Welcome to YouTube Tuesday, a weekly spotlight of a few interesting YouTube videos to watch!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xriYUzJ9Ls

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0XKmU5hF5s

The world wide web is filled with websites of many different kinds. Some are personal websites, such as this one here; some are informational websites, such as college sites; some are just for fun, such as flash game sites. But the most popular type of websites is the social networking sites. There are [... Read more here]]]>

The world wide web is filled with websites of many different kinds. Some are personal websites, such as this one here; some are informational websites, such as college sites; some are just for fun, such as flash game sites. But the most popular type of websites is the social networking sites. There are thousands of social networking websites on the Internet, and even more can be created daily using a builder such as Ning. There are many different types of social networking websites on the web as well, ranging anywhere from an all around social site, to one specifically built for fans of a certain hobby. Not every social networking website is popular, or as popular as some of them out there. In an attempt to try and be as popular as the most visited social networking sites, other sites will copy, using that term loosely, some of their features in order to catch the attention of the users who were interested in said feature. Lately though, the changes have become blatant copycats of the original idea, bringing in question what makes one social networking website unique from all of the others.

Excuse me... what? (Credit: Screenshot by Weasel Terrahawk from Facebook)

Probably the first major feature that was added to social networking sites that really made them popular on the web was “Applications”. Applications can be anything from informational statistics about your friends, quizzes that you can fill out or even full fledged flash games built into the site’s design. One of the first pioneer of Applications was Facebook, a rapidly growing open social networking site that uses your real name, so that you can keep up with your friends, or reconnect with past friends who you may have lost contact with since your schooling years. Applications brought in the more casual social web surfer, as it offered them a variety of ways to pass the time without having to visit tons of websites. After the rampant success of Applications, other social networking websites found that this was an effective method of bringing in users. In a flat-out copy, MySpace followed suit by adding the ability for Applications to be used within their interface. While MySpace still has not caught up to the masses of members that Facebook gained when they opened themselves up to the public, this has helped stem the tide of users who stopped using MySpace when it had nothing more to offer than to listen to indie bands’ music on their profile page.

One of the newest and most growing social networking sites out there right now is Twitter. Twitter is a unique site which allows users to submit a status update that is limited to 140 characters. Many people ask why this is, as it seems detrimental to giving people the whole story that you want to post, but the idea of Twitter was to integrate communication between the web and cell phones via text messaging. A text is limited to 160 characters per page, so to be able to receive updates, the update is limited to 140 characters, and gives enough room for a username to also be added to the text. In doing this, it also forces people to not ramble on about whatever it is that they want to get across to their followers, it just gives them the gist of it in an easy and quick to read message.

@ Tagging on Facebook (Credit: Screenshot by Weasel Terrahawk from Facebook)

Twitter has many simple features built into it. When you sign up, you create a username for yourself, so that other people can find you, as with any website. Other Twitter users can communicate with you and reply to any of your tweets by putting an @ sign in front of your username, and submitting an update in that fashion. This will alert you that the tweet that that user submitted is aimed towards you. Recently, Facebook has been taking hints from Twitter, and copying some of their ideas in order to try and appeal to a wider audience. First, Facebook changed the saying in the update status box to “What’s on your mind?”, which is very similar to Twitter’s “What are you doing?”. In a most recent update, Facebook has added the ability to “tag” one of your friends, by adding an @ sign in front of their name when you type it into the status update box. It seems that using an @ sign to be able to communicate to another person, or to be able to mention someone else has become something more popular on the Internet after the Twitter phenomenon occurred.

Every social networking website is unique in their own way, in at least a few features, but in most cases, they are each the same. A classic argument has been that Twitter and Facebook are completely different in the way they operate, but when you look at the general idea of the websites, they don’t differ much at all. Before applications became the popular reason to want to join, it was all about linking up with your current and former classmates and friends in order to keep up with what was going on in their lives, and status updates were the only thing that the site provided. To this day, Facebook continues to rely on the idea of status updating as the main source of content through their site. Twitter took the idea of status updating, and simplified it, creating something so similar that Facebook now offers a Twitter application that allows it to update your Facebook status. MySpace also joined in to the world of status updating not too long ago as well.

Look familiar? (Credit: Screenshot by Weasel Terrahawk from Facebook & Twitter)

Overall, there are hundreds of social networking websites out there, but if you’re looking for something unique that stands out, you won’t find much, unless you’re looking for something geared towards a specific audience. If you’re a fan of anime, the most popular website would be Gaia Online; if you’re looking for the biggest community, you’d want Facebook; and if you’re looking for most straight forward, and easiest to access via the most amount of methods, you would want to sign up for Twitter. In general though, it’s shocking how few differences there are between many of the social networking sites out there nowadays.

Last week, we began our biggest giveaway event yet, one that spanned twelve video games and four pieces of computer hardware. Over a week later, we’ve finally come to a close, and today, we drew for the winners of each prize.

Before I begin listing the winners, I’d like to thank you all who [... Read more here]]]>

Last week, we began our biggest giveaway event yet, one that spanned twelve video games and four pieces of computer hardware. Over a week later, we’ve finally come to a close, and today, we drew for the winners of each prize.

Before I begin listing the winners, I’d like to thank you all who entered. We had a great turnout, and only three games didn’t get drawn for due to the lack of people entering for them. We’ll give them away at a later date for some other reason, so if you think you have a friend who might want it, send them our way in the future when we get to that point!

I know I know, you really want to know if you’ve won something. That’s great! I would too! Especially if I was the winner. Too bad though, I can’t win my own prizes, although I could have just kept some of this stuff and not given it to you all. I’m just such a nice guy though, that I couldn’t do that.

On a serious note though, for those of you wondering, all prizes provided for this giveaway were paid for by the Weasel Report and the Weasel Network. We’re always open for donations in order to continue giving away prizes, as I would love to continue to do so through our podcast, the Gaming Report, so keep your eyes peeled for that if you want to keep winning!

Alright, alright; it’s time. If you’ve won, e-mail me back at the same address with your address information! Prizes will be shipped next week, so expect them sooner or later. Oh, but first, here’s a picture of your pretty prizes, all lined up!

1. LocoRoco 2 (PSP) – William D.
2. MegaMan Maverick Hunter X (PSP) – Robert K.
3. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas (PSP) – Perry P.
4. Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (PS3) – Ethan T.
5. Fracture (PS3) – Seth C.
6. Haze (PS3) – Lucas K.
7. FaceBreaker (360) – Eric L.
8. Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise (360) – Beth B.
9. Guild Wars: Platinum Edition (PC) – Lucas K., Robert K. and Leon D.
10. Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick – Perry P.
11. Logitech ClearChat Style Headset – Allison B.
12. Logitech Media Keyboard – Seth C.
13. GRAND PRIZE – Altec Lansing VS4121 Speakers – William D.

But wait… THERE’S MORE!! We have ONE MORE giveaway to do, this time, though, it’s a Twitter exclusive, so the only way to enter, and to gain more entries, is through the micro-blogging website Twitter!

Official Rules

• This giveaway is open to residents of the United States of America and Canada only.
• This giveaway begins on Friday, June 12, 2009 at 8:00:00 PM CST, and ends on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at 11:59:59 PM CST.

How To Enter

There are a few ways to gain entries into this contest, so read carefully! You do NOT need to do them all to gain entries, but the more you do, the more entries you get!

1. Send an Tweet to @nweasel with your answer to the following question: What restaurant did I have lunch at today? Hint: It is NOT your standard fast food restaurant, and it is NOT a sit-down restaurant. You may guess once per day. I will not tell you if you are right or wrong, so just guess away! If you ARE right, you gain an entry into the contest! TwitPic with the answer will come at the end of the contest!
2. ReTweet the following message – you may do this once per day to gain another entry, and, hey, you can spice up the RT if you want, it just needs to lead back to the website here! – RT @nweasel The Weasel Report is giving away a video game! Check them out at http://www.weaselreport.com/ ! RT for an entry!
3. Do something creative on Twitter about the Weasel Report, or me, that will amaze me or get my attention, and Tweet it to @nweasel. You may do this once per day, different things each day, and you get extra entries for the best ones!

Prize

But Weasel, what’s the prize?! Why, it’s Lips for the Xbox 360, with microphones!

That’s about all I have for you for the day. Winners will be chosen the same way that this giveaway was, and will be done on Wednesday, June 17, 2009. Winners will have to provide their address for shipping, of course. Questions can be sent via Twitter to @nweasel! Thanks everyone, and have a great night!

- It’s that time, time to giveaway massive amounts of games and computer prizes! We’re got a lot to give away, so please read the following closely.

Official Rules

1. This giveaway is open to residents of the United States of America and Canada only. 2. This giveaway begins on Wednesday, June [... Read more here]]]>

- It’s that time, time to giveaway massive amounts of games and computer prizes! We’re got a lot to give away, so please read the following closely.

Official Rules

1. This giveaway is open to residents of the United States of America and Canada only.
2. This giveaway begins on Wednesday, June 3, 2009 at 10:00:00 PM CST, and ends on Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 11:59:59 PM CST (extended 24 hours due to ISP issues).
3. You must be registered with the Weasel Report in order to be eligable.
4. There is no limit to the amount of prizes you can enter in to winning (due to this, you may win more than one prize).
5. Important Condition: At least TWO people must enter in to win a prize in order for it to be given away.

Note: Because of the Important Condition, you will want to help and spread the word on this competition. The reason behind adding this condition in is to make it so that one person does not win all of the prizes. You may spread word of this giveaway through e-mail, Twitter, Facebook or other methods.

- Alright, now that the technical stuff is out of the way, it’s time to get on to the fun stuff: the prizes, and how to get yourself in to win one of them.

How To Enter

1. Send an e-mail to prize [at] weaselreport.com with the Subject: Prize-0E3
2. Within the body of the e-mail, include the following information:

a. Your full name
b. Your favorite game shown at E3 this year
c. Which prize(s) you wish to win, from the following list:

1. LocoRoco 2 (PSP)
2. Buzz! Master Quiz (PSP)
3. MegaMan Maverick Hunter X (PSP)
4. Cabela’s Legendary Adventures (PSP)
5. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas (PSP)
6. Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (PS3)
7. Fracture (PS3)
8. Haze (PS3)
9. FaceBreaker (360)
10. NASCAR 09 (360)
11. Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise (360)
12. Guild Wars: Platinum Edition (PC) [four copies to give away]

13. Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick
14. Logitech ClearChat Style Headset
15. Logitech Media Keyboard

16. GRAND PRIZE – Altec Lansing VS4121 Speakers (MSRP USD$79.99)

- Is that enough for you? Remember to follow all of the rules above if you want to win, otherwise your entry will be thrown out! One more thing…

Choosing Winners

Winners will be chosen on Friday, June 12, 2009 and notified by e-mail within the next 24 hours. Winners will be chosen at random by hand by the owner of the Weasel Report (ever heard of paper and a hat?). Winners will need to provide a full address in order for your prize to be sent to you.

- I think that’s about everything there is to say. If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to prize [at] weaselreport.com with the Subject: Q: Prize-0E3, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Make sure to tell your friends and have them register to be able to enter! We’re happy to give this all away for you, so please feel free to enter!

It’s pretty obvious that in the current state of video games, the digital age has taken over. If you have any type of video game system, whether it be console or PC, and you are connected to the internet, then you have some way of being able to purchase full games, expansions or [... Read more here]]]>

It’s pretty obvious that in the current state of video games, the digital age has taken over. If you have any type of video game system, whether it be console or PC, and you are connected to the internet, then you have some way of being able to purchase full games, expansions or add-ons to your current games via some sort of digital service. With the PlayStation 3, it’s the PlayStation Network; with the Xbox 360, it’s the Xbox LIVE Marketplace; with the PC, it could be one of many various services including Steam, being the most popular. But, where is the line drawn for microtransactions? When is it that people will stop supporting a game because they’re just making all of these additions to their game in order to scam you for your money?

Every Thursday, Sony posts up their latest PlayStation Store Update on PlayStation.Blog, which contains information on every new downloadable content that was released on that day for that week. Looking deeper into it though, searching for something to that seems like it would be worth buying is becoming harder and harder every week. The biggest complaint I’ve been having lately is the price-versus-worth of the content that has been released in this week though. Some of the new releases are just attempts to milk money out of those poor souls who don’t feel like playing the game to unlock their content, and others could be worth it if they weren’t so expensive.

The first item on the list is the Killzone 2 Steel & Titanium Pack, which is Killzone 2′s first DLC, and contains two new maps for playing in multiplayer. The problem is, for only two maps, and no additional features, this will set you back $5.99. To me, that seems terribly expensive for only the addition of two new maps, while very creatively made and good looking, don’t provide enough content for me to justify shelling out that much money. The maps aren’t even that big, for that matter, as one takes place within the ISA airship, and the other takes place on two moving trains, neither with a terribly large amount of space, but with a unique environment to fight in. If this pack were something more along the lines of $3.99 at the very most, I might have considered purchasing this pack, since I love this game, but, I can’t see how this can be worth six dollars. I’ve always figured that with microtransactions, if you make it cheaper, you would be able to gain more of an audience to purchase this content, therefore being able to make more profit by selling more at a cheaper price instead of getting less downloads at a higher price. The one issue with this is that we will never know the stats on how many downloads on this pack that they are getting, but it would be interesting to know players’ stance on the price of this package.

Every week developers release new content such as new characters, accessories for your characters and other asthetic items for your game. LittleBigPlanet is one example of a game that has not stopped releasing new costumes for your character since the day they came out. But, the costumes are just that; costumes for your virtual character that you and anyone who you play with online will be able to see, but hold no value in changing any other part of the game, such as giving you an improved skill level in a certain in-game ability. This pack, weekly, costs $2.99, and the amount of these released has to be upwards in the twenties by this point. I can’t say that I know what type of player would purchase these packs on a weekly basis, but due to the fact that they are still making new costumes, and charging the same amount, must mean that it’s working for them.

Since day one, the creators of Need For Speed Undercover have released special packages that unlock cars, tune-up packages, body kits and other unlocks that can be acquired just by playing the game. This week, for the price of $4.99, players can now download every car that the bosses in the game use. Supposedly these cars are more powerful than the cars you would normally have, as they are driven by the bosses in the game, but really, all that you’re gaining is the ability to drive different cars and give yourself an edge in the game. In theory, this sounds great, but you’re spending more of your real money, on top of what you paid originally for the game, to be able to drive different cars and help you beat the game faster, reducing it’s value that it should have. Let’s be honest, if you bought all of these unlocks and the game had no challenge, what would be the point of spending the full price of $59.99 on it?

My kicker of the week comes from one of my favorite games that I own: Burnout Paradise. Last year, all of their content that they released was free, making the value of your game double at least. This year, though, they decided that they would release “premium content”, as they call it, requiring players to pay for their newest game types.  Unfortunately, their content has been lackluster, at best, only releasing different cars (which as spoken about before it’s enough), or new game types. Their newest game type, Cops and Robbers, was promoted heavily, and looked wonderful, but a price was never released until the release date. I was excited, thrilled even, to play a new, fun game mode in a game that had already proved itself worthy of being in my favorites list, but the price of this content changed my mind faster than I had gotten interested in it: $9.99. Burnout Paradise, on any system, can now be purchased as low as $19.99, and you’ll get more content with all of last year’s free releases than you know what to do with. This Cops and Robbers game mode is an online-only mini-game, which does NOT have enough content to be worth 50% of the game as it already is. Once again, at the very most, if it was $4.99, I would at least have considered it, but, with it’s current price, there is absolutely no justification for this price.

Ever since they began, I have not been excited for microtransactions. I’ve been afraid more times than I can count that developers would start releasing incomplete games and offer the rest of the features in a DLC package later on, and rip off the public. I haven’t been wrong in saying that, as there have been some games that have tried to do that, or, when rushed for a release date, they’ve just pushed back the features they wanted to release with the game and decide to charge for them later. But really, it’s this new wave of content that has been coming out in which they think that such a minimal feature, map pack or whatever it may be is really worth what they think it is. Especially with our current economic situation, I can’t see as many people paying an increasing amount for this content which, to be honest, really isn’t needed, but is nice to keep the game fresh and new.

I’m not sure how many of you have a YouTube account, or have been paying attention to anything that’s been going on over there, but a chain reaction has started that, frankly, I’m finding to be extremely disturbing, and greatly unnerving. First off, let me start with what we know.

For years, the issue [... Read more here]]]>

I’m not sure how many of you have a YouTube account, or have been paying attention to anything that’s been going on over there, but a chain reaction has started that, frankly, I’m finding to be extremely disturbing, and greatly unnerving. First off, let me start with what we know.

For years, the issue of copyright infringement has been a huge issue in the land of the Internet. That would pertain to anything, from written works such as what you’re reading right now, to works of art, videos, and music. If you’re in any kind of school right now, you’ll know first-hand about the issues of copyright, except in most cases, this is limited to papers and works of writing. Students have to cite their sources in Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), or whatever other acronym citation type, for their paper, or they are subject to getting a zero on their paper, or worse, being dropped from the class. While I agree that copyright infringement is a serious thing to be considerate about, and that the citation methods needed are a bit over the top, I fear that there is another copyright issue that is coming into play now that, frankly, I find absolutely ridiculous.

In 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was brought into effect, extending the reach of copyright to the Internet as well. And when it comes to the issue of music, and music streaming on the Internet, this has become outrageous. Recently, one of my videos that I uploaded to YouTube from the Race For The Cure in 2008 (video link), had it’s sound muted from playing due to the fact that it had the song Live Like You Were Dying by Tim McGraw playing in it’s background, stating that the song is owned by Warner Music Group (WMG), and that I do not have the proper permission to use the song. When reading further, YouTube shows reasons that are not valid in being able to use this music, and why. I found a few that stand out in a massive way.

• I own the CD / DVD or bought the song online.

Buying a song, CD, DVD, or other piece of media doesn’t give you authorization to post that content on YouTube. The content owner still has the right to choose where it is distributed.

• I gave credit in the description. Isn’t that enough?

No. Giving credit does not give you authorization to upload the content.

• I’m not selling my video or trying to make money.

Whether or not you benefit financially from using the content doesn’t matter. Unless you have permission from the owner, it’s not yours to use.

Let’s look past the laws for a second, and just think about this, because in a realistic point of view, there’s just something wrong with this. First of all, you’ve legally paid for the music, yes, and, I can understand how that isn’t a good enough reason yet. Looking further though, I am not claiming this song as my own in any way, this song is owned by their respective owner, and credit is given in the description. In the case of my video, I specifically put the following into it’s description literally ten months ago, when the audio was still working perfectly fine.

Music: Live Like You Were Dying by Tim McGraw (© CURB RECORDS)

By saying this, I’ve officially let anyone viewing the video, including the owner of the music themselves, that it is their property, and I am only using it to serve as, in this case, background music for a video that fits with this song perfectly, which brings me to the final point. Again, I understand the point of copyright laws, and that it IS their property, they created it, so they should receive money for the use of it outside of their control. But really, in 90% of these videos, especially in ones that you find on YouTube, they are solely there for the purpose of aiding make the video more whole. You are not using it to make a profit, or even any money at all. Branching off from this, I did some research into broadcasting music as well, because I’ve always been extremely interested in the streaming of music, as in a radio. This topic almost becomes very convoluted, and I happen to disagree with much of it, but, I won’t get ahead of myself. There are two main issues when it comes to streaming music through the Internet. First, in many cases, you need a license to be able to do so, and secondly, you need to pay royalties for each song that you play to that music label. On top of this, you must also comply to the DMCA, which when it comes to broadcasting, it downright stupid. The following are a few of the items involved in the DMCA for all online US broadcasters.

• In any three-hour period, you should not intentionally program more than three songs (and not more than two songs in a row) from the same recording; you should not intentionally program more than four songs (and not more than three songs in a row) from the same recording artist or anthology/box set.

• Rebroadcasts of programs can be performed at scheduled times three times in a two-week period (for programs of less than one hour) and four times (for programs of an hour or more).

• Do not publish advance program guides or use other means to pre-announce when particular sound recordings will be played. However, a webcaster may name one or two artists to illustrate the type of music on a particular channel; and, DJ “teaser” announcement using artists’ names are permitted, but only those that do not specify the time a song will be played.

These requirements leave me speechless. I honestly couldn’t even begin to see the justification in these in any way. I shouldn’t say that, because, I can understand how they wouldn’t want a DJ to play the same song multiple times, due to the fact that it would rack up some serious unstable royalty fees towards a certain label, but that still doesn’t explain anything about these. In addition to that, in 2007, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) increased rates for webcasters 300 to 1200 percent. Following this, many popular streaming music services, including AOL Radio, Yahoo! Radio and Pandora, have suffered greatly. Later in 2007, this rate was obviously fought by webcasters across the country, who formed a coalition called Savenetradio.org, and the Internet Radio Equality Act was brought into place. This forced a flat fee instead of a fee based on how many songs the station played. The fee came to either 0.33 cents ($0.0033) per hour of transmission, or 7.5 percent of the revenues brought in by the transmissions for that year. Following up on that information, here are some example rates before and after the rate change, using an example of fifteen songs for one hundred listeners each hour.

Copyright Royalty Board rates
2009: $23652 ($.0018/song * 15 songs/hour * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year * 100 average listeners/hour)

Internet Radio Equality Act rates
$2890.80 ($.0033/hour * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year * 100 average listeners/hour)

As you can see, it’s a massive change in the rates, and one that will save many streaming radio stations to come. For a small broadcaster, this would come to approximately $240.90 per month. Unfortunately, reading up on all of this hasn’t explained to me if this is the full fees that a broadcaster would be paying, or if there are still some hidden fees not included in these that must be paid as well. Either way, it can be a lot for a non-profit webmaster. Stopping and taking a look at the big picture though, I have many arguments towards the handling of internet radio broadcasting.

• The broadcaster paid for the music they are broadcasting, so the record labels already have been paid once to begin with.
• Anyone can make a burned mix CD and, technically, that is legal, so what is the difference with letting your friends hear music over the Internet.
• Technically, you are doing nothing but streaming the music, so you are not sharing the music for download in any way at all.
• By playing an artists music, you are, in the end, doing nothing but promoting them, and listeners will be more swayed to purchasing the song themselves if they like it, but without hearing it in the first place, they’ll never even consider to purchase it at all.
• Many small broadcasters, 100-150 listeners, are completely non-profit, they aren’t making money off of playing someone’s music.

Obviously, my realistic points fall on deaf ears, as, chances are, they wouldn’t fly in a court of law, but, let’s be honest, as a human being, can you not see the point in all of this, in a most obvious way? My fears go a little deeper than just broadcasters though. Moving back to the original thought of music in general, I wonder when this will hit the school-wide level. With copyright infringement becoming such a major issue, I wonder when it is that no one will be allowed to use any works that aren’t theirs period, no matter the circumstance. Basically, standing back and looking at the full issue here, copyrights have become out of control, as humans are greedy, and looking for nothing but money in their lives. I refuse to give in to such rash ideas that our government has provided for us, and will always keep a realistic eye to things like these, because really, there becomes a point where having a heart, mind, soul and common sense just seems to disappear in our world.

A debate has been raging on what kind of MMOs are best – Free to Play or Pay to Play. On February 24th, I was given the honor of sitting in on Xfire’s Debate Club as we spoke and debated about which MMOs are the best between those two choices. Before one can [... Read more here]]]>

A debate has been raging on what kind of MMOs are best – Free to Play or Pay to Play. On February 24th, I was given the honor of sitting in on Xfire’s Debate Club as we spoke and debated about which MMOs are the best between those two choices. Before one can even begin debating over such a thing, the definitions of “Free to Play” and “Pay to Play” need to be established. I can see conflicting definitions being given for these, though, as I could almost find a third type of MMO to add to these.

Free 2 Play – When I think of this type, I figure it’s one of those games that you can find on the internet, download a client, and just jump in and play, no strings attached. But I also wonder where the fine line is drawn between this and a game such as Guild Wars, where you pay to purchase the game, but playing from then on is subscription-free. Technically, this is where I find a third catagory could be added, although, the only title I could think to come up with for this would be “Pay 2 Buy“. Getting even more technical, Guild Wars is actually a CORPG, so while it is an online role playing game just like any of the others, it CAN be played, and beaten, by playing on your own. The one issue with that though is that you still require an internet connection, as Guild Wars is still an online game no matter how you play it. Wikipedia agrees: “Free-to-play… refers to any game that has an option of allowing its players to play without paying.”.

Pay 2 Play – This type of MMO is obvious, as most of the major mainstream MMOs use this methodology to maintain their game. Pay to play basically refers to the fact that the player must pay a monthly subscription fee in order to continue to access the game. Many popular MMOs such as World of Warcraft and EVE Online have adopted this technique, and have been very successful in doing so. Usually this subscription is around $15 per month, and rarely do you see a game deviate from this, as it has become such a norm in the gaming world. Once again, Wikipedia agrees: “[Pay to Play] refers to MMORPG games, where players must pay to maintain a playing account…”.

On the main page of the debate, Xfire provided some sample questions that I thought I would begin by answering. These are pretty simple and non-complex questions, but are still interesting questions that can bring in some heavy debate depending on the player.

• Free sounds good, but what are the trade-offs?

Of course, free sounds good to anyone, but does that mean you’re going to get the best product? Many will argue that you can still get a great game even if you don’t have to pay for it. First off, I’ll admit, I don’t play any of the free games, so I don’t have a whole ton of experience with them, but that’s just because I’ve seen such a similar aspect in most, if not all of them. Many of the free games that I’ve seen are adventure games, in which you create a character, adventure in the world, kill monsters, etc. They don’t have as much of a budget as a pay-to-play game can afford with the income that they will make, so they are forced to start out with a limited amount of assests. One thing that I’ve noticed though, that tends to upset me when it comes to free-to-play games, is the fact that they have to use microtransactions to make their money. While players can decide just to not pay for anything, there are some MMOs that will give you better gear, or a leg up on other players, just for spending some real money on an item that they are selling. Especially if this is an adventure-type game, and there is PvP involved, this can greatly skew and ruin the gameplay factor for those players who decide not to spend the money on any of the premium items. After all of this though, it’s these microtransactions that help drive the game and keep it alive in the first place. There are some free-to-play games that, if made by a big enough company, will already have a sustaining budget put into place before hand, but others, especially start-ups, will require a member base who are willing to pay for this extra content. Since players are not paying to play the game in the first place, they require some kind of income in order to continue service, in most cases. Unfortunately, they are still running on a specific budget, as much of their income must stay in upkeep of the servers, followed afterwards by making improvements and additions to the current state of the game.

• Does quality or quantity matter more?

First of all, it’s good to clarify what they could mean by this. I am going to assume that by quantity, they mean the amount of content and/or the amount of expansions that they create for their game. I would believe that the definition of quality is quite straight forward. Many people would probably argue that if you’re paying to play a game, then it had better have the best of both worlds, quantity and quality. I tend to agree with that, but at the same time, must over on one point. If a game, either free or subscription, doesn’t have quality to it, then it won’t be worth playing even if you don’t have to pay for it. The difference is that a subscription-based game gains more income, and therefore has more resources to create more for the game. Of course, there are loopholes to every aspect of game design. Just because a game is free doesn’t necessarily mean that it suffers from a lack of income. Many companies, to get started, get funding from an external source, who are willing to invest their money upon this game in order to hopefully pull a profit in the future. And using the microtransactions stated above, it can aid them in reaching that goal. None the less, the main point remains: without a quality game, players will not play the game. While expansions to the game could help in improving that, it shouldn’t be a game developers goal to make the game better, or even playable, in the future, but rather to do it right the first time.

• Is one business model more sustainable than the other?

I believe most will agree with me when I say that companies gain more income with the pay-to-play model than the free-to-play model, but that’s also a double-edged sword. And even the double-edged sword is double-edge on each side. Before I try to confuse you anymore than I may have already confused myself, let’s look further into this. With the current state of the economy, people are more reluctant to spend their money for leisure items, for example video games. On that same note, people have been known to not leave the house as much because they don’t want to spend as much money going out, so instead, sales for movies and video games has gone up significantly in the past year. This can easily include MMOs which you pay per month for, as it’s cheaper than going out and purchasing a single-player game off the shelf which could only have a life of one week of play time. Free-to-play games aren’t affected by this either way, except for the fact that there is a possibility that there will be more people converting over to them to save themselves even more money, but still get their same sense of enjoyment that they get out of video games. Yet in most cases, free-to-play games are more geared towards a different audience than subscription-based games are. Looking at the demographic for a game such as RuneScape, they aim for children and young teens, aged 12-15+. Kids this age aren’t able to pay for a game anyways, unless they have parents who are willing to cough up some money for them, so they won’t affect the market difference anyways. But if the game is more aimed towards people of that age, chances are the more hardcore game player won’t be interested in leaving their pay-to-play game, even if it does cost them $15 a month, and if they do, it’s doubtful they would start playing a free game because of it.

• With Free 2 Play games becoming such a driving force, where do you see MMOs going in general?

This question makes me think for a second, because I guess I just don’t see how free-to-play MMOs are changing anything in the MMO market today. As I said before, I tend not to pay much attention to the free MMOs, for many reasons. I don’t have the time to get myself into another MMO in the first place, as well as I’m not interested in all of the microtransactions that could take place in order to experience more of the game. Looking at most of the free MMOs, I see them being the typical fantasy-based, create-a-character, go adventure, slay monsters, get loot, PvP, same old same old. You just don’t see many different kinds of MMOs out there, unless you delve into the pay-to-play range. While not all of them were necessarily successful, games like Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, EVE Online, and more unique MMOs have come out of companies looking for something more to bring to the table, but since these are all risks, and as I said, not all of them were necessarily successful, they at least made enough back to be able to say that they tried. I feel that game developers for the free-based games are a little more skeptical of breaking off from the norm, as they fear that they won’t be able to reach enough of a market to make their investment worth it. Also, if you have an idea as gradious at that point, then why not bring it up to a level where you would be able to make more of a profit in the first place. It’s pretty obvious that the MMO market right now is cornered to the select few that everyone knows about, such as Runescape and World of Warcraft, so it’s an interesting thought when another MMO hits the market. Sadly, nothing has been able to make quite the dent that they would be looking for, and so the market stays as stagnant as it always has been in the past.

During the debate there were some interesting questions brought up as well. I want to highlight a few in the following section.

• It seems as though fantasy MMO’s are a dime a dozen, can any of you tell the difference between them?

While most of the guests said that they could tell a difference, one of the main points that they brought up that was the biggest difference of them all was the community, and I happen to agree, but not just as a difference between fantasy MMOs. I feel that the community of an MMO really helps make the game, because without a good strong, caring community, you don’t have a game. And every game has a different type of community that they strive for. I find that EVE Online has one of the more unique types of communities out there right now. Not only does EVE Online have a fully functional forum system, a very deep and intuitive Corporation system, and an in-working and growing wiki system, but they also try to get their community involved in many other ways. CCP Games, developers of EVE Online, have teams of players that they have which serve many different functions within the world of EVE Online, and not just in gameplay. One team is focused on helping new players out to help in learning the game, while another is used to create the in-game lore and press releases that you see every day when you log in. I find that this is a very unique way of keeping the players themselves immersed in the world and creating a more unique community that new players may want to join. Then again, this is getting off of the question of fantasy MMOs, but, I’ve found that the community of any MMO is a little bit more important than it’s genre you’re looking at.

• Currently all of the top F2P games are made in Asia. Do you think that this hinders their perceived quality?

The resounding answer was no within the guests of the debate, but also they brought up another issue with these games. Localization with these games has been a big issue with bringing these games over from Asia to the Western audience, but also, these developers are looking to make games that are just plain and simple different than what players over here are looking for. Players in the Eastern region play their MMOs differently than we do over in the West, and the developers of these free-to-play games aren’t looking to appease to us, they are just looking to give us a chance to play their game as well, and if it clicks over here, then they gain another audience group to play their game, and hopefully increase their income. But again, their focus is not on players over in the Western regions, so when players like us look at the quality of the games, we consider them to be something less than what we may be interested in playing. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the game isn’t good, or isn’t popular, it just isn’t something that’s catching in our region of the world. Which brings me also to think and wonder if more of the free-to-play games are, in general, aimed towards players in Asia altogether. Personally, I feel that, overall, online gaming is a bit more popular in the Asian region to begin with, whether it be in the MMO fashion, or in just the multiplayer spectrum, such as with RTS’.

• What do Pay 2 Play games have that makes them worth the $15 a month?

This just seems obvious to me, but it’s also obvious that developers of free-to-play games disagree. With subscription-based games, developers have more of an idea how much income they’re planning on bringing in. Yes, players can decide to stop paying for the game after their monthly cycle is up, but at that point the money is already into the account and can be projected towards a future content release. On the other hand, the amount of players in a free-to-play game cannot necessarily project the amount of income that they could make if each player decides that they want to pay for extra content for their game. There is more of a choice when it comes to free-to-play games for the player on if they are willing to pay anything, and if the player is tight on funds, they can easily decide to not pay for any extra features in the game and still be able to play the game. Following up with earlier though, to my observation, pay-to-play games have a much higher rate of expansions or new features and content compared to free-to-play games, as they must wait longer to get the funds needed to produce newer content. As the MMO market shifts though, this trend could easily change, but at the current moment, it looks much more like pay-to-play games have the upper hand.

• With WoW being the market leader in Pay 2 Play MMOs, with no intention of budging from the top, are companies changing their strategies when it comes to monetizing their games?

It’s interesting, because, as stated in the debate, the leading industry standard in the monthly rates for pay-to-play MMOs is $15 a month, which was started by World of Warcraft, and pretty much kept throughout most, if not all new MMOs, because it’s a rate that people know by now. But many games now are also working with new ideas to try and make it easier on players, though, I would really be interested in seeing how many people actually go for it. Using Lord of the Rings Online as the example, they’ve started a new system in which a player can spend $299 in order to purchase a lifetime membership to their game. Basically, it’s as straight forward as it sounds. You pay this one time fee, and you never have to pay to play the game ever again, for as long as the game exists of course. As I said before, I’d be interested to see how many people actually go for this idea. While it’s something new that not many companies are trying right now, it’s a hefty fee to be paying straight up, and would require you to play at least two years of the game to make it worth your money, if you use their 12-month subscription price. For myself, I couldn’t see myself spending that kind of money for any kind of game like that. If I wanted a game that I could play online for that amount of time, I would look into purchasing an FPS of some sort that has a free online multiplayer mode. Still, it’s something different, and I wonder if it’s something successful or not. No matter, the option is there, and it isn’t hurting the income of them even if no one is using it, and more than likely, those that do decide to use that option won’t be playing for two years straight, or at least, one would assume they wouldn’t.

• Right now F2P games skew a bit younger with the demographic. Why do you think this is? Do you think that as time goes on the users play F2P now will continue playing F2P as they get older, or will they migrate to Pay 2 Play games?

Finding the main answer to this is simple: the younger game players do not have access to a credit card as easily as someone who is older. As they get older though, their options will open up, and if they want to continue to pursue the hardcore MMO playing, then they will upgrade themselves to the pay-to-play model in the future. But I highly doubt that as the player gets older that they will continue to play the free-to-play games, as usually they are geared towards those with a tighter income or harder way of using it than those with the means to pay for something a little more easily. Also, thinking back to earlier, finding the right free-to-play game to hit the older demographic isn’t as widely found as it is for the younger ones. None the less, there will always be those who will stay with their free-to-play MMOs simply because of the fact that, well, who doesn’t like the idea of “free”?

• Which model is better suited to last the test of time in gaming trends?
• Is there any business model for games out there that you think could work better than F2P or Subscription?

I’ve grouped these two together because they kind of go hand-in-hand with each other. I’ll start by saying, though, that there is no way of knowing which business model will be better suited to last longer. While there is a better chance that games with a pay-to-play model have more of a risk because if the players stop paying, their primary source of incomes becomes compromised, as long as they continue to provide new content for players to keep wanting to play, then I see no issue with this coming into play. On the other hand, with free-to-play games, I see this as an easier market to get in to for developers. Most of the time the free-to-play MMOs do not contain as much content as the pay-to-play games do, at least for the non-paying players, so they develop their games on a different scale than the bigger publishers. This really shows us that each model can be successful in their own way, but only if the developer correctly markets their game towards the right audience. Moving on to the second question though brings back the idea of the lifetime accounts, or alternative ways of payment. Major retailers can carry game-time cards, and some such as Target carry a wide variety of them for more of the free-to-play games that have items you can purchase within them. A few of the guests in the debate also mentioned cell phones being used to pay for items as well. I can see how creating a mobile-specific method could be of use, but I just don’t see how that would be any different from just going online and submitting your payment there. Either way you do it, you’d have to be using your credit card, unless you’re planning on having the player purchase game-time cards and entering the code on to your cell phone. That method does work, but usually if the person has a cell phone, and is playing an MMO, then it’s more than likely that they will have an internet connection as well, rendering this to be more of a useless step in my opinion. Other than the current models out there, the only other way I could see publishers trying to change up the market would be to charge less (i.e. $10/month) in order to bring more players in, but once again, that would hinder the company’s income slightly, unless they have planned their budget well in advance.

Overall, the main question could be concluded by asking which is better: Free To Play or Pay To Play. I’m not going to answer that question because, well, both of them have their own unique and excellent characteristics about them.  Personally, I play pay-to-play, and will continue to play them for the near future, but I can’t deny that I’ve dabbled in the free-to-play spectrum, as some of them are actually quite interesting. Do you have opinions about anything you’ve read today? If so, please do not hesitate to register for the Weasel Report and leave a comment in the comments section. And do check back as myself, and hopefully others, will be posting their opinions as well. I’d like to have some good discussions about this, as I did on debate night, so I hope to speak with you all soon. Until then, thank you for reading, and have a great evening!

Linked below are the official transcripts from the debate:
Main Floor Transcript
Open Debate Transcript – I am Weasel (nweasel)

Four days ago, I started a series of posts called “Evolution of the MMO”. Originally, the plan was to write a few more in the following days. Instead, good news hit, and here I am now, about to give out the main secret project that we here at the Weasel Report have been [... Read more here]]]>

Four days ago, I started a series of posts called “Evolution of the MMO”. Originally, the plan was to write a few more in the following days. Instead, good news hit, and here I am now, about to give out the main secret project that we here at the Weasel Report have been waiting for for many many months.

We got a hardware upgrade.

And not just a small hardware upgrade, mind you. Originally, the main computer I used was an HP pre-built 32-bit Vista, 2 GB RAM and single Intel Pentium 4 3.00 GHz processor, with a System Rating of 2.4. The “System Rating” is a new thing that Vista began, called the “Windows Experience Index”. This score rating is based off of five main components of your computer: Processor, Memory (RAM), Graphics, Gaming graphics, and Primary hard disk. On that old computer, the scores were absolutely terrible, with only one stat making it over 4.4. Now, well, just look at the picture provided by Xfire on my rig.

As you can see, I’ve gotten quite the upgrade. My current System Rating is 4.5, and the only reason for that is because I only have 4 GB of RAM in my computer. You’re probably asking, “ONLY?!”, but the reasoning behind that is because my motherboard can carry up to 8 GB, which I will be adding in within the next few weeks, without a doubt. Graphics-wise, my scores are upwards of 6, and playing around with games such as World in Conflict, Guild Wars, and EVE Online; and programs such as Opera, KeyHole TV, and GIMP, this computer has no lag whatsoever, and also can run multiple of these programs at the same time without any issues in any way.

Let’s just put it this way, I’ve never had a computer this powerful before, so I’m still getting used to the fact that I can do pretty much anything without any trouble whatsoever. With this new technology, I’ve found that I can stream my video game playing LIVE on Xfire’s website, as well as, if I wanted to, I could also do the same through any popular webcam website. This is opening up many opportunities for us to come up with new and unique ideas for things we could create, and we have many ideas as it is.

I’m not trying to make excuses [or am I?], but I’ve been quite busy lately, not only with setting up my computer computer to be the ultimate piece of Hardware!, but also with school and work. I’m going to make a bit more of an effort to write more over the course of this following week, so definitely don’t feel that I’ve abandoned you all. And don’t forget, you can chat with me anytime I’m logged online using the Digbsy chat box to the left of the website! Also, keep checking back for updated pages, as well as a few new ones hopefully, coming soon! Priorities, though, must take… well, priority, haha. Thanks for reading, hope you’re having a great weekend!

Life can become so hectic and busy sometimes, it’s just crazy when I have a spare moment to be able to sit down and enjoy the time that I have. Being an MMO player, a retail employee, a college student, a webmaster, and a blogger can be a lot. But in the end, [... Read more here]]]>

Life can become so hectic and busy sometimes, it’s just crazy when I have a spare moment to be able to sit down and enjoy the time that I have. Being an MMO player, a retail employee, a college student, a webmaster, and a blogger can be a lot. But in the end, it’s those small free times that really make it all worth it. I hate to burst your bubble though, but this entry is going to be about video games! Have you seen what’s coming out in the next few months? If you haven’t picked up or pre-ordered some of these games, you really need to.

But first, do you have a PlayStation 3? Are you interested in one? Is it just too expensive for you? For most people, the hefty $399-499 price tag turns a lot of people away from getting themselves one of Sony‘s newest console, but rumor continues to go around of them dropping the price. For most major companies, the end of the financial year is either at the beginning or end of the month of February, meaning this is when they figure out how their last year of sales went, and what they should do to make this year’s better. The interesting thing is, while Sony is still losing money on each system that they make, they’re getting closer every day due to how they make them. Compared to the original PlayStation 3′s, Sony uses over 1,000 less components to create their system, and it costs them nearly $250 less to produce one. I have a feeling that if they continue to be able to drop the price of their system just a little more, they might consider another $50, even $100 price drop within the next year. And with E3 right around the corner, it’s completely a toss-up of what they might have to surprise us this year.

Speaking of the PlayStation 3, in less than 24 days, the next big exclusive made by Guerrilla is set to release. Killzone 2, what I am considering to be the next best shooter since Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, is set to come out on February 27, 2009. I got the chance to play with the Beta late last year, and I was happily surprised by what I played. While just a small portion of the game, it takes off a similar system of gaining experience as did Call of Duty, as well as makes for easy quick joining of games with people who are of similar skill levels, similar to Halo‘s matchmaking feature. Watching some single-player footage as well, this game looks to be a force to reckon with in the year of 2009. More coverage can be found here on the Weasel Report in March!

Can you tell I love my PlayStation 3? Anyone interested in importing a brand new PlayStation 3 from Japan? If so, you should definately consider getting this very sleek looking bundle that Sony is releasing at the end of this month. Coming bundled with the new Yakuza 3 game, this all new white PlayStation 3, with white controller and beautiful dragon decal will drop at a hefty USD$495. Still, in my opinion this limited edition PlayStation 3 looks just a bit better than the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Gunmetal PS3…

If you have any kind of next-gen system, and are of legal age, you must have already heard about the huge new shooter coming on March 13th… that’s a Friday folks. Resident Evil 5 will be hitting store shelves in a little over a month, but first, you can head to your console’s store and download the demo for it right away. This game will feature full co-op, online and off, and really beautiful, disgusting graphics. Resident Evil 5 is rated Mature for a reason, and follows through on that. Also, if you’re in for a little more from the series, a CG-movie was created just a few months ago called Resident Evil: Degeneration, and it was released on DVD and Blu-Ray. Compared to the live action movies, there is a little more fan service from the game series in this one, as well as they are able to do a little bit more when you consider that this is all CG. This game has also hit my pre-order list, and there’ll be much more to say about it in March, but for now, I need to play the demo that I installed. I should get my impressions up on that later this week, and maybe the movie too… ahem, sorry, talking to myself!

Not to be left out as well, another Mature rated game, which seems to really round out many of the highest-end games in the beginning of this year, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin makes it’s way out on the major consoles as well. Please don’t forget, this game was directed by the director of many major horror films in Japan, so this game IS scary. At least, to me it is. So far, word over the grapevine says that this game is good, and PlayStation® The Official Magazine gave it a 4 out of 5 stars. Personally, I was a huge fan more of the PC multiplayer game, F.E.A.R. Combat than I was of the actual game, but none the less, if you’re into a good horror game, this game is a must-buy.

As you can see, there are a lot of great games coming out in the next few months! Usually the beginning of the year is kind of slow when it comes to the gaming industry, as most major companies get their games out for the Q4 Holiday season. I think this line-up is a pretty good one for the start of the year, and while we aren’t see a whole ton more, it always picks up around mid-year, especially with E3 looming only months away. More coverage on E3 will come soon as well, but check back to last year‘s coverage to see the kind of stuff to look for! Thanks for reading, and check back often for more!

Report: Updated Video Games – Added Virtua Fighter 5 & Mercenaries 2: World in Flames