The journey To The Moon, begins with a journey to your nearest video game store.
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Category Archives: Game Business
CD Projekt Red Hiring for RPG in ‘Brand New Setting’
Ever wanted to be working in the video games industry AND in Poland? Now’s your chance!
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Skyrim is Steam’s fastest selling title ever
And has shipped 10 million copies too, beat that.
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Shigeru Miyamoto retiring to work on smaller games
Of course, one might argue that Mario was a ‘small’ game…
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More Deus Ex on the way, Square Enix says
What’s that? You didn’t ask for this?
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Do you look like Borderlands’ Lilith? If so, apply within.
And you thought cosplayers couldn’t get a job…
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DC Universe Online Got 1 Million Players Since Going Free-to-Play
Scientists confirm this as proof that people like free stuff.
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Want Beyond Good & Evil 2? Support Rayman: Origins
Yes, you’re reading this right, it’s actually a mention of Beyond Good & Evil 2!
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Modern Warfare 3 is Amazon.co.uk’s Most Pre-Ordered Game Ever
Huh, people wanted to play this game. Who knew?
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How Much Did Deus Ex: Human Revolution Sell?
Or are these sales figures all part of a larger conspiracy?
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OnLive Unveils iPad/Android Tablet App
PRESS RELEASE
Los Angeles (E3 Expo 2011) – June 7, 2011 – OnLive, Inc., the pioneer of cloud gaming, is pleased to report that gamers throughout the world can immediately experience the seamless integration of tablets and HDTVs with high-end gaming. Their current iPad or Android tablet and current HDTV will not only provide this experience in 2011, but will provide it with far higher performance, richer gameplay and deeper social integration than any console announced for 2012, with more than 100 games available today.
OnLive is pleased to announce the OnLive(r) Player App for iPad and Android. Like the recently announced consoles, the OnLive Player App will enable gameplay of virtually all OnLive games on an iPad and Android tablet with touch or OnLive’s new Universal Wireless Controller.
In addition, the OnLive Player App allows the tablet to be used as a touch and motion controller combined with an HDTV (or PC/Mac(r) if preferred), and allows both synchronized or independent video on the tablet and HDTV screen, enabling combined gameplay with tablet and HDTV, or separate gameplay on tablet and HDTV.
Full voice chat-enabled multiplayer is supported, both in-room and with others throughout the world, providing a complete multiplayer experience whether at home or on the go with a mobile device.
Core patent-pending exclusive OnLive cloud gaming features such as massive spectating of live gameplay throughout the world, instant no-obsolescence gameplay, Facebook integration with Brag Clip(tm) videos, etc., will work seamlessly on both tablets and HDTVs and will continue to distinguish OnLive from consoles, both in 2011 and beyond.
“The power of the cloud is definitely the theme this week, displacing what had been assumed to be platforms that could never be displaced,” said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. “The OnLive Player App for iPad and Android shows how with the power of the cloud, the question is not whether cloud gaming will be able to catch up to consoles, it will be whether consoles will be able to catch up to cloud gaming.”
OnLive is excited to demonstrate the first game from a major publisher supporting both OnLive’s iPad/Android tablet touch and game controller, as well as running seamlessly on an HDTV, PC and Mac, to be released later in 2011. Come to OnLive’s booth (South Hall, Booth #801) for a demo.
For gamers preferring a smaller screen, OnLive will provide the exact same functionality on iPhone and Android smartphones, allowing them to be used both as game systems themselves with touch and the OnLive Universal Wireless Controller, or as a controller to an HDTV (or PC/Mac), for simultaneous or independent play.
OnLive is also unveiling as part of this experience the first 10 gigabit cloud-based full-featured browser for iPad, Android and HDTV; bringing the full richness of the Web loading from ultra-fast 10 gigabit/second Web connections to OnLive’s cloud-based servers, including support for full-featured Flash and video sites. Mobile and home devices will no longer be limited to the speed of their local connection for Web browsing or Web plug-in compatibility, opening up access to Flash games and social gaming for tablets and HDTVs.
All OnLive games played using the OnLive Player App will play seamlessly across all OnLive-compatible devices, including iPad, iPhone, Android, on HDTV via the OnLive Game System, on connected HDTV and Blu-ray/media players and on PC and Mac.
UBISOFT TO LAUNCH MAJOR BRANDS, TWO NEW IPs FOR NINTENDO WII U
PRESS RELEASE
LOS ANGELES – June 7, 2011 – Today, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Ubisoft® announced some of the titles that it has in development for Nintendo’s Wii U™: Assassin’s Creed®, Rabbids® and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Online, as well as two new brands including a revolutionary first person shooter for the hardcore audience being developed exclusively for Nintendo Wii U™ and a multi-sports game for the whole family.
“Nintendo is an industry reference for game design and accessibility. We are very honored to be a strong part of this new chapter of the videogame industry,” said Yves Guillemot, chief executive officer at Ubisoft. “This new console is an amazing new source of inspiration for our developers.
With the combination of technologies brought together by this console, our creative teams will be able to take the Ubisoft vision of developing rich, immersive and innovative gaming experiences for all audiences even further.”
Beginning at noon PST today and throughout the conference, playable versions of Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon Online can be seen by visitors on the Nintendo booth at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
VIDEO GAME PLAY INCREASES AS BREADTH OF GAME CONTENT GROWS
PRESS RELEASE
June 7, 2011 – Washington, DC – 72 percent of American households play video games and 82 percent of gamers are adults according to new research released today by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). In a report released at E3, the world’s leading video game event, the data presented a consumer base that is increasingly diverse and receiving interactive game content on myriad platforms.
The report, 2011 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry, also found 42 percent of gamers are women and that women age 18 or older represent more than one third of the game-playing population. In addition, purchases of digital full games, digital add-on content, mobile apps, subscriptions and social network gaming accounted for 24 percent of game sales in 2010, generating $5.9 billion in revenue.
“Our industry’s innovative titles are reaching new consumers in broader, deeper and more-engaging ways,” said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the ESA. “Technological advancements and terrific entertainment experiences in our industry make it possible for people of all ages to enjoy games at home or on the go, and the creativity of our developers and publishers leads to an ever-expanding variety of video games to choose from in both digital and physical formats.”
The survey also found that parents remain highly involved in their children’s game play and see several benefits of entertainment software. Forty-five percent of parents report playing computer and video games with their children at least weekly and nine out of ten parents pay attention to the content of the games their children play. In addition, 68 percent of parents believe that game play provides mental stimulation or education, 57 percent believe games encourage their family to spend time together, and 54 percent believe that game play helps their children connect with their friends.
Other findings of the survey include:
• The average game player is 37 years old, while the average game purchaser is 41 years old;
• Sixty-five percent of gamers play games with other gamers in person;
• More than half (55 percent) of gamers play games on their phones or handheld devices;
• Eighty-six percent of parents are aware of the Entertainment Software Rating Board rating system, and 98 percent of these parents are confident in the accuracy of the ratings;
• Parents are present when games are purchased or rented 91 percent of the time; and
• Consumers spent $25.1 billion on game content, hardware and accessories in 2010.
The research for the 2011 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry was conducted by Ipsos MediaCT and is the most in-depth and targeted survey of its kind, gathering data from almost 1,200 nationally representative households that have been identified as owning either or both a video game console or a personal computer used to run entertainment software.
The Entertainment Software Association is the U.S. association dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies publishing interactive games for video game consoles, handheld devices, personal computers, and the Internet. The ESA offers services to interactive entertainment software publishers including a global anti-piracy program, hosting the E3 Expo, conducting business and consumer research, representing the video game industry in federal and state government relations, First Amendment and intellectual property protection efforts. For more information, please visit www.theESA.com.
Storm8 Takes Mobile Gaming by Storm
PRESS RELEASE
Redwood City, CA – June 7, 2011 Storm8, developer of the world’s most downloaded social games on iPhone and Android, today announced it has reached 200 million downloads and, during a promotional event, achieved its first Million Dollar Day. Storm8′s success is unparalleled in mobile gaming. The company has launched 18 immensely popular social games and is continually working on expanding its portfolio. Storm8 currently offers nine role-playing games under the Storm8 brand and nine virtual world simulation games under the brand of TeamLava, a highly innovative studio owned by Storm8. Today’s announcement marks an important new milestone in Storm8′s phenomenal success story.
Storm8′s unbridled growth continues apace. The company’s network has reached more than 58 million mobile devices and rapidly continues to expand. During a recent promotional event, Storm8 boasted ten games within the Top 25 Grossing Apps on the App Store, including the number one spot with its blockbuster title iMobsters, and seven games in the Top 10 Grossing Apps on the Android Market.
“The entire team is very excited about achieving 200 million downloads and our first million dollar day. Our players love our games – we are serving more than four million daily active users,” remarked Perry Tam, CEO and Co-Founder of Storm8. “Mobile is the next frontier of social games. People want to play games with friends anywhere and anytime.
“Storm8 is committed to bringing the best social gaming experience to the billions of mobile users across the world.”
Storm8, founded in March 2009, continues to expand its team and is quickly approaching fifty employees. The company’s stellar management team includes talented individuals from Facebook, Chillingo, and Electronic Arts. The entire Storm8 team is focused on inventing the next generation of social games on mobile devices.
Majesco teams with NBA to develop new franchise
PRESS RELEASE
EDISON, N.J., June 7th, 2011 – Majesco Entertainment Company (NASDAQ:COOL), an innovative provider of video games for the mass market, today announced that it has teamed with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to begin development of an original video game basketball franchise.
The new NBA video game, which will be unlike most traditional sports video games, is scheduled for commercial release in spring 2012. Utilizing motion-based gaming technology, the game will be a fun and casual interactive experience.
“Majesco consumers are interested in branded gameplay, and we are excited to be teaming with a global brand like the NBA, to develop a unique and fun gaming experience,”said Jesse Sutton, Chief Executive Officer, Majesco.
UE3 powers ‘Fable: The Journey’ and Kinect Fun Labs
PRESS RELEASE
LOS ANGELES (June 6, 2011) – Microsoft Studios, Lionhead Studios and Epic Games, Inc. announce that Lionhead is developing “Fable:The Journey” using Epic’s award-winning Unreal Engine 3. Revealed today during the Xbox 360 E3 2011 Media Briefing, “Fable: The Journey” is poised to take the cherished action-adventure series to Kinect for Xbox 360. Under Microsoft’s licensing agreement with Epic, Lionhead is equipped with the latest Unreal Engine technology to bring powerful new experiences to the critically acclaimed Xbox 360 exclusive franchise that has sold more than 9 million copies.
“In using the Unreal Engine with its excellent tools for crafting cinematic in-game experiences, it allows our developers to focus on the quality and uniqueness of ‘Fable: The Journey,’” said Peter Molyneux, creative director of Lionhead Studios and Microsoft Game Studios Europe. “Already we are seeing a more beautiful, vivid and unique world full of dramatic moments and have crafted new, never seen before gameplay experiences.”
“The world of Albion has always been a beautiful place, and Lionhead embellishing it using the bells and whistles of Unreal Engine 3 makes it even more magical,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games. “Furthermore, Lionhead truly impresses with their proficiency for Kinect, with intuitive and natural feeling player interactions using voice and gesture controls in demonstrations we have seen firsthand. That gripping experience combined with stunning UE3 visuals truly make this is a world-class union of imagination and technology.”
About Unreal Engine 3
The award-winning Unreal Engine is known for its cutting-edge graphics, best-of-breed suite of integrated tools and scalability across platforms.
Epic Games’ research and development continually evolve Unreal Engine 3′s highly mature toolset and content pipeline. Unreal Engine 3 is available across multiple platforms including iOS, Xbox 360® and PlayStation®3, PC, Mac and Android. Unreal Engine 3 is designed to accelerate developers’ productivity for computer and video games, mobile games and applications, training simulations, 3D visualizations, digital films and animated television shows. Unreal Engine 3 is the current holder and five-time winner of Game Developer magazine’s Best Engine award in the US as well as the current holder and three-time winner of Develop magazine’s Best Engine award in the UK. Developers can start using Unreal Engine 3 with the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free edition of the engine’s award-winning toolset available at www.udk.com. Additional information on Unreal Engine 3 can be obtained at www.unrealengine.com.
Unity Technologies Celebrates Six Years of Indie Game Development Goodness
PRESS RELEASE
SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwire – June 06, 2011) – Unity Technologies, provider of the Unity development platform for awesome games and interactive 3D on the web, iOS, Android, consoles and beyond, today celebrated Unity’s sixth anniversary.
Unity, launched onstage at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in 2005, is commemorating six years of steadfast leadership and relentless innovation in democratizing game development and making it possible for everyone to create rich interactive 3D content.
“We bet on broad democratization of game development and have been aggressively coding and innovating to realize that vision,” said David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies. “We just surpassed the 500,000 user milestone, our customers continue to amaze us with their creations, and we are expanding our team at a rapid rate. It’s exciting to be both an instigator and a participant in this revolution.”
A few of the things that have happened in the last 12 months:
Unity was named the #1 Game Engine by Game Developer Magazine readers, received Develop Magazine’s coveted Grand Prix Award and won the prestigious Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award Unity became the platform of choice for teaching students how to design and develop games
The company’s registered user base surpassed 500,000 users; 150,000 of these users are active monthly users representing well over a million hours of game development every month
The free Unity browser plugin for playing web games exceeded 60 million installs
Unity and the Unity Web Player were certified by the US Army and Air Force so they can be installed on their secure networks
The third generation of Unity, with dozens of major new features, 100+ additional enhancements and up to 10x performance improvements, and support for Android were released
The company teamed with Qualcomm to bring Augmented Reality (AR) to Android The number of Unity games in the Apple iOS App Store exceeded 1500 — “best of” and “top selling” games include Battleheart, Gears, Samurai II, Skee-Ball and Snuggle Truck
The company rocked Game Developers Conference (GDC) in a big way and won Best of Show The company announced a deep partnership Electronic Arts (EA)
The company launched the Unity Asset Store, a digital marketplace where developers can share and sell assets to accelerate development, and it’s quickly become the #1 marketplace for Unity developers
The company introduced Union, a business unit dedicated to distributing high quality 3D games on mobile phones, tablets, set-top boxes, connected TVs and other new platforms — Union announced a partnership with Sony Ericsson to enable rapid development and porting of Unity-based games to the new Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY smartphone and a partnership with RIM to bring dozens of Unity-based games to the PlayBook
For the full list of awards and accolades, simply visit:
http://unity3d.com/company/fast-facts.
“Champions Online” Free To Play Relaunch Goes Off Faster Than A Speeding Bullet
Yesterday, January 25th, Cryptic Studio’s superhero MMO ” Champions Online” went Live with it’s new Free To Play model.
Twenty four hours since launch, the game’s population has octupled. You hearing me, “City of Heroes” and “DCUO”?! OCTUPLED!
There’s no official word from Cryptic yet on just how successful this has all been on their end, but I predict some pretty happy faces on some pretty tired developers.
In related news, “Champions Online” executive director also revealed the name of their next Adventure Pack, which is a 2-3 hour story arc that scales with the players level and offers plenty of new titles and costume pieces. It’s called “Resistance”, and we don’t know anything about it right now other than it takes place in Multifaria, an Earth with an alternate timeline where many of Millenium City’s heroes are in face evil tyrants that rule the planet with an iron fist.
And a big ‘congratulations’ to me for winning Cryptic’s “Character Contest“! My character will soon be featured in the game as a quest-giving NPC! More details on that as it arrives!
[Update]
This just in: A new powerset has been revealed called “Heavy Weapons”. The set has you use massive, powerful, but slow melee weapons for incredible crushing damage.
MMO “Champions Online” Goes Free To Play
On the January 25, Cryptic’s latest superhero MMO “Champions Online” will be going Free To Play. This change is going to involve a great deal more than just having the option to not pay, however. There’s a ton of changes coming at the end of this month, and Millenium City is never going to be the same again.
Now I know what you’re all thinking, “’Champions Online’, isn’t that the crappy superhero MMO that launched last year? It was supposed to be the ‘City of Heroes’ killer but it bombed!” The answer to this is yes and no. When “Champions Online” was released, it was essentially still in beta, and as such was filled with hundreds of bugs. Cryptic tried to delay the release date so they could iron everything out, but Atari, in its infinite wisdom, decided to push it to live, and boy were people pissed.
But all that’s changed. They’ve spent the past year squishing all of those pesky bugs, adding tons of new costumes and impressive new powers, and putting in some really impressive new Zones and Adventure Packs.
“Champions Online” has a great community to boot. The remaining players are very keen on keeping the game afloat, and the developers listen intently to player feedback. There’s plenty of powers and costume pieces that were added at the recommendation of the players.
Now you can get to the maximum level and go anywhere you please if you are going the Free To Play route, but you’re going to get much more bang for your buck if you pay the monthly fee. You’ll have access to the a completely freeform power system, where you can choose powers from any number of powersets, and you’ll gets hundreds more costumes to choose from for your caped crusader. You’ll get a monthly stipend of Atari Points, which you can spend on items in their store to get new costumes, powers, and items, like the giant growth device, or the summonable sidekick.
And to any of you naysayers to the Free To Play model, “Dungeons and Dragons Online” and “Lord of the Rings Online” have both been thriving now that they switched, with the latter tripling it’s revenue since last year. And with “Champions Online” being the first Free To Play MMO on the market, and DC Universe Online getting poor reviews for the PC, we’re looking at a bright, hero-filled future.
For more information, go to http://champions-online.com/f2p
If you want to contact me in-game, shoot me a message @Loganius
Want Psychonauts 2? So Does Tim Schafer
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Announced, Goes Multi-Platform
I said come in! Don’t just stand there!
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Neverwinter Nights 3 To Be Announced Soon?
Is Lord Nasher Alagondar putting out a notice for more hardy adventurers to hazard the lands of Faerun? Or even the Rashemen, for that matter.
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Irrational Games Set to Reveal Next Game Soon?
Save this date, or die trying.
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Deus Ex Novel Announced, Titled ‘Icarus Effect’
Oh my god JC, a novel! A NOVEL!
Microsoft is Alpha-Testing Strategy Game Codenamed “Project S”
Has been described as “groundbreaking” and “giant, revolutionary step for PC strategy games.” Microsoft Kinect-based real-time strategy?
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Dragon Age 2 To Be Revealed Tomorrow?
Or is it DLC with extended sex scenes?
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Obsidian Would Like To Remake Chrono Trigger
Max Payne 3 now Max Delayed to 2011
Apparently, he wasn’t drunk enough to get cracking.
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Activision 8 Bungie
Activision and Bungie have signed a 10 year publishing deal that will last till the year 2020. Continue reading
Infinity Ward heads sue Activision for Modern Warfare license
I kind of miss the days where EA was the most evil publisher in the gaming industry, they never did anything this bad. Continue reading
