I caught a post over on Future Feeder (Link) a couple of days ago officially announcing the SketchUp plug-in for Google Maps (it’s actually been in beta for a while now – Link). If you recall, I posted about another Google Maps plug-in not long ago (Link). Out of curiousity I thought I’d do a quick Google images search to see what’s happening, and while it’s slow going, it appears the overlaying of virtual on real is in progress (see earlier posts of mine discussing this sort of thing: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, Link 5, Link 6). I’m going to have to keep a closer eye on this stuff now. Damn.

{Image Copyright © 2003-2005 ConstruTIC}

C|Net has an article today (Link) discussing what everyone in the virtual world/gaming community has already discussed: the recent suggestion by Julian Dibble (Link) that the IRS might start taxing virtual assets. It’s a time late piece, but it does have a couple things in it worth quoting. Here’s the first:

Dibbell isn’t so sure. He said that while the IRS has ruled that some forms of goods with inherent value–such as then St. Louis Cardinals star Mark McGwire’s record-breaking home run ball from 1998–are not taxable assets until they are sold, that may not always be true.

Wait a sec. A famous baseball has “inherent value”? Did he or someone actually claim that? Well, when someone can point out how it’s demonstrably different than any other baseball out there, maybe that will make a little sense to me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a baseball.

Now here’s the second:

To Joseph Bankman, a professor at Stanford Law School, the question is not one game players or publishers should worry too much about.

“I think the common-sense answer is that the IRS wouldn’t and shouldn’t go after folks until they sell the assets,” Bankman said. “The common sense reason for this is that for most folks, the ‘assets’ represent enjoyment value–what we call imputed income–that’s not taxed. It’s a little bit like getting an autograph of a baseball player or movie star. You could sell the autograph, and folks do, but we don’t tax folks who get the autographs and don’t sell them.”

I like common sense.

With the growing disgust circulating among gamers weary of non-relevant advertising being forcefully injected into the videogames they play, is it any surprise that an “anti-advergame” offering would show up on the scene? If you saw the recent story on Subway’s efforts (Link), you know the answer to that is “No”.

Now from Persuasive Games comes “Disaffected“, a game taking direct aim at the trend in general, and Federal Express in particular. Here’s one especially interesting bit from the game site that got my attention (Link):

While examples of branded games go as far back as the Atari 2600, “advergames” have become very popular in the last ten years, first as web-based games and now as both casual games and product/ad placement in commercial games. Advertising in games is a growing yet little questioned area of gaming. Are games only capable of carrying positive advertising messages? Or can they also enact dissatisfaction and criticism against corporations? Anti-advergames are to detract from or call into question a set of products or services for expressive, cathartic, social, or political purposes.

Apparently FedEx fits the profile of an institution worthy of Persuasive’s mission: to “design, build, and distribute electronic games for persuasion, instruction, and activism”. I guess. But I’d rather see them tackle more games like their “Airport Insecurity” (Link) which seems more important; more in keeping with their mission. If they want to target advertising in games, why not go after the game companies that allow their games to be used in that way? Don’t blame FedEx or Chrysler or Subway. It’s companies like Massive and Engage selling the streaming advertising technology and game companies (like Sony) that allow it to be included in their products who are at fault here. Instead, maybe make a game showing the people behind the scenes making decisions and selling out their products to increase profits at the expense of fans.

via We Make Money Not Art

{Image Copyright © 2003 – 2006 Persuasive Games LLC}

I recently happened across a virtual vending machine for this little joy, the Insult Bot, and thought I’d share it. Reminds me of one of my previous posts on the future of virtual annoyances (Link). It also puts recent news about covert “stealth bots” crawling the net into a different perspective (see Wired article about that Here). Here’s a clip:

Billy Hoffman, an engineer at Atlanta company SPI Dynamics unveiled a new, smarter web-crawling application that behaves like a person using a browser, rather than a computer program. “Basically this nullifies any traditional form of forensics,” says Hoffman.

So the Insult Bot might look primitive now, but just wait til the Japanese get hold of it – they’ll turn it into something with the shape of a Miss Universe and the mouth of a… well, you know.

I’ve previously mentioned that the videogame mod community is having a hard time keeping up with increasingly complex content – specifically the CAD-like accuracy of the game model files used to create the normal-mapped textures that make the lower-geometry models look much more detailed. Most often I mention this issue when I discuss the options available for industrial designers and the opportunities being presented by this new reality. I see this as one part of a bigger shift toward a “content is king” world.

Need evidence that there’s a widening gap between the casual modder/modeler and the improving standards? Well, check out the recent news regarding the IGF 2006 Modding Competition over on Gamasutra (Link). From the article:

Finally, the finalists for IGF Best Mod – Doom 3 are Platinum Arts’s co-op ‘classic Doom’ throwback Last Man Standing, and Games[CC]’s closed captioning modification Doom3[CC] – no other entries in this category were of finalist quality.

The idea that an id game could be short of entries is almost unthinkable considering their place in videogame modification history. But I’m not sure which is more curious: the missing Doom3 mods, or the missing designers.

via Blue’s News