We’ve carried posts before that posited that e-books had not yet reached the watershed moment where they became more than an attempt to reproduce one medium in another (the way that television was originally “radio with pictures”, for instance). At the moment, they’re just “printed books on digital screens.” And while that’s fine for the people who just want another way to read printed books, video game developer Simon Meek thinks that they’re still not reaching out to modern audiences. Meek has the idea of doing for the gaming generation what PBS used to do for the television generation:...

What used to come exclusively on paper can now be ordered digitally, so you get it faster and cheaper. That’s one of the boons of e-books and on-line newspapers, but it also applies to other forms of digital content—such as one I had not quite expected, the digital on-line game time card. A superhero massively-multiplayer online game that I used to put a lot of time into, City of Heroes (which I previously mentioned here and here), recently announced it will soon be going “freemium”—allowing gamers to play for free, much like other MMOs I mentioned in my earlier...

In April, I covered the contention of Good Old Games and its developer arm, CD Projekt that DRM drives gamers to piracy. At the time, I mentioned that CD Projekt would be releasing its next game The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings completely DRM-free. Now Paul just pointed me to a story on Afterdawn noting that CD Projekt has announced that the version 1.1 update for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings will strip all DRM and computer-count restrictions that came with the game originally. I’m a little confused by this given that I’d heard it was supposed to...

Did you think digital cheap was only giving print publishers conniptions? Think again. Reminiscent of publishers’ feelings about 99-cent self-published e-books, Industry Gamers has a brief piece based on a talk with Mike Capps, president of Epic Games (the company behind the widely-used Unreal Engine for first/third person shooters) in which Capps suggests that the increasing prevalence of cheap iPhone and iPad games is doing traditional video gaming in. "If there's anything that's killing us [in the traditional games business] it's dollar apps," he lamented. "How do you sell someone a $60 game that's really...

Michael Humphrey has an interesting blog post on Forbes where he posits the use of video games as a method of conveying current news and events. He points to the CEO of Activision comparing the Call of Duty franchise to Facebook, pointing out that media is evolving, and the latest CoD game has already racked up 600 million hours of play time in just six weeks. And he talks about a new book called Newsgames: Journalism at Play that looks at the idea of combining gaming and journalism. While Humphrey is a bit critical of the way the book...

Although this is not directly about e-books, it uses the economics of digital media in a way similar to some e-book charity efforts, and reiterates an important point about digital piracy. Back in May, I reported on the “Humble Indie Bundle”, a pack of five games that a group of indie developers was offering for Windows, Mac, and Linux as a name-your-own-price download. The group of developers has come out with a second bundle, the “Humble Indie Bundle #2”, and once more the proceeds are being split among the developers and charities EFF and Child’s Play. (This time,...

At TechCrunch, Devin Coldewey has an interesting (and long) article speculating on the possible future of how Internet readers will pay for web content. Coldewey believes that a micropayment system will eventually arise, once someone has figured out how to run it with low enough overhead that payments of a few cents at a time are profitable. Then there will be several tiers of payment—per article, per day, per month, and per year—depending on the type of content and tastes of its readers. He also thinks that, after the dust settles, payments will be on a per-network rather than...

The Black Library, the publisher of tie-in novels and audiobooks for Games Workshop’s Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 role-playing game settings, is going digital. To promote the event, the publisher has been giving away some free digital content every Friday for the last four weeks, with something more to go up on the site this coming Friday. Available thus far are the novels First & Only and Nightbringer, the first issue of Hammer and Bolter magazine, and an mp3 of the first disc of the Horus Rising audiobook. The e-books are downloadable in MobiPocket or EPUB format, and are...

In January, we covered a fundraising drive that DriveThruRPG put on to assist Doctors Without Borders’s relief efforts in Haiti, selling a $1480 bundle of RPG e-books for the budget-friendly price of $20. It ended up earning over $160,000—not exactly pocket change—and showed that gamers are willing to step up to help out in time of crisis (or, at least, are willing to take advantage of a great deal on gaming e-books even if they would otherwise have been opposed to donating). Now DriveThruRPG has another charity bundle available, to help Doctors Without Borders’s relief efforts in the...

From the Kindle Daily Post: We’re excited to announce that the games, Mine Sweeper, EA Solitaire, and Triple Town are now available on Kindle. Mine Sweeper is a free Kindle game where you have to clear a minefield without detonating a mine. Mine Sweeper is free so we encourage you to check it out. Solitaire from Electronic Arts contains the 12 different modes of card game play -- the Klondike game you know and love, as well as 11 other variants: Pyramid, Yukon, Golf, Freecell, Wasp, Peaks, Canfield, Spiderette, Eliminator, Easthaven, and Baker's Dozen. This version of Solitaire comes with handy features such...

If you’re interested in a used iPhone or iPod Touch for e-reading, you’ll soon have another option to buy it. Target is rolling out a trade-in program for mobile electronics such as iPhones, iPod Touchs, or other cell phones—or used video games. (As Engadget notes, its timing is remarkable considering the current controversy over used game sales.) In return, customers get Target gift cards that range from "a few dollars up to more than $200 per item depending on the product and its condition." Target already has an online service through its website where customers can trade in...

In some of my previous posts, I have looked at the computer game industry (especially Valve, with its “Steam” digital distribution service and focus on customer service that can even turn pirates into paying customers) with an eye to the examples it sets for the e-book and publishing trades. It turns out I’m not the only one who thinks like that. Paul Rhodes has posted on the Bookseller’s “FuturEBook” blog about the uses of new tablet and smartphone technology that he saw at the European “GamesCom” video game industry trade and consumer show. Rhodes notes that, perhaps surprisingly,...