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Xbox Live NOT Hacked…

There’s been a lot of hoopla today from various blogs and news sites about Xbox Live. c|net covered it, and it spread to Slashdot, Firing Squad, 1Up, Kotaku, Joystiq, Evil Avatar, and other sites quickly. There’s just something about the words “Xbox”, “Microsoft” and “Hack” that when combined cause all the gaming blogs to light up.

Well, it’s all for naught. To Microsoft’s knowledge, there has been no compromise of the Xbox Live network. No credit card or other personal information was exposed. We treat the security of our users and networks very seriously and are constantly evaluating and our security policies and procedures in this regard.

So what was all the fuss about? As far as our security investigation shows, this was a social engineering attack. Made famous by Kevin Mitnick, social engineering is the art of deceiving others into performing actions or divulging information. You know, like calling a phone company and convincing them to cancel the service for your neighbor who parks his car in front of your driveway. Using his name, phone number and address you might convince the phone representative that you’re really him - once that’s done you could wreck all sorts of damage. Another way would be to call your neighbor, convince him you’re the support representative for his phone company and you need him to confirm some important account details. Shoot, you don’t even need to call him - a convincing email or phishing website will do just fine.

In my opinion (this is my personal opinion, not that of Microsoft), there are (at least!) two things that can be improved upon here:

Xbox Live support representatives need better training

It was reported that when contacting Microsoft technical support, a representative said that “Hackers have control of Xbox Live and there is nothing we can do about it.” A support professional should not be making statements like this. First and foremost, they do not have the tools and access to the inner workings of the Xbox Live network, so it would be impossible for them to know if that statement were true or not. Secondly why would you ever say “there is nothing we can do about it?” Perhaps the “we” was intended to refer to Microsoft Support, but to everyone else on the planet it sounds like “we” == Microsoft, and of course Microsoft could do something about it (if it were true). We built the thing, we know how it works, there are many things we could do if anyone were to compromise our security.

Industry reporters should vet stories better

Sorry to blame the messengers here, but all the reporting I saw today was completely one-sided. Look - there was a report that security might have been compromised. Microsoft issued a statement saying that it would investigate. Then suddenly reports are everywhere that Xbox Live has been hacked. (I’m looking at you Kotaku!) What? How do you know? We get these reports practically every day, and I’ve yet to hear about one that turned out to be real.

I honestly believe our industry is being hurt by this lack of balance and bias within our most popular gaming blogs and news sites.

All in all, this whole shebang just reemphasizes how important it is to keep your personal information secret! Never share your password with anyone! Even if they claim they are from Microsoft. We don’t need your password! We will never ask for it. Protect other valuable information as well, like your name, phone number, credit card number, secret account question and answer, etc. These are only required if you call us for support - never share them with anyone via email, via voice chat, on forums, etc. Also, try to use a strong password, one that uses both letters and numbers. Use both uppercase and lowercase if you can. And finally, don’t use the same password on every website you visit! Who knows how other sites keep your information secure? A hacker could attack the site with the weakest security to get everything they need to steal your account.

- Official Microsoft statement (GamerscoreBlog.com) (MajorNelson.com)

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Google has acquired Adscape

Today Google confirmed that indeed it has acquired Adscape Media. As posted by Bernie Stolar on the Google Blog:

… we are so stoked to join Google — because these guys get it, and are committed to helping us continue our mission. [Source]

A FAQ has been posted, but doesn’t offer financial details.

But, there are two interesting items:

Q. Do you already have deals signed with game developers?

A. We have been in discussions with many in the game development community and hope to partner with both large and small game publishing companies.

… This seems to be a step backwards from June 6, 2006 when CEO Chris Gilbert claimed “though we have several deals signed, we can’t discuss them publicly until they are formally announced.” [Source] — Note how “deals signed” has turned into “discussions with”. I’m not going to keep holding my breath.

Also, this caught my eye:

Q. Given the dramatic growth of the gaming market in recent years, how much advertising market share does Google hope to gain from this acquisition, both immediately and over time?

A. We don’t release specific projections but we think there is great value in video game advertising. As more and more people spend time playing video games, we think we can create opportunities for advertisers to reach their target audiences while maintaining a high quality, engaging user experience. That said, we will test ways of successfully implementing this form of advertising and Infinity’s technology will be instrumental in those tests.

Q. Where does Google see in-game advertising going in the future, in terms of both revenue and the technology itself?

[exact same answer as above] …

… What is this “Infinity” technology? Is this an internal codename for Adscape? I don’t know of any announced Google technology or in-game advertiser named Infinity. Anybody know if this is more than just a simple mistake?

My previous posts about Google:

• Jan-11: Google to Do In-Game Ads?
• Jan-22: Rumor: Google to buy Adscape
• Feb-17: Confirmed: Google buys Adscape

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Nielsen says: Consoles are Popular

Today Nielsen released a report on the recent rise in console gaming. Their findings, titled “The State of the Console“, list the key takeaways:

• The console household universe has grown 18.5% since fourth quarter 2004, compared to a 1.6% growth in the total universe of television households.
• Two-thirds of all Men aged 18-34 have access to a video game console in their home.
• The universe of connected console households (households subscribing to a service to connect their console to the internet) has grown to more then 4.4 million households, even before the
  newest Playstation 3 and Wii consoles are considered.
• In the NTI (Nielsen Television Index) fourth quarter of 2006 (9/18/06-12/31/06), 93.8 million US Persons aged two and older used a video game console for at least one minute.
• In any given minute, approximately 1.6 million US Persons aged two and older are using a video game console.
• The heaviest console users accounted for 74.4% of all console usage and averaged 345 minutes (5 hours and 45 minutes) of usage per usage day during the fourth quarter of 2006.

These are certainly important findings, but what do they mean for in-game advertisers? Well, let’s look a bit deeper. On the demographic side, console gaming is a very powerful way to reach the elusive young male demographic. 66% of all Men 18-34 have access a console. 80% of all Men and Women 12-17 have access to a console. This bolsters earlier estimates of similarly high penetration levels.

But what about connected units? - Being online is a key requirement for many in-game advertisers… Well, this is growing as well. In Q4 2003, there were 2.5 million households subscribed to a service to connect their consoles to the internet (10.6% of those who owned a connectable system). Today 4.4 million households are connected (16% of those who own a connectable system). The important factoid here is that an increasing percentage of connectable systems are actually connecting. This is good news, users are seeing the benefits of connecting their consoles and as a result are expanding the reach of in-game ads.

Other interesting observations:

• When comparing when gamers play against when people watch TV, we find that TV watching tends to take place earlier in the evening. TV watching peaks around 9 PM, gaming peaks around 10 PM.
• TV watchers tune in en-masse during primetime hours (notice the pronounced spike in TV watchers on page 6 of the report). By contrast, gamers spread out their gaming, slowly ramping up over the afternoon. I can only presume that as the gaming experience improves, these users will not bother to switch over to TV as primetime hits.
• So who plays games? The same people that watch Nicktoons, Adult Swim, Toon Disney, Cartoon Network, Noggin, Nickelodeon, etc… Some surprising results: G4 trails VH1 Classic and Spike trails the Animal channel… Who would have thunk it?

Nielsen says this is the first paper in a series on the video game industry. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Reading:

• The State of the Console [pdf]