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No run-of-the-mill stream of online game reviews and associated advertising. No tips on how to earn WoW gold. And no shots of "me & my uber-guild killing an uber-boss in an uber-dungeon", either.
Why some games are better than others? What makes MMOs so addictive? How they make you pay all the time? What are those psychological and financial tricks behind the scene? The questions (and an assortment of other topics) are discussed in this blog by a female gamer and advertising specialist from Russia.
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Gamer Spent REAL $2 500 000 on a virtual property in a “free to play” MMO – the biggest online shopping spree ever?
I guess we all already know that “free to play” games aren’t free at all and are built to lure people into spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on virtual good, but this guy took it on a whole new level. An anonymous player of Entropia Universe by Calipso Games (a total suckage of a game where ALL in-game items are sold for hard cash, i repeat that, ALL) had sealed a deal of spending $2,5 MILLIONS of REAL dollars on 25,000 virtual pieces of land, each sold for $100. Tell me about the biggest shopping spree ever. But, turns out, this may actually be a clever investment move (unless Calipso goes belly up in the nearest future). Could we be facing a beginning of a new era in banking and real estate?
The thing is, everyone who invested in Entropia Universe virtual property are eligible to receive a percentage of all financial operations going on in the game world. Annual turnover of Calipso Games is currently about $400 millions. So, that guy, who spend $2,5 millions on Entropia Universe virtual property, can now receive up to 27% of his investments per year. Which is a much, much bigger sum than he would make if he just deposited these money in some bank for a monthly percentage. Clever bastard, i say.
Previously, virtual property was sold in other games like Second Life and in Entropia Universe itself a virtual space station was sold for $330,000 and a virtual resort for $635,000. But never there had been spent such a huge sum as $2,5 millions. I wonder, would it make real estate agents to look into virtual worlds? Virtual real estate agents… Somehow, it feels disturbing.
Hello everyone, today i have a little something for you! This is the first time I’m doing something like this, but it’s cool, i promise. Some time ago Mike Plater of Espada Limited wrote me about classic gaming t-shirts he’s been designing – with PacMan and Pong and cool stuff – and my previous post was about 8bit MMOs, so I thought: hey, with all the nostalgia flowing around… So, here’s the cool stuff: if you get all nostalgic and absolutely can’t live without a “I PWN N00bs” sign on your wide chest, you can get 30% off with “chickgeek” code. “We have seen a rise in competitive gaming, e-sports, and huge gaming titles that touch every part of our community. I wanted to create a line of designs that brought us gamers back to our roots and reminded us of the beginnings we all share in common”, said Mike. More designs under the cut.
The best part is that these t-shirts are made of 100% cotton and the designs are minimalistic simple. The downside here is that Mike currently ships his t-shirts only to continental U.S., but I’m hoping he’ll expand the range someday – because I sure as hell want one of those PacMan designs for myself.
8-bit MMOs. That was bound to happen, sooner or later. Most of the “grown-ups” today were raised on 8bit games made back in 80s and even late 70s, and as they grow older, nostalgia for old games hits a whole generation. And while those kids born into a world of 3D shooters, World of Warcraft and handheld gaming platforms wouldn’t at first understand the earning for outdated, pixilated and primitive graphics, still the world turns around to face the classic-style games. And here they come: massively multiplayer games made in 8-bit 256 color graphics.
For those who missed the glorified age of 8-bit games: by 8-bit graphics we mean the one that is drawn in 256 colors. They didn’t have to be the same colors for all the games, but a local palette could store only a finite amount of data describing colors, thus restricting game developers to create a palette of 256 colors. You can Google up more detail if you want, and I’ll proceed to the subject of this post. And the first on out list is…
It’s a completely free to play browser-based 2D PVP sandbox MMO by one Robby Zinchak. I think the whole game is built by this guy alone, so he must be really cool. “Sandbox” part means that you can build stuff just like in MineCraft (and other sandbox MMOs, but easier) – your own castle with blackjack and hookers or even start your own town. That’s right, in 8BitMMO towns are built and run by players (actually, all in-game stuff is build by players) so you can even be a mayor! Better yet, you then can proceed to boast to all the girls at your high-school/college/work that you've been a mayor once, but then took an arrow to the knee.
Number two on the list – another PVP sandbox MMORPG by Robot<3Kitty! (which consists of just one guy, he’s even cooler than the last one). What makes this game stand out is its beautiful 8bit-styled 3D graphics (i fell in love with it right away). Being a sandbox, Neverdaunt lets you build stuff and tear to ground what other players had built, but that’s not all – as the game’s teaser clearly shows us, you can not only blow shit with huge bombs, but also own a character that looks like a cat fighting with a sword-fish. Who haven’t always dreamt of hitting other people with a giant fish?! Plus, i am not sure, but the very name of the game – Neverdaunt – might be a tribute to Neverhood (a quest released in 1996, where the whole game world was made out of clay and shot, rather than drawn on PC). I could be seeing thing here, but the sheer awesomeness of this game already makes me cry in happiness! Oh, and the music is completely awesome too.
And the last, but not least, a game that is described“Dragon Warrior 3 meets World of Warcraft” by its own developers, Silk Games. It’s a free to play 2D PVP MORPG – a multi-player role=playing game, without the “massive” part. The difference that “M” makes is that when you play NEStalgia, you’re playing a classic NES-style RPG (all with countless quests to solve, items to loot and turn-based battles to fight), but online with a party made of other players, presumable other NES-loving geeks just like you. Plus, there are other nice things transferred from MMOs, like Auction House to trade items with other parties in other instances of NEStalgia world. As i mentioned above, the game is completely free, but there’s an optional yearly subscription that opens stuff like more appearance customization and more character classes, not essential to gameplay.
I wanted to do this for a loooong time, and since i now have an iPhone, here it comes – the first video review by the Gamer Cat!
In this video, the Gamer Cat is reviewing Cat Toys, an iPad game made specifically for cats.
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