Gaming...banks? Saving money is a game, so hey, why not. There's an article I wrote in the latest issue of Wired about Japanese piggy banks that incorporate gaming elements.

The Jinsei Bank ("Life" Bank), Ikemen Bank ("Cool Guy" Bank) and BANKQUEST. The neat thing about doing the piece is that I actually "played" through all the banks. Had to get a huge stack of bills changed — "Jinsei Bank" can hold about a thousand bucks!

Be sure to click through the gallery to get the blow-by-blow gameplay account.

This Little Piggy Bank Became a Videogame [Wired]

If there is one sector that is sure to ride out the economic downturn in some comfort it has to be business punditry. Today's instalment in Things That Will Be Either Better Or Worse In The Next Financial Cycle comes from the HD3 Conference in LA, where a panel of entertainment execs discussed how the Blu-Ray format might suffer as the credit crunch begins to bite.

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Students at the University of Northern Kentucky will have to pony up if want to enjoy their leisure time playing video games at the Student Union. The Northerner reports students will have to pay $4 an hour to use any of the game systems, one controller and one game. But surprise! The students hate it, as they should. What's worse is they'll still be charged the full $4 even if they bring their own games and controllers or stay for only half the time.

I never used the game room at my school, but it was still free. We just couldn't steal anything. I realise things cost money, and it appears this particular game room was quite expensive, but to nickel and dime already poor college students who will be paying off loans for years after they graduate isn't the smartest of ideas. Hell, just secretly raise tuition or offer some kind of membership program. Just don't do hourly charges.

Any Kotakuites out there have to pay to use their school's game room, too? Or is this an isolated case?

Game room gets complaints [Image]

Mark Jacobs, co-founder of Mythic Entertainment, does not like gold farmers. He will not tolerate them in his game, Warhammer Online. Posting on his blog, Jacobs writes:

I hate gold sellers/spammers. No, that's not strong enough, let me try again. I HATE GOLD SELLERS WITH EVERY FIBRE OF MY BEING. Ah, that's better. Now, why do I hate them you may ask? I hate them for a number of reasons, most of which have been detailed in various interviews I've done over the years. And now that they have taken their obnoxiousness to new levels with gold service spamming, I HATE GOLD SPAMMERS EVEN MORE NOW THAN EVER BEFORE.

Remember: Mark Jacobs does not like gold farmers. So what are he and his crew doing about them?

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Well, we already know what disgruntled ex-employees think of GameStop; how do the head honchos think they're doing? Christian Nutt sat down with Bob McKenzie (senior vice president of merchandising) and Tony Bartel (executive vice president of merchandise and marketing) at the yearly GameStop Expo event for managers and management to talk about GameStop, games, sales, the market .... It's a hefty piece, clocking in at eight pages, with a lot of soft peddling on tough issues, but what would you expect from marketing management types? One of the issues brought up was the value of trade-ins — or perceived value (or lack thereof):

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Anthony from Economical Gamer has shared his always awesome insights into the state of Force Unleashed pricing around Australia. And for the power gamers, there's even a chance you could come away from some deals with more value than you'd ever expect from the Australian retail market. Quoth Anthony in his message to Kotaku AU:

There are two points of notice. Firstly, you can actually trade the game in at EB Games before the 24th at a value greater than you can buy it at Big W, Kmart and JB Hi-Fi. Great opportunity for power gamers. GAME also have a trade in deal for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and DS versions where you can trade in 3 games of the same platform and get Force Unleashed free.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed [Economical Gamer]

Nintendo wants to give you a quick update on how awesome it's doing. It's now planning on doing wicked awesome this current fiscal year, with an expected 11% increase in sales. That means instead of the 28 million Nintendo DSs and 25 million Wiis it had planned to ship by March 31 of 2009, it will ship... more. More software too! Laughs and chuckles were heard emanating from the company's Kyoto offices today.

Oh, and it'll make more money accordingly. Operating income and net income have both been projected to be much, much higher. What does that really mean?

Net income of somewhere in the ballpark of $US 3.8 billion (in U.S. bucks) for the year, according to Bloomberg, news that gave Nintendo's stock price a positive kick in the pants. The Bloomberg report does not mention, however, exactly when Nintendo expects to give up its efforts and go third party and put guns on cars like they probably should. You're just prolonging the inevitable, Iwata!

Nintendo Raises Forecasts on Wii, DS; Shares Surge [Bloomberg]

With an aging gaming population comes more gamers with money, which means ... money to spend on travel. Bonnie Ruberg takes a look at where gamers would go given $US 1,500 for expenses for a 'game-related' vacation. PAX? E For All? Tokyo Game Show? ... Disneyland? I can't remember the last proper vacation I had, but I can say definitively I wouldn't be planning it around a convention or expo. In fact, a weekend off with time to do nothing but hang out would be a treat right now:

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Gamasutra has an interesting look up at the MMO free to play/micro-transaction vs. traditional subscription model up - talking with SOE's John Smedley, Three Rings' Daniel James and EA Mythic's Mark Jacobs. Unsurprisingly, there are differences in opinion on the utility of the micro-transaction model, with some participants in the discussion coming down on the side of the traditional subscription model:

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According to Lindan Lab CEO Philip Rosedale, all Second Life transactions, from trading to buying/selling, total the equivalent of $1.3 million in US currency exchanged daily—or an average of $US6.50 per user per day. To scale this even more with the Kotakulator: if WoW implemented a cash-based economy at the same spending average, their transactions would total $US58.5 million per day. Second Life money might not be real money, but a lot of users have bought into it.

And all I can say is, that's a lot of cash to spend on pixel penises.

Second Life merchants estimated to rake-in over $1.3 million total every day [videogamesblogger]