China cracks down on Gold Farming
Posted under: It’s official. The Chinese government has now outlawed trading virtual currency for real world goods and/or services. In this joint statement released by the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Commerce, the government clearly defines virtual currency, including ‘prepaid cards of cyber-games’.
“The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services,” the Ministries said.
The process of exchanging real world goods, services, or currency for in-game virtual currencies in MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) is often referred to Gold Farming, and has afflicted a number of titles including the perhaps most popular example, the worldwide hit World of Warcraft.
The Chinese government has estimated the virtual currency trade at over several billion Yuan last year. To put that in perspective, 1 billion Yuan is roughly $146 million USD. The government also claims that the practice has been gaining popularity, and has an annual growth rate of about 20%. With over 300 million internet users, China has the largest online population in the world. This new ruling is likely to affect many of these users, as well as other countries involved in virtual currency trading, a number of whom rely on, or utilize in part or whole, the Chinese system. According to a 2008 study conducted by Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester, the virtual currency trade employs hundreds of thousands of people around the world, 80-85 percent based in China, and generates between $200 million and $1 billion annually. Well, at least the Chinese governments in the right ballpark with their numbers.
One of China’s most popular online destinations, Tencent.com, with approximately 220 million users, about the same as facebook, is quoted in the release as “resolutely” supporting the new measures (well of course…what else are they supposed to say?). Given Tencent’s sheer size and numbers, their virtual currency “QQ Coins”, is one of the most popular forms of virtual currency in China. They also added that they are strongly opposed to the black market trading of virtual currencies, as they may be used to enable online theft and fraud.
According to the release, using virtual money for gambling will by punished by public security authorities, and minors may not purchase virtual money.
Whoa. Let’s reiterate that: Minors may not purchase virtual money.
According to a report in the English version of China Daily (sorry, I can barely speak English, much less Chinese), in-game items and gear are NOT considered virtual currency, so this format may or may not be allowed to continue. But for now, it’s all in the hands of Chinese government officials.
Urban Renewal was a hatchet job – New York’s Pennsylvania Station
Sadly, it took some personal investigation to discover the topic of Urban Renewal (I truly do not remember covering this topic in High School). And from what I’ve learned, both from reading, watching, and talking to those that lived through it, I’ve come to a personal conclusion that the ‘Urban Renewal’ projects that took place across this country should be considered a crime against not only architecture, but art, and therefore the human spirit as well.
This crime spread far and wide across the US, beginning just after the second world war, and stretching well into the 1970’s. While in theory, the project sounded like a massive modernization of America, and again, on paper, that’s exactly what happened. Don’t get me wrong, there where a number of positives that occurred under the Urban Renewal program, but at the same time, an incredible amount of American architectural history was demolished at the same time. And let’s not forget about that wonderful rip-off known as ‘Eminent Domain’, as was popularly used to further Urban Renewal projects.
I grew up in a small town in upstate New York, and have personally seen photographs of the downtown area at the turn of the century vs. what’s left today. In my opinion, a thriving downtown, center city area was stripped of it’s character, and replaced with bland facades, cookie cutter floor plans, and nothing short of defamation of character.
Having lived in New York City for close to 10 years, looking through and watching historical documentations on the city is nothing short of amazing. Certainly, a city like New York simply needs to reinvent itself all the time, and thankfully today, a number of historical buildings are finding re-usage, but between the late 1940’s and the 1980’s, not so much.
One of the greatest travesties inflicted on the City of New York was the demolition of the original Pennsylvania Station. Thankfully, the original Grand Central station still stands proudly in the middle of Park Avenue, but the Beaux-Arts style gem on the Hudson was destroyed in 1963, a mere 53 years after it’s completion.
The original Pennsylvania Station, occupying two complete city blocks, stood from Seventh Avenue to Eighth Avenue between 31st and 33rd streets. Constructed from Pink Granite, McKim, Mead and White’s Pennsylvania station also utilized (then) cutting edge technology by way of glass and steel train areas, illuminating the boarding areas naturally. Modeled after that Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, twin entrances lead to the two railroads that Penn serviced, the Pennsylvania and Long Island Railroads. Likewise, the passenger waiting area was inspired by the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, and approximated the scale of St. Peter’s Cathedral. At the time of it’s construction, Pennsylvania Station was the largest indoor space in New York City, and one of the largest public spaces in the world.
With rising operational costs in the 1950’s, Penn Station’s management began looking for ways to offset this cost, primarily in selling the air rights above the station. In 1962, plans were announced for the demolition of Penn Station, only to be replaced by a smaller terminal, at no cost, along with a 25 percent stake in the to be built Madison Square Garden (oddly enough, Stanford White of McKim, Mead and White was the designer of the original Madison Square Garden, which was demolished in 1925).
Fortunately, the demolition of Pennsylvania Station did not go unnoticed, with The New York Times lamenting,
“Until the first blow fell, no one was convinced that Penn Station really would be demolished, or that New York would permit this monumental act of vandalism against one of the largest and finest landmarks of its age of Roman elegance.”
Sadly, this outcry could not stop what some viewed as progressive of the time (both La Guardia and Idlewild Airports were seeing increased passenger numbers daily). However, Pennsylvania Station’s legacy can be felt to this day. The loss of Penn has been recognized as a major catalyst in enacting the City’s architectural preservation statues. These benefits of these programs were quickly recognized, and spread to the national level rapidly. Today, there are very few pieces of the original Pennsylvania Station in existence. One of the sculpted clock surrounds serves at the Eagle Scout Memorial Fountain in Kansas City, Missouri, a caryatid now lives at the sculpture garden at the Brooklyn Museum, and all of the Penn Station eagles are either in the hands of private collectors or museums across the United States. And while it’s time was short, the original Pennsylvania Station has been forever immortalized in Stanley Kubrick’s 1955 film noir, Killer’s Kiss, with footage of the concourse and exterior façade.
Obviously, New York’s Penn Station is only one example of an architectural demolition catastrophe. Across the country, there have been countless demolitions of architectural masterpieces.
To view more train station demolitions, have a view of The Infrastructurist’s outstanding collection.
Time Turns Elastic – Acoustic Version
I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the first single released off Phish’s upcoming album, Joy. At least I wasn’t until I heard this gorgious acoustic version Trey’s people posted over at Vimeo 20 days ago.
Time Turns Elastic – Acoustic Barn Demo from Trey Anastasio on Vimeo.
This is, in a word, beautiful. It gives me a new found respect for this work, and makes me want to listen again and again, not just to the words, but perhaps on an even geekier note, what tuning is he using? Sounds like DADGAD, but I could be way off.
I’m not sure what is is about the amplified version that bugs me, but there’s something. Maybe it seems almost a bit ‘overdone’? Perhaps there’s just a bit too much going on. I’m not 100% sure. I’ve listened to both the upcoming studio version as well as the 4 other appearances the song made on the recent early summer tour, and I have to say, this acoustic version beats them all. Hands down.
If you’re so inclined, as a point of comparison, here’s the studio version:
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EA says, “Go ahead…Pirate it.”
Certainly not a statement you’d normally hear from a top executive of one of the worlds’ largest games publishers, and certainly not from the man at the top, CEO John Riccitiello. But low and behold, that’s exactly what he’s done. “By the way, if there are any pirates you’re writing for, please encourage them to pirate FIFA Online, NBA Street Online, Battleforge, Battlefield Heroes…” he revealed in a recent interview with IndustryGamers. “If they would just pirate lots of it I’d love them. [laughs] Because what’s in the middle of the game is an opportunity to buy stuff.” In other words, what Riccitiello’s saying here is that the pirated disc is now more like the gravy and silverware, whereas the meat and potatoes of the title are contained online.
Now certified as a genuine success for EA, the Sims 3 was leaked weeks before the game saw store shelves, and included a note inside the file not to connect the game online. The same note encouraged people to buy the game if they liked it. Now call me cynical, but there’s something in the back of my mind that just screams ‘guerilla marketing’. If that is in fact the case, I stand and salute you EA. Well played. Even Riccitiello is willing to give a comical nod to the concept, stating, “You identified our secret marketing campaign! That was a very large scale – concentrated on Poland and China – demo program.” Demo or not, it put the new title in a lot of hands, and generated one heckuva buzz that couldn’t be bought.
While the Sims 3 physical disk does include anti-piracy measures, a large portion of the game isn’t even on the disc. Upon installation, users are presented with the proverbial ‘flip the switch to bring this badboy online’ option, upon which they then must download a massive 3gb ‘update’ in order to obtain the full experience. “A huge amount of the gameplay is an overlay for the community, where you are sampling assets created by other people. So for the pirate consumer, they don’t get the second town, they don’t get all the extra content, and they don’t get the community,” Riccitiello explained.
If any of this is ringing vaguely familiar, let me remind you of one tiny little giant coming out of Korea a few years back, Nexon. Software piracy was, and continues to be a huge issue in the Asian market. A few years back, a few crafty publishers took a wild and crazy idea, and made it a (rapidly becoming) global phenomenon: the free-to-play model. In other words, publishers were sick of seeing diminishing revenues, all the while the word of mouth success of their titles were going through the roof. The problem? Piracy. The solution? Give the game away, and charge for access and/or items to be used within the game.
EA seems to be adopting, at least in part, a similar credo. The Sims 3 is all about creating, downloading and purchasing new virtual items, something that fits in quite well with this theory, and it’s been all but confirmed that the NoCal giant has plans to turn the Tiger Woods golfing game franchise into a subscription based product. Also, note that Riccitiello casually applauded the pirating of FIFA Online, NBA Street Online, Battleforge, and Battlefield Heroes – all free-to-play titles. How does a gaming company lose money pirated free games? They don’t.
“I’m a longtime believer that we’re moving to selling services that are disc-enabled as opposed to packages that have bolt-ons…. So the point I’m making is, yes I think that’s the answer [to piracy].” Riccitiello told IndustryGamers. “And here’s the trick: it’s not the answer because this foils a pirate, but it’s the answer because it makes the service so valuable that in comparison the packaged good is not. So you can only deliver these added services to a consumer you recognize and know… So I think the truth is we’ve out-serviced the pirate.”
Is EA about to just start giving games away and go 100% free-to-play/microtransactions? I highly doubt it, as their physical disc-in-a-box sales are still thriving, but what this does signal is the first major US based player to actively step up to the plate, acknowledge microtransactions as a viable and successful business model, and unabashedly take steps forward in this direction. If this method is even half as successful as it’s been in the Asian market…well, let’s just say EA’s current stock price of $20.84 a share could be one heckuva value.
Obama’s nerd creds
You may recognize Hodgman from his Daily Show appearances, of perhaps more so from his “…and I’m a PC” line from Apple’s popular advertising campaign. Yes, this clip is 15 minutes long, but worth every moment, so go grab a fresh cup, sit back, and enjoy Hodgman’s vetting of President Barack Obama’s nerd credentials.
Now, if Obama had only closed the session with the correct Vulcan response, “Peace and Long Life” he would have scored 110 in my book. However, he also loses points for playing the ‘basketballs’, so we’ll average him out at about an 85% nerd rating. Fair enough? I think so too.
A big thanks to Brent for sending over this gem.
The Power of Three
I caught this video the other day via a mention on twitter. Naturally, I had a good laugh and that moment of ‘that’s awesome!’-ness, but then filed it and moved on to the regular day’s activities. Later that night I sent it over to a few friends, and watched it again. Again a smile came to my face, but something else happened. I started thinking about group dynamics, and how this example could apply to the marketplace.
At 20 seconds in, the guy in the green t-shirt joins (possibly crazy) guy number one, and we’re not quite certain if he’s a 100% participant, or a 99.44% mocker. My guess is that we’re probably a bit closer to option 2 than 1. At 54 seconds in, guy number three enters the picture and joins the dance. He’s our key figure here. Notice that it only takes another 15 seconds for not just one, but two additional participants to join the what will soon become an all hillside dance party. For the next two minutes festival goers continue to add to the frenzy, until just about everyone in the shot is dancing like it’s 1999.
While dancer number one may have started the craze, and dancer number two’s commitment is questionable at best, it’s dancer number three that started the tipping point here. He’s the guy that was clearly not mocking, saw something that he liked or enjoyed, and decided to unabashedly commit to it. Couldn’t we draw the same parallels between your product or marketing message? You would be dancer number one (again, possibly crazy), dancer number two may represent your competition, naysayers, the popular media, etc., but dancer number three is the one that you need to be on the lookout for. He’s the one that received the message, and made it ok for everyone else to join in as well.
Naturally, it’s scary and challenging being the leader, the initiator. It’s not quite as scary to have dancer number three’s role, but that doesn’t make it any less important. A good lesson to be learned in the seemingly comic video.
Always be on the look out for dancer number three.
Now that’s one BIG monitor you’ve got there
Every once in a while, someone brings a product to market that just makes me think – why? Naturally, my second reaction is – ooo…can I get one? Such is the case with NEC’s CRV43 ultra-widescreen curved monitor. Essentially, what we’ve got here Bob (watch This Old House, and insert Norm Abram‘s accent here), is four DLP (digital light processing) screens stitched together with some fancy LED backlighting to deliver a whopping 2880×900 double WXGA native resolution, 0.02 second response time, 200 cd/m2 brightness and 10,000:1 contrast ratio.
Now settle down there Skippy. I know what you’re thinking…I thought the same thing – OMGZ!! games are gonna be unbelieveable with this thing. Not so much. This Enterprise bridge like display has a highly unusual 32:10 aspect ratio (standard widescreen is 16:9 or 16:10). Rather, NEC says that this monolith is targeted at high end users in the simulation, digital imaging as well as the command and control industries, which require lightning-fast response times, a broad field of view, greater dynamic range, wide color gamut and employ multiple monitor set-ups. In other words, not your typical home office setup.
Since this big ol’ monitor is DLP, it’s not exactly svelt in the dimensions department. Weighing in at 52.5 pounds, she’s not exactly going to get carried to the next LAN party. Have a look at the side views in the images below to get a better idea of just how wide and deep those hips run.
The users taskbar extends across the entire width of the monitor, which according to NEC increases productivity and lowers frustration by eliminating the bezel and screen gap issues that occur with multiple monitor setups. That, and it just looks really f@(*%#ing cool! Windows users, might not get the whole panache, but my mac peeps – imagine your bottom task bar just wrapped all the way around. Oh dear god…I can plz haz?
One input setup may be achieved thanks to a single DVI-D and HDMI 1.3 input connects. And while it should go without mentioning, Big Bertha also comes with usb 2.0 connectivity. The LED backlighting provides for a wide color gamut with 100 percent coverage of sRGB and 99.3% coverage of Adobe RGB.
Originally unveiled at the 2008 CES, NEC plans on bringing this behemoth to market new month. Bragging rights are going to set you back a bit though. At $7999, Bertha isn’t exactly cheap, and not the most cost effective multi-monitor solution, but seriously…just look at this thing.
Reinstalling Mac OS X without a DVD Drive – Target Disk Mode
One of the primary reasons that I switched to mac just over a year ago was the stability of the Operating System. While my mac’s been fine, and would most probably have kept on working just fine, I guess there’s still a bit of my windows mentality lurking around, as when I started noticing some, ‘huh? what’s that all about?’ errors over the past few weeks, I guess I naturally reverted to the be all, end all solution – reinstall the OS. Fine and dandy, I’m quite familiar with the process via windows, so how hard could redoing the Mac OS X really be?
It’s quite easy – provided your DVD optical drive still works.
I had the lucky happenstance to find out that mine is dead. I’m probably not going to have it fixed, as I’ve read estimates anywhere from $380 – $466, and to be honest, I rarely every use it. However, this does bring up an interesting quandary; how to reinstall the mac os x with a dead optical drive? Apple provides you with a copy of the OS on two DVDs. Ok, first thought – see if I can’t copy these DVD’s using my old PC, and then just use the .dmg’s directly from an external USB drive. Great. But hold up there bucko, as it turns out, Apple Macintosh computers, both laptops and desktops can only boot from firewire drives. Hmmm. Personally, I don’t own any firewire external harddrives, they’re all USB based. So there goes that solution out the window. So here I am thinking that I’m really screwed, and either going to have to pull the main harddrive and plunk it into a friends mac, and do the reinstall that way (a major pain in the ass as far as I see it), until I did a bit of further digging.
Target Disk Mode
Now while I don’t have a firewire drive handy, I did have a 6-pin firewire cable lying around that I use with an external soundcard. As it turns out, you can use a firewire cable to connect two macs, and it’s quite simple at that. Here’s how.
For the purpose of this example, and for simplicity, I’m going to call the MacBook (to be used as the target disk) Black, and the MacBook Pro (where we’ll be installing the new OS) Silver.
- Make sure that Black is turned off, attached to the power supply, and all external devices are unplugged.
- Connect the 6-pin Firewire cable to black. Silver does not need to be turned off.
- Boot Black, and immediately hold down the T key. After a few seconds, you should see a large Firewire icon floating around the screen.
- Black should now appear as an additional disk on Silver. If you’re like me and do NOT have harddrives displayed on the desktop, press cmd+shft+c to bring up you list of available disks.
Et voila! Black, just became the words most expensive external harddrive/cd/dvd burner/reader combo drive known to man. So far so good, however, we’ve not yet installed the OS. From here, things should be pretty straight forward, however I did have one minor, ‘will that work?’ moment which I’ll describe below.
Upon popping the OS X installation disk in, you’ll get an auto prompt asking what you want to do with it. Select install OSX. The computer (Silver) will then ask you to reboot to begin.
Leave the firewire cables connected, and upon reboot, Black should remain in target disk mode, while Silver will now pick up the install straight from Black. If all goes well, everything should proceed as if you’ve inserted the disk directly into Silver (and the drive works).
So we’re all set, right? Yes and No. If you take a look at that DVD package that came with your computer from Apple, you’ll notice that there are 2 disks. Everything is cooking along, the OS is pretty much installed, but now you’ve reached that crucial moment of ‘Please insert disk two’. Ok, no problem, I’ll just eject the disk from Black and carry on. Hold on there partner, as Black is now in target mode – how ya gonna eject that disk? Can’t do it from the OS, and the hardware button no longer functions. Remember, when in target disk mode, Black ceases to be a fully functional machine, but again, a rather expensive external HDD/DVD drive.
To solve this problem, I took a round about way of solving this, and since I couldn’t find this info anywhere else, I took my own guess at it. Throughout this entire process, DO NOT remove the 6 pin firewire cable.
- Press and hold down the power button on Black until it shuts down
- Press the power button again, and immediately press the eject button. This should pop the DVD out before target disk mode launches.
- Press and hold the power button down again, until Black shuts down again.
- Press the power button down again, and now quickly slip disk two into the dvd drive.
This will handle the problem of inserting disk two.
As much as I’d like to have a functioning DVD drive, from what I’ve read this isn’t an uncommon problem for MacBook’s, both standard and pro. I tend to leave my machine on 24/7, and reboot it generally once a week. It has occurred to me that the additional heat generated by this prolonged usage may have not been the best thing for an optical drive (some parts are made of plastic).
If you’ve fried, or in my case, melted your DVD optical drive, if you’ve got another mac handy, hopefully this guide has walked you through the steps of using it in target disk mode to regain the features/functions lost. Any questions? Leave ‘em in the comments below and I’ll respond ASAP.
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