gaming Articles




Red Cross wants its symbol out of videogames

The British Red Cross and Canadian Red Cross have both indicated that they would like the "improper and illegal" use of the Red Cross emblem in video games to stop. According to an article from GamesIndustry.biz and a letter published on GameLaw.org, requests have gone out from both …



World of Warcraft moves to limit new players

Success can be a real burden, finds Blizzard, publisher of the wildly popular MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) World of Warcraft. According to an article on FileFront, the company has limited the number of new users by stopping shipment of new boxes going out the door.

Gamer bottom 20

GamePro has released their list of 20 lowest moments in gaming in 2004. Included are such popular favorites as: Video Games Make You Fat, and The Release of EQII.

Gamer buys virtual land for cold-hard-cash

An article from BBC News recounts the tale of a 22-year-old Australian gamer who just purchased a plot of virtual land for the game Project Entropia at an online auction for US$26,500. The interesting part is that unlike Sony Online Entertainment (makers of EverQuest) and others, this company …

Gamers and their alter egos

A cute story this morning from BBC News about an exhibit by photo-journalist Robbie Cooper which shows gamers side-by-side with their avatars (for the uninitiated, that means their online persona). The exhibit is at the Proud Gallery in London until the 28th of October, 2004; and an online version of …

New MMOG player counts out

The new subscription charts are out. As would be expected, Lineage continues its reign as the number one MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) with between 2.5 million and 3 million subscribers. Behind them is the number two, Lineage 2, and the number three, Everquest. This is particularly interesting because …


Half-life 2 gets closer (but farther away)

CNN is reporting that Valve Software, the makers of the upcoming game Half Life 2, have finally made some rumblings about the date for the game and are now estimating Summer 2004 (up from April 2004, when it was disclosed last fall that someone had hacked in and stolen the …

ATI stomps nVidia in Half Life 2 benchmarks

ATI and nVidia have a new battleground now that the initial Half Life 2 benchmarks are making the rounds. So far, according to an article on Extreme Tech, ATI is in the lead by a healthy margin. However, some of this is suspect due to an OEM agreement between ATI …

Latest MMOG numbers put SWG at >125,000

A July update the the MMOG Subscription Numbers web page indicates that (among other things) Star Wars Galaxies picked up over 125,000 users in its first week. In other news, Shadowbane appears to be at 50,000+ (the estimate that was given for break-even) and EverQuest is still holding …

XBox Emulator for PCs released

In a somewhat hesitant article, Gaming-Zone.net has announced that SF has released 1.0 of XEON, an XBox emulator for the PC. Details are a bit sketchy and it appears hard to get running, but it is available as a download. Editor's note: Although the post is gone, there's …

Second Life provides users a place to create

I don't know how I've missed this over the past year, but Second Life is a very interesting "game". I put the word game in quotes, because it is a simulation and an environment more than it is an actual game. The system is designed as a completely user modifiable …

Indie games still a strong play

I wasn't so much surprised as pleased to see an article in Wired describing independent game development as a healthy industry. With so many computer and console games costing millions of dollars to develop, produce, and market, and with the seemingly enormous power of a small number of retailers to …


New Xbox exploit available

Declaring "Xbox independence day", a group has released information about an Xbox security exploit that allows the machine to run code that is not signed by Microsoft. People familiar with the game console will know that the Microsoft has locked it up by using hardware and software security methods in …

A gaming blast from the past

For those of you who wonder what some of us are talking about when we talk about the "good old days" of MMORPGs, here is an article (including a screen shot) about Avatar, an early MMORPG on the University of Illinois' PLATO system. Avatar was the first computer game that …