LUMNEWS- TOTAL COLLAPSE REMIX [Author: Mako]
…According to Adrenaline Vault, Highlander Online (a little-publicized MMOG based off the cult series with promise of fourzors longsword hitz) and Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge have been cancelled. Highlander Online didn’t even reach the public relations stage, but Freedom Ridge was supposed to be a grand, modern sequel to X-Com and had quite a lot of fans. From reading the farewell post by the developers, Dreamland just couldn’t find a publisher. Ouch…
…a few new articles have been published on the ‘status of online journalism’ front. First off, the Washington Post has a (seven day old) article on the dim future of online news sites and their stock prices. Hmmm.. An industry that completely relies on advertising spawning an offshoot that has no method for effective advertising. Sounds like a plan! Oh, yeah, and eUniverse just coughed up its banner advertising program like a cheesy mass from a tuberculosis patient. Here’s a quote that might be interesting to think about, considering it comes from people who RAN a banner ad network for quite a while:
“It’s not that eUniverse is faltering, it’s just that banner advertising is no longer a viable option for anyone in this economy. Times have indeed changed. I’m sure you have seen (some of you firsthand) a few of our competitors come to a similar conclusion – given the current economy, it is no longer possible to maintain a profitable affiliate program.”
Oops! Our bad! We just sort of trudged on with a completely ineffective business model for a while to burn off our venture capital like napalm, thus causing a sudden collapse of the entire community instead of a gradual letdown. Shucks, now we all have to move to Geocities…wait, how does Geocities make money again? DAMN IT!…If anyone has any bright ideas on finding a replacement for the ad banner clusterfuck, our friends at Slashdot have a nice article and thread up on that very topic. Forty-first post!…
…We all know the MMOG community hasn’t been the most tolerant out there, and Jessica Mulligan’s latest ‘Biting the Hand‘ focuses on the new South Korean market for MMOGs. She doesn’t draw any earthshattering conclusions, but there are some interesting statistics–between 110,000 and 140,000 players logged into Lineage: The Bloodpledge during peak usage? Damn… The people predicting a limited total player base for the future MMOGs seem very, very off target right now…
…The Adrenaline Vault has two new articles up–one on the recent consolidations and buyouts in the gaming industry (EA and OSI, Microsoft and Everyone..why hasn’t Verant gotten in on this yet? [Edit: Well, since Sony owns Verant, it just goes to show you how much Everquest I play. That being none whatsoever.]), and another (far more interesting one) on video game violence. They call politicians, members of the media, and just about everyone else on their demagoguery and shock journalism. We knew the real report just said ‘More research is needed, because there’s no scientific proof the things you’re saying about interactive media is true’, but this article puts it all together, considers the other parts of the report itself, and the incredible lack of publicity the report was given after people realized it didn’t back up their arguments. In the last comments thread about this, someone made this point: ‘Any reports that support their opinions will be exaggerated, and anything that goes against them will be ignored.’ It’s coming true in a big way.