Roundup: Street View blinded, curtain to rise on new PS3 and more
Here’s the latest action:
It’s a pirate’s life for Asia — A new study indicates that software piracy is growing rapidly in Asia where the number of computer owners continues to skyrocket.
Street View’s prying eyes — Google must reshoot footage for its maps Street View tool in Japan after receiving complaints that the cameras were mounted high enough to see over residents’ fences. Earlier this week, the search company was banned from collecting images in Greece, also due… Continue Reading
Real Games executive tells how the recession will affect casual games
John Barbour has been the president of Real Games — Real Networks’ gaming division that was set to spin off before the IPO market froze over — for just 14 weeks.
And he says that he’s never seen so much worry and anxiety in an industry that’s growing by 20 percent a year. Keynoting the Casual Connect conference in Hamburg, the outspoken Scotsman said that online games can provide millions of players around the world with… Continue Reading
Updated: Real Networks launches its first cross-platform game for iPhone and other platforms
[Update: The PR firm supplied incorrect release dates. The mobile phone versions of Tiki Towers debuted Dec. 3. The iPhone app is out Dec. 15]
Real Networks is moving into cross-platform mobile games as it diversifies from its focus on PC-based titles.
The first cross-platform game is Tiki Towers, where the player builds bamboo bridges so that a gang of monkeys can cross over gaps and obstacles. It is out now on mobile phones and will be… Continue Reading
Roundup: YouTube HD links, Del Biaggio charges, Korean game support, and more
YouTube gets links to high-definition videos – It already offered HD videos, you just had to use a simple hack to access them. In other YouTube news, the company is offering a new service for adding sound to videos you upload.
Valley investor Del Biaggio nailed with fraud charges — William Del Biaggio, a high-flying investor who forged his way to tens of millions, has been permanently banned from being an investment advisor; now he faces fines and imprisonment.
“Second… Continue Reading
Real Networks moves into game consoles with Nintendo WiiWare game
Real Networks, long-time maker of casual PC games, is moving into the game console arena for the first time with a new downloadable title for Nintendo’s Wii.
Real Networks announced today “Boingz,” a game with cute characters that you can move around the screen as if you were shooting rubber bands. It is a WiiWare title, meaning you can download it to your Wii via Nintendo’s online store. The game was developed by independent developer NinjaBee… Continue Reading
Big Fish Games raises $83 million venture round for downloadable games
The party is on for video game entrepreneurs. Big Fish Games just raised the bar for the industry by reeling in a huge venture round by video game standards.
The Seattle-based casual downloadable games company raised $83 million in a first round of financing from Balderton Capital, General Catalyst Partners, and Salmon River Capital. That’s the biggest round I can remember for a game company. The deal is the largest in the state of Washington this… Continue Reading
DEMOfall 08: Real Networks launches RealDVD for ripping DVDs to PCs
Real Networks has a nifty new service dubbed RealDVD. You can basically load all of your DVDs into your computer’s hard drive — legally — so that you can watch them on the computer.
RealDVD takes an exact copy of a DVD and puts it on the hard drive. It looks up the cover art for the movie so you can see it on a graphical menu. You can even play a movie while you’re saving… Continue Reading
Hasbro sues Scrabulous makers, after EA Scrabble enters beta
Hasbro dropped the long-expected hammer on Scrabulous today. The company sued the creators of the popular Facebook Scrabble knock-off, alleging copyright infringement.
The toy maker, which owns the Scrabble board game brand in the U.S. and Canada, also asked Facebook to take down the popular application under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Mark Blecher, a general manager at Hasbro’s game division, said in a phone call that Hasbro waited until Electronic Arts had a version of EA… Continue Reading
Can Scrabble fight Scrabulous on Facebook?
Electronic Arts has taken many months to get its official Hasbro-licensed version of Scrabble onto the Web at Pogo.com and Facebook, but it’s launching the Pogo.com version today and will have the Facebook version out later this month. In the meantime, an unlicensed version of Scrabble created by Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla of Calcutta, India, has been up on Facebook for months getting a giant head start.
The two brothers behind the unofficial version, Scrabulous, are… Continue Reading