The Sandbox

It was a Tuesday night at the Hollywood Highland Center, the Biospherian mall hosting Nintendo’s sweaty bash at last year's E3, the annual videogame convention.

Fergie was waving a gorilla puppet on stage while the rest of band led the crowd in a “Nin-tend-dooooo!” chant. But outside on the balcony under the California stars, Nintendo's resident genius, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and his friend Hideo Kojima, enigmatic designer of the Metal Gear Solid franchise, were raptly discussing more enthralling matters: downloadable games.

As a relatively hard-core gamer (for some liberal value of "hard-core", as I don't have a lot of time to play these days), I am constantly surprised at the odd successes in the casual game market. I would think that among the most played games on the Web these days are Slayers, Werewolves, Vampires, & Zombies, and Scrabulous. I mean, I know, personally, only a handful of people playing. But none of those people are hard-core gamers, and the number of people in the world that are not hard-core gamers is counted in billions. And they're all apparently on Facebook, making Mark Zuckerberg a billionaire.

Meanwhile, I still grind away at more "important" games. Something's not right.

Valve Software, creators of Half-Life, have long been one of the most forward-thinking developers around. Aside from making super-cool games, they've been among the most dedicated supporters and innovators of digital distribution. Their online delivery system, Steam, has been a boon both for gamers - who get interesting stuff to play - and developers - who have a direct means of getting their titles into consumer's paws (or drives, as the case may be).

This week, word comes via Gamespot that Valve has released its Steamworks publishing tools to vidgame publishers and developers for free. Expect an even more killer crop of titles to heat up Steam in the year to come.

Episodic gaming - that is, games distributed in serial chunks - is an idea that's long been coming. But now with the ubiquity of broadband and wireless connections, we may be at a tipping point.

Consider this bit of news via Kotaku: an obscure Japanese game called Phoenix Wright (possibly the first game ever about the adventures of an attorney). The first episode will be available for free, then the next 16 parts will you cost you. Western game developers such as Valve have already explored this space, and I'd love to see more get involved. To me, it's a great way to play around with "smaller" ideas that may not see the light of day on a AAA console title.

When the new Grand Theft Auto IV comes out next month, it will pack an innovative feature: digitally distributed music delivered through the game.

Music has always played a big role in GTA titles. In Vice City, some gamers booted up just to surf through the selection of stations inside the cars. In GTA IV, players take this a step further. When they hear a song they like, they dial a number on their in-game cell phone. They then get a text telling them the name of the artist and song, as well as an email with a link to Amazon - where the song can be downloaded for good.

It sounds like a lot of work for one song, of course. And it is. Rock Band and Guitar Hero have already pursued letting gamers download game-versions of songs, but not MP3s. The really big leap will be getting MP3s in-world. And with GTA on board, it's only a matter of time.

This week, fans of the rock band Motley Crue are rushing to hear the group's new single, "Saints of Los Angeles." But they won't find it on iTunes. The single is first available as a 99 cent download in the videogame Rock Band. It debuted yesterday for the Xbox 360 version, and will come out tomorrow for the Playstation 3. The Crue is not alone. On April 24, the band Def Leppard will be releasing their new single, "Nine Lives," via the game Guitar Hero III.

Remember when this sort of fanfare was reserved for MTV? Those days are gone. Now the YouTube generation gets the goods online or in-game, and franchises like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are competing venues. My bet is on Rock Band winning out in the end - it has all the power of Guitar Hero, and then some. The developers at Harmonix told me once that see themselves more as a music company than a game company, and this music delivery strategy is proof.

I've been blogging now and then about Rock Band - the music game - and its power to deliver a new kind of gaming experience. Now Reuters is confirming my suspicions - that the game is powerful way to deliver new music too. The latest Motley Crue single has been downloaded more times via Rock Band than either iTunes or Amazon.

So this isn't just the new MTV, it's the new iTunes too.

One of the best things I like about my Playstation 3 is the ability to watch Blu-ray movies. Now I'll have other other flicks to choose from as well. Turns out, Sony will begin offering movie downloads on the console starting this summer in the US, and later in Europe and Japan.