Posted by: Drew Sikora at November 12, 2009 3:58:45 AM
Do not be alarmed at the appearance of this On Time GDNet Daily. It comes in peace. Always. Also do not be alarmed that all the links in this daily point to a tr.im address - that was me. The full address will also appear as you hover over the links.
iPhone developer accused of harvesting customer phone numbers. A report broke late last week of developer Storm8 allegedly using their iPhone games to collect phone numbers with neither the knowledge or consent of players. Allegedly. No hard proof has yet been revealed, although the company has in the past admitted to such behavior due to a bug in their code which has since been fixed. Okay, there's already been some discussion on the Gama news article but even before I read that it seemed pretty impossible that a bug in code could access and transmit a number. Furthermore, what about Apple? Do they carry any blame for letting an obvious exploit like this through to the App Store? Even worse, according to Gizmodo this isn't the first occurrence of numbers being stolen. So far Storm8 has still not released any comment.
RedLynx pirates its own game. Piracy is a problem, and people are coming up with all sorts of ways to combat it. One unorthodox method is to pirate your own game, which is what developer RedLynx did with its first game Trials last year, uploading their own "limited" version of the game to torrent sites the day it launched, which lacked the online leaderboard component. While they don't know for sure how it's affected sales, so far at least their leaderboards remain uncracked. It's also rather genius in exploiting the way torrents work - by being the first torrent up, it will become the most heavily-seeded version so that even when the actual pirated version appears, it will be drowned out by the original fake version - at least staving off the inevitable for a bit longer still.
Venezuela violent game law in effect. Back in the beginning of September I touched upon the fact that Venezuela was poised to ban the sale of violent games. Well, without the support of organizations like the ESA here in the states, the bill passed into law last week, penalizing merchants who are caught selling violent games with up to 5 years in prison. Understandably, many Venezuelans are not happy.
Daily Remainders - more cool stories that didn't make the cut along with game dev articles/features.
At GDC last year I was treated to a demonstration of Emotiv's brainwave headset reader that let you control games and applications via the power of your mind. Supposedly it was supposes to ship last holiday season, but was then delayed. Then I ran into Alex Reed, head of Demiurge Studios, at both GDC and GDC Austin, who had been working closely with the Emotiv people, but kept getting the "no comment". Then at IGC East a PR rep from Demiurge said she had some "exciting things" to talk to me about - but I never heard more. Well, seeing as the headset is all of the sudden back on track for a holiday release, I suppose I should check into things. More next week, hopefully.
So hey if you're playing Torchlight or are just interested in modding in general, Runic has released the game's editor TorchED. I see that GDNet member MustEatYemen is already getting set to play around with it. If you don't know, modding is a great way to get started with games dev, and companies love seeing it on resumes.
And finally, pats on the back to our own Andrew Russell, who did the responsible thing by sending a letter to his Attorney General supporting the 18+ rating in Australia.
CodekaMember since: 10/19/2008 From: Sydney, New South Wales
Posted - 11/12/2009 5:24:43 AM
Quote:
Okay, there's already been some discussion on the Gama news article but even before I read that it seemed pretty impossible that a bug in code could access and transmit a number.
I once had a bug in some code that I wrote which caused your computer to record all credit card numbers, social security numbers and bank account details and trasmit them to a server I had accidentally set up. The bug also scanned through your address book and sent emails to all of your friends with an attachment called "See B1tn3y Nak3d.jpg.exe" containing a copy of itself.
I mean, it was just a bug... it's not like I'd do that on purpose!
starstriker1Member since: 12/17/2002 From: Edmonton, Alberta
Posted - 11/12/2009 10:47:21 AM
I've heard of the pre-emptive torrent strategy before, kinda. I think Id actually has done this before, putting out a demo version of the game padded out into the full version. It's a sneaky way to do things, and the torrent wrinkle that you mention where the first guy in has a competitive advantage is a definite plus.
Original post by starstriker1
I've heard of the pre-emptive torrent strategy before, kinda. I think Id actually has done this before, putting out a demo version of the game padded out into the full version.
Introversion did this with the release of Darwinia.
Original post by starstriker1
I've heard of the pre-emptive torrent strategy before, kinda. I think Id actually has done this before, putting out a demo version of the game padded out into the full version.
Introversion did this with the release of Darwinia.
Cliffski, the guy behind Positech Games (Gratuitous Space Battles, et al), admitted that he uploaded torrents of his demos masquerading as full versions too, back when he had a site set up asking why people pirate his games (I saw it on Slashdot, and I believe it was covered in the Dailies as well). I'm pretty sure he also admitted that it doesn't really work that well, and that he actually decided against using DRM anymore as a result of the study.
It might be sneaky, but I actually don't have a problem with this technique at all, particularly if, like Positech's offerings, the game is free of DRM to begin with. Personally I just don't buy PC games if they don't have a native Linux version or if they use DRM (easy for me to say, though, since most of my gaming occurs on consoles), but I can definitely understand buying a legit version and then downloading the cracked version to avoid the hassle of installing malware like StarForce or SecuROM on your system just to play a game.
Of course the problem is the number of downloaders that skip step 1, but you also have to remember that one download does not equal one lost sale. Not even close.
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Codeka
Member since: 10/19/2008 From: Sydney, New South Wales
Posted - 11/12/2009 5:24:43 AM
Posted - 11/12/2009 10:47:21 AM
Posted - 11/12/2009 3:03:18 PM
I fail to see how it negatively impacts you in any way, and we're only doing it to try and make this a better feature.
Read this post in Chinese
