In just a few months, the iPhone has become a gaming handheld to be reckoned with, uttered by some in the same breath as the Nintendo DS.

While day-to-day charts give us a glimpse into what people are buying for the device, Apple has just released the most downloaded applications of 2008.

“Texas Hold ‘Em,” “Moto Chaser,” “Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D,” Super Monkey Ball,” “Cro-Mag Rally,” and “Enigmo” took spots in the top paid applications period, across all iPhone applications, while “Tap Tap Revenge” was the first most popular free application that was a game.

But games specifically, what were people interested in playing on their iPhone this year? Apple divided the list into the ten top paid and ten top free games.

*When we say iPhone, we also mean iPod Touch, unless noted.

Top 10 Paid Games:

1. Texas Hold’em
2. Moto Chaser
3. Crash Bandicoot: Nitro Kart 3d
4. Super Monkey Ball
5. Cro-Mag Rally

6. Enigmo
7. Air Hockey
8. Bejeweled 2
9. Flick Bowling
10. Line Rider iRide

Top 10 wFree Games:

1. Tap Tap Revenge
2. Labrynth Lite Edition
3. Sol Free Solitaire
4. iBowl
5. Pac-Man Lite
6. Touch Hockey:FS5
7. Cannon Challenge
8. Audi A4 Driving Challenge
9. Sudoku
10. reMovemh

What these lists don’t tell us, however, is which game was most popular — period. Was there one game people were willing to seek out, regardless of price? Or does the prospect of paying nothing for entertainment trump everything?

Did you download any of these?

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GRAPEVINE, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Dallas-area resident Mary McKenzie is helping GameStop raise funds this holiday season for the Make-A-Wish Foundation®. She had the honor of creating artwork for GameStop Corp.’s (NYSE: GME) 2008 holiday gift card. The 6-year-old first grader is a frequent customer of GameStop, the world’s largest video game and entertainment software retailer. Her artwork depicts a colorful holiday scene complete with an angel, snowman, tree and reindeer.

McKenzie often submits her drawings to GameStop staff in the metroplex, so when Chris Olivera, vice president of corporate communications and public affairs at the retailer, heard about her drawings, he knew she would be the perfect person to illustrate this year’s holiday card.

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The Halo series is in a period of rapid expansion. The first title outside of the mainline numbered installments will be next year's Halo Wars, a console-oriented realtime strategy title for Xbox 360.

Unfortunately for Ensemble, Halo Wars marks the final game from the Dallas, Texas-based Age Of Empires studio, with the Microsoft-owned developer set to close in early 2009 following the game's completion.

Nonetheless, Gamasutra recently had the chance to speak to lead designer Graeme Devine and Bill Jackson, the game's campaign producer.

The interview focuses on the challenges of bringing an original realtime strategy title to consoles, what focus tests taught them about Halo fans and grenades, project origins, and why one of their job titles is simply 'Game Developer'.

Prototyping and Testing Functional Controls

So, you guys are pretty far along in development, then, on this title, and it's gotten to the point where everything is pretty much set completely, at this point.

Bill Jackson: Oh, yeah. We're four years into the title, so...

Really? Four years?

BJ: Yes. Four years. Four long years. The first year was some R&D work -- controls, and things like that -- so I'd say three solid years of production.

That's what I want to talk about... There are two big obvious challenges: bringing this franchise into this kind of genre, and then bringing this kind of genre successfully onto consoles. How did you approach both of these?

Graeme Devine: That is exactly the problem; getting Halo fans to play a realtime strategy game, and getting realtime strategy fans to play a Halo game.

So I think that's one of the very core virtues that we took, in how to make the game approachable. "What are the best things about Halo?" You know, that visceral experience: the sound of the combat. The actual units and style aren't different than an RTS game, so, that helps. And then, bringing realtime strategy to the console; just that kind of crunch there too.

One of the very first things that we did was not try and port any other game. We didn't try and think, you know, "Okay, how can we get these keyboard/mouse equivalents onto the console?" That seemed to be where every other game went wrong; trying to emulate, somehow, that same same pattern -- some of them even had a pointer.

[We decided to] really start again from the ground up, and think about what we wanted to do in realtime strategy games -- controlling large armies, building structures, building some economy, and some technology -- to be able to do those constructions and then controlling them easily with the controller. When you start to think about it that way, instead of how it's been done before, the solutions started to present themselves, and it became pretty easy.

Did you go through a heavy prototyping phase? At that point, were you trying to make functional control schemes?

GD: Oh yeah. We actually started out with Titans, one of the expansions on one of the Age of Mythology games. We spent a long time trying all sorts of variations; we had all sorts of things -- circle menu changes, with twelve things round it, and sub menus, and...

You you actually took an Age of Mythology game, and hacked it to use as a prototype?

GD: Yup. Yeah, basically the first year of the project. And then about six or seven months in, Justin -- one of the balance testers at that point, and he's now a game designer -- he's a real big RTS player, and he came up after one of the games, which he'd tested every single day. He said, "I think it's now easier to play this game with the controller than it is with the mouse and keyboard." And at that point we thought, "Well, okay, we're on the right track."

At that point did you unleash it on focus groups, or at least people who had not encountered it before, to see what their reaction was? Because obviously he had probably been there, observing that process.

GD: That was one of the actual concerns. In game design, it's very easy to reach an evolved process. You know: We have an evolved set of controls; we're now here because we did A, B, C, D, E, so if someone new comes in, can they get the E right away without having gone through A, B, C, D? So, we actually had a high amount of belief in what we were doing. I remember when we did our first focus test...

BJ: It's been at least two years since we started testing.

GD: But we started early on in the process. We weren't Halo IP when we did our first.

BJ: So about three years ago we did our first, and we've done focus group testing with different types of people, not just with the same group over and over. So, we've done Halo fans; we've done non-Halo fans; we've done people that have never touched a console game; even people that have never touched a game.

And we've gone the whole gamut, and gotten feedback. And useful feedback, from just about all of those people. With that said, I would say that Graeme and everyone who worked on the controls, it was a design that was internal. We just used the focus testing to validate assumptions -- as opposed to, "Hey! What do you want in an RTS control scheme?" And that's why it's so different than the RTS control schemes that are out.

GD: Our first focus group was actually Halo fans. I remember that. It was interesting, because one of the first things we learned was how much hardcore Halo fans like throwing grenades.

(laughter)

GD: It seemed like a really funny thing to get out of the control test, but they all would come up and say, "This trigger needs to throw grenades!" Over and over and over again, that was direct feedback -- "We need to be able to throw grenades!" So, you can throw grenades now.

(laughter)

BJ: Another thing that we found out is that there's a pretty big overlap already, between Halo fans and RTS -- at least some RTS experience. Whether that's RTS on consoles on some other products, or whether that's RTS on PC.

So we actually had to go out and say, "Let's change our criteria; let's only get Halo players that have not played a realtime strategy game." When we first did it, we just ended up with a large proportion of people who understood what RTS was as a concept. So we have really stretched our wings on that, and really tried to find every little nook and cranny, to get the feedback from all groups.

Design Is Also a Solution

You're aiming at some problems that are pretty ripe to be solved on consoles, still. First, getting an RTS just to function as a genre on the console is still a relatively large issue that hasn't really been addressed. Like you've said, some have done better and better at emulating the existing control mechanism from the genre, but there hasn't been a lot of effective work in developing new, meaningful controls.

GD: I think, even, it goes beyond controls sometimes, too. I mean, on a PC RTS, you can sometimes get 3,000 units, or something. You can get so many units that you just can't physically do this on a console. But they try! And then you get the photo frame-fest, of just one frame every three seconds, and the game becomes non-fun very quickly.

So design becomes a major component in getting people to understand the game, both as a Halo game, and as a strategy game that they can effectively play?

GD: I think it was key that it'd be console-only. And everyone was like, "Oh, there will be a PC version down the road," or, "I'll wait for the PC version," we see that all the time. But no, there's no PC version coming, because it was designed for the console.

We thought about going both ways, but as soon as you make that thought in your mind, it's easy to say, "Well, I'll use the text interface device that's coming out... That'll be how I do macros; I'll start to use the shift button to do more than one control thing," It starts to become an issue. But if you've only got this thing [holds up controller] and this thing's complicated enough -- it's a good challenge.

Yeah, the challenge of consoles, I think, is to simplify the controls to the point where they still function, rather than complicate the controls to the point where you can do everything on different buttons.

GD: There's ways to simplify the two, I think; they're kind of invisible. One of the ways that we simplify, say, the economy in the game. We have just one resource in the game. The supplies come in, and they come in all the time; you don't have to send people to go dig in the dirt.

But one of the other things that we have is our bases, in order to simplify -- that provides, actually, depth -- that there's only so many slots around the base that you can build at. It starts with three, you can upgrade to five, and then upgrade to seven.

But the decisions that you make there, as to what you put in the slots, is actually a really complicated problem. But because it's a visual problem on the screen, it's like the map becomes a desktop, almost...

If you become really good at Halo Wars, it's actually a hardcore decision, like, "Do I build two supply pads and upgrade one to get the reactor?" It's a different way of presenting the same problem, but visually, and with the controller, it's solved pretty well.

Working With Bungie's Baby

Were you able to pull any assets from Bungie's stuff, and use them? Or did you have to build it all from scratch?

GD: We had to build it all from scratch.

Did you have really good reference material from them?

GD: At the time, the movie deal was in process, so they actually prepared a lot of stuff for Weta. We used that. We also found the Halo art books to be very useful. But one of the other challenges was, all of their stuff was from this [forward] perspective, and all of our stuff is from the top. So we actually had to change things up quite a bit for that perspective, to make the units recognizable.

Getting the Halo units to look and feel the same was also one of the other challenges, because everyone knows what those Warthogs look like, when you drive them and so forth, but up in the air you can actually exaggerate that a quite little bit and they'll still look the same.

So, you know, that thing's actually jumping three times as high as it does in Halo, and it goes four times faster than it does in Halo, and all these things -- but it looks the same. Very different, between look and accuracy.

Did you have the wherewithal to create new units and machinery? Or did you have to have to stick to what had been established in the mainline Halo series?

GD: One of the things about Halo is... Well, Master Chief is a one man army, right? So he's got a couple of ODST troops to help him, but that's really about it.

We actually had to fill in a little bit on the UNSC side to make the side more complete. The Covenant, they were actually more complete than the UNSC side, so then less work went into making them a complimentary army.

Because you're already fighting them as an army.

GD: Yeah.

From a design perspective, when you just threw the extant Halo ideas into a new perspective, did it offer up design ideas, by dint of just changing the view?

GD: Yeah. And it's a cool universe, because the humans need to fire lead, and the aliens need to fire plasma. You can't just suddenly give the humans ray guns, and say, "Okay, now we're gonna go out there, and kick ass with ray guns."

On Job Titles

I actually have a question that's totally outside of this, but I notice that your card just says "Game Developer," rather than a specific discipline. Is that a philosophical choice, on crediting? Or is that because you do a lot of different stuff?

GD: Well, I can kinda do a lot of different stuff! I've been making games almost 30 years now. So, I am terrible at drawing, but I can make games. But I'd program, write -- you know, juggle...

One of the things, when you make games, is that there's no badge when you make a game: You might be a programmer on the game, but you're still have an actual opinion about the actual game you're making. So many people are labeled "Programmer", and, "I'm not going to listen to you because you're a programmer," that's just the wrong approach to take. Someone's discipline is not necessarily their role in a game.

BJ: That's why I chose producer, Graeme.

GD: Yes. You can't comment on the story at all! No, you comment on the story the whole time. But that was exactly -- you know, it's a good example, I mean, Bill read through the scripts and gave great feedback on the story.

BJ: I was the editor.

GD: He was the producer on the campaign, and was integral to a lot of the actual design of the campaign maps, and how they were laid out. When you say the word 'Producer', it doesn't conjure up in your mind the guy who is helping me out with the script, or working on campaign map layout.

Yeah. If anything, it's one of those roles that, depending on what studio you're talking to, it means one thing or another.

BJ: Yes, that's very true. It's very true. I think, at our studio, we've always had the mentality that everybody can comment on the design of the game in any way that they want.

So it doesn't matter what role you are, or how long you've been there; you can say whatever it is you want to say. And our job is to hear that and respond to it. And if we can't respond to it, then it probably means there's some validity to what you're saying -- so, it's worked well, I think. It makes good games; high quality games.

[This piece originally appeared on big sister game business site Gamasutra - don't forget to visit, check out the jobs, and subscribe to the RSS.]

The latest issue of GameSetWatch sister publication Game Developer magazine includes a creator-written postmortem on the making of Certain Affinity's Age of Booty, the pirate-themed RTS released via download on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

These extracts reveal how the Texas-based start-up studio behind the game faced the obstacles of succeeding as an independent development house while still keeping a hold on its game rights.

Certain Affinity president Max Hoberman, a Bungie Studios veteran, crafted the postmortem of the Capcom-published product, which was introduced in Game Developer as follows:

"Beginning with a paper prototype and then creating an original engine, Certain Affinity brought Age of Booty to completion in just over a year, all while juggling multiple projects and shuffling developers on and off the project. Even an unexpected last minute dispute over the name couldn't scuttle the game and Certain Affinity took home the real treasure: full control over its own IP."

The Importance of Prototyping

Particularly for downloadable games that rest heavily on heavily-repeated mechanics, early and thorough prototyping of the concept is crucial.

Hoberman explains of the game, which has largely positive, constructive reviews on aggregation site Metacritic:

"One of the things I most appreciate about Settlers of Catan is that a player can learn all the rules and mechanics during a single game. This was the very heart of what we were trying to accomplish with Age of Booty -- nailing a simple, intuitive control scheme was our highest priority.

"Team play added a ton of depth to the game without compromising the simple controls. This was probably the best possible start for a game. We had created a playable prototype that looked good, that was both easy and fun to play, and that demonstrated the game's core mechanics. The value of this prototype can't be underestimated -- not just in helping us pitch the game, but in guiding us later on."

Communication is the First Casualty

Even within a smaller team like Certain Affinity, when communication between disciplines starts to break down, the project will inevitably have problems.

Hoberman explains of some of the issues inherent in creating a game with a smaller team with less well-defined roles:

"The changing assignments and splitting of focus challenged everyone and presented a prioritization nightmare that left no area untouched. One serious consequence was a breakdown in cross-disciplinary communication, something we take a lot of pride in, as evidenced by our completely open pit-style office.

"These misconceptions inevitably trickled down to Capcom and caused some confusion and even a bit of friction toward the end of the project when they learned about big cuts and changes that had been made months earlier."

It's Better to be "The Man"

After the game ships, it can make a huge difference to the studio whether it has retained the intellectual property to its creation.

Certain Affinity pulled off that sometimes-difficult trick of having a publisher to help fund the game, but having the IP under its control for subsequent titles, as follows:

"One of the very best things we did was negotiate a deal that left us entirely in control of the game and the intellectual property. We went in to discussions with this as our highest priority, but to be completely honest I was a bit surprised when we walked out with full IP ownership.

"We couldn't have crammed all of the juicy features we wanted in otherwise; the business model for a single title, and especially for a risky new IP (a downloadable game, at that) simply didn't justify the investment."

Additional Info

The full postmortem, including a great deal more insight into Age of Booty's development, with "What Went Right" and "What Went Wrong" reasoning, is now available in the November 2008 issue of Game Developer magazine.

The issue also includes Game Developer's first annual "Top Deck" feature of influential and innovative game developers, and Oliver Franzke offers up an in-depth feature compiling best practices for error reporting and value editing systems.

Plus, as usual, there is Matthew Wasteland's humor column, as well as development columns from Power of Two's Noel Llopis, Bungie's Steve Theodore, LucasArts' Jesse Harlin, and Maxis' Soren Johnson.

Worldwide paper-based subscriptions to Game Developer magazine are currently available at the official magazine website, and the Game Developer Digital version of the issue is also now available, with the site offering six months' and a year's subscriptions, alongside access to back issues and PDF downloads of all issues, all for a reduced price. There is now also an opportunity to buy the digital version of November 2008's magazine as a single issue.

• Alexander Sliwinski: Playing Left 4 Dead with teammates who hopefully know not to pull the shotgun trigger with the barrel facing me. Really want to finally beat the Mercy Hospital rooftop on Advanced. Might do some Horde or insane campaign co-op in Gears 2. Perhaps a nice trip to Northrend for relaxation.
• Christopher Grant: I'm traveling (with my Xbox!) but since every hotel I manage to stay at has a television dating back to the Carter administration, I haven't cracked open this copy of Left 4 Dead that I snagged from a random GameCrazy in Texas.
  
• Griffin McElroy: I'll probably be tackling the last two campaigns on Left 4 Dead, making futile efforts to sneak by witches as my fellow survivors either try to shoot them in the head or set them on fire.
• Kevin Kelly: I'm heading out of town for Thanksgiving, so it'll be a gaming free week... if not for the fact that I finally decided to take the plunge into the World of Warcraft. I've installed the new WoW Battlechest, and Wrath of the Lich King, and I'm starting a character from zero! Whee ha! Also, I'll be board gaming it up this weekend at the Board Game Geek Convention in Dallas, hopefully playing some Power Grid or Agricola.
• James Ransom-Wiley: Oh ... Hi Mom! I almost forgot you were visiting this weekend ... What's that? You'd like to go to the art museum? Sure, that sounds fun!
• Jason Dobson: Currently driving over zombies in the road on his way back to Oklahoma.
• Justin McElroy: I'm going to play some Left 4 Dead if I get the chance to play, which I won't.
• Ludwig Kietzmann: When I'm not busy making the undead deader in Left 4 Dead, I'll be refining my time trials in Mirror's Edge. I mean, I'm pretty satisfied with them already, but I do enjoy making James work even harder to catch up. What a slowpoke!
  
• Randy Nelson: I too will be attempting for the umpteenth time to escape from Mercy Hospital's rooftop in Left 4 Dead. Perhaps with my tactics and Alexander's combined we can finally pull it off on Advanced. When I'm not killing zombies, I'll be playing Prince of Persia. Wait - I will. Oh yes, I will.
  
• Ross Miller: Waiting in some utility room for us to let him out. [Update! I emerge! All week I've been playing single-player Final Cut Pro into the wee hours, and tonight I'm hoping to get in a session of "Hey I'm flying to New York to celebrate my birthday!" Still haven't gotten Left 4 Dead, and I probably won't until sometime after Thanksgiving.]
  

WRUP meets the zombie apocalypse originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Trademarks are fun things, because they remove all context from whatever a videogame publisher might be planning, leading to all sorts of humorous speculation. Let's have fun with one now!

Checking out the latest game trademarks, we have found that Konami wants to own the term "Peace Walker." The trademark is still under review, so we don't yet know if the house of Metal Gear will actually win it yet. In the meantime, what could Konami want with it? Based off the name, we have decided that Peace Walker could be:

• A game featuring Jesus Christ in a giant mech, or a mech shapes like The Son.
• A Walker: Texas Ranger spin-off in which Chuck Norris and John Lennon team up.
• A new Metal Gear Solid boss. Probably one of the most sensible names they've had.

It's worth pointing out that there is an actual Peace Walker Society, a volunteer group that ... well ... just seems to want peace to happen. Very vague, and seemingly not connected with Konami in any way.

What do you think Konami could want with the word? Speculation is yours to enjoy!

His name might be Cheshire Cat, but like today's other Your Turn contributor, he is not smiling.

Cheshire Cat is a 30-year-old environmental engineer from Port Macquarie who has been playing games ever since his pro-active mother programmed a cute "monkey maths" game for their Texas Instruments home computer when he was four.

Cheshire is also a staunch opponent of censorship, so had to write in after reading a recent article on the proposed internet filters.

Click below for the second Your Turn debut of the day.

Censor this!

A recent article on the SMH website finally riled me up enough to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard as the case may be). The story I am referring to is the Federal Government's planned introduction of an Australia-wide internet filter and the fact that they are misleading the public and ignoring all opposition to it by both experts and the community.

Censorship of any kind is something I personally don't agree with. While I may not like the views of some or the particular fetishes of others, I believe it is their right as an adult to do as they please so long as it causes no harm to others (therefore something like child pornography or snuff films being illegal doesn't count as censorship). Even in those instances I think it is a case of 'keep your friends close and your enemies even closer'. By blocking access to those sites you remove an easy means of monitoring these people's actions and therefore catching and prosecuting them.

We have also seen throughout history that prohibition does not work. It didn't work for
alcohol, it's certainly not working for illicit substances and it's unlikely to work for pornography or piracy. Even countries with very strict pornography guidelines have a large black market for it. Add the technological constraints of this filter system and the abilities of those with enough determination and you have a system destined to fail.

As reported:

"In Senate question time today, Greens senator Scott Ludlam accused the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, of misleading the public by falsely claiming his mandatory censorship plan was similar to that already in place in Sweden, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.

Despite significant opposition from internet providers, consumers, engineers, network administrators and online rights activists, the Government is pressing ahead with its election promise of protecting people from unwanted material."

The countries listed have only an opt-in internet filter while the countries with mandatory country wide filters are those of the civil liberties calibre of Iran, China and Saudi Arabia, yet the government still thinks this is a good idea!

The Federal government already has software for internet filtering offered for free to all Australians. By all indications it has been a complete failure as reported by the Communications Minister during a senate estimates sitting in February. Less than 150,000 households had taken up the software (from a predicted 1.4 million) and less than 20% of those are still in use.

Tests for the new filters provide a substantial number of false positives with plenty of material slipping through that is meant to be blocked as well as a significant slow-down in the speeds achieved (which in Australia's ailing internet service would place us another step behind the rest of the world).

This is hypocrisy at its finest. While the Federal Government lambasted the poor take-up of one internet filtering system they then try to enforce a more severe one on a public obviously not wanting any.

These points are an indictment on the overall state of government in this country where those in power seem to constantly ignore the wishes of the public, the evidence of experts and generally do as they please.

The examples of this are present all around us not just the poor performance of one attorney general in South Australia (who has somewhat relented, we get our public discussion now and public release of the R18 report. Keep up the good work everyone).

The Iraq war, Workchoices, the alcopops tax, you name it and a Federal Government has done it in the past few decades against the advice of experts or the wishes of the public. Let's not forget the NSW state government (I can't speak for anyone else's) abysmally managing the state and attempting to sell off the state run electricity companies against the wishes of a public very hostile towards this issue. I think we are up to about five resignations in the past few months over these issues of mismanagement.

The censorship debate is one that will never be agreed upon, however I think we can all agree that the government should be run in the interests of the public taking its lead from the wishes of the public and the advice of experts.

As stated I personally don't believe in censorship and think this type of blanket internet censorship leads us down a very slippery slope.

What starts out as blocking illegal material such as child pornography, will likely become all hardcore pornography and gambling (thanks to Mr Fielding and Mr Xenophon) and where to next? Political sites the government doesn't like? All torrent and file sharing sites because some of the content is illegal? Youtube since some of its content is illegal? Blogs with dissenting views? Where does it end?

Since the R18+ issue has made gamers a bit more politically motivated perhaps it's time we turned our attention to something on a grander scale. Winning this war could well see the other issues looked at more closely. So what can we do? Do you think it's important to protect the freedom of the internet? When will a government in Australia be held to task over something it does? And can enough public outcry really have an effect? Or are we doomed to only voicing our disdain once every 3-4 years?

On the flip side, do any of you agree with the proposal? If so why?

- Cheshire Cat

Screen Play readers can submit articles or ideas for consideration in Your Turn using the email address screenplayblog@gmail.com. The best blog post each month as judged by Jason Hill will win a PlayStation 3 console from Sony Computer Entertainment worth $699. The next Your Turn prize winner will be announced on November 28. Only Australian residents are eligible and the judge's decision is final.

GRAPEVINE, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–GameStop, Corp. (NYSE:GME), the world’s largest video game and entertainment software retailer, today announced that it will host a national tournament featuring the hit title from Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), Call of Duty: World at War. Players will initially compete at approximately 2,000 U.S. GameStop locations for a chance to win cash and prizes and battle in the finals aboard the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier.

The tiered tournament will kick-off Friday, November 14, 2008, and provide players with an opportunity to test their skills in the year’s biggest war epic one-on-one with other contestants in a single-elimination tournament. Many of the participating GameStop locations will begin their tournaments at 9 p.m., local time; however, customers are encouraged to contact their local store to confirm the exact time of the tournament. All contestants must check-in at least thirty minutes prior to the start of play and you must be at least 17 years old to attend or participate in the event.

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I get a lot of phone calls, many from phone numbers I don't recognize. I'm a man of technology, preferring to do my business over email and text messages, so I let many go straight to voice mail.

When a Texas-based call came in today, I hit "ignore" on my cell, instead deciding to fight with the slightly-broken Killzone 2 beta servers. When I checked the voice mail later, I was greeted by a high-pitched shriek in my ear. It was a recorded message of a woman named Ashley, calling on behalf of GameStop to remind me that they'd be holding a Wednesday midnight release for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

"We invite you to join us early at 10 p.m. to join in the fun," she shouted excitedly into my ear, "including dressing up like your favorite character in preparation for the GameStop ultimate costume [unintelligible] national sweepstakes!"

It's the loudest call I've ever received; by the end I'm dizzy and my ears are ringing. Why GameStop would think that anyone, much less a World of Warcraft fanatic, would be OK with having someone call them up to shout promotional details in their ear is beyond me. Haven't they heard of subtlety? Couldn't they have gotten a WOW voice actor to deliver these details in a calm, even tone? Jesus. 

Best part: I didn't even reserve Wrath of the Lich King. Damn it.

I get a lot of phone calls, many from phone numbers I don't recognize. I'm a man of technology, preferring to do my business over email and text messages, so I let many go straight to voice mail.

When a Texas-based call came in today, I hit "ignore" on my cell, instead deciding to fight with the slightly-broken Killzone 2 beta servers. When I checked the voice mail later, I was greeted by a high-pitched shriek in my ear. It was a recorded message of a woman named Ashley, calling on behalf of GameStop to remind me that they'd be holding a Wednesday midnight release for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

"We invite you to join us early at 10 p.m. to join in the fun," she shouted excitedly into my ear, "including dressing up like your favorite character in preparation for the GameStop ultimate costume [unintelligible] national sweepstakes!"

It's the loudest call I've ever received; by the end I'm dizzy and my ears are ringing. Why GameStop would think that anyone, much less a World of Warcraft fanatic, would be OK with having someone call them up to shout promotional details in their ear is beyond me. Haven't they heard of subtlety? Couldn't they have gotten a WOW voice actor to deliver these details in a calm, even tone? Jesus. 

Best part: I didn't even reserve Wrath of the Lich King. Damn it.