I think I finally figured out why Hulu is blocked on the PS3. There were rumors that it might have been a Microsoft deal, and Hulu was being pretty silent about it, but no one has ever postulated that perhaps Sony was the one behind it.

Now I could be entirely incorrect here, but it’s fascinating that now PSN carries Naruto: Shippuden, as one of the shows that is being distributed. Obviously for $1.99 per episode. Now this is a little bit different than the other version that Hulu had since this one is actually dubbed with American voice actors instead of subtitled, but this could also be the copyright reasoning behind why Hulu isn’t allowing any shows on the PS3.

Very sneaky, if this hypothetical was true. And I have to admit that the more I think about it, the more it seems like that’s the case. Especially with this new evidence of Funimation releasing this.

Hey, I get the fact that we have to pay for content. But if you’re going to release it for free online, then why selectively block browsers? Let us watch the subtitled and buy the dubbed or none at all. It’s super lame if it’s one or the other while those on other consoles don’t have this issue.

And with the introduction of next generation gaming, you can definitely see this becoming an increasing number. I actually believe there are two things involved. The first is the fact that most of us gamers that grew up with the Atari 2600 and Intellivision have moved on through the generations of gaming consoles and PC gaming to arrive at our current stage. We’re also at the age where we are parents or some are even grandparents and we still enjoy the entertainment. On top of that, we’re also creating a younger generation of gamers to enjoy it with us.

Second, gaming corporations are chasing after a more general populace of gamers. Right now, they are looking to bring in people that previously were not entertained with gaming. That changed entirely when the Wii was introduced, and now Microsoft has Project Natal and Sony has the Playstation Motion controller. The entire move towards casual gamers has not only increased the spread of interactive entertainment but it’s also found its way into the lives of people that never thought about pixel-driven fun.

As people’s living rooms become their space for winding down instead of movie theaters and the like, I believe that this number will probably grow out to around an eighty percent mark in the next decade or so. What does this mean? Truthfully, we could really be playing video games with people we have never met that live quite literally down the street from us.

These user-written books can be obtained from a crafter and will start out blank. Any player can write in a blank book, but as soon as you write the first word you become the author of that book. From that point forward, only the author may edit the contents of the book.

The EQ2 forum thread continues the thoughts with what type of original works could be penned. Ideals go well beyond fan fiction. Imagine a whole new tradeskill profession possibility in the future: the author, the printer, the publisher. NPCs as librarians are hinted. I don’t know if that is where Sony is headed with this of course, but I’m seeing a lot of very creative possibilities. Great idea and something that several people mentioned was originally available in Ultima Online.

According to this comment, Sages level 50+ will be able to quest for recipes to make these blank books. This means my toon Ratosorf, pictured above, currently a level 66 Sage will be able to do the quest when this is launched with the update.

Based on a total of 12 posts and after site expenses the VTOR blog earned in March 2009: $23.65 USD. We did not add any new money to our site promotional fund. The balance split among those who posted in the group is: $23.65 USD as shown and distributed accordingly below.

# of posts – VTOR Author for December 2008
8 – Darius……..…………………….…..…= 66% = $15.77 USD
2 – TD Goodliffe….….…………..…..…= 16% = $3.94 USD
2 – JohnnyRS……..………………..……= 16% = $3.94 USD
=========================================
12 total posts ……………………..…….=100% = $23.65 USD

How to become a VTOR author
To learn more about VTOReality.com and the authors visit the VTOR about page. If you’re interested in becoming one of the VTOR authors contact TD Goodliffe inside Second Life for details.

I attempted to come up with any fantasy title that doesn’t somehow lift from D&D, and after 20 minutes of contemplation, I’m still drawing a blank.

I hear you, Earnest, I wanted to make the headline for this piece (but it just seemed a little tacky): Now Both D&D Creators Are Out Of Hit Points.

I don’t recall seeing Mr. Arneson’s name as much Gygax in the original D&D tomes, but it’s sad news nonetheless when anybody associated with the creation of Dungeons & Dragons dies. It seems behind the scenes there was significant legal tension between Areneson, Gygax and publisher of D&D TSR Games.

Arenson’s Wikipedia entry offers more information on the significance of his contribution:

In the summer of 1970, Arneson began to create a game that involved medieval miniatures exploring the dungeons of a castle inhabited by fantastic monsters. Originally Arneson played his own mix of rules using rock, paper, scissors to resolve combat, but later adapted elements from his naval rules (which had an armor class system like that later used in D&D – the lower the armor class, the harder the ship (or creature) was to hit) and the Chainmail rules, written by Gygax and Jeff Perren (which was on a similar track to what Arneson had in mind, combining fantasy elements with real-world rules albeit for medieval gaming). However, also finding those lacking, he wrote his own rules in his own play as and when needed, applying those to his role-playing game scenario.

For those who believe in Heaven, they now have one heckuva role-playing game crew up there. Dave Arneson died April 7,2009 at age 61. Too young.

Based on a total of 4 posts and after site expenses the VTOR blog earned in February 2009: $29.14 USD. We did not add any new money to our site promotional fund. The balance split among those who posted in the group is: $34.29 USD as shown and distributed accordingly below.

# of posts – VTOR Author for December 2008
2 – TD Goodliffe….….…………..……= 50% = $14.57 USD
2 – Darius……..…………………….……= 50% = $14.57 USD
=========================================
4 total posts ……………………..…….=100% = $29.14 USD

How to become a VTOR author
To learn more about VTOReality.com and the authors visit the VTOR about page. If you’re interested in becoming one of the VTOR authors contact TD Goodliffe inside Second Life for details.

Based on a total of 12 posts and after site expenses the VTOR blog earned in January 2009: $34.29 USD. We did not add any new money to our site promotional fund. The balance split among those who posted in the group is: $34.29 USD as shown and distributed accordingly below.

# of posts – VTOR Author for December 2008
5 – TD Goodliffe….….…………..……= 41.67% = $14.29 USD
5 – Darius……..…………………….……= 41.67% = $14.29 USD
2 – Evansmom……..……………………= 16.67% = $5.72 USD
=========================================
12 total posts ……………………..…….=100% = $34.29 USD

How to become a VTOR author
To learn more about VTOReality.com and the authors visit the VTOR about page. If you’re interested in becoming one of the VTOR authors contact TD Goodliffe inside Second Life for details.

MMPORG companies out there: if you want to retain professionals like myself who want to play when there is actually time available for playing, then switch the pay to a time spent in game subscription credit instead of a real world time subscription. Offer that as an alternative means of payment, perhaps even at a slightly higher price point, for people like myself.

CK’s weird use of MMPORG instead of the standard MMORPG aside, this is an interesting idea. I see some problems though as when I do play these type games, the sessions are long. So unless the number of hours purchased is like in say 25 or 50 hour chunks minimum, one would run into having to stop in the middle of a battle and/or quest and juice their account with more time. I’m sure that could become more annoying than paying for a subscription that seldom gets used.

I’m still playing Everquest II but very sparingly at the moment – like one day a week right now. So I’m paying for 6 days a week that there is no play time. Sony is making a few bucks off players like me. Since we are rebooting our offline business, it might be awhile before I have more than a day or three to spend playing MMORPGs.

My first reaction to CK’s suggested alternate payment model was hey, that’s kind of cool, but the more I think about it, I’d rather have unlimited time throughout the month. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not unlimited since there are only so many hours in the day, but when one gets immersed in the virtual world one of the last things s/he needs is to be reminded by something in the real world needs to be paid to keep playing.

I almost smacked somebody the other day for even mentioning Second Life. This was the big digital marketing idea a couple of years ago for many agencies. It has since been replaced by the Facebook page, followed closely by the YouTube channel and the Twitter profile. Admit it, you know I’m right. Strategy is boss now and we can do better than this.

Um, no I don’t think I can admit you are right, Matt. But you did make me curious if this is what the marketing firms out there have switched focus to: Twitter and Facebook? I think it’s a shame if that has happened. I still believe the first breakthrough virtual world, assuming you don’t buy into Second Life being that, will be one that is part of the every day browsing experience. I think any virtual world that forces running separate software that can’t be seamlessly loaded and run (like in a browser) is going to be difficult to adopt on a grand scale.

In the end for me Second Life’s biggest problem was they stopped innovating. Voice chat last year had been done by Skype years prior. The ability to have the web on a prim – something promised for years – or open sourcing the server side would pique my curiosity again, but I think the train has largely left the station for Linden Lab.

But I wonder how many others are just playing their favorite MMORPG more (that’s what I’ve been doing) or exploring some new virtual world. Facebook, Twitter, those don’t seem like very good alternatives for virtual worlds to me. What do you think?

One minor snag in the process. While going through the process, I still had 16 meters of land donated to our VTOR group land space (under the SL Blog Bar group) and received the error message when trying to downgrade my account to the free basic account:

This was easy enough to fix, although as you can see the message doesn’t go out of the way to help you figure it out. Just login to the world right click on your avatar, choose groups, and then go to the “Land & L$” tab as shown below and make sure “Your Contribution” has a 0 in every group.

Once you do that the process to downgrade works and leads to an exit survey, which I’ll let the picture speak for itself.

So in a few days I’ll join the land of the freebie members again. I would expect my usage of Second Life in 2009 will be greatly reduced, perhaps eventually to the point where the software will be uninstalled by year end but that’s just a guess. Had high hopes for Second Life but in the end it didn’t measure anywhere close to the hype. What I didn’t put in the downgrade survey is that they ruined it by making it too first life.

Gambling, remember that? I find it interesting that inside the game Everquest II there is a Gigglegibber Goblins’ lotto where you can win a bunch of coins by matching all six numbers. Can this currency be traded in real dollars like Linden Lab allows in Second Life? Not from Sony, no, but there are a bunch of virtual currency brokers out there that will. The goblin lotto is very close to the ‘gambling’ that Linden Lab used to allow in Second Life. Is this the same as real world online gambling? I don’t think so, but apparently it Linden Lab felt it was and that decision changed the landscape of the business aspect interest for me with Second Life.

Anyway, no sense crying over spilled milk. I wish the rest of readers who still have Second Life premium accounts the best of luck. If you are keeping yours must admit I’m curious … why? If you canceled already, then why did you stop your premium membership? Anybody choose the more extreme cancel account route? Why?