Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The boss of virtual world tech company RedBedlam, Kerry Fraser-Robinson, has said that companies must find a way to bring virtual currency trading into their games. The must, he argued, accept that virtual currency trading will take place in games that have an economy. “Trying to stop that happening is literally like telling the tide not to come in – you will fail.”

The comments were part of a wide-ranging interview over at GI.biz, in which Fraser-Robinson slammed the idea that gold trading could be forced out of virtual worlds. More thoughts on this issue after the jump.

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Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts (affectionately referred to as an ‘expandalone’ by Relic, its developers) has gone gold. I’ll let its producer, Shane Neville, express his feelings about this:

I think that means he’s happy.

Kieron and I have getting on for 20 years of games journalism experience between us, but neither of us have ever been in the presence of a developer at the moment they finished their game before. This changed last Friday, when we’d both gone out to Seattle and Vancouver to see a splendid bunch of THQ games. (The delay in announcement, incidentally, is simply because there’s a brief pause between a developer reckoning their game’s finished and their publisher giving the final thumbs-up.)

I’m really, really pleased to have been there for it, as it’s one of those unique elements of the games industry guys like me generally never get to experience. It’s several months of several human beings’ lives drawn to one focused conclusion, with something so tangible to show for all that effort. I’m hugely jealous; it must be an incredible feeling.

Details of the birth after the jump…

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