Posted by Marcel Klum on 09 June 2002 - 08:35 · 12 comments & 695 views
Game companies are looking to subscription fees from online players as a major source of recurring revenue in the near future, with leading games publisher Electronic Arts predicting that 400,000 subscribers will be paying about $15 a month for "The Sims Online" by the end of its current fiscal year.

But those subscribers may not stay around if the new virtual worlds are full of the cheating and hacking that has marred previous online games. A small but fractious minority in online gaming circles, cheaters can suck the fun out of a game by introducing homemade characters with unauthorized powers, making it impossible for opponents to win or even survive. They can also quickly pollute the social atmosphere critical to many games.

Matt Pritchard, a game developer at Ensemble Studios, best known for its "Age of Empires" series of strategy games, said cheating will become a particularly important issue as players without much online gaming experience enter the market.

"If the average person goes out there and they have a bad entertainment experience, why are they going to continue to pay $9.95 to experience this crappy world?" Pritchard said.

Software developer Tony Ray said that though it's impossible to prevent every type of cheat, good anti-cheat technology can shut cheaters down almost as soon as they emerge. PunkBuster, software Ray originally developed for the action game "Half-Life" and its offshoots, resides on the player's PC, checking for known exploits and shutting down a game if it finds any.

"It's sort of like a virus scanner in that it scans the PC for any kind of exploit," Ray said. "The user basically trades some privacy for the ability to play on a level playing field, which is what the vast majority of players want."

Full Story: News.com


BIG IN JAPAN

Sales of the flat screen monitors, once an expensive novelty, more than doubled in 2001 to 15.4 million units as prices came down. Those numbers exclude flat screens in notebook computers.

In Japan, flat monitors account for more than half of PC displays sold, while the share is about 30 percent in the United States, said monitor maker TPV Technology Ltd.

In less affluent markets where price is a larger factor, the proportion of flat-screens is much lower.

A traditional 17-inch CRT monitor costs around US$160 compared with $700 for the same-sized LCD screen or $350 for a 15-inch LCD, according to listings by online vendor CompUSA.com.

About 30 percent of PC systems shipped these days come with a flat screen, according to Taiwan-based Chi Mei Optoelectronics, the world's fourth largest maker of LCD panels.

The makers of large LCD panels for monitors are all based in Asia, led by South Korea's Samsung and Korean-Dutch joint venture LG Philips LCD Co.

Taiwan's AU Optronics is on track to be third-largest this year, according to one industry forecast.

Among makers of finished flat monitors, Samsung led with an 18 percent share last year, followed by compatriot LG Electronics and Taiwan's Benq Corp with eight percent each.

SHARES JUMP TOO FAR?

Most Taiwanese firms in the volatile LCD sector racked up losses in 2001, but are expected to turn a profit this year.

Reflecting that volatility, shares in AU rocketed from a low of T$11.95 in early October to T$62.50 in February before retreating to T$41.00 on Wednesday.

Demand for flat monitors proved a bright spot during an awful 2001 for the PC industry, leading to a panel shortage.

Where LCD panels cost as little as US$190-$200 at wholesale in the third quarter of 2001, they now cost monitor makers close to $300, according to industry figures.

"The (sales) volume just all of a sudden doubled. We believe that by the second half of next year there will be excess (panels) again," said Jason Hsuan, TPV's chairman and president.

Industry players also predict a boost to supply from new technology that, from early next year, will enable LCD plants to cut more than twice as many panels from a sheet of "motherglass."

Deutsche Bank warned in a May 30 research note that LCD panel maker share prices may have gone too far, as price-book ratios (share price to book value of assets per share) in the sector were around three times.

"Although (returns are) currently quite high, we believe that overcapacity next year will drive this down and assume that the long-term return on equity of the sector is around 10 percent, implying a fair price to book of 1-2 times," Deutsche said.

OVERSUPPLY SEEN

"Almost every company in the sector is now building new plants, and we believe that this will be sufficient to keep supply greater than demand once the new capacity comes on stream in 2003," Deutsche said.

Taiwan's LCD makers are raising money to pay for the growth.

AU Optronics raised US$659.5 million last month in an American Depository Share offering. Chi Mei plans an IPO this year, while Chungwha Picture Tube has said it will issue up to US$250 million in convertible bonds overseas.

Well on their way to conquering the computer market, LCD screen makers are now eying the television market, although TVs require a more costly flat panel then computers.

"Companies like Sharp say they want to replace all TVs with LCD TVs. We are moving toward the same direction," said Jeff Hsu, vice president of marketing at panel maker Chi Mei.



There are 12 additional comments
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Quote this comment Reply to this comment #1 Posted by velocity3k on 09 Jun 2002 - 09:29
True!
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #2 Posted by zionath on 09 Jun 2002 - 09:43
........
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #3 Posted by RobertH on 09 Jun 2002 - 14:33
I stoped playing Counter-Strike because of the cheating, just one day decided enough was enough. shame.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #4 Posted by duogi on 10 Jun 2002 - 00:21
Cheating is why I stopped playing Diablo II a while back, just started to loose fun when everything you work hard for it called hacked because a bunch of kids couldn't just play the game w/o cheating.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #5 Posted by Maxious on 10 Jun 2002 - 00:55
ahh the bliss of cheats
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #6 Posted by lgo on 10 Jun 2002 - 02:01
Does the cheater have fun????? Is game more fun paying for it???? :roll:
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #7 Posted by NoNeX on 10 Jun 2002 - 05:01
Cheaters don't always do it for fun only - a lot of cheaters make money by selling in-game items and the like that they got by cheating. Online-Life is different from Real-Life because ppl who cheat or do other things that disrupt playing can usually get away with it w/o having to face any form of penalty because they can just re-create a new character or buy a new account.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #8 Posted by Ash on 10 Jun 2002 - 20:06
For example of #7s post, A player in Asheron's Call Duped 100 Sets of PPGSA ( a hard to get armor, that went for 200-300$ usd a pop at the time ) He had apperently sold a fair amount of the duped items as well before the developers of the game announced that they were going to reintroduce that kind of armor ( in a way ). I dunno if he did manage to sell all 100 sets before the announcement or not, but if so at 200$ a pop, that 20,000$ usd. And on that note, they banned many ppl's accounts who were guilty of duping items at that time, but many ppl who did the duping had bought a new account to do it on so they don't really lose anythign cept the 30$ to buy the game.

Last edited by 1018 on 10 Jun 2002 - 20:14
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #9 Posted by Elektro on 10 Jun 2002 - 22:56
cant believe people will pay 300 for a in game item. GET A LIFE PEOPLE...
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #10 Posted by RobertH on 10 Jun 2002 - 23:30
They have lives. Just because they live them differentley to yours does not mean you are right and they are wrong.
Quote this comment #10.1 Posted by jwndw on 11 Jun 2002 - 04:18
Yeah, I had to stop playing Rogue Spear and Urban Ops and most recently Ghost Recon because of all the cheats. Not much fun to play when people can make the walls invisible so they can see through them and turn on features like Auto Aim and Show enemies even when the server has them shut down. For now I will play Sum of All Fears until the cheating becomes too rampant in it too.... Jim
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #11 Posted by Ash on 11 Jun 2002 - 07:27
Yeah, some ppl blow loads of $ pimping out cars, or getting the newest hardware each month to always have the best PC. It all depends what your hobby is, tho i'd never pay for a digital item in agame, unless of course I could resell it for a profit hehe.
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