Mature video games sell great. Good reviews help to. A new study from Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) revealed several factors in video game sales. First, mature rated games sell better and get better reviews. And games that get very good reviews, Metacritic scores above 90, sell 531 percent above the average game.

So maybe this means means we’ll see more mature, quality games.

Okay, maybe not. But this study does present some ideas game publishers should consider. First, gamers like good games. Let’s not try to bash the video game critics (like Sony pushing Lair critics to reconsider their scores) and instead make games they like. Because it seems, gamers and game critics agree on what makes a good game.

The second, and more important point, is mature games not only sell better even with fewer retail outlets, but get better reviews. Maybe gamers and critics alike just want gross violence, hence, but I believe this reveals gamers like more grown-up games. Clean, wholesome games like Mario and Zelda offer excellent gameplay but lack rich storylines. While violent video games get all the press, subject matter in games is severely censored for sexual and graphic subject matter.

As the recent Manhunt 2 controversy showed, there is no market for Adults only rated video games. Sony and Nintendo won’t allow AO games on their consoles and major retailers won’t sell the games. Whatever your preference, censoring the creative minds behinds the games will not promote video games as art, but instead inspires more Grand Theft Auto knock-offs.

Recently we’ve seen what mature games can produce: Bioshock. This critical darling has a gallery of ESRB no-nos (they don’t seem to like eating little girls). But Bioshock real brilliance is less in gameplay and more in storytelling (while still having awesome gameplay). You inject yourself with power-ups like a drug; a drug that turned everyone in the games’ world insane, for example.

As movies have shown, grown-up subject matter often allows for more developed stories because you don’t have to avoid references, language, or imagery that makes the experience more immersive and believable. Mature games get better reviews and more sales because they are better games. The creators don’t have to censor their stories, visuals, or ideas. Imagine what might happen if video games could actually deal with complex emotional issues (which always have to do with sex). Your character could choose to cheat on his wife. How many evil points should that get you? Dealing with more complex and yes, mature issues, will lead to more complex games. The world isn’t black and white and neither should our games.

Are you as jealous as I am? Geekologie shows off the unattractive looking but still irresistible Microwulf Supercomputer, a staggering technical display by Calvin College professor Joel Adams and senior Tim Brom. This mess of wires, plastic, and metal boasts 26 gigaflops for less than $2,500 in 2006, all running on one power outlet. Today, the same set up would cost $1,256 (you still need one power outlet). ClusterMonkey has a detailed overview of the computer as well as Microwulf’s official site.

Firefox makes web browsing better. You get more information faster and even prettier. One way of doing this is to block ads. All those win-free-stuff-play-this-game ads flash and sparkle often at contrast to hosting page. The New York Times published a story about Adblock Plus, a Firefox plug-in that blocks most web advertisements, and how web content providers are getting worried they are loosing revenue.

The Times, as well as similar articles, point out the similarity between Adblock Plus and television’s TiVo where users can fast-forward through commercials. But as CNet.com points out, the differences are significant. Television deals with a fixed cost regardless of the number of viewers whereas websites have to pay for the bandwidth of each user. Also, TiVo wanted to avoid the fate of ReplayTV which got sued by the television networks for completely skipping commercials. TiVo will only let you fast-forward, not skip. Adblock Plus, as an open-source, free plug-in for all, answers to no one. The response: whyfirefoxisblocked.com. This site offers ways to block all Firefox users from websites to prevent ad blocking (forgetting Internet Explorer has a more complex plug-in as well).

I find Adblock a quandary. First of all, I use Adblock Plus (as well as Comcast DVR). My reason for using Adblock has more to do with saving RAM than blocking ads. I often have several dozen tabs in several windows open. With all those Flash and JavaScript ads, Firefox freezes like it’s on a 14.4k modem. Though I allow ads on Google because I find those helpful (more on that in a bit).

My dilemma is I do think blocking ads like this on the web threatens the budding web economy. Web pundits pressure content sites to forgo the paywall and give out content for free supported by advertising. But then the geekiest of us block the ads preventing the suggested revenue model.

On the other hand, web advertising is annoying. Large animated graphics telling me to dress a naked cartoon girl while reading a story about web server doesn’t make sense. Television, because of the cost to make and buy ads, requires a high-level of quality not yet seen on the web. Even on major sites like Facebook and MySpace, the ads are tacky (and embarrassing for any co-workers look over my shoulder).

Whyfirefoxisblocked.com claims blocking website ads is stealing. This theory sounds unlikely (and probably a byproduct of the piracy debates calling everything under the motherboard stealing). Web content is given out for free, like television. Ads are an agreement between the content provider and the advertiser. Never does the user enter any agreement (websites can’t claim that by using their site, you agree to all their rules, that’s not legally binding). This argument is like saying going to the bathroom during television commercials is stealing the television show.

Unfortunately, at present we are in a catch-22. Web advertising is cheap allowing anyone with a website to make and buy ads. There aren’t enough major advertisers for large websites to hand pick the ads they show (like television shows can). The best logic came from Wladimir Palant, the creator of Adblock Plus, who wrote on his blog:

“There is only one reliable way to make sure your ads aren’t blocked — make sure the users don’t want to block them. Don’t forget about the users. Use ads in a way that doesn’t degrade their experience.”

Web advertising will take lots of experimentation from how much ads to put on a page to placement to visual styles. Pop-ads are disappearing (since pop-up blockers are so effective, but not as bad since they don’t block all advertising) to be replaced by even more annoying overlays that hide their close buttons.

I am a fan of advertising. I like learning about new products which I then, of course, research and gossip about. Even products I don’t care about often make fun and entertaining ads. May more targeted advertising. That’s why I like Google AdWords. They are simple but focused on my search - something I already want. I don’t mind some video game ads when I read IGN.com. Gamespot.com has experimented with options for the ads. For example, if the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance game was advertised, I could pick between Spider-Man, Captain America, or Wolverine to be my background. Focused, entertaining, and immersive. That’s good advertising. And I wouldn’t want to block that.

In case you were confused, this site is for Geeks, but nerds are accepted (Prodigeek makes for better word play and Prodinerd). Anyway, to make everyone who wears glasses and knows the difference between Superman Earth-1 and Superman Earth-2 feel welcome, please head over to take your very own nerd test to find out just what kind of nerd you are. Here’s my score, me, the Mega-Dorky Nerd King. Yeah, beat that!

Microsoft launched their Windows Media Center Edition back in 2004, providing an enhanced media experience for customers willing to pay the premium. Now, three years later and several products in between, Microsoft has decided to release the Extender, the answer to media viewing on all platforms. This would be really exciting if it were still 2004.

The Extender features impressive 802.11n next-gen wireless technology to stream high-definition video from your Media Center PC to your TV. But is that feature alone enough to compete with Apple TV, Slingbox, and Microsoft’s own Xbox 360 (which, from what I hear, also plays video games).

But this Extender follows a trend of Microsoft to be late to the tech game. The pioneer of easy-to-use software trails Google in search and video, Adobe in web application software, and Apple in music players (do you know anyone who owns a Zune?).

If Microsoft was so eager to enter the media streaming arena, they had a $300 Xbox 360 with just those capabilities and more for the same price as the feature-lite Apple TV. And that was before the 360’s price drop. But I guess the 360 just isn’t enough. We need an entirely new gadget. That already exists. Many times over.

While the Sony PSP enjoys a healthy and successful homebrew community, Sony feels it necessary to stifle them any way they can. Kotaku pointed me to the official Sony forum where they have banned any discussion of homebrew techniques or hacks for the PSP, and presumably PS3, systems.

Homebrew applications void the warranty of the PSP®(PlayStation®Portable) system, and an official area to discuss such activities cannot be provided by SCEA. Any postings that are clearly homebrew-related, such as those providing instructions on downgrading firmware updates, will be removed from this board.

Sony of course has the right to do this, but they once again show themselves unwilling to embrace a growing community for their hardware. Instead of supporting the massive value the homebrew can create, free of charge, creating everything from eReaders to GPS systems, Sony feels it has to flew its muscles and ban those most loyal from their forums.

And Sen. Barack Obama appears to be winning.

The Washington Wire reports Illinois senator attracted 717,000 unique visitors to his website in July with Sen. Hillary Clinton reaching 437,000 visitors. Clinton kept visitors for slightly longer, averaging 8 minutes, 17 seconds versus Obama’s 7 minutes, 53 seconds.

Republican presidential websites trailed the Democratic front-runners. Yet-to-be-announced in July candidate Fred Thompson managed to lead the Republican nominees with 381,000 visitors but holding them for only an average of 90 seconds, but still twice the number of visitors as Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

These numbers are unlikely to correlate to political viability but represents revelations about how presidential candidates are leveraging the web. Both Obama and Clinton are attracting large audiences that stay on their site of a sizeable amount of time. Giuliani’s smaller 124,000 visitors spent a comparable 7 and a half minutes on his site.

Watching these numbers evolve will really help politicians learn what works online as now it’s mostly an experimentation (remember how well it worked for Howard Dead in 2004?). Obama has a small lead in keep his online supporters informed, which likely is keeping his rally turn out high and his donations sizeable. I’d like to know if the lower numbers for Republican candidates has more to do with their demographics, lack of internet savvy, or limited interest in the candidates. Thompson lead the Republicans with hits but only announced his candidacy last night: these numbers are for the month of July.

Take pride in your video game console. It’s only human.

MyArcadePlanet’s David Keating writes an interesting article trying to explain the psychology behind gamers and their (our) fanatic pride for one console or another. He says, simply, owners of Xbox 360s will love the 360 but trash the PS3 and vice versa simply because he or she owns one. Not owning one makes the other bad.

“Psychologist Kurt Lewin theorized that when people are faced with a choice between two equally positive items, (for example, the choice between a PS3 and a 360) they experience stress. Lewin went on to posit that after making their decision people alleviate this stress by immediately viewing their choice as being vastly superior. So all of the sudden, the two previously similar things now appear very different in the consumer’s mind. This suggests that when a gamer is in the store trying to figure out which console is for him, he is secretly afraid of making the wrong choice. So much so that once the decision is made and the credit card has been scanned, his mind goes into overdrive as he rapidly accentuates that console’s positives while mentally eliminating the negatives. In a matter of seconds, the other console under consideration just moments ago becomes, ‘a piece of crap that only a loser would buy.’ “

Source: Anatomy of a Fanboy: A Psychological Analysis of Console Gaming’s Super Fans

Keating’s theory has wider affect. Console fanboy fanatism is probably not limited expensive purchases but also comic companies (Marvel vs. DC), franchises (Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings) and gadgets (iPod vs. everything else). So just remember the next time you make fun of your friend for buying that Dreamcast or Gamecube. They love them for the same reason you still think the Jaguar was the bees knees: because you bought one.

Today Apple announced NBC would not be renewing its contract to sell television shows on iTunes. The announcement comes a few weeks after sister company Universal Music Group (both companies are owned by General Electric) also refused to renew its contract with iTunes.

NBC, according to today’s New York Times, wanted higher prices for its shows as well as more piracy control and bundling options. Apple has responded saying NBC wanted to raise wholesale prices causing retail prices to increase to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. NBC provided iTunes with approximately 30 percent of its TV show sales.

Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, will continue to sell its music on iTunes without a contract. Universal also wanted more control over pricing and rumors speculate they even wanted a cut of each iPod sold, a deal Universal has with Microsoft’s less successful Zune.

With these two market leaders posturing against iTunes, Apple has big PR fires to deal with (which is likely why Apple released NBC’s price demands to the press this afternoon). Apple also risks some lost revenue as NBC pulls all its content. And worst case scenario, other media companies might start envisioning a world apart from iTunes.

Of course, as Techdirt points out, music and media companies only have themselves to blame for iTunes’ power position in the digital media realm. By pushing DRM specific to iTunes, only iPods can play music sold on iTunes. And DRM run by another company, like Microsoft, will not play on iPods. So the 80 percent market share iPods control force music buyers to buy from iTunes. The only solution media companies have would be to sell DRM-free MP3s, which can be played on all digital music players.

Universal Music Group will be trying this strategy on Amazon’s new download service, but the impact is questionable. Unlike television shows, most music listeners don’t know which company publishes their favorite artists. Unless Amazon can provide the same or better selection than iTunes with 100 percent DRM-free songs, iTunes will reign supreme, even with its lost revenue.

And, of course, as the case with any DRM/price/service/selection war, the consumer looses. Now fans of U2, Heroes, and Battlestar Galactica are likely going to have to surf various sites for downloadable music and movies, most of which might not be compatible with hardware and software they’re used to. Or they can just pirate it, just giving media companies more justification for DRM and taking away from iTunes’ revenue. That sounds a little extreme (though I would argue it’s impossible to give media companies more reason for DRM since they already make up most of their justification already

So Apple looses face and sales; NBC Universal looses sales and fans; and consumers loose convenience and well, they’ve already been loosing in this DRM-crazed archaic media business world. I would love to see peace be made, DRM removed, and new business models explored, but that’s unlikely. I would expect more announcements of non-exclusive iTunes contracts in the coming months. iPods will still sell amazingly this holiday season, so I guess Apple’s the winningest looser of them all.

UPDATE - September 1st - NBC has responded to Apple’s claim that NBC wanted higher prices on TV shows. NBC says they only wanted to offer bundles at bargain prices or free episodes with movie purchases.

Murder and mayhem can work wonders for an advertising campaign. The ultra-violent sequel to the 2003 action game has a planned release date of Halloween 2007, certain to be a major release thanks to some free publicity. Manhunt 2 originally received an adults only rating form the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board). This rating meant most major retailers would not carry the game as well as Nintendo and Sony not allowing the game on their consoles. The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) refused to certify the game meaning it would have been illegal to sell in Britain.

GamePolitics posted some conspiracy theories around Manhunt 2’s new release date and how the adults only rating was a publicity stunt, never intended to be the true retail release (similar theories were posed for the South Park movie).

Manhunt follows a prisoner on death row, James Earl Cash, who is trapped in an abandoned town where he has to survive a horror director’s kill-or-be-killed movie. To defend himself, Cash uses a variety of weapons to produce gruesomely detailed deaths of enemies like decapitation or stabbing a crowbar through their head. The game received mostly good reviews, praised for his immersive and detailed experience…if you like the violence. Manhunt 2 is expected to follow a similar plot.

GamePolitics offers several theories, from Manhunt 2 publisher Rockstar (the makers of the Grand Theft Auto series) purposefully putting over the top material in the game to paying off the ESRB to it all being an innocent mistake. I think the first idea is the most plausible. Manhunt won’t sell that well to warrant paying off ratings officials in every country (GTA, on the other hand…). A marketing stunt, however, let’s everybody win. The ratings bodies get to show they stand up to the big bad video game companies and Rockstar gets tons of free publicity.

So after some failed appeals on first amendment grounds, Rockstar has announced a perfectly timed Halloween release (after seeing Saw IV, play the game) for the more retail friendly mature rating.. And as no publicity is bad publicity, Manhunt 2 is almost certain to sell enough for Manhunt 3 to trigger it’s way to consoles.