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Round Up: Anshe Chung/SL, Wii Pains, PS3 500MB DLs
by Jason Dobson [PC, Console/PC]
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November 27, 2006
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Today's round-up includes news of Anshe Chung amassing over a million real world dollars in Second Life net worth, Wii-related muscle strain, and the downloadable PS3 game size limit, as well as the latest Game Career Guide updates, Serious Games Source posts, GameSetWatch posts and Gamasutra job postings.
- Anshe Chung, an online avatar in the popular virtual world Second Life, has become the first online personality to achieve a net worth exceeding $1 million from profits earned outside of the real world. The avatar, created by Ailin Graef and her husband Guntram Graef, specializes in the development and brokerage of virtual real estate. Currently Anshe Chung owns virtual land equating to 36 square kilometers, property which is currently supported by 550 different servers. According to Anshe Chung, which has been in the business of making money in virtual economies such as those featured in Asheron's Call, Star Wars Galaxies, and Shadowbane, the land value is based upon statistics published by the game's developer, San Francisco-based developer Linden Labs, as well as existing in-game prices.
- A new report from the Wall Street Journal has highlighted an apparent string of Wii-related injuries resulting from playing games on Nintendo's recently released console. The report highlights a number of issues Wii players have indicated with muscle strain from playing, as well as with collisions with household objects such as lamps, due to flailing arms. Wii Sports, the system's packing sports compilation that serves as showpiece of the controller's capabilities, features a warning before play starts that states “Make sure there are no people or objects around you that you might bump into while playing.” However, when approached about the issue of soreness from playing the Wii, Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan was unphased, noting that "It was not meant to be a Jenny Craig supplement," adding that "If people are finding themselves sore, they may need to exercise more."
- According to statements made by Sony's director of external development John Hight in a recent interview with consumer website Firing Squad, the maximum size for downloadable games for the PlayStation 3 is 500MB. This could potentially make such games for Sony's console a full 10 times larger than titles released for Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade service, which caps its downloads at 50 MB. “We’ve arbitrarily set a limit of 500MB to keep download times reasonable,” commented Hight. “Since we’ve got plenty of HD space we can accommodate even bigger games and a lot of them.” While the potential size of PS3 downloads seems impressive, this could also mean for much longer waits while downloading titles over the PS3's download service, a chief reason while Microsoft opted for the smaller size limitation.
- The latest updates on Gamasutra sister alt.gaming weblog GameSetWatch include a look back at Donkey Kong '94, a perusal of the Society for the Promotion Of Adventure Games, and an examination of hacks for Nethack.
- The latest updates from Gamasutra sister website Game Career Guide include news of a 2-day IGDA education workshop at the Game Developers Conference.
- Also updated today: the latest Gamasutra job postings, including openings from Amaze Entertainment, Blue Fang Games, Centerscore, Concrete Games, Cranky Pants Games, Cryptic Studios, High Moon Studios, IIT, Incinerator Studios, Iron Lore Entertainment, Irrational Games, Juice Games, LucasArts, Nihilistic Software, Pandemic Studios, Radical Entertainment, Rainbow Studios, Relic Entertainment, Sierra Online, Sucker Punch Productions, Super Ego Games, TEKsystems, and Volition.
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