Modern Warfare 3 Hits The Road In Wrangler

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Jeep has announced for the second straight year it will be the “exclusive automotive partner” for Call of Duty. As such they will release a the 2012 Jeep Wrangler Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Special Edition, available in four or two-doors in silver or black, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Special Edition” graphics on the front fenders and spare tire cover and plenty of things to accentuate it’s outdoor flavor including rock rails, taillight guards, a fuel-filler door, off-road tires, live axles with locking differentials in the front and rear, and a two-speed transfer case.

“This opportunity enables us to demonstrate Jeep Wrangler’s unique combination of fun, capability and performance to a broad and growing group of consumers,” says Mike Manley, CEO of Chrysler’s Jeep brand.

Digital Revolution ‘Can’t Come Soon Enough’ Says Ninja Theory

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AAA games can be profitable, but they also often come with a huge risk. Ninja Theory’s chief creative officer Tameem Antoniades indicates despite his company’s critical success with original games like Heavenly Sword and Enslaved: Journey to the West, the current retail model runs counter to innovation.

“We’re in this kind of AAA bracket, I guess you could call it,” said Antoniades. “The high budget, high stakes retail model – the barriers to entry for that are so high, so difficult, that we seem to be getting, being offered, decent work in that area. It’s hard to say no when you’ve got a team of 100 and you have to keep the payroll going. Another big project comes along, you tend to go for it.”

“There’s always an opportunity between projects to explore things, a lot of team members are hobbyists, they create their own iPhone games and things like that so I can see us kind of taking a punt with that. It can’t come soon enough. The whole digital revolution is happening now and it can’t come soon enough. The model we’re under, the big retail model, is creaking,” he continued. “It’s such an opportunity for fun creative games to reach a target audience, there’s this stranglehold that the AAA retail model has which I think is just crushing innovation and access to creative content. If you’re paying that much for a game, you don’t want to take chances. You want everything to be there, all the feature sets. You want it to be a known experience, guaranteed fun. That’s not healthy.”

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

Superheroes, 3D Can’t Hide Summer Of Discontent For Hollywood

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As the U.S. economy struggles, so to has the Hollywood box-office, with a Summer total of $4.38 billion an increase of less than 1 percent over last year. The worst news is that most of that is made up by more expensive tickets (usually in 3D); raw attendance is projected at 543 million, the lowest since Summer 1997, when 540 million people came to the theater.

“In an economy that has been unfortunately pretty depressing, the marketplace expanded to accommodate big pictures stacked back to back to back,” said Dan Fellman, president for domestic distribution at Warner Brothers.

While Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows — Part 2, Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides took in over a billion worldwide, other anticipated films like Larry Crowne, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Mars Needs Moms, Cowboys & Aliens, Zookeeper and Green Lantern underperformed. However, Hollywood did have some good hits that will produce sequels, like Thor, Captain America, The Smurfs, X-Men: First Class and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

“The lesson for us is that different and original is always hard and always a risk but has great upside,” said Tom Rothman, co-chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment said of the X-Men and Planet of the Apes films. “While both of those films had genetic material in common with their original franchises, both were very, very original pieces.”

The Summer also revealed the importance of international audiences; sequel fatigue comes on slower in China and Russia, with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Cars 2 all performing well, with the fourth Pirates film in particular taking in $70 million less in North America than its predecessor, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, but grossing $145 million more than At World’s End overseas.

“America used to set the course — if a movie disappointed here, then it was done,” said Phil Contrino, editor of BoxOffice.com. “That’s simply not the case anymore. America is just another territory now.”

Crude comedies ruled, with The Hangover Part II drawing over $254 million in the U.S. and Bridesmaids being a surprising hit with $281 million worldwide; Bad Teacher and Horrible Bosses also performed respectably. Then again, The Change-Up with Jason Bateman’s cost $52 million to make with significant marketing and managed only about $40 million in tickets worldwide.

Some more old-fashioned, mature films managed to do well for themselves as well; The Help has benefited from strong reviews to take in $122 million, while Woody Allen’s sleeper Midnight in Paris has managed $53 million in tickets. “It’s always kind of funny to see Hollywood surprised that movies aimed at adults succeed in the Summer,” said Contrino. “If you don’t feed them garbage — surprise — they buy tickets.”

Source: New York Times

Dark Souls — Prologue Part 2

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The prologue to the dark fantasy continues. The official description describes them as: “Nit, the first of the dead, the witch of Izarith and her evil daughters, the Lord Gwen and his knights.”

Team iLuminate Has Talent

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Team iLuminate has been tearing it up on America’s Got Talent and it’s easy to see why! Check out the clips, one of which includes a great fighting game interpretation!

Madden Smack Shack Is Open!

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On Facebook, EA has launched a Facebook engagement destination for Madden 12 that allows fans to get deep inside the head of their opponent. Fans can send a smack video to a friend featuring NFL players like Arian Foster, Ray Lewis, Mark Sanchez and Ladanian Tomlinson. With each engagement, the smacks get harder and more vicious. Tag a photo or “check in” with one of your friend’s ladies (mom, sister, wifey, etc.) to up the ante and increase the smack. The smack downs get intense letting fans make a date for victory and even fake a relationship status with one of their friend’s significant others. Don’t’ forget to pre-order now and watch the trailer and get ready for the real trash talking to begin.

Dragon Quest X MMO Announcement Leads To Stock Woes

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Dragon Quest X was recently announced as a subscription-based MMORPG that will be available for Wii and Wii U. This announcement has led to what is being called “Dragon Quest Shock” by investors in Japan, leading to a drop in stock for not only Square Enix, but also Sony and Nintendo.

The Square Enix reaction is the easiest to detail, since investors clearly don’t have much confidence in a new online game from the company after the disastrous launch of Final Fantasy XIV. For Sony, the confirmation that they would not have the Dragon Quest franchise was compounded by woes in their electronics business – with Nintendo, the reason appears to be a lack of faith in their online capabilities and general doubt with the Wii and Wii U systems.

Source: Andriasang.com

Old Navy Withdraws Shirts Due To ‘Grammar Police’

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Old Navy was offering a variety of NCAA football t-shirts for various popular universities. Unfortunately, an oversight meant that the shirts read “Lets Go” instead of the grammatically correct “Let’s Go.”

Oops.

Some retail chains would have simply rolled with the punches on this, but Old Navy is taking a stand for proper punctuation. After the error was pointed out, those wanting to purchase the shirts received this message:

Ironically, afterward we encountered this ad from Google in our visits to other websites.

 

Source: oldnavy.gap.com

ChinaJoy Sees 10,000 Trade Visitors

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The Chinese government agency GAPP recently stated that the ChinaJoy expo generated almost $100 million worth of business deals. Secretary general Zhihai Han indicates that browser games, social networks and mobile gaming are large opportunities in the region, along with the outsourcing business.

“According to our exhibitors, business deals on-site reached a total contractual value of $98.56 million,” said Han of the event, which attracted 10,000 trade visitors this year. “We wish that we had a well-developed SNS (Social Network Services) business in China, but we are still looking for a successful business model that’s able to meet the consumption habits of the Chinese. Professionals in this business are full of confidence; but if we talk about making a profit, game companies are still more interested in doing web games.”

Haoxia Ming, managing director of trade body Shanghai Multimedia Industry Association, noted that start-ups are losing out to larger companies in the social gaming sphere and added that the region’s 3G user base of 87 million was reflected in ChinaJoy’s dedicated mobile zone. “We are very optimistic about mobile entertainment for the next three years, following the popularity of smartphones and 3G in China. It has a potential market size you can hardly imagine, especially in China,” offered Ming.

Source: GamesIndustry.biz