Valve owner and president Gabe Newell said in a recent article with Playstation Universe that he worries about his employees and their families. He says that Valve employees often spend too much time working on projects, even voluntarily working overtime on the weekends. Gabe tries to counteract this by having annual family outings within the company.
“I think the people who work (at Valve) are having a good time in terms of enjoying their work and not being too stressed out,” said Newell during a conference call with a Tippecanoe High School marketing class. “One thing I’m worried about is the amount of stress that we put on some of the families.”
Said Newell, “You can’t ruin people’s home lives in order to benefit your business or it blows up in the long run.”
My thoughts:
I have to admit I’m not a huge fan of the games Valve puts out, but they are generally praised for their level of detail. No doubt this is from the employees putting in extra hours. Still in a world that is determined to push employees hard when it comes to deadlines I appreciate Mr. Newell’s philosophy. It’s rare to find a company that cares about their employees so much, especially in a world of hard deadlines. I wish more companies would take a stance when it came to this, whether they where in the video game industry or somewhere else.
Does your company do anything to combat stress and away time from family? What should or shouldn’t Valve do? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Source:
Original Playstation Universe article
Tags: gabe newell, gabe newell interview, valve, valve interview, valve software
A Youtube user named DJOmnimaga has started a project to emulate the original Doom game on a graphic calculator.
Running on primitive calculator graphics without color, the game will only run for 20-60 seconds before crashing according to the Youtube description. Still it’s a pretty cool start. Who needs math when you can play Doom instead?
Tags: doom, doom calculator, doom calculator emulation, doom emulation, doom emulation calculator video, doom emulation video, graphic calculator
A handful of Batman: Arkham City screenshots have been released (literally a handful, as there are only four new ones). Check out how creepy the Joker and his funhouse looks, along with Batman descending from above to start a fight and some realistic locations.
Batman: Arkham City is set to be released this fall for the PC, PS3 and 360. From what we’ve seen so far it’s shaping up pretty nicely. I’m excited to see what’s in store come this Fall.
Tags: 360, arkham, arkham city, arkham city screenshots, batman, batman arkham city screenshots, batman arkham screenshots, batman: arkham city, playstation, ps3, xbox, xbox 360
UK Developer Bizarre Creations closed it’s doors yesterday. Bizarre was owned by Activision, who initially tried to sell the company as of November 16th, 2010. After finding no buyers they announced the eventual closure of the studio, and marked February 18th as the day.
Bizarre was founded in 1994, and released the bulk of their games on the current and last gen hardware incarnations of the Playstation and Xbox.
Bizarre was known for making solid racing games. They were especially known for such series as Project Gotham, Geometry Wars, and Fur Fighters. They were also known for stand alone games such as The Club, Metropolis Street Racer, and the well known recent hit racer Blur.
Eamon Urtone, the company’s current creative director released a video montage showcasing the company’s work over the years, which you can check out below.
Tags: 360, activision, bizarre, bizarre closes, bizarre creations, bizarre games, blur, dreamcast, fur fighters, geometry wars, pgr, playstation, project gotham, ps3, racing, racing games, xbox
Blizzard Entertainment has announced it’s 6th annual Blizzcon for October 21-22, 2011 in Anaheim, California.
Blizzcon 2011 will feature hands on gameplay with Blizzard products, Q&A panels with developers, competitive and casual tournaments, contests, Blizzard brand merchandise, and more.
More details will become available as the date draws near. Also stay tuned to www.blizzard.com for future announcements and ticket availability and pricing. Last year tickets sold out quickly, so if you’re interested in going be sure to check their site often.
Tags: blizzard, blizzard convention, blizzard entertainment, blizzcon, blizzcon 2011, diablo, diablo 3, diablo III, Starcraft, Starcraft 2, Starcraft II, World of Warcraft, WoW
I apologize for the lack of updates so far this month. I have had some personal issues come up, and along with some health concerns have not had the time or ability to update the site and scour the net for interesting game news. Hopefully I will be able to fix this in the next coming weeks, and get back to my regular schedule of a few posts a week.
In the meantime stay tuned, and thanks for your patience.
Tags: next life, next life gaming, next life gaming news, nlg, nlg news
Nick Yee, a researcher on MMOs and virtual worlds at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), has a fantastic website over at http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_intro.html in which he shares many of his observations on the state of virtual worlds, based on his research.
Nick spent years surveying and studying online players and behaviors to figure out what makes them tick. How do we interact with others in a virtual world? How does our gender affect game play? What if our actual gender is different than your avatar’s gender?
Here are just a few interesting facts on the Daedalus Gateway site:
There’s a wealth of information available for free on Nick’s site, so if you’re interested in MMO demographics, social interactions, or how technology changes us I highly recommend you visit his site.
And be sure to let us know what demographics you fit into if you’re an MMO gamer.
Tags: avatars, daedalus, daedalus gateway, daedalus project, massive multiplayer online, mmo, mmo demographics, MMO games, mmo research, nick yee, online gaming, Palo Alto Research Center, PARC, virtual reality, virtual worlds, virtual worlds research
A 37 year old mother named Dawn Matthews is upset that Microsoft allowed her 11 year old son Brendan to download over £1,000 worth of downloadable content via Xbox Live.
Apparently she had entered her information initially to buy her son a gold membership about 18 months ago so he could play online with friends.
The downloads happened over a period of roughly six months, and it was only after examination of her credit card bill that Dawn noticed the charges from Microsoft. She blames the company for allowing such easy access to downloads:
“It is ridiculous to allow someone of his age to make payments without any checks being done. When he is in gaming mode he can’t be thinking about the money. You can’t put all that responsibility on a young boy. It is impossible to monitor everything your children do. These companies should take some responsibility. They take advantage of vulnerable people.”
Apparently she did no research into parental controls on the Xbox. She could have easily helped her kid set up a child account, which would have been tied to her account. Her account then would be the one with the credit card on it.
Despite her pleas for Microsoft to do something, a Microsoft spokesman had this to say in their defense:
“With over 30M Xbox LIVE members across the world customer complaints of this nature are extremely rare. Microsoft’s goal is to provide parents and caregivers with tools and resources to manage their children’s gaming and entertainment experiences so that they can play in ways that are safer, healthy and more balanced. To accomplish this, we’ve built-in parental controls in every Xbox 360, work closely with retailers and recently launched the Play Smart, Play Safe website as an online resource for families. It should also be noted that LIVE accounts registered for children’s use have online activity automatically defaulted to off, these can be enabled by the parent should they wish in the Family Settings section.”
My thoughts:
If she was concerned earlier she could have easily monitored her child by paying attention to the types of games he was playing, and seeing if he had bought anything new. Of course her first mistake was trusting him with her credit card information, and not helping him set up a child account on Xbox Live. These two steps alone would have prevented all of this. Blaming Microsoft, a giant company who is an international corporation, for not watching over each and every kid is simply lazy parenting and ignorance.
So should she have used parental controls, or can she claim ignorance? What do you think?
Source:
Tags: brenden matthews, dawn matthews, expensive xbox download, microsoft complaints, xbox, xbox live, £, £1000, £1000 xbox bill, £1000 xbox live download
Hilary Goldstein of IGN recently wrote an interesting article here about Electronic Arts and their exclusive rights to the NFL license.
In it he argues what many have hated about EA since 2005-their exclusive rights to the NFL license, which of course includes all teams, logos, and players names and likenesses.
Hilary argues that good football games cannot be made without the NFL license. The sense of realism brought about by the use of authentic players, stats, stadiums, and teams is a definite boost to a football game. Lots of people want to play in their favorite stadiums, with their favorite team, and as their favorite players.
Competition is always seen as healthy in any industry. Imagine how expensive games and consoles could be if there were only one console. Likewise without competition EA has no real motivation to improve Madden except for marginal changes every year. This of course does not go over well with gamers. Although the series still sells since many casual gamers only buy a handful of games each year (Madden being one of them), many have also left the series over the past few years. The last time anyone could compete with EA by using the NFL license was 2K Sports in 2004 with ESPN NFL 2K5. In comparison to the $50 U.S. that Madden cost that year 2K5 cost only $20. Sure it was an obvious ploy to lure people over from the Madden franchise, and no doubt the next release would have had to retail for more than $20, but it was competition, and a lot of people seemed to enjoy it from reviews I’ve read.
Perhaps EA felt threatened, because they immediately partnered with NFL for exclusivity rights, and have retained them ever since. This has effectively shut out others from making football games.
But can a good football be game without the NFL license? It seems risky, but what if it played similar enough to a Madden game but with fictional players, teams, and stats? What if it was released for less than $50 new?
It seems as if no one wants to try, but I think it could work. Would it sell as many as the Madden series? Probably not. For one there’s no brand recognition such as Madden, and there are no officially licensed likenesses. Still, I think a new major console football game could compete effectively with Electronic Arts, if anyone dared attempt it.
What about you? Would you buy a new football game without the official NFL license? Or will you be sticking with Madden?
ESPN NFL 2K5. The last game to share the NFL license with EA.
Tags: EA, EA NFL, electronic arts, Electronic Arts NFL, football, Madden 2012, national football league, NFL, NFL 2012, NFL exclusive license, NFL license, NFL video game, NFL video game license
Nintendo and The Pokemon Company are encouraging people to buy Pokemon Black or White early between it’s March 6th release and April 10th by giving away a free Victini download.
Victini is the first fire and physic type pokemon, and can’t be caught during normal game play. If you buy your copy of Black/White before April 10th however you will receive a special Liberty Pass to help them capture the mythical Victini. Unlike the pre-release downloads that are only available at Gamestop, this will be a WiFi event, so no more trips to Gamestop will be required.
Official art of Victini, the first fire/physic type
My thoughts:
A new physic/fire type pokemon download is definitely appreciated; especially since this is a first. Even better there is no waiting in line or scheduling a visit to Gamestop. So even if you don’t live near a Gamestop or can’t make it out you still have about a month to connect to a WiFi spot and got your Liberty Pass to catch Victini.
This is definitely a step in the right direction when it comes to downloading pokemon for Nintendo’s games. I understand the promotion and attention that normal downloads bring to Gamestop, but I would like to see Nintendo start doing all of their downloads via WiFi. The convenience it brings to the gamer is definitely a plus, and I think it would allow more people who don’t live near a Gamestop or can’t make it to one to still be able to get a pokemon. Even if they didn’t have WiFi at their house they could still go to a hotspot such as at a library, coffeehouse, or a friend’s place to get their download.
Kudos to Nintendo for doing this. It’s a small step in the right direction.
Source:
Tags: DS, fire physic pokemon, fire pokemon, free victini, nintendo, physic pokemon, Pokemon, Pokemon Black, Pokemon Company, Pokemon White, victini, victini download, victini event, Victini pokemon
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