‘PlanetSide 2’ Coming To Brazil

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PlanetSide 2, a massive multiplayer online first-person shooter (MMOFPS) that has seen great success on the PC front, will make its way to Brazil.

Sony Online Entertainment announced a new partnership with Gamerica, Brazil’s largest game publisher, which will bring the game to market. In addition, the in-game monetization leader UOL BaoCompra will provide local payment options for players, making it easier for them to get online.

“Planetside 2 set a new standard for shooters and online games last year. With its unmatched size and massive scale battles, the war on Auraxis has only just begun,” said Louis Figueroa, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Sony Online Entertainment. “Our global player community is extremely important to us and SOE is committed to expanding the reach of our game experiences and support. BoaCompra and Gamerica consistently exceed their stellar reputation, and we are confident that players in Brazil will have superior local support with this partnership.”

“PlanetSide 2 is the best performing micro transaction-driven game of all time for Sony Online Entertainment and its popularity is growing worldwide. Sony Online Entertainment provides an excellent addition to our online game offerings and is evident of our commitment to transform current game product offerings into a truly global portfolio,” said Christian Ribeiro, CEO and Founder of UOL BoaCompra.

Julian Migura, Director of Global Business Development for UOL BoaCompra also added, “We anticipate that aligning with Sony Online Entertainment and bringing PlanetSide 2 to our network will result in a positive increase of page views, players and revenues. We’re excited to bring yet another awesome product to our customer base and give our players access to PlanetSide 2 using their preferred payment method.”

“PlanetSide 2 players are some of the most dedicated and passionate gamers in the world, so we are taking every measure to maintain the fidelity of this critically acclaimed title as we adapt it to Portuguese,” said Byong Hwang Kang, Director of Operations of Gamerica. “PlanetSide 2 raised the bar for the MMOFPS genre, and we are confident that our community will receive the same robust in-game experience as current players.”

The game is also making its way to PlayStation 4 as well, though a release date has not yet been specified.

Source: Gamerica

Claim Your ‘Destiny’… Beta Codes

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With Activision’s Destiny only a few months away from release, excitement is building for the first-person shooter – especially with former Halo developers Bungie on board. This week, that team added further to said excitement, by announcing that it would be giving away early beta codes for the game all week on the official Destiny Twitter account.

Interested parties can check in on the Twitter page, which read, “You might want to keep checking back in with us this week: we’ll be posting #Destiny Beta codes randomly each day.” Winners can then redeem the code to access the game early when the beta launches in January. Game platforms haven’t been named as of yet, but PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are very likely.

Those of you who don’t wish to gamble on winning a beta code can also pre-order Destiny through select retailers and receive one that way.

Destiny releases in early 2014 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Source: Digital Trends

 

PAX Going Back Down Under

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Considering the immense popularity of Penny Arcade Expo Australia earlier this year, it should be no surprise that the show will continue to go on.

Organizers this week announced that PAX Australia 2014 will take place from October 31 through November 2, 2014, at the much larger Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre.

“PAX is the world’s leading games festival and the return of PAX Australia to Melbourne for the second consecutive year highlights Victoria’s reputation as a key hub for games development in the Asia Pacific region,” said Minister for Innovation, Science and Small Business Louise Asher. “This year’s event in Melbourne represented the first time that PAX had been held outside of the United States – not only was it a great coup for Melbourne but the event was a runaway success.”

Robert Khoo, president of Penny Arcade, stated that Australia was an ideal location for the event, which also has shows in Boston and Seattle yearly. “Not only have they helped us secure a much-needed larger venue for the show, but they’ve paved the way for talented local creators to be showcased on the global stage. The games community here is incredible, and PAX Australia is here to stay,” Mr. Khoo said.

Source: PAX Australia

Analysis: Supercell, GungHo Dominate Mobile

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The September report from Newzoo on mobile gaming shows an interesting set of trends, with the biggest being the consolidation of top-earning games between GungHo and Supercell. Newzoo CEO and co-founder Peter Warman analyzes the numbers.

Finally, Supercell’s blockbuster mobile game Clash of Clans hit the Google Play store, launching on the 30th of September. Most likely the launch was postponed until the $1.5 billion investment of GungHo in Supercell was finalized. Since the launch, revenues of the Google Play version have ramped up to around $250,000 a day in the space of three weeks. Japanese and U.S. consumers generate an equal share of 20 percent of this total.

The launch is helping Supercell to reach two big milestones. Firstly, Clash of Clans joins a select number of games worldwide that generate revenues of more than $1 million a day. Secondly, since GungHo’s investment in Supercell, the top three games of both companies are taking close to 10 percent of game revenues in the iPhone, iPad and GooglePlay stores. On a global scale only Candy Crush sits in between Puzzle & Dragons, Hay Day and Clash of Clans to form the top four grossing mobile games on the planet. The three franchises of Supercell and GungHo combined will be running at a $1 billion yearly turnover rate soon.

GungHo, with the support of Softbank, is taking a different strategy than their Japanese colleagues GREE and DeNA in building a global mobile entertainment empire. GREE’s effort to set up local offices around the world and source games from local developers has proven not to work. At least not at the pace that they wanted and needed considering the investments they were making.

The acquisition of OpenFeint back in 2011 for $100 million showed GREE’s ambition to be a mobile destination for multiple games, a strategy that turns out not to be so effective. Only Kakao in Korea has succeeded in becoming the destination of choice to select games from a huge portfolio. Until today, GREEs best grossing app is their “game portal app” called GREE.

DeNA and its mobile game publishing brand Mobage also relies on Japan for most of its revenues and uses Western IP, such as Marvel to create success outside their home market. Their Marvel War of Heroes game is doing very well actually, ranked on position 20 in Google Play.

GungHo, with its enormous hit Puzzle & Dragons is taking a completely different approach than GREE and DeNA by focusing on a limited number of big franchises. They are buying two of the four best-grossing mobile games on the planet and a studio that has experience in developing free-to-play games with a very good conversion to revenues. The top four games are Clash of Clans, Candy Crush, Hay Day and GungHo’s own Puzzle & Dragons. Following the move by GungHo, the GungHo-Supercell alliance owns three of the four top grossing games in the world. The only one not owned is Candy Crush of King, who has filed IPO and is expected to be valued at about $5 billion. In that sense, the $1.5 billion for 51 percent of Supercell could be seen as a pretty good deal.

In other news, tomorrow Apple will introduce new devices, and it’s widely expected that new iPads will be featured. A new iPad launch will no doubt have a positive influence on hardware sales and app revenues. The bigger issue, that we all know about, is if Apple can regain its lead in device innovation. New functionalities and device properties including curved screens (LG, Samsung), 15+ MP cameras (Samsung, Nokia), underwater use (Sony) are nibbling away at the preference of the gadget geek for Apple. There are some signs that youngsters aged 16 to 25 are developing a preference for non-Apple smartphones in the US and Europe, stating that iPhones are for older people. That could have a significant and sudden impact, if they all move together. A phenomenon that brought BlackBerry to the top in Europe — temporarily that is. Because of Apple’s focus on growth in Asia this might not appear in the global sales figures until late….

‘Medieval Land Fun-Time World’

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The wait between seasons of Game of Thrones can be painfully hard sometimes, but the fans are there to fill the time with their own efforts. The people at Bad Lip Reading have worked their magic on Game of Thrones, making it seem something more like Parks and Recreation.