Back in April, Oklahoma City Community College held its second annual Oklahoma Electronic Game Expo. One of the best things going for it besides the tournament hosted by Okgamers.com and Hardcore Lan Center, or the ECA booth (shameless self plug there), was the booth for Game Equals Life and their upcoming game The Magi and the Sleeping Star.

In a recent press release (Meaning, sent out a month ago. Yes I am slow on the draw.), they discussed the purposes behind the game:

Using a classic adventure game structure, MSS will teach players about appropriate diabetes management and offer ongoing advice on how to best balance blood sugar throughout the game’s adventure. MSS aims to help people with diabetes understand the core principals of good diabetes management and consistently reinforce the implementation of these principals in their daily lives.

The consequences of handling your diabetes improperly are tied directly to the player’s ability to use all the hero’s magic in the game:

When the player’s blood sugar is too high or low, his powers are reduced or even nullified. This makes it impossible for the player to achieve victory until his blood sugar returns to a healthy level. Players are even rewarded with increased power when blood sugar is kept at ideal levels. Players must test blood sugar, choose healthy food, count carbohydrates and deliver appropriate amounts of insulin. This teaches the players to take full responsibility for diabetes management and puts them in a position to deal with its real-time affects in exciting gameplay situations.

I love this concept. Managing the diabetes of the hero means he can act in his full role as a Magi and save the world. This is a great way of teaching kids the importance of proper diabetes management in a fun and exciting way. It does not strive to show that managing your diabetes will give you power, but that it will allow you to access that power and those skills you already have.

Although the game is only in the prototype stage, it already looks fun and polished. It is not really what most people would consider educational or serious. I think that was the main goal the designers were striving toward. Many games based on serious or educational subjects are made with limited budgets and lack polish. This is not one of those.

The currently have two promotional videos on the site. The first is the preview trailer with shots of several enemies and some action. The second is a video depicting the legend of the Magi. Both are great to watch and show what this studio is capable of doing.

Currently GEL is looking for a publisher, so no release date or pricing is available. Those interested will find a newsletter subscription on the Magi site as well as news updates and videos. This is certainly one game I wil lbe watching and will look forward to playing when it is finally released. I hope for the best for this company and am proud to have this kind of talent based here in Oklahoma.

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Also announced is that Rockstar plans to release Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City,  a disc based retail compilation of the two episodes: The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony.  GTA: Episodes from Liberty City will be on store shelves for the Xbox 360 this fall for a mere $39.99 and will not require a copy of the original Grand Theft Auto IV to play.

The Ballad of Gay Tony will release on Xbox LIVE this fall for $19.99 or 1600 MS points and requires players to have Grand Theft Auto IV for Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE membership to download.

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“Tony Hawk: RIDE is a massive step forward for the franchise and the gaming industry as a whole,” said Rob Kostich, head of marketing, global brand management, Activision Publishing, Inc. “The skateboard controller will redefine sports games by offering players a true skateboarding experience, hands-free, playing with friends and family at home or online in a variety of different locations.”

Tony Hawk: RIDE is set to release on the PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360 and Wii later this year.

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Back on February 2, he announced his intent to retire to pursue other endeavors:

It has been a wonderfully rewarding and stimulating 8+ years that I’ve served the IGDA, and it is now time for me to go.

He then assured everyone that he would stick around long enough to get GDC done with.

At GDC he took the opportunity during the GDC Rant session to give his final address. He expressed his lament that he was unable to motivate enough of the members  of the IGDA to action. He lamented that he was unable to get those who would complain to actually do something about it.

Sorry for not having the leadership skills to beat the barriers of participation inequality. Less than 1% of the IGDA membership are truly active in driving the org forward. Sorry for not doing a better job building up a strong pipeline of community leaders and volunteers. Sorry for not overcoming your general apathy and laziness.

Sorry for not doing a better job of roping in all the snipers from the sidelines. Turns out you are all pretty damn good at bitching and complaining and being critical. But then you don’t actually do anything about it and you don’t get involved. Sorry for not bringing critics under the tent and getting them to work at improving things.

…

Most of all, sorry for not doing more to help you realize your power! Both, collectively as a profession to tackle industry issues, and as creators of culture. You are all having a massive impact on society. You are transforming the world day-by-day without even realizing it.

Oh well, f*** you, it’s not my job anymore!

A little harsh there at the end, but it was all in the spirit of the rant.

I asked Hal Halpin, the President of the ECA and a person in a similar position, for his thoughts on Jason’s departure and rant. Of Jason’s departure he said:

The departure of Jason Della Rocca from his post as head of the IGDA isn’t just a loss for the association, it’s a loss for the sector as a whole. I am honored and privileged to have worked with him and can’t say enough about his tireless efforts and steadfast dedication to his members. I wish him luck in his new career and believe that we all owe him a debt of gratitude for the change that he was able to foster, the fruits of which we all enjoy.

As for Jason’s rant, Hal was able not only show empathy but also put the remarks into perspective:

As for his closing remarks, I think they need to be read in context. Attending a GDC rant is an experience unlike any other. They don’t call rants ‘speeches’ for a reason; they’re meant to be in your face, tough-love, venting and motivational. Done well, they can be very effective, physically-involved for the ‘rantor’ and entertaining – oftentimes employing imagery to punctuate moments intended to be funny or offensive, which you won’t appreciate in a text-only rendition.

With regard to ‘feeling his pain’ about apathy, I think it’s important to appreciate perspective. In the last org I ran, we too had a narrow set of concerns that were really important. In that framework, applied to individuals as opposed to companies, it’s hard to appreciate what the masses – in his case 15,000 – will also feel is important. In the trenches, you know it’s impactful. Outside of them you’re less focused. With ECA, we’re fortunate to be tackling a lot of issues – so members joining for the affinity benefits, who may not normally become engaged in policy, are more likely to find one that really appeals to them. IGDA is pretty typical in that it’s a 501(c)(6) trade association, not a union… like the PBA, for instance. You can be a game developer without being a member. So the challenge is to convey how significant the opportunities and obstacles are, why folks should join and create ways for them to get engaged.

As for me, I will miss Jason and his leadership. Although I have never been a paying member of the IGDA, I have always been active in any way I can to move gaming forward. I currently run the Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA and much as Jason expressed, I am frustrated by how hard it is to get people active in the work we represent.

I would like to take this time to express myself and call out to all the gamers. Don’t let the efforts of fine men like Jason and Hal to be in vain. Get involved in their efforts. Those of you who like to play games, get involved in the work of the ECA. Gaming is far from being a natural part of human entertainment. There are many out there who would like to see it relegated to solely a child’s toy. There are many out there that are unwilling to take responsibility for themselves. They would much rather blame retailers and the games industry for the content they brought into their home.

There is a lot of work to do, and you can be the one to help. Take what has been expressed by Jason and Hal to heart and get involved. It’s too easy to just sit back and let others do it. It is, however, much more rewarding to know it was you and your effort that brought about change.

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This conference took place in four parts. The first part of the conference covered basic facts of DRM and how it effects consumers. The second part discussed the legal matters revolving DRM. Part three held discussions on the potential benefits and complications that arise from DRM. Panel four debated on the need to better standardize the process of disclosure of DRM. Finally, panel five held discussions on rising technologies and marketplaces.

From this conference two things were made clear, consumers need more information when it comes to what DRM the products they purchase have as well as what impact they will have and consumers need better protection from DRM that fails them either through technical or commercial problems.

Panel one started off with a brief recap of the Sony Rootkit fiasco. Sony BMG had implemented a CD copy protection scheme that when a CD was inserted into a computer drive it immediately installed DRM that not only prevented the user from copying the CD but also disabled applications and hardware that the consumer used. The DRM also gleaned some private information from the user’s computer and sent it back to Sony. The FTC then took legal action against Sony for this and now Sony is required to disclose all DRM they use on their products.

A lesson to be taken from the Sony case is that sellers who use DRM technology to enforce the terms of bargains with consumers need to be particularly careful to disclose in advance all material terms so that consumers can make informed choices. As FTC Commissioner Thomas Rush (ph) said when speaking about DRM back in March of 2007, any material limitations on use rights including, but not limited to technological limitations such as an inability to use the media on another platform must be clearly and conspicuously disclosed before a sale of those media is made.

The rest of the panel was spent discussing how important it is to disclose the use of DRM to consumers. Of course not everyone was in agreement that businesses should disclose DRM. Fritz Attaway from the MPAA felt that the current marketplace provides adequate information and protection for consumers:

But the need to inform consumers must be balanced with the goals of standing consumer choices and encouraging technological innovation. As DRM technology becomes more and more sophisticated and brings more and more choices to consumers, asking a fully informed consumers how that technology works becomes more challenging. For the most part, I think the marketplace will ensure that consumers are not deceived. Business models that do not deliver the product or service offered consumers and that consumers expect will fail. One of the good things about the age of viewing abundance is that consumers that are dissatisfied with any particular viewing option, can turn to other options that provide greater satisfaction.

Jason Schultz of Berkeley Law School made the observation that it is often not clear what impact DRM has even to the most educated of consumers. To illustrate this point he shared the experience of two prominent world leaders:

Maybe some of you have saw the recent story about our president giving the gift to the head of the British government, a series of DVDs that would not play on the region player in that country, will see that even the smartest among us would have some understandings about these things. I’m not saying that’s an empirical study, but that’s an interesting anecdote when the heads of states who are trying to solve all of our world’s problems don’t actually understand the limitations on their DVDs.

Is there any hope for the lay people among us?

Panel four continued this theme. Starting the discussion off was David Sohn of the Center for  Democracy and Technology. He started off with the idea that DRM only a matter of ensuring that consumers know their rights and limits with the products the use. He believes that DRM should only be disclosed if it functions in a way that is outside consumer expectations.

Next was Hal Halpin of the ECA. He also spoke on the need to disclose DRM to the consumer so that when they go to the store to purchase a game, they can tell by looking at the box what kind of restrictions are included with the game. He also spoke on the need to standardize EULAs. Unfortunately, the transcripts for his comments were incomplete but lucky for us, Arstechnica was able to get the word directly from Hal:

The second thing that we recommended was that EULAs get standardized, so again, rather than have 30 or 40 types of agreements, there would be one standard one for all different types of computer games. People go into the store, buy the game, open it, and they can no longer return it… by standardizing the EULA, consumers will have the confidence to know what it is they’re agreeing to before they buy the product.

That didn’t go over so well. There was a room of attorneys that kind of gasped when we suggested standardization. One panelist commented that the EULA really were there as consumer information, and that was the one and only time that the FTC jumped in and said ‘wait a second, this has nothing to do with consumer information, this is purely IP protection.’ I pointed out that when we ran the IEMA (Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association) we were able to get the size of the boxes standardized, and to get the PC CD-ROM logo on the box. These were not herculean undertakings, and they didn’t require legislation. So if we can do those things, then certainly we can do these.

From these two panels it is quite clear that there needs to be better lines of communication when it comes to DRM. Whether that is through labeling on the packaging or standardized license agreements, it needs to happen.

Finally, there comes the point of what should be done with DRM laden products when the service that runs the DRM no longer functions. Nothing brought this closer to reality than when Yahoo and Microsoft announced they were closing their music servers and were no longer going to be able to validate music people had purchased from those servers.

So what can be done to prevent unexpected losses of service such as bankruptcy or other losses of business? One suggestion from the last panel was that all DRM should be documented with the FTC. Meaning all keys and such should be handed over to them for safe keeping as well as continued service after the company is gone.

Another suggestion was that all DRM should include an expiration date, meaning that after such a date, the DRM will no longer require activation, but will be permanently disabled. Included with this suggestion was that any company using DRM should create a D-day type patch that if anything were to happen to the company, they can release this patch and remove the DRM from all their products. Such a patch would be something that the FTC would be able to keep as well.

This conference was extremely exciting to hear and I wish I could related everything in this single article, but there is so much to discuss. But I am glad that the FTC, businesses and consumers are actually sitting down and discussing the impact of DRM. That is the most important part. Nothing will ever get done if we don’t have such debates. Hopefully we will soon see better disclosure of DRM and standardized licenses for consumers.

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Virtually everyone that is even remotely interested in gaming has heard of OnLive, which presented it’s console streaming service during last weeks GDC in San Francisco. Hot on the tail of OnLive is Gaikai, who was planning on waiting for E3 for their announcement, but didn’t want Online to steal all the thunder. Together, these two companies poise to change gaming as we know it, but what does this mean to the humble gamer and how might it change (if at all) our tea bagging ways? To be honest, I’m a wee bit excited about a whole new dimension of gaming, but I’m not ready to be an OnLive or Gaikai fanboy just yet.

The possibility of playing any game I want devoid of console types and computer hardware is has always been an alluring proposition, and both of the companies with their clusters of poofy digital clouds seem to hold a silver lining. OnLive’s website is far more mature than Gaikai’s and, unlike Gaikai, Onlive has already aligned itself with a number of companies (EA, Ubisoft, and Codemasters, to name a few) and have compiled a tiny, but promising list of games its system is capable of supporting. Gaikai is beginning to seem kind of like the underdog, but right now it is aiming slightly askew and hoping to pin its hopes in the realm of MMOs and allow its users to play everything from EVE Online to World of Warcraft all contained in the browser of your choice.

Oddly enough, the very first thing that pops into my mind concerning OnLive is that’s going to receive ample support from publishers that deliver their content to PCs as opposed to consoles. Could it be they have finally discovered a DRM solution? Let’s consider Spore and the dreadful DRM that EA deployed with it to flummox legit customers and stump crackers. I was ignorant enough to purchase the game, and I still regard it as one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made concerning a game; at every point I felt like EA was punishing me for being daft enough to buy it. But now, EA might see a glimmer of light at the end of that very bleak and dark DRM tunnel. If you and I don’t actually have the software and it’s aloft, floating in some incorporeal cloud summoned only by OnLive, then the evil minions of would-be crackers cannot work their dark magic to become the Robinhoods of the digital age.

But what about those normal people who drink hard, game fast, and crash often? What if I want to edit the .ini file of a new Command & Conquer game? What if I want to create and add custom sprays to TF2? Where will my screenshots go? What about mods? What about custom maps? Or what if I want to swap games with a friend of mine? Perhaps worse yet, in the case of Gaikai, what is going to happen with the countless add-ons that WoW players can scatter over their screens? How much can I really do with a game that is drifting in the clouds?

Both developers have the potential to make our lives a little easier and a little less complicated, but you know what? My life is easy enough, and I don’t mind learning what I need to in order make it less complicated.

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To kick things off, we’ve got three copies of Activision’s Quantum of Solace for the PlayStation 3, as well as a bundle of tickets to next week’s screening of Adventureland in OKC. Our regular readers should find the new store a cinch, but feel free to check out the help section if you want us to hold your hand. We don’t mind, honest.

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Recently a young woman by the name of Breanna Lucci made a startling discovery, you can kill trained attack dogs in Call of Duty: World at War. Of course, she seems a bit off by the context of these killings.

“Killing dogs as a form of entertainment … over and over again. That’s one of the objects of the game,” says Lucci, 19, a senior at NDA. “Parents need to know what they are buying their kids. Killing animals should not be a form of entertainment.”

Shortly after PETA made a statement to GamePolitics.com on the matter and later reiterated it on their blog.

Not since we were pitted against Nazi attack dogs when we first escaped from Castle Wolfenstein 17 years ago have we seen such barbaric treatment of dogs in gameplay as we did in Call of Duty, World of War.

To help the folks at Activision Blizzard learn about the ethical treatment of animals, we’re offering to let them take PETA’s “Developing Empathy for Animals” free of charge and are sending a package of Nintendogs games to their office.

That’s a thoughtful gesture, now isn’t it? Though they seem to love Nintendo’s fur-friendly games, PETA is the same group that  attacked Cooking Mama for being cruel to animals by including dishes made from meat.

Personally, I have nothing against people who want to prevent cruelty to animals, but this is a bit far fetched. They have missed the point of the Call of Duty games. These games are not about “Killing dogs as a form of entertainment”, they are about reenacting the terrors of war whether fictional or historical. One historical aspect of World War II, in which this game takes place, is the use of trained attack dogs from all sides of the conflict to assist in battle. Even the Russians were in on this, taking it a step further. They trained dogs strapped with explosives to run under tanks. Unfortunately for them, the effort failed as the Russian trainers used their own tanks as props rather than those of the Germans.

Their other fallacy is the concept that people who play games will act out the game in real life. They fear that kids who kill attack dogs in the game will go out and slaughter the neighbor’s Pomeranian and other helpless dogs on the street. Yet again, there is no scientific confirmation that this is the case.

Had these two groups taken the time to research the use of dogs in war, they would most likely came to a different conclusion. They would probably had been more appalled by the concept of training dogs to kill in the first place. That is what put these dogs in the line of fire not just their mere presence.

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Of the many complaints aired one was from Davis Mirza, a teacher at Pauline Johnson Junior Public School:

‘My kids, who come from a lot of different countries, who have to experience violence, who basically come here to seek shelter and safety, that’s the stuff they don’t need to see.’

This and the many other complaints voiced caused Sony to make the decision to have the ads pulled a week ahead of their normal schedule.

Sony has since made the decision to not allow any ads for their games to be placed within a certain distance from schools. What that distance is has not been determined.This has also brought up other concerns over whether Sony has a right to place their ads anywhere they choose as well as how far is far enough.

Canadian games are rated using the ESRB and are thus under the contractual guidelines of the ESRB advertising practices. According to these guidelines:

‘Companies must not specifically target advertising for entertainment software products rated “Teen,” “Mature” or “Adults Only” to consumers for whom the product is not rated as appropriate.’

According to this guideline, having an ad for an M rated game such as Killzone 2 on a bus stop next to a school would be in violation of the agreement they made with the ESRB. Judging by this policy and Sony’s actions it would be wise for any publisher to follow suit.

One other concern that may come up is recent bannings involving M rated games advertised on the sides of buses. In those instances the transit authorities were the ones making the decision to ban those ads and by all accounts wrong in that decision. First they banned M rated games from being advertised but still allow R rated movies and MA-17 rated TV shows to be advertised. Secondly, those ads were placed on moving vehicles that would possibly be seen by more adults than children.

This is an instance of Sony doing the pulling and making the guidelines of where their ads can be placed after determining that the ads were placed too close to schools. They have every right to make such a decision.

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We’re going to surpass the extraordinary gaming experience we brought our fans in Mass Effect by delivering intensified combat and expanded weapon options as well as increased depth of planet exploration, all while delivering a powerful, emotionally engaging story,

He continuing to beat us with catch-phrases:

Mass Effect 2 is shaping up to be an unforgettable RPG-shooter experience, taking players on a non-stop roller-coaster ride filled with stunning plot twists and no-holds-barred action.

While we’re all for more Mass Effect, it would be nice if the powers that be (we’re looking at you, EA) would drop the worthless quotes that can be used to describe any new game/movie/theme-park. You know all we’re going to do is mock you, sop why give us the ammo?

Mass Effect 2 is slated for an “early 2010″ release — don’t hold your breath.

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