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Just in case you've been living under a rock, this weekend marks a major outburst of consumer lust related to the retail availability of the Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii in North America. The two next-gen consoles took their sweet time getting to market, and now appear to be in short supply for launch weekend--conveniently, this is making for all sorts of headlines as the mainstream media boggles at rabid gamers lining up or punching each other in the face for a chance at picking one of the consoles up. We are on the cusp of a new round of the console wars. My prediction: Xbox 360 FTW, followed by the Wii, then the PS3. I'll grab a Wii in 2007, but I won't touch a PS3 unless I have to.

An important Town Hall meeting was held in the virtual world of Second Life and broadcast over Skype yesterday, allowing Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale to address some recent resident concerns about the "CopyBot" controversy, the virtual world's explosive growth, and the resultant strain on the company's staff.

Rosedale said that CopyBot can copy textures, shapes, and objects in Second Life, but not scripts or Linden Dollars (virtual currency). There's no way to stop this copying, he said, but his company will provide additional attribution of user creations, such as the creation date, in order to help the filing of DMCA takedown requests and to help resident groups take their own actions against individuals. "Inappropriate" use of CopyBot is now treated as a Terms of Service violation. Rosedale said that Linden Lab has "no connection" to the LibSL project that spawned CopyBot, adding that the company neither endorses or rejects the project. "The idea of preventing reverse engineering is absurd," he said. "It’s been easily done, and legal restrictions across national boundaries don’t work." Rosedale said that the LibSL team had helped the company find problems in its software, but stressed that Linden Lab will do everything it can to stop CopyBot from "breaking" resident businesses.

CopyBot hasn't hurt Second Life's economy Rosedale insisted, pointing to an increase in sales this week as compared to previous weeks, and in particular an increase in virtual fashion sales during "past few days." Of course, Second Life's population grows every week, and with it, economic activity. Rosedale said last month, Linden Dollar transactions were up 23%, and that roughly 2.1M US$ were traded through the company's "Lindex" currency exchange. He didn't mention a recent spike in transactions caused by a deliberate series of zero-sum transactions, however.

Continue reading: ‘Second Life’ Town Hall Summary (Nov. 2006)

Tonight I attended a PR event held by Telefilm Canada. The funding agency added more detail about its recently announced video game development competition. The event was held in downtown Toronto for an audience primarily of film, TV and web developers--Canada's game industry lives primarily in Montreal and Vancouver. Telefilm and its Canadian New Media Fund (CNMF) arm discussed the plan to allow domestic developers to vie for financial assistance and in-kind funding in 3 rounds. One developer will make it to the final round, spending about $550k to receive about $750k. In order to lower the barrier to competition, a Telefilm rep said, the agency requires only a 5-page proposal and "elevator pitch" on DVD featuring the core team members. By contrast, a typical funding application runs about 40 pages and may contain supplementary visuals. Proposals will be evaluated by industry jurors and must adhere to the same sorts of principles found in CNMF applications.

While I applaud Telefilm for providing a boost to the national game development scene, I can't think of a single, truly Canadian game publisher off the top of my head. So I guess any game developed through "The Great Canadian Video Game Competition" will either have be to self-published, or seek a publisher outside the country (or the Canadian arm of a foreign publisher). I'm also a teensy bit disappointed at the amount of money on the table. $1.3 is a big budget for most web sites, but isn't so hot for a video game (add self-publishing costs to that if the developer goes that route). Regardless, I hope the winner of this competition is a small development company with brilliant ideas that could use a leg up (and has over half a million dollars to risk).

Wow. There are so many things wrong with this Toronto Star article on World of Warcraft. I barely know where to start. Wait, yes I do: The reportage is terrible. I'll just pick on a few of the worst points so you know where I'm coming from on this. Writer Christian Cotroneo claims:

"...World of Warcraft is the granddaddy of online communities. On one hand, it’s a sprawling, seamless fantasy, where you choose an avatar — a rogue, fighter, Mage — and go forth in this virtual world to hack, slash and maim your way to glory." World of Warcraft is not the granddaddy of online communities. It's not the oldest one by a long shot, and it hasn't spawned any sequels ("grandchildren," keeping with the metaphor), and it isn't even the largest "online community." And why is "Mage" exclusively capitalized? Don't they have proofreaders over at The Star?

"On the other hand, it’s supremely social. Players band together, chatting incessantly. They hook up for virtual drinks at the inn, share a slab of wild boar meat. They dance, they have picnics in the woods, they even share a bed on occasion." Dude, I don't know what server you are playing on, but I have never heard of players going to an inn in Warcraft for a pint and a slab of meat. Picnics in the woods!?! Cotroneo is embellishing here. Maybe he plays on a server dedicated to role-playing, where players imagined they were eating and drinking together, or having cybersex in the woods, or whatever the hell he thinks he's talking about.

"'Yay! I got my Voidwalker!' some warrior declares in the general chat window that runs along the bottom of the screen. He is, I assume, referring to some fancy piece of equipment earned in battle." For the uninitiated, a Voidwalker is a minion of a Warlock and has nothing to do with warriors or equipment earned in battle.

What I have been seeing a lot of lately are mainstream media outlets increasing their coverage of games and virtual worlds, but not applying the same journalistic skills, methods or ethics to those spaces. No "average" audience member would ever catch the errors, although they might walk away with the wrong idea. But gamers and virtual world residents (of which there are increasing numbers these days) know better.

I've been watching the controversy of "CopyBot" unfold over the last few days. CopyBot is a software tool that subverts the Second Life virtual-world system to copy in-world objects, however copies are neither fully functional, nor perfect replicas. Resident reaction to the tool has been overwhelmingly negative--store owners and content creators have been locking down their goods for fear they might be copied. Most residents seem to think that simply using the tool at all is illegal (the misconception that copying is theft is thanks to the RIAA and MPAA), although a small percentage recognize that this is an ethical, not a legal dilemma. CopyBot, like a photocopier, VCR, gun, or computer, is simply a tool that can be used illegally, but isn't in itself illegal. Interestingly, a similar tool to CopyBot named GL Intercept was discovered earlier this year, but didn't result in nearly as much fuss.

Linden Lab, maker of Second Life, rightly admits that it's not in the copyright-policing business, that there is nothing really it can do to prevent infringements, and that it can only try to put more mechanisms in place to make detection and reporting of infringement easier. The company has ruled that infringing use of CopyBot and similar tools is a violation of its Terms of Service, and therefore an offense punishable by banning from Second Life.

Continue reading: ‘Second Life’ Copier Controversy

The Ultimate Game Table is finally up for auction after being born in Daniel Davis' lair five years ago. Last I heard, it had eaten three D&D players, four Champions newbies and one Vampire Storyteller, but that could all be just rumour. The heavy-duty construct seats six gamers and comes equipped with enough features to make the mightiest Dungeon Master kneel in awe. Integrated subwoofers and lighting, steel message-orbs, secret compartments... even reading this post about the Ultimate Game Table will cause you to lose 1d6 Sanity Points.