Amazon Game Studios Announces First Game

Amazon Game Studios was revealed today as the online retailer’s first internal development studio. The first game from the developer will be the social free-to-play title Living Classics, which will be a hidden object game based around classic tales like King Arthur, the Wizard of Oz, and Alice in Wonderland.

“Amazon Game Studios is exactly what it sounds like: a new team at Amazon that’s focused on creating innovative, fun and well-crafted games. Our first title, Living Classics, is debuting on Facebook today,” says the mission statement for Amazon Game Studios. “Why is Amazon making social games, you ask? Good question! We know that many Amazon customers enjoy playing games – including free-to-play social games – and thanks to Amazon’s know-how, we believe we can deliver a great, accessible gaming experience that gamers and our customers can play any time.”

Samsung Sends Out Invite For Galaxy Note Event

Ironic that Apple is accusing Samsung of ripping them off in a patent case and they would proceed to tease the press in a very Apple-like way. They send out an ambiguous invite to the press for a product event on August 15 in New York.

However, in a very un-Apple like moment, sources revealed that it will probably be the new Galaxy Note. If the rumors are to be believed, the device will launch at the end of August, just ahead of when the new iPhone is set to launch in mid September.

Source: Wired

Apple Ad Spend Over $1.1 Billion On iPhone/iPad

A trial between Samsung and Apple is yielding some interesting revelations, much to the normally secretive Apple’s chagrin. One such revelation is that the company was privately considering a 7-inch tablet in 2011, and that Steve Jobs was open to the idea despite a pubic distaste for such devices.

“There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touch screen before users cannot reliably tap, flick, or pinch them,” said Jobs at the time. “This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet Apps.”

Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said to the court that Apple’s strategy in maintaining its market momentum is to “make the product the biggest and clearest thing in advertising.” He says the company has spent a total of about $647 million on advertising for the iPhone, launched in 2007, and over $457 million for the two-year-old iPad.

Source: Reuters

Transformers Fall Of Cybertron – G1 Retro Trailer

High Moon Studios has put together a neat little trailer video for their G1 Retro Pack of Transformers Fall of Cybertron, featuring classic Optimus Prime and G1 inspired Megatron and Shockwave guns. Any true Transformers fan will appreciate the recreation of the classic movie scene and the use of Stan Bush’s The Touch!  Read more about the game in this [a]list interview.

 

Be A Martian Today

Visit the official NASA site for “Be a Martian” and begin your virtual exploration of the human-robotic partnership of the new Mars rover Curiosity. Log in to the site or just be an anonymous tourist and BeAM (stands for Be A Martian) will keep you updated on Mars and the BeAM community.

The goal of the site is to extend the shared abilities of NASA/JPL-Caltech and Microsoft to participate in discovery and life-long learning as members of a global, space-faring society.

According to the site:

“We’re currently in an age of virtual exploration and the human-robotic partnership. Robots are extensions of ourselves, venturing where we cannot (yet!) go. Robots in turn rely on us to interpret the discoveries they send back on our behalf. In these decades, we venture beyond our home world for the first time. In history, it is what we will be remembered for as a culture. Space exploration is no longer limited to the intrepid few, but is open to us all as members of a spacefaring society. Be part of exploration and discovery in these times, and personally contribute to the expansion of human knowledge for all of us now, and as a legacy for those who follow. Become an explorer. Be A Martian!”

Download the Be A Martian app prior to landing–available for most mobile phones (iPhone, Android, and Win 7) to get up to speed on the latest discoveries from Mars wherever and whenever, as you’re doing your own roving “on the go” here on Earth.

See the latest mission images of our spacecraft and those returned from the Red Planet and learn about Mars and all the active missions. Get up-to-the-minute news and check out behind-the-scenes videos featuring people on the missions.

To learn more about NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, visit this site.

 

Sims Social Center Of Suit Against Zynga’s The Ville

Electronic Arts has filed a lawsuit against Zynga for copyright infringement related to The Sims Social. The complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and EA says that Zynga’s The Ville was willful infringement of The Sims Social copyright.

EA pointed to the hiring of EA chief operating officer John Schappert (now former Zynga COO), ex-EA Play executive vice president Jeff Karp (Zynga chief marketing officer), and former EA Interactive senior vice president Barry Cottle, (Zynga’s executive vice president of corporate and business development). “Thus, by early 2012, Zynga had target and hired away three of EA’s top executive who had access to the most sensitive design, development, and strategic information about the Sims Social,” reads the complaint.

“Zynga’s design choices, animations, visual arrangements and character motions and actions have been directly lifted from The Sims Social,” said EA Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw in a statement.”The copying was so comprehensive that the two games are, to an uninitiated observer, largely indistinguishable. Scores of media and bloggers commented on the blatant mimicry.”

“This is a case of principle. Maxis isn’t the first studio to claim that Zynga copied its creative product,” noted Bradshaw. “But we are the studio that has the financial and corporate resources to stand up and do something about it. Infringing a developer’s copyright is not an acceptable practice in game development. By calling Zynga out on this illegal practice, we hope to have a secondary effect of protecting the rights of other creative studios who don’t have the resources to protect themselves.”

Zynga responded to this with a statement that danced around the subject at hand. “We are committed to creating the most fun, innovative, social and engaging games in every major genre that our players enjoy” said Zynga.”The Ville is the newest game in our ‘ville’ franchise – it builds on every major innovation from our existing invest-and-express games dating back to YoVille and continuing through CityVille and CastleVille, and introduces a number of new social features and game mechanics not seen in social games today.”

“It’s unfortunate that EA thought that this was an appropriate response to our game, and clearly demonstrates a lack of understanding of basic copyright principles. It’s also ironic that EA brings this suit shortly after launching SimCity Social which bears an uncanny resemblance to Zynga’s CityVille game. Nonetheless, we plan to defend our rights to the fullest extent possible and intend to win with players, ” concluded Zynga.

Source: Scribd.com

Cloud Gaming Report 2012

Video Game Intelligence and Cloud Gaming USA released their Cloud Gaming Report 2012, looking at how business strategies are impacting the industry. They interviewed 204 industry executives from 25 different companies to get their results, the highlights of which can be seen in the below images.

Source: us.cgconfusa.com

Walking Dead Developer Fights Back Against $0.99 App Ceiling

Popular opinion often holds that iOS games have difficulty selling for over $0.99. However, Telltale senior vice president of publishing Steve Allison asserts that just isn’t true and that their $4.99 The Walking Dead mobile game is at the right price.

“We knew The Walking Dead was shaping up to be a great touch screen experience and as our first universal iOS title that would also be available on console, $4.99 an episode is consistent with our past successful experiences on the App Store and with the pricing on other platforms,” said Allison. “The idea of a 99-cent gamer on iOS is more myth than fact, it’s the quality and depth of each product that will drive the right price for consumers. We’ve had a great initial launch as a top 10 title with no signs of slowing down and great feedback on the game from people who have bought the game for their iOS devices.”

“This is the right price for our game and it has not impeded our ability to get people interested in buying it,” he added.

Source: PocketGamer {link no longer active}