Microblogging
Defi nition: The practice of posting
brief, regular updates about your
thoughts, ideas, or activities, which
can be viewed by a group of your
choosing via text messaging, email,
IM, or the web.
Microblogging, as both a term and
a pastime, was popularized by the
website Twitter, which facilitates
the mini missives. Other such
sites, including Jaiku and Pownce,
have helped spawn a trend where-
by practitioners can be in constant
contact with their family, friends,
and associates.Dark clouds are on the
horizon for the nation’s
less-than-legal fi le
sharers. Two bills that
look to stem the fl ow of
digital piracy by impos-
ing sterner enforcement
measures are traveling
through Congressional
committees.
The fi rst piece of
legislation, dubbed the
College Opportunity
and Affordability Act of 2007, has been
recommended for a full vote by the House
Education and Labor Committee. It calls for
colleges and universities to better inform
students about the legal consequences of
copyright infringement. Schools are also
tasked with developing enforcement mea-sures to combat fi le
sharing or risk losing
all federal fi nancial aid
contributions.
A second bill,
the Prioritizing
Resources and
Organization for
Intellectual Property
Act, looks to expand
fi nes in copyright-
related cases
and decrease the
requirements currently needed for impos-
ing maximum criminal penalties for fi le
sharing. The bipartisan bill would also
create a new federal agency—the White
House Intellectual Property Enforcement
Representative, or WHIPER—to track
down large-scale copyright infringers.Congress to Lower Pirates’ Sails
Two new bills carry stiff implications for those who turn a blind eye to copyright law
quick start THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL
10 MAXIMUMPC (^) | FEB 08 (^) | http://www.maximumpc.com
Thomas L. McDonald has been covering games for 17 years.
He is Editor-at-Large of Games Magazine.
I
was seriously hooked on the first generation
of Unreal games. From the moment I saw Tim
Sweeney’s early work on the engine, it was clear
he was doing something special. While id Software
had fallen into a creative slump at the time, con-
tent to work with a drab and unappealing color
pallet and claustrophobic level design, Sweeney’s
new vision of 3D graphics was bursting with color,
sweeping vistas, and outdoor environments. The
design innovations carried into the gameplay
as well, with weapons, levels, and pacing that
injected new life into the shooter.
Ten years on, I find comments about Unreal
Tournament 3 being the “same old, same old”
simply baffling. If, like me, you were irritated to
see Gears of War going to the Xbox 360, know
that we’ve been paid back in full: UT3 displays
an eye-popping sense of color, light, space, and
speed that is utterly impossible outside of the PC.
The continued small-yet-huge tweaks to the
online shooter formula are what fascinate me from
a design point. I’ve read of people dismissing the
Warfare mode as just a minor variant on control
points. Absurd. The addition of power cores,
nodes, and orbs radically changes the tactics and
pacing of standard control-point play. Stirring in
vehicles, rail turrets, hover boards, and link guns
to this brew creates the most innovative addition
to objective-based online action gaming we’ve
seen in the new generation of games, and that’s
saying something.
Each small addition and task (breaking down
shielding, capturing and defending nodes, running
orbs, etc.) gives rise to a complete shift in tacti-
cal roles, and does so without ever introducing
a character class system. What UT3 and all the
other next-gen games show us—and what is so
wonderfully surprising this season—is how much
growth is still possible while staying true to the
FPS formula. They are small changes within an
already circumscribed genre, but for fans of that
genre they have a huge effect on play.
I used to think that shooter design innovation
had reached its limit, and designers would be left
simply pushing for better graphics with each new
generation. But the 2007-2008 season has shown
us something different, and I’ve never been so
happy to be wrong.
Return of the
King
GAME THEORY
THOMAS
MCDONALD
Score Another Point for DRM-Free Music
Sales at UK-based online music store dramatically favor unencumbered tracks
Not that we need any convincing, but online music sales results from 7digital.com make
a mighty persuasive case for keeping DRM off digital music tracks. The UK-based digital
music retailer, whose catalogue includes more than 3 million songs from both major and
independent record labels, says sales of DRM-free MP3s outnumber those of DRM-
encumbered tracks by a ratio of four to one. It makes sense that consumers would be
more compelled to buy a fi le format they can use on any device, but 7digital’s sales
results reveal a less obvious fi nding. Customers who buy DRM-free music from the site
are more likely to purchase full albums as opposed to buying only single tracks. How
much more evidence do the record labels need that DRM is a no-win proposition?
WORD WATCH