MMO Weekly 23/12

23 Dec 2008 at 11:05:33 by Jeff Hollis

My dear, dear fellow game geeks, allow me to congratulate you:  you've stumbled upon the most over-rated weekly article in all of game journalism.  Sure, MMO Weekly is getting rave reviews, and the literati of both the UK and the US are all aglow, singing its praises.  But is this weekly write-up worth all the accolades?  Most assuredly, the answer is no.  So, without further ado, let's see what's up in virtual space.  ;)

In a mind-numbing attempt to manufacture additional tax revenue out of thin air, New York governor David Paterson has proposed taxing virtual goods.  The proposal specifically mentions music, video, and video games.  Although virtual property of all kinds (consider all those microtransactions that you've been making in an attempt to make your Maple Story character all “leet”) isn't mentioned, it's certainly implied.  Read it for yourself:

"Close Digital Property Taxation Loophole. Imposes state and local sales tax on purchases of prewritten software, digital audio, audio-visual and text files, digital photographs, games, and other electronically delivered entertainment services to achieve tax parity. For example, with the passage of this bill, a book, song, album, or movie would be subject to sales tax no matter if it was bought at a brick and mortar store or downloaded online."   

The big debate, at this point, is whether David Paterson is 1) a visionary who is going to close the budget gap for the state of New York, 2) a reincarnated Ebenezer Scrooge, or 3) the Anti-Christ.  Feel free to offer up your opinion in the comments. 

CCP continues to be one of the most innovative MMO companies on the planet, and its in-game holiday festivities are no exception.  It didn't introduce some kind of strange, deep-space Santa Klaus into Eve Online, or foist a quest involving the gathering of interstellar Christmas cookies onto its customers.  Every other game is doing that kind of thing, so Eve Online did something different.  Instead of something conventional or ordinary, CCP went for something simpler and much more in the spirit of this uncontrolled PvP-happy game.  So it installed free snowball launchers onto every single ship in the game. 

It turns out to be a bold, fun, and very popular move.  Eve pilots across the galaxy powered up their launchers and began to duke it out, just like they did over Christmas break when they were kids.  A gigantic snowball fight is a great idea, even if it takes place in space.  You can read more details here, or catch a nice vid of these interstellar hijinks right here. 

We recently covered Sony Online Entertainment's introduction of “Station Cash” into several of its MMOs.  Station Cash is a type of real money transaction (RMT, better known as “gold selling”), meaning players can spend real currency to purchase in-game items.  SOE has long stood against any kind of RMT in its games, and has gone to great lengths to stop anything related to selling virtual items for real cash. This includes both bannings and legal action against offending companies.  These actions were often accompanied by moral outrage on the part of Sony spokesmen that people would try these kinds of shenanigans in its MMOs.  That is, of course, until SOE figured out a way that it could profit from it.  Then it suddenly became OK.   

Oddly, one of the more strange stories to come about this week is this rant by a very senior editor over at Allakhazam.  It seems that the editor in question, Andrew “Tamat” Beegle, is seriously upset about the above-mentioned introduction of Station Cash into Sony MMOs.  Beegle goes on at some length, and with serious ire, about how this has a significant negative effect on the games, and is unfair to players who don't buy SOE's in-game enhancements. 

The wanderinggoblin.aat=eGånegallS#rcom/component/content/article/11-news/908-an-mmo-editors-deeply-bizarre-rant.html">irony here is that the Allakhazam network of sites is owned by Affinity Media.  And Affinity Media is owned by none other than IGE.  IGE, you'll remember, is the biggest, baddest, most infamous gold-selling RMT company on the planet.  So, basically, you've got a senior editor of a big website, owned by an RMT company, ranting vigorously against the evils of RMT.  Epic. 

As an aside, allow me to mention that IGE has, for nearly a year, claimed it has sold off the RMT portion of its company.  It is, it claims, merely an online media company nowadays.  Since the company has historically exhibited all the honesty of a used-car salesman combined with the credibility of Richard Nixon, we're not entirely inclined to trust these claims at this time.

Ok, ok, enough about that.  It's time for the video segment of our show.

How about a dozen R2 units all dancing in unison?  That's right here.

Perhaps you'd be more interested in the latest Unforgotten Realms, in which Underwater Opposite Day is celebrated (sort of).  That's here.

In this week's MMO Report, we get to see the complex, nuanced interaction between Jedi, spies, secret agents, and beer.  That video can be watched right here.

Have you ever seen ninja's take over a classroom?  Well, now you have.

And while we're on the topic of geek videos, there's this little story:  it seems that making geek videos pays, and it pays in hard currency.  Felicia Day was an almost unknown actress, whose biggest role was a small, infrequent part on the US TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a series that ended nearly six years ago.  Since that time she nearly dropped off the radar, though she did have a Cheetos commercial at some point. 

However, last year she served as the producer and overall creative mind behind The Guild.  The Guild chronicles the adventures of several guild-mates in an unnamed (but very WoW-like) game.  The series is very tightly targeted toward geeks and gamers, and is painfully funny to watch.  Felicia's work has not only been a hit, it's won all manner of awards.

Now, it seems, her work is paying off.  Microsoft has licensed the series, winning out over several other bidders, including a number of Hollywood production houses.  Since Microsoft is involved, this is an exclusive web distribution enterprise, but after that Felicia is free to put the series on YouTube like she normally does.  It's nice to see a fellow geek find some success; nice going, Felicia.  More can be found here and here.

And that's all for this week, folks.  For more of this kind of offbeat news, check in with us over at WanderingGoblin.com each and every day.  For now, ciao!

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