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Just when you thought karaoke couldn't get any worse - enter Rock Band Bar Nights. Now going to the bar will be completely unbearable as you listen to drunken idiots screw up your favorite songs in even more annoying fashion through Rock Band. Not sure if you've actually heard drunk people play Rock Band but I have - it's like watching a one-armed man shovel snow, fucking painful. Well the great folks at MTV and Harmonix have to decided to setup a program for bars to host their own Rock Band Nights and will provide exclusive content and product offerings - like getting 5 songs from the upcoming Rock Band Beatles earlier than the release date. This sounds like a marketing win win situation for everyone - except the listeners who are just there to wash away their lives with some of grandpa's cough medicine. For more info check out the Rock Band Bar Nights official site.  

And the trend continues...this time with Bioware, a studio of EA, and Dark Horse Comics announcing a new comic book series based on the hit game Mass Effect. The sci-fi comic will act as a prequel that will bridge together Mass Effect and the mysterious beginning of Mass Effect 2. The comic entitled Mass Effect: Redemption, cause it sounds cool, is scheduled to launch January 6, 2010. The story will be penned by Lead Writer Mac Walters at BioWare. While John Jackson Miller (Star Wars KOTOR, The Invincible Iron Man) will do the scripting and Omar Francia (Star Wars Legacy) will handle the drawing. The 4 part series will explore new locations, aliens and enemies of course. 

While game development costs for triple-A titles, like Halo and GTA, start reaching into the budgets of major films (GTA IV estimated at $100 mil - about the same for Starship Troopers, Terminator 2, Minority Report among others) so does their need advertising dollars. We've commented before on in-game advertising and everyone has an opinion on the matter from it effecting gameplay to the once independent industry selling out. Well to grow you kind of have to sell out in some form. In steps indie games. Titles like "The World of Goo", “Braid” or any indie titles found on PSN or XBL are starting to stake a claim in the gaming landscape with their 'casual' popularity. Speaking of popularity have you heard of this thing called the iPhone? Thought so – seems like 1+1=$$ for advertisers and developers.

The big issue is getting that placement or making it work for the developer and the game itself. It would be a bit obvious if the hero had to blast cans of Pepsi to reach the next level that something was up. But with digitally distributed titles cutting out the large middle aged man - something the music industry has been dealing with for awhile now - means a nice direct to consumer relationship for developers. It also means there is room for piracy and loss of money – something else the music industry knows a bit about. But if done correctly with advertisers, developers can then offer their games for free, and with indie games having easy access to consumers and low development costs – this makes advertising cheap. Something both developers and advertisers want and more so developers need to survive and continue to make the titles they want. [more insight and better organized thoughts]

Merchandise - merchandise - merchandise! Star Trek the lunch box, Wolverine the t-shirt, Harry Potter the doll and GIJOE the flamethrower - the kids really love that one. And now, thanks to EA Mobile all these summer blockbusters will be coming to your mobile phone. Yay! Excitement! Now you can step into your favorite characters shoes, mini ones at that, on your mobile phone in these most likely crappy movie to mobile game translations. Who knows maybe the mobile GI JOE will be better than what looks like a steaming pile of horseshit of a movie. But that's just going by the trailer - hopefully the other hour and 45 min isn't as crappy. Star Trek is already available on feature phones and the iPhone and Wolverine is available on feature phones. Harry Potter and GI JOE will be available in July to coincide with the movies because that's how marketing works.

Man I wish we had a Game Crazy in Boston. The closest one is probably in Pawtucket RI. Sadly us Bostonians are stuck with Gamestop's soul sucking clerks and shoddy stores. I feel like I am in a porno shop every time I walk through the door. I actually walked into a Gamestop yesterday to cancel my pre-order for Prototype...just so I could walk down the street and buy it at a Best Buy and I hate Best Buy. Anyway, Game Crazy has released a free iPhone App that allows you to preorder games, check out release dates, and check trade in amounts for games. Just a heads up, if you bought a game less than three weeks ago, sell it on ebay and you will make 10 to 20 dollars more. Trust me, it’s worth the hassle.

God I need to get an iPhone. I would gladly trade my in my DS, Verizon cell, and my first born child (always the ugliest) for one. id Software is bringing Doom Resurrection to the App store next week and it looks fantastic. This is a great precedent for the iPhone. id and Apple are going to make great bedfellows. Though Doom Resurrection does not support multiplayer, one can imagine that it won't be long until you fire up your phone and play a deathmatch with your buddy while you are sitting on the can. What a wonderful world we live in.

Just when I thought I was done spending my hard earned Microsoft points, they pull me back in! Jane's Addiction's album "Nothing's Shocking" will be available for download in Rock Band by this time next week. If for some reason you aren't familiar with this record, I can without reservation recommend the download. This is one of the most important albums of the past thirty years, hands down. Our musical landscape would be vastly different if not for this release. Oh, and on a side note, these are going to be some amazingly fun songs to play. I pity the singer though, Perry Farrell has a falsetto that is going to be murder on your vocal chords. Look for the download April 28th.