http://kotaku.com/…

About seventy-five percent of game industry presidential campaign donations went to democrats, based on a sampling of developers and publisher donations over the past two years obtained from the Federal Election Commission.

Kotaku looked at presidential campaign donations for nine companies from January of 2007 through the end of July, 2008. The companies included were Activision, Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Nintendo, Sony Computer Entertainment of America, Take-Two, THQ, Ubisoft and Valve.

The database showed that the nine companies donated a total of about $97,800 to ten candidates, about $61,000 of which went to democratic candidates, while about $36,700 went to republican candidates.

The company with the largest contributions to campaigns was Electronic Arts, followed by Activision and then Valve. The company with the smallest amount of donations was Take-Two. Hit the jump for an avalanche of colorful pie charts and one, single, lonely bar graph.

The graphs unfortunately are scaled down too much to clearly see the legends on all of them but it is clear that while they lean Democratic party, Ron Paul was the favorite Republican. Being that I’m a gamer and a supporter of Ron Paul I’m glad to see this. Especially the Sony breakdown.

http://arstechnica.com/…

California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia have moved (PDF) to extend their antitrust judgment against Microsoft until November 12, 2012. This decree is a modification of last month’s request to a judge that the judgment be extended by five years. The current antitrust decree is scheduled to expire in November of this year.

Firstly, they claim that there have been “continuing problems” with Microsoft’s efforts to document its server communications protocols.

Secondly, the report laments the state of OEM web browser bundling, saying that “no major OEM currently distributes a browser other than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE).”

I’m no fan of Microsoft but it’s laughable to think people actually consider them a monopoly. Sure they own lots of stuff and a whole lot of hardware run their software… but there are dozens of alternatives both for sale in the traditional sense but also free and open source projects. It’s really amazing all this has gone on for so long.

And why aren’t these states going after MS, Sony and Nintendo for having closed platforms? Shouldn’t my 360 game be able to work on my Wii?

http://kotaku.com/…

You can show a lot of things in an ad these days. Bums, bits of tits, it’s all fair game. One thing that’s not cool to show, however, is a little bald European man sitting in a bathtub, especially when said European is a mercenary, holding a gun and saying he listens to Giacomo Puccini. Case in point: Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority have banned an internet ad featuring Kovac, one of Sony’s “This is Living” PS3 ad campaign characters (you may also be familiar with half-naked girl sitting on the can). In the short ad, some text is shown that reads:

You on my side? Listen up, I’ve killed for less. The music plays Puccini in my head.

This displays over a shot of Kovac pointing a handgun at the bathroom roof, which the ASA has branded unacceptable:

We considered that there was an underlying tone of violence in the ad and we were concerned that the images of Kovac holding the knife and the gun, in conjunction with the text, ‘You on my side? Listen up I’ve killed for less…” could be seen to glamorise violence or anti-social behaviour.

As a result this ad is now gone, banned in Britain, and Sony must now be very careful not to release another commercial which may “condone or glamorise violence or anti-social behaviour”.

Glamorizing violence and anti-social behavior? What about individual liberties? What about freedom of speech? Of expression? Are the British citizens so vacant and zombie like that they just replicate anything they see? I realize they have problems with personal responsibility (smoking ban, NHS, etc) but this blatant censorship is disgusting and obvious. Have they banned Shakespeare yet?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/…

I affirm, I really was going to drop this Ron Paul rant I pursued in my earlier post.

But some facts in this morning’s post by my highly respected Washington, D.C.-centric colleague Declan McCullagh entitled Ron Paul: The Internet’s Favorite Candidate” made me realize there are some lessons that still need to be taught to all you Libertarian-leaning fans of the Republican Presidential candidate.

Read More…

http://www.joystiq.com/…

As promised, game developer David Jaffe has finally announced – in a move many expected – details of his new development studio located, not surprisingly, in Utah. Titled Eat, Sleep, Play, the new studio is a partnership with Incognito chief Scott Campbell who worked with Jaffe on the popular Twisted Metal series while both were at SCEA. With Ingognito’s Warhawk about to take flight on PS3 and Jaffe having just finished Calling All Cars, the two are finally ready to branch out on their own … but it’s hard to get away from the mothership Sony. They’ve “signed on for a multi-year, multi-title deal to create titles for the PlayStation family of products, with the first slated for release in 2008.”

It’s not clear if that includes their first project, a PlayStation 2 port of the PSP’s Twisted Metal: Head On with some notable tweaks: bumped to 60 frames per second, higher-res textures, “5-7 levels from the never released Twisted Metal Black: Part II,” and “a documentary on the history of the series.” Jaffe surmises it may be some eight to twelve months before we hear about these new titles, but Twisted Metal: Head On will be available this holiday season.

I was really hoping for Twisted Metal Black 2 or the like for the PS3 but I can deal with a revamped and enhanced TM:HO. I’ll surely pick it up. Too bad it probably won’t have online support.

http://kotaku.com/…

At Sony’s E307 presser, Jack Tretton stood on stage, announced Epic’s Unreal Tournament III as a PS3 exclusive and said that Sony was working closely with Epic to “adjust” the Unreal Engine for the PS3 so that it reaches the “best of its potential.” Best of its potential? Why would Sony need to be helping with that? Doesn’t that mean it hasn’t been performing? That it’s been under-performing? That right there is the crux of the Silicon Knights lawsuit against Epic — that Epic’s aftercare and the Engine itself is half-baked.

This could be very bad for Epic if true. If they are shortchanging their customers with older or disabled versions of the Unreal 3 engine to them to make their full version look/perform better… it’s just a huge black eye for them and a bump for their competitors. It’ll be interesting to see if any other companies will speak up… on either side.