The Federal Trade Commission revealed on Tuesday that it plans to look into "free to play" after several politicians complained about thousands of dollars in transactions initiated unknowingly by young children. The investigation is the result of a letter sent to the agency by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) complaining about children buying virtual items without their parents' consent (hint: it involves Smurf berries).

FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz responded to Markey that the practice of in-app purchases in iPhone and iPad games "raised concerns" that consumers may not understand the full ramifications of the charges they might face.

While Capcom's Smurfs' Village is one of the top grossing iPhone games in the App Store, reports are circulating that Apple has called publisher Capcom in for a side bar after numerous complaints from parents about "hundreds and thousands of dollars in transactions" made by their children without their consent. I think some of these parents might call this situation smurfing ridiculous.

According to a PocketGamer report - citing "well-placed sources" - Apple has told Capcom in "no uncertain terms" that its free game is causing a lot of headaches for parents and Apple.

The problem has to do with the game's micro-transaction system that lets players buy copious amounts of "Smurf berries." Some of these parents have apparently been given refunds for what they call "accidental purchases."

The small Massachusetts-based developer that found itself in the national spotlight over an illegal immigration transport game talks with Gamasutra about the public dust-up over and the misconception (in their view) of the company's stance on illegal immigration. Company founder Alex Schwartz spoke to Gamasutra about the response to the game, and how the company hopes that it can shed some light on immigration issues.

First, Schwartz tackles a question about whether the game would work without the smuggling theme:

"What we've gathered from tester feedback is that the mechanics are fun and challenging. What happens to be drawn on the sprites for the items in the back of the truck doesn't change the gameplay in any significant way. It does however augment the message and the theme, which can affect a player's engagement with the game."

The Owlchemy Labs, a Massachusetts-based developer of wacky and silly games, is taking some local heat from advocacy groups for its iOS game Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration. In Smuggle Truck, players drive a pickup truck loaded with illegal immigrants. The goal of the game is to bring them over a fictional border while avoiding bumps that make them fall off the back of the truck.

Owlchemy Labs claims on the product page for the game that it was created out of a "the frustration our friends have experienced in trying to immigrate to the United States. With such a troublesome issue being largely avoided in popular media, especially video games, we felt the best way to criticize it was with an interactive satire."

The company also claims that they "maintained a meticulous eye to avoid depicting stereotypes and specific locales."

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Ma.) has asked the Federal Trade Commission to take a closer look at the marketing practices of applications on Apple's App store and Google's Android Marketplace. Markey's concerns relate to programs geared towards children that may not adequately inform users of potential charges - particularly micro-transactions.

On Tuesday Markey sent a letter to FTC Chairman Jon Liebowtiz (and copied to Google and Apple), pointing to a story in The Washington Post about how in-app purchases on iPad, iPod and iPhone games such as Smurfs' Village and Tap Zoo have caught some parents off guard. The Children apparently used parents' passwords to buy in-game items instantly.

"I am concerned about how these applications are being promoted and delivered to consumers, particularly with respect to children, who are unlikely to understand the ramifications of in-app purchases," Markey wrote in the letter.

A new class action lawsuit has been filed against AT&T charging that the once-exclusive carrier of iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) has been overcharging customers by 300 percent for data usage. The lead plaintiff, Patrick Hendricks and his attorneys hired a consulting firm to test data transmitted and received by an iPhone. The research firm came to the conclusion that AT&T was overcharging for data. The research also found that AT&T customers continued to be charged for data even after iOS devices have been rendered incapable of transmitting or receiving data.

In November of 2010 AT&T settled a class action lawsuit called "the AT&T Mobility Settlement." In that one plaintiffs accused company improperly taxing its smartphone customers for Internet usage.

Indie developer Daniel Amitay credits piracy with a doubling of sales (thanks to The Escapist). The developer behind the iPhone game "Punch 'Em!" says that his game being pirated ultimately helped double the sales of his game. This is not what you usually hear from game developers about piracy. Punch 'Em! is a 99 cent game that lets users fight each other using the iPhone camera. He was going to write about how the holiday shopping season gave him a big boost in sales until he examined the sales data and found that it was something else driving sales: piracy.

This game should delight PETA.. Danish developer Zaxis Games has released a new iOS game called Smack A Seal, a tower defense game involving attacking seals, whale meat and animal-on-animal violence. The game charges you (a penguin) with defending your igloo from the masses of attacking seals. Player use sticks, mines, gun turrets, and power-ups to fight off the hungry creatures.

The game also features Game Center support, leaderboards and achievements, 3 islands, unlockable levels (18 in total), a variety of weapons (mines, gun turrets, and a wooden club) and unlimited gameplay modes.

Find out more at the App Store.

As alluded to earlier in the week, Verizon officially announced today that it plans to carry Apple's iPhone beginning February 10. The company will offer a $200 16GB and a $300 32GB version of Apple's phone. Both versions of the iPhone 4 will be offered with a two-year contract - at least initially. The first versions of the phone will come in black, with a white version coming at a later date.

The form factor for these models will be tweaked ever so slightly because the antenna was redesigned. This redesign forced the ringer / mute button to be moved down slightly. This was done mostly because the phone will use Verizon's CDMA network, dumping the GSM standard used by all AT&T iPhones. Finally, Verizon's iPhone 4 offering will let consumers create Mi-Fi hotspots, which allow up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices to connect to the Internet.

Tired of being a Verizon customer who can't use an iPhone? Well according to a Wall Street Journal report, you may have an opportunity to get Apple's phone through Verizon. According to WSJ, Verizon will soon announce that it plans to give its customers access to Apple's popular smart phone. AT&T had exclusive rights to offer the phone since 2007.

Analysts say that this is bad news for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint, but great news for Verizon. Of course, with the rise of Android-based smart phones, perhaps analysts are jumping the gun..

Nevertheless, Solaris Asset Management thinks this is a bigger deal for Apple:

"It's a big boost for Apple," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of New York-based Solaris Asset Management. "It opens up a huge uninstalled base for them in this country."

Recon Analytics warns of gloom and doom for other carriers:

Gaming on the iPad and other tablets is the second most popular activity - right behind "surfing the Internet" - according to data released by entertainment market research firm Interpret. That data comes from Interpret’s quarterly New Media Measure study. The study tracks media behavior, device ownership, attitudes, and product consumption.

According to the study, 58 percent of tablet owners use the device for surfing the Internet. Gaming is the second most popular activity, with 52 percent of tablet owners using the device to play games. Active gamers are more likely to buy some type of tablet device in the next three months than the average consumers, the study found.

The ESRB has released an updated version of its app that makes it easier to look up ratings on a particular game while shopping. The free mobile app lets users snap photos of video game boxes to find out what the ratings mean. By taking a photo and using the app, consumers can get deeper content descriptors and information on the age-appropriateness of every game sold in stores. This is particularly useful for parents that may not be familiar with what is appropriate for teenagers and younger children.

The app is available on iPhone and on Android devices. You can grab it from the ESRB's mobile site or by searching for "ESRB" in the Apple Store or Android Marketplace.  

Google claims that 300,000 Android phones are activated every day. At least, that is what Andy Rubin, Google's vice president of engineering, claimed last night on his Twitter account - according to a Network World report. Why would he say that? Well, people do enjoy big numbers, particularly if they support and use your device, but it has importance for another reason: it shows that Android is beating Apple's iPhone. Apple claims that its daily activation number is 270,000.

Andrew Gomez of AndroidGuys points out that this is very important to Google.

"Does this mean that more Android phones are currently being purchased than iPhones?" asks Gomez. "Generally, iPhone activations are always brought up at Apple events and keynotes. It's going to be interesting to see how Apple will react to or counter Rubin's statement."

Digital Chocolate claims that its games collectively enjoy 20 million monthly active users. Four million of those users are from Facebook games, while rest come from iOS games (iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad), Android-based devices, and "open internet" games.

"Our growth across the world's most exciting platforms separates us from the crowd," said Marc Metis, president of Digital Chocolate.

"We are unique in combining social gaming expertise, leadership on both Facebook and mobile, a global approach, technology leverage, and scale."

Digital Chocolate makes such games as Millionaire City, Hollywood City, Island God, Vegas City, Flower Shop Frenzy, Underground 3D Rollercoaster Rush, Fantasy Warrior Legends, Nanostar Siege, MMA Pro Fighter, and more.

Source: Gi.biz

British health officials are apparently working on a new app that allow users to urinate into their cell phones and find out in minutes if they have a sexually transmitted disease. What?

According to The Guardian, £4 million has already been invested in the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, which aims to create a smartphone app that allow users "to put urine or saliva on to a computer chip about the size of a USB chip, plug it into their phone or computer and receive a diagnosis within minutes."  The app is designed for younger folks who are too ashamed to go to a clinic.

"Your mobile phone can be your mobile doctor. It diagnoses whether you've got one of a range of STIs, such as chlamydia or gonorrhea and tells you where to go next to get treatment," Dr Tariq Sadiq, a senior lecturer and consultant physician in sexual health and HIV at St George's, University of London, who is leading the project, told The Guardian.

A new mobile app helps voters keep track of all the promises that politicians made to get elected so that they have some ammo when they run again. The app, My Elected Officials, is $4.99 and available on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The app streamlines access to congressional voting records, local contact information such as telephone numbers and e-mail addresses, offers push notifications via a "follow" option, video links and breaking news via media resources such as FOX News, CNN, C-SPAN and GovTrack.

My Elected Officials uses a collection of website portals designed to provide legislative tracking information from the Library of Congress’ THOMAS, as well as other automated resource methods and tools.

Grab it from iTunes. Find out more about the game at www.myelectedofficials.com.

If you are not addicted to Farmville on Facebook or iPhone, then Zynga has a new drug for you to try out: Farmville for the iPad. The company says that it is the first app it has developed for the platform.

The new app, which comes on the heels of Farmville on the iPhone, creates a cross-platform Farmville experience that allows existing players to tend to their farms on the web, the iPhone, and the iPad. Naturally, new players can create a farm if they do not already have one on some other platform.

The app is free and available now in the iTunes App Store.

Farmville on iPad features custom graphics built specifically for the larger iPad and takes advantage of the touch screen interface. It is the same game as the iPhone version with support for the iPad's larger screen.

Social games statistics company Raptr has created an app for iPhone tying its information and social gaming services for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 users to Apple's popular platform. Free to download and use, the app lets users track what games friends are playing on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

The app also lets users easily add friends from Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, PC (Steam, Social Games), and Raptr in real-time (and see what they are playing), send and receive Raptr and Xbox Live messages via one unified inbox, track gameplay and achievements on their Raptr.com profiles, find and invite new friends from your iPhone address book and Twitter, and more.

Grab it from iTunes.

While Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino’s iPhone app has been making the news this week due to its appearance in Apple’s top 10-grossing application list, the Jersey Shore star may soon be facing a lawsuit over a game included in the app.

The app features a game called “Grenade Dodger,” in which users attempt to dodge unattractive women, or “grenades” in Jersey Shore-speak. The problem, according to Radar Online, is that photographers were dispatched by the game’s developer to clubs in order to snatch pictures of women in the “3 or 4” category for inclusion in the Situation’s application. One of the girls featured in “Grenade Dodger” is reportedly horrified over her insertion in the game and is considering taking legal action.

If you can't beat, join them... or convince them to join you. That's kind of what Atari is doing with those developer and publishers it thinks are infringing on its copyrights to create socialized game experiences (Facebook, iPhone, etc.). Atari calls it the "GO initiative." The company will reach out to portals and developers that it believes have created clones of its classic IPs and offer an invitation to replace the clones with the real deal.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview published today, Atari project head Thom Kozik said that getting developers on board to improve Atari IP instead of copying it is of paramount importance.

"This initiative is not about going out after the market with a big stick, that's a different situation," Kozik said. "First and foremost we're going to be saying, 'let's bring the friends and folks who love us, and the folks who love these brands, into the fold, and we'll worry about the folks who don't want to play along, no pun intended, we'll worry about them later in a different context'" .

A few months ago the consummate smart assess at the Onion News Network deployed a news report on a hot new game (fake, of course) called Close Range. The report detailed the main point of the game: to shoot people and animals at close range in the face. The video, which you can watch here is hilarious.

But that wasn't good enough for ONN. They decided it would be a good idea to create an actual game for the iPhone. When they went to get approval from Apple, their app was rejected. Big shock there. Apparently, the idea of shooting people and animals at point blank range was too violent of a concept for Apple.

What got them, as Game, Set, Watch points out, is this line from the Apple App Guidelines:

"apps portraying realistic images of people or animals being killed or maimed, shot, stabbed, tortured or injured will be rejected."

While analysts expected that the technical problems with iPhone 4 antennas would have a profound impact on Apple's sales, the real problem impacting Apple's bottom line is its exclusivity with AT&T. At least, that's what a survey released on Wednesday by Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster concludes.

Munster and his team interviewed 258 cell phone users in Minneapolis to gauge the impact of the iPhone 4's signal problems related to the antenna. Munster claims that surveyors never directly asked respondents about Verizon Wireless, but the subject came up anyway.

Approximately 177 respondents (69 percent) said they were aware of iPhone 4's problems related to faulty antennas. Of those who knew, 20 percent said that it affected their decision to purchase.

Munster said that, for every one respondent that acknowledged the antenna issue, three complained about the iPhone not being available through Verizon. Munster concluded that the "lack of an iPhone on Verizon is holding sales back by about three times more than the antenna issue."

Here's how Munster comes to this conclusion:

Apple has backed off its decision to exclude Flash and other programming languages, and what kinds of data can be collected by developers and advertisers. Apple will also publish a list of app review guidelines for developers - something the company has yet to do.

The trouble began earlier this year when Apple released iOS 4 to developers and they started reading the fine print of the iOS Developer Agreement. Section 3.3.1 restricted developers to a certain languages such as Objective-C, C, and C++; this excluded popular languages such as Javascript, Flash and C# when developing native iOS apps.

Section 3.3.2 further limited the use of scripting languages to aid in development or to run in the app. Finally, section 3.3.9 strictly limited the collection of analytic information that developers and third-party advertising networks could collect.

While it has been ruled that jailbreaking your phone is not an illegal act, Apple plans on keeping a watchful eye on those individuals that decide to do it to their iPhones, if a recent filing with the patent office is any indication. A patent filed by the company called "Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device" details a number of ways to detect hacking, jailbreaking, unlocking, or the removal of a SIM card from a phone.

Further, the patent details a method for "taking a series of geotagged photographs with the in-built camera and e-mailing them to Apple in order to identify" the user as well as some other far-fetched methods like "voice-print analysis to identify legitimate users" or the "use of a heartbeat sensor." While much of this sounds like a bad sci-fi movie about a big brother government agency tracking users, it should at least bother users that the patent specifically mentions jailbreaking in its langauge.

Source: bit-tech.net

It was a different scene today at the Shenzhen, China-based Foxconn plant, which employs over 300,000 workers who assemble everything from iPhones to video game accessories. Today Foxconn held a rally designed to promote living and loving life and to generally boost the morale of workers - who only a few months ago were as unhappy as a worker can be in a plant that expects the average employee to work 80 hours of overtime a week.

Just a few months ago morale was so low that more than a dozen employees committed suicide, prompting the company to install safety nets on the top of its buildings. But more importantly, it made the company face the reality that productivity has to be balanced with the well being of its employees.

Former Apple global supply manager Paul Shin Devine plead not guilty Monday in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California. A bail hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. Devine was indicted by a federal grand jury last week on 23 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and accepting kickbacks, according to court documents obtained by C|Net.

Devine also faces the wrath of Steve Jobs; Apple has filed a civil suit against him for allegedly accepting more than $1 million in bribes from suppliers over the past few years in return for inside information that was then used to give those companies a better position in bargaining lucrative contracts.

Six Asian companies were named in the indictment including Kaedar Electronics - a division of Asus owned Pegatron (Taiwan), Singapore-based JLJ Holdings's Jin Li Mold Manufacturing, Singapore-based Glocom/Lateral Solutions and Fastening Technologies, Taiwanese company Nishoku Technology and earphone and headset maker Cresyn.

You can’t fight city hall. Apparently it’s not too smart (or cost-efficient) to take on the estate of Michael Jackson either, as PopCap Games has modified a character in its Plants vs. Zombies game for the iPhone which formerly closely resembled the late, great gloved-one.

MTV got word from PopCap themselves that MJ’s estate was none too thrilled with the game’s Dancing Zombie, which was outfitted in a red jacket, short pants and white socks, resembling the way Jackson appears in his in-famous Thriller video. The Dancing Zombie is now said to feature more of a disco-themed look.

PopCap issued MTV the follow statement:

The Library of Congress’ Copyright Office looks into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) every three years in order to ensure that its harms are “mitigated.” The latest such inquiry has led to the establishment of legal protections for those who choose to jailbreak their cell phones, as well as for those who break protections on videogames in order to “investigate or correct security flaws.”

An AP story stated that the triennial investigation offers exemptions to the DMCA in order to “ensure that existing law does not prevent non-infringing use of copyrighted material.”

Other exemptions handed down included:

Canadian game development firm Snow Day Games has just released its iPhone game Fly vs. Car and pledged to donate half of the profits from the sale of the title to the Child’s Play charity.

Snow Day was formed just this year and is helmed by “noted educator and games scholar” Matthew M. White. Commenting on the company’s charitable aspect White said, “Through working together with Child's Play across so many wonderful platforms, we can let gamers keep doing what they love to do, and at the same time give some help to the children who need it the most – I think that's incredible.”

White’s company will make quarterly cash deposits to Child’s Play, which in turn uses the funds to provide the occupants of children’s hospitals with toys and videogames.

Fly v. Car is available in the iTunes store for $0.99.


Via GameZebo

At the ongoing Develop Conference in the UK, a representative from GameStop Sweden and the CEO of a new company attempting to make games as easy to play and share online as YouTube videos got into a bit of a dustup over used games.

GamesIndustry.biz details the flare-up between GameStop’s Niall Lawlor and InstantAction chief Louis Castle. Lawlor told Castle that the used game business helps GameStop preserve its margins, but that, “We don't like being in the used business, it's very difficult to manage.”

Lawlor said that without used game sales, GameStop would not be in business.

Castle answered that selling used games would quicken the demise of brick-and-mortar stores, adding, “While you're preserving some margins, used is accelerating changes. He continued, "I can see the train wreck, it's coming. Pretty soon everyone is losing money. Used is accelerating the decline of profitability for publishers. The oxygen is being sucked out of the room.”