Good news, rockers! We heard back from our friends at EA, and yesterday’s panic over the kill switch on Rock Band for iPhone was premature. They tell us that the in-app message was an error, and you can buy the game with confidence if you feel so inclined. [More]
games
(Updated) EA's Rock Band Game For iPhone Will NOT Self-Destruct In 29 Days
By 5.2.12
UPDATE: We heard back from EA this evening. They tell us that the message to players was an error, and Rock band is NOT being turned off after May 31. [More]
EA Trying Hard To Lose Customer Over A Few Bucks
By 4.25.12
If you’re not really a fan of electronic games, it might not be clear to you why EA took the top poo in this year’s Worst Company in America Tournament. Maybe Alex’s experience can serve as an illustration. There was no huge amount of money involved, and his problem with EA didn’t affect his day-to-day life. But the utter lack of response from EA to a real and easily solved problem makes even a loyal customer like Alex feel that they don’t matter. [More]
Target Doesn't Need To See Your Identification; Tries Anyway
By 1.20.12
Phil (not the one who works here) brought a game/controller bundle to the register at his local Target store. The cashier asked for his driver’s license to complete the sale, because the game was age-restricted. After a manager intervened, Phil got to buy his game with only a typed-in birthdate, but here’s the thing: the game was rated “Teen,” and Target’s own policies state that they don’t require birthdates for games with that rating. And besides: Phil is in his late thirties. [More]
Best Buy Pricematching COD:MW3 At $51.99
By 11.11.11
Anyone who rushed out and bought the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 for $59.99 at Best Buy… should rush back in and ask for $8 back. That’s because BestBuy.com dropped the price to $51.99 and Best Buy brick and mortars are supposed to pricematch the online site. [More]
NewEgg Drops The Ball, Gamestop Saves The Day. Wait: Gamestop?
By 10.6.11
Two months ago, Nathan took advantage of a Newegg promotion for $10 off his pre-order of the collector’s edition of the game Dark Souls, which was released on Tuesday. Ordering ahead and getting a discount: points for planning and for shopping prowess. The day before the game was to be released, Newegg (and other retailers, Nathan later learned) had to cancel their pre-orders because they just didn’t have enough product. This left him without a collector’s edition on release day…unless he could find one in his city, in person. Was such a feat possible? Yes, as it turns out, with some luck and the help of a heroic Gamestop employee. [More]
Chinese Prisoners Forced To Farm Warcraft Gold Or Get Beatings
By 5.26.11
To get ahead in online games like the popular World of Warcraft, sometimes people will turn to the black market and purchase in-game gold from other gamers using real world dollars. It sounds relatively harmless, except the person you’re buying it from could be a prisoner in a Chinese labor camp under threat of cruel physical punishment. [More]
Do You Have What It Takes To Be Working Poor?
By 2.18.11
You’re a savvy consumer used to pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. So if you were a jobless parent, down to your last $1,000, you could make it work, right? Spent is a new free online “game” that tests to see whether you have what it takes. Put out by the Urban Ministries of Durham, it’s less fun than a sobering dose of reality. I played it and in order to make it through the month I couldn’t let my kid go on field trips and I missed his baseball game in order to take a job helping a neighbor move. Also, I got fired for talking to a union organizer. The gas also got shut off and I drove away from an accident instead of paying the ticket. I had no choice, otherwise I would have gone broke and lost the game. [More]
8-Year-Old Girl Racks Up $1,400 Bill Playing "Smurfs Village" iPad Game
By 2.9.11
A 2nd-grader managed to rack up a $1,400 bill for her parents over break while playing the “Smurfs Village”, a Farmville-esque iPad game, reports the Washington Post. Like many of these app-based games, the game is free but you can purchase in-app upgrades, with real money, to speed your progress. In this case, you can get a “bucket of snowflakes” for $19 or a “wagon of smurfberries” for $99. Needless to say, her mother became quite blue in the face. [More]
Will I Or Won't I Get Wet?
By 1.7.11
This sign advertising $5 for five minutes of bubble fun is confusing. Not the part where your child is placed inside a giant rubber bubble and then allowed to run around on top of a pool of water. We’re cool with that. But at the top it says, “walk, jog, run, job and have lots of fun on the water… while completely dry!” At the bottom of the sign it says, “YOU MAY GET WET.” Well, which is it? [More]
Game Developer Says Farmville Is Designed To Be "Negative" And "Draining"
By 12.9.10
So-called social network games like Farmville and Mafia Wars are intentionally designed to not be fun and cause you anxiety, says a well-respected game developer. [More]
GameStop Is Out Of The Game You Want? Order It For In-Store Pickup, Return 10 Minutes Later
By 11.10.10
The bad news: the GameStop where Ambyr went to buy a copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops for her husband only had enough copies of the game to fill pre-orders. The good news: In GameStop’s universe, to “pre-order” means that you leave the store that just refused to sell you a game, order that game online, and then return fifteen minutes later. Bad for logic, good for Ambyr. [More]
Can A Pirate Ship Game Teach Kids About Money?
By 8.23.10
Parsons design and technology thesis students came up with a pirate ship board game that has the twin goals of teaching personal finance to kids and not sucking. [More]
Blockbuster Chases GameFly, Offers Game Rentals By Mail
By 8.10.10
Yesterday we noted that Blockbuster was launching a new DVD-by-mail rental service (which Netflix promptly one-upped by announcing a new streaming agreement), and today we’re getting tips from people that the beleaguered brick and mortar movie rental company is throwing games into the offer as well. FastCompany notes that GameFly offers around 7,000 game titles compared to Blockbuster’s library of 3,000 titles. On the other hand, Blockbuster’s rental plans start at $9/mo compared to GameFly’s $16/mo (both for one disc at a time). [More]
GameStop Buys Pre-Owned Website Kongregate
By 7.28.10
If you play games on the website Kongregate–its founders say 10 million players stop by every month–then congratulations, you’re about to become GameStop’s new BFF. There’s no word yet on how this will affect the Kongregate community; the site lets people play online games for free, and GameStop says that the its founders will continue to run things for now. If we start seeing offers to pre-order an upcoming online free game, I guess we’ll know the takeover is complete. [More]
Start Your Child's Beer Pong Training Early
By 7.16.10
Rounding out our trilogy of beer pong posts this week, here’s an exciting product that commenter Nic715 pointed out: Hasbro’s game Cuponk. Throw the ball into the cup, and lights go off and electronic noises sound. It’s a way to have some family fun and hone your kids’ skills long before they leave for college. [More]
'70s "BP Offshore Oil Strike" Board Game Eerily Prescient
By 7.7.10
You’ve seen the box cover on MSNBC and CNN, but now you can actually see the pieces and board of the genuine 1970s “BP Offshore Oil Strike” game. BoardGameGeeks has a full image gallery. [More]
Awesome Game Offer Removes All Incentives For Piracy, Gets Pirated Anyway
By 5.10.10
Wolfire Games is running a special sale called the Humble Bundle, where you can pay as little as one penny via PayPal, Google Checkout, or Amazon, for five cross-platform indie games that are completely free of DRM or even serial numbers. Despite that, says the company, it looks like over 25% of downloads are coming from “shared links from forums and other places without actually contributing anything.” That’s not counting anything happening over BitTorrent. [More]
