One of the more memorable quotes from Ghostbusters was Egon Spengler’s comment “Print is dead.”

While in the context it was made more to perhaps attempt to discontinue being quizzed by the receptionist Jeneane, it was a mildly profound statement.

Fast forward to the announcement today/yesterday about the decision by Ziff-Davis to terminate CGW in print form. A year ago (or so), CGW had attempted to reinvent itself by aligning itself much closer to Microsoft publishing and rebranding itself as “Games for Windows”.

I guess the economic picture of the magazine still didn’t meet Ziff-Davis’s expectations, and so the print magazine was put to rest this week.

It will venture forth in the online marketplace as an online-only mag, complete most likely with built-in link, text and content advertising, along with popups on every page hit as another attempt is made to monetize.

CGW WAS the shit when I was growing up and heavily gaming during my single years. It had excellent content, reviews and opinion pieces which made it more than a mouthpiece for EA marketing, but as a beacon for what was going on in the industry (even though I’m sure a lot also happened that never made an issue..*wink*)

There’s an online petition here and you never know. If something like Family Guy can be revived after a period of death, why not CGW?

Here’s Jeff Green’s own words on the moment and you can just imagine what’s going through his head..

Well, goddamn. Here’s a post I hoped I’d never have to write… This is tough. This is just not in any way “good news.”

For me personally, the closing of Games for Windows: The Official Magazine is not just a business decision (though, obviously it’s exactly that in reality), but feels more akin, in fact, to the passing of a loved one… It feels like a giant gaping hole in my life…

What began life as a fairly humble, black-and-white, pamphlet-sized ‘zine under Russell Sipe and Johnny Wilson grew over the years into an industry titan, the game magazine by which all others both modeled themselves and were judged. Times changed, winds shifted, editors moved on, but I can tell you that in all these 27 years, the magazine known first as CGW and then GFW was always known for its integrity, for its intelligence, for neither talking down to the readers nor to the hobby itself…

Interestingly, the Ziff-Davis website still continues to take print subscriptions, and I’m going to be watching to see what becomes of my own current subscription. Does this guarantee me access to the online edition, or will they force all existing print subscribers to re-enroll online?

If so, I’m out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7326839.stm

(yes I was excited as well, until I realized it was about coffee)

Well in the never-ending struggles of the “caffeine” vs. “non-caffeine” camps, the scientists involved in this study found that a daily dose of caffeine created a positive health experience for the animals they tested. They went as far as to say that a daily cup of coffee for some rabbits helped to fight off the markers present in Alzeihmer’s.

It looks like there’s no real studies on this same phenomena in humans, so this doesn’t mean it’s 100% conclusive evidence.

http://tkool.jp/products/rpgvx/eng/index.html

In the past few years there’s been a bit of a “revival” of RPG games created by Indie game companies, and one of the more popular “engines” that has been used quite successfully, is the RPG Maker XP product.

Aveyond and Aveyond2 created by Amaranth Games are 2 such excellent examples of using RPG Maker XP.

Well the engine has been upgraded with the release of RPG Maker VX!

If you use this software, you can make a game screen of a resolution, 544×416 pixels, with 32bit colors, 60 frames a second. In the new version, it’s possible to move around with transport such as vehicles and vessels. Also “a dash” is equipped as a standard function. The battle scene has become an orthodox front view type. As for details, “UmePlus Gothic” has now been adopted to make the messages clear and easier to read.

This editor makes the map which becomes the stage of the game. You can make a map by combining the small parts called “tiles” together. The process is simple. You only choose tiles from the list which is on the left of the editor, and place them on the map. Anyone can make a map like drawing a picture with a graphic tool.

Create your main character, skills, magic, items, monsters, all those characters and articles with the data base. General contents are already prepared in the data base, so you don’t need to set up things from the very beginning. You can make your original game by just setting up necessary things.

Talks with characters, battles with boss characters, treasure boxes with items, all these things which happen in the game are called events. In the RPG MAKER, all these events pile up and make a story. Events can be placed where maps are made, or also during the battles.

In the new version, script editors are fully equipped, succeeded by the previous “RPG MAKER XP”. Detailed using parts are improved, and became more users friendly. Functions are also fully equipped, by adding “Automatic Dungeon Generator” which will automatically make maze maps. The new version can be called as a compile version of the RPG.

Looks exciting! I’m going to set some time aside to pull down a demo to check it out.

http://tkool.jp/products/rpgvx/eng/download.html

Still getting used to the boatload of new features and functionality available in WordPress 2.5,
but at least the site navigation / layout didn’t seem to be clobbered during the upgrade process..

Found this helpful link about 2.5.

While going through the 2.5 beta information a week or so ago, I tripped upon the Stats feature which provides you with a ton of usefull data about who is visiting your site, your top entries, etc.