Today on Headline
RePLAY: The creative director of Assassin’s
Creed 3 calls the internet’s ideas “predictable,” major publishers
removed registered sex offenders from their online services in New York and a South
Korean representative uses Angry Birds
for his campaign.
Alex Hutchinson, the
creative director of Assassin’s Creed 3,
really didn’t like the ideas proposed by fans on where the next Assassin’s Creed game should go.
“People on the
internet suggest the most boring settings,” Hutchinson told OXM. “The three
most wanted are WWII, feudal Japan and Egypt. They’re kind of the three worst
settings for an AC game.”
Hutchinson and Assassin’s Creed 3 writer Corey May
rather do India. “[May] really wants to do India,” said Hutchinson. “I would
too. I’d really to do the Raj.”
At PAX East, Hutchinson
clarified his stance on potential Assassin’s
Creed settings and the creative process: “It’s part of a bigger discussion.
Obviously any setting is potentially awesome,” Hutchinson told Joystiq. “The
point we were making was that some settings are more familiar in videogames
than other settings. And the two particular ones [WWII and Feudal Japan] that
were mentioned are very familiar videogame settings.”
“The exciting thing is
that the game can go anywhere,” the creative director continued. “We’ve had
versions of the assassin… people have thrown ideas around for probably
literally any setting that people would think of. But when you get right down
to it—when we’re doing the actual nitty gritty of spending the time on it,
spending a couple years making something—we wanna go to a setting that other
games haven’t gone to.
“We’re trying to find
places that will surprise people.”
“If people think they
have the worst ideas, I apologize for that,” he said. “But really, they’re very
predictable. The internet is not the place for insight, unfortunately.”
In an aptly titled
initiative dubbed “Operation: Game Over,” major videogame publishers have
purged 3,580 accounts of New York registered sex offenders from their online
services in collaboration with the state.
The initiative used
information from a database that collected sex offenders’ e-mail addresses,
screen names and other online identifiers. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman
then approached publishers to remove the sex offenders from their online
platforms. The first-of-its-kind effort involved Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Warner
Bros., Electronic Arts, Blizzard Entertainment and Disney Interactive Media
Group.
“We must ensure online
videogame systems do not become a digital playground for dangerous predators,”
said Attorney General Schneiderman. “That means doing everything possible to
block sex offenders from using gaming networks as a vehicle to prey on underage
victims.”
The New York Civil Liberties
Union disagrees: “While the intent here is admirable, schemes like this one do
very little to keep children safe and trample on the right to free speech and
expression,” communications director Jennifer Carnig told Gamasutra.
“And the problem this
initiative is trying to solve is almost non-existent,” Carnig explained. “Children
are almost always abused by people they know—a friend or family member—not by
people they interact with while playing videogames online.”
Nevertheless, the
Attorney General’s office plans to continue what the initiative started. “The
process is still ongoing, so we’ve been in touch with [Nintendo] and other
companies as well. These major companies are just the first to voluntarily
agree,” said an Attorney General spokesman.
*Source: Gamasutra
Capitalizing on the Angry Birds craze, a South Korean
representative has released a campaign video titled “Hong-ry Birds” where he,
well, dresses up like an Angry Bird to discuss social issues.
In a rebranding effort
to distance themselves from South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, the incumbent
Saenuri Party has decided the best approach was to dress Representative Jeong
Hong with feathers, make bad puns and declare: “I’ve become a bird for the Sae[bird in Korean]nuri Party. I’m a
completely different candidate, with completely different promises!”
If it squawks like an
Angry Bird, explodes like an Angry Bird… it’s still a South Korean politician
in disguise.
