Splicer: Go ahead and hack, I’ll politely wait until you are done to attack you voraciously

The review touches on the drastic dumbing down of the game for those consolers (hacking anyone?), the actually limited use of weapons / splicing / other skills, the unlimited regeneration points EVERYWHERE that make dying fun, and the storyline mirrors the original system shock to a T. But still, it’s a gorgeous game with a terrible ending, so enjoy the experience of it all.

Tristan Louis, an application development VP for HSBC, recently made public his economic analysis of the pertinent numbers available on Second Life’s website.  For those of you who don’t know, Second Life is the highly controversial MMO 3D digital world in which paying subscribers interact in ways analagous to real life.  The only things truly connecting it to reality are a) subscription fees for high-tier membership plans, and b) its in-game economy, which can be exchanged for real money.  Like all real currencies, the exchange rate  from “Linden Dollars,” as the currency is called, to USD fluxuates.

But back to Louis’ economic survey of Second Life.  By dissecting the pecuniary affairs and the raw number of users who’ve subscribed since last August, Louis arrived at a conclusion that affords us a new perspective on Second Life:

On average, the number of logins over a 60 day period seems to be about 35 to 40 percent of the total population reported. The people who log in, however, seem to spend a fair amount of money ($50-60 a week) within the Second Life economy.

GigaGamez accentuates the highlights of Louis’ findings concisely:

If accurate, this would mean that some 200,000-230,000 active Second Life users are on average currently spending more on their in-world experience than any existing online world by far. (For comparison, a World of Warcraft subscription is but $15 a month, and that’s money paid to the Blizzard/Vivendi, not user-to-user.)

To summarize Tristan Louis’ conclusions, Second Life is relatively sparse according to its amount of active users, but absolutely economically lively based on the average amount of cash trading an active user’s hands.  Furthermore, even though Second Life doesn’t have an enormeous amount of active users, Louis predicts that that’s all going to change:

[I]t looks that, under the most conservative growth rate, we will see 3.5 million users registered and over 600,000 using the service by the end of April 2007. Under a liberal interpretation of the data, those numbers would shift to 9.6 million and just under 7 million. However, in the most likely case, it is probable that there will be 7.2 million users registered with 1.6 million logging in over the previous sixty days. Not too shabby.

“Not too shabby,” Tristan Louis concludes, but he also advises his readers “to go with the most conservative estimate because [his] data set is still relatively small. Even then, this type of growth mirrors some of the growth patterns we’ve seen in the early days of the commercial web and seem to support the contention that LindenLab is going to be a very strong player in the future.”

In response to Tristan Louis’ analysis of Second Life’s economic situation, Tateru Nino analyzed his analysis, ultimately judging that although many of the user-to-user transactions aren’t meaningful, there is still significant economic activity:

The way money moves in Second Life with tip jars and alternate accounts and refunds means that probably about half of the value given is double-counted. That would leave us with roughly 75% that we could count on, but let’s go the highly conservative route and say a mere 40% of that figure represents actual meaningful transactions, where there’s a net change in the distribution of funds that is in line with the stated figure. Averaging out Tristan’s weekly samples for December 2006, and then applying our own conservative 40% figure to it, we get a daily movement of L$ equal to $269,848 USD.

You can read Tristan Louis’ analysis of Second Life here, and Tateru Nino’s response here.

I have to explain, of course, that CHAT means CAT in french

The first thing I noticed when I came across Wii-chat was how active it seemed to be. The forums are brand-new, but there are already 12,000 members making almost 170,000 posts. On my own blog, I only get that high if I count spam comments!

There’s some interesting stuff on there. Kunu has written an exclusive guide to the Nintendo Wii, hundreds of pages of friend codes for you lonely wii-ers, and threads like this Canadian one trying to help find stores actually carrying Wiis.

As you can see, the site itself is covered in ads, but with so much activity it probably has reasonably high server costs:

Oddly, there’s a tags page section of the site, which seems to mostly be a predefined set of keywords the site owner thinks are interesting that hook into the site search. Perhaps it’s useful, perhaps not–I don’t see any easy way for end-users to tag threads or posts:

This is supposed to be a sponsored review of Wii Chat, but I’m finding it quite hard to review … a forum. What can you say? It’s like every other forum I’ve seen–slightly customized with a template that suites its theme. It’s solid, and active, so it seems like a good forum. It’s also the leader right now in the Google SERPS. So, if you’ve got a Wii and are looking for a place to meet other Wii users, chat, or debate, Wii-chat is probably for you!

The latest demo to grace Xbox Live is the latest installment of the FIFA series: FIFA ‘07.  According to IGN, FIFA 07 ”throws you into the rollercoaster ride of a football season, [where you must] employ real world tactics, make realistic decisions, and think like a player in order to win matches.”  And with a score of 8.1 from GameSpot, FIFA 07 is far from shabby– so go get the demo!

It is not a chemical dependency, but it’s got everything of an obsessive-compulsive disorder and all of the other stuff that comes with chemical dependency

One of their patients, a 21 year-old from Utrecht, said that he barely left his room during a 5 year gaming stint because he was so fixated with his electronic fantasy world.  Such cases are quite rare indeed, for most people who game do so in moderation.  Quite frankly, I think we should do away with these clinics.  Addiction to video-games is a harmless and voluntary occupation, and individuals should be able to do as they will with their lives.  Let Darwin do his work.

Their innovation has its roots in Linux technology, and the products are aimed at increasing efficiency at the small to mid-sized corporate level.  Both the architecture and positive reviews of Bynari’s products are testimony to its value.  Another point to be emphasized is the ability of their Linux-based email servers to talk to Outlook versions 2000-2003, as well as to other IMAP servers like Cyrus and Courier.  Check out their Outlook Groupware here.  Finally, the affordability of Bynari products truly makes the choice a cinch.

I saw them a few years ago at the AWA, when they were playing the LA Lakers.  I got my Suns Tickets at a good price, the seat was quite good, and the whole experience positive.  Even so, they are all the more stunning now.  Quite frankly, I believe that the Suns are at their all-time strongest.  Many of you know that Nash’s head has just been optimized to minimize air-resistance, and with so many positive changes happening daily, it would be a shock if they didn’t win the next NBA title.

Another great video-game quote comes from Zelda II: The Adventures of Link. In that successful classic, Link encounters the most enigmatic of men: “Error”. Here’s the quote:

Besides the many quotes whose popularity fluctuates with the trends of the time, there exist quotes of eternal import. Think Socrates. Think Martin Luther King. Think Confucius. For a site devoted to great quotes, go here.

I’m not suggesting that these beautiful babies have been announced through the aforementioned site, but rather that they could benefit from the unbridled professionalism that BabysHere.com displays.  Furthermore, their prices and services are phenomenal:

Starting at $1.19 for cards on 80 pound card stock including printing and envelopes. We offer free shipping on orders of more than 70 cards. Our photo cards have large images to show off the new baby. Each card is typeset out by hand.

No doubt we’ll see many a game made in the likeness of this series in the times to come.  Set out for May 4th, 2007, Spiderman 3 is sure to be a blockbuster, but right now, it’s just a budget-breaker.