Rovio has confirmed that their next project will be from the Casey’s Contraptions IP, which they purchased. Creator Noel Llopis was among the first to hint that a collaboration was coming.
“Oh wow! The cat is starting to get out of the bag!” he said on twitter. “Before rumors start flying, Rovio is a perfect gentleman. Not a Zynga at all. Don’t worry, all is well.”
When asked if this was a studio buyout by Rovio, he responded, “No, still happily independent.”
Source: Twitter
Activision confirmed that over 10 million people have signed up for Call of Duty Elite as part of their recent fiscal results. Furthermore, they stated that over 2 million have signed on for the premium annual membership.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick further added that the increase on paid membership represents 33 percent growth since January 31, 2012. Also, Call of Duty Elite‘s mobile app has over 2 million users.
Jenova Chen, Thatgamecompany‘s lead designer for PS3′s Journey, thinks that PSN’s artistic offerings are superior to those on WiiWare or Xbox Live. Chen has specialized in so-called “art” titles, between fl0w, Flower and Journey.
“Sony has a more artistic and adult-focused taste,” Chen said. “They care about how grown-ups feel toward their games. The player who owns a PlayStation 3 [and is playing PSN titles] is more likely to be interested in artistic games compared to Wii and Xbox 360,”
While he provided no data to back up this hypothesis, senior director of PlayStation digital platforms Jack Buser agreed, saying, “Our primary PSN audience is indeed more adult, and many of our best-selling titles appeal to this demographic. Many PlayStation and PSN games have themes that require a user to think and feel about a deep, immersive gameplay experience, and we see that exemplified in the success of titles like Flower, Journey, and Heavy Rain. Titles like these can only be found on PlayStation, and our users enjoy the emotional and thematic sophistication of their games, especially with our digital offerings.”
It is unknown whether The Elder Scrolls Online will launch as a free-to-play or subscription game. Nicholas Lovell, founder of videogame business consultancy Gamesbrief, believes that the game will launch as a subscription title and make the switch to free-to-play.
“I still believe that subscription games are on the way out. It is conceivable that Bethesda will launch with a subscription service to attract the early adopters, because that is the model they understand,” said Lovell. “They will switch to free-to-play later, in the same way that many iOS games go from paid to freemium over their lifetime. EA is struggling with The Old Republic, [but] almost everyone else is transitioning to free-to-play.”
Source: Edge
Insomniac Games has announced that they are working with Electronic Arts on a new social game called Outernauts. The game will have players capturing alien beasts and play with (and against) other people asynchronously.
“We see a huge opportunity to reach an entirely different audience of gamers through Facebook,” said Ted Price, President and Founder of Insomniac Games. “As we have demonstrated for nearly twenty years in the console games space, we’re confident we can help evolve the definition of a game experience on Facebook. With Outernauts, we are delivering a deep story with real RPG strategy, coupled with Insomniac’s signature sense of humor.”
Find out more about the game at www.facebook.com/outernauts.
According to comScore, U.S. users spent an average of 441 minutes, or 7 hours and 21 minutes, accessing Facebook in March. This is compared to compared with 391 minutes, 6 hours and 31 minutes, who accessed via computer.
The company acknowledged these issues, stating that the company has not properly monetized mobile users. “If users increasingly access mobile products as a substitute for access through personal computers and if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our mobile users,” the company writes in its filing documents, “our financial performance and ability to grow revenue would be negatively affected.”
comScore’s Mobile Metrix 2.0 report also stated that Facebook commands the largest share of smartphone users’ time. The next-most popular services were Foursquare with 146 minutes; microblogging service Twitter with 114 minutes and blogging-service Tumblr with 68 minutes.
Facebook generally has users on for longer because it takes longer to read, respond and post updates than most other services. Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities notes that “It doesn’t take that long to tweet.”
comScore estimates that Facebook has about 158.9 million unique U.S. visitors who access the site on computers and 78 million who access it via mobile phones. There is significant overlap between the two groups.
Source: Reuters
Remode has announced that it has partnered with Sulake to be the first studio to create a title for its Habbo social hub. The social network aimed at teens has around 10 million users and will see the first game by the British developer in July.
“It is a tremendous honor to be named Sulake’s inaugural development partner as it will give us a unique opportunity to showcase our technology and gaming expertise to tens of millions of teenagers worldwide,” said Remode MD Ella Romanos.
“As a company with a proven track record in social and mobile games that also understands the needs and wants of the teen market, we couldn’t be happier to make Remode our inaugural development partner,” added Sulake CEO Paul LaFontaine. “We are opening up our environment so that independent developers looking to reach a teen audience can benefit from our expertise with that age group, while our loyal user base will be enriched by the creative collective that only a worldwide team of game developers can bring to Habbo.”
Starhawk has officially launched with it’s original Build & Battle System, letting players call down buildings, weapons and vehicles to shape the battlefield. Along with the 32 person multiplayer battles, there also a a full single player campaign to enjoy.
The Expendables 2 takes an impossibly large cast of action heroes and makes it even larger. And the addition of Chuck Norris makes things doubly more awesome.
Long before the creation of Sanctuary, the Eternal Conflict between angels and demons raged on for untold millennia. Blizzard Entertainment teamed up with director Peter Chung and animation studio Titmouse to create this unique vision of a fundamental moment in the battle between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells.
