.| UrbanNerd |.

Zynga is a company that makes money by selling nothing. Or, to be fair, by selling imaginary things, like tractors that plow farms on Facebook.

A “virtual good” is the term of art for an industry that minted $9 billion last year alone. Zynga is America’s first virtual goods company to file an initial public offering. The IPO is expected to go through before Thanksgiving and will test whether the company’s modern day alchemy — turning virtual goods into real money — is a game-changer for the gaming industry.

Misiek Piskorski is a professor at Harvard Business School. His job: to play and study popular online games like Cityville by Zynga.

“I forgot to come back to my city, so some of my plants have withered away,” Piskorski explains as he plays the game on Facebook. “My friends actually have been kind enough to come back and unwither some of my plants.”

Piskorski harvests his virtual crop and sells to a local grocer. Not for cash — at least, not the green, folding type. His money, like his goods, is virtual.

But for 5 percent of Zynga’s 200 million monthly users, that’s not the case. They buy a special currency to get ahead in the game, without relying on friends for help.

Or, Piskorski explains, they use the virtual money to buy luxury condos, yachts — goods that don’t have a use per se, but are “just really beautiful to look at.”

Zynga raked in $1 billion this last year, in sales of virtual tractors that plow virtual farms, or avatars that embody gamers’ Web personas.

Tierra Cates, 19, sells Zynga currency at a CVS in Washington, D.C. She points to a shelf lined with pre-paid cards for Starbucks, Loews theaters and other businesses. One card has a goofy duck waddling up a pasture. It’s for Farmville, Zynga’s original mega-hit.

“I’ve seen kids come in with their parents and cry for these cards,” Cates says. “My dad does it, too. And I think it’s like, ridiculous.”

Traditional video games make you pay up front. Zynga inverted the model: play for free. And, once you’re hooked, pay to get ahead.

Revenue from virtual goods has helped Zynga kick the addiction to ad revenue — the curse of online businesses. The ads it does feature enhance the game. American Express sponsors blue virtual windmills that help grow crops. Lady Gaga sexed up the scene by releasing her album Born This Way on Gagaville.

Zynga officials declined an interview because, they said, they’re in a “quiet period” required by the Securities and Exchange Commission before the IPO.

Eric Ries, author of The New York Times bestseller The Lean Start Up, is a Zynga fan. To be more precise, he’s a defender of virtual goods. For skeptics who think virtual goods aren’t real, he has this retort: “I don’t think that you’re using the word ‘real’ correctly.”

Fashionistas spend $2,000 on a Prada handbag. Gamers spend $20 on an imaginary tractor or avatar or sword. It’s the same, Ries says, except “the virtual objects are all tied to the specific environment in which they were developed.” A sword purchased in the game World of Warcraft can’t be taken into the real world, or into other games.

Sam Hamadeh, CEO of PrivCo, sifts through the financial data of private corporations and isn’t so sure that virtual goods sales are anything more than a fad. Yet he estimates Zynga is worth $5 billion. Others say $20 billion.

I was looking thru a few different sites and came across this.  NUDE GAMING? I have said it before… but NOW I have seen it all.  LOL

I am a fan of nakedness… especially of the female kind, but this is way out there.  I mean… is that a joystick or are you just happy to see me?

Omg! This is ridiculous… I wish I was a girl.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290363252083#ht_4578wt_1256

Greetings… I’m back.  For all of you that remember me in 2007/2008 I was the cool guy with all the interesting things to read about.  For those who don’t… well… I don’t remember you either, so I guess we are even.

Neil has embarked on another great adventure in his life and I have been asked to come aboard to SS Jewish Guilt to bring some of my useless knowledge and witty banter.  How you all enjoy.  I will do my best.

Cheer!

This is just such a great article on nerd culture and how it influences science and technology, while at the same time science and technology influences us nerds as we grow excited about what can be for the future. For the purposes of this article it seems to me that geek & nerd are fairly interchangeable.

If you have ever played the game Half-Life then you are aware of the storyline of the bespectacled  scientist with a goatee battling aliens and creatures not of this earth. You know the nerdiness & sheer fun of not using a gun in the game, but rather a crow bar as a weapon against the aliens.

If you are a nerd or science buff then you are aware of the Large Hadron Collider. You may have read more than one alarmist comment on how the LHC will cause the end of the world, open up a rift in time, and/or a great many other evil things.

Read on, laugh and admire how awesome this is:

These people are geeks. And they are the Internet’s unofficial hall monitors.

This is not an insult; it’s a badge of honor. Geeks can help give context to the scientific community. Thanks to the Internet, scientists find themselves and their work increasingly scrutinized, absorbed and distributed by legions of geeks worldwide.

Scientists have this incredible, laser-vision approach to specific disciplines, but it takes a geek to make the less-obvious connections. Just as geeks spotted an unassuming electrical engineer in the background of a publicity photo and made a connection to the “Half-Life” character, their cultural depth is different from that of the scientists. And the geeks comfortably straddle both worlds.

It was the geeks who grasped the importance of the LHC, who knew the questions to ask about the project, and who made winking connections to all manner of science fiction, from creation of out-of-control black holes to time travel jokes to science fiction references and other video game references.

GameStation has today revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of customers, thanks to a clause it secretly added to the online terms and conditions for the official GameStation website.

Read the story here.

Two months ago, I pre-ordered a Wii at the Nintendo World Store. This turned out to be a great idea. While others were camping in the cold weather out by Times Square, huddled and waiting desperately for the chance to buy a Wii at midnight, we spent the evening enjoying a nice dinner, and then heading home to sleep.

Once we woke up, we took the trip to Midtown, parked the bike about a block away from the Nintendo World Store, and joined the line of people waiting for their chance to purchase Wii. As time passed, us pre-orders were slowly plucked from the line, and brought into the store. There, we waited on the final line, as the walk-ins were also processed in a separate line. I’d honestly figure that most people on the line had an excellent shot at walking away with a system, accessories, and some games.

A quick survey of the available games led us to hit multiple genres. We purchased a Wii Remote, a Nunchuk Attachment, and the Classic Controller add on, along with 2000 Wii Points, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Excite Truck, and Red Steel. A quick walk for some hot cider, and we were ready to head home.

(Interesting fact: The Wii box is just narrow enough to fit in a Vespa GT/GTS top case.)

Hooking up the Wii proved to be quite simple. It ships with component cables, most likely to ensure that just about anyone can make it work with their TV, and the sensor bar is adequate for any setup which places your game console near your screen. Projector owners may not be so lucky, depending on your wiring.

Internet setup took no time at all, once I added the Wii’s MAC address to my access point’s whitelist. After poking around with settings, we started the fun of the prep process: Making Mii.

A Mii is basically an avatar for any game which supports it. They’re primitive, comicky, and can be transferred to your own Wii Remote’s internal memory. We made one for each of us, stored them on our Wii Remotes, and now we’re ready to play at anyone else’s home with our own Mii ready to go. Next up: Wii Sports.

Wii Sports is a little thin, being a package of five sports games. Wii Boxing is a bit of a workout, using the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk as boxing gloves. Cross, jab, or block, and your Mii will do the same. Needless to say, you should give yourself some room to move. Wii Tennis is harder, using just the Wii Remote as a tennis racket. While the controls feel solid, it certainly takes a little time to get used to it. Wii Baseball is an exercise in frustration, giving you a three-inning game with some odd approximations. (I hit a few grounders, and didn’t even have a chance to run for first base.) Wii Golf is, quite simply, hard. It feels like golf, being utterly unforgiving when you use too much power, too little, or swinging at the wrong angle. Finally, there’s Wii Bowling. It’s also hard, but it lets you set your position and angle, and spin control is very intuitive.

Once that was out of the way, we moved on to Excite Truck. Jenny didn’t like it much at all. You hold the controller like an NES control pad, and much like Excitebike, too much turbo will burn out your engine. Crashes are expected, and just result in you starting off back on the track, and the truck itself is controlled by tilting the (now sideways) Wii Remote. The drawback of the game is that you have to go through a tutorial before you can play anything, including Versus mode. Compared to Wii Sports, which simply explained your options as you played, this felt like a chore.

Saving the most addictive for last, we loaded up Red Steel. The controls aren’t bad, but you *must* point the Wii Remote at the screen at all times. It determines where you look on the screen, so this is pretty important, or else you’ll end up looking at the ceiling while people shoot you. All in all, it does have the best controls I’ve ever used on a console FPS, and the swordplay adds a nice touch. In a firefight, you spend a lot of time crouching, focusing mostly on finding a target, popping up, and hoping that you’re a good enough shot to get him before you have to crouch again. It’s a neat game for me, but it’s not for everyone.

Finally, Zelda. This is a far cry from Wind Waker, both graphically and plotwise. You’re no longer a kid, you’re not just trying to save a little girl, and the graphics are eerily beautiful. As usual, you’re not a hero when you start off. You take on the role of the legendary hero from the past, just like in Wind Waker, Minish Cap, etc., but you’re a whole new Link. The controls are smooth, the Nunchuk feels like it belongs in your hand the whole time, and the swordplay/slingshot controls just feel perfect. Z-targeting is still there, but it’s nowhere near as important now as it used to be.

All in all, this tiny console packs a decent punch, being effectively a Gamecube on steroids, with probably the best controllers I’ve ever used. The fit is perfect, the button placement is perfect, and everything about the system just feels natural. It’s definitely lacking in the graphics department compared to the PS3 and the XBox 360, but I just haven’t been able to let that bother me in the slightest.

Bungie and Microsoft announce multiplayer testing plans

To coincide with the fifth anniversary of Xbox and Halo, Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie have announced that beta testing for the third instalment in the series will begin next year.

The Halo 3 beta test, which is scheduled to start in the spring, will allow gamers to try out the game’s multiplayer mode via Xbox Live – a first for the franchise. Bungie will use the feedback from players to refine the full game, which is due out later in the year.

Microsoft also announced that new maps for Halo 2 will be available via Xbox Live Marketplace around the same time, and that a new 60 second teaser trailer for Halo 3 is on the way.

It will be broadcast on North America’s ESPN channel on December 4, and will simultaneously be shown on Xbox.com – allowing European gamers to watch too.

“Since its original release, Halo 2 has redefined online play, delivering superior multiplayer capabilities in addition to an incredible social experience, and nurturing a constantly growing community through Xbox Live,” said Shane Kim, corporate VP of Microsoft Game Studios.

“After five years of rabid fan interest in the Halo franchise and with more than 4 million users and counting on Xbox Live worldwide, this is the perfect time to invite fans to join the global Halo phenomenon.”

Gamasutra:A new report from analyst firm Compete has surveyed U.S. consumer demand surrounding the upcoming PlayStation 3 and Wii consoles, revealing continuing discrepancies between public concepts of the PS3′s pricing and reality.

According to Compete’s October 2006 survey of active current-generation console gamers, almost half (48%) of those considering a PS3 expect it to cost less than $300. When told of the PS3’s actual retail price, 73% of all gamers and 59% of those considering a PS3 thought it was overpriced.

The Compete survey continues with the interesting claim: “Wii’s price may be right, but a troubling sign for Nintendo emerges on the loyalty front. Nintendo’s strategic decision to simplify its console may in fact be turning off a number of its loyalists. 39% of GameCube owners are considering a Wii purchase while 40% are considering a PS3.”

However, along those same lines, PlayStation loyalty is considerably higher, with 63% of PlayStation 2 owners considering the purchase of a PlayStation 3, according to the firm’s figures.

In addition, Compete has posted a graph of console demand based on the number of U.S. consumers who shopped for the respective consoles at leading online retailers, showing a major spike for the Xbox 360 around launch time last year, and significantly more consumer activity around the impending PS3 launch – though the Wii graph is also trending up sharply.

I found this while searching for Dell coupons. Please read this carefully. There are not typos. Yes, they will be “GIVING” away 100 PS3′s @ the Union Square Store in NYC. Try to plan your schedules accordingly, if you work in that area of Manhattan it will be crazy!!! Like Eddy, except without the death part… maybe!