PlayNoEvil Game Security News & Analysis

From a new RealNetworks Press Release:

To paint a vivid picture of the average casual gamer, Real
commissioned Information Solutions Group (ISG) to survey over 5,000
RealArcade.com and GameHouse.com users earlier this year, resulting in the
following newly-released data:

Player Profiles

-- At 85% of all users, females continue to be the primary users of
Real Networks portals GameHouse.com and RealArcade.com.

-- Two-thirds (66%) of GameHouse and RealArcade users are married. 29%
are married with children living at home, another 27% are married with
children not living at home, while 10% are married with no children.

-- 40% of users are between 30 and 50 years of age [73% are between 30
and 60 years of age].

-- Over half (56%) of GameHouse and RealArcade users work full time or
are self employed, followed by 17% who are retired.

-- Four out of ten (39%) of those playing GameHouse and RealArcade
games identified themselves as college graduates, with 11% having an
advanced degree.

Leisure Time Activities

-- When asked to rate their involvement in 21 different leisure
activities, ranging from "daily" to "never," we found that GameHouse and
RealArcade users spend a significant part of their leisure time playing
casual games. 93% play casual games at least once a week with over half
(53%) playing daily, followed by 90% who watch TV/movies at home at least
once a week.

-- Listening to music/radio (89%), reading a book, magazine or
newspaper (89%) and talking on the phone (87%) round out the top five
leisure-time activities.

-- When asked to identify the leisure activity they participate in most
often, 22% said they watch TV/movies at home most, followed by 18% who play
casual games most often.

-- GameHouse and RealArcade users watch drama/adventure shows (72%) and
movies (71%) on TV most often, followed by the news (58%) and situation
comedies at 46%.

-- Half (50%) of the GameHouse and RealArcade users said Rock music is
one of their favorite music genres, followed by Country (45%) and Pop at
36%.

This international research was conducted by Information Solutions
Group, http://www.infosolutionsgroup.com for RealNetworks RealGames. The
results are based on online surveys completed by 5,456 respondents randomly
selected between January 8, 2008 and January 18, 2008. The audience
consisted of 818 men and 4,638 women website visitors. In theory, in 19
cases out of 20, the results will differ by no more than 1.3 percentage
points from what would have been obtained by seeking out and polling all
GameHouse.com and RealArcade.com users age 18 and over. Smaller subgroups
reflect larger margins of sampling error. Other sources of error, such as
variations in the order of questions or the wording within the
questionnaire, may also contribute to different results.

Microsoft's 70/30 revenue split for its new amateur game store for the Xbox 360 is an awesome idea... and pretty familiar (via the International Herald Tribune and others). After all, just a couple of weeks ago, Apple launched its AppStore for the iPhone with exactly the same revenue split.

The XNA Creators Club has been an great idea from the start and it is nice to see it come to fruition.

I suspect that Microsoft will get a bit devious and encourage applications beyond games and, perhaps, other types of content (movies, music, etc. created by amateurs) to more completely compete with iTunes.

One change that would be good would be to allow the developer to control the licensing model for applications - it sounds like a "timed demo" is required which may not be suitable for all types of content.

The XNA Creators Club and Xbox Live are truly where Microsoft leads in the console market. It will be interesting to see where it goes and if Microsoft can find a way to use them to reestablish some momentum for the console.

In some sense, Microsoft is returning to the company's roots. The huge popularity of Windows was in large part due to Microsoft providing low-cost development tools (Visual Studio) and a friendly environment where developers can make money.

Everest Poker, owned by Gigamedia, just "celebrated" the first anniversary of its sponsorship of the World Series of Poker and the numbers are impressive:

58,000 participants(!)
$180 Million in Prizes
Broadcasts of the event reach over 300 Million people worldwide.

In a dispute that has had no real visibility in the US, Korea's government has faced massive criticism online and in the streets over the issue of allowing US beef to be imported.

In a move that is described as an attempt to stop "cyberbullying", the Korean government is getting ready to consider a set of laws that will create substantial de facto censorship, according to a very interesting article by Kim Tong-hyung at The Korea Times.

As described, material will need to be removed from web sites immediately after a complaint, even if it is later found to be true:

This means that any online articles claimed as fraudulent or slanderous could be blocked from access immediately, regardless of whether the legitimacy of the complaints is proved by the KCSC or in court.

So for example, if a blogger or online journalist writes a post criticizing government policy, any related ministry could demand Internet sites to hold back the article for at least a month.

Also, the government is moving to tighten Internet security which may have a substantial effect on reducing anonymity.

One very interesting implication of this is that it may drive Korean consumers to offshore sites beyond the regulatory reach of the Korean government. If so, this could damage Korea's online game industry as well as other Korean online firms.

At the end of the day, you've got to keep your customers happy. One of the most persistently annoying security techniques that game companies use is the CD as security strategy. In this approach, publishers require game consumers to keep the game disk in the computer to play (or at least to launch) a game.

This becomes annoying - you've got to keep track of your game disks and, if you play on a laptop, you have to bring them with you. Or, if you are like me, you've moved recently and have no idea where the disk has gone too.

Ubisoft experienced this problem first hand during E3 during the demonstration of their own game, Rainbox Six Vegas 2, during a demonstration (via Brad Nicholson at Destructoid). Ubisoft technicians used the same solution that most consumers used - they downloaded a "No CD" hack for the game that spoofs the computer to think that the CD is present and got on with their presentation.

The problem was aggravated in this case since the game was downloaded via the Direct2Drive digital distribution service and so there was no CD to verify... basically, the all of the operational scenarios for the game had not been tested.

While Ubisoft seems to be handling this as a security incident:

The file was removed from the site over a week ago now and the matter is being thoroughly investigated by senior tech support managers here at Ubisoft. Needless to say we do not support or condone copy protection circumvention methods like this and this particular incident is in direct conflict with Ubisoft's policies.

While fighting piracy is certainly a legitimate issue, keeping customers happy is even more important. One would hope that Ubisoft learns this lesson as well.

What is interesting is that the service that allows downloadable content and multi-player gaming could itself have been used as an anti-piracy tool in a way that would not have frustrated the customer (or Ubisoft technician).

Another week, another set of game demographics from China. Wang Xing of China Daily has an interesting article on the state of online gaming in China with lots of numbers:

- According to a report by research firm IDC and the Game committee under China's Publishers Association (GPA), the revenue of China's online gaming industry reached 10.57 billion yuan last year, an increase of 61.5 percent year-on-year. The report estimates it will grow to 26.23 billion yuan by 2012.

- The fee to stay, and play, overnight at an Internet Cafe is 10 to 20 RMB.

- 70 percent of game players have a monthly income of less than 2000 RMB

- According to a CNNIC research, the number of online gamers in China has reached 120 million, each spending 7.3 hours per week on average. That has pushed the usage rate of online games in the country to nearly 60 percent, even higher than that for e-mails. The corresponding number in the United States is 35 percent and 91 percent respectively, according to pewinternet.org.

Just a quick reminder - I'll be speaking on game security issues at the "Next Generation in Gambling 2008" Conference in Montreal on July 29th. The topic is particularly interesting now as regulated online gaming is maturing and wireless gaming, skill games and other areas are beginning to really grow.

If you want to meet during the show, or happen to be in Montreal that week, my email is: C e O (no spaces) ]that ampersand thing[ secureplay (tod backwards) com.

I stumbled on Van Hemlock's blog (via Massively, I think). It is a great blog that covers the experience of playing a number of MMOs very well. He is both a pleasure to read and provides real insight into the games.

I didn't get any work done last night because I sat down and read his columns on Eve Online (bottom to top). It chronicles his on-again off-again experience with the game and pretty clearly shows why he's never left the game for good and what the experience is of playing the game for an ordinary, albeit long-term, player.

I've been both intrigued and intimidated by Eve and this series really makes me want to play (if only I could find a couple of more hours in the week).

Check it out and then give Eve Online a try.

It looks like Nintendo's Wii has joined Sony's PSP with having firmware security problems. Since the console's firmware is the foundation for any security that it implements, this likely will open up more piracy problems for Nintendo. Currently, it looks like the attack is only positioned to allow homebrew to be run. However, the article at Wii News (via Slashdot) implies that there is also a utility to allow game disks to be dumped to SD cards - making making piracy much easier. After all, a regular PC can easily be