Cheats used to be fun and simple, like the Konami code. Now, cheating can land your butt in court. Video games really have become serious business.
News Blips:
Blizzard is filing suit against three programmers who allegedly created and distributed Starcraft 2 hacks. The company claims the accused violated the end-user license agreement, Battle.net terms of use, and copyright law and negatively affected honest players with their hacks. According to the suit, such actions "cause users to grow dissatisfied with the game, lose interest in the game, and communicate that dissatisfaction, thereby resulting in lost sales of the game or 'add-on' packs and expansions thereto." What's worse: Getting sued for cheating in a video game or being blamed for everything that's wrong with it? [GameSpot]
Facebook shuts down several games for spreading private user information. Several of the social networking site's most popular games, including FarmVille, have been transmitting their users' personal data to marketing companies, a violation of Facebook's terms. Mike Vernal, a member of Facebook's engineering team, said, "In most cases, developers did not intend to pass this information, but did so because of the technical details of how browsers work." It's creepy to think that someone out there knows my address, phone number, and how much of my life has been wasted farming virtual crops. [Gamasutra]
Microsoft is preparing to advertise Kinect with a $500 million marketing campaign. The company is working with numerous outlets and media to bring Kinect to the attention of the world. These include ads through Burger King, Pepsi, Kellogg's, YouTube, Nickelodeon, Disney, Dancing with the Stars, Glee, InStyle, People Magazine, and more. The New York Post reports Microsoft has been planning the campaign with Steven Spielberg. Instead of buying ads, they should just give the money to people so they can actually afford both an Xbox and Kinect.
Valve announces Steam has surpassed 30 million active accounts. Valve Software Developer Mike Blaszczak specified that this number reflects accounts that were online in the last 30 days. According to a press release, Steam experienced 178 percent new-user growth over the last year. If PC gaming is dead, it must be a zombie, because it sure looks like it's moving to me.
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