Great: Now I Might Have To Abandon Amazon

Amazon is being sued over labor practices. Thing is: this is something basically every company I've ever worked for has done/gotten away with. Well, at least every non-union job I've had (which is all but one).

So many employers more or less require you to be in before your shift starts. If you clock in right on time, you're effectively judged as being late. While law prevents employers in most states for penalizing you for being just on time or less than five minutes late, it is well known that you are expected to be at your station (desk, fry-o-lator, what have you) and working several minutes before the start of your shift.

Similarly, there is an expectation that you'll stay a few minutes past your shift to wrap things up. There's normally a culture that discourages employees from trying to claim their rightful quarter of an hour, even if the time ahead of shift and after shift add up to a full 15 minutes, let alone just fall into the amount that should be rounded up to the nearest quarter hour.

There's always been this imperfect balance between the worker and the employer. To a certain extent, failure to pay for all those extra minutes here and there seems reasonable, as settling little disputes over this amount of time would cause lost man hours and tons of frustration. But, at the same time, these employers are legally obligated to pay for the time and exert a silent coercion against their workers, with most employees having the feeling that haggling over a few hours of pay a year isn't worth killing their chances at advancement or a merit raise.

In all seriousness, my patronage of Amazon won't be effected. If they lose this case, they won't be the only company in America having to change how they handle this sort of payroll issue. You'll, also, have no end of fiscal conservative railing against the decision as the death knell of American business, especially the small variety.

For All Its Hype...

Champions Online, the City-of-Heroes-warmed-over MMORPG that skews more towards action, couldn't even come close to selling out Amazon's allotment of half-priced copies of the game.

Selling for under $20, only 7% of copies were claimed by Amazon buyers. As video games go, $20 is as much an impulse buy price as a pack of gum in the supermarket checkout line. But on the biggest online retailer's site, they couldn't even move 10% of the stock set aside for the deal.

Is the game that bad? Has the market for MMOs not named World of Warcraft just dried up that much? Is this an indication that many dismissed it for its similarities to City of Heroes (including being made by the same studio)? Or is this a preview of how any super-hero MMO (cough DCU Online cough) will perform in the marketplace?

On a side note: they made Marvel change the name of a comic book for THIS?!?

Only Real Wizards Can Magically Make Mistakes Disappear!

As you can see in the press release below, Wizard Entertainment's CEO bought New England Comic Con. Apparently, it gets them into Boston in a big way.

You're shitting me, right? They already had a WIZARD WORLD BOSTON that they ran into the fucking dirt, but they want to laud this as a way to get into a market in a big way. It just shines a light on the fact that they fucked it up so bad before that they don't even want to acknowledge that it is their RE-ENTRY into the market, doesn't it?

You know, I shouldn't be surprised by this sort of thing coming from them...but when people won't learn from their mistakes, it is dumbfounding.

GAREB SHAMUS, WIZARD ENTERTAINMENT CEO, ACQUIRES NEW ENGLAND COMIC CON

Wizard World Comic Con continues Tour Expansion

New York, NY (November 20, 2009) - Gareb Shamus, CEO of New York based Wizard Entertainment, announces today that he has purchased New England Comic Con, in a move to further expand the Wizard World Comic Con tour.

"We've known Larry for many years, and his exceptional 35-year old New England Comic Con gets us into Boston in a big way. New England has a long legacy of cartoons and comics embedded in their history, making the fans there very appreciative of comics' impact on society and pop culture," said Shamus. "I'm excited to bring these discerning fans an even better Con experience and everything they expect from a Wizard run show."

Larry Harrison, owner of Harrison's Comics & Collectibles, and Jimmy Tournas, the former owners of New England Comic Con, will be intimately involved in the new show production to ensure fan favorite traditions are maintained.

"Working with Gareb is an awesome experience. The folks at Wizard World have a great sense of how to grow the show in a way that I've always wanted to see it flourish. This should be the best comic con the city of Boston has ever seen," said Harrison.

The New England Comic Con acquisition is the first of several Comic Con tour expansion announcements expected in the weeks ahead.

“We bring together more fans, in more cities than anyone, to celebrate their passion for pop-culture. We've had such a strong positive fan and industry reaction to our new show launches that expanding the tour just made sense," said Shamus.

New England Comic Con venue and dates will be announced soon.

About Gareb Shamus:
Gareb Shamus founded Wizard Entertainment in 1991. Today, Wizard Entertainment publishes consumer magazines Wizard, ToyFare, FunFare, and numerous books about pop-culture's top talent, comic books and toys. Gareb also produces a North American Comic Con tour.

Wizard World 2010 Comic Con Tour:
Toronto Comic Con, Direct Energy Centre, March 26-28, 2010
Anaheim Comic Con, Anaheim Convention Center, April 16-18, 2010
Philadelphia Comic Con, Philadelphia Convention Center June 11-13, 2010
Chicago Comic Con, Donald E. Stephens (Rosemont) Convention Center, August 12-15, 2010
Big Apple Comic Con, Pier 94, October 7-10, 2010
New England Comic Con, TBD

Quantcast Physics

I got the following from someone claiming to be Mr. Anonymous. It was a different address than normal, but what I fact-checked of the list seems to check out...so I'm running it anyway, in light of all the hub-bub that started recently around TCJ's tweaking of their web-strategy. Mr. A, if this isn't your stuff, my apologies...but it's worth displaying, regardless.

I compiled these on Quantcast. Post them if you want.

CBR 303,000 US

Newsarama 269,000 US

However, Newsarama led the month before; trending, they switch places about every other month.

At 183,000 US, Ain’t It Cool is still almost 100,000 US BELOW Newsarama in total readers; they don’t have a comics subdomain.

Now, the other "big name" sites and subdomains:

ComicsAlliance.com 86,000 US (benefiting from being part of AOL)

Blog@Newsarama 76,000 US (113,000 world)

Comics.ign.com 49,000 U.S.

Robot 6.comicbookresources.com 47,000 US (71,200 world. Yes, Blog@ has a higher U.S. than Robot 6's world.)

WizardUniverse.com 46,300 US

Comixology 37,600 US
The Beat 37,600 US

ComicsBulletin 33,600 US

Comicmix 29,100 US

SplashPage.mtv.com 26,400 US

Major Spoilers 19,000 US

ComicMonsters.com 18,700 US

ComicsContinuum 17,000 US

ComicsReporter 11,800 US

ComicRelated 11,600 US

Comicon.com (Pulse) 11,400 US

Broken Frontier 10,600 US

Comics Worth Reading 9,900 US

Bleeding Cool 8,800 US

4thLetter.net 6,000 US

SavageCritic.com 4,000 US

ComicNewsI.com 3,600 US

TCJ 3,400 US (Journalista doesn't chart as a subdomain)

Factual Opinion 2,700 US

Later,

Mr. A

Champions Online: Shades Of CoH Issues?

Many of you will remember how NC Soft/Cryptic Studios got in trouble for how players could create virtual carbon copies of established IP from Marvel Entertainment and DC Comics in their CITY OF HEROES offering.

Well...Cryptic Studios is the group behind Champions Online. In IGN's review, they clearly show how they were able to create a Superman copy in the game, a character that seems to have been around for at least the first few weeks of the game being live without removal by the studio.

Their recent Blood Moon event?

It involved an undead villain raising fallen heroes from the dead to attack the heroes. Unless I'm mistaken, it appears those heroes are all wearing black versions of their previous costumes.

With DC Comics not only having plans for their own MMO involving their IP, but it nearing completion, one wonders if they won't approach this situation much the same way Marvel did last time. With some people having complaints that they can't be an existing DC character in the DC Universe Online game, there can be a legitimate argument that allowing people to recreate those characters on Champions Online negatively effects their ability to draw subscribers.

THE UNKNOWN: THE DEVIL MADE FLESH #2

I plan on reviewing this book sometime in the next week, so I thought I'd pop up this preview of the book that BOOM! Studios provided. Enjoy!

Wow, Has It Been Over A Week?

Sorry. Certainly didn't mean to leave the blog stagnant for so long. Been working on some side projects and attempting to be gainfully employed with what I lovingly call a "day job". Led me to be completely oblivious of how much time had passed since the last update.

I'll be posting more often, I swear.

Whoa...deja vu. It feels like I've said that before.

This time...I mean it.

A Totally Different Kind Of Scary

Wow. This is what an editor let's his assistant write into a short story that gets a green light?

This is the sort of thing that would pretty much be laughed out of the office if submitted by anyone else...and rightly so. A three-way (especially one involving a ring-generated woman) is the domain of porn-ish fanfic.

(via http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/1132776.html)

10 Reasons I Regret My Madden 10 Purchase

1. They still haven't seemed to get it to where hitting the button to toggle to another defensive player gives you control of the defender nearest to the ball or with the best angle to the ball carrier. Despite knowing this, I continue to make moves as if I was given control of the player I expected to get...only to have my defender embarrassingly flop to the ground away from the play.
2. I really don't see an improved presentation. Voiceovers are still choppy when they announce matchups. Non-game animations are still very obviously on a static loop. They've added some guy in a suit to introduce the halftime stats from other games. Whoop. Dee. Doo.
3. The AI for presenting proper commentary during the game has actually regressed. The halftime show just said Baltimore leads New York 21 to 21. Collinsworth remarked how Mark Sanchez was playing just like he has for years in the league.
4. They've added terrible, frustrating, time-wasting referee huddles on that are triggered even by obvious plays. It loses any charm and dramatic value it may have had when Dustin Keller catches the ball on the 5, trudges three steps into the end zone before being tackled and triggers the refs discussing if he was in or not.
5. So far, hard counts by my QB are 10-for-10 on triggering a false start if they cause anything to happen. 7 of the 10 coming in one game. That's patently ridiculous.
6. The soundtrack is disgustingly censored. "Jim" isn't allowed to be followed with "Beam". If I remember correctly, the word "dead" or "died" was censored out of Public Enemy's "Shut Em Down". The Cypress Hill track seemed to have the last word of every line by Sen Dog censored. I mean, what the (what the) is the point including songs that you are going to butcher that badly?
   
7. The soundtrack seems to largely be a mish-mashed greatest hits collection of various acts. This is admittedly the most nitpicky of my problems, but I really grew to appreciate their use of newer acts. There have honestly been songs on a Madden soundtrack 1-2 years before they got solid radio rotation.
8. In this day and age of the Wildcat, you still can't insert another offensive skill player into the 3rd QB spot on the depth chart. Brad Smith, for instance, has been used as a gimmick QB by the NY Jets even before the Wildcat. Heck, he and Cotchery were college QBs. I really don't get the point of limiting who can be slotted into those spots. This, also, goes for the inability to put a tackle-eligible player out on the field. Alright, I haven't tried that one on 10 yet, but if they didn't fix one problem, doubt they got the other.
9. It appears to really be designed for people making the most of the PS3's HD capabilities. HDTVs are generally widescreen which, I'm guessing, would allow a presentation that lets you see all of your receivers on the screen at once so that you can see coverage for short sideline routes. Sorry if laying out $300+ for my PS3 didn't leave me with a lot of money to upgrade the rest of my A/V setup, fellas.
10. And the most disappointing factor in my purchase: that the only reason I bought this product was because EA Sports has the exclusive NFL license. My continuing as their customer rewards them for that move, encourages them to continue renewing the license and dooms me to only have more lazy updates of this franchise to buy in the future. Oh, how I miss the ESPN NFL 2K franchise...

On a separate note, I'm kinda disgusted by EA's move to micro-purchases for add-ons. Thankfully, they're mostly for cheats I can live without.

I believe it is part of their moves to take some of the allure out of pirated copies. With other products, they are requiring confirmation codes from a purchased copy to validate your game and receive bits of the game they intentionally left off the hard copy product sold in stores.

With The Sims 3, it is a whole new town added to the game plus access to the Sims Store to purchase furniture, clothing, etc. With Madden, it is activating the Online Franchise mode and cheats for your franchise games. So far, there haven't been successful pirated copies of PS3 games that I'm aware of, so the only function this has specifically on the platform is preventing renters from participating in Online Franchises unless they pay $9.99 to EA. I guess that separates the wheat from the chaff when it comes to renters who want to join your online league; if they spent $9.99, they most likely won't be returning the game and disappearing from your franchise any time soon.

There are some benefits to micro-purchasing when it is done right, but so far it appears that EA is just seeing it as a better way to bleed their customers that cuts out the retailer completely without necessarily providing a cost reduction to the consumer. That never sits well with me.

Oh and FYI for the next time you bitch at a comic book thread being closed...

EA closed a thread saying Madden 10 sucked with the following message:

Everyone's opinion is different. Closing thread.

And I can't even seem to find a way to get to the post that shows the 10 reasons the guy thinks Madden sucks...