Hijinks Inc.

Blog

  • Penny Arcade creaters make fun of people, rake in cash.

    Or so says the month old article I read in Wired. How much? If we had to guess, we’d say over a million a year.

    Mike and Jerry (or Gabe and Tycho as you might better know them) have their own clothing line, their own video game (to be released sometime in 2008), and their own own game con. Prompting their ascent to the lofty position of video game potentates.

    Krahulik and Holkins make a comfortable living from the strip, what with 55 million monthly pageviews driving online advertising and merchandising. They have a full-time staff of 10. They oversee a charity that has given $2.2 million worth of toys and games to children’s hospitals since 2003. And in late August, their annual convention — the Penny Arcade Expo — will attract 30,000 visitors, making it the largest game conference in the US.

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  • NBC Direct – Free TV shows

    Here’s a random fact for you, NBC is a division of General Electrics, who knew? Okay, I’m sure a lot of you, but I just found this out 37 seconds ago.

    You read the news, right? You know all about the NBC vs. Apple spat that ended in NBC planning to offer their videos through Amazon.com (ick). Well, it seems in a new development NBC will be launching its own free download service, called NBC Direct, for viewers to download their shows for free. The downloads will feature a TV like experience, complete with commercials that cannot be skipped.

    The service, which is set to go public in November will allow users to subscribe to NBC programs and have them delivered to their computers automatically after the program airs, however the file will expire one week after the show first airs. To add further insult to injury, NBC Direct will only be available to Windows users. Take that Apple!

    Now correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t this stem from NBC waiting to charge users more per download? And now they’ll be offering them for free? Umm, okay? I realize they will probably make a bit of money off the built in commercials, but can that really compare to the money they made through their offerings on iTunes?

  • Want pirates? I’ll give you pirates.

    Do the words Malacca Strait ring a bell? How about lanun? Didn’t think so. Peter Gwin knows all about though, and he want around the world to write about it.


    Though his jailers remain unsure who he is, they know exactly what he is: lanun (pronounced la-noon). When asked for a direct English equivalent, an interpreter explains that there is none, that it is a word freighted with many layers of culture and history. The short, imperfect answer is: The prisoner is a pirate.

    He earned that epithet when Malaysia’s marine police captured him and nine accomplices after they hijacked the Nepline Delima, a tanker carrying 7,000 tons of diesel fuel worth three million dollars, in the Strait of Malacca. It was one of several attacks reported during 2005 in the 550-mile channel separating the Indonesian island of Sumatra from the Malay Peninsula, Singapore perched at its southern tip.

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  • iPod games will have to be repurchased

    The rivers are running with the tears of fanboys everywhere, as iLounge is reporting that you have to repurchase all those iPod games you’ve been kicking it with on your old iPod if you want to play them on your new iPod… even more tragically only three iPod games have been updated to work with the new line of iPods.

    Okay, so how is this different from every time I buy a new cell phone and lose my ringtones and games that I’ve purchased for that? Oh yeah, Apple and the League of Extraordinary Fanboys aren’t involved! Sure it sucks, but it’s not at all unexpected, get over it and move on in life. You can do it, I believe in you.

  • Think you’re already sick of Halo 3 hype?

    With it’s own flavor of mountain dew, dedicated check-out lines in Wal-mart, and a million dollar diorama depicting a fake battle, you might be tired of Halo 3 hype by now. Or maybe we all should be thankful it hasn’t gone any further. From Reuters:

    Items that did not make the cut were a “Halo”-themed lottery ticket, lingerie modeled after a female hologram character and toy guns based the game’s weapons. Instead, fans can expect high-quality action figures from McFarlane Toys, a tabletop game from WizKids Inc and replica weapons for mature buyers.

    Interesting to note that the article does not rule out Master Chief boxers. Finish the fight. Believe.

    “Halo” no longer just a game for Microsoft