A Tree Falling in the Forest

The United States Supreme Court will hear a case to determine the constitutionality of a law banning the sale of violent video games to minors. Arguments surround a California law (I wrote about in depth here ) - which was signed into law and found to be unconstitutional before it went into effect. This will be the highest court to determine whether video games are afforded the free speech protections of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution - and it is very, very important to our industry. Free speech sounds like it addresses the things we say, but it protects everything from strippers to protest marches- just about anything to bring a tear to each American's eye. Thanks to the great work of The ESA, every time the question was raised in the past, the court's found the legislation to be unconstitutional, but the highest courts ruling on the issue were at the district court level. This means the decisions are not binding nationally and may be over turne...

Here is an excerpt from a Wired profile about Jordan Mechner - full disclosure, Jordan is a client - and he talks about when game making was fun and the results showed in the product. “I was right out of college, spending a summer at home,” Mechner says. “I had an Apple II, so I took my brother out into the parking lot of our old high school and made him run, jump and climb, and that video was the basis for the game.” The date was Oct. 20, 1985. We know this because the 21-year-old Mechner kept an astonishingly comprehensive journal, which he has since posted online. While he was still an undergraduate at Yale, Mechner was already earning royalties off a best-selling action game that he had created, called Karateka. He wanted his next game to have the same essential story elements — a youthful hero, a princess in danger, an evil lord — but on a grander scale, like a “Disney movie,” as he wrote at the time. Nearly four years later, the original Prince of Persia game was released for t...

Wanna play Crysis in all it's glory but don't have your Alienware machine with you? Otoy has it running - and just about anything else without building a ported version - on any device. Build once, play anywhere. No more neutered versions of games. No more porting or rebuilding expense. No more concern about the market value of the port to the additional device. This is great news, because before iPad, it was limited to your phone, and that is way to small to enjoy the game: There is also more older stuff here, but it does not involve an iPad, just stuff to make you scratch your head: