Arc System Work’s took a rather bizarre tack in announcing the release date of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R for PS Vita on April 23. The date was written on the bottom of a shoe then tweeted out.
“Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R Vita PSN Release Date brought to you by my Batman kicks,” was tweeted out.
At the behest of some curious retweeters, it was written on the other shoe that there is no European release date yet and that it will release for $14.99.
Source: Twitter.com
Electronic Arts has announced their intentions to sunset all Playfish games. This includes Madden NFL Superstars 11 & 12 and NHL Superstars on May 14 and SimCity Social, The Sims Social, and Pet Society on June 14.
“We want to inform everyone in our community that as of June 14, SimCity Social will be retiring on Facebook,” read a statement by the community manager for The Sims Social in a statement mirrored for other Playfish games. “We know that you may be disappointed by this. Retiring games is never easy, we hope you’ve enjoyed playing SimCity Social as much as we enjoyed making it. Thank you to all of our passionate and dedicated players for supporting SimCity Social. We hope to see you in some of our other titles on Facebook and other platforms.”
Source: Forum.Playfish.com {link no longer active}
Asher Vollmer, a game designer who worked at Thatgamecompany, is departing the company and looking to become an independent developer. While he was at Thatgamecompany for only 10 months, he had nothing but wonderful things to say about the studio and commended them for what their next game is shaping up to be.
“In addition to the emotional baggage, the New Game they’re making isn’t just something that you can casually abandon. Obviously I can’t divulge any details about it, but… It’s going to be huge. And I don’t mean it’s going to be a long sprawling game, I mean it’s going to be an IMPORTANT game. I genuinely believe it’s going to change the industry in a really positive way.”
“The Game is going to be incredible, but it is moving slowly. There are YEARS remaining on the project and, quite frankly, those are years I don’t want to give up for a game that isn’t truly mine,” he added. “I’ve decided to be independent because at this point in my life I want to follow whims. I want to pick my own dreams. I want to work on projects without having any idea if they’re going to succeed. I want to experiment and ramble and gamejam and make mistakes. I want to work with amazing friends across the world. I want to travel across the world and make new friends.”
Source: AsherVollmer.tumblr.com
BioShock Infinite has released and is easily an early contender for “Game of the Year” from both websites and award events for 2013. While the game has provoked much discussion in its story, it’s also inspired some great fan art, and we’d like to share with you.
Source: CVG.com
The Dishonored DLC The Knife of Dunwall places players in the roll of Daud, the legendary assassin who killed the Empress. After killing her, he grows a conscience and embarks on redemption offered by The Outsider, ultimately determining his fate with the choices you make.
The U.K. Office of Fair Trade is investigating whether online games pressure children to purchase content in free games. Along with seeing how the games might try to coerce children to get their parents to pay for products, it will also look at how games explain the true cost to play and therefore help children and parents make informed decisions.
“We are concerned that children and their parents could be subject to unfair pressure to purchase when they are playing games they thought were free, but which can actually run up substantial costs,” said Cavendish Elithorn, senior director for Goods and Consumer at the O.F.T. “The O.F.T. is not seeking to ban in-game purchases, but the games industry must ensure it is complying with the relevant regulations so that children are protected. We are speaking to the industry and will take enforcement action if necessary.”
Trade body UKIE offered a response to the investigation. “The games industry takes its responsibility to children very seriously and most devices and digital marketplaces have safeguards in place, such as password locks and parental controls, that can prevent children from being able to access in-app purchases,” said Jo Twist, CEO of UKIE. “In-app purchasing is simply a new and innovative way for consumer to pay for these games and access the extra content that they want.”
General Motors publicly announced last year that it was ending its advertising on Facebook. The automotive company retained its fan page on the social network, something that the company doesn’t have to pay anything to Facebook to use.
That appears to be changing however, as GM brand Chevrolet is trying Facebook again. They’ll be using mobile Facebook ads to promote the Sonic.
“Today, Chevrolet is launching an industry-first ‘mobile-only’ pilot campaign for the Chevrolet Sonic that utilizes newly available targeting and measurement capabilities on Facebook,” said Chevrolet marketing VP Chris Perry.
One of the key differences now as opposed to when GM pulled out of Facebook advertising is the social network’s new audience targeting tools that promise to send ads to customers who are the most likely to buy those products. No amount was given on what will likely be spent on the test.
GM pulled its paid ads from Facebook right before the social network went public in May 2012. At the time, GM was spending about $10 million on Facebook advertising, as well as another $30 million on creating content for its Facebook page.
Source: BizJournals.com
inXile’s Kickstarter for Torment: Tides of Numenera was a wild success, raising well over $4 million. Despite this record level for a game on Kickstarter, Brian Fargo doesn’t think that publishers would have bit on his game in retrospect.
“You have to remember that, I’m going to make up some numbers here, but we’ve got 60,000 people who’ve backed the projects,” said Fargo. “Let’s say I go out digitally and, we could do better, but let’s say I sell another 100,000. So that’s 160,000 pieces to a publisher That’s a waste of their time. Activision could probably sit down in an afternoon and figure out how to sell 160,000 more copies of Call of Duty in some region and have it done in a week, done and dusted. So the numbers they’re looking for means that our numbers just aren’t very exciting for them.”
“For us though, it couldn’t be better,” he added. “Our success is their failure, in terms of numbers. Gosh, if we deliver on these games, and we will deliver on these games, and we just do these kinds of units, nothing crazy happens and it allows me and my guys to make roleplaying games for another decade. And that’s fantastic, and all within numbers that just aren’t exciting to publishers.”
For Fargo, he’ll look to crowdfunding options like Kickstarter going forward rather than traditional publishers. “I’d like to be able to continue to control my destiny, I’m used to doing that,” he said. “I’m not used to working for publisher and being at their whim, so I’m very comfortable doing this and delivering a finished product. If the landscape were to change and there was no Kickstarter, I’d still continue along this route of self-financing or raising money or whatever to continue doing what we’re doing.”
When asked about the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter, Fargo revealed that it played an important role in the timing of the Torment Kickstarter. “We had a really important milestone in February when we took a snapshot of us playing the actual game,” he described. “We didn’t create a demo for a trade show, we waited until it was organically ready and correct. We captured about 15 minutes of gameplay and backers could see some of the interface, they could read the text and get a sense of the style, the graphics, the combat systems the nuances, the use of skills and so on. People loved it, they absolutely loved it. In fact, I wouldn’t have launched the Torment Kickstarter if they didn’t love that, but they did.”
“So that was a good sign for us because from this point on I just need to do more of that. There are no more technological hurdles left, it’s just a matter of implementing all of the grand depth of design that we have,” he added. “And so everything’s coming along very nicely. Our next internal milestone is that, by the end of April, all the levels will be in and playable in a rough blockout form, so we can have people come in and play the game and start iterating and iterating and iterating. As we march towards summer we’ll start sneaking out areas for people to play to prepare ourselves for a full beta test. It’s coming along very nicely.”
Source: PCGamesN.com
Ambient Studios may not have succeeded with the Death Inc. Kickstarter, but they are shifting over to a paid alpha model that lets gamers start playing today for $10. This model will allow those interested a chance to give feedback on the game’s progress before it is released in November.
“We were overwhelmed by the support we received during our recent Kickstarter campaign. Despite the fact we didn’t reach our initial target, we did raise support of over £122,000 – that’s a tremendous amount of support which has given us the confidence to push on,” said Jonny Hopper, director at Ambient Studios. “Doing it ourselves has also given us the freedom to give more back to the community. Players who pre-purchase the game now will be able to join us on this incredible journey as Death Inc. helping us shape it into the game we know will be enjoyed by the world over.”
“The tiered nature of Kickstarter meant it made sense for us to limit alpha access to players who pledged $40 or more,” he added. “Now everyone who supports us will get immediate access to the game through until the final version later this year.”
Source: VG247.com
