The second episode of Game Theory with Scott Steinberg has released. This episode takes a closer look to see if traditional publishers and developers are adapting to the world of free-to-play online games and social networks.
For those eager for Fable III to release, here’s an expeditionary cut scene that does a decent job of setting up the events of the game. It sounds like everything is ripe for a player led revolution.
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While Sledgehammer Games’ Call of Duty project has been a bit under the radar, GM, VP and Co-founder Glen Schofield has been very illuminating of late with his tweets. He recently said, Check out new party pics on www.sledgehammergames.com. I’m telling you it’s a great place to work & nothings bigger than Call of Duty.
He later said,” Saw Inception today. Great score by Hans Zimmer who did MW2,” and then noted. “Picking composers for the game. Fun stuff, think we found a great fit. Audio will be better than what we did on Dead Space.”
Schofield also informatively added, “Working w/ military guys- their stories will blow you away. Names/locations will change but some situations going in the game- real stuff!”
Source: twitter.com/GlenSchofield
Lead producer Michael Cohl has announced that the musical Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark will start preview performances on November 14, with opening night coming December 21. It will take place at the former Hilton Theatre, now renamed the Foxwoods Theatre.
The super hero play will have music by Bono and The Edge. The Spider-Man musical has been in development for six years and has seen financial difficulties and several delays.
Source: AP {link no longer active}
Nintendo today announced that the Wii reached the 30 million sold mark in the U.S. in 45 months. Comparatively, it took the PS2 60 months to reach this mark.
“More than any other video game system in history, Wii has expanded the world of video games to new audiences,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “This milestone is another reminder that people want fun games they can play with others all at a value-minded price.”
Neversoft has had the unenviable task of trying to match Harmonix and their Rock Band series over the past few years. According to one major member of the development staff, it had a negative effect on the studio.
“With Guitar Hero World Tour [2008] we kind of lost our souls a bit,” Guitar Hero project director Brian Bright lamented. “We lost that spark by trying to cater to everyone. We were in this arms race with our competitor [Rock Band 2], and in the end I felt like we sold a bit of our souls.”
After the release of World Tour, the team went to work on Band Hero, Guitar Hero Metallica, and Guitar Hero 5 while also collaborating with other studios making Guitar Hero spin offs; Neversoft expanded then contracted this year when things didn’t meet projections. “That definitely took our focus, everyone had split,” Bright said. “We did make quite a few games last year, and if you count up the sales of all of them it was close to how well World Tour sold. But the release of all those games split the marketing team s focus, it split our studio s focus.”
Source: Develop
Ubisoft today announced the details of the Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Collector’s Edition. All versions of the CE feature two exclusive in-game singleplayer maps, hard copy strategy map of Rome, exclusive art book, as well as a bonus disc with additional content.
Exclusive to those who pre-order at Gamestop will be a Harlequin Jack-in-the-Box Collectible. Those who order at any other participating retailers will receive The Doctor Jack-in-the-Box Collectible.
The Harlequin…
and the Doctor.
At Sony Online Entertainment’s recent Fan Faire event, SOE president John Smedley laid out the future plans for the EverQuest franchise. This included the new EverQuest expansion House of Thule with several new dungeons and player housing, along with EverQuest II‘s Destiny of Velious that will have flying mounts in several of its zones.
Perhaps the most exciting part of the presentation, however, featured a few in-game enviroment shots of EverQuest Next. The idea is that the game will re-imagine the series, having more stylized graphics, more interesting in-game stories and better emphasis on PvP. More is expected to be announced soon, with fan feedback still being collected at the event.
Source: Massively
Games on Facebook have increasingly become an important part of revenue for the social gaming site. Yet despite the fact that roughly 200 million of the 500 million users on the site use it monthly for games, there’s no dedicated division to games… yet.
Facebook has announced its intentions to hire someone who would deal directly with these gaming companies. The person will report to Ethan Beard, director of the Facebook Developer Network, and will seek to give better support to the burgeoning gaming community on Facebook.
“Gaming is very popular on Facebook and important for us,” said Beard. “Hundreds of millions of our users are playing games. We continue to invest resources in teams and product necessary to make our platform a good one for game developers and gamers.”
“One of the problems game developers have had is the same as many users have had: sudden changes to the platform without warning, affecting their business. Game developers want more transparency on the evolution of Facebook itself and more input into its creation.”
“We are a much younger company, and our open platform is only three years old,” Beard said. “We have evolved from the classic two guys in a garage. As those social game companies have grown up, we have to evolve what our team looks like as well. Hopefully, we will become more and more predictable when it comes to games.”
“It’s a great opportunity for a superstar to shape how we work with our partners in the social gaming space,” he added about the job.
Source: VentureBeat {link no longer active}
Google right now is gearing up for a direct confrontation with Facebook in the social media front. Reports are that Google wants to acquire Jambool and their Social Gold online payment solution for $55 million, with $15 million to $20 million in incentives.
Social Gold, which is a built in solution for payment in social games and similar applications, has been affected negatively by the introduction of Facebook credits. Given that, it might make sense for Google to implement them into Checkout or a new social platform, though Google has yet to confirm the purchase.
Source: Tech Crunch
