[Games (RPG, video, etc.)]

Last week, Netflix announced that their live HD movie streaming feature, back then only available to very happy Xbox 360 users (with the annual $49.99 LIVE subscription, that is), was going to be made available to "another device" soon -- and speculation was rife in the blogosphere. Was it going to be the iPhone? Maybe on Google Android? Perhaps on a new platform Netflix wants to promote?

My own guess was right -- it was going to be released on the Sony PlayStation 3.

It was a no-brainer for me and many other experts in the industry* -- I think the PS3 actually provides a better platform for Netflix's HD movie streaming offering. Since the PS3 slimmed down, both physically and price-wise, it had rocketed to the top of sales lists mere months ago. Now, with Blu-Ray support and fantastic online support, it looks like the PS3 is going to stay on top for a while.

Some Xbox 360 fans may dislike the idea. After all, Netflix's offering used to be "exclusive" to Xbox. Unfortunately, nothing really stays exclusive forever, at least not in this industry. Eventually Netflix will have to go where the profits lie, otherwise someone else will beat them to it -- worst case, with an even better offering.

PS3 users will definitely be pleased -- Netflix's service will only cost $8.99 a month. Unless something big comes along to challenge Netflix over the next few months, it's likely the PS3 will be spending them gaining even more ground on the Wii.


* Yes. I am an expert in my industry :)

Sam Raimi, famous for directing all three of the most recent Spider-Man movies, has been picked to direct the movie adaptation of the online multiplayer game, World Of Warcraft. If you've been living under a rock for the past five years, World of Warcraft is only the most popular MMORPG in the world -- more than 11 million people take part in an endless war between alliances of humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, trolls, and goblins.

Raimi's latest brainchild was the recent horror film "Drag Me To Hell," which was a trip back to his cult horror film beginnings. Apparently it was enough to convince Warner Brothers and Blizzard Entertainment (The developers of World Of Warcraft) that he was the best director to bring a work of fiction to life.

There hasn't been any news on a release date, or what the story is going to be, but this much is certain -- Charles Roven, who produced "The Dark Knight," is also going to produce this one. So things are pretty much looking up for the Warcraft movie.

Personally I'm not really into video gaming, but I'm always glad to see these kinds of jumps in the film industry. Recently we've been seeing a lot of comic book jumps (Batman, Iron Man, etc.) and cartoon jumps (Transformers and the upcoming G.I. Joe film).

It'll be interesting to see how Raimi pulls this one off -- the last "big" video game movie adaption, "Street Fighter: Chun-Li," was a huge disappointment. I also wrote about plans to make the arcade game "Asteroids" into a movie -- that was pretty weird. In other words, the video game industry has a lot of catching up to do in Hollywood.

In any case, it's likely that any "Warcraft" movie will be released later than 2011, after Raimi wraps up "Spider-Man 4."

Recent film history has seen a lot of 80's-and-earlier franchises making big comebacks to the silver screen. It started with the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy, soon making its way to fancy adaptations of comic book superheroes and Japanese animation films. Some were amazingly good -- "The Dark Knight" and "Transformers 2" come to mind -- while others were amazingly bad (such as "DragonBall" and "Speed Racer"). Now I tend to wonder which category "Asteroids" will fit in.

If you were born in the 70's, then you may have had the chance of knowing the arcade game, "Asteroids." There weren't any arcade games back in my day, but we DID have Atari -- that little video game console with a joystick and a single button. "Asteroids" made it there too, and I remember having a swell time maneuvering that little triangular ship and blasting approaching asteroids to pieces. But I swear, back then pixels were the size of postage stamps.

Back to Hollywood -- Universal recently acquired the rights to produce a movie based on the "Asteroids" game. There's just one problem -- the original game had no plotline whatsoever. The object of the game was to reach the highest score before you got crushed by pink pixels.

I'm not worried about the last arcade game Hollywood laid claim to -- news of plans to make "Pac-Man" into a movie also made its rounds. But at least Pac-Man had a few cartoon franchises and video games made out of him. Heck, the dude even had a girlfriend.

"Asteroids" didn't get any of that special treatment. So the guys behind the "Asteroid" movie will have to think up of a plot from scratch. As of yesterday, it's been said that Lorenzo di Buenaventura (who's also behind "GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra") will produce, and Matthew Lopez (who also wrote "Bedtime Stories" and "Race To Witch Mountain") will write the story.

Who will direct? Still no news at this point. Though I did come across some amusing suggestions in the blogosphere.

#1 - If Michael Bay directed "Asteroids," the movie would be a $300-million, three-and-a-half hour extravaganza.

#2 - If M. Night Shyamalan directed "Asteroids," the movie would start in a nondescript grocery store (with a kid playing the arcade game endlessly, and with Shyamalan himself coincidentally as the shopkeeper). The mandatory twisted mystery then develops.

#3 - If Zach Snyder directed "Asteroids," millions of dollars will be spent upgrading theaters all over the world to show vector graphics clearly.

Rumors are buzzing about Apple planning to buy the struggling gaming publisher Electronic Arts and the popular micro-blogging utility Twitter. I can speak volumes about how I doubt Apple is going to stay on top of its game for long, or how its disdain for open-source will be its downfall, but the fact remains -- when Apple talks, people listen.

Apple-related rumors are always the juiciest and most prolific ones to circulate the blogosphere simply because Apple's innovations have all been massive industry shakers and game changers in the past. This time, rumors have it that Apple is on the way to plant its popular logo in the gaming and micro-blogging industries. How true can these be?

Knowing Apple and its relatively successful 2009 Q1 returns, it certainly CAN buy a huge chunk of Electronic Arts if it wanted to. Similarly, they can also very easily afford the rumored $700 million price tag for Twitter. The only question is perhaps whether or not it WOULD.

The EA rumor seems rather unrealistic, since Apple already has the platforms that various publishers and developers already actively develop games for. The only reason it would buy a chunk of EA would probably be to give the gaming publisher a bit of leverage -- EA has struggled with relatively lower sales figures over the past two quarters. So a deal of some sort MIGHT be in the works, but a majority-stake buyout seems very unlikely.

Unless of course Steve Jobs likes having The Sims on his iPhone so much. I mean, we all know when The Steve loves something the whole world stops to listen, stocks in the financial markets get suspended, and whale mating season begins. Now moving on to Twitter:

They've said time and time again that Twitter isn't for sale, but for goodness sakes -- you'll need to monetize this thing if you want it to stick around! Simply putting ads on Twitter pages will easily generate millions. But even that recourse would pale in comparison to what an Apple logo can do.

Here's what I think will happen if Twitter DOES become "iTweet" down the line:

• Twitter will enjoy a new, established user base.
• Apple will have a new major selling point for the iPhone. (native iTweet capabilities... aherrmmm)
• Perhaps instead of depending on online ad revenue, Apple might make Twitter part of the .Mac/MobileMe service (Yikes! You mean now I gotta' pay to tweet? Arrckk!).
• Apple might tap Twitter's real-time news result capabilities and establish a new search engine that can leave Google and its spiders at least two to five hours behind.
• The image of the Twitter bird pulling a worm out of the Apple logo. (iLOL.)

That said, it would be pretty interesting to see which one of the big names will be the first to leverage Twitter. It doesn't have to be Apple, but if you ask me, I can however (with mild hesitation) tell you that Steve Jobs' company currently has the most capable hands in the world today.

No one really knows how the “Baby Shaker” iPhone app made it to the App Store, but it did anyway, and it touched off a nerve on everyone with good sense. The game, which you win by shaking the iPhone enough to make a hand-drawn baby on the screen stop crying, has drawn a lot of fire for insinuating it's okay to kill babies – when the baby stops crying, a large red “X” appears over both eyes.

What were the developers thinking?

Following the outcry, Apple immediately pulled the $0.99 game from the App Store and issued an apology for somehow missing the game in the screening process. The whole fiasco threw a black cloud over Apple's recent milestone – the App Store recently passed the 1 billionth purchase mark.

I don't know why, but these deviant games seem to be getting a lot of dangerous attention these days. When I think of the Baby Shaker game, I remember Grand Theft Auto, the video game series responsible for several kids' deviant behaviors – in 2005, one kid shot and killed three police officers before fleeing in their police vehicle. That kid's parents have attributed his criminal behavior to the game. There are other video-game-related horror stories out there as well.

Developers need to remember that their games can have drastic effects on society, especially the more successful they become. They can't hide behind their lawyers forever – if they keep trying to make a profit by putting other people in danger with their games, heads will eventually roll. I don't care what anyone says – encouraging deviant behavior is just plain jackassy.

Apple did the right thing by publicly admitting responsibility for the Baby Shaker game, saying that such games should never be made for public consumption. I wish other developers would follow suit – many game developers who post their creations online for free often don't really care how deviant their games can be. ;)

I recently wrote about how Facebook-using students were more likely to get poorer grades than their non-using counterparts, and while the studies weren't conclusive, it still raises an important social question – are kids spending too much time in front of the PC? Apparently, according to a new study, it's not just the PC – more than one in every twelve American kids are addicted to video games.

The study conducted by Douglas Gentile, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the Iowa State University, found that 8.5% of all American kids aged 8-18 exhibit signs of addiction to video games. By “addiction,” he states that the habit of playing video games begins to get in the way of other things, like doing homework and chores. It also indicates certain deviant behaviors, such as cutting classes, lying, and stealing to get their video game “fix.”

Like all studies that hit close to home, Gentile's study touched a nerve among many people in the blogosphere. Many claim that “addiction” is a relative term, and that they'd much rather have their kids addicted to video games than alcohol or drugs. Some even went as far as saying addictions are today's norm rather than the exception – I guess I can tell a junkie from a mile away.

Overhyped or no, this study does raise many of the same questions the Facebook study did. American kids spend an average of 13 hours a week playing video games, while the truly addicted ones spend almost twice that – 25 hours. Doing the math, that's about 3.5 hours a day on average – minus time spent sleeping, eating, and going to school, that leaves very little space for studying and creating good social bonds with friends and the community.

I've heard horror stories about kids in the Philippines who, cringing under the pressure of an exam, immediately pass their empty test papers, leave the classroom, and head straight to the nearest Internet Cafe to play video games.

A friend of mine also told me about a rehab center in the Southern Philippines – one that treated alcoholics and drug addicts – just had their youngest check-in last year. It was a 12 year-old girl, addicted to video games. I kid you not.

Personally, I think it's foolish and shortsighted to dismiss Gentile's findings altogether. We've been warned of this problem for a good 20 years now, and now it's finally looking to become a serious social problem that can potentially be more dangerous than alcoholism or drug addiction, owing to the fact that no one needs to be over 21 or know the local drug dealer to get hooked on video games.

All said, I strongly believe if civil and research groups can engage the video games industry actively, I think we may be able to find innovative, win-win solutions to all these without drastically harming the business bottomline of games producers.

Video Gaming has come a long, long way since Pong made its debut almost four decades ago. Since then we've seen an array of consoles, handhelds, and other gaming apparatus – video gaming has even made its way into PDA's, mobile phones, and keychains. Has video gaming finally come full circle?

Much has been said about the iPhone 3G since its release over two weeks ago, but I think its gaming capabilities haven't received the attention (and media hype) that it deserves. There are already several awesome 3D games available on the App Store, with more being developed as you're reading this. Some have gone far enough to say that the iPhone 3G has the potential to be a gaming industry-breaker down the line.