Filed under: Gaming

It's not a done deal by any means, but the Australian government's Classification Board is taking a hard look at games for mobile devices, which up until now have skated by the country's regulatory requirements that mandate a pass for content and age-appropriateness -- at a cost to developers of hundreds or thousands of A$. By November, we should know for sure whether or not App Store developers will have to choose between paying to have their games rated or pulling them out of the Australian market.

This issue came up as long ago as October of last year, in response to the infamous BabyShaker app. Aussie devs Lloyd Kranzky and Nick Lowe have weighed in on their blogs, and raise some good points: although it's not necessarily a level playing field between the iDevices and other phones, and the console and PC games (which have been complying with the classification rules, in some cases leading to indie or casual/free games avoiding the Australian market), it's also not completely fair to lump mobile games in with the big boys when Flash games and other online content are completely free and clear of regulatory burden.

Another stat of note: back in 2007/08, the board reportedly classified under 1,000 video games -- a pittance compared to the thousands of games streaming out of the App Store and Android Market. It's unclear whether the regulatory infrastructure is even prepared to deal with the new order.

Here's a question for Mac, PC and console game developers: do Australian rules affect your decision-making when it comes to game releases, vs. the US industry-driven ESRB ratings system? Pipe up in the comments.

Thanks to Jarrod for sending this in.

[hat tip to Kotaku]

Well, when you get big enough, there's a target painted on your back. Sony has gone after the iPhone and the App Store in a new ad for their PSP gaming system. As you can see above, the ad comes from the "Marcus PSP" series (starring 30 Rock's hilarious Bobb'e J. Thompson as an advice-giving kid), and calls out iPhone gamers for not playing "big boy games." The ad then shows games like Twisted Metal: Head-On and Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee, bragging that they are all available for $9.99 (though the small text confirms that they are $9.99 each, not together).

Very interesting. Truth be told, the ad is kind of weak -- it doesn't tell you to not own an iPhone, just that phones are better meant for texting and calling. But the biggest attack point here is that iPhone game developers are amateurs compared to Sony's stable, with a Doodle-esque "Game Castle" going up against high profile franchises. Nintendo has pretty much ignored iPhone gaming in the past, admitting that Apple is an eventual enemy, but generally staying unconcerned about the App Store, even as its share of handheld gaming grows. But this is the first time a competitor has publicly acknowledged the competition to consumers, and given Sony's rough history with the PSP lately, it looks a lot like a guppy trying to bite a shark.

There have been a lot of console adaptations brought to the iPhone, but sending games the other way hasn't been as common. Firemint is changing that, however -- they've announced that they'll be bringing iPhone superhit Flight Control to the PlayStation 3 as a downloadable title, and the game will even support the new Move controller, so you'll be able to draw flight paths in the air with a motion control wand (or you can use a regular dual stick controller if you'd rather do that). The game will also bring 1080p support, as well as a four-player drop-in/out mode and an exclusive map named "Metropolis." Flight Control HD will be available on the PSN on September 15th.

I'd be interested to see some other iPhone-specific titles make the jump to major consoles as well -- with the onset of Kinect and Move, translating the iPhone's touch controls to the television should get a little easier. We'll likely see a few more big iPhone titles (Angry Birds? Doodle Jump?) head across from Apple's platforms to more traditional gaming outlets in the future.

You'd think that an iOS game that was originally priced at $0.99 and is now selling for $1.99 wouldn't have a piracy problem.

You'd be wrong.

French game developer Godzilab recently tweeted that they've seen a 37.5% piracy rate for their massively mulitplayer online basketball game, StarDunk. The tweet also included a plea for help -- "37.5% of StarDunk players are using a cracked version. If anybody has a good way of detecting them, we'll take it."

Mobile gaming site PocketGamer noted that in a followup, Godzilab said that the figure was calculated from the total number of copies of StarDunk that were sold in the App Store and the number of unique accounts that have been registered with the online (Plus+) server. The latter number was much larger than the former, leading to the online disclosure of the StarDunk piracy problem.

Whether the solution comes from Plus+, the developer, or a combination of the two, it's certain that someone is going to find a way to stop the piracy. Perhaps releasing the game in a free, ad-supported version for the people who can't afford to spend two bucks might sink the pirate ship.

Note: As the developers have noted in the comments, "We are actually counting the number of unique accounts, so if you install the game on iPad/iPod/iPhone multiple time and still use the same account we will count this as one game bought.
So yes, we might count a few users who have multiple account but that should only be a few."

This is wild -- a new startup called GearBox is working on making "smart toys," and one of their first products is a prototype rolling ball that's controlled with your iPhone (or other smartphone, of course). Not only can you move the ball around on the ground with your phone's touchscreen, but the ball has gadgetry inside that can affect and monitor its motion, so you can do things like play "Office Golf" (and the ball can notify you when it's reached the hole), try some virtual curling, or play a multi-ball game. There's lots of gadgetry inside, too, so the ball could be made to travel slower or in a strange pattern, or even glow with ambient information. It's also wirelessly connected to the iPhone (and thus to the Internet), so you could have it monitor online resources like Facebook or Twitter, and then react to that data as well.

Unfortunately, this is still just a prototype -- there's no information about a price or release date at all. But it's obviously a really intriguing idea, and depending on actual implementation, it could be a really amazing product. We'll have to keep an eye out for how GearBox eventually decides to put this together in the future.

[via TouchArcade]