History > 2007 > Japan, USA > Videogames (III)

Web Playgrounds of the Very Young

December 31, 2007
The New York Times
By BROOKS BARNES

LOS ANGELES — Forget Second Life. The real virtual world gold rush centers on the grammar-school set.

Trying to duplicate the success of blockbuster Web sites like Club Penguin and Webkinz, children’s entertainment companies are greatly accelerating efforts to build virtual worlds for children. Media conglomerates in particular think these sites — part online role-playing game and part social scene — can deliver quick growth, help keep movie franchises alive and instill brand loyalty in a generation of new customers.

Second Life and other virtual worlds for grown-ups have enjoyed intense media attention in the last year but fallen far short of breathless expectations. The children’s versions are proving much more popular, to the dismay of some parents and child advocacy groups. Now the likes of the Walt Disney Company, which owns Club Penguin, are working at warp speed to pump out sister sites.

“Get ready for total inundation,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at the research firm eMarketer, who estimates that 20 million children will be members of a virtual world by 2011, up from 8.2 million today.

Worlds like Webkinz, where children care for stuffed animals that come to life, have become some of the Web’s fastest-growing businesses. More than six million unique visitors logged on to Webkinz in November, up 342 percent from November 2006, according to ComScore Media Metrix, a research firm.

Club Penguin, where members pay $5.95 a month to dress and groom penguin characters and play games with them, attracts seven times more traffic than Second Life. In one sign of the times, Electric Sheep, a software developer that helps companies market their brands in virtual worlds like Second Life and There.com, last week laid off 22 people, about a third of its staff.

By contrast, Disney last month introduced a “Pirates of the Caribbean” world aimed at children 10 and older, and it has worlds on the way for “Cars” and Tinker Bell, among others. Nickelodeon, already home to Neopets, is spending $100 million to develop a string of worlds. Coming soon from Warner Brothers Entertainment, part of Time Warner: a cluster of worlds based on its Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera and D. C. comics properties.

Add to the mix similar offerings from toy manufacturers like Lego and Mattel. Upstart technology companies, particularly from overseas, are also elbowing for market share. Mind Candy, a British company that last month introduced a world called Moshi Monsters, and Stardoll, a site from Sweden, sign up thousands of members in the United States each day.

“There is a massive opportunity here,” said Steve Wadsworth, president of the Walt Disney Internet Group, in an interview last week.

Behind the virtual world gravy train are fraying traditional business models. As growth engines like television syndication and movie DVD sales sputter or plateau — and the Internet disrupts entertainment distribution in general — Disney, Warner Brothers and Viacom see online games and social networking as a way to keep profits growing.

But more is at stake than cultivating new revenue streams. For nearly 50 years, since the start of Saturday morning cartoons, the television set has served as the front door to the children’s entertainment business. A child encounters Mickey Mouse on the Disney Channel or Buzz Lightyear on a DVD and before long seeks out related merchandise and yearns to visit Walt Disney World.

Now the proliferation of broadband Internet access is forcing players to rethink the ways they reach young people. “Kids are starting to go to the Internet first,” Mr. Wadsworth said.

Disney’s biggest online world is Club Penguin, which it bought in August from three Canadians in a deal worth $700 million. At the time, more than 700,000 members paid fees of $5.95 a month, delivering annual revenue of almost $50 million.

Still, one world, even a very successful one, does not alter the financial landscape at a $35.5 billion company like Disney. So Disney is pursuing a portfolio approach, investing $5 million to $10 million per world to develop a string of as many as 10 virtual properties, people familiar with Disney’s plans said.

Tinker Bell’s world, called Pixie Hollow, illustrates the company’s game plan. Disney is developing the site internally — creative executives who help design new theme park attractions are working on it — and will introduce it this summer to help build buzz for “Tinker Bell,” a big-budget feature film set for a fall 2008 release.

Visitors to a rudimentary version of Pixie Hollow, reachable through Disney.com, have already created four million fairy avatars, or online alter egos, according to Disney. The site will ultimately allow users to play games (“help create the seasons”) and interact with other “fairies.” When avatars move across the screen, they leave a sparkling trail of pixie dust, a carefully designed part of the experience.

“We wanted to come up with a way to make flying around the site feel really good,” said Paul Yanover, executive vice president and managing director of Disney Online.

Disney’s goal is to develop a network of worlds that appeal to various age groups, much like the company’s model. Preschool children might start with Pixie Hollow or Toon Town, another of Disney’s worlds, grow into Club Penguin and the one for “Cars” and graduate to “Pirates of the Caribbean” and beyond, perhaps to fantasy football at ESPN.com.

“All the stars are aligning for virtual worlds to become a mass-market form of entertainment, especially for kids and families,” Mr. Yanover said.

If virtual worlds for adults are about escaping from run-of-the-mill lives, sites for children tap into the desire to escape from the confines of reality as run by mom and dad. “I get to decide everything on Club Penguin,” said Nathaniel Wartzman, age 9, of Los Angeles, who also has a membership to a world called RuneScape.

But shopping is a powerful draw, too; most sites let children accumulate virtual points or spend their allowance money to buy digital loot. “It’s really fun to buy whatever you want inside the game,” Nathaniel said in a telephone interview. For his penguin, “like for Christmas I bought a fireplace, a flat-screen TV and a Christmas tree,” he said.

Online worlds, which typically have low overhead and fat profit margins once they are up and running, charge a monthly fee of $5 to $15 and require the adoption of an avatar. Some sites are free and rely on advertising to make money; others are advertising and subscription hybrids. Webkinz relies on the sale of stuffed animals, which come with tags that unlock digital content.

The power of the virtual worlds business was shown recently when Vivendi announced a plan to buy Activision, a publisher of video games for consoles like the Sony PlayStation 3. Vivendi owns World of Warcraft, a virtual world for adults with more than nine million members and revenue of more than $1 billion.

Still, the long-term appetite for the youth-oriented sites is unclear. Fads have always whipsawed the children’s toy market, and Web sites are no different, analysts warn. Parents could tire of paying the fees, while intense competition threatens to undercut the novelty. There are now at least 10 virtual worlds that involve caring for virtual pets.

Privacy and safety are a growing concern, particularly as companies aim at younger children. Some virtual worlds are now meant to appeal to preschoolers, using pictures to control actions so that reading is not required.

And critics are sharpening their knives. “We cannot allow the media and marketing industries to construct a childhood that is all screens, all the time,” said Susan Linn, a Boston psychologist and the director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a nonprofit group that has complained of ads for movies on Webkinz.com.

Operators shrug off worries about fads and competition. “Are features like creating an avatar a long-term advantage for anyone? Probably not,” Mr. Yanover said. “The viability and sustainability of this business comes from the shifting behavior of kids and how they spend their leisure time.”

As for privacy and safety, companies point to a grid of controls. For instance, Neopets restricts children under 13 from certain areas unless their parents give permission in a fax. Several Neopets employees patrol the site around the clock, and messaging features are limited to approved words and phrases.

“Parents know they can trust our brand to protect kids,” said Steve Youngwood, executive vice president for digital media at Nickelodeon. “We see that as a competitive advantage.”

Web Playgrounds of the Very Young, NYT, 31.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/business/31virtual.html

With Wii and DS,

Nintendo Has 2 Hit Game Devices

December 31, 2007
The New York Times
By ERIC A. TAUB

Nintendo, the maker of the Wii video game machine, does not have just one hit product on its hands. Rather, it has two.

While shoppers are still lining up before stores open to buy Nintendo’s Wii, its older portable sibling, the Nintendo DS, is the best-selling game machine in the United States. The hand-held DS outsold the Wii in November 1.53 million units to 981,000, according to sales figures compiled by NPD Group.

The DS, a three-year-old $130 unit, has been handily outselling its chief rival, Sony’s $170 PSP hand-held game device, as well as the newer and more expensive consoles, like Microsoft’s Xbox 360, selling for $350, and Sony’s PlayStation 3, which starts at $400.

Nintendo expects to finish the year having sold more than 6 million DS consoles, with a total of 15.2 million sold since they were introduced in November 2004. The best-selling game console this year, the Wii, has sold more than 5 million units this year, David Riley of NPD said.

Sony has sold 9.5 million PSP units in the United States since its introduction in March 2005.

Nintendo attributes the success of the DS to the same market positioning it used for the $250 Wii — create devices for young gamers that also appeal to their parents and even grand parents. The DS has proven more popular with younger children than Sony’s PSP; 80 percent of DS owners are 8 to 16 years of age, while PSP players tend to be 16 to 24 years old, according to analysts at Wedbush Morgan.

But Nintendo, based in Kyoto, Japan, has also developed several titles for middle-aged adults, like Brain Age and Big Brain Academy, two memory-training games, and Flash Focus, a game designed to improve visual acuity. By making the device appealing to baby boomers, the company also makes parents feel better about buying it for their kids.

“On YouTube, you can see videos of retirees playing both the Wii and the DS,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s president and chief operating officer.

The DS is also compatible with Nintendo’s earlier device, the Game Boy Advance, making it an appealing platform for the older gamers, who may have kept libraries of Nintendo games.

Video game creators, already familiar with Game Boy, easily made the transition to Nintendo’s new portable unit.

Like the Wii, the DS was considered an unlikely candidate for success when it first arrived on store shelves. The DS features two screens, one of which can be operated by touching a finger to the screen. It also has wireless connectivity that allows it to communicate with the Wii as well as other users to send them messages and play games.

Sony’s PSP uses a single screen, offers Internet access, allows users in close proximity to play against each other, and can play movies using the company’s proprietary UMD disc format. “The DS was handicapped as ‘what, two screens? Are you kidding me?,’” said Richard Doherty, a partner in the Envisioneering Group. “But the DS ran enough exciting Game Boy applications that it got immediate attention.”

Mr. Fils-Aime said that future DS device will be more tightly integrated with its Wii console. Complete games as well as game samplers will be able to be downloaded into the Wii using its broadband connection, and then transferred wirelessly to the DS.

A puzzle-solving game, Professor Layton, to be introduced next year, will be upgraded with new puzzles transmitted to the DS through a wireless download.

In Japan, the DS’s functionality extends beyond its game-playing ability. There the device is used to give information during museum tours, and to download content from the Wii. A new feature allowing DS users to view movies on the device has also been introduced.

Some of those features will eventually be introduced into the North American market as well. “To aggressively drive DS business we need to provide other forms of entertainment to excite the consumer,” said Mr. Fils-Aime.

As a test this past season, fans watching a baseball game in Seattle’s Safeco Field could also see the game on the DS, and order food and view statistics using the device.

While Sony may be playing catch-up, its PSP has a number of strong-selling titles among the 359 available for the device. Its hits include Grand Theft Auto, which has sold 1.5 million units, as well as SOCOM Fire Team Bravo, Star Wars: Battlefront II, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

“The DS is still a kid’s device,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan. “There is a lot of mature content available for the PSP that is not available for the DS.” .

“Our direction is first party and third-party games from such developers as Electronic Arts. This will pay dividends down the road,” said John Koller, senior marketing manager for the PSP.

But the DS’s movie capabilities have not been a hit with consumers, mostly because the price of the movies — $25 and higher — is limiting sales. “Content and price were two big issues,” Mr. Koller said. “Sixteen year olds were not interested in 1970s romantic dramas.” New lower prices starting at $5, and titles like SuperBad will change that equation, according to Mr. Koller. Additional titles from Sony geared toward teenagers and those in their 20s will be launched in the first half of 2008.

“Sony’s PSP is doing great,” said Mr. Pachter. “The DS is just doing better.”

    With Wii and DS, Nintendo Has 2 Hit Game Devices, NYT, 31.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/technology/31nintendo.html

Video Game Looks Into World of Wolves

December 31, 2007
Filed at 12:17 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- The new video game ''WolfQuest'' allows players to follow the call of the wild in the role of a wolf in Yellowstone National Park.

Players learn quickly, with help from realistic graphics, that wolves do a lot of running -- across plains, through forests and up and down steep slopes.

''You have to learn how to hunt, survive, defend your territory and ultimately find a mate and establish your own pack,'' said project director Grant Spickelmier, assistant education director at Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley.

The first episode, ''Amethyst Mountain,'' was officially released Dec. 20 as a free download at www.wolfquest.org. Spickelmier said the game had been downloaded 13,500 times by Wednesday.

The Minnesota Zoo developed ''WolfQuest'' with Eduweb, an educational software developer in St. Paul, on a $508,253 National Science Foundation grant. Other partners include the National Zoo in Washington, the Phoenix Zoo, Yellowstone and the International Wolf Center in Ely.

The game is aimed at ages 10 to 15 because kids that age have largely stopped going to zoos and are more interested in things like video games, Spickelmier said.

''We're hoping to capture some of those kids back with this game,'' he said, adding that the Minnesota Zoo also hopes to interest kids in wolf conservation and biology.

Eleven-year-old Riley Breckheimer, of Apple Valley, tried out ''WolfQuest'' at its launch party at the zoo and declared it ''pretty cool.'' He said he took down one snowshoe hare and got an elk about halfway down. The game also gave him new respect for wolves.

''They can run over miles and miles of area just to get to one elk to get something to eat,'' he said. ''It's not like humans where humans have to go just a few blocks to the grocery store.''

It's not the first time a zoo has offered computer games. The San Diego Zoo, National and the New York Zoos and Aquarium have games for younger kids on their Web sites. Nor is it the first time a video game has simulated wolf life: the DOS game ''Wolf'' was released in 1994.

But Steve Feldman, spokesman for the American Zoo Association, said ''WolfQuest'' takes things to a higher level.

''The level of realism, and also the goal, which is to effect real conservation behavior change, is what make this game unique,'' Feldman said.

In the first episode, as a solitary wolf roaming Amethyst Mountain in Yellowstone, players chase down elk and hares, relying on their eyes and sense of smell. When the ''scent vision'' screen toggles on, the background goes black and white and scent trails light up. The screen also shows how old the trails are.

To howl like a wolf, players just hit the ''H'' key, which in future episodes will help draw in their pack.

''WolfQuest'' can be played alone or with up to five players online, where players also can connect and share tips. Additional episodes due in 2008 will explore other areas of Yellowstone and allow players to establish territory (yes, by lifting a leg) and defend their elk carcasses against hungry grizzly bears, raise pups and even kill sheep on nearby ranches.

The game won praise from David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a group that studies the impact of media on children's health and development and often makes news for its criticism of violent video games.

''It's got great educational value while at the same time it's engaging,'' Walsh said. ''It's a good alternative to the shoot 'em up games that are so popular with that age group. ... I think this game has the potential to chart some new territory.''

------

On the Net:

WolfQuest: http://www.wolfquest.org

Minnesota Zoo: http://www.mnzoo.org
 
Eduweb: http://www.eduweb.com

National Institute on Media and the Family: http://www.mediafamily.org

    Video Game Looks Into World of Wolves, NYT, 31.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Games-WolfQuest.html

A Producer of Movies

to Try Hand at Games

December 19, 2007
The New York Times
By ROBERT LEVINE

The Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer, whose movies and television shows are so replete with car chases and fast action that critics say they look like video games, is finally lending his expertise to that medium.

On Wednesday Mr. Bruckheimer’s company will announce a deal with MTV to develop actual video games, which would probably start appearing on store shelves in 2009. The new games will be based on fresh concepts rather than on current MTV shows or on Mr. Bruckheimer’s vast library of past projects, which includes the “C.S.I.” television franchise and movies like “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

As its audience has grown more interested in video games, MTV, a division of Viacom, is trying to follow them. In August, MTV announced that it would invest more than $500 million in its interactive entertainment business over the next two years. Several weeks ago, it released Rock Band, a well-reviewed game in which players operate instrument-shaped controllers in time to pop songs.

But this deal marks the company’s first attempt to develop titles that do not involve music or its already established television shows.

“This is more analogous to a film deal,” said Van Toffler, president of the MTV Networks Music and Logo Group. “We’ll have a handful of people who will develop and nurture ideas.”

Mr. Toffler compared the deal with Mr. Bruckheimer’s exclusive agreements to develop film projects for Disney and television shows for Warner. He said that MTV might develop movies or television shows based on successful games.

“MTV heard about us trying to enter this arena, and they were aggressive about pursuing us,” Mr. Bruckheimer said. “The business model is what we’ve done with TV and films: Get creative talent together to do something fresh and interesting, as we’ve done in the past.”

Mr. Bruckheimer said he was intrigued by the possibilities of video games. He is producing a movie adaptation of the video game series Prince of Persia, which begins filming next summer.

Traditionally, game publishers make deals with studios, which hire programmers, designers and graphic artists to make games, a process that can take several years. Mr. Toffler said he did not yet have specific details about whether that work would be done by MTV or Mr. Bruckheimer’s company, or perhaps be contracted to an independent studio.

Although it is common for game publishers to create titles based on movies, few Hollywood producers and directors have made much of an impact in the game business so far. That could change over the next several years, now that technology has made it possible to make games with Hollywood production values.

In fall 2005, Steven Spielberg announced a deal to develop three original video games for Electronic Arts, but none of them have been released yet. The actor Vin Diesel is working on a film and video game project called “The Wheelman,” in a deal that involves MTV’s film and game divisions, Paramount Pictures and Midway Games.

“This could be interesting,” said Dan Hsu, editor in chief of the magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly. “The first thing you think of when you think of Jerry Bruckheimer is big-budget action movies. Video games have plenty of action — there’s often nothing but car crashes and fight scenes. But maybe a big name like that gets you a bigger budget for a game.”

MTV’s reach, as well as its ability to promote its products on the air, could make it a formidable force in the game business, according to Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan.

“In the game business, MTV is a start-up,” Mr. Pachter said. “But they have the resolve and they have the resources.”

    A Producer of Movies to Try Hand at Games, NYT, 19.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/business/media/19mtv.html

Game Maker Expects a Loss

December 19, 2007
The New York Times
By REUTERS

SEATTLE (Reuters) — The video game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software said Tuesday that it cut its quarterly net loss in half, but gave an outlook that fell short of Wall Street expectations, and its shares fell after hours.

Take-Two’s net loss for the fourth quarter ended Oct. 31 narrowed to $7.1 million, or 10 cents a share, from $14 million, or 20 cents a share, a year earlier.

Revenue was $292.6 million, up 9.8 percent from a year earlier on strong sales of critically acclaimed games like BioShock.

Excluding special items, the company was expected to lose $5.3 million, or 7 cents a share, on revenue of $291.7 million, according to Reuters estimates.

On that basis, Take-Two posted a profit of 5 cents a share.

Take-Two also said it expected a loss, excluding special items, of 50 to 60 cents a share for its first quarter, with revenue coming in at $175 million to $225 million.

That was well below the average Wall Street forecast of a loss of 8 cents a share on revenue of nearly $290 million.

Shares of Take-Two fell 71 cents, to $17.31 in after-hours trading.

    Game Maker Expects a Loss, NYT, 19.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/technology/19game.html

Nintendo Calls Wii Sales 'Fantastic'

November 27, 2007
Filed at 10:18 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) -- A top Nintendo Co. executive said holiday sales of the Wii game consoles have gotten off to a ''fantastic start'' but warned Tuesday that Wiis would be scarce through the end of the year.

Nintendo sold 350,000 Wiis in the U.S. last week, when many stores were closed for the Thanksgiving holiday, compared with 300,000 the previous week in the U.S.

It was unclear if last week's sales broke a Nintendo record. During one eight-day period in late November 2006, when the Wii debuted, consumers throughout the U.S., Canada and Latin America purchased more than 600,000 units sold.

The company is on track to sell 17.5 million Wiis in the fiscal year ending March 31. Last fall, Nintendo executives predicted they would sell 14.5 million Wiis.

They were producing roughly 1.2 million units per month at the time.

Nintendo has ramped up production to about 1.8 million per month, but its manufacturers cannot increase production again, said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, who spent Friday and Saturday spot-checking Wii supplies at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co., GameStop Corp., Target Corp. and Toys ''R'' Us Inc. stores in Erie, Pa., and Redmond, Wash.

''I couldn't find a single Wii system on the shelves -- literally as I was walking into a Wal-Mart at 11 a.m., someone was walking out with the last one,'' Fils-Aime said in an interview at the company's new Redwood City office. ''Consumers are buying every game we can put into the system.''

Fils-Aime predicted a new sales record the week before Christmas, despite being ''very concerned'' about the U.S. economy and the rising price of gasoline. About 40 percent of Wii sales have been in North America and Latin America, while 35 percent were in Asia, primarily Japan, and the rest came from Europe and the Middle East.

He dismissed speculation online that the Kyoto, Japan-based company -- maker of Pokemon and Super Mario games -- is deliberately constraining supply of the $250 console to generate buzz.

''A shortage benefits no one,'' he said. ''We're disappointed. This was all about how we didn't accurately estimate demand. We need to be more bullish about the potential for the Wii.''

Unlike consoles with joysticks that players operate with their thumbs, the Wii responds to the user moving a wand-like wireless controller strapped to a wrist.

Wii games including tennis and bowling appeal to children, parents, hardcore gamers and even senior citizens.

Sony Corp.'s top-line PlayStation model, with an 80-gigabyte hard drive, costs $499 in the U.S., down from the original price of $599. A new low-end model with a 40-gigabyte drive will go on sale Nov. 2 for $399.

Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 costs $350 in the U.S.

The Wii has been a tremendous boost for Nintendo.

In the quarter ended Sept. 30, it more than doubled its sales to $6.1 billion from a year earlier, when the Wii had not yet launched.

Nintendo has sold 5.5 million Wiis in the U.S. since the console went on sale.

(This version CORRECTS comparison data, which is for broader geographic region than the U.S.)

    Nintendo Calls Wii Sales 'Fantastic', NYT, 27.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-US-Holiday-Sales-Wii.html

Video Games

Plumber’s Progress

November 23, 2007
The New York Times
By SETH SCHIESEL

Mario, the goofy, fat Italian plumber, is by far the most famous character in video games and perhaps one of the world’s most-recognized fictional characters in any medium. Think back, if you can, to 1981 and Donkey Kong. Mario was there.

After selling almost 200 million games over more than two decades and generating untold billions in revenue for Nintendo of Japan, Mario is back. Super Mario Galaxy, released this month for Nintendo’s Wii console, is the first major new Mario game in five years and is certain to end up one of the best-selling games of 2007.

But wait, there’s more! In a collaboration akin to an unthinkable Mick Jagger team-up with Paul McCartney, Mario shares top billing with his longtime rival Sonic the Hedgehog in a separate new game, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, that is a droplet in what will surely become a torrent of marketing for the Beijing Olympics next summer.

There are plenty of games for serious gamers, but Mario has always starred in games for everyone. So to test whether Mario could still appeal to an overeducated, media-saturated audience, I assembled a panel of nongaming yuppies in their 30s at my house last weekend, put the Wii controls in their hands and sat back to check the reaction.

Judging by the hours of giggles, chortles and downright guffaws, especially from two women who hadn’t played a video game in many years, Mario still has the goods: the madcap visual humor, the cheesy yet oddly compelling musical score and that incessant tug to play just five more minutes.

Watching the scene took me straight back to 1985 and a pizza parlor where my friends and I would set up shop on Saturday afternoons to play the arcade version of the original Super Mario Bros., one of the most influential and successful games of all time. Mario made his debut as the protagonist in Donkey Kong, but the fluidity and addictiveness of Super Mario Bros. made it a revelation. “The only way to really put it is that Mario is the Man,” Andy McNamara, editor in chief of Game Informer, the No. 1 game magazine, said by telephone this week. “He’s definitely like the Steamboat Willie of the video-game industry. Back in 1985 everyone thought the video-game industry was dead, and when Super Mario Bros. came out, it revitalized the whole thing. Mario is really in some ways the quintessential game experience, in that you get to have fun and explore places you would not normally visit, with all these crazy mixed-up worlds and the magic mushrooms and crazy stars. Also, every Mario game gets fairly challenging in the end, but anyone of pretty much any age can just sit down and start playing.”

Judging by the reaction in my living room and elsewhere around the world, Super Mario Galaxy is more than a worthy successor to the franchise’s considerable legacy of smiles. It is being widely hailed as the best game yet for the Wii and is drawing plaudits like this, from Hardcore Gamer magazine: “What I’ve been experiencing since first putting this game in my Wii is the culmination of several lifetimes of game design mastery by its creators.”

Like dancing or physical intimacy, a great game can truly be understood only through experience, not words. When reduced to a mere description — “Pass around small bits of laminated card stock in place of money” (poker), or “Roll imprinted cubes and buy fictional properties” (Monopoly) — even the most captivating games can seem impossibly boring.

Likewise, Super Mario Galaxy is really just about jumping, spinning and flying as you try to save the de rigueur kidnapped princess. There’s no rational reason that hopping around giant mushrooms on a purple planet in space should be so much fun, but it is. The best video games, like Mario, Ms. Pac-Man and Space Invaders, have the ability to make the absurd irresistibly seductive. When you do it, it makes all the sense in the world.

Super Mario is generally a single-player game, but in a nice innovation, a second player can jump in and use a Wii remote to control a separate cursor on the screen that can stun enemies, pick up treasure and otherwise assist the main user controlling Mario. The game’s whole feel is so finely tuned, so infectiously enjoyable, that it’s understandable why Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario’s creator, has been one of the most famous game designers in the world for decades. (Nintendo’s Japanese operation is almost as well known for its reticence as it is for its creative talents; more than a week of intercontinental negotiations failed to secure any comment from Mr. Miyamoto.)

Mr. Miyamoto’s stature in the game world is so grand that Simon Jeffery, president of Sega of America, resorted to a religious analogy in describing how his company collaborated with Nintendo in making the Mario and Sonic Olympics game.

Asked recently if Mr. Miyamoto had set up a satellite office at Sega headquarters, Mr. Jeffrey laughed and shook his head. “No, no, Muhammad doesn’t go to the mountain,” he said. “The mountain goes to Muhammad. We would bring versions of the game to him for him to consult on.”

My panel of nonexperts had a lot of fun with the game’s Olympic “events” (up to four can play at one time), especially the trampoline, but that game still is not receiving the praise being lavished on Super Mario Galaxy. As a reviewer on Yahoo put it: “Super Mario Galaxy is a reminder that games don’t have to be ultraviolent, make clever social statements or ride the marketing machine to succeed. They simply have to be fun, and you’d be hard pressed to find one as genuinely enjoyable as Mario’s latest.”

Super Mario Galaxy for Nintendo’s Wii, $49.99, rated E for Everyone. Mario & Sonic at the Olympics for Wii, Sega of America, $49.99, rated E for Everyone.

    Plumber’s Progress, NYT, 23.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/arts/music/23mari.html

Online games

meet social networking tools

22 November 2007
By Matt Slagle, Associated Press
USA Today

Jo Ann Hicks doesn't identify with gamers, but she spends hours online every day playing Kaneva.

The 41-year-old homemaker likes the shopping-and-partying game — where she operates a virtual nightclub and hosts parties — because it helps her interact with people, not provide escape from them as traditional games often do.

Social and gaming networks, once considered polar opposites, are cross-pollinating as online interactions replace prime-time TV and other, more traditional media experiences. Games like Kaneva are attracting players that games like Super Mario Brothers never did.

"I run around and act like a 40-year-old person. I have my little clan we hang with. What people will say is more interesting to me," Hicks said of her preferred game. "As opposed to Mario, who's only going to jump."

Game developers say there's money for both sides in this convergence.

Social networks that incorporate more features of "massively multi-player online games" could enhance their already-substantial earning power. And gaming sites would benefit from increased membership and broader acceptance.

David Dague, a 34-year-old executive in Chicago who runs a website called tiedtheleader.com, said games have changed fundamentally since the early days of Space Invaders.

"I've seen gaming go from a solitary thing to where there really is a cinematic experience going on in front of you that you can share in a social capacity," said Dague, whose site coordinates matches in Xbox Live games like Halo 3 and hosts forums about gaming.

"Video games have become the ultimate party line," he said. "The question is, who are you sharing it with?"

Played in virtual worlds with advertising and goods for sale, games like KartRider and Kaneva now go beyond the scope of early interactive games. They're less about skill levels and escapism and more about joining friends and strangers in virtual spaces where chatting, comparing fashions, going dancing — and, yes, slaying monsters — are all options.

For their part, networking sites are encompassing more interactive features that consume increasing amounts of users' time — long considered a defining feature of computer games.

MySpace and Facebook are massively multiplayer games in disguise, says Gabe Zichermann, who is developing "rmbr," which he says will make a video game out of tagging and sharing digital photos.

"The reason why Facebook is a really compelling MMO is because it's fun and you get something out of it," he said.

There are interactive titles like Scrabulous for Facebook, and MySpace is rolling out a games channel early next year.

"They're going to be able to monetize their users at the same level (as the games do)," Jessica Tams, managing director of the Casual Games Association, said of the social network sites. "That's a lot of money."

If each of Facebook's 33 million and MySpace's 72 million October users — according to figures from comScore Inc. — paid a dollar each visit for a new outfit for his or her avatar in a game, that would have produced a lot more revenue than the fractions of a penny the sites got for each click on an ad.

Nexon, which has offered free, socially rich video games for years in South Korea, introduced its English-language version of KartRider for use in North America in September.

In October, the year-old North American version of Nexon's Kaneva had 84,000 members, according to comScore. Once players download the game, they see advertising and can buy all sorts of virtual clothing and upgrades for a few dollars apiece.

It's a substantially different business model from online fantasy games like World of Warcraft, which tend to require subscriptions, at $15 or so per month, and usually don't allow users to buy things for real money, online or off.

"Think of World of Warcraft as kind of closing the book on this generation of games," says Christopher Sherman, executive director of Virtual Worlds Management. "Those folks who are developing the next generation of massively multiplayer games really need to raise the bar anew."

Venture capital, technology and media firms invested more than $1 billion dollars in 35 virtual worlds companies between October 2006 and this October, according to a study by Austin-based Virtual Worlds Management, a company that organizes conferences to discuss emerging online trends.

Second Life— where users can buy their own plots of land to build stores, castles or anything else they can imagine — is creating a game within a game with CBS, called The Virtual CSI: New York, that melds networking and gaming. Avatars will be able to go to crime scenes and figure out what happened.

The lure of interactive online games is so strong it can cut into users' sleep and boost the time they spend playing, according to a month-long study by Syracuse University psychology professor Joshua Smyth.

Smyth found that MMORPG players spent on average 14.4 hours a week playing — twice as long as video game players who don't interact online.

Stephen Prentice, a senior analyst for the Gartner Group in the United Kingdom, believes the time is right for such online social video game services to take off. The big question is who will succeed first.

"The huge opportunity is for a lightweight, three-dimensional environment, a virtual world equivalent of Facebook," Prentice says. "Trying to predict who that is going to be is difficult. Anything could happen here."

    Online games meet social networking tools, UT, 22.11.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2007-11-22-socialgames_N.htm

'Guitar Hero III'

rocks with more of the same

8 November 2007
USA Today

The good — and bad — news for Guitar Hero fans is that in the latest game in the franchise, RedOctane didn't mess much with the formula that placed its predecessors among the hottest game sensations of our time.

So if you were looking for a fresh new experience in this sequel, you might be disappointed. But if you can look past that, you will find Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (www.guitarhero.com) a fun, challenging and (despite some potentially offensive language) great way for the whole family to rock out in front of the television.

Better than strumming a tennis racket in front of the mirror, Guitar Hero games include a guitar-shaped controller that plugs into the video game console. You must then correctly press the right colored buttons on the guitar's neck (and strum at the same time) to match the onscreen instructions. Play well and the familiar rock songs sound like they should, and the virtual crowd cheers you on, but if you press incorrect notes, some sour "twangs" are heard, and the crowd begins to quiet down or even boo you offstage.

Guitar Hero III is the most ambitious of the franchise, with attractive graphics of your cartoon-like band performing onstage (especially with the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 versions), downloadable songs from the Internet and the ability to play with or against friends beside you or online (note: the PS2 version does not allow for Internet play). The wireless Gibson Les Paul guitar (included) is comfortable, lightweight and durable.

One of the more fun (but tough) new features is "boss battles," where you must play head-to-head against the likes of guitar gods such as Slash (Guns N' Roses, Velvet Revolver) and Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave). Play well and you'll collect "power-ups" you can unleash on your opponent, such as ones that make the notes harder to see, reverse the colors on the fret board and lock the guitar until your foe rapidly presses down on the "Whammy bar" to shake off the effect. These power-ups can be used in "battle mode" against a real opponent in front of the same TV or over the Internet.

With more than 70% of the songs from the original artists (the rest are decent cover versions), the impressive track lineup includes oldies like The Rolling Stones' Paint It Black, Aerosmith's Same Old Song and Dance and Alice Cooper's School's Out and newer hits like Guns N' Roses' Welcome to the Jungle, AFI's Miss Murder and Kaiser Chiefs' Ruby. In total, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock features more than 70 tracks. Some bands even re-entered the studio to re-record their classics for this game, including the Sex Pistols (Anarchy in the U.K. ) and Living Colour (Cult of Personality ).

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock will hook you from the moment you strum your first chord, but even with the battle mode and online options it's not too different from past games — which is just fine for many.

Music game fans should expect our in-depth review of Rock Band (www.rockband.com) in a couple of weeks, which lets you not only play guitar but also have friends join in on the bass, drums and microphone.

'Guitar Hero III' rocks with more of the same, UT, 8.11.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/marcsaltzman/2007-11-08-guitar-hero-3_N.htm