In an e-mail to developers on Wednesday, Microsoft said it would offer a new developer preview release of Longhorn at the company's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), April 25-27 in Seattle. The preview will be the first public build of Longhorn in a year, and a lot has changed, internally, since Microsoft moved Longhorn to a new component-based structure that will make the system easier to install and modify. Given Longhorn's schedule, the WinHEC build will be a pre-beta 1 release. Other topics include enhancements that Longhorn will bring to mobile computing, including support for secondary displays. Microsoft lists a session devoted to the hardware requirements for Longhorn. "This session explores the components that define a Windows Longhorn-ready PC and covers core system requirements, marketing considerations, and the timeline for customer awareness leading up to Windows Longhorn PC availability," Microsoft said on the site.

Take Two, the publisher of the Grand Theft Auto game series, is once again facing yet another frivolous a lawsuit that alleges its software was complicit in murder. The legal action was filed on behalf of the families of police force staff shot dead in Fayette, Alabama in 2003, allegedly by one Devin Thompson. Thompson was apprehended on suspicion of driving a stolen car. The lawsuit maintains that Thompson's actions that day were inspired by the GTA series, games he is claimed to have played obsessively. The games amount to "training" for the alleged killings. The lawsuit claims the video game "Grand Theft Auto" led a Thompson to shoot two police officers, Arnold Strickland and James Crump, and a dispatcher, Leslie Mealer, to death in 2003, mirroring violent acts depicted in the popular game. Thompson is accused of killing the three men in June 2003 after being brought to the Fayette police station on suspicion of driving a stolen car. Thompson allegedly grabbed one of the officer's guns, shot him and the other two, then fled in a patrol car. "What has happened in Alabama is that four companies participated in the training of Devin ... to kill three men," attorney Jack Thompson told The Tuscaloosa News, which reported the suit's filing.

Thompson is now 18 years old, but at the time of the shootings he was 16. As such, the lawsuit claims, he should not have been sold GTA III and GTA: Vice City, which carry an M rating - for 'mature audience only', ie. anyone 17 years old or more. On that basis, the plaintiffs requested that the book also be thrown at retailers Wal-Mart and Gamestop for allegedly allowing Thompson to buy the games. It also names Sony, as manufacturer of the PlayStation 2 console on which Thompson is said to have played the games. This isn't the first time GTA has got its publisher and retail partners in trouble. At least two lawsuits relating to the game are currently pending against Take Two and, separately, BestBuy. The lawsuit was announced in the same week that the US Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association (IEMA) publicly criticised the California legislature's attempt to ban the sale of violent games to children.

Activision Inc., the nation's second-largest video game publisher, said Thursday it acquired game developer Vicarious Visions, the studio developing the Nintendo DS title, Spider-Man 2. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Activision said Vicarious Visions has developed five games that have sold more than one million units each and is currently co-developing DOOM 3 for the Xbox with id Software, as well as Spider-Man 2, which will be a launch title for the upcoming PSP platform. In addition, they have developed Game Boy Advance titles Shrek 2 and DreamWorks' Shark Tale and Tony Hawk's Underground 2 and Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro for the PlayStation game console.

Under the terms of the agreement, Vicarious Visions' 100-person studio, headquartered in Troy, N.Y., with offices in Mountain View, Calif., has become a unit of Activision. Vicarious Visions' management team and key employees have signed long-term employment contracts with Activision. Activision shares fell 38 cents to $21.21 in morning trading on the Nasdaq National Market.

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is now over, and aside from a lot of interest in hand-held devices (MP3 players, phones, etc.) there's not a lot new in the graphics area. NVIDIA showed its mobile chipsets off as well as some SLI cards, ATI started showing off their PCI Express cards. Infinium was showing off the Phantom, and users could play Thief: Deadly Shadows and Deus Ex: Invisible War, but these played exactly like the PC versions and came preloaded, so there was no hint as to the service itself. The lap-top keyboard/mousing-surface was certainly a nice feature.

It's not just the game industry that does this, but the game industry in particular is rife with under-30 "managers" and "producers" who just can't understand why employees don't do what they are told or who can't keep to a hopelessly optimistic schedule, not having a clue that working near 80 hour weeks for months on end is counterproductive. Don't get me wrong, the software industry is still learning how to schedule, but there's enough evidence and experience out there to know better. I still run into so-called software project managers who haven't read Fred Brook's insightful book "The Mythical Man-Month", (or worse, who don't believe it applies to them) even though this book is nearly 30 years old! If you work or are thinking of working is the software/game industry you should read this book. It'll come as a shock to realize that more than half the software shops still don't meet the minimum in Fred's book.

It turns out that Electronic Arts, the largest game producer in the world, has come under scrutiny. In a posting on LiveJournal.com, a certain "ea_spouse" poured out her frustration that her fiancee's long hours What irritated ea_spouse most, she said, was that Electronic Arts appeared to exploit her fiancee's love of video games. Like many working in the industry, he grew up as part of the first generation to start playing video games at a young age. "It's so difficult, because we love the game industry," ea_spouse said "Games have been a part of our lives for so long." But, she said, "he hasn't been home for dinner to stay for months. It's a constant stress. I can't see him suffer without suffering myself. I noticed a change in him. All his interests have gone away. He's constantly on the verge of getting sick. He's pale and unresponsive."

Both she and her fiancé understood long hours came with the job. It came as a rude shock when EA set "mandatory" hours from 9am to 10pm, six days a week. And then later set it to seven days a week. "They were just so pompous about it." she said. This has cause a storm of controversy about working environments in the game industry and the "sweatshop work conditions" at EA in particular.

On July 29, 2004 , Jamie Kirschenbaum filed suit against EA in San Mateo Superior Court. Kirschenbaum is an image production artist at EA. After the ea_spouse posting San Francisco law firm Schubert & Reed has initiated legal proceedings to start a class action lawsuit on behalf of a group of EA employees. "We are seeking unpaid overtime for a good number of (EA) employees who weren't (properly) paid," Schubert said. "EA contends they were exempt. We contend otherwise.". EA says that non-managers don't have to get paid overtime. It's my opinion that EA should bite the bullet, pay everyone for overtime, and fire all the managers who went along with this crap. If the managers didn't understand that they employees were the valuable resources they are, then they can't be trusted not to watch out for them. There's a difference between managing and dictating, the EA managers obviously did the easy thing and screwed their underlings rather than push back on obviously hopelessly optimistic schedules. Think I'm being harsh? A few days after ea_spouse posted her story, a software engineer fired from EA posted his own story under his real name. Among his accusations: His manager had hung a sign in the office that read "Open 7 days". "So I'm posting under my real name -- you have to stand up to this type of thing or it will continue. And every company will become EA so that can compete... Remember, you can't spell ExploitAtion without EA." Kudos Joe!

Additional feedback has been the posting of the hiring letters for EA's Senior Vice President of Human Resources Rusty Rueff and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial & Administration Officer Warren Jenson. Not a good think to know that the jerk forcing you to work 80 hours/week not only makes a large six-figure salary, but also gets a bonus if you meet his deadline.

The good thing is this has started a "quality of life" issue in the whole game industry. The IGDA, gamasutra.com and Game Developer magazine have all taken note. If anyone wants any quotable, true, jaw-dropping stories about bad management during crunch-mode, I've got a bunch.

ea_spouse post Slave Driving EA Games.

Salon.com: Santa's Sweatshop

NPR Morning Edition story: Stressed-Out Game Designers Sue Software Maker

NPR Morning Edition update: Read the Amended Complaint Against Electronic Arts

LA Times story: Working Too Hard in an Industry of Fun and Games

CES 2005/Las Vegas

Infinium will supposedly be showing the the Phantom Game Service at both the Emerging Technology and New Form Factor areas of NVIDIA's booth, South Hall #35311, and in the Microsoft Corp. booth in the Central Hall, #7145. Details about the Phantom seem to indicate it's a Windows XP Embedded system running on an AMD processor with an NVIDIA graphics chipset. Release is scheduled for "sometime" in 2005.

If you're attending CES you might catch Infinium's president, Kevin Bachus talking at the "Digital Download" session on Friday at 3pm, room N245 of the North Hall.

Side Note: Infinium, along with two other companies, were mentioned in a fax stock scam that started making the rounds in early December. It helped push Infinium's stock from 20 cents to 74 cents. With all the CES speculation it's now trading over a dollar. More here.