Since the beginning, the developers at Ninja Theory have had cinematic visions for games, like with Heavenly Sword. As can be seen in this latest trailer for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, they’re ramping it up a notch with their latest game.
Heavy Rain is a game difficult to describe, telling a story more grounded and featuring unconventional control implementation, so it seemed destined for cult status. And yet, Quantic Dream CEO David Cage said that Heavy Rain ended up selling “four times as many copies” as publisher Sony expected. “They were shocked. ‘Oh my god, what happens ‘” he added.
The marketing may have perhaps held it back from more sales Sony low-balled the game, and the ad spend was not what it could have been. Cage was still complimentary of the way the game was marketed in the U.S., given the newness of the franchise and the non-standard concept.
Cage estimated Heavy Rain sold 1.5 million copies worldwide and is on track to sell 2 million units by the first anniversary of its February release.
Source: Joystiq
Portal 2 is Valve Software’s biggest launch this year, and is significant for including the PS3 along with the PC and Xbox 360. Still, it may not reach what is considered the company’s most seminal title: Half-Life 2.
“Everything that we do competes with Half-Life 2,” said Valve VP of marketing Doug Lombardi . “That was a huge, huge launch. It was six million or something in the first year, so we’re always chasing that one. But yeah, Portal 2‘s going to be really, really big.”
However, he denied the need to go after the platforms individually, saying that’s old school and tied to the old print mentality. He added, Today, the websites are all multi-platform. If you’re doing television ads, which are where a big, big percentage of where the dollars are going, those are all multi-platform. Of the $25 million that we spent for Left 4 Dead 2, which came out on only two platforms, at least $23 million of it was spent just promoting the brand and the game. Without any thought of it was PC or Xbox.”
Source: GI.biz
Zynga has acquired Conduit Labs for undisclosed terms. The music social game maker will become Zynga Boston. Nabeel Hyatt, chief executive of Conduit Labs, will become the head of Zynga Boston.
“Boston is an epicenter for technology and has a strong talent market, making it an ideal location for us to expand operations,” said Mike Verdu, senior vice president of games at Zynga.
Conduit Labs’ products include social music site Loudcrowd and music mix up application Spin.
Source: Venture Beat {link no longer active}
Blizzard Entertainment announced today the details of the Collector’s Edition of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Primary among the features will be an Art of the Cataclysm art book, with 176 pages of images from the Blizzard Entertainment cinematics department, along with a behind-the-scenes DVD and Cataclysm soundtrack CD.
Looks like it was carved out of rock.
Other items will include a mouse pad with an image of Deathwing and a code for an in-game pet in Lil’ Deathwing. There will also be a 60-card starter deck from the Wrathgate series of the World of Warcraft collectible card game, along with two extended-art cards and two Collector’s Edition-exclusive goblin and worgen hero cards.
The World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Collector’s Edition will retail for $79.99.
Eventually, all of today’s hottest tech trends will seem old and antiquated. These ads for a Brazilian seminar remind us of that in a cheeky, ’50s aesthetic.
Skype
Twittter.
YouTube
Source: Ads of the World
IDW will be releasing a Silent Hill comic penned by Silent Hill 8 co-writer Tom Waltz, with art by Menton3 and Justin Randall doing the covers. Titled Silent Hill: Past Life, the four issue mini-series will hint at the backstory of a character from the Silent Hill games.
“Jebediah ‘Hellrider’ Foster is a violent outlaw in the Dakota Territory of 1867,” reads the synopsis. “When he falls for a godly widow who longs to escape from the Wild West to an abandoned family home in Silent Hill, Foster follows – but peace is not what awaits.”
Fetus of the damned
Source: Sangria {link no longer active}
Fans had to wait until 2004 to get the DVD versions of the original Star Wars trilogy, and the wait has been similarly long for the high-def disc releases of any Star Wars films. The wait will end in 2011, with the six movies releasing as part of a Blu-ray box set with documentary features and previously unseen footage.
“We’ve been wanting to do it as soon as we possibly could, but we just wanted to do it when enough people would be able to buy it and see it,” explained George Lucas from the Star Wars Celebration V convention.
“The original trilogy will appear in its digitally altered special edition form from the DVD release. Attempting to head off any complaints,” Lucas said that releasing the original versions on Blu-ray is kind of an oxymoron because the quality of the original is not very good. “You have to go through and do a whole restoration on it, and you have to do that digitally, he added. It s a very, very expensive process to do it. So when we did the transfer to digital, we only transferred really the upgraded version.”
“The 2011 release date is due to a combination of ongoing work and other factors. We ve been working on them for quite a while but still, there are pipelines,” said Lucas. “Unfortunately, the recent releases get priority over what we call the classic versions of things.”
Source: New York Times
Medal of Honor‘s setting is going to be the modern Afghanistan war, making for a proverbial minefield of controversy. Indeed, the ability to fight as the Taliban side during multiplayer has given Karen Meredith, mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan and critic of the war, more than a little pause.
“War is not a game, period,” said Meredith. “Families who are burying their children are going to be seeing this…. I just don’t see that a video game based on a current war makes any sense at all, it’s disrespectful.”
EA issued a response to these criticisms. “Medal of Honor is set in today’s war putting players in the boots of today’s soldiers… we give gamers the opportunity to play both sides,” said Electronic Arts senior PR manager Amanda Taggart. “Most of us have been doing this since we were seven… if someone’s the cop, someone’s got to be the robber, someone’s got to be the pirate and someone’s got to be the alien. In Medal of Honor multiplayer, someone’s gotta be the Taliban.”
Meredith’s response “I just find this unrealistic, to compare cops and robbers to the Taliban and U.S. soldiers. My son didn’t get to start over when he was killed. His life is over, and I have to deal with this every day… it’s just not a game.”
Source: Fox News {link no longer active}
THQ has announced that it is producing a new peripheral for the Wii called the uDraw GameTablet. The accessory will launch with the uDraw Studio for $69.99, with Pictionary and Dood’s Big Adventure scheduled to launch on the same day for $29.99 apiece.
“We’ve designed the uDraw GameTablet to offer something for everyone: the kids can doodle, save their creations on an SD-Card and print their artwork for display on the refrigerator,” said Executive Vice President, THQ Kids, Family, Casual Games and Global Online Services, Martin Good. “Students can improve their skills through in-game tutorial lessons. And the whole family can sit down together for family game time with products like Dictionary.”
“We are impressed with THQ’s innovative design and focus on bringing a new gameplay experience to the Wii owner with their uDraw GameTablet,” said Steve Singer, vice-president of Licensing for Nintendo of America. “Nintendo is committed to providing fun and unique experiences and THQ’s uDraw GameTablet seems destined to continue that trend.”
