Friday Games

It's pretty rare for me to see game stories on BBC, but today they had not one, but two stories: the first one is about Gamers turning to mobiles, and the second is about

Gamers preparing for Half-Life 2.

I have a couple of comments about each of these stories: In the story about mobiles, "The Digital Gaming in America report showed that half of the 70% of gamers who own a mobile phone played games on them". I have my doubts about the 70% number -- I've had a cell phone for the better part of 4 years now, and aside from trying out the games preloaded on the phones when I received the phone, I haven't played them since. I'd much rather use my GameBoy or laptop to play games, and I suspect the same is true for most gamers. As far as I know, solataire is still more playable on a laptop than it is on a cell phone.

In regards to the Half-Life 2 story, what they are trying is basically digital distribution and protection against piracy. It's also a good way of cutting out the publisher and retailer from receiving the lion's share of the profits from those first initial sales.