Ghost Recon Commander Discharged By Ubisoft

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Brenda Romero (formerly Braithwaite and now married to Loot Drop co-founder John Romero) has revealed that the Facebook game Ghost Recon Commander has been canceled. The Ubisoft title had launched in May 2012.

“Sad news. Today, Ghost Recon Commander was canceled,” she tweeted. “As a result, we laid off a team of kick-ass developers.”

She’s been on the lookout for new positions via Twitter and may have already secured jobs for some already. “Looks like multiple people already have jobs-in-theory due to you reaching out to us,” she reported. “Very grateful to everyone who has reached out to the GRC team. Multiple interviews lined up for people already!”

Those interested should contact her on her Twitter page at Twitter.com/br.

Mass Effect Movie Gets New Writer

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Legendary Entertainment is moving forward with a Mass Effect film, looking to Morgan Davis Foehl to adapt the sci-fi series. Previously, Mark Protosevich wrote the first version of the script in 2008.

Foehl hasn’t had a script approved, but was praised for writing Whatever Gets You Through the Night and penning Crosshair, an adaptation of the Top Cow comic book that Mandeville is developing for Summit. His credits also include Alien Sleeper Cell for producers Bill Block and Adrian Askarieh.

Foehl got the project in part due to his fandom for the game series and for a reputation for penning action pics with a strong espionage bent, not unlike the overall plot of the Mass Effect games. Mass Effect is easily Foehl’s most high-profile project to date.

Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni will produce the Mass Effect film with Avi and Ari Arad through Arad Productions. Mass Effect executive producer Casey Hudson will reprise that role for the film; BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk were also set to have credits on the film and it is unknown if that has changed since they departed BioWare.

Source: Variety.com

Nintendo Details Wii U Digital Rewards

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Nintendo today laid out details for the digital rewards for the deluxe Wii U hardware package. Those that purchase new games for the system will get a 10 percent rebate on goods downloaded from the Wii U eShop.

A game purchased for $59.99 would earn 599 points and for every 500 points earned, Nintendo will give users a code for $5 in store credit for the Wii U or 3DS eShops. Points will be earned for all digital purchases on the Wii U deluxe hardware through 2014 and codes will then have to be obtained from the proper site by the end of March 2015, with those codes further redeemed for the actual eShop credit by the end of June 2015.

Wii U will launch November 18 in two versions: a black 32GB deluxe version with a copy of Nintendo Land and stands for the console and controller for $349, and a white 8GB version for $299.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 Rocks The Launch Trailers

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The official Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 live action trailer, part of the “There’s a Soldier in All of Us” series, was directed by Guy Ritchie and features a blistering amount of cameos (FPS Russia!) in the span of a minute. Also included is the regular launch trailer showing off the game, which many have probably seen as a TV spot.

 

 

Exclusive: EA On The Second Season Of The Controller

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Last year, EA launched The Controller as a web-based reality TV series for Battlefield 3. The competition had pro-gamers with people who weren’t gamers at all from a variety of backgrounds. It was a hit, and EA decided to continue the franchise for Medal of Honor: Warfighter, but this time with a slightly different format. This time, the teams were comprised of gamers and real-world tier-1 operators doing challenges both martial and virtual. We had a chance to catch up with Duncan Fairley, Manager of Web Video at Electronic Arts, and talk about making the second season of The Controller.

[a]list: What did you learn from last year’s edition of the controller?

Duncan Fairley: We learned a ton, we looked carefully at the feedback from each episode and gleaned a ton of interesting insights. First and foremost we drastically changed the style and format of the show. Together with our amazing production team we moved from something that resembled a traditional reality show to a show with much less exposition and personality-driven drama. It’s a strange to think about but on YouTube a sizable chunk of the audience will never watch the show the way we intended them to, they drop in and out of the narrative skipping episodes and or even watching them out of order. The production team did a great job making a show that is easy to get into and up-to-speed quickly, easy to pick-up and watch from any point in the series and above all: entertaining whether you were interested in watching the storyline unfold, watching a dramatic gaming competition or just wanted to see things being shot and blowing to bits.

[a]list: Why did you decide to mix pro-gamers and Tier 1 operators this time around?

Duncan Fairley: Some of season 1’s most interesting moments revolved around watching gamers apply the tactics and strategies they knew from the video game world to real-world scenarios. We really wanted to see if the reverse was true: If given the opportunity top soldiers would be able to use real combat training to succeed in a video game. We also wanted to upgrade from air-soft to live-ammunition and thought there would be no better teachers than warfighters that had used the same weapons in combat situations.

[a]list: How did you come to work with Machinima on the campaign?

Duncan Fairley: Since a majority of the contestants that we identified for the show were within the Machinima network it made sense to partner with them to release the series. We’ve partnered with Machinima on several other web series projects based on our games and since they have a long history of releasing videos targeted at the FPS audience it seemed like a great fit.

[a]list: What sort of feedback have you gotten from the fans on this latest edition of The Controller?

Duncan Fairley: The feedback for this series has been really great, people seem to enjoy the new show format and style. I was worried that the lack of exposition and set-up would make it difficult for the audience to follow-along with the story, but they seem to be picking up quickly on the premise and arc of the show.

[a]list: What way have you promoted The Controller socially?

Duncan Fairley: Because our gamers contestants also have active YouTube presences, promoting the show became quite a bit easier this year. The support of EA’s brand and game social accounts, along with Machinima’s social outlets and each of the contestants enabled us to get the show in front of quite a few potential viewers.

[a]list: How did you reach out to FPS Russia to work for this campaign?

Duncan Fairley: We have been big fans of FPS for a while and had been waiting for the right opportunity to work with him. We wanted to make sure that the opportunity would be right for his audience and the game so that we could organically integrate him into the concept. From early on we singled FPS out as our ideal host because of the show format and style, it worked out really well.

[a]list: I’m sure you’re not ready to confirm or announce anything, but is there potential to make The Controller and annual show?

Duncan Fairley: We’ve really enjoyed making each season of the Controller and think it’s been a great project for the company and the games associated with each season. We want to make sure we always have the opportunity to expand and improve the show so if we get the chance to do the show bigger and better with a game in the future it’s absolutely something that we’re open to.

[a]list: Duncan, thanks.

Activision Says Multiple Skylanders Releases Are ‘Complementary Experiences’

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Skylanders has resulted in 30 million toys being shipped and $500 million in lifetime sales in just under a year. The company is planning Skylanders: Battlegrounds and the free-to-play Skylanders: Lost Islands for iOS with the recent console installment Skylanders: Giants just being launched with a Skylanders: Battlegrounds Starter Kit coming soon to import the toy characters to the iOS games.

While this might sound like overkill, Activision Mobile VP Greg Canessa indicates that they’re not worried about burning people out. “If this was simply a matter of porting the games, we could risk brand saturation or overexposure,” Canessa said. “But I think by creating those complementary experiences, I like to think of it as more fleshing out of the world and creating different experiences on different devices.”

“We’re being pretty meticulous in terms of the experiences we’re creating, that are varied and interesting,” said Karthik Bala, CEO of Activision’s Vicarious Visions studio. “As a character-based franchise, we’re inspired by folks like Nintendo, who’ve really brought different dimensions to their character franchises, creating different kinds of gameplay experiences that drive engagement. That’s really important to us creatively and for our players.”

Source: GamesIndustry International

Google Announces Nexus 2012 Holiday Line Up

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Google announced their holiday lineup of Nexus devices this year and all will come pre-installed with Android 4.2, the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system. This will include a refreshed Google Nexus 7 with 16GB version as the new entry-level at $199, the 32GB Nexus 7 at $249 and a mobile data compatible version of the Nexus 7 releasing for $299 on November 13.

The Nexus 10 is Google’s first 10-inch tablet and has a 2560×1600 resolution screen, Samsung’s dual-core 2GB of RAM, a Samsung Exynos 5250 and 16 or 32 GB of storage; there is only support for Wi-Fi at this moment, however. The Google Nexus 10 will cost $399 for the 16 GB unit and $499 for the 32 GB unit, with a release date of November 13, 2012.

Nexus 4 will replace the Samsung Galaxy Nexus with a 4.7-inch screen with a resolution of 1280×768 powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and 2GB of RAM; there will not be support for LTE. The Nexus 4 will be available in 8GB and 16GB units for $299 and $349 respectively and will come out on November 13, 2012.

Source: GoogleBlog.com