Knights of the Front

GameBattles Supporting SOPA Protest

MLG recently announced that we had moved all of our domains (over 100 in total) off of GoDaddy.com in protest of their support of SOPA. To further our anti-SOPA stance, MLG will be participating in the blackout on January 18th from 8:00AM to 8:00PM ET. All the sites in our network, which includes GameBattles, will be down during that time, and in their place will be a short message with additional information about SOPA to help educate our community members about the bill and what it could mean for them.

MLG News

Source: Gamebattles

PSN game sharing is now restricted further

Yesterday�s PS3 maintenance included a change to the PSN game sharing policy, and not in a good way. New purchases of titles through the PSN are now restricted to two systems � including PS3 and PSP. This means that you can download the game to your PS3 and your PSP, or to two PSPs or two PS3s.

The change does not apply to games you�ve already purchased, which will still be allowed on up to five systems at a time. Presumably this policy was keeping Sony up at night with visions of games sales slipping through their fingers. So instead of allowing people to share their games with their friends, they are limiting the sharing possibilities.

I�m of two minds on this policy change. On one hand, as a member of the game industry I feel that they have the right to make sure that everyone who is playing a game paid for it. That�s where DRM came from � and other systems like Steam keep you from sharing games between accounts even with people in the same household. On the other hand though, as a gamer, I chafe at any opportunity large companies take to rake more cash from the masses. So I put the question to you, the gaming elite: Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Source: QJ.net

Female gamers have more Sex

This survey only confirms what we have known for a long time, gaming makes the girls horny. And now we have data to back it up!

The survey was conducted by Gamehouse, the video-games division of RealNetworks.

On top of these results are a couple of more �surprising� statistics that give some great insight in to the changing nature of video-games and those who play them.

What is so surprising?

Women play more online games than men, with 55% of women engaging in games online
Most female gamers who play online are aged between 18-34yrs old
More than half of female gamers are in a relationship (sorry lads)
Games make girls happy, with 55% of female online gamers reporting to be �happy�
38% of female online gamers have children under the age of 18

Female gamers play online games for their own reasons, not to socialize as would be expected, with most reporting that they play online games to relieve stress, alleviate boredom or just for a mental break.

The one stat you all came here for of course is the fact that Female online gamers have sex more than non-online gamers (57% to 52%).

You are free to debate the conclusions in this study as much as you like in the comments, and some opinions from the ladies in your life is also welcome.

Providing you can pull them away from the bedroom, or WoW? :)

Source: QJ.net

Gamestop confirms 600,000 Call of Duty Elite subscriptions

Acitivision are surely sitting on the hugest pile of money at the moment thanks to the latest Call of Duty release, Modern Warfare 3.

The $100 version of COD: MW3 comes with a free years subscription to the Elite service, and you are not obliged in any way to purchase it.

The Call of Duty Elite service went live with the launch of COD:MW3 and if you are still after some details on what you subscription will get you, check out Mike Fosters story on what you can get.

No word from Gamestop on how many of these are paid Elite subscribers at the $49.99 per year price tag, but 600K units in the first week is still a very impressive number.

Note: This figure does exclude the subscriptions that come with $100 version of MW3.

The COD Elite service has not been off to the best start though, with a number of issues for subscribers causing some headaches. The list of issues so far includes:

Users unable to register
Trouble logging in
Not being able to actually use some of the service benefits (such as leaderboards, etc)

Activision are attempting to make good with the service, by extending the eligibility to receive the Founder status �tag� until the end of November.

If you have signed up for a year, you will also get a one free month as a bonus for sticking through the problems that the Elite service launch has had.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotic said that "Life-to-date retail sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded $6 billion worldwide, which makes Call of Duty one of the most valuable entertainment properties in the world."

Are you happy with your subscription to the Elite service? Do you think the COD series deserves to have these records?

Source: QJ.net

Hackers take down Resistance website.

Resistance and MyResistance.net go hand in hand, unlike Call of Duty and Call of Duty Elite, the website and forums for the Insomniac Game went down over the weekend, which is bad, but what is good is that nothing seems to have been taken.

After the recent scare of the Steam forums going down, post-hack, which are actually still recovering from the attack, a lot of companies were vigilante, no more so than the PSN network. However, they didn�t expect singular attacks and there were reports of a DOS attack on the Resistance site, which then turned out to be on the forums and then it all kind of just collapsed like a house of cards...Checkmate!

The attack was so bad that even the F2P version of Resistance, Global Resistance was down and started sending malware to users for no reason. After that, the whole thing went offline and Sony America released a statement. Sony talked to Kotaku about the incident saying they discovered the activity on MyResistance.net and then the following Resistance websites, eventually they had to shut them all down. No credit card info was taken and that they hope to bring it back this week.

At the moment, no one knows who was doing the hacking or why, but I can think of more prone and necessary targets than the guys at Insomniac Games. Oh well, Sony said they�re looking into the investigation and hope to find the culprets...just like they did for the PSN attacks...oh wait.

Source: QJ.net