First Blog! Duke Nukem (Finally) Forever, Gaming Industry Hurt By Piracy?, Local Promoter Struggles

This is my first blog post, so it will be a short one until I get material. Comment below, give me advice, maybe some topics to cover and whatever else you can throw at me. Now for your news and opinions!


Duke Nukem Forever is coming out May 3rd of this year. Am I the only one saying "Finally?". After waiting so long and being mislead by push backs and old and possibly fake trailers, I kind of got tired of waiting and just said, "Whatever, its not coming out". But it is finally here, in the form of a trailer and is he sure out of gum, baby:



Gaming industry lose 'billions' to chipped consoles
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12248010)

So the gaming industry is seeming to have a big hooblah over the fact that companies are losing billions due to the large amount of people illegally playing games. Of course, this is an issue for companies is all sorts of business areas, but my question is: is it really hurting their sales? I know what people are saying but in other areas of entertainment we can say pirating hurts business, like in movie sales (post-cinematic release) and most definately music sales, but can the gaming industry live
with the piraters?

I most definately think so. When you look at the gaming world, many people pay to play their games. Without a non-hacked and clean username, you cannot get the fun of a game because you are not eligable for leaderboards or achievements/trophies. When you look at gaming sales on top games, for example "Call of Duty"'s newest game in the franchise. "Call of Duty: Black Ops" did $360 million in
the first twenty-four hours of its release with 5.6 million copies sold. I don't know for sure if its as much money as I am thinking of in the gaming world, but that seems very successful. Another thing I feel is how gaming companies can get away with having pirates instead of buyers is that some games push out way too many games and downloadable contents for their games that it gets to the point that
they are just milking their success rather than bringing forth new content with crisper graphics and new gameplay. After a while wrestling, music, first person shooter, and any other franchises just get ridiculous. When lookings at trailers for the recent games for each, it just looks like the same as last year, just with different people and music.

The bad side of this pirating of games, is the fact that the company does deserve the money for the game they produced as it was put on the market for a retail price. "Call of Duty: Black Ops" was supposedly the most pirated game of 2010 and it was said that about 40% of players got their hands on it through piracy. If this is true, Infinity Ward could have doubled their revenue. This brings
me to the questions of: Could have that money been used for new releases? Maybe they could have even beefed up their game programming? I think that if we didn't pirate games and other media, companies could come out with newer, crisper and better games.

A Local Promoter's Struggle


In this day and age, youth haven't much to do, unless they live in big cities or have the ability do drive, but other then that what they have to do is very limited. Youth are at the point where they need as much entertainment as they can get. Concerts are a good way to have fun and it also keeps them in a controlled crowd where you can make sure that they aren't breaking the law and/or doing illegal
substances. The reason I am bringing this up is because in my area, and others in which I talked to, it is hard to promote and organize shows due to the fact that there is no venue willing to host a concert or the fact that they are too expensive and the other ongoing issue of noise complaints. In the city, concerts usually don't end at 11:30. Concerts I do end at 11 PM sharp, as I abide noise rules. Now last time I checked the rules were of that time. These days, in rural communities, it is hard to run
concerts because the older population calling in for noise complaints. Of course, I understand that it is more so a residential area but I bet if you asked them if they went to concerts as a kid, they would admit to it. In my town, for instance, I get tons of calls in complaining about noise, sometimes directly to the venue owner. The thing I don't understand, is that it ruins the youths fun when concerts cannot be held. Other than concerts, the only other real source of entertainment in town is the mall, bowling, movies, or the skate park. So we need more entertainment! That was my rant and all I'm trying to say
is, times are changing.


This was my first blog of many to come. Please leave comments on topics, links, or advice you'd like me to cover or share!