Who Are You Going To Tweet For?

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Current TV has created a Social Dashboard {link no longer active} that you can access throughout the RNC coverage, followup coverage and beyond.

By tracking down the most relevant tweets about the Republican National Convention and sorting them into bubbles, the page highlights the best, most interesting and fun conversations — so you don’t have to go sifting through all the noise.

Register for the site and add to the conversation or rate them “smart” or “funny.”

 

BioWare Doesn’t Know What To Expect For Star Wars: TOR F2P

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Star Wars: The Old Republic is confirmed as a free-to-play title, and this is a significant shift away from the game’s developed business plan based on subscriptions only. The shift is such for the game that Matt Bromberg, general manager of BioWare Austin, isn’t sure it will result in greater profits.

” don’t know,” he replied. “My primary intention is to make as many people play this beautiful game that we’ve made. It just so happens that the business will naturally grow as more people come to play the game, but we’re not trying to squeeze every single penny out of it.”

“There are lots of Star Wars fans out there, but really I don’t know what to expect. A lot of other games that have moved from subscription to hybrid haven’t lost as many customers as you might think, in fact a lot of them have gained subscribers,” added Bromberg. “You have to plan for this but you can never be sure. We do think the numbers will grow steadily but we’re not looking for some enormous surge on day one.”

Source: CVG {link no longer active}

Sony CEO Says Vita Sales Meeting Expectations

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Sony has so far sold roughly 2.2 million units of the PS Vita. While this has been behind some analyst estimates, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai says that the PS Vita isn’t in a bad spot for the company.

“Worldwide, the Vita is pretty much along where we would expect it to be, maybe trending behind in certain territories,” Hirai told Reuters on the sidelines of IFA, Europe’s biggest consumer trade show, held in Berlin.

“Back in 2006-2007 people were saying PlayStation 3 is not happening, it’s dead, but today it’s a great platform, contributes bottom line to us,” Hirai said. “You need to look back 5, 10 years for these platforms to tell whether they are successful.”

Source: Reuters

Madden NFL 13 Sets First Day Sales Records

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Madden NFL 13 sold over 900,000 units in its first 24 hours, marking an increase for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of 7 percent and setting a new record for the franchise this generation. Also, day one online usage has increased 28 percent in peak simultaneous users over last year’s first day.

“Madden NFL 13 is the most innovative entry the franchise has ever seen and we’re thrilled that fans have embraced it with such a huge first day,” said Andrew Wilson, Executive Vice President of EA Sports. “As we approach the kickoff of the NFL season next week, the football community is whetting their appetites by playing Madden NFL 13 in record numbers. With the combination of the cutting-edge Infinity Engine and new Connected Careers fans are truly getting their football fix with the best Madden NFL game ever.”

“It was a phenomenal first day for Madden NFL 13, and we have high expectations for this great game to be popular throughout the fall and into the holidays,” said Seong Ohm, Walmart SVP of Entertainment. “We’re excited that our partnership with EA has helped deliver our customers unique access and content to this great game. There’s incredible demand for Madden NFL 13, and it’s easy to see why people are loving it.”

Guild Wars 2 Business Model Explained

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Guild Wars 2 is releasing with a unique business model in this day and age: it is available for purchase as a physical or download product, but it requires no fee to play as an online game. In a way, it makes the game an interesting hybrid free-to-play title and it is well set up in the future to make the complete switch over to a free online offering when the time comes.

“We pioneered this business model in 2005, and a lot of people have asked me in interviews ‘why aren’t other people doing this ‘ and I don’t know,” said Mike O’Brien, ArenaNet founder and president. “Back in 2005 we really kind of carved out a unique space in online gaming and online worlds, and really nobody came and tried to compete with that. So it was fantastic for us, obviously Guild Wars sold well beyond our expectations and we built a really strong relationship with our community and we were able to offer them a business model that I think is really a win-win business model, and our customers have loved that for the past seven years.”

“Now people are realizing there’s a lot more to MMOs than monthly fees, and we’re starting to see companies doing free-to-play, and even then they’re not really doing the Guild Wars business model, they’re doing no box price, no subscription and 100 percent microtransactions. And I think that unfortunately, in a lot of those cases, you see games trying to do one business model and then falling back on another business model when that doesn’t work. Which of course is not good for anybody, because it means that the game was not designed to support that.”

“[The businesses model should be] in their best interest, and the best interests of the developer. Because I think really, when you do the business model right, the best interests are the same,” he added. “It’s just a matter of finding the ongoing revenue stream that sets the right balance, so fans understand they’re being treated well, and that the developer is really putting its money where its mouth is.”

Source: GamesIndustry International

Zynga VPs Depart, New COO Is Hired

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Vice president of studios Bill Mooney, who was the general manager for FarmVille, and vice president of marketing Brian Birtwistle have both reportedly departed Zynga. When asked about the development, Zynga responded, “Zynga continues to lead the industry with the top talent in social game development. We’re proud of the teams working hard to create the next generation of social games including the recent launches of The Ville, ChefVille and the coming launch of FarmVille 2.”

Meanwhile, Maytal Ginzburg has left her role as senior vice president of corporate and regulated markets at 888holdings to become COO of Zynga. This show’s Zynga’s increased interest in online gambling and fills a position previously occupied by John Schappert, who left the company after he was stripped of his responsibilities over games.

Source: Bloomberg

Lollipop Chainsaw Sets Shipment Records For Grasshopper

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Kadokawa Games CEO Yoshimi Yasuda said that total worldwide shipments for Lollipop Chainsaw have crossed the 700,000 mark during the Lollipop Chainsaw Summer Appreciation Festival event held at his company’s office. Grasshopper CEO Suda 51 said that this is the highest shipment figure ever for his company.

To commemorate the shipment figure, Suda51 shared a first promotional video for Killer is Dead, Grasshopper’s mysterious new project. The new game promises a brand new main character, with what appears to be a katana in his right hand with a cyborg left arm, it has stylized visuals and a focus on a new assassin character, not unlike what Suda did for Killer7 and No More Heroes.

Source: Andriasang.com