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Pearl Jam's Vote For Change Provides '08 Inspiration
Four years ago, George W. Bush had a crappy approval rating, the Democrats and youth of our country promised vote-inducing change, and Pearl Jam took part in a swing state tour to encourage people to act democratic. Four years later, there's no Bush on the ticket and no tour. But there is a documentary of Pearl Jam's unfortunately futile 2004 efforts; the band has released the first three parts on their official site, and will post the finale, fittingly, on Election Day. And those of you with tickets to tonight's Showbox-hosted, sold-out Get Out the Vote event will be treated to the full-length premiere of Pearl Jam: Vote for Change? 2004. Watch. Listen. Get thee to a polling place.
Obama Campaigning on Xbox 360?
This is either a brilliant Photoshop job, some canny viral political campaigning, or both: An Xbox 360 gamer playing Burnout Paradise spotted an Obama campaign billboard with a “Paid for by Obama for President” caption as he whizzed by in his turbocharged sports car, Game Politics is reporting. The site was unable to confirm the ad’s authenticity with Burnout publisher Electronic Arts; I’ve left messages with both EA and the Obama campaign and will update this post if we get confirmation either way.
Its veracity aside, the virtual billboard raises an interesting question: Are political ads in video games a good idea? In terms of eyeballs, I’d have to say yes. Roughly one-third of American households own an Xbox 360, Sony PS3 or Nintendo Wii. In terms of effectiveness, Brandweek recently detailed a survey undertaken by its fellow Nielsen Games division in which 11 percent of gamers said they bought a brand after seeing it advertised in a game.
Of course, buying a brand of shoes or soda is a totally different prospect than buying a politician’s brand in the polling booth. And young voters — the kind most likely to notice an in-game ad — are also the least likely to show up on Election Day.
At the very least, however, several gamer sites are now excitedly talking about the Obama billboard, which translates into some level of viral messaging success. It’s certainly a better idea than John McCain’s Pork Invaders, a knock-off of a video game that was popular when Sen. McCain was already in his 40s.
Hat tip: Broken Toys.
KEXP Releases Bestest Live Compilation to Date
Volume One was pretty cool. Two was better. Three was great. Volume Four is hands down the best. Is it simply because it's new? Because the songs are still fresh? We don't think so. There's more more to it than that.
Ever have one of those days, when you're listening to KEXP and it feels like they're playing everything just for you?--those days when the DJ is charged up and brimming with unbelievably great ideas and you just can't tear yourself away from your computer or your car or where ever you happen to be listening?
From the thumping drums opening up Pela's "Lost to the Lonesome" to the moody rumbling of piano keys at the end of Rufus Wainwright's epic "Going to a Town," this is Live at KEXP Volume Four.
Our favorites so far: Pela: "Lost to the Lonesome," Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings: "Let Them Knock," The Helio Sequence: "Can't Say No," Angelique Kidjo: "Salala," Les Savy Fav: "We'll Make a Lover of You," and Arthur & Yu: "Lion's Mouth."
Live at KEXP Volume Four can be purchased at all the good local record stores and here.
Photo courtesy of Seattlest Flickr Pool member laviddichterman.
What Album Covers Were Shot in Seattle?
Word Magazine's readers have been creating a map detailing where iconic album cover photos were taken. So far, there are three listed in the Seattle area: Damien Jurado's Waters Ave. S., taken at Waters Ave. S.; Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff, taken at 207 First Ave. in Pioneer Square; and (of course) Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Posse on Broadway," taken at the NE corner of John and Broadway. (The definition of "album" is a loose one, obviously.) That's a good start, but there must be a lot missing. Was the cover for the Singles soundtrack shot locally? Sleater-Kinney's The Hot Rock (or was that PDX)? Do us a favor: Check out the map, then add a cover or two to our little spot on the globe.
Spore And The Great DRM Backlash
If we can learn anything from the troubled launch of Spore, a videogame many people have been looking forward to for years, it is that binding products with digital rights management (DRM) restrictions hurts more than it helps. Spore, designed by Sims creator Will Wright, went on sale a week ago. It is expected to sell 2 million copies in September alone, and is currently the No. 3 best-selling game on Amazon.
But it also has one of the worst ratings on Amazon (2,016 out of the 2,216 ratings are one star) because of a concerted campaign by fans protesting its DRM. It has also been downloaded an estimated 500,000 times on BitTorrent, and is well on its way to becoming the most illegally downloaded game ever.
The DRM that comes with the official game only allows customers to use it on three machines (after that you have to call EA for permission to activate the game on additional machines). This is nothing more than an inconvenience. Gamers, in general, are more likely to have more than one computer, and to cycle through computers faster than other PC owners because they always want the latest, greatest, and fastest machines. Many will hit that three-machine limit quickly.
Maybe EA should join the rest of the entertainment industry in coming up with a consistent DRM policy. Unlike iTunes, which imposes a five-machine limit on most purchased songs and movies, there is no way to associate new machines or disassociate old ones from your account online. You have to call. That does not scale.
So now EA has a consumer backlash on its hands, and not because consumers don’t like the game, but because they don’t like EA telling them what they can do with the game after they’ve paid for it. What is worse, the DRM is obviously not stopping pirated versions from getting out there. And since the pirated version is DRM-free, many gamers consider it a better product than the DRMed one that Electronic Arts is trying to sell.
The silliest part of this whole affair is that EA has a much more effective weapon against piracy than the DRM: the game itself. Many of Spore’s most interesting features, such as the ability to upload characters you create and explore worlds created by other players, have an online component. These are integral to the gameplay. All EA needs to do is to turn these features off to anyone who cannot prove that they’ve actually purchased the game. Then no self-respecting gamer will want that pirated copy.
There is a lesson here for all media companies. Whether they are producing videogames, movies, or music, adding DRM won’t stop piracy. The best way to stop piracy is to hobble the pirated version, not the official one.
(Image via Danja Vasiliev).
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Wordscraper Hurts My Eyes
Yesterday, one day after taking down Scrabuluos in the U.S. and Canada in response to a lawsuit from Hasbro, the Indian brothers behind Scrabulous, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, released a brand new crossword-like game on Facebook called Wordscraper. The brothers have obviously been preparing this countermove for a long time. Wordscraper is designed to get around any of the intellectual property claims Hasbro has made against Scrabulous, especially the trademark infringement claims. The name is not a rip-off of Scrabble, the board looks very different, and there are even some new twists to the rules.
The brothers have even foregone the familiar square tiles for circles. Quite frankly, I don’t like this. It hurts my eyes. (Call me a traditionalist). It all blends together and makes it hard to grok the board at a single glance.
The gameplay is much better. Wordscraper is like Scrabble with wild board tiles. You can create your own board by putting assigning different point values to each space where a player puts her letters. For instance, instead of a set pattern, you can move double-word or triple-letter score tiles around the board before you start playing, and you can go crazy and stick in quintuple-word scores. (Go easy on those).
When Scrabulous was taken down, it had half a million daily active users and Hasbro’s/Electronic Arts’ official Facebook Scrabble game had only about 15,000. Two days later, the official Scrabble beta is up to 63,000 daily active users. Wordscraper has 3,600 daily active users. Now the race is on. Where will the bulk of Scrabulous fans go?
Wordscraper has a good chance of unseating the official Scrabble. (In a TechCrunch poll with 2878 respondents, 66 percent think that Hasbro went too far with its lawsuit and will suffer a resulting consumer backlash). Just please, do something about those circles. They make me dizzy.
Who Will Win the Facebook Wordgame Wars?
( polls)
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