Machinima Lets 23 Go From Editorial

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Machinima has laid off 23 employees from its programming and production departments, including editorial manager Billy Shibley and director of gaming programming Justin Fassino. While this is a blow to the editorial department, the YouTube channel will continue to have editorial content and is still hiring in the sales, marketing and product departments.

“This is growing pains. Machinima has grown a lot in a short amount of time. We had to look at the business, look at where we’re focusing,” said Machinima editor-in-chief Rob Smith. “It has hit the editorial group, but we are still doing editorial coverage in a slightly different way.”

Source: Joystiq.com

Raspberry Pi Online Store Launches

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The creators of the Raspberry Pi pocket computer have launched an online store with IndieCity. The store will allow creators to sell their games and apps using a secure payment system, with free content available and supportable with a ‘tip jar’.

“With the Raspberry Pi finally having a dedicated software store, it’s going to bring together the already-thriving Pi community in a way that’s simply not been possible before,” commented Eben Upton, co-founder of The Raspberry Pi Foundation.”By combining the expertise of our partners IndieCity and Velocix, we’ll be able to provide all Pi users easy access to a wide variety of content and we’re hugely grateful to both organizations for helping us to make this possible.”

To find out more, visit Store.RaspberryPi.com. {link no longer active}

GTA World The Ultimate Ambition Of Rockstar

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Grand Theft Auto V looks to outdo all previous incarnations of the franchise, having the setting of San Andreas be many times larger than Liberty City in GTA IV. With Grand Theft Auto: Vice City 10th Anniversary Edition just released on smartphones, Rockstar’s Leslie Benzies indicates that the iconic city might be revisited in a future GTA game… and might just be the tip of the iceberg.

“It is always a possibility. There are a few references to the city in our current-gen GTAs so it is part of that HD universe, and it is certainly somewhere we would love to revisit. However Vice City, perhaps more than any other GTA game, was as much about the era as the setting. Miami in the 1980’s is so iconic it would feel strange to revisit the city in a different time period,” said Benzies. “Of course at some point we would like to have one big world containing all our cities and let the player fly between them and revisit their favorite areas, and in that context reimagining Vice City would be very interesting.”

Source: DigitalTrends.com

iPhone 5 Sells 2 Million In China

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Apple has reported that the iPhone 5 sold 2 million units in its first three days on sale in China. The company plans on launching iPhone 5 in 50 more countries this month, including Brazil and Russia.

“Customer response to iPhone 5 in China has been incredible,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a statement. “China is a very important market for us and customers there cannot wait to get their hands on Apple products.”

Dikembe Mutumbo Saves The World

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On December 21, 2012 the Mayan calendar ends and many think that calamitous things will happen when it does. Fortunately, our world has a defender: Dikembe Mutumbo!

{video no longer active}

Navigate Dikembe Mutumbo through different levels in order to help save the world! The week four adventure is available now, with the next game episode coming December 17, 2012.

 

 

The Adman’s Version Of Lumps Of Coal

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There’s not a lot of joy to the world in BBH New York’s holiday microsite {link no longer active}. It’s mean. It exposes the worst of the ad industry. It’s downright hilarious.

The agency took reader comments from industry blogs AgencySpy, Ads of the World and Campaign Brief and turned them into Christmas cards.

The hook is that they’re some of the nastiest comments you’d imagine, coming from readers who found reason (and time and energy) to undercut their colleagues in the ad industry as creatively as possible.

What makes the whole thing funny is how the comments are presented. The site is visually Christmas cheer from frame to frame, and each comment is calmly read aloud while Christmas music plays in the background.

BBH New York wisely chose not to show the work being critiqued, though in some cases the nastiness extends to new hires at big agencies. It’s possible a little research could turn up who those comments were about.

In some ways creativity in the body is like steam. Sometimes it just needs to vent.

Games Lead App Store 2012 Revenue

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Games dominated the App Store during 2012, making up both seven of the top 10 highest-grossing iPad apps and all of the top 10 highest-grossing iPhone apps, led by Kabam’s Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North and Backflip Studios’ DragonVale respectively. On the paid downloads charts, games represented eight of the top 10 iPhone apps and seven of the top 10 iPad apps, with Rovio’s Angry Birds Space the top paid download on both platforms.

iPhone Top Free

  • 1. YouTube
  • 2. Instagram
  • 3. Draw Something Free
  • 4. Flashlight
  • 5. Facebook
  • 6. Pandora
  • 7. Temple Run
  • 8. Pinterest
  • 9. Twitter
  • 10. Skype

iPhone Top Paid

  • 1. Angry Birds Space
  • 2. WhatsApp Messenger
  • 3. Draw Something
  • 4. Camera+
  • 5. Where’s My Water
  • 6. Angry Birds Star Wars
  • 7. Fruit Ninja
  • 8. Angry Birds
  • 9. Bejeweled
  • 10. Tetris

iPhone Top Grossing

  • 1. Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North
  • 2. Slotmania
  • 3. Pokey by Zynga
  • 4. DragonVale
  • 5. Pandora
  • 6. Rage of Bahamut
  • 7. Bejeweled Blitz
  • 8. Clash of Clans
  • 9. CSR Racing
  • 10. The Simpsons: Tapped Out

iPad Top Free

  • 1. Skype
  • 2. Temple Run
  • 3. Facebook
  • 4. Netflix
  • 5. The Weather Channel for iPad
  • 6. Draw Something Free
  • 7. Kindle
  • 8. Pandora
  • 9. Angry Birds HD Free
  • 10. Calculator Pro for iPad Free

iPad Top Paid

  • 1. Angry Birds Space HD
  • 2. Where’s My Water
  • 3. Pages
  • 4. Draw Something
  • 5. Notability
  • 6. Angry Birds Star Wars HD
  • 7. iPhoto
  • 8. Minecraft – Pocket Edition
  • 9. Where’s My Perry
  • 10. Words With Friends HD

iPad Top Grossing

  • 1. DragonVale
  • 2. Slotmania HD
  • 3. Comics
  • 4. Pages
  • 5. Quickoffice Pro HD
  • 6. Slotmania
  • 7. Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North
  • 8. Modern War
  • 9. Mystery Manor: Hidden Adventure HD
  • 10. Clash of Clans

Source: Inside Mobile Apps

Play4Free Merges With Origin

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Electronic Arts has announced that it is rolling its Play4Free brand into Origin as Origin Free To Play. Games like Need for Speed World, Battlefield Heroes, and Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances will be redirected from Play4Free.com to www.origin.com/free.

“Why change to Origin Free To Play?” writes Sean Decker, Vice President of Play4Free. “The main reason is convenience for players— Origin now becomes your single destination for paid downloadable PC games and free-to-play games alike. Sign on to Origin to play the latest and greatest expansion pack in the Battlefield franchise, or jump into a Need for Speed World race. That’s the beauty of integrating on Origin — all your gaming content in one place, and the choice is yours what and where you want to play today.”

“What changes for our players?” he added. “Other than a new destination URL, nothing about the games has changed — these are still the premium quality games that are free to download and play, where you control when you want to pay and how much.  More games will be introduced here over time as well, and we’re excited to tell you more about those in the future.  You don’t even have to worry about creating a new account or changing passwords; just keep playing all your favorite free-to-play games using the same Origin ID you’ve been signing in with previously for all your other PC games on Origin.”

Source: EA.com