Thursday, November 6, 2008

WoW the world of gaming has evolved

A World not so long ago
I remember when Super Nintendo first came to the shelves 16 years ago when my husband and I purchased our console and game; we sat up night after night for hours trying to beat the game, and each other. It was fun, we did something together but after hours of playing we’d also see our tempers flare when we lost. It was short lived, life went on and the console sat and collected dust until the kids were older and played it themselves.

I remember getting the internet for the first time in the house 8 years ago, our Compaq 486 computer hooked up with dial up connection and a 28 k modem that gave up limited access to the internet with the speed but it did what we needed, checked email and gave surfing abilities for information. Then the 56k modem shortly after enabling us to use chat in Yahoo, something many became addicted to with this new phenomenon of communication. Real time chat, which pushed the age of the divorce rate higher as more people found those with common interest and took the lonely out of sitting at home alone, myself and my husband fascinated with this new way of communication chatted with people daily mainly from the U.S. learning how to scan and share photos from
35 mm cameras. The age of technology addiction had arrived.

The standard 56 k modem didn’t cut it for too long in the internet world as technology advanced faster then anyone could keep up, cable high-speed hook-up came next and so did the amount of time spent on the internet. Programs within the internet and gaming world became a booming lifestyle, pirated music download sites such as Napster, movie and application download sites such as MIRC became a hit and bandwidth usage took off, on line gaming sites such as Yahoo and MSN Zone along with many others were the rave and the addiction. Sitting down for hours playing your favourite online game against other players as our social lifestyle changed and arguments becoming aggressive as competitions soared, if only we knew then what the technology of gaming was about to explode into.

As my gaming days ended my children’s began with one starting on the Age of Empires an epic real-time strategy game spanning 10,000 years, in which players are the guiding spirit in the evolution of small Stone Age tribes. Starting with minimal resources, players are challenged to build their tribes into great civilizations is how this game is described.

After he conquered the trilogy his next feats would range between the Warcraft trilogy played offline to the Diablo series played online, he then took one step up and asked to register into new gaming world, one we thought harmless called World of Warcraft （ Currencywow gold ）. The inception of this new virtual world when released in 2004 became a new reality world of problems within families and individuals. His aggressive nature became more apparent with WoW as the wheels were set in motion due to our lack of understanding how addicting this gaming world would be.

“WoW succeeded because of Blizzard’s unique ability at creating a mass audience for “hardcore” games, especially in the massively multiplayer online game (or MMO) market; at the same time (and this is a very valuable reminder), the game’s astounding success is more complex than usually understood, especially in Asia,” Wagner James Au from the site Gigaom explains in 2006 in his article “The How of Wow”.

World of Warcraft in 2005 and 2006 was listed as the number 1 PC game in sales, with more then 10 million subscribers world wide by 2008, 5.5 million of those users located in Asia. In 2005, a four month old baby suffocated due to her WoW addicted parents who at the time were playing at a nearby internet café, by August of the same year the People’s Republic of China concerned for citizens addiction to this virtual world restricted players to only 3 hours of play time at which they would be booted off the game and in 2006 changed it’s ruling to only apply to those under the age of 18.

In the age of virtual gaming addiction becoming more widespread as our technology progresses in a virtual reality not all of the WoW gaming should be looked at with a negative attitude. Many WoW players participate in a virtual community and come together in creative ways such as fan artwork, comic strip style storytelling and another popular phenomenon in the community called machinima videos.

Blizzard has certainly come under their share of controversy and problems with this Guinness Book of World Record holder of MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) but continues in numbers to grow strong with the WoW’s expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King is set to be released November 13/08.

Unlike with our knowledge of this virtual world but since have come to much understanding of the gaming world, parents should understand all of these games come with Parental Controls which we must as parents learn how to understand and use. Gaming addiction is real for children and adults equally, as gambling addiction is real, drug addiction is real and alcoholism is real, knowledge and education is a must when introducing these games into your own life or the life of your family.

The advancement of technology came in society so quickly with so many areas keeping up with everything and understanding this new virtual world created for entertainment many have suffered and will continue to suffer until we each take responsibility and learn from others mistakes such as my own with my child’s experience.

We have since changed our x-treme high-speed cable internet connection to a satellite connection so WoW is no longer capable of play due to the lag time, this getting our son removed from his addiction, which was no easy task for him, his withdrawals were real and we felt for him as it was us as parents who introduced this lifestyle without using parental controls, feeling us taking it away when things got out of hand was the better way to parentally control his addiction but have since known this is not the case.

The days of Atari and pinball machines are long gone, and that annoying bleep that went back and forth on our television hook-up games has dissolved and evolved into a world I never would have dreamed of …but … was warned the future would soon become one day.
Tags: wow gold，world of warcraft gold

Posted by JImmy at 03:40:29 | Permalink | No Comments »

Broadband usage issues caused by World of Warcrafts latest patch

November 4th, 2008 by Rob
Headaches seem to have been caused for both Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC technology correspondent and ISPs with the recent release of a new patch for World of Warcraft (Currencywow gold ), a popular online multiplayer game, weighing in at a massive 2Gigabyte 9GB).
Cellan-Jones wrote in his recent blog “I’ve been keeping a close eye on my bandwidth use at home because I keep breaking through my 25GB per month limit. When I signed up to my ISP I thought that would be ample, but then found that we were using as much as 1GB a day, which seemed a lot. Then on Wednesday this week we broke all records, with more than 2GB downloaded.”
The latest patch for WoW, which was an incredible 2GB was being downloaded by Cellan-Jones’ son although, due to the P2P based downloading used by the WoW updater that shares uploaded data with other users whilst it downloads it is highly possible that more that 2GB was actually downloaded.
The bandwidth that is normally used in most standard multiplayer games is usually quite small due to the games need a low latency to run smoothly and therefore have to transfer small data packets. The thing that many ISP are now noticing is that many of the modern updates and patches for both games and software are increasing in size and are now reaching GigaByte sizes instead of MegaBytes.
Cellan-Jones continued “When I spoke to Neil Armstrong from another broadband provider PlusNet, he confirmed that the World of Warcraft update had certainly been a major event: “It’s a very big patch… we’ve seen a very significant increase in traffic.” And he said online gaming in general did use up quite a bit of bandwidth - around 120Mb for a four-hour session. Not as much, though, as streaming video services like the iPlayer, which Plusnet’s usage monitor tells me uses 250Mb an hour. But it’s clear that together online gaming and video streaming are having a dramatic impact on the amount of bandwidth consumer’s use - and they are increasingly having to pay for that. Mr Armstrong told me that a couple of years ago his average customer would rarely use more than 2 GB a month, whereas now that’s up to around 7 GB. He said a third of customers using Plusnet’s 15 GB a month service were now finding they needed to top up, at 75p a gigabyte, for extra bandwidth.”
Tags: wow gold，world of warcraft gold

Posted by JImmy at 03:37:41 | Permalink | No Comments »

World of Warcraft fans unite for pilgrimage to Blizzcon

Thousands of gaming fans left a virtual world to unite in the real one and test an update of their obsession
By day they are human, but in their spare time they become mythical heroes such as wizards, dwarfs and blood-elves. At the weekend, in California, 15,000 of them logged out of World of Warcraft （Currencywow gold ）, the world’s biggest online game, to gather in a hall the size of an aircraft hangar for the “big nerdfest” that is Blizzcon.
They were drawn to the Anaheim Convention Centre in
California by their love of the virtual worlds they inhabit. Blizzcon is part video game carnival, part trade fair and part religious pilgrimage, organised by Blizzard Entertainment, which makes World of Warcraft and the real-time strategy game Starcraft.
Almost 11 million people pay £7 a month to play World of Warcraft and dedicated fans have flown in from 27 countries around the world to attend Blizzcon, where they can discuss the intricate details of Blizzard’s games with the game-makers, get the exclusive chance to play new games before general release, dress up as their favourite characters and compete against one another.
At the opening ceremony, in reality little more than a glorified press conference, the atmosphere is intense and the noise deafening. The screams reach a peak when Mike Morhaime, the Blizzard chief executive, takes the stage. He’s a gentle-looking man wearing a blazer — the crowd greets him like a rock star.
“We are on the eve of a historic event next month, and I don’t mean the presidential election,” he says. The packed hall roars in agreement. For this mob, something far more important than electing the leader of the free world is taking place in November — “Northrend will be open.”
Northrend is a new continent in World of Warcraft （Buywow gold ） and forms part of the latest expansion of the game, which goes on sale next month. The release of Wrath of the Lich King will be the biggest event in computer gaming this year. Fans will queue for hours to buy a copy. Gamers expect no less than what Blizzard aims to achieve: the greatest computer game ever created.
The first World of Warcraft game was released four years ago. Today, it is the world’s biggest “massively multi-player online game”, or MMO. It has all the elements of a sci-fi fantasy world you might expect; with dragons, gnomes, orcs and such. It is a knowing homage to the likes of Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons. Players spend hours going on quests and doing battle with one another in order to build up their character into something akin to a small god. In an ever-evolving virtual world that is illustrated in rich detail and can be explored endlessly.
Paul Sams, a senior Blizzard executive, said the key to the game was its accessibility. “It’s easy to learn but hard to master,” he added.
Walking around the convention floor, there is a certain Blizzcon chic that is noticeable. The crowds are filled with loads of chubby, young, and pale men. They wear black t-shirts, a back-to-front cap, and sport an ill-advised goatee. There are endless queues for everything from nachos to the gift store. Disneyland just down the road won’t see anything like it.
Blizzcon has been growing in popularity since it began in 2005. This year the frenzy to buy tickets caused the online booking system to crash. Once the problem was fixed, the $150 (£90) tickets sold out in 15 minutes.
The longest queues are for the chance to play new games. After hours of waiting, gamers finally get their chance to play at one of the hundreds of computers screens, lined up in banks. The whole event takes place in semi-darkness; natural light is not let in, ensuring that glare does not distract the players from the digital carnage.
Others quietly play fantasy card games with each other, or take part in intense Q&A sessions with the game creators. Some honest fans admit that they main reason they have come is to get hold of the much-wanted Blizzcon goodie-bag. What makes the bag so special? It includes a polar bear mount, an extremely rare character which players can use to ride upon, like a horse or a camel, in World of Warcraft. The mount is valuable, both in the game and in real life. It is already being sold for anything up to $300 on eBay.
On one stage, hundreds gather to watch professional Warcraft and Starcraft matches. Big screens show the action while commentators describe the battle excitedly. Players are locked away from the crowd in sound-proof booths. The action is furious. The contestants tap on their keyboards and click on their mouse about eight times a second. To the outsider, it all makes very little sense.
Meanwhile, there are thousands more watching the proceedings at home, having paid about $40 to view it on pay-per-view television. Critics describe World of Warcraft as the greatest video game creation, a masterpiece in art and engineering. But its genius is that it has evolved to become a deeply social and communal experience.
“Two years ago on Father’s Day, my son gave me World of Warcraft,” says Jim York, 61, from Los Angeles, who was at Blizzcon with his 30-something adult son, who lives around about 350 miles away from him in San Francisco. “Now about twice a month, we go online and go on quests together. It’s become a father-son experience.”
Blizzcon is home for this growing online community. Almost everyone here says they have come out of a sense of belonging. People who have become friends by playing together online meet for the first time at the convention.
This includes James Taplin, 29, from Dorset, England, who met his online friend Nathan, from Birmingham, just before flying to Blizzcon last week. “It’s all about the togetherness,” said Mr Taplin. “We talk to each other for a while about our day, then we put that to one side and go kill some monsters.”
In a world of their own
— World of Warcraft’s 11 million monthly subscribers make it the biggest multiplayer online game in the world, with 62 per cent of the market
— In 2005 the world contracted a virtual plague that infected millions of characters and drew international attention because of its resemblence to real-life epidemics
— A baby reportedly suffocated in South Korea while her parents played World of Warcraft in a local café
— The Chinese Government restricts under18s to three hours playing time, after which the player is expelled for the game
— American psychologists have estimated that up to 40 per cent of World of Warcraft players are addicted to it
— World of Warcraft has appeared in South Park and The Simpsons cartoons, as well as inspiring two board games, a comic book and a music album
— World of Warcraft is advertised on television by William Shatner, Mr T and Jean Claude Van Damme
Tags: Thousands of gaming fans left a virtual world to unite in the real one and test an update of their obsession
By day they are human, but in their spare time they become mythical heroes such as wizards, dwarfs and blood-elves. At the weekend, in California, 15,000 of them logged out of World of Warcraft （Currencywow gold ）, the world’s biggest online game, to gather in a hall the size of an aircraft hangar for the “big nerdfest” that is Blizzcon.
They were drawn to the Anaheim Convention Centre in California by their love of the virtual worlds they inhabit. Blizzcon is part video game carnival, part trade fair and part religious pilgrimage, organised by Blizzard Entertainment, which makes World of Warcraft and the real-time strategy game Starcraft.
Almost 11 million people pay £7 a month to play World of Warcraft and dedicated fans have flown in from 27 countries around the world to attend Blizzcon, where they can discuss the intricate details of Blizzard’s games with the game-makers, get the exclusive chance to play new games before general release, dress up as their favourite characters and compete against one another.
At the opening ceremony, in reality little more than a glorified press conference, the atmosphere is intense and the noise deafening. The screams reach a peak when Mike Morhaime, the Blizzard chief executive, takes the stage. He’s a gentle-looking man wearing a blazer — the crowd greets him like a rock star.
“We are on the eve of a historic event next month, and I don’t mean the presidential election,” he says. The packed hall roars in agreement. For this mob, something far more important than electing the leader of the free world is taking place in November — “Northrend will be open.”
Northrend is a new continent in World of Warcraft （Buywow gold ） and forms part of the latest expansion of the game, which goes on sale next month. The release of Wrath of the Lich King will be the biggest event in computer gaming this year. Fans will queue for hours to buy a copy. Gamers expect no less than what Blizzard aims to achieve: the greatest computer game ever created.
The first World of Warcraft game was released four years ago. Today, it is the world’s biggest “massively multi-player online game”, or MMO. It has all the elements of a sci-fi fantasy world you might expect; with dragons, gnomes, orcs and such. It is a knowing homage to the likes of Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons. Players spend hours going on quests and doing battle with one another in order to build up their character into something akin to a small god. In an ever-evolving virtual world that is illustrated in rich detail and can be explored endlessly.
Paul Sams, a senior Blizzard executive, said the key to the game was its accessibility. “It’s easy to learn but hard to master,” he added.
Walking around the convention floor, there is a certain Blizzcon chic that is noticeable. The crowds are filled with loads of chubby, young, and pale men. They wear black t-shirts, a back-to-front cap, and sport an ill-advised goatee. There are endless queues for everything from nachos to the gift store. Disneyland just down the road won’t see anything like it.
Blizzcon has been growing in popularity since it began in 2005. This year the frenzy to buy tickets caused the online booking system to crash. Once the problem was fixed, the $150 (£90) tickets sold out in 15 minutes.
The longest queues are for the chance to play new games. After hours of waiting, gamers finally get their chance to play at one of the hundreds of computers screens, lined up in banks. The whole event takes place in semi-darkness; natural light is not let in, ensuring that glare does not distract the players from the digital carnage.
Others quietly play fantasy card games with each other, or take part in intense Q&A sessions with the game creators. Some honest fans admit that they main reason they have come is to get hold of the much-wanted Blizzcon goodie-bag. What makes the bag so special? It includes a polar bear mount, an extremely rare character which players can use to ride upon, like a horse or a camel, in World of Warcraft. The mount is valuable, both in the game and in real life. It is already being sold for anything up to $300 on eBay.
On one stage, hundreds gather to watch professional Warcraft and Starcraft matches. Big screens show the action while commentators describe the battle excitedly. Players are locked away from the crowd in sound-proof booths. The action is furious. The contestants tap on their keyboards and click on their mouse about eight times a second. To the outsider, it all makes very little sense.
Meanwhile, there are thousands more watching the proceedings at home, having paid about $40 to view it on pay-per-view television. Critics describe World of Warcraft as the greatest video game creation, a masterpiece in art and engineering. But its genius is that it has evolved to become a deeply social and communal experience.
“Two years ago on Father’s Day, my son gave me World of Warcraft,” says Jim York, 61, from Los Angeles, who was at Blizzcon with his 30-something adult son, who lives around about 350 miles away from him in San Francisco. “Now about twice a month, we go online and go on quests together. It’s become a father-son experience.”
Blizzcon is home for this growing online community. Almost everyone here says they have come out of a sense of belonging. People who have become friends by playing together online meet for the first time at the convention.
This includes James Taplin, 29, from Dorset, England, who met his online friend Nathan, from Birmingham, just before flying to Blizzcon last week. “It’s all about the togetherness,” said Mr Taplin. “We talk to each other for a while about our day, then we put that to one side and go kill some monsters.”
In a world of their own
— World of Warcraft’s 11 million monthly subscribers make it the biggest multiplayer online game in the world, with 62 per cent of the market
— In 2005 the world contracted a virtual plague that infected millions of characters and drew international attention because of its resemblence to real-life epidemics
— A baby reportedly suffocated in South Korea while her parents played World of Warcraft in a local café
— The Chinese Government restricts under18s to three hours playing time, after which the player is expelled for the game
— American psychologists have estimated that up to 40 per cent of World of Warcraft players are addicted to it
— World of Warcraft has appeared in South Park and The Simpsons cartoons, as well as inspiring two board games, a comic book and a music album
— World of Warcraft is advertised on television by William Shatner, Mr T and Jean Claude Van Damme
Tags: wow gold，world of warcraft gold

Posted by JImmy at 03:16:31 | Permalink | No Comments »

It’s a beauty pageant, it’s World of Warcraft, it’s a…recipe contest?

At first glance, it looks a little like a beauty pageant.
There’s a white-tablecloth covered table with four sets of red roses, an engraved silver platter and a giant check perched atop the large trophy with the “To” field left blank for the winner’s name. Twelve women are standing in a line eagerly awaiting an announcement that could change their lives.
But that’s where the similarities end. Because these women range in age from 25 to 65 and come in all shapes and sizes. In fact, the only thing that unites them is their matching red aprons with a major magazine’s logo embroidered in white across the chest.
A chemical engineer stands next to a professional dog walker; a symphony composer stands next to a professor of social work. And there’s me, a fairly boring mom standing next to a grandmother who doubles as an organic farmer and juvenile probation officer. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.
But in my relatively new experience as a competitive cook, this is normal. Major magazines and product manufacturers put the call out for recipes, and the melting pot of
America answers. I’ve been fortunate enough to attend three national cook-offs in the past two years, and each one has been full of the most colorful characters I’ve ever met.
There are legends in the recipe contest world that have been creating dishes (and bringing home bank) for forty years. These legends are mostly female, and I’ve had the opportunity to meet a few — they remind me a little of the crazy lady with 16 cats that lived behind my college apartment — but in a way you have to be crazy to think of a $70,000 dish that incorporates 7Up and crabmeat. These legends are the true “foodies” of America, they’re the ones growing mangosteens (a round, purple fruit native to Southeast Asia) in their backyard and adding matcha (a green tea powder) to their morning smoothies…just for fun. Not to write about it, or add it to their restaurant menu…just to enjoy it.
And then there are the more typical folks, who like to throw in a recipe here and there and just see what happens. That’s me…and somehow I lucked myself right in to some big cash competitions.
That’s also how I learned that recipe contests are not as happy-go-lucky and wholesome as you might think. Like World of Warcraft ( Currency: wow gold ) , the computer game my husband and his buddies play, there’s some serious strategy that goes in to preparing and plating food for a contest.
I’ve seen several contestants spend hours choosing the perfect produce for their dish…wavering back and forth between two red peppers or three peaches for what seemed like an eternity. I’ve seen someone ship her own cutlery to a contest because it’s the only way she could ensure a perfect cut. And I’ve seen some killer meltdowns when the contest didn’t provide the exact brand of chocolate or flour requested and the contestant had to improvise.
And lest you think recipe contests are filled with Pollyannas, I’ve even seen contestants play dirty. Just last month I was at a major contest and two of my ingredients went mysteriously missing. They’d been in my test kitchen refrigerator the night before…gone in the morning. After declaring a Butter and Cream Cheese Amber Alert and disrupting the entire contest, they were found in someone else’s refrigerator, in the very back corner of the bottom drawer. Nice.
Bad seeds aside, contesting has been an amazing hobby. My Facebook page is filled with more eclectic friends than anyone I know. I regularly get e-mails with obscure subject lines like “Black Korean Garlic is the New Hard-Neck Clove.” And I can rest assured that if I ever need an organic mangosteen, my kid gets on juvenile probation, or I need a symphony composed in my honor, I have friends who can help.
As Martha would say, “That’s a Good Thing.”
Tags: wow gold，world of warcraft gold

Posted by JImmy at 03:13:30 | Permalink | No Comments »

WoW accused of turning man’s mind into ‘living video game’

Loses touch with reality
By Austin Modine • Get more from this author
World of Warcraft (Currency: wow gold ) creator Blizzard Entertainment’s lawsuit against MDY Industries is getting a little dose of bat-shit insane before the case rolls to trial.
The legal sideshow comes courtesy of the famously litigious inmate Jonathan Lee Riches, who accuses Blizzard’s popular online game - in a hand-written legal filing (PDF) - of causing him to commit federal crimes. Tip o’ the hat to the law blog Virtually Blind for spotting the motion.

“World of Warcraft caused Riches mind to live in a virtual universe, where Riches explored the landscape committing identity theft and fighting cyber monster rival hacker gangs,” the filing asserts.
“Riches was addicted to video games and lost touch with reality because of defendants. This caused Riches to commit fraud to buy defendant’s video games.”
He adds that he chose World of Warcraft (Buy wow gold ) over “working a legit job” and that his “mind became a living video game.”
The motion was filed as an amicus brief, which lets someone who’s not a party in a case volunteer information to aide the decision.
For perspective, Riches - who is in a
South Carolina prison until 2012 for wire fraud - has filed over 1,500 complaints celebrities, CEOs, businesses, and inanimate objects nationwide. Georgia legal news site Fulton County Daily Report wrote back in March that 39 per cent of cases filed that month in US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia were filed by Riches.
Riches’ greatest court-clogging hits include lawsuits against Cyndi Lauper, Justin Timberlake, Starbucks Coffee, Ben Affleck, John McCain, NASA, Bill Gates, the US Postal Service, David Beckham, Steve Jobs, eBay, the Sundance Film Festival, Amazon.com, Paul McCartney, McDonald’s, Barack Obama, Jennifer Lopez, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Jack Kevorkian, FEMA, Guantanamo Bay, Visa, Yahoo!, Rush Limbaugh, Reese Witherspoon, the International Olympic Committee, Britney Spears, and Dick Clark’s New Year Rockin’ Eve 2008.
Riches’ 2007 complaint against Steve Jobs and OJ Simpson accuses Apple’s CEO of secretly planning to release Simpson from jail in order to “radio wave warp” away from his home because he’s in possession of old OJ football cards.
His 2007 complaint against the US holiday of Thanksgiving names as defendants “Pilgrims, Mayflower Movers, Pilgrim’s Pride, Turkey Hill, Black Friday and Cleveland Indians.”
We’re sure the Arizona court will give Riches’ motion all the careful consideration it deserves.
Tags: wow gold，world of warcraft gold

Posted by JImmy at 03:09:30 | Permalink | No Comments »

Activision Blizzard sees jump in game sales

Video-game publisher swings to a loss on large merger charges
By Dan Gallagher, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Activision Blizzard Inc. swung to a net loss for the third quarter even though sales of its titles soared, due to large charges related to its merger with Vivendi’s video-game unit.
The game publisher also issued an outlook for the year-end quarter that was slightly below forecasts, citing concerns about the slowing economy.
For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Activision (ATVI:
activision blizzard inc com
ATVI 10.98, -0.88, -7.4%) reported a net loss of $108 million, or 8 cents a share. Excluding charges related to its merger with Vivendi’s Blizzard unit, as well as items related to stock-options expenses, the company said it would have earned 7 cents a share for the period.
That beats the 4 cents a share in earnings predicted by analysts, according to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters.
Revenue came in at $711 million. Analysts were expecting $632.14 million for the quarter.
In its earnings statement, Activision compared the recent period’s results with the stand-alone results for Blizzard at the same time last year. In that period, Blizzard earned $48 million, or 8 cents a share, on revenue of $326 million.
Activision’s stand-alone business earned $698,000, or break-even on a per-share basis, on revenue of $317.7 million in the same period last year.
The company had no major new releases for the quarter. But popular titles from the catalog continued to rack up strong numbers. Top-sellers for the period included “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare,” two “Guitar Hero” titles and Blizzard’s megapopular “World of Warcraft （Currency: wow gold ）,” an online-multiplayer game. The company also got a boost from the international distribution of “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed” by LucasArts.
Activision has several major titles slated for release in the current period. These include “Guitar Hero: World Tour,” Call of Duty: World at War” and the latest “Warcraft” expansion pack, titled “Wrath of the Lich King.”
There are several movie-release tie-ins coming, including those for “
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” and “Quantum of Solace” — based on the latest James Bond film.
However, the company warned that the slowing economy has limited its ability to predict demand for the period.
For the fourth quarter, Activision said it expects revenue of $2.2 billion, excluding the impact of revenue deferred for sales of certain games. Earnings for the quarter are expected to come in around 29 cents a share on a non-GAAP basis.
Analysts were expecting earnings of 33 cents a share on revenue of $2.28 billion, according to estimates from Thomson Reuters.
Dan Gallagher is MarketWatch’s technology editor, based in San Francisco.
Tags: wow gold，world of warcraft gold

Posted by JImmy at 03:07:56 | Permalink | No Comments »