko Mori, games analyst at UBS Warburg. "Microsoft still does not have the ingredients it needs to sell Xbox in Japan."

Update: Microsoft is claiming that the Xbox will ship on time despite these delays with the beta kit. What's not known is if this will have any affect on third party development for the launch.

Bashcroft rides again

The U.S. Attorney General is once again blaming videogames for our problems. Guns don't kill kids, videogames do apparently. From a USA Today story.

Ashcroft said teen-agers who fired on fellow students in Kentucky and Colorado had played violent video games. The young man in Kentucky, Michael Carneal, learned how to aim from video games and was a better shot than most policemen, Ashcroft said.

"I'm not here to say we shouldn't have video games, I'm here to say we are poorly situated to deny that these kinds of setting have an impact on what we do," he said. "We live in a culture of violence, and it's going to take more than government to address it. Everyone has to have a role."

The kid in Kentucky was a better shot because he was an experienced hunter. Aiming with a mouse doesn't prepare anyone for aiming with a rifle. Why is common sense so uncommon?

Microsoft vs. Sony

Yahoo has a "Daily Briefing" article about the coming battle that's more of a column than a news story. Some interesting thoughts, though:

INTERESTING RIVALRY. Microsoft has roughly $27 billion in cash on hand, Blodget notes, and the company hates to lose. If it chooses to turn this into a protracted market-share campaign, it could be one of the more interesting cross-Pacific business rivalries since Toyota knocked the stuffing out of the Big Three auto makers back in the '70s and '80s.

In fact, that might make for an intriguing concept: a new corporate-conquest game where you get to play Bill and your online-gaming opponent plays Nobuyuki. The quest: Run either guy into the ground with technological wizardry, brilliant game designers, and your cash horde. And if that doesn't work, you can always use state-of-the-art weaponry, handheld nukes, and a battalion of attack cruisers in outer space.

Sounds like a combination of The Corporate Machine and GalCiv.

Sales Sammage

Serious Sam cracked the weekly top ten, coming in at number 9. Good news for Croteam. This is from something called the "PC gaming charts" according to Avault, where we spotted this story. Here' s the top ten.

1. The Sims
2. The Sims Livin Large
3 Roller Coaster Tycoon
4. Fallout Tactics
5. NASCAR 4
6. Diablo 2
7. AOE II: Age of Kings
8. HOYLE Casino 2001
9. Serious Sam
10. Red Alert 2

Kind of nice to see Fallout Tactics up there too.

One thing that's interesting about Serious Sam is that while it's a short game, it's also only $20. How do you feel about that? Would you rather have games clock in at fewer than 20 hours of gameplay and be half-price?

Diablo 2 add-on beta

Feel like playing the lottery? You can be one of tens of thousands applying for the 2500 beta test slots for the Diablo 2 expansion. Here's the sign-up page.

Blizzard does a nice, polished beta, so if you're a fan of the game, it might be worth your while to take a shot at getting in. Thanks to Murph for the reminder.

3am

Another 3am, another opportunity to dish about the website scene. Efront gave their websites two days to find new hosting as apparently eFront hasn't paid their hosting bills. Something Awful as a result is going to their own servers and the "donationware" model. Also, we spotted a small story about Snowball (IGN and Gone Gold) and UGO (Blue's News, Old Man Murray, many others) at Dotcom Scoop:

Snowball has supposedly been out looking for a friend. They've knocked on doors at About.com and UGO.com I've been told, but haven't been very welcome.

In filing its yearly report last week, the company said it had about $32 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments as of December 31, 2000. The report indicates Snowball may need to seek additional financing and won't be profitable this year, but they say they've got enough cash to see 2002. The company's market cap is sitting at about $10.6 million and Snowball will probably receive a Nasdaq delisting notice in the near future with the stock hovering around $0.30.

There's not much in it for About if Snowball's seeking a buyer. UGO is desperately shifting gears towards providing hosting solutions and doesn't seem intent on expanding its network. Even the hosting game can be treacherous. UGO has shown up in a couple of bankruptcy filings over the past two weeks as a creditor. Cash upfront, that's the only way to do business and that's exactly why prostitution is the world's oldest profession.

The market cap figure for Snowball is incorrect. It's $3.5 million as of this writing.

Weird news. "Taiwan's pugnacious parliamentarian Lo Fu-chu admitted he was no saint after being caught on camera assaulting a female fellow legislator this week," says the Financial Times. He slapped her and pulled her hair after a dispute. Lo Fu-chu later apologized and said he would then "follow the example of Jesus" and make amends. The governing party sent the legislator who was assaulted a handheld computer game to help her pass the time while she recovers. In a remarkable example of sensitivity, the game she was given was a fighting game.

Finally, the original Ultima Online 2 design doc is up for bid at eBay. Spotted this at Lum's.

Click here to read yesterday's news