TechDirt has a totally classic post today that demonstrates on of the great truths: the more things change the more they stay the same.
Today, it is common to hear everyone from politicians to parents blaming video games for making kids fat and lazy. It turns out, back in the 1850’s the threat came from a pastime we consider nearly high art these days, chess:
chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body.
Check out the whole story here.
It’s a solid reminder that every generation faces its own demons but that those demons only change clothes, not form.
As YouTube has expanded it’s offering to video posters, some video posters are getting pretty damn creative AND smart.
A new (probably short-lived) YouTube sensation is a clever re-imagining of StreetFighter using the “annotations” feature to turn it into a sort of “choose-your-own-adventure” and as NewTeeVee says, it’s paying off big-time.
Uploaded last week, YouTube Street Fighter videos have already garnered well over 5 million views, and counting. That’s not just due to gamer nostalgia over the coin arcade classic, or because it’s currently featured on YouTube’s home page. A lot of the views are generated by the way the videos were made.
Aside from being clever, the way in which the videos are linked creates an incredible number of views. This is great for YouTube and the video producer who are collecting a pretty outrageous CPM:
After the first week it went online, Boivin told me by email, the videos had earned him $5,000 in YouTube advertising revenue.
Unfortunately, it is a total ripoff for the advertiser as viewers spend 10-30 seconds on each page and there is barely time for an ad to pop up, let alone be seen and absorbed. So, while I totally applaud the creativity and the cashification I wonder how advertisers will be responding…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPQ1XrllZmA&hl=en&fs=1]
These are the sorts of stories that must scare the hell out of big media corporations. According to TechDirt, Spore, the hugely anticipated and horribly DRM‘d game for Electronic Arts, is now the number one most pirated videogame in the world.
Yup. As TechDirt puts it:
“In other words, EA’s “antipiracy strategy” backfired almost completely. The company got a huge PR blackeye which probably only encouraged more people to download the game via file sharing. Can someone explain, again, why any company thinks DRM works?”
I think of this as a rhetorical question, but, honestly, can anyone explain it?
Just as I suspected, Scrabble was in no way prepared to handle the fallout caused by their forced shut down of popular clone Scrabulous:
“We’ll be back up shortly,” an apologetic error message read. “We’re working on some tech problems and Scrabble will be ready to play as soon as possible!” The game is slated to exit the beta phase in the middle of next month, and some (my colleague Rafe Needleman among them) initially found it to be a better-quality game experience than Scrabulous had been.
But in the wake of a server crash, Facebook users weren’t too pleased, as the message wall for the Scrabble application revealed. “Wow, does this suck,” one Facebook user wrote. “Why can’t you guys work out a licensing deal with the Scrabulous boys? Now we’re back to square one and have to go through all of your debugging process.” (via)
Not only did they fail to provide Scrabulous users with a valid alternative, they increased the level of overall dislike already aimed their way.
Nice work, Hasbro.
After months of wondering what they would do, Hasbro acted and has forced Facebook to take down the unauthorized clone of Scrabble, the extremely popular Scrabulous.
“If you try to pull up the popular game, you get the following message: “Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here.” If you click, you get a form from the Scrabulous founders asking for your e-mail address so they can keep you posted on further developments.”(via)
Here’s the big question: will Scrabulous users be so mad at Hasbro that they will go find new games to play or will they decide that they really want to play Scrabble and if the only way to do that is through the official site, so be it?
Of course, much will depend on whether or not the official version works as well as the clone. Hasbro better hope it does or they could be dead on arrival.
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June 30, 2009 9:55 am | 
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