Allan Leinwand has departed Zynga for ServiceNow. The developer of Zynga’s Z-cloud architecture is now vice president and chief technical officer of Platform Development at ServiceNow.
Zynga’s Z-cloud architecture enabled the social gaming company to shift roughly 80 percent of its operations from Amazon Web Services to its own architecture. This departure is one of many such moves from Zynga, including former COO John Schappert.
Source: LinkedIn.com
The Museum of Art and Design recently featured a 3D version of Pac-Man done by Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi. This was all part of the Babycastles Summit, and other exhibitions include a two-player controlled Mario Bros. and Gradius-style game where players ran from room to room.
In this video entitled ‘Inception’, go behind the scenes with the team at Arkane as they discuss the concept and creation of Dishonored. The developers provide insights into developing the game’s steampunk world.
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Announcing the [a]list daily mobile app! Developed in-house by Ayzenberg Group, the [a]list daily for iPhone, iPad and Android delivers our same great daily content in an elegant app that’s perfect for viewing on the go.
Disney Epic Mickey 2 has the auspicious distinction of being a musical game that is not just a “rhythm’ game. Warren Spector and Junction Point talk about the musical elements in the game.
The Mitsubishi Outlander Sport is not a pretentious brand. The Unpretentious Facebook App identifies your most pretentious Facebook friends’ posts, and visually destroys them.
The app analyzes the content from on all of your friends’ Facebook pages to determine your most pretentious friend – whether it’s someone who checks into expensive restaurants or just shows off about their kids – then creates a shareable video that shows the Outlander Sport crashing through visuals of the the pretentious posts. After the video is complete, fans can share the result to their friend or smash another friend and destroy more pretentiousness.
CocoaChina announced that Fishing Joy has been downloaded 100 million times worldwide. According to a study by Flurry, users play Fishing Joy 2.5 times longer per session than the average casual game and eight times as many users return to the game compared to typical mobile game titles.
“This is a fantastic achievement for us because we have reached great scale while also maintaining an engaging play experience as users play longer and keep coming back,” said Haozhi Chen, CEO of CocoaChina. “We are extremely proud to have reached such a significant milestone, and it inspires us to continue making the best games possible.”
CocoaChina recently published Fishing Joy 2 and is working with TapJoy to publish mobile games from the West in China.
Sony Online Entertainment announced the launch of Player Studio. This new feature allows players to create in-game items that can be sold in the marketplace of certain online games, where the creator will receive 40 percent of the revenue.
“For the first time in SOE history, players will be able to build and sell their own items, truly creating a unique, customizable online marketplace within our games,” said John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment. “At SOE, we believe everyone is a gamer at heart, and our goal with Player Studio is to provide a platform on which our players can further explore their inner gamer while showcasing their passion for the games they love. We are looking forward to seeing our players’ creativity come to life in an entirely new way.”
The company also announced the latest EverQuest expansions: EverQuest: Rain of Fear and EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity. “Following two very successful transitions to free-to-play, we knew it was time to give our EverQuest community a rich offering of new content,” said Dave Georgeson, executive director of development of the EverQuest franchise. “The EverQuest team is committed to keeping the community enthusiasm high through continued content updates that dial up the player experience; the new features in these expansions are proof points of that continued commitment, and we have no plans of slowing down anytime soon.”
Kickstarter revealed that Reaper Miniature Bones and Planetary Annihilation became projects number 10 and 11 on Kickstarter to cross $1 million in funding and that seven of the 11 projects that have crossed $1 million this year are games, with the eighth being Order of the Stick, a comic gaming. This has led the company conclude that this is the year of the game on Kickstarter.
Additionally, Kickstarter said that more dollars have been pledged to Games projects than to any other category, giving a list of money pledged through August 31:
1. Games — $50 million
2. Film — $42 million
3. Design — $40 million
4. Music — $25 million
5. Technology — $16 million
Games has gone from the eighth most-funded category in Kickstarter history to the second most-funded just in 2012:
2009 — $48,190
2010 — $519,885
2011 — $3,615,841
2012 — $50,330,275
Compared to last year when 3.6 percent of the pledges were to games, this year it is 23 percent. 20 of the 36 projects that have raised more than $500,000 this year have been games.
“The catalyst for the category’s growth happened in February, when a video game project called Double Fine Adventure raised $1 million in its first 24 hours,” posted Yancey Strickler and Fred Benenson. “The gaming world hasn’t looked at Kickstarter the same way since. Double Fine signaled to game developers that they could use Kickstarter to do something that previously seemed impossible: make the game they wanted without outside interference.”
Kickstarter also said that people who first back a games project have backed 2.43 projects on average, compared to 1.78 projects for all other backers. This makes them Kickstarter’s most frequent backers and they’ve inspired more game projects that have brought even more backers, and so on.
“Games give players the power to take control and decide what happens. Kickstarter gives backers the power to take control and decide what happens. The combination of the two has produced some memorable events. Incredibly, all of this has happened in the six months since the launch of Double Fine Adventure,” concluded Yancey Strickler and Fred Benenson. “While it’s still too early to understand the full impact, it’s clear that big changes are happening in the world of games.”
Source: Kickstarter
Amazon.com took the wraps off of their higher-resolution Kindle Fires on Thursday. This includes a 4G-ready version for $499, a Wi-Fi version is $299, while the original version of the Fire will retail for $159.
Additionally, the company showed off a “paperwhite” e-reader with a better screen and longer battery life, demonstrating their commitment to that category. There will be a 3G version for $179 starting in October, along with a Wi-Fi only version for $119, and the cheapest one at $69, undercutting the cheapest Barnes & Noble Nook.
Source: Reuters.com
World of Warcraft subscriptions have turned back the clock to 2007, according to reports from Activision Blizzard. The company claims that most of the diminished subscriptions is from the increasingly competitive Asian region, including China and South Korea.
This has resulted in half-year revenue from subscriptions falling by 29 percent to $448 million for Activision Blizzard owner Vivendi and profits from the publisher were down overall by 31 percent. The company is no doubt hoping that Mists of Pandaria will help boost the game back up to recent highs of over 11 million subscribed.
Source: PaidContent.org
