AMZ-v2 of Poplife.Biz has begun! You are currently browsing posts from AMZ-v1, volume 1 of the Alpha Male Zone at PopLife.Biz. To see the ongoing latest posts and updates now in AMZ-v2, please jump to AMZ-v2 | PopLife.Biz. A V2 tab also has been added to the menu bar above. Thank you for your reade . . . . Read the story »
How much did it cost 2008 US Presidential Candidate Barack Obama to put ads inside of Burnout Paradiseand other titles? According to a Federal Election Commission filing (via Gamespot), Obama's campaign sent $44,465.78 to Massive Incorporated to run in-game advertisements, from October 6 to November 3, in 18 separate titles. The real winner of these in-game ads, of course, was Tim the Paradise City Street Sweeper.
Comparatively, the campaign has spent a estimated total of $205 million on TV ads, about $4 to $5 million of which was for last night's 30-minute infomercial on CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox, BET, TV One and Univision. Fun statistic: The amount spent on TV ads was 455,555% higher than in-game advertisement. According to previous statements, Massive had approached the McCain campaign about doing a similar advertising deal, but they had passed on it.
With World of Warcraft currently claiming 11 million souls subscribers, it comes as no surprise that there are hundreds (more likely thousands) of midnight openings expected for the box that will grant access to Northrend. We've asked a couple retailers (and Blizzard itself) for a list of known midnight opening locations and we'll be sure to post those when we get them. The four US locations holding signing events can be found after the break.
Gametrailers' Warcraft Retrospective continues with episode two focusing on the events and gameplay mechanics of Warcraft III. The piece covers WC III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, The Frozen Throne, but also delves into the Defense of the Ancients mod and its infamous Euro pop music video.
The next installment in the series will delve into the 11 million player strong phenomenon that is World of Warcraft. We're expecting that episode to be 90+ minutes - not really, but it could.
With Left 4 Dead's zombie apocalypse scheduled to touch down in just a few short weeks, Valve's eager to spend all its lunch money before the undead invasion plunges our global financial system into (even worse) disaster. With $10 million in hand, it's buying up billboards, web sites, and even TV commercials in a coordinated effort to open our eyes to our impending fate. Here's the checklist: Zombies. Check! Four player co-op. Check! Apocalypse. Check!
Wait a second, what kind of checklist is that? We'd have blown some of that coin on important things, like crates of ammo, health kits, and totally convincing military surplus garb for just the right veneer of wholesome veteran mixed with fringe survivalist.
LittleBigPlanet began life in this world much like a real baby: helpless. Now, it's learning to crawl. As of the time of this posting, neither Media Molecule nor LBP News Site has offered up an explanation of the 1.03 patch released last night, but Eurogamer's sources say the update was issued to lighten server loads. A peek over at the PlayStation Forums reveals varying user experiences after installing (or not installing) the patch:
basketball14: "i'm not a 100% sure but it looks like it fixed the server b/c i started off with the servers online and that's never [happened] even when the servers were [supposedly] ok"
ACpwnzor: "I'm getting a load of lag -- lame -- [and] it takes a while for an online level to load even when i'm playing only by myself!!"
subherbian: "I've been playing all night and never got the update ... I had zero server or lag problems. Seems to me I didn't even need an update"
DiZee126: "that's weird ... after the update my save file reverted to a previous version or something"
bigdaddykraven: "Well my game has been running great for hours, even before the 1.03 [patch] but now when I go to restart [levels], every now and then it freezes up and I have to hard restart"
"We are aware that the online environment of LittleBigPlanet is having server performance issues, and we are investigating the cause," Sony explained to Eurogamer. "We'll have an update to the online gameplay as soon as we possibly can."
Source - Sony still "investigating" LBP issues [Eurogamer] Source - LBP 1.03 [PlayStation.com Forums]
Sadly, it seems Joystiq Publishing's avant-garde video game project "629 MB Picture Of A Guy Wearing A Funny Hat" will have to stay on the shelf. According to Microsoft, the scale-tipping 629 MB of Portal: Still Alivewas not the new standard for XBLA publishers.
The company told us, "We have set file limits as a general guideline. An important part of Xbox LIVE Arcade is easy access and keeping file size down is a vital part of that. Equally important is offering titles with superior game play. We weigh both considerations on a case-by-case basis, and will make exceptions when it makes sense to ensure the best customer experience."
Hope you don't mind inferior quality pictures of guys in funny hats, because it seems that's what you're getting.
EA ran into two separate, yet equally important, serial key problems with the release of Red Alert 3. The first issue was that the serial key pinged back as being "invalid," while the other involved a missing digit in the 20-digit code. Here are the solutions from the EA site:
Invalid key issue: EA says the issue should be resolved by now. It involved a "small amount" of keys not being pre-loaded to the company's "backend." Coincidentally, the same place where customers probably felt like they were kicked.
Manual has 19 digits instead of 20: Either click here to contact customer service, or resolve the issue by trial and error. The only thing missing is the last digit, which is either "a number from 0 - 9 or a letter from A - Z." That leaves only 36 possibilities.
EA apologizes for the inconvenience. In Soviet Russia, inconvenience apologizes to EA!
If you're anything like us (and we assume you are, otherwise what are you doing here?) you sort of forgot Lord of the Rings: Conquest existed. And who could blame you? With all the Fables about DeadFalloutCry, who had time for a Star Wars Battlefront-esque take on a license that's sooo 2003? Well, hopefully you will on January 13, when the game arrives in North America on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
The release date notice emphasized how Conquest allows you to join either the forces of good or evil. As Pandemic boss Josh Resnick said, "What The Lord of the Rings fan hasn't fantasized about joining Sauron's army to slay Hobbits?" For the record, we haven't, you sicko.
There are exactly two groups not projecting doom and gloom in the face of the current economic crisis: knapsack-on-a-stick manufacturers and Nintendo. A combination of clever marketing, unique products, and black magic resulted in a record six-month period, with Q2 quarterly profits up 36% thanks to strong sales of both the DS and Wii platforms. And things are still looking good, despite the company cutting its profit forecast some 3% due to the stronger yen. Nintendo upped its forecast for Wii console sales from 26.5m to 27.5m and upped DS software sales to 207m units from 197m.
Nintendo prez Satoru Iwata laughed off the economic "downturn" saying, "I think it is safe to say strong game demand is intact despite all this talk about the financial crisis." Fellow Japanese gaming giant Sony might not be faring so well but, indeed, its games business isn't the source of its financial woes. Here are some overall numbers from the Big N: lifetime Wii sales are 34.55 million; lifetime DS sales are 84.33 million (more than the Game Boy Advance!*); and Wii Fit has sold an incredible 8.7 million units since launching in Japan last December.
*Combined with Game Boy Color, the original Game Boy still holds the record: 118.69 million units!
Remember when Sony said that those who purchased Episode 6 of Qore would get entrance into the Home beta? Well, that's not exactly the case, by which we mean not the case at all. According to several disgruntled tipsters, the beta invites will apparently only be sent to year-long subscribers who signed up before Oct. 29, as opposed to those just buying episode 6.
That ... well, we don't have any witty analysis here -- that's wack. If our new user-friendly interface was about to be beaten to the punch by the other guy's new user-friendly interface, we'd probably let anybody in who wanted in. But that's just us.
Obama billed $44.5K for in-game advertising originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
English
Chinese
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Japanese
Portuguese
Russian