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rivalries with others as they jockey for position on scoring ladders. Game sites frown on it, but players can even sell off successful characters to other users. Last year, auction sites like eBay were taking bids on characters from role playing games like Ultima and Everquest.
It’s even possible for top gamers to actually earn a living at it: one profes- sional league offers as much as $150,000 in cash prizes.
Of course, at the moment it can be pricey to develop an online gaming habit in this country. Unlike America - where local calls to internet service providers are free - online gamers in the UK can run themselves up some fearsome phone bills.
Still, matters can only improve as competing ISPs offer better and better deals to lure customers away from each other and people seem to be prepared to pay the price anyway. In less than one month after launch last summer, Dreamarena, Sega’s european-based online community, had 300,000 signups.
Even with the Dreamcast biting the dust, all three much hyped-new games consoles - Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Nintendo’s GameCube - have internet gaming capa- bilities, either as standard or as an optional extra. And even if they didn’t, the core PC market for online gaming shows no signs of dying out.
We might enjoy playing games ON machines, it seems, but increasingly we prefer to play them AGAINST other people. ■
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News Digest
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KEYNOTESATRIMA
CLIVE JONES, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF CARLTON TV AND CHAIRMAN OF THE CULTURAL DIVERSITY NETWORK, USED HIS KEYNOTE SPEECH AT THE RACE IN THE MEDIA AWARDS (RIMA) IN APRIL TO SPELL OUT CDN.
He said: “Cultural Diversity for me is not about political cor- rectness or an assault on Britishness, it’s about reflect- ing modern Britain. At last year’s RIMA, Greg Dyke reminded us why it was important for the BBC to reflect the new multicultural Britain.
“Whether you are a commercial broadcaster or funded by the licence fee we are faced with a stark choice – either we adapt what we do, or we will become increasingly irrelevant to mod- ern Britain.
“That is what led to the establish-
ment of the Cultural Diversity
Network, an industry-wide, industry
led body, which is committed to changing the face of British television. The membership includes the BBC, ITV Network Centre, Carlton, Granada Media, GMTV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BSkyB and ITN, and a range of other industry bodies and reg- ulators including ITC, BSC, RTS and BAFTA.
“All the broadcast companies have signed up to the basic objectives of increasing diverse employment, including at senior executive levels; to creating an online talent database to take away the excuse ‘I don’t know where the talent is’; to modernise the casting and portrayal and sensitising the broad- casters so they call for diversity in content and employment.
“The manifesto that pledged British Broadcasters to fair and full representation in our television industry was launched last October.
“The chief executives and managing directors of every major media company launched it and made a public commit- ment to change, to fully embrace diversity and celebrate it.
“As I said at the outset and as the CRE survey published earlier this week clearly shows, we still have a hell of a long way to go. We will make mistakes, we may not get there quick enough for you to accept we fully understand that 40% of the kids in this, our capital city, will be black, Asian or of mixed race within ten years.
“I’m a commercial broadcaster. I want bums on sofas watching programmes on Carlton and ITV. ‘Show me the money’ is an ethic that I understand and one that motivates my programme makers and sales forces.
“The diverse population of Britain will only watch Carlton programmes if they are relevant to their lives and they can relate to the stories and actors and pre- senters we put on the screens of ITV.
“Diversity is good business for both commercial broadcasters and the BBC. That is why CDN has also agreed to develop cross-industry initiatives, share expertise, resources and models of good practice.
“This will include:-
• Training from entry level to middle management and senior executives.
• Research which will inform and advance our shared objective.
• Creating an Online Talent Database and Website.
• Organising a series of events such as the BAFTA/RTS/CDN Diversity confer- ence planned for later this year, and
• Agreeing a Commissioning Clause,
which all the Broadcasters can adopt.
“The Commissioning Clause, which CDN believes will be
adopted by every major broadcaster in the UK, will make it clear to every in-house and independent producer, that we expect them to embrace diversity in their programme propos- als and their workforce.
“Channel 4 has already begun to pilot this concept and I believe, as the Chair of CDN, this is one of the key ways in which we can make a real difference. For it is only when broadcasters call for diversity in content and employment that we will see change.
“As an important element in the mix of initiatives, the Commissioning Clause is a powerful way of sensitising people to the issue of diversity. It will allow us to measure progress against the diversity goals of our various organisations. It will be a test of the companies understanding and commitment to diversity, not just in terms of a statement but actual evidence in its workforce.
“Diversity will become one of the criteria against which a programme proposal will be evaluated for commission. What must accompany it though is a clear statement from the Broadcasters to all executive producers that they expect to see a diverse workforce in employment, casting and portray- al, content creation and development, programme produc- tion, distribution, promotion and financing.
“CDN members are committed to the principles and we are in the process of agreeing a shared statement. I do believe that a common Commissioning clause will lead to change if we make
diversity a key commissioning criteria. ”■
Photos opposite page: Blizzard Entertainment’s multi-player online game Diablo II; Photo this page: Clive Jones