Anime downloaders being sued by the anime studios

I read on the 'Banzai Effect' about how downloaders managed to get a lawyer for two folks currently being sued by the anime studios. The case would set a lot of precedents about the details for online unauthorised download.

Other than the legal stuff, I'm actually quite puzzled by the studios' actions. I guess over the past many years, we saw how music studios first decided to sue unauthorised downloaders, and later realised that there is actually money to be made from online sales of songs. It took Apple iTunes and others to show the music studios about the business models, which means Apple iTunes would be the main beneficiary of the system. A real pity, since the music studios are the guys who 'produced' the files.

Now, anime studios deciding to sue downloaders. Haven't they learn anything from the music studios examples? I think anime fans are simply that - anime fans! They would pay, given the right incentives, e.g. faster availability of animes with good subtitles. Look at the amount of money and effort put in for the anime related events - cosplay!

It doesn't help that the local newspapers always portray the downloaders as illegal pirates - it would be good if the journalists at least put in some sane reasons instead of quoting official statistics about the 'number of people bothered about infringement'. People are not bothered by the so called infringement precisely because there is a mis-match of views about what constitutes infringement.

Give the downloaders and studios a chance to work things out in a business sense. Lawsuits benefit no one except lawyers!

Real Life Financial Crisis - Virtual World Woes

It is interesting how the current global financial crisis has resulted in adverse impact for the virtual world. I was reading the newspapers and an article remarked about the changes at Google, including the impending shutdown of Google Lively.

Lively was launched just a few months ago, and earlier articles even commented that there are monetization potential for Lively, and now it's Lively No More, cos' Google has to "prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business."

Now I wonder if other worlds will be 'hit' similarly by the financial tsunami. Would subscription based VWs suffered loss of gamer base, and the 'free to play' VWs (e.g. Second Life) crashed like what happened to Lively? Interesting to see articles that draw parallels between the VWs and real world economy, especially how they described the financial woes, e.g. Second Life's Ginko Bank.

Oh well, at the end of the day, both VWs and real world are inextricably linked by people like you and me; if we are hit by any woes, both type of worlds will 'feel it'.

1 more day to the Wrath of the Lich King launch

One more day to a new cap level of 80...

One more day to new maps / continent of Northrend...

One more day to a new character class...

I bet after 13 November where the Wrath of the Lich King is launched, there will again be WoW players who take leave and race each other to reach the new max. level of 80. In the mean time, here's the trailer (which you can also obtain from the WoW page) and enjoy!

Golden Joystick Awards Results - Straw Hat Samurai came in 2nd

I got interested in the Golden Joystick Awards due to the review of one of the flash game finalists - Straw Hat Samurai. Straw Hat Samurai is a great game developed by LUT!.

Well the results were out last Friday, and Straw Hat Samurai got 2nd in the category of E4.com Grand Master Flash award. The other results could be found on the website, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare seems to have won quite a number of the awards.

It's great to have such Awards events that helped to pull attention to games and their developers, since oftentimes there are simply too many distractions online and too little opportunities to showcase good nascent game developers. :)

Ok, I'm going to try out other games mentioned in the Awards!

See also:
- Flash Game: LUT! Straw Hat Samurai

Mainstream media article on virtual gold farming

It is interesting to note how mainstream media has first started noticing the online / virtual world, and subsequently giving recognition to online gaming as a recognised social activity, with their latest article on gold farming.

Academics have already studied gold farming to some extent, and for gamers, gold farming existed for as long as there are complains about grinding (repetitively killing monsters / performing same tasks).

The article from AsiaOne is interesting because it detailed out a particular transaction between gold farmer and the journalists, with description on the different steps of the transaction. Another interesting point is that there are actually gold farmers in Singapore too, lolz.

New login page graphic for World of Warcraft

The latest patch for World of Warcraft (14 Oct 08) has installed a new login page graphic. I think with each major patch / version they do change the login layout. I think they changed the background music too if I'm not wrong. Here's 2 screenshots.

Afternote: The changes from this patch are very interesting, especially the achievements. Lolz, 'love the critters' as an achievements, really?? I've 'loved' some toads, snakes, and squirrels. Here's the screenshots while the game loads.

Flash Game: LUT!'s Straw Hat Samurai

I was visiting one of the local blog aggregators and came across this website with a game nominated for Golden Joystick. The local game developer LUT! has done up a couple of games on his own, and the nominated game is 'Straw Hat Samurai' for the category of 'E4 Grand Master Flash Award'.

Out of curiosity, I decided to try the game out. I managed to finish it, and here's a couple of screenshots about the game. In the game, the player control a samurai character in his quest to 'beat' the enemy chief. It's basically a 2D scroll game with very simple control. The samurai has his sword as a main weapon, with option of bows and arrows. This is the general overall screen, where the samurai (guy in white with a straw hat) can 'move' about.

In the game itself, the player presses the mouse left button and 'draws' lines across the screen to use his sword. If the player is using bows and arrows, the control is via the shift key and mouse button. The health level of the samurai is shown as a green bar located at the bottom of the screen.

Once the last 'enemy' is killed, the screen turns red. Enemies come in different forms, including knife welding types (easiest), archers, and spearmen. Spearmen may try to rush the samurai, and thus a bit tricky. The more tricky enemies are those with shield. Since the shield could block any fronter attack, the trick is to 'slash' low, i.e. below shield level when the enemy is walking, or slash from behind when the shield bearers squat down.

Along the way, the player could pick up items boosting health or increase the chance to dodge. Locations with treasures are marked with a mini-treasure box.

There is a second phase to the game where the player could 'deploy' troops (in blue) to help him break thru enemy grounds. So the trick is to slowly make the way towards the main enemy camp. The game mechanics for this part is not well explained, but generally if the blue number is bigger, it is easier to win over the red area. Seems a little bit like the board game of 'Risk'.

Here's another picture. The player could move the samurai into red area, which will trigger another fight, similar to the first phase, i.e. 2D scrolling with mouse button as 'slash'.

Once the player reaches the centre camp where the big boss is located, it will trigger a big fight between the two. Killing the boss ends the game, where general statistics will be shown. Generally this game is worth a try. The gaming experience is alright, with short learning curve. Needs a bit of intuition to figure out some of the game play though. My only complain is the game music, which lacks variety. I guess that could be improved in due time.

See also:
- Golden Joystick Awards Results - Straw Hat Samurai came in Second