Phyrric is facing down another small batch of Hellions gangmembers, the Fallen Buckshot. Wielding fists of fire, he blasts and rings the evildoers with flames. Finally, the foes fall to the grass, legs splayed, severely toasted.

Hurrah! Atlas City is safer! Until the respawn.

At E3 earlier this month, someone handed me a copy of City of Heroes, a super-hero based MMOG from NCSoft in the US. I hadn't planned on paying much attention to the game - I have a lot to do, articles to write, moving to Los Angeles this summer. But it's a holiday, and I decided to install it and check it out. A friend saw me, "Oh," he chortled, "you're playing the widow maker!"

My impressions from the first few days of play follow.

Code Junkies is carrying a short blurb about Microsoft's latest effort to get the Japanese consumer to sacrifice valuable space and buy an Xbox: a satellite TV show devoted to the console.

(beat)

Co-hosted by Eri Kitajima, a popular soft porn model.

Back when the Xbox was still in development, Microsoft talked about how the Xbox was going to be more open to unusual games, and aimed at a more mature audience than Sony or Nintendo would allow. I don't think they ever really made good on that, but maybe we're seeing some of the bizarre mutant vestiges of that promise here?

What's happening to Eidos? While I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for them because of warm feelings towards Ion Storm, they've been stumbling of late. Their failure to turn the strong IP Tomb Raider into the genuinely mind-blowing hit it deserved to be left them grasping. Deus Ex 2 has not performed well. Thief 3's post-release media blitz (May 26th is the release date) will have to carry on without the lead designer.

And now, rumors of a takeover amidst precipitously falling stock prices.

Maybe it would be all right for Eidos to enfold itself into EA or Ubisoft. Better than releasing such excreable titles as 25 to Life. Let's all consolidate! Hey, it worked so well for the music industry.

And all we'll be playing in the future will be endless iterations of sports games and FPS war games. Whoo-hoo.

The WGC will run from September 9th and 10th this year in Austin. That's concurrent with the Austin Game Conference, which is I suppose meant to draw more participants but also seems like potential scheduling conflicts for attendees.

A full program hasn't been announced yet. Maybe I'll see if my band can swing through Austin on those dates.

E3 is upon us, the early summer festival of energetic electronic entertainment. The expo this year opened with MIT's Education Arcade, the continuing convergeance of academics and game designers on the subject of molding our minds. What did these people say when they were up on stage or in the hallways together? I would tell you myself, but the Education Arcade was wildly over-subscribed, and I'm a chronic late registerer for conferences and events.

Fortunately, Ian from Watercooler games was present, and he has written up a rather lengthy report of Education Arcade, day 1. Remarks summarized from Henry Jenkins, Wagner James Au, James Paul Gee, Warren Spector, Brenda Laurel, Kurt Squire, Amy Bruckman, Ben Sawyer, Scott Fisher, Andrew Court, Alex Chisolm, Bonnie Bracey, Todd Logan, Celia Pearce, Johnny Wilson and Tom Piper.

Thanks to InsertCredit for the link.

"Right now there's no unification in the gaming industry, but our plan is to put the headquarters of a $24 billion industry in Boise and unite the industry."
-Bill Cserjes, COO Twin Galaxies

Last month when the purchase was announced I was out on a back porch in San Francisco with Adam Sessler. He said he didn't know what would happen, but he was hopeful that the quality of TechTv could be maintained, and that the people who worked there could keep doing what they had been doing.

But now things are looking a bit bleaker. Sure, TechTV had its flaws, but compared to G4's non-stop prattling it seemed a paragon of intellectual commentary on videogame and technology culture. The rumour is that the entire SF office will be closed down and relocated to LA. Damn you, Comcast.

And you want Disney, too? Is there no end to this devouring cable monster?

I'm giving up on TV. Except as a vehicle upon which to play games and watch DVDs.

And what are you all doing this weekend?

Remember the early 90's when the casual internet was new? Remember all the beautiful, bizarro theories about how the internet signified the next step in human evolution? We would ascend from our physical shells to become beings of pure information, free-wheeling about the cosmos. Yes, those were the days.

A decade later, humans turning into data feels less certain, but purly digital software, freed from the harsh confines of disks and discs is becoming more and more popular. As reported on Slashdot Games, the Hollywood Reporter (my first stop for gaming news, don' cha know?) has this article talking about a videogame developer experimenting with distributing a game via peer-to-peer networks.

The company, NP Cube, is attempting to sell their MMO "Dark and Light" to the hardcore gamers of Reunion Island, east of Madacascar, off the coast of South Africa. NP Cube's main concern seems to be with saving the cost of materials, but I'm surprised that nobody mentions that this model of distribution basically nulls conventional piracy techniques. Since the actual game is kept on servers by the game company, they can give away the client and just charge for access. This business model has lead MMO titles to quickly out-gross conventional titles in places like Korea and China that have been notorious for software piracy. When analysts talk about how online distribution is fundamentally flawed because consumers like to have something they can grab, they obviously aren't talking about Asia. The fact is, this model is already hugely successful, and it is likely just a matter of time before Western markets adapt.

What do y'all think?