Photo: OnLive

OnLive launches in the UK today and with it the promise of a video gaming landscape that frees the gamer from needing to own and frequently upgrade expensive hardware to get the best experience possible. Below is a rundown of what it will set you back to get the OnLive UK experience.

Live is never free

The OnLive Game System – which is like a micro-console – will cost £69.99, and it ships with a controller and an HDMI cable. Attendees at the Eurogamer Expo happening this weekend can get it for free, but stock is limited, reports Eurogamer.

The streaming games cost between £1.99 and £39.99. The very first game you purchase, though, will set you back just £1, so it’s best to buy the most expensive game you’ve been eyeing. Oh, and we’d also advise buying a typically resource-heavy game to see if the company’s promise that performance will be good across the board is true.

Play that back

If you’re not interested in purchasing individual games for your OnLive UK experience, you can get access to OnLive Playback, a Netflix-like streaming subscription program, for £6.99 per month. While it doesn’t necessarily have all the latest titles available, you still get unlimited access to over 100 games that include marquee releases like Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition, Just Cause 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, World of Goo and Borderlands.

BT rewards

BT, OnLive’s official UK partner, will be rewarding its subscribers who sign up for the service, giving them the first three months of OnLive Playback access free of charge.

So if you’re a BT customer, are interested in OnLive UK and cloud gaming in general, you should do your best to make your way to the Eurogamer Expo this weekend. It’s easily the best way to see tons of games on display, as well as get access to the service.

Photo: Google

We’ve known for some time now that Google has designs on the social web, and that gaming would, at some point, form a big component of the company’s strategy in combating Facebook. That point seems to have come sooner rather than later, with a jobs posting revealing that the company is trying to appoint someone to run its new gaming division, known simply as Games at Google.

What’s in it for you

The post is seen on Google’s own website, where details of a Project Manager position are available, with the company calling it ‘a rare opportunity to grow a brand-new business.’ We’ve known it’s been coming – this just made it mostly official.

What we do not know is what shape this offering will take and which platform it is targeting. Whether this will be for Android smartphones, or a more general web-based gaming approach, remains to be seen. I would bet on the latter, though.

What skills are required

If you think you’re cut out for the job, it’s worth looking over the details. The search giant says: ‘We are looking for a strategic, technical and game-loving Product Manager to drive Google’s gaming strategy.’

In terms of what you will actually do on the job, it continues with: ‘You will design strategies for game distribution and discovery, player identity, game mechanics, and more.’

Elsewhere the posting for the Games at Google position says: ‘In addition to designing a great user experience and building out key partnerships, you will be significantly influencing Google’s social platform as you work directly with a critical set of early adopters, game developers.’

Have an impact

The company says that the decisions the person entrusted with this role will be ‘Interesting and impactful,’ with regards to social gaming and Google’s social ambitions as a whole. Sounds like fun. Who is keen on working for the Games at Google division?

Photo: bigdigo / Flickr

There’s been concern that the video game industry, from the venerable PC right through to modern day consoles, is softening. Sales aren’t as high as they were in the mid 2000s, with publishers and platform holders alike doing all they can to protect themselves against the fall in revenue.

The industry-wide fear is that gamers are playing video games less and less. The CEO of Call of Duty, the leader in FPS games, disagrees, saying that they’re actually just spending more time on the games they do play.

They’re gaming away

‘People aren’t gaming less. There are no statistics you can find to show you that. People are gaming more than ever in terms of the installed base of console hardware,’ Eric Hirshberg, who is the chief executive of Activision Publishing, told Venture Beat.

He added that: ‘If you look at the number of hours being played online, it’s huge. It’s bigger than it’s ever been before. You look at the sales of the top titles; they are bigger than ever before.’

So where’s the breakdown

That’s all good and well to appeal to numbers of hours being spent gaming, but that doesn’t answer why sales have not picked up the way many thought they would post recessions. Hirschberg explained that: ‘What people are doing is they are gaming more in fewer games. They are going deeper into fewer franchises.’

He explains that this is why Activision Publishing rolls out games the way it does. ‘We are following that pattern. And so we are making fewer and bigger bets.’

Investing in loyalty

Given his parent company, Activision Blizzard, owns COD and World of WarCraft, likely the two biggest time sinks in all of gaming, it makes sense why a man leading the leader of all FPS games thinks this. The challenge for other publishers, of course, is replicating this success.

Photo: tsmall / Flickr

The world of MMO gaming is big business. Problem is much of the profit is concentrated in the hands of one developer, and one publishser – Activision Blizzard, in the form of World of WarCraft. EA wants to change that with an incoming Star Wars MMO. It seems Warner has sights on doing the same, with the company potentially working on a Harry Potter MMO.

Pottermore.com surfaces

A site titled pottermore.com is live. Currently, it shows just a logo, J.K. Rowling’s signature and the ominous phrase ‘coming soon’. First things first – the site is legit and is owned by Warner Bros. Secondly, while it is unclear what the site could be used for, a Harry Potter MMO is very likely.

Trademark gave it away?

In fact the website’s trademark page may have given away what Warner is cooking up. It reads: ‘Providing multiple-user access to a global computer information network; providing on-line chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among users in the field of general interest; providing on-line communications links which transfer the web site user to other local and global web pages; providing on-line facilities for real-time interaction with other computer users concerning topics of general interest.’

So, what’s a certainty is that it is an online community of sorts. Again, this does not rule out a Harry Potter MMO, right?

A bloody battle

World of WarCraft has ruled the MMO roost pretty much unchallenged for the last few years. Other developers and publishers seem to have had enough of watching Activision Blizzard make (well-deserved) bucket loads of money from the franchise and are launching MMOs of their own. The difference is they’re bringing along world-renowned franchises to an intense gunfight. Whether that will be enough to upend World of Warcraft’s dominance over MMO gaming remains to be seen, though.

I know I’d buy it if they had a Ron Weasley-esque character who always said ‘men-tool’. That’s worth the price of admission alone.

Photo: shanewarne_60000 / Flickr

Ubisoft had a big surprise for the media at the pre-E3 event in Los Angeles and arranged a free-to-play version of the game Ghost Recon. The game will be launched exclusively for the PC and will allow play without any upfront cost and include competitive levels for you to enjoy. Ghost Recon has been made for mid-level computers, which means that many gamers will be able to get in on the action and start shooting.

According to the senior producer at Ubisoft, Hugues Ricour, ‘Ghost Recon online takes the best attributes of the Ghost Recon game franchise and brings them online, making the experience of being a Ghost accessible to millions of new players and fans. This game was designed from the start to be a free-to-play experience. Our development teams are dedicated to making Ghost Recon Online a truly unique, top-quality online title.’

Ghost Recon

The online game includes many features. Players are given the opportunity to choose from three different types of ghosts and deploy cutting edge military technology. Ghost Recon Online also allows you to share intel with the rest of your team and includes a rich lobby platform which has progression and social features.

What to expect

Ubisoft will be selling premium goods which will include guns and items to boost the power of your character. Ghost Recon will also allow you to earn these bonus items by actually playing the game. Despite these benefits one has to question whether it is all worth it.

Unfortunately, there is nothing new about the game and you can expect nothing more than a low-end shooter that doesn’t translate very well to PC.

Still, if you would like to play Ghost Recon online, you can sign up for a beta invite straight away. You’ll have to wait until later this year for Ubisoft’s full, official release.

Photo: mk30 / Flickr

In what is one of the most bizarre stories to surface recently, Chinese prisoners are reportedly being used for gold farming in MMO games. The accusations come courtesy of a former inmate who says that prisoners were forced to game all night by the wardens to farm gold that would later be sold for real money.

Manual labour

Liu Dali, a political prisoner, told the Guardian he was forced to play MMO games all night long while he was held at Jixi labour camp so as to build credits that could later be retailed for a profit. He explained that: ‘Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour.’

Speaking on the MMO gamers, he said: ‘There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000 rmb [£470-£570] a day. We didn’t see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.’

Not all fun and games

While gaming in lieu of real manual labour seems attractive, Dali explained that this was in addition to menial tasks like constructing car seat covers as well as chiseling with chopsticks. And, to make it worse, the ‘MMO gamers’ had daily gold quotas they had to meet, and were doled out harsh punishment if they missed them.

Liu explained: ‘If I couldn’t complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things.’ To say this was a hard life for the MMO gamers would be an understatement. Moreover, when these prisoners were released, it’s likely they would have developed such a disdain for playing MMO games – or any games for that matter – that they probably no longer do at all.

Photo: AN HONORABLE GERMAN / Flickr

It seems as if the US Navy may be testing our intelligence. The maritime organization has come up with an online game in an effort to find a solution to the scourge of piracy. As from Monday, the US Navy will host an online game called MMOWGLI, a name taken from the Jungle Book and short for Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet. MMOWGLI is about counterpiracy and encourages its players to find the bests methods to keep the seas safe from resurgent pirates.

A social experiment

Apart from being designed to finding answers to the piracy problem, MMOWGLI is also a social experiment. According to Larry Schuette, the director of innovation at the Office of Naval Research, ‘We want to test this proposition: can you get a crowd to provide you with good information.’ Guess it depends who chooses to play the game.

MMOWGLI review

The game is almost like Twitter where you post an answer to a question provided by the Navy and others may vote as to whether your solution will work. Fellow gamers can also expand and tweak your idea or ask a question if they see that something is missing.

The scenario provided is as follows: ‘Three pirate ships are holding the world hostage. Chinese-US relations are strained to the limit and both countries have naval ships in the area. Humanitarian aid for rig workers is blocked. The world is blaming the US for plundering African resources.’

One can either choose the ‘innovate’ or ‘defend’ option and post your answer. Players are awarded points according to the amount of affirmations their ideas receive. If you fare well enough, you will be invited to the next round. There are three rounds to complete and the US Navy is hoping to get some good ideas from the public.

Photo: matt hutchinson / Flickr

In a bid to showcase the capabilities and features of Internet Explorer 9, Namco-Bandai, the original creators of Pac-Man, have joined forces with Microsoft Australia to create the biggest Pac-Man game in the world. The project is also meant to promote the use of HTML5, a tool used to build web applications. So far the game has been a success and has attracted a great amount of participation. Where some around the world have chosen to play the game, others have opted to get in the driving seat and have designed their own mazes.

Soap Creative, the company behind the online Pac-Man website, said, ‘Not content with redesigning Pacman.com we’ve gone one further and created The World’s Largest Pac-Man game. Launched at the MIX11 IE9 Keynote event in Las Vegas just a week ago, the game has become a huge hit. We’ve had over 20,000,000 Pac-dots eaten and 1,400 mazes created from 80,000 visitors.’

Playing the world’s largest Pac-Man

Although the game has maintained some of its traditional structures, much has been changed to give players a few surprises. Unlike the classic game, when a player decides to exit the maze, instead of appearing on the other side, the player is taken to a different maze which has been connected to the previous one.

The fact that users have been allowed to design their own maze has led to a lot of creativity among Pac-Man fans the world over. Some are mushroom shaped while others pay tribute to their favourite game characters. There are even seven self-portraits.

The three countries with the highest scores far are the USA, Brazil and Spain. Unfortunately, the UK still has to catch up, so make sure that you check it out.

We all remember Pac-Man as an arcade favourite. The biggest Pac-Man game in the world will definitely be a trip down memory lane – with a new twist.

Photo: MMO Gamesite

A year has passed since the big multiplayer game Glitch was announced. Tiny Speck launched the online game in February 2010 while it was still in the initial alpha phase. At that time, it was expected that the game would reach the beta phase later that year, but there were a few delays in progress. Finally, after a year spent in the alpha phase, it has been announced that Glitch will start beta testing this month.

Glitch received lots of press due to the talent working behind the scenes. Stewart Butterfield, who co-founded Flickr, was also the co-founder of the company Tiny Speck and the game itself. Glitch is said to be the game that sparked the idea for Flickr.

About the game

The actual game involves creating a character who travels through many different worlds doing different tasks in each. The game allows users to collect skills and earn badges for their character as it rakes dirt, pets pigs, harvests plants, eats, drinks and buys goods. The mood and energy of the character may change depending on the task at hand, and levels increase as the game progresses.

Time for beta testing

After waiting for a whole year, Glitch will finally go into beta testing as from next week. Butterfield has said that ‘tens of thousands’ of users are queuing up to get in on the action. As a result, the game will gradually be introduced to the public.

Tiny Speck has also managed to raise funds for the next phase of the game and Andreessen Horowitz as well as Accel have both contributed financially towards its completion. Tiny Speck has raised millions of dollars for Glitch so far and hopes to release the game later this year.

Photo: preetamrai / Flickr

You know those conversations you have with one eyebrow raised, and your jaw slightly agape, from a combination of disbelief, pleasant surprise and bewilderment? Yes? Well a ‘trusted tipster’ has uncovered code in the iOS 4.3 beta 3 firmware that hints at the Apple TV getting online gaming functionality soon.

ATVGames

The tipster told Engadget that there were several references in the iOS 4.3 code referencing ‘ATVGames’ and ‘ATVThunder’, with the former being Apple TV games and the latter thought to be a controller interface of some kind. These lines of code seem to reference leaderboards, a la Game Center, a store front much like the App Store/iTunes, and game scheduling for multiplayer presumably.

OnLive-esque approach

With the new Apple TV having limited storage capacity, the tipster suspected Apple would approach gaming from an OnLive type fashion, where games would be streamed to players, as opposed to stored locally. Again, this is just speculation.

Apple’s console

If this story proves true, it’ll once again be the repeating of a pattern we first saw when Apple launched its iPhone. While many speculated the iPod-maker would make a handheld console to compete directly with the Nintendo DS and the PSP, Apple’s gaming strategy was built around its smartphone and new age mp3 player.

While any murmurings of an Apple console have died in recent years, the Apple TV could again be the Trojan horse that allows the company to get gaming into your living room without sparring with the PS3 and Xbox 360 directly, which, if it works, would be genius.

Again, this is all a big ‘if’. There honestly is no way of knowing what Apple is cooking up, but Apple TV gaming has been mentioned before, and giving the company’s history, we think it likely Apple online gaming functionality will, in time, become a reality.