games posts

The art of the deal isn't something students usually study in elementary school, and neither are the principles of real estate, the rough and tumble rules of the stock market or best practices for starting a business.

However, there are games for kids that do exactly that. The best part? The learning is completely stealth. Kids just think it's fun.

When I was a young, wheelin' dealin' Monopoly shark, I would mercilessly charge opponents exorbitant rents with glee. Modern players still covet Park Place, but these days they are playing the Milton Bradley Monopoly Here and Now Electronic Banking Edition which offers an electronic bank and debit card as well as prices raised to reflect inflation.

During breaks from caring for her 1-year-old son, Samantha Whipple plays virtual world games on her cellphone. She buys a few outfits for her avatar, spending maybe $30 a month on shoes, jewelry and other virtual merchandise that she'll never hold in her hand. "I'm a stay-at-home mom, so I don't have the time to go out and do all of this stuff," said Whipple, 25, of Fresno, CA.

She also buys salon treatments and gets her nails done with FunCoins she buys on her phone at Cellufun's Web site. "It's a way to do things that you can't do that you want to do," she said.

While it may sound odd to buy such virtual merchandise -- whether farm equipment in the Facebook game Farmville or accessories for an avatar of yourself -- it scratches the same itch as buying a video game for $30 or going to a movie, say industry leaders and players.

It's also a $1 billion market that's only growing and is recession proof, according to Neil Edwards, CEO of Cellufun. "The relative cost that people are spending for virtual goods is less than they would spend on a vice that they have," such as smoking or buying a cup of coffee, Edwards said. Buying a pair of designer shoes at the store will affect your budget, he pointed out, but paying $1 for one of Cellufun's 11,000 pairs of virtual shoes won't put a meaningful dent on the family budget.

Joe Reynolds of Montgomery, Alabama, spends $20 to $40 a month on the online role playing game Runes of Magic. Reynolds, 37, buys gear to enhance his virtual weapons, and sees it as a cheap form of entertainment. "When you compare it to what I would be spending on movies in a month," it's not much money, he said. Reynolds spends six to eight hours a day, and more on weekends, playing the games, which doesn't leave much time for going to the movies, watching TV, mowing the lawn or other endeavors.

"I'm getting the value out of it as far as it being entertainment," he said.

For years now, Blockbuster has boasted that it doesn't charge late fees for movie and video game rentals by telling its customers to "Celebrate the end of late fees." But starting this week, it appears the celebration will be over as Blockbuster begins to reinstate late fees for video games at select stores. The practice, which a reader of consumer blog Consumerist discovered through a notice on his receipt and confirmed with store employees, removes the 10-day grace period that Blockbuster formerly allowed for game rentals.

Now, instead of getting a 15-day game rental for the price of 5 days, renters will face a 99 cent per day fee for each additional day and, on the 15th day, the rental will be converted to a sale just like it did under the old policy. Renters can still return the game, minus a $1.25 restocking fee, to reverse the sale but the 99 cent a day late fee will still be charged. What's not immediately clear is if the $9.99 in late fees apply to the purchase price of the game or if they are above and beyond the price.

If you love to play video games but you haven't already purchased a Nintendo Wii then you better wait a few more days.

Nintendo announced today that its popular Nintendo Wii console will be $50 cheaper starting on Sunday.

The release also confirmed that when the latest Mario Bros game, "The New Super Mario Bros." comes out for the Wii in November that fans will get to play as the Mario Bros at the same time; a first for the series.

By dropping the Wii down to $199 Nintendo isn't just making it cheaper to get your motion sensing gaming on, it's matching the recent price drops to the Xbox 360 and the new slimmer Sony PlayStation 3.

Last month Microsoft cut the price of its top end Xbox 360, the Elite, to $299 which is even cheaper thanks to a $50 rebate which is valid until Oct. 6. The new PS3 slim which launched earlier this month is $299; a drop of $100.

This leaves the current prices of game consoles at:

• Nintendo Wii - $199
• Sony PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 3 Slim - $299
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite $249 after rebate
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Arcade - $199

One thing to remember when buying a new console is that if you're buying for a Christmas present you may want to wait a few weeks until Holiday Bundles come out. In the past these bundles have included two games, albeit older ones, for the same price as the consoles.

The only console that you may want to buy sooner than that is the Xbox 360 since the bundled games, Pure and Lego Batman, can be purchased used for less than the $50 rebate.

According to a new study released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, people are turning to the Internet to relax and take their minds of the current economic situation. But they're also going there to find out about what they are trying to escape from!

The study surveyed more than 2,000 individuals in early 2009, and found that three-quarters of online economic users go online to relax or as a diversion, and of this group, 76% also go online to get their financial news, look for coupons or perform other economic-related activities.

There is no golden "snitch" in the real-life version of Quidditch, so the game doesn't require a seeker, Harry Potter's position. Also, sadly, the players are not aboard broomsticks that fly.

But the rest of the game, created out of J.K. Rowling's fertile imagination, is relatively intact: as the Guardian describes, the sport is a cross between dodgeball and handball, where "Attacking 'chasers' attempt to put the 'quaffle,' or ball, past the goalkeeper whilst the opposing team's 'beaters' try to hit them with different balls called 'bludgers.'"

With board games making a comeback during the recession, it's good to know there is much more out there than Monopoly to pass the idle time while waiting for callbacks from employers.

While Monopoly has its fans, it seems a little old-fashioned and based on the idea that being a ruthless landlord and land-grabber is the way to win. And even though the Nintendo Wii is gaining such popularity that it might be surpassing board games in popularity, not everyone can afford the steep price.

When I switched over to Netflix, I chose the three-at-a-time plan because my wife and I love to watch movies and catch up on TV series we have missed. We were already saving over our Blockbuster plan, and with the addition of Netflix's Watch Instantly feature, it seemed like the best choice.

After a few months, I decided to check out my renting habits using Feedflix.com, which calculated my cost per rental and other statistics about my Netflix subscription.

I knew I had been lax about watching and returning DVDs but I didn't realize that my cost per rental is an astonishing $8.49! More than double what I would pay at any local rental store. Thankfully my per-rental price drops to a more reasonable $2.55 after you take into account my new-found obsession with the Watch Instantly feature.

While I could cut back my subscription like my colleague Tom Barlow did, I am going to try to maximize my value using the alerts that FeedFlix provides. Now, I'll get an email every Tuesday if I have kept a movie more than five days. This will help me stay on top of rentals and make sure that I have something good for the weekend. If my cost per rental is still too high next month, I'll drop my subscription plan down a notch until I find a good balance.

FeedFlix is free and easy to try out, making it an excellent tool for any Netflix subscriber. Taking a closer look at one of my subscriptions has only reinforced the notion that we often overestimate the value of our subscription plans. I wish I could get a similar tool for my Gamefly subscription, since I have a tendency to keep games too long as well.



Via Lifehacker

Online Scrabble players rejoice!

Hasbro has dropped a lawsuit it had filed against the Indian brothers who had created a similar game, called "Scrabulous," which enjoyed huge success on Facebook until it was removed this summer.

The brothers, Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, from Calcutta, India, created the game because they couldn't find an online version of Scrabble that they liked. When Hasbro first filed suit this summer, Scrabulous was removed from Facebook and replaced with a Hasbro-sanctioned version of online Scrabble.

From Lemondrop: Trouble in Toyland

November is one of the biggest months for video game releases as publishers try to make their way onto holiday wish lists with big titles such as Gears of War 2, Mirrors Edge, Call of Duty, Brothers in Arms, Little big Planet and many many more. Even picky gamers can easily spend $300-$400 to snap up just the highest rated games, let alone any of the casual games set to invade store shelves in the next two months. With so many releases it is no wonder that the GeekDad at WIRED came up with 5 ways to stretch your gaming dollar this fall.

GeekDad offers the following 5 ways to save money on games this holiday season.

1. Know your release dates and what games you can wait to buy.
   
2. Read reviews to avoid the crud that many developers shovel out this time of year.
3. Play the demo; nothing helps you separate the wheat from the chaff quicker than hands on time.
4. Trade in and or buy used games, even new release used games are $5 cheaper.
   
5. Join a gaming community, which exist solely to help others find cheap video game deals.
   

These are some excellent ideas for saving on games. I've already prioritized my game purchases for the rest of the year, planning to pick up Mirrors Edge on launch day while waiting until after the holidays to snag a used copy of Gears of War 2. With the prevalence of demos and reviews these days there is no excuse for making an uninformed game purchase, even as a gift. While we are talking about gifts, let me be one of the first to say, "there is no shame in giving a used game as a gift, after all, used games play the same as new ones!"

A couple years ago, it would have been hard to convince me that video games and computer games were impacting the sales of more traditional board games. At the time, video games were being targeted at young men and were, with few exceptions too arcane, complex, or violent to appeal to more casual gamers.

Now it's very different. The Nintendo Wii has reached demographics that the industry hasn't targeted in more than 20 years, and games are more fun and require less tech-savvy than ever. The casual gamer is back -- and you have to wonder if board games are suffering for it. Now, the Wii is a huge hit in nursing homes across the country.