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PMOG Launches — With An Om Award!

Wagner James Au, Monday, May 12, 2008 at 10:19 AM PT Comments (4)

A few months ago we made note of the public beta of GameLayers’ Passively Multiplayer Online Game, the immensely clever MMO that turns web browsing into a game. Now with 20,000 registered beta users, it’s finally open for public play — go here to check it out.
It debuts with a cool kicker: [...]

RealNetworks’ Games Division Going Solo

Wagner James Au, Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 5:00 PM PT Comments (1)

The casual games space keeps getting more interesting. Digital media company RealNetworks said today that revenue from its games division rose 33 percent in the first quarter, to $31.8 million; the company also announced it will spin off its games properties, which primarily consists of cellphone titles and its RealArcade casual game site, into a [...]

World Of CEO-craft

Wagner James Au, Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 1:36 PM PT Comments (6)

The best sign that someone’s qualified to run an Internet startup may not be an MBA degree, but level 70 guild leader status, according to the latest issue of Harvard Business Review.
“Leadership’s Online Labs” by Byron Reeves, Thomas W. Malone, and Tony O’Driscoll is based on the authors’ research into the leadership [...]

Cash-flush Kongregate Adds Facebook Widget

Wagner James Au, Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 1:09 PM PT Comments (3)

Finally, another game widget worth adding next to Scrabulous. Last week came news that Jeff Bezos invested $3 million in casual game site Kongregate; I just noticed that CEO Jim Greer and his team have added a Kongregate Facebook widget to their service, too.

Can Grand Theft Auto IV Defeat “Iron Man”?

Wagner James Au, Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 9:00 AM PT Comments (24)

Update, May 4: Can Grand Theft Auto IV defeat “Iron Man”? The weekend box office results are in, and as I predicted yesterday, the answer to that question is a resounding “No”. In its first weekend, “Iron Man” grossed $100 million, far more than industry expectations (and mine), which pegged it at $70-80 [...]

What’s Nintendo Doing in Second Life?

Wagner James Au, Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 12:31 PM PT Comments (17)

Here’s the metaverse mystery of the week: This strange new private island with a very familiar name recently emerged on the server grid of virtual world Second Life. Spotted yesterday by Second Life blogger Tateru Nino (and confirmed when I checked the world’s dynamic map today), we have to assume it’s an official Nintendo [...]

Will Gamers Pay For Optimized Connectivity?

Wagner James Au, Monday, April 21, 2008 at 4:13 PM PT Comments (7)

GameRail, a startup purporting to optimize latency for gamers, has closed up shop. An announcement posted on the company web site says that: “[T]he market does not appear to be ready to support a standalone network for gaming at this time.”
I never had a chance to check out the service, though early [...]

Apple Store To Go Virtual?

Wagner James Au, Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 12:51 PM PT Comments (28)

Apple Store To Go Virtual? That’s the theory of MacNN, at least, citing an Apple patent application published on the US government site last Thursday, somewhat obscurely entitled “Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere”.
The patent application’s stated goal is to create an online shopping experience that doesn’t feel “sterile and isolating” like a traditional retail [...]

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