Spot On: 2007 in UK gaming

As the year draws to a close, it's a time to reflect on the last 12 months--2007 was certainly eventful in terms of its impact on UK gamers.

JANUARY

The year started with the Queen's New Year's Honours List, in which Her Majesty awarded titles to video gaming industry veterans Jane Cavanagh and Andrew Hopper. Jane Cavanagh is the founder of SCi Games and was bestowed with the title of Officer of the British Empire for services to the computer games industry, whereas Acorn Computers founder Andrew Hopper was named a Commander of the British Empire.

On January 8, the UK Army announced it was looking for teenagers who played a lot of video games to pilot its complicated Apache helicopters. A Senior Army Air Corps source told the media, "The skill in flying the aircraft is to absorb large amounts of information from different sources without becoming flustered. The new generation of computer-game-playing youngsters glued to their PlayStations, Xboxes and Game Boys already have some of those skills." Gamers, put down your controllers. Your country needs you.

On January 16, massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft released its first big expansion pack, Burning Crusade, and hordes of gamers massed in London's Oxford Street to grab the add-on at midnight for the chance to play it a few hours before it was officially released. Around 3,000 fans turned up for the event--pretty impressive, especially considering this was in the middle of January--some in WOW-themed costumes. Blizzard's Jon LeCraft called the launch "a little overwhelming."

European gamers wanting a PlayStation 3 were getting a little nervous toward the end of January, when they still hadn't received confirmation that the console would actually be launched in Europe within the first quarter of 2007. The PS3 had already launched in the US and Japan, but had been delayed in Europe. On January 25, Sony put a stop to rumours that the next-gen console would be once again delayed in the region by giving it a firm release date of March 23. The console was also priced, with only the 60GB model set to go on sale, for an initial price of £425.

FEBRUARY

UK sales-tracking body Chart-Track announced on February 12 that it would be looking to integrate digital downloads into its charts in the future. This move would not only see non-retail games included in the weekly charts, but could also mean that retro Super Nintendo Entertainment System games could make it to number one once more. Chart-Track's Dorian Bloch commented, "It's something that could happen. In theory, a first-generation title, if it sold well enough, could go to number one."

On Valentine's Day, February 14, BBC consumer affairs show Watchdog sent Microsoft a Valentine's present it probably didn't want. The show focused on problems with the Xbox 360, saying it had received 248 separate complaints about faulty 360s showing the dreaded "red rings of death." Microsoft responded by saying that the return rate of the 360 was significantly lower than the CE industry average of 3 to 5 percent.

A month before the belated launch of the PS3 in Europe, Europeans were outraged to discover that the PS3 models which were to go on sale in their region would not feature the Emotion Engine. The Emotion Engine is used to emulate PlayStation 2 games for backward compatibility; however, Sony said that it would be using software emulation instead to ensure the previous generation's games played on the new console, which sounded fair enough. However, the official statement further muddied the waters by stating, "Rather than concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility, in the future, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features for the PS3." Now everyone was thoroughly confused.

MARCH

The month started with development studio Kuju Brighton announcing that it had decided to become a woman called Zoe Mode. Described as "fun and accessible," young Zoe was said to like parties, music, and games. The company's new Web site featured a picture of a woman with long blond hair sticking her tongue out at the camera. People immediately checked their calendars to make sure it was March 1, but indeed it was.

UK prime minister Tony Blair praised the gaming industry during a speech he made at the Tate Modern gallery. The Labour leader said, "Culture spans so many disciplines. I am very much aware of the contribution from every quarter. There is not a sector represented...which has not contributed to the renaissance of British culture." It was also revealed that the UK games industry now employs some 25,000 people and brings in £2 billion a year to the country's economy.

March 23 was the day many gamers had been waiting a long, long time for--the PS3 would finally be released in Europe. At the official event in Virgin on Oxford Street, Sony dished out free Bravia 46-inch TVs to the 120 or so assembled to grab a console as the clock struck midnight.

APRIL

Microsoft got a slap on the wrist for one of its 360 ads from the Advertising Standards Authority. The ad featured street racing stunts with a man wearing a balaclava in a car chase through a busy city centre. The ASA said that the ad "glamorised" street car racing and could be seen to condone dangerous driving, and ordered that it not be shown again.

A report by UK developer trade organisation Tiga showed that the UK game development industry was drastically shrinking. In 2001 there were some 400 independent game studios in the country, but now the figure is more like 150. The downsizing is believed to be due to initiatives from countries like Canada, where more and more companies are opening offices to benefit from the significant tax breaks. Other reasons include companies closing and/or being taken over by bigger firms.

At the end of April, a price cut for the PlayStation Portable was announced, following on from a price cut in the US which bought down the core price $30 to $169.99. The new retail price in the UK bought the handheld down £20 to £129.99. A new range of platinum titles, similar to the Platinum range on the PS2, was also announced at a price point of £14.99.

Sony found one of its parties on the front page of the Daily Mail, which reported that the PlayStation maker had invited attendees at a God of War II launch event in Greece to eat offal from the body of a dead goat, and be fed grapes by topless women. Sony Europe explained that the story came from a story in Official PlayStation Magazine, and was written by a journalist who did not attend the event. The hyperbole, it seemed, had come from the invite to this event, which did indeed promise these things to "encourage attendance." Sony clarified, "There was never any question of journalists being able to touch the goat."

MAY

The fifth month of the year started with news that surprised the games retail industry in the UK--high street specialist retailer Game bought its main rival Gamestation in a deal worth £74 million ($147 million). The 217 Gamestation stores bought the number of gaming stores on the high street owned by Game to 1,047 in the UK and Ireland. In a statement, the company announced that it would be keeping the separate brands in a Sega Sammy kind of way, and that each would keep its focus on its own customer base.

JUNE

The UK's Office of Fair Trading released a statement saying that it was "looking into" the proposed merger between the two biggest specialist games retailers Game and Gamestation. The OFT's aim is to ensure that "fair and healthy" competition is maintained.

On June 11, Sony came under fire from the Church of England, who had just realised that part of the game Resistance: Fall of Man was set inside Manchester Cathedral. The COE claimed that Sony hadn't asked permission to use the virtual likeness of the holy building, and the Bishop of Manchester, Nigel McCulloch was incensed. He said in a statement, "For a global manufacturer to re-create one of our great cathedrals with photo-realistic quality and then encourage people to have gun battles in the building is beyond belief and highly irresponsible." Sony, for its part, claimed that all necessary permissions had been granted.

By June 14, the row was still going on, and Tony Blair himself threw in his tuppence worth. The Prime Minister stated that he thought the use of the Cathedral in a shooter was "in bad taste, and very insulting." The dean of Manchester Cathedral appealed to the Japanese public to "put pressure" on Sony to respond.

On June 19, the British Board of Film Classification announced that it had refused to issue a classification to Rockstar Games' Manhunt 2, which was due for release on the Wii, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable on July 13. This is only the second title that the BBFC has banned--the first was Carmageddon in 1997. The ratings board deplored the game's "unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone," along with its "sustained and cumulative casual sadism," and objected to the fact that it believed it "constantly encourages visceral killing."

JULY

Reports showed that game sales were up in the first six months of the year 19 percent over last year's first half, and that game sales so far had totalled £519 million (approx $1 billion) in the UK. The total number of game units sold between January and the end of June was more than 26 million, reported game sales compiler Chart-Track.

At this year's drastically downsized E3, Microsoft announced that the souped-up Xbox 360 Elite, along with Video Marketplace, would be coming to Europe. The Elite is a black version of the 360, with a 120GB hard drive, and was announced for August 24. It was hinted that Video Marketplace--which allows gamers to download TV shows, music videos, and movies onto their consoles--would be coming in time for Christmas.

In other news at E3, Sony announced that the new, slimmer and lighter version of the PlayStation Portable would also be coming to Europe at the beginning of September. A lot of people were hoping that Sony would use E3 as a platform to announce a price cut in PAL territories. A lot of people were disappointed.

AUGUST

August kicked off with Rockstar announcing at the 11th hour that it had decided to appeal the BBFC's ban on its controversial Manhunt 2 game. The Video Appeals Committee stated that it would now gather together an independent panel of people to hear the arguments for and against allowing the game to be released on the unsuspecting British public.

On August 10, the UK Office of Fair Trading decided that after its preliminary investigation of the deal between Game and Gamestation, it would be referring the potential takeover up the food chain to the Competition Commission. Game chairman Peter Lewis said that the company was "disappointed" that the OFT had seen fit to do this, but was still confident that the deal would be approved.

The Leipzig Game Convention kicked off in Germany, with Sony Europe stealing the show. At a huge press conference, the company made a series of announcements, including Play TV for 2008, 275 PS3 titles coming before Christmas, and Go!Messenger and Go!Explore. There was also a performance by German band Die Toten Hosen.

Opposition party leader David Cameron delivered the Conservative Party's manifesto on law and order in Britain on August 29, and appeared to be particularly upset about the "violence and misogyny" in popular culture. He pinpointed rap music videos and video games as some of the elements of pop culture he believed were promoting crime. He promised if the Tories came to power in the next election, they would "review the regulatory framework relating to films and video games to ensure that violence and misogyny are not directly promoted to young people."

SEPTEMBER

At the beginning of September, London-based SCi Entertainment revealed that it was in talks with a mysterious unnamed company in anticipation of a buyout offer. The company described the discussions as "extremely preliminary," but the rumour mill started churning immediately. Various Web pages and financial papers speculated furiously on possible suitors including Warner Bros. Entertainment and Electronic Arts.

New British prime minister Gordon Brown announced that he would be launching a review into the impact of Internet and video game violence on children. However, he said that he wasn't interested in censorship, but was concerned with making sure that adult-rated material wasn't able to get into underage hands.

OCTOBER

Sony kicked off the month by announcing a long-awaited price cut for the PlayStation 3, with the 60GB model now costing £349 ($712 down from the original price of £425 or $868). It also revealed that a new model, with a 40GB hard drive but without backward compatibility, would be coming on October 10 for a price point of £299 ($610). This confused people all over again, because now that the backward compatibility was being run by software and not the Emotion Engine, it was unclear why the 40GB models wouldn't be able to play PlayStation 2 games. There was no comment from Sony.

Just days after this news, it was revealed that the newly cheapened 60GB PlayStation 3 was to be discontinued in Europe, leaving gamers with only the 40GB version, and no option of backward compatibility. Sony commented, "The 40GB machine represents all the power and potential of PlayStation 3 at a very compelling price." So there.

The Resistance: Fall of Man vs. the Church of England row continued to simmer on the back burner, and the church was upset to find that Resistance had been nominated at the video game BAFTAs. It called for the game--which was up for the PC World Gamer's Award--to be taken out of the nominations. The Very Rev. Rogers Govender, dean of Manchester Cathedral, commented, "BAFTA should not be seen condoning such behaviour unless they are saying it is acceptable for producers to walk into historic buildings and film interiors--ignoring contracts, rights, and liability."

The BBFC chose to reject the revised version of Manhunt 2, which had received an M for Mature rating in the States by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. BBFC director David Cooke said that the changes made to the game "did not go far enough." Rockstar immediately appealed this ban, which meant that the decision would now go to the Video Appeals Committee.

More details of Gordon Brown's commissioned investigation into the risks to children of violent video games and inappropriate sites on the Internet were revealed. Titled The Byron Report, the investigation will be helmed by psychologist Tanya Byron, best known for presenting the TV show House of Tiny Tearaways. She promised that the report was "not a witch hunt" and said that the results were due in March 2008.

Will Wright, gaming development heavyweight and creator of The Sims, was bestowed with a mighty accolade by the BAFTA committee, as he was given a BAFTA Fellowship. He was the first person in the video game industry to be given such an honour, and joined the likes of film legends Charlie Chaplin, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, and Steven Spielberg.

The London Games Festival and Nottingham's GameCity events both took place in October, and this year's BAFTAs on October 23 were dominated by Wii Sports, which won a total of six awards. Best Game went to Take-Two's atmospheric sci-fi shooter BioShock. The BAFTA event was hosted by Vic Reeves, and a throng of minor celebrities presented the awards, including Lil Chris, Gareth Gates, and Margaret Hodge.

The Church of England decided to turn the other cheek, and declared that it had "forgiven" Sony for using the inside of Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man. It explained that even though Sony still believed it had done nothing wrong, all was forgiven. It also mentioned that visits to Manchester Cathedral had "skyrocketed" since the story had been reported in the press.

NOVEMBER

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment decided to start November by spending a wad of cash, and bought UK Lego Star Wars developer Traveller's Tales. The deal reportedly cost the company a cool £100 million (in dollars that's approximately $200 million), and looks set to make founder Jon Burton a mint. Christmas came early for Burton, as the executive owns more than 80 percent of the company's shares under his own name.

The Video Appeals Committee hearing of the pros and cons of releasing Manhunt 2 took place in London in a daylong event on November 26. Geoffrey Robertson claimed the game was no different from other similar horror genre games currently on the market. The lawyer addressed the reasons made by the BBFC for the ban, "Unremitting bleakness? What's wrong with unremitting bleakness? Should we ban Bleak House as well?" Discussing whether the game has moral dilemmas, he asked, "Does tennis? Does football? Does tiddlywinks have a moral dilemma?" The BBFC argued that a line must be drawn somewhere, and that it believed that Manhunt 2 had crossed that line. The results were expected within a couple of weeks.

DECEMBER

The Game/Gamestation merger was provisionally cleared by the Competition Commission, which deemed that customers had many other options available to purchase games, including other high street stores such as Zavvi and HMV, Internet retailers, and secondhand shops such as CEX.

Nintendo decided to hold its Wii ads in the UK, since the console was already in heavy demand, and the company was having problems with its supply stream in the run-up to Christmas. It explained the decision by saying it wanted to take a "responsible stance."

The month started out well for Rockstar, with the results in from the Video Appeals Committee on Manhunt 2. The VAC voted four to three to overturn the BBFCs ban on the game, and see it classified and released. Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick commented that he was "pleased."

However, his pleasure was undoubtedly short-lived, as days later the BBFC announced it was taking the unprecedented move of taking the decision to the High Court. The British ratings body said it believed the decision of the seven independent individuals was an "incorrect interpretation of the Video Recordings Act." It would be seeking the High Court to reinstate the ban and overturn the decision made by the VAC.

It's been quite a year in gaming, and no doubt there is more excitement set to come in 2008, with major releases planned for Q1 and beyond. GameSpot's Best of 2007 feature is now live, so head on over and don't forget to vote for your games of the year when the nominations are revealed. GameSpot wishes you a very happy holidays.