Archive for May, 2008
Friday, May 30th, 2008
While Blu-ray has been making waves far and wide for it’s video clarity and quality, the less touted aspect is its outstanding audio quality. Well hang on to your hats (and if you haven’t already, maybe it’s time to think about ebaying that SACD player), as Norwegian record label 2L released the world’s first Blu-ray record yesterday.
While technically to be a record, media must be fashioned from vinyl plates and contain grooves, we’ll let this one slide. If classical music symphonies are your deal, you’re gonna want this disc. The first ever blu-ray audio is a recording of the Divertimenti as performed by Trondheimsolistene – the Trondheim soloists, one of Norway’s finest orchestras. If not, no worries…it only takes one, and you can bet the family dog that we’ll be seeing plenty more blu-ray audios in the near future.
Blu-ray technology makes use of five separate tracks which requires complex mixing and recording processes, as well as an equally equipped blu-ray player. 2L worked in close conjunction both with manufacturers and recording artists to achieve this spectacular new release. Using Blu-ray technology, the audio is just like the video; like nothing you’re ever heard before. Each instrument is perfectly positioned thereby creating a multidimensional listening experience that makes your cd collection look like child’s toys.
For those of you that already own a PS3 or are planning on buying a mac, no sweat, this Blu-ray has been confirmed 100% compatible and simply, “awesome!”
Tags: audio quality, audios, Blu-ray, clarity, classical music, conjunction, divertimenti, ebay, experience, family dog, Mac, Music, new release, norwegian record label, orchestra, orchestras, ps3, ray technology, sweat, symphonies, trondheim soloists
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Thursday, May 29th, 2008
Yes that’s right ladies and gentlemen, fatfoogoo is heading to the land of fish and chips, one seriously big clock, and drivers on the wrong side of the road.
Last year over 450 attendees from 23 countries descended upon the Virtual Worlds Forum Europe in London. With over 80 speakers, 2 days of workshops, conferences, expos and networking functions this was THE conference to be at.
This year’s event looks to meet and exceed expectations. With over 600+ professionals interviewed regarding content, take home podcasts, demo and keynote theatre as well as tech developer streams, that’s enough alone to make one shout ‘Blimey!’. But wait….there’s more! Building upon the overwhelming success of the expo area, this year’s Forum includes stands from 25 exhibitors, a shell build scheme, previously mentioned demo and keynote theatre live and in person on the demo floor, live tech developer streams, and 400+ expo only passes.
Direct from Virtual Worlds Forum:
VWF 08 helps you harness the power of virtual worlds to engage with clients, suppliers or customers, connecting brands, corporations, digital and virtual worlds agencies, entertainment and games companies, technologists, academics, regulators and VCs.
We are working on bringing you a bigger expo, more great content and workshops, and parties. We like to party.
Funny…we like to party too!
Our beloved fatfoogoos are raiding London this 6-7 October, are already registered as Associate Sponsors, and our very own Martin Herdina has applied for a speaker placement. Alas, the VWF hasn’t gotten back to us quite yet, but if placement if based on knowledge, experience and all around ‘He’s a good guy to listen to, and knows his stuff’; Herdina’s headed to the podium mighty fast.
Tags: associate sponsors, attendees, blimey, Demo, Entertainment, Europe, exhibitors, expo, expos, fatfoogoo, fish and chips, Foogoo, forum europe, game, games companies, keynote, London, Martin Herdina, networking functions, overwhelming success, podium, Professional, regulators, shout, speaker placement, techno, virtual worlds, vwf, wrong side of the road
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Thursday, May 29th, 2008
Ok peeps, last shot. Here we go again with what surely will be one hell storm of ticket sales again. Blizz announced earlier this week that they’ve got a whole new block of tickets up for grabs for the Paris event.
Tickets go on sale at 15:00 Central European Time (remember, we’re +6 hours ahead of the East Coast of the US) today. In addition to securing your slot at what’s looking like one helluva good show, Blizz also dropped it like it’s hot and announced the live performance schedule. The live and in person video game orchestra, Video Games Live will be dishing out some of your favorite in game tunes, while Blizzard’s own in-house band, Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain will be performing live at the closing ceremony. On a side note….will they have to change the name of the band in November (my personal prediction for the Lich King release)?
As mentioned in a previous post, the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational is one spicy meatball going down in Paris on the 28th and 29th of June. Both days are jam packed with all kinds of wicked cool stuff to do and see, including hands on play of the newest stuff Blizz has got in the labs i.e. yes, you’ll get to see the Death Knight and Lich King far before anyone else. In addition, Blizz is hosting a whole round of developer discussions, presentations, and casual (read…I’m gonna pwnd ur @$$ n00b!) tournaments, contents, and much, much more…!
Les Ticket ain’t exactly cheap weighing in at 70 € / £55 for the 2 day event, but then again, where ELSE in the world are you going to get a sneak peak at the Wrath of the Lich King AND Starcraft II?
Again, ticket sales start today at 15:00 CET. Have your credit and/or debit card ready, hit the F5 button on http://eu.blizzard.com/wwi08/ticketsales.xml at 3, and hopefully…..we’ll see you there!
Tags: Blizz, Blizzard, central european time, closing ceremony, content, Death, death knight, developer discussions, East Coast, Europe, European, event, f5 button, game, game tunes, house band, Invitational, June, King, Knight, level, level 70 elite tauren chieftain, Lich, live performance, new ticket, November, Orc, orchestra, Paris, performance schedule, personal prediction, sneak peak, spicy meatball, starcraft, starcraft ii, ticket, ticket sales, tournament, US, video, world, Worldwide, wrath of the lich king
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Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
ION Game Conference in Seattle: redefining online
Under the motto “Redefining Online”, the Annual ION Game Conference took place in Seattle, WA 
between the 13th and 15th of May. The global gaming industry converged at ION to discuss the future of Online Gaming, exchange news, and set new goals for the coming years. Besides industry titans from both the US and Asia such as EA Games, Bigpoint, Crytek, and Epik; fatfoogoo was one of the few European companies present. We were here not only to represent Fatfoogoo, but also to get a view of the newest developments in online gaming. How these developments look, and where they will be taking the next generation of Online Gaming, we proudly present to you here:
Free Games with downloadable content and additional services
The first Trend that’s abuzz in the industry is the increasing alternatives to drive revenue generation. Publishers will sooner or later move further and further away from costly subscription fees and expensive stand alone games, and more in the direction of a “Free to play” platform, i.e. the game is free to download and play, but it’s also self financing by additional downloadable content, services, and micro-transactions between player to player or publisher to player. An excellent example of this concept would be South Korean publishers Nexon, who with Court Rider and Maple Story have banked over $230M in turnover, or German publisher Bigpoint whom already have over 10 million users. On average 8%-30% of these users have already, or will in the future pay for additional functionality and levels.
Outsourcing
The second trend amongst game publishers deals with competition in the global market and the often negative feelings/opinions associated with outsourcing. In order to spend more time in developing games, publishers are increasingly relying on third technologies; game engines, sound creation tools, and/or micro transactions (the selling and/or trading of objects, items and services within a game), between players or between publishers and players. The time and money saved with outsourcing should be reinvested in the core components of manufacturer; game development. There’s already a prime example of a masterful use of outsourcing in Epik’s Unreal 3. Unreal 3′s engines are pretty much the same as any 3D shooter, but they employ various sound engines from the Dolby Engineering labs, or micro-transactions from operators like fatfoogoo. The already existing cooperation with second and third line suppliers of engines and services should be worked out in the future. At it’s essence this will free up game publishers to do what they do best: Develop and publish games.
The merging of (suppossed) opposites
The third trend focuses on the fusion of the various different pieces of Social Networking and Gaming. The border between PC and Console, virtual worlds, games and personal net applications, mobile and casual games is becoming more and more blurred each day and should interoperate with each other – technically, functionally and economically. The platforms will be open to each other, and offer the end users several different levels of interaction. Nevertheless, the challenge for this kind of openness in technology lies not only in the tech sector, but the judicial as well. Copyright and tax laws vary from state to state, country to country. The challenge of a functional multinational system is a priority not only for software and hardware manufacturers, but for politicians as well.
Final Thoughts
Final thoughts and personal observations from Martin Herdina, our foogoo on the ground at ION:
A letter from America
Being back in Europe the jetlag still doesn’t allow me much sleep at night but – and what’s a lot more relevant – I am looking back to a super exciting week at fatfoogoo.
Listening to the industry legends from EA, THQ and NCSoft talk about micro-transactions as the future revenue model for online gaming and to the success stories around Nexon’s “Cartrider” in Korea ($ 250M p.a.) has been extremely interesting and demonstrated once again that fatfoogoo is serving exactly the right market segment at exactly the right time.
Apart from these business aspects I met a full crowd of great people from the US gaming industry, enjoyed some super cool US Ska music at night (check out http://www.myspace.com/dealsgonebad) and was successful at avoiding all business-development meetings taking place in one of Seattle’s strip clubs.
Best,
Martin
Tags: America, Asia, bigpoint, conference took place, Console, content, content services, crytek, Demo, developing games, download, ea games, Europe, exchange news, fatfoogoo, free games, FTW, game, game conference, game engines, game publishers, gaming, gaming industry, german publisher, global gaming industry, industry titans, Korea, maple story, Martin Herdina, micro transactions, money, negative feelings, new goals, revenue generation, Seattle, sound creation, techno, US
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Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
While it might not be the final nail in the coffin, it certain looks like the iPod of Redmond is starting to sing its swan song.
Major US retailer GameStop announced that it’s pulling the plug on Zunes during a quarterly earnings call last Thursday. The man with the money at GameStop CFO David Carlson said that the Zune would soon be pulled from all of its 5,400 stores worldwide (they will however continue to warehouse the Zune and sell them online until inventory is cleared). He offered no further details, but a company spokesperson told TheStreet.com that the decision was made based on insufficient demand. “We have decided to exit the Zune category because it just did not have the appeal we had anticipated” and, “It did not fit with out product mix”. In other words dear readers, the Zune at GameStop was just joining it’s all brothers out there: sitting on shelves collecting dust.
Let’s look at some numbers shall we? The Microsoft Zune launched in November of 2006. Since this date, approx. 2 million Zunes have been sold. In comparison, Apple sold 10.6 million iPods in the last quarter. Ummmm… really, need I say more?
Was he inebriated? Do you even know anyone who owns a Zune? Steve Jobs in response to Robbie Bach‘s enthusiasm regarding the Zune at the 2008 ICES in Vegas.
Microsoft was quick to respond to the blow. Adam Sohn, director of marketing for Zune said, “We will continue to invest in deep retail partnership, and have seen good momentum online and at retail over the last few months including a great response to our recent spring update.”
Tags: Adam Sohn, Apple, CFO David Carlson, collecting dust, company spokesperson, comparison, david carlson, dear readers, director of marketing, game, GameStop, insufficient demand, ipods, last quarter, last thursday, man with the money, marketing, Microsoft, microsoft zune, money, nail in the coffin, quarterly earnings, Redmond, robbie bach, roon, steve jobs, swan song, thestreet com, Vegas, Worldwide, zoon
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Monday, May 26th, 2008
Recently, an ultra rare Star Fox satin jacket popped up on ebay. RawMeatCowboy over at GoNintendo eagle eyed this gem popping up the other day. This rare piece of video gaming history was given out only to those the reached specific high scores at the Star Fox Competition Nintendo hosted back in the day (1993).
According to the item description on ebay, the jacket has only been worn a few times and is a size medium. The seller is also tossing in a couple of rare Star Fox pins, the original documentation sent direct from Nintendo, and a copy of Star Fox for Super Nintendo (I still have mine, got yours?). If owning a piece of gaming history wasn’t enough for you, you can also walk away with a nice feeling knowing that 10% of your purchase price is going to the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation.
While Star Fox might be 15 years old now, it WAS the first 3D polygon Nintendo game, and in it’s own right, changed the way we look at gaming forever.
I’m placing my bid right now – if I win, who’s up for a contest to re-win this gem?
Tags: 3d polygon, ebay, game, gaming, gaming history, GoNintendo, marine toys for tots, marine toys for tots foundation, Nintendo, nintendo game, RawMeatCowboy, satin jacket, star fox, super nintendo, video, video gaming
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Saturday, May 24th, 2008
“Hello welcome to our website: www.wespam4gold.com, our prices are the absolute cheapest” - Blah blah blah, shut up, stop spamming me, and get the (&%# out of the way of the mailbox.
Yeah, we all know them, we all (or at least 99.44%) of us hate them. The gold spammer. That annoying player that create character names with one fell swoop of the keyboard ‘fghjkbvcqwert’ – lvl 1 spammer that has nothing to do than set a canned message, and piss the rest of us off.
Well it seems like some pissed off Warcraft players have found a way to deal with wqyuire; by means of a napalm death to via Fire Nova Totem. Of course this method is not acceptable to Blizz (aka ‘The Man’), and removed the thread from it’s forums, but yay for Google. Thanks to their caching feature, it can be viewed here.
Basically, it breaks down like so: A shammy can drop a Fire Nova totem near a level 1 bot, and log off just before the totem detonates. By logging off, this makes the totem unaligned, and can therefore damage either faction.
Even a level 70 totem doesn’t do that much damage to the average player, but it WILL however scorch a level one gold spammer that’s just standing around the bank and/or auction house. And since this is a bot just programmed to stand there and make announcements, no one is monitoring it, therefore, no one there to resurrect it.
If you need more gold in game, go farming, or talk to one of our friendly players just like you that have items or gold to sell. Let’s leave the spam on the frypan, and players in game.
Tags: amp, Auction, auction house, blah, Blizz, canned message, character names, Death, faction, farming, frypan, game, gold, google, keyboard, message, napalm, napalm death, Nova, Nova Totem, Orc, pissed off, Player, shammy, spam, spambot, spammer, swoop, top, totem, US, Warcraft, warcraft players, yay
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Friday, May 23rd, 2008
So here’s the thing, how are YOU controlling your gaming experience? I ask only because I recently got a new rig, and of course I had the “shiny new toy, let me buy some other toys to go with it’s shopping” experience afterward.
That being said, I use my machine not only for pwning some n00bs, but also for graphics (photoshop and illustrator) and purchased a wacom bamboo graphics tablet. I also like to edit video, and purchased a NuLOOQ to rapidly scrub through unedited video (it also makes for a very handy iTunes controller).
But when it came time for a main HID, I really started to look around. I’ve had the Logitech MX Laser pretty much since the first day it came out (before it was even labeled the MX1000 laser) and have been very happy with it. But lets face it, we’re all techno junkies, and if there’s something better out there: well goddamnit, I gotta have it!
So I started searching various other forums and pages, reviews and corporate homepages. The two names that I saw over and over were Logitech and Razer.
Logitech:
Logitech offers 5 ‘Gaming Grade‘ mice with only one cordless option. Sure, everyone tells me that I’m going to get a better response from a corded mouse, but personally, I’ve used a wireless mouse for so long now, I’m not sure I could really go back to giving up another USB port. But hey, maybe I really don’t know what I’m missing.
The two Logitech that showed up most often were the G7 (cordless, btw) and the G5 (corded, but with a swanky skin over it). While the G5 offers a custom weighting option, it looks as though the G7 does not. Similarly, Logitech’s newest offering the G9 also offers the included weights that you can either insert or remove from the mouse to fine tune you playing style. Neat concept, but I haven’t read any “OMFG u gotta get the G9, FTW!” reviews. It also looks slightly odd in my opinion. And alas, none of these mice have Mac support, which may not be the death bell, because technically, the MX1000 Laser doesn’t offer mac support either, but yet, a quick trip to the support downloads does offer a Mac OSX driver. Again, I know it’s time for a new mouse.
Razer:
Razer’s got 10 offerings currently available for your pwning pleasure. Until recently, Mac users were forced to deal with the (in my opinion) cheesy cousin of razer’s badboys. But, as of April 29th, Razer’s added the DeathAdder Mac edition for those of us playing on Jobs’ OS.
What can’t be said about Razer? I had the opportunity to use the Boomslang Collectors edition at a friends place, and I can honestly say that it’s the smoothest, most comfortable, most responsive mouse I’ve ever used, gaming or no gaming. Alas, no mac love for the collectors edition. Sure, I’ve read the forums where I can try and trick the mac into believing that it’s a mouse (as it normally shows up as a keyboard upon a simple plug in), but really, it’s just not as good as original drivers.
Fair enough, I’ll grant that Razer is not offering a cordless option, and maybe I should be taking notes on this one. Razer offers a wide variety of mice each with it’s own twists and quirks, sizes and weights.
So really: now it’s your turn *peeps* hit me back in the comments, what’s your personal preference when it comes to the mouse FTW!?
Tags: April, Death, death bell, download, experience, FTW, g5, g7, g9, gaming, gaming experience, graphics tablet, HID, King, Mac, Mac OSX, mac support, mice, n00bs, neat concept, NuLOOQ, omfg, Orc, razer, shiny new toy, shopping experience, techno, techno junkies, US, usb port, wacom, wireless mouse
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Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
Canadian residents are not required to pay an entry fee for Blizzard’s upcoming arena tournament. Instead, Canadian residents are required to write a 250 word typewritten essay comparing the video gaming culture in the Great White North to the video gaming culture in the States. Click here for the tournament main page and then click on rules (Blizz isn’t allowing direct linking to this page).
Canadian residents are not required to pay an Entry Fee in order to enter. Instead, Canadian residents may enter by submitting a 250 word typewritten essay comparing the video gaming culture in Canada to the video gaming culture in the United States on 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper and mailing their essay to Essay Entry for The North American Blizzard Entertainment Arena Tournament, P.O Box 18979, Irvine, CA 92623. Essay entries must be received no later than March 31, 2008 in order to be eligible. Essay entrants represent and warrant that the essay is their original work and does not infringe the rights of any third party. By entering, essay entrants hereby grant, without further consideration, all right, title and interest in and to their essay to Sponsor.
Ok, so the deadline has passed, so if you’re living somewhere in a province under a red maple leaf, sorry, but you missed the boat. On the other side of the coin here, gotta hand it to Blizz, excellent crowd sourcing and market research all within a highly specialized field. I’d LOVE to be sitting on the marketing review and research and development panels on the receiving end of these essays. Nice work Blizz!
On a side note, all Canadian contests involving a game of skill or chance must have a no fee entry clause. Normally this is covered by the STQ. The STQ is a skill testing question, used in order to qualify a ‘potential’ winner. While this question is usually mathematically in nature, sometimes a trivia question has also been used. I’m assuming that a 250 word essay will be a perfectly acceptable STQ.
A skill testing question is a legal aspect attached to all contests that Canadian residents can enter. Some contests may require you to answer the STQ when you enter the contest, other may require it only after you are declared a ‘potential’ winner. Because Canadian law prohibits “for-profit” gaming or betting, but does allow prizes to be given for skill (or mixed games of skill and chance), chance-based games (which, a random draw for contesting is), stays legal when contestants are required to answer the “skill” testing question. The STQ is a mathematical question, which you must answer correctly to be declared the contest winner. Contests which are run by sponsors in the USA are required to include a STQ if the contest winner is a Canadian resident, even though STQs are not required by contest winners in the USA. Some Canadian contests will ask a trivia question in place of a mathematical STQ.
Tags: Blizz, Blizzard, blizzard entertainment, Canada, canadian contests, canadian residents, crowd, Entertainment, entertainment arena, game, gaming, gaming culture, Irvine, irvine ca, King, Legal, maple leaf, Market, market research, marketing, North American, red maple, research, research and development, skill test, stq, third party, tournament, trivia question, typewritten essay, United States, USA, video gaming, word essay
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Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
Flashbang studios are opening the doors to a public alpha test of their new dino themed play, Jetpack Brontosaurus. The makers of the already highly addictive Off Road Velociraptor Safari want the our eyes, ears, and fingers all over this alpha so that developers can study game play and style, and make modifications, improvements, and/or updated troubled areas of play. Flashbang
provides a platform whereby at the end of play, you can leave any comments, criticisms, feedback, suggestions, or just about anything else you want to pass along to the developers (and while some of these developers are probably pretty good looking, please keep mobile numbers to yourself).
At this point, game play is relatively simple. You can go anywhere you want on the map, picking and choosing missions that you have to traverse the terrain to find (no guides here folks).
Unfortunately your bronto isn’t equipped with a heat seeking multi round laser guided rpg, but please feel free to suggest one. Maybe tail mounted with an independent control from the head mounted gatling guns?
Tags: alpha, alpha test, Brontosaurus, developers, dino, dinosaurs, door, doors, ears and fingers, fee, Flashbang, flashbang studios, fly, game, game play, guns, improvements, independent control, jetpack, King, map, May, missions, mobile numbers, Off Road, point game, safari, troubled areas, US, Velociraptor
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