Tag: gaming

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Disliked

Vimeo vs. Gamers

Today, in tech news:

  • Twitter has announced that they are banning all messages (or “tweets”) relating to Apple, due to capacity concerns, given the massive usage spikes during Apple keynotes and product releases.
  • Flickr announced that screenshots and drawn artwork will no longer be allowed for upload, as they do not truly constitute ‘creative expression’ and do not jive with the mission of the site.
  • LiveJournal specified new policy, banning posts about user’s parents. “We simply do not want to spend the money and resources to host these entries,” said management.

To users of these services, all of this probably sounds ridiculous. Sites based around user submitted content would be foolish to restrict content based on topic, media type, or content.

The above headlines are fake, but this one is not: Vimeo is banning videos related to video games.

“The Vimeo staff has decided that we are no longer going to allow gaming videos on Vimeo. Specifically, we are no longer going to allow game walk-throughs, game strategy videos, depictions of player vs player battles, raids, fraps, or any other video gaming videos that simply depict individuals playing a video game. Videos falling into this category will be subject to deletion as of September 1st; new videos of this type will be removed.” – Blake Whitman, Vimeo Staff

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Categories
Happened

Hardcore SingStar

Hardcore SingStar

When my first set of DDR pads got destroyed after nine months of abuse at the feet of college kids, I can’t say I was terribly surprised – but it made me sad.

When I got Rock Band, and stories of flaky hardware were abound, I wasn’t terribly surprised that the strum bar on my guitar got a little flaky. Not bad enough to send in, but causing the occasional miss.

I’ve had to retire two DSes (busted speakers and buttons, then a non-functioning touchscreen), a Mac Cube (optical drive motor), two Sidekicks (trackball both times), a lampshade iMac (optical drive malfunction), a G5 iMac (power supply), and there was that whole 360 thing.

Things break, I know.

Never did I think I’d be such a hardcore SingStar player that I’d break the blue microphone, but here we are. Color me surprised just this once.

Categories
Debated

In Which Microsoft Ruins XBLA

My life has always been one of jewel cases, DVD boxes, and shrink wrap. Multiple generations of gamers have inadvertently mastered obscure arts such as “removing adhesive security tags”, “shredding shrink wrap”, and “raising the CaseLogic stock price”.

Physical media has remained the primary distribution method for video games since the inception of home consoles. But with the current slew of platforms, digital distribution is finally not merely a possibility but a reality. The channels come in many forms: from the [Xbox Live Arcade](http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/livearcadexbox360/) and the [Playstation Store](http://www.us.playstation.com/PS3/Store), to Nintendo’s [Virtual Console](http://www.nintendo.com/wii/virtualconsole) and recently launched [WiiWare](http://www.nintendo.com/wii/wiiware), to the hugely popular [Steam](http://steampowered.com) platform run by Valve for Windows.

A lot of gamers still love having discs for a variety of reasons. But there’s a growing movement of gamers and publishers pressing towards digital distribution. Gamers gain quicker access to games, less fiddling with discs, and the ability to reinstall their purchases at a later point. Publishers can create smaller, more innovative titles that wouldn’t survive at retail, keep a smaller budget, and not worry about fighting for shelf space in a brick-and-mortar store.

Or so we all thought.

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