According to Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown, the official Star Wars: The Old Republic fan site has 2.4 million people registered. Two million volunteered for the beta test over Thanksgiving weekend, which saw roughly 725,000 unique users during its three-day availability.
The average amount of playtime was 12 hours per player, with over 9 million hours spent in the beta overall. Peak hours saw “just over a quarter of a million people playing the game simultaneously,” according to Brown.
Chandana Ekanayak, art director and executive producer at Uber Entertainment, recently saw an interesting shirt at a local event. While it might be a hint at a larger project, the hashtag of ‘ValveTrolling’ indicates that Ekanayak is not sure if it’s just another joke on Valve’s part.
“All I’m saying is I saw this at a local game developer event worn by a Valve employee,” tweeted Ekanayak.
Source: Twitter
Releasing a major title on game consoles these days is carries huge risk but significant reward for the biggest games. Epic’s chief designer Cliff Bleszinski says that for the next generation, where costs are expected to multiply again, the number of top level games might drastically go down.
“The six-to-eight hour triple-A game might be going away, maybe there’s only three or four that come out a year, and those are the established brands,” said Bleszinski. “The key is to bet on people who understand technology, but also understand creative and business. Too many games are made just because somebody says ‘A bullfighting game sounds cool!’ And you’re like ‘That would only play in Spain.’”
“People just get these random things they want to make, and other people throw money at them without looking at the business,” he added. “We need not only to be creative but also to be surgical in terms of the games we make.”
Source: OXM
World of Warcraft‘s subscription number has taken a hit over the past year, but there’s still roughly 10 million people playing it. And many of the hardcore people into raiding have been looking forward to this – the Hour of Twilight update!
Those that have the Xperia Play will be able to download the mobile version of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for free. Kristen Schaal is back to promote this, and she aptly performs up to the standards of “bad” company.
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Syndicate is a shooter, but that doesn’t mean just the same old “realistic” weapons you’re use to. Get ready to reload with weapons not yet possible!
Sponsored by Patron, Social Life Audit {link no longer active} uses Facebook connect and facial recognition and a database of 2.5 million bars to analyze your photos and check-ins and show you how your social life stacks up to your friends. Once you allow access the app aggregates a vast amount of your details to create an infographic style audit of your social life, including use of photos and check-ins then calculates a score based on categories including gender ratio, average mood, and social status updates. Users can then share and compare their results with their social network, the app also features a leader board of nationwide top scorers.
Now that the Wii U is less than a year from releasing, questions are beginning to crop up about the future of the Wii. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime maintains that there’s still an audience for the old system… just a slightly different one that before.
“The consumer buying Wii hardware today is going to be a different consumer than the one who will be buying Wii U in the future,” said Fils-Aime. “This is the first holiday that the Wii is available at $149.99 or below, so it’s an expanded demographic we’re reaching. These are consumers who have heard about Wii for the past couple years, but at $199 or $249 it was economically out of their reach.”
“We haven’t announced pricing for Wii U, but you can definitely expect that pricing is going to be different and that the games are going to be different,” he added. “We do believe that Wii and Wii U will coexist for some time. As we drive the install base of Wii, we’re really setting people up to take their gaming library and be able to transfer it over to Wii U.”
Source: Time
Google’s VP of display advertising Neal Mohan has announced that the Department of Justice has approved the company’s $400 million acquisition of Admeld. Announced in June, the deal for the New York-based online advertising company will close in the coming days.
“The opportunity for major online publishers is huge … and growing. People are spending more and more time consuming online content across numerous devices, advertisers are running more online and mobile campaigns to reach them; and ads continue to get more engaging and relevant. This represents an unprecedented moment for publishers,” Mohan writes. “We believe that improved technology and services can help publishers seize it and make online advertising work much better.”
“For now, it’s business as usual-Admeld’s products will operate separately to Google’s existing solutions (such as DoubleClick for Publishers and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange),” he added. “But over time, there are opportunities to bring the best of both businesses together in a variety of ways; and to develop entirely new solutions, too.“
“Google is buying Admeld because they believe in our mission to serve premium publishers with the highest level of technology and expertise,” noted Ad Meld’s Michael Barrett. “Though our mailing address may change-our mission won’t. In fact, over time everything you like about working with us will get even better.”
Source: AdWeek
Lazard Capital Markets and Peanut Labs conducted a survey recently that showed that over half of all respondents had grown tired of World of Warcraft. 50 percent said they plan to buy Star Wars: The Old Republic, while another 38 percent declared an interest in the title.
On the positive side for Blizzard, a third of respondents said that Mists of Pandaria, the next expansion for World of Warcraft, will get them to re-subscribe. However, Lazard thinks World of Warcraft could lose between 900,000 and 1.6 million players following December’s Star Wars: The Old Republic launch.
