Hijinks Inc.

Man, July hit and Hijinks died. While Aaron has an excuse (he’s trying hard to hospitalize himself with his new scooter), I really don’t. My problem hasn’t been a lack of content to write about, but more of a lack of interest in the content thats available. Apple’s App Store launched recently with a plethora of new games and software for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The aspiring developers found within the confines of Installer.app have been busy too, but I haven’t taken the time to actually play around with any of the new stuff.

Its times like this that convince me I couldn’t make it as a serious video game writer; I really enjoy games…with the caveat that they are actually enjoyable to play. No offense to the nice and I’m sure well meaning indie developers, but 90% of it isn’t stuff that’s enjoyable to play. Enjoyable to make fun of maybe, but even that gets old after a while.

Complaining aside, I promise to get some actual content going here in the near future. E3 is in full swing, with all the major press conferences in the past 24 hours. Final Fantasy XIII is coming to 360, Wii gets a voice chat periphial, and Sony announced God of War 3 and a handful of 1st party PSP games. Yay for the handheld market!

Many moons ago I shared my bewilderment over the state of the world we live in. I now retract my statement. I love people who spend money on trading card games. In fact, I think they should spend some right now.

Imagine my surprise when I picked up a couple booster packs from the latest World of Warcraft Trading Card Game expansion to find a X-51 Nether-Rocket card staring up at me in all its shiny glory. For a brief moment I considered keeping it, but then I realized I’d be losing out on the more then two hundred bucks I could make selling it on eBay. I kinda feel like I just won the lottery.

Following Aaron’s excellent commentary on Brian Caulfield’s article in Forbes, I thought I’d throw in my two cents on the whole subject.

It would be easy to just laugh off the suggestion that Apple could even dent Nintendo’s grasp of the hand held gaming space, but before I start chuckling let me play devil’s advocate for a moment.

Caulfield makes one really good point. Apple’s content delivery system through iTunes kicks anything Nintendo can offer out the window. Digital distribution is the future, and Apple is getting a great head start with the upcoming launch of the iPhone App Store. The ability to buy games directly from the iPhone is huge, and it’s easily the biggest thing Apple has going for them right now. More below. Continue reading »

In an interview with the guys over at Pocketgamer.biz Ignacio Cavero, CEO of Spanish firm LemonQuest hints at previously unannounced pricing information for the soon to be released line of Apple approved iPhone games.

“We’re going to see a new generation of games,” he tells PocketGamer.biz. “Instead of being sold for €5 in Europe, they’ll be closer to €10 or €12. Take a look at what Apple is preparing for iPhone. Their games will be sold in iTunes for €17-18.”

According to the latest exchange rates €17-18 is around $28 over here. If you like shopping on eBay, 28 bucks can buy you almost any current DS title, and 90% of the current PSP titles.

With a price point like that we hope to see Apple release some pretty darn good games in the upcoming weeks.

LemonQuest talks iPhone, ARM and industry consolidation

In a sudden and somewhat surprising move, indie developer Adikus has taken their aptly titled Pool sim for the iPhone and iPod Touch to the consumer market. With the upgrade to version 2.1 they have added a $9.00 price tag.

Adikus has recently partnered with RiP Dev, a software dev and distribution house. From their website:

Since the game continues to evolve and be improved, it is now being distributed by RiP Dev (www.ripdev.com), one of the largest software houses for the iPhone.
Adikus.com will continue developing the game while RiP Dev will provide the customer support for it.

Adikus’ only other project is a Backgammon port for the iPhone, which is currently still a freeware release.

I got two calls from this number today. The first one was at 10:30am, and when I answered it the call immediately ended. The second call was at 5:23pm, and I didn’t hear it because I was having fun with a downed tree and a chain saw.

I called the number back and after a few seconds of dead air I got a recording saying “Welcome to Wells Fargo, to get started please say or key in your card number.” Yeah right.

After a little research I found out that this number was either a phishing scam or a collections agency. When I checked my Wells Fargo bank account I found out that I had indeed forgotten to pay my credit card off that month, so the number being a collections agency would make sense. On the flip side, other people have gotten calls from this number with no outstanding bills or even Wells Fargo accounts of any kind.

If you receive a call from any of the following numbers, do NOT give them any information.

1-503-403-2674
1-503-403-2660
1-503-403-2665

Instead, go to www.wellsfargo.com, make sure your credit card and/or loans are paid up, and ignore any more calls from these numbers.

If it’s legit, Wells Fargo needs to get a better collections agency. If it’s a scam, you’re saving yourself a lot of trouble.