Microsoft, we know, likes to fight … and the company fired their first shot against cheaters in their online Xbox Live community by conducting a little neighborhood sweep. They aren\’t banning players, but instead dropping their player points down to zero and marking their profiles with the digital equivalent of a scarlet C. Not sure how that would work in poker … but it shows the relevance of poker issues in a non-poker world, and perhaps suggests some potential allies who have an interest our fights. Online gam(bl)ing and online gaming, after all, aren\’t that far apart.
Online video game competitions for money are already in play — the Fifa Interactive World Cup, for example, awards $20k to the winner. And the shoot-em-up game Kwari has started offering real-money competition, where you win cash for kills and the house takes its cut by charging you for ammo. Bullets, chips … tomato, D\’amato … Seriously, how familiar does this sound:
While King declined to give me specifics on the number of players, he did mention that a few weeks ago, their 50 millionth bullet was sold, and the game has had over 30,000 downloads. Out of those downloads, King said that they’re “well above 40% in terms of converting those downloads into actual accounts that have been paid into,†and Kwari Limited expects a spike in downloads once PayPal is enacted in the next few weeks.
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Next up after America this year: the mecca of competitive gaming. “The plan is to roll out in Asia next year,†King said.
This is all very interesting, because while online multiplayer first-person shooters are clearly games of skill, the jackpots awarded arguably have a lot to do with luck.And yet they get to use PayPal?
ALT HED: PartyPlaystation