Find Out Who Your Change Up Is

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A new Facebook app called Who’s Your Perfect Change Up   {link no longer active} asks a series of touch questions to determine who your perfect change-up is from your Facebook friends. Click start and answer questions like how often would you have sex, if you could and what would you want a reality TV show about you to be called to find out who is your ideal change-up. Upon completion you will determine your ideal life swap mate. Share by posting to your wall, your friend’s wall or share on Twitter.

Sony Lends PS Vita Dev Kit To iOS Developer

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Rubicon Development has confirmed that Sony loaned the studio multiple PlayStation Vita dev kits. This will allow the small developer to port its iOS title Great Little War Game to the portable gaming console.

On the basis that you can’t put the cat back in the bag, I can confirm that Sony was generous enough to loan us some kit, and that’s one of the many reasons why I big them up every opportunity I get,” wrote Paul Johnson, managing director at Rubicon. “They really do seem to have gotten behind smaller developers, based on my own experience and from talking with other small devs, and I think they should be saluted for it.”

“We’re entering a new era in which digital downloads can be translated into mass market sales for smaller operators – once only the preserve of the big boys, he added.

Source: Gamasutra

Wii U, 3DS Getting Paid Downloads

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Paid DLC has become an everyday reality in the gaming industry, and it’s been a notable hole in the offering from Nintendo. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has come out and said that paid downloads in games will be available for the 3DS by the end of the year and Wii U later on.

Iwata hopes to see a major increase in usage of paid downloads over the next few years, noting that he and Miyamoto want to add high quality features and levels to games. However, the Nintendo executive was concerned about low quality downloads and the potential that micro-transaction dependent free-to-play games might damage the premium value Nintendo’s content.

Source: Andriasang.com {link no longer active}

Eastside Games Social Game Company Founded

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Super Rewards founder Jason Bailey has announced they are teaming up with Pot Farm creators Josh Nilson and Galan Akin. They will form a new social game studio in Vancouver called Eastside Games using $1.5 million in angel funding.

If you have a good game with a 1 million MAU count, you can support a small studio, said Bailey. The gold rush is over, but there is still plenty of gold in the hills if you can sit down, shut up, and build compelling games the fit the social/mobile formulas. We want to build ten games with 1 million-plus MAU over the next couple of years. From an enterprise value, I d rather have ten 1 million-users games than one 10 million-users game.

Eastside and plans to release a new game before the end of 2011 called Zombinis, an odd collectible monsters game. Despite the profit to be had on platforms run by major companies, disparity in fees means that they’re looking at running things on their own site right now.

[That] way we own the user, we control the experience and we pay the lowest tax rate, Bailey says. Zuck and Jobs want a 30 percent cut, Google is talking about a much more fair 5 percent, but regardless, the safest place for us is to not be at the whim of one platform, high taxes, and draconian content restrictions.

Source: ISG

PayPal Says 12 Million Online American Gamers Pay Each Month

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PayPal says that over 12 million users pay for online games in every month in North America. Furthermore, they claim that most gamers saying they would purchase more virtual goods if there were was a better system in place and over 40 percent of adults play online games.

“The growth of PayPal in games was organic, and now there are more and more ways to pay for goods online,” said Carey Kolaja, senior director of emerging opportunities at PayPal. “The perception about digital goods is that they lead to micro transactions, which are small. But the average purchase for a paying user is in the mid-20s (in dollars). It is on a positive trajectory.”

Source: VentureBeat

Twitter Helped Push U.S. Default Compromise

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It appears the lingering credit default by the federal government of the U.S. has been avoided due to a last minute compromise before representatives left for their Summer recess. Twitter has been an important means for both citizens and lawmakers to push their prerogative on the situation.

President Obama used his @BarackObama account to try and stir supporters to act. He urged followers to tweet their congressmen using the hashtag #compromise, with White House staff tweeting out the names of Republican legislators.

Breakdown by State.

“The results so far have been mixed. According to NM Incite, the #compromise hashtag had been used more than 22,000 times and reached 36 million users (followers of accounts using the hashtag) as of around 5 p.m. ET on Friday, and people had mentioned the President some 28,000 times in tweets,” wrote Adam Ostrow. “NM Incite says 40 percent of the @BarackObama mentions and 28 percent of the #compromise tweets expressed positive sentiment, with only 13 percent and 12 percent of them expressing negative sentiment, respectively.”

A White House aide tweeted afterward that the emails and tweets helped forge a new compromise. The constant tweets may have hurt president’s number of followers, however, with more than 36,000 leaving amidst the event.

Source: Mashable

Words With Friends ‘Likes’ Facebook

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Zynga has confirmed that they are bringing their popular mobile title Words with Friends to Facebook. The word game will have the ability to switch between active games on iOS, Android and Facebook, enabling full cross platform support.

“We have the capabilities to handle multiple types of games and tune infrastructure to optimize specific game client interactions,” said Zynga. “We don t expect any lag time between an iOS player and a Facebook player and have tuned the infrastructure appropriately.”

Source: Venturebeat

Diablo III Online Only, No Mod Support

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Blizzard has confirmed that Diablo III will require a constant internet connection to help facilitate the real time storage of saved characters in the cloud. That move is sure to be controversial to some, along with the ability to sell in-game items for real world cash and a revelation about modding the game by third-parties.

“For a variety of gameplay and security reasons, we will not be supporting bots or mods in Diablo III, and they ll be expressly prohibited by our terms of use for the game,” says Blizzard’s FAQ.

Source: Blizzard

Battlefield 3 Techno Thriller Coming From Andy McNab

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Electronic Arts and DICE have announced that they have hired Andy McNab to write a novel based around the game Battlefield 3. Called Battlefield 3: The Russian it will detail a Russian Special Forces member discovering the extent of the conflict that is central to Battlefield 3 plot.

“It is impossible for any single medium to fully capture the emotion and intensity of war. The Battlefield 3: The Russian novel is one window into the experience, and the game is another. They complement each other perfectly,” said McNab. “Working with DICE has been a fantastic ride. Battlefield 3 is going to surprise people this autumn. The story, the characters, the world and the intense action come together to create a resonant, memorable experience.”