Being Contributing Editor, Games for Tap!, I have to keep an eye on all the new iOS games coming out. I’ve therefore got an AppShopper RSS feed that spits all new iOS games into Google Reader. This morning, I discovered uninspiring word game Letter Labyrinth. It looks OK, if a bit rough, and I was thinking “not another Pac-Man IP rip”.

Turns out it isn’t another Pac-Man IP rip, because the game is by Namco. And if the game’s description doesn’t get you thrilled and excited, well, you’re in agreement with me:

As only he can, PAC-MAN has gobbled up your old and tired iPhone anagram games to create Letter Labyrinth: a new, addictive puzzle game chock full of words, phrases, proverbs, and even calculations!

Translation: “We’ve gobbled up all the old and tired iPhone anagram games and crapped out an old and tired iPhone anagram game, STARRING PAC-MAN”.

Don’t all rush at once.

I spent a fair chunk of October working on content for Tap!, the iPhone and iPad magazine, on the stands later this month. The magazine’s official Twitter feed just announced that it’s doing a one-off special offer of three issues for a fiver, for anyone who subscribes before Friday.

From what I’ve seen of the mag so far, it’s going to be all kinds of fab, and so anyone with an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad would be a banana to not take advantage of the offer.

These days, videogame companies have access to mainstream 3D tools, but it wasn’t always this way. Back in the 1990s, 3D was in its infancy, so when Dennis Harper decided he wanted to do a game like Street Fighter 2, but starring realistic dinosaur-like deities, he had a problem. In the end, Primal Rage became a mash-up of one-on-one fighter and Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animation (and then went on to become a crazy marketing phenomenon—there was even a Primal Rage slide projector).

For the full story, check out my interview with Dennis in Retro Gamer 83.

I’m not sure when ease of availability started being equated with ‘free’. However, we increasingly seem to be living in a world where no-one seems to grasp the basic fundamentals of copyright. I can cut individuals who very rarely deal with media a little slack, but (supposedly) professional publications are frequently stealing images and written content; worse, some then argue that it’s the fault of the creators for putting said content into the ‘public domain’ (i.e. online), despite the fact that the act of putting something online absolutely does not mean you no longer consider the material your copyright.

A stark example is found in the article Copyright Infringement and Me (hat tip: Adam Banks). An author is asked by a friend how one of their articles was published; the problem is the author has never heard of the magazine in question. After some investigative work, they contact the magazine’s editor and ask for an online and printed apology, along with remuneration in the form of a $130 donation (a very reasonable 10 cents per word) to the Columbia School of Journalism.

The response is both shocking and laughable (visit the original article to read it in full), with the editor—supposedly with three decades of experience—arguing as follows:

[…] the web is considered ‘public domain’ and you should be happy we just didn’t ‘lift’ your whole article and put someone else’s name on it!

[…] the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally.

[…] We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me!

No, you’re reading that right. Since someone had the audacity to put an article online, it should be considered freely available for all magazine editors to steal. The author should consider themselves lucky, apparently, that the editor didn’t remove the author’s name from the copy and also charge them for an edit that they neither requested nor authorised. Classy.

So, well done, Cooks Source magazine, in attempting to overhaul copyright laws. I look forward to your future issues in which you try to charge Gordon Ramsay for rewriting some of his content and then attributing it to Brian Ovenmitts, shortly before you’re sued into oblivion.

Update: Looks like this is more a case of ‘busted’ than unearthing a one-off error. In the comments, Eric Meyer notes that Cooks Source has reprinted material from several sources, including Sunset, the Food Network, and WebMD, the last of those with a different byline. (All links from Meyer’s Twitter feed.)

Update 2: Meyer adds that a discussion thread on Cooks Source’s own Facebook page is compiling many more infringements.

Bloomberg reports Apple has 95% of the tablet market. This is because the iPad is the only viable unit available, unless you’re crazy and/or deluded. Hopefully, this will change next year.

However, I’ll bet regardless of the situation in 2011, three things will happen:

1. Apple’s marketshare will fall. This is inevitable, because competitors will exist, and at least some will be ‘good enough’. I’ll be amazed if Apple ends 2011 with more than 75% of the market.
2. Apple’s profits will remains dramatically higher than everyone else in the industry, despite its lower marketshare. This is due to Apple making profitable kit, but also because the market itself will grow. Therefore, Apple will have a smaller slice of a much larger pie.
3. Every analyst earning megabucks writing buying advice and industry commentary will note the first of these points and utterly ignore everything in the second one. Apple’s falling share of the market will yet again be seen as proof that Apple is doomed.