Heavy Rain Developer: Industry ‘Will Die’ Without More Innovation

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David Cage, the man behind story-driven interactive experiences like Heavy Rain and the brand-new Beyond (unveiled at E3), would like to see game makers pushing forward with “deeper” experiences. He sees the industry’s survival being at risk if developers just rely on the same genres.

“The last game I really enjoyed is Journey, for example. Journey was amazing. It has nothing to do with what I’m doing. But it’s not so much about storytelling. It’s about emotion. It’s about trying something different. I mean this industry will die if it doesn’t try more to be innovative and to come up with new ideas and to talk a bit more – not necessarily serious, but deeper things at some point. It’s great that you can shoot at monsters, and that’s great and it will always be there and it will always be successful, but at the same time, what about giving the choice to people Give them different options. So if they like that they find it, but if they want something deeper and interactive, they can find that too,” he said.

“I think this industry needs more games like Journey because it’s a breath of fresh air; this is necessary in any medium. How many first person shooters can we create per year How many can we play per year How many of them will be successful Even from a business point of view, does it make any sense I’m not sure.”

Source: GamesIndustry International

Funcom Explains Why The Secret World Isn’t Free-to-Play

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Funcom released Age of Conan as a subscription only game and converted it later to free-to-play, and The Secret World appears to be following a similar path, launching as a subscription product with the possibility of free-to-play later. To The Secret World creative director Ragnar Tornquist, launching in such a fashion is key to support content for AAA MMO titles.

“Of course [having Conan go free-to-play] has taught us a lot. Five years from now, ten years from now, will Secret World be free-to-play I’m sure of it,” said Tornquist. “But that’s a long time. For the time being, we’re committed to this business model, and as long as people are willing to pay us in order to provide them with expanded content and ongoing content, we’ll keep that business model.”

“Whether or not that’s the business model that’s going to be around in five years, I can’t say,” he added. “But it wasn’t right for us to come out and be a free-to-play game, because then we would have to find other ways to support the ongoing content. Whether it would be DLC and charging people for that, or an item store and charging people for that, [I can’t say]. At any rate, people are going to have to pay more in order to support the ongoing development. I think that at least for me and at least for traditional MMO players, a subscription fee is something they understand.”

Source: RockPaperShotgun

 

Hitman: Absolution – Meet The Saints

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Eidos drew a fair amount of criticism for its nuns-based trailer for the fifth installment in the Hitman franchise. This newest Saints ICA File Trailer uses a comic book style to show off the Saints, a wet-works crew teeming with violence and sex.

Share A Part Of Yourself And You Can Be Anything

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The 3D movie music event of the summer, Katy Perry: Part of Me E3 is a backstage pass, front row seat and intimate look at the fun, glamorous, heartbreaking, inspiring, crazy, magical, passionate, and an honest mad diary of Katy. At the official destination for the film, fans are brought together in a host of different ways.

Utilizing technology powered by Crowdzilla, fans could tag themselves in this scene filmed for the movie. Once tagged, fans could search for their friends by connecting to their Facebook social graph or share to friends and followers on Twitter.

Fans can also add their name to the official Twitter poster by Tweeting using the #KP3D hashtag. A mosaic of Twitter handles makes up an image of the song siren herself.

On Pinterest, photos and updates from each global premiere have been posted. A separate board for key influencers in the community called ‘KP3D Captains’ drove fan engagement through the campaign.

A Pinterest promotion challenged the first 20 people to put together all 13 puzzle pieces and tweet an image to @KatyPerry using #KP3D to have their Twitter handle included in the end credits of the film.

 

Nintendo’s Iwata: Retail Can Benefit From Digital Sales

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Many in the retail business are very wary of games increasingly becoming offered digitally. However, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata sees a silver lining for retailers, as he thinks that retailers will no longer have to order as much surplus, thus increasing demand and increasing profitability.

“One of the challenges in the video game distribution industry in Japan is the higher inventory risk; it is a bigger challenge than ever before,” said Iwata to shareholders. “Since it is common practice in this industry that retailers take the inventory risk, their profits from good sales can be easily wiped out by surplus stock.”

“When you visit a store for a game only to hear from the clerk that it is now out of stock and the next shipment will not be until three weeks later, you will be discouraged to buy it,” he noted. “The demand sometimes does not lead to actual sales, like in the case I just mentioned. The reason we will start the digital download sales is that decreasing the inventory risk will be of great benefit to the video game business.”

Most digital sales numbers are usually kept secret by the distributors, be they Xbox Live, PSN or Steam. Nintendo, however, says they will share the download numbers for New Super Mario Bros. 2, the first retail 3DS game to be released as a digital download.

“This is so that those in this industry can make the next move after finding out the consumer behavior toward download versions,” said Iwata. “When they know the size of the digital distribution market, they might be inclined to accept a certain inventory risk to try the download sales with special features.”

Vanguard Free-To-Play Coming In July

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Sony Online Entertainment has confirmed that Vanguard is in the final weeks of conversion to free-to-play. With help from the community giving feedback, they are hopeful to launch the game as a free-to-play product by July.

“Over the next several weeks, we expect to begin rolling out a number of improvements throughout the game, in preparation for our free-to-play launch,” Andy Sites, director of development. “And, as I mentioned earlier, we’ll need your help testing these changes in order to refine and finalize our improvements so expect to see many of our developers recruiting your help in the Vanguard forums soon!”

“Lastly, I want to answer the question I’m sure is at the top of your lists – the release date. We are planning our free-to-play transition this summer and as much as we’d love to share a specific date with all of you, we want to make sure we take the appropriate time to test and do this right so that way we’re ultimately delivering the best possible experience to our players. As I mentioned in my last Producer letter, we assembled our team with only the most passionate Vanguard developers. Therefore, you can rest assured that they’ve fought tooth and nail to acquire as much polish time as possible! Again, thank you all for your feedback and continued devotion to the game, and as always, please visit the Vanguard forums for the latest news and game updates. We’ll see you online!” Sites concluded.

Source: Station.Sony.com

Apple Struck With Snow Leopard Suit In China

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Apple has been struck with two new trademark lawsuits from Chinese companies. The two separate suits deal with the Snow Leopard OS and also Siri.

Zhi Zhen Internet Technology filed a 2004 trademark for what is describe as a “chatting robot system”. Now, Zhi Zhen is claiming the functionality of Siri is covered by the patent.

More interestingly, there is a case by Jiangsu Xuebao (where Xuebao literally means “snow leopard” in Chinese). Xuebao began registering the trademark for a wide variety of goods, including computer products, in 1994 and has identified 104 violations by Apple, who released its Snow Leopard OS in 2009.

“[Xuebao Chairman] Tong said the company had developed a series of computer-related products under the trademark and accused Apple of making profits from its reputation in China,” reports the Shanghai Daily.

Xuebao, which is better known as a brand of toothpaste and detergent, points out that Apple’s application to trademark Xuebao was rejected in 2008. Further, Xuebao did not register the snow leopard mark with ill will or malicious intent.

While neither case is malicious squatting, Jiangsu Hongrun Law Firm noted that the Class 9 trademark case is “difficult” because while Xuebao owns both the Chinese characters as well as the phonetical “Xuebao” pinyin spelling, Apple China’s official website “only uses the word ‘Snow Leopard.'”

While both claims are not major as far as how much money is being sought, Apple will probably want to try and make a legal go at it so they don’t seem like easy patent/trademark bait.

Source: Brand Channel