In episode 4 of The Walking Dead, the group arrives in Savannah where they discover the depths that people went to to survive within militarized enclave known as Crawford. The survivors will have to deal with some of the most horrifying things yet in order to make it through.
In this second episode of the ZombiU development diary, Gabrielle Shrager and Antony Johnston, Story Design co-directors, tell us more about the story and setting behind ZombiU. John Dee, hermetical mathematician and adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, comes up a couple of times.
It’s easy to annoy through social media, and the more removed the source the more annoying it seems. That’s a tough place to be as a brand. Once they’re perceived as boring or worse, bothersome, it’s every reason to say goodbye for good.
Five brands seem to be making mistakes along those lines in their social media communication, ranging from pestering followers to just being lame. Whether it’s Papa John overselling coupons or Triscuit crackers coming across as the self-absorbed type, their missteps help shed light on a few worst practices.
Find out more at iMedia Connection.
Rovio announced that Bad Piggies rocketed up to the top slot in the App Store three hours after launching. This is better to the release of even the last two games from Rovio: Angry Birds Space and Amazing Alex.
“It’s been an incredible launch, both for the game and for Bad Piggies as a brand,” said Rovio CEO Mikael Hed.
The first free Bad Piggies update will launch in the next few weeks, introducing new levels and unlockable content.
The sixth Humble Indie Bundle has concluded, selling 316,273 bundles sold for a total of $2,048,563.32. The basic games of Rochard, Shatter, S.P.A.Z., Torchlight, and Vessell were available to everyone who contributed, those who gave a $1 or more had access to Steam services, and Dustforce, BIT.TRIP Runner, Gratuitous Space Battles, Jamestown and Wizorb were available to those who donated above the average, which was $6.48.
Notch ended up giving the most once again to the Humble Indie Bundle, dropping $10,000. Check out the full spread of statistics on the Bundle below:
Source: HumbleBundle.com
Epic Games has announced that Cliff Bleszinski has departed the company. The now former studio design director at Epic spent two decades at the company designing titles as varied as Jazz Jackrabbit and Gears of War.
“In 20 wonderful years with Epic, Cliff Bleszinski has grown into a true design luminary, and his contributions to the ‘Unreal’ and’Gears’ series have helped shape the game industry into what it is today,” said Tim Sweeney, Epic’s founder, CEO and technical director. “Cliff leaves Epic with our gratitude for his many contributions, and our wishes for continued success in the next chapter of his life!”
“I’ve been doing this since I was a teenager, and outside of my sabbatical last year, I have been going non-stop. I literally grew up in this business, as Mike likes to say. And now that I’m grown up, it’s time for a much needed break,” said Bleszinski. “I will miss the projects, the playtests, the debates, and most importantly, the people. Epic only hires the best of the best, and it has been a joy working with each and every one of you on a daily basis, whether you were hired weeks ago or decades ago. I have been fortunate enough to collaborate with a variety of disciplines, from code to art to marketing and PR — it’s been one big, rewarding learning experience. I’m confident that each project that is being built, whether at Epic, Chair, PCF, or Impossible will be top notch and will please gamers and critics alike.”
Reports of a new iPad mini have been rampant, but the device was a no-show at Apple’s most recent press event that included the iPhone 5 and a new iPod. However, reports are that mass production on the smaller tablet device has begun.
It is believed the device will have a 7.85-inch liquid-crystal display with a lower resolution than the latest iPad, but will have a cheaper price. This is key, as rivals like Google and Amazon are pumping out cheaper alternatives to the iPad in an ever expanding tablet PC market.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Raptr has announced its new Raptr Report, designed to examine the relationships players have with game companies. The data from the report says that game companies with frequent community engagement programs do well in their user acquisition, retention and re-engagement.
“The games as a service era is here and it would be a big mistake to think that simply means ongoing game updates and metrics-based iterations,” said Dennis Fong, CEO of Raptr. “Most publishers and developers tend to think of a robust community program as goodwill initiatives, but this data shows that it’s not just nice to have – it impacts the success of the game directly. Developers and publishers need to consider being player-first by design.”
A key part of the Raptr Report is gameplay habits of players being used to understand the value of key community activities – activities for players that they can participate with others, like mod tools, eSports events and loyalty programs. Both bring in new players along with lapsed players.
The company says that mods can bring in spikes of new players up to 20 times normal rates and an ongoing community engagement program can result in sustained monthly growth of more than 7 percent. These vibrant communities mean more gameplay activity and Raptr observes up to twice as much time spent in games with high support.
Specific examples include Portal 2, where mod tools and user-generated content brought in 23 times the new users, 11 times returning players (defined by players who had lapsed by two weeks or more) and increased the average playtime per user by 36 percent. DayZ, a popular user generated mod for ArmA II, helped drum up attention for the base game, generating 14 times more new players and increased re-engagement of lapsed users by more than 2 times within a month of release, while Bohemia Interactive reported that sales for ArmA II spiked 40 times greater within 4 months.
Additionally, League of Legends by Riot Games sees 7.6 percent user growth each month on average, in part due to frequent community engagement activities, boosted by eSport events. Perfect World’s use of Raptr Community Platform activities for Blacklight: Retribution increased daily active users by 4 times over the course of several months.
Reports are that the Xbox Music service will launch on October 26. This new music service will offer ad-supported free music streaming and a premium subscription service, not unlike Spotify.
Microsoft SkyDrive will be integrated into Xbox Music for storage and streaming of music from the cloud, similar to Amazon’s Cloud Player app. It is expected that the Xbox 360’s dashboard will update to reflect the addition of Xbox Music.
Complementing Microsoft’s increased focus on cross-platform support, Xbox Music will launch on Xbox 360, Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8, with apps for other platforms like Android and iOS in the works.
Electronic Arts announced that 4.5 million copies of FIFA 13 have sold in its first five days of availability, marking a roughly 150 percent first week sales increase since EA sold 1.7 million with FIFA 10. This makes the game both the biggest game launch of 2012, and the biggest sports game release of all time.
The soccer game first sold a record 353,000 copies on PS3 and Xbox 360 copies in North America on its first day, complemented by the U.K.’s 1.23 million copies sold in its first 48 hours. EA also says the game has the highest daily online activity in company history, with as many as 800,000 simultaneous players.
