Batman’s Night In Prison

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Google Goes Nuts

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New Xbox Chief Says ‘Games First’

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Phil Spencer was named head of Microsoft’s Xbox division earlier this week, and he’s already putting his best foot forward when it comes to deciding what the systems should be focused on – games.

Spencer has launched a “gaming first” mantra for the systems. “Xbox is a gaming brand and (Microsoft) took the person who was at the head of the gaming franchises to lead the Xbox team,” said Spencer, speaking with Polygon. “With me, you’re going to get a focus on gaming first and a best platform to play games on. It’s not a focus we ever lost but it’s one I’ll be accentuating at Microsoft. It’s really going to be a gaming-led focus with Xbox and my new role allows us to execute on that.”

Spencer elaborated more on gaming content with his job. “I see the conversation focusing more on the games: what new IP we are investing in, what’s going on in Japan, what we are doing with Halo,” he said. “It’s my job to make sure the best content shows up there…maybe a mix of things we’re bringing back from the past, like Killer Instinct, which was very successful, as well as new IPs, like Quantum Break, Sunset Overdrive and other things we haven’t announced yet.”

“As the conversation with the customers today centers around the content that we have, that’s the majority of my focus. And we’re talking to developers about the next thing they want to be doing on Xbox,” he concluded.

Source: Polygon

Mobile App Usage Up, Surfing Down

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A new report from app analytics provider Flurry shows some up-and-down progress for mobile use, with more applications and less web surfing being used.

The company states that users are now spending 2 hours and 42 minutes per day on mobile devices for the month of March 2014. Tat’s a rise of 2 hours and 38 minutes from last year’s report. Out of those time, 2 hours and 19 minutes are used for mobile app usage, while web browsing has dropped an estimated 20 percent from the previous year.

Flurry CEO Simon Khalaf stated that the change indicate that mobile browsers have become just “a single application swimming in a sea of apps.” The company also stated that comScore was used to tally these figures across both browser usage and mobile applications.

Out of the apps used, gaming takes the biggest percentage with 32 percent, while Facebook followed closely in second with 17 percent. Other apps like YouTube, Twitter and other social messaging apps rounded out the list.

Source: TechCrunch

Industrial Toys: $5 Million For Tablet Games

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The founder of Bungie, Alex Seropian, won’t have to worry about getting funding for his latest project.

The mobile games studio Industrial Toys has managed to raise $5 million through a round of funding led by Accel Partners. These are the same partners who have funded in other successful mobile game makers, including Supercell and Playfish, among others.

As a result, this financing will help the team launch its debut title, Midnight Star, sometime this summer through a beta.

“Today’s tablets are just as good, if not better gaming platforms than the consoles we built games for in our past,” said Seropian. “However, there isn’t a ton of great content for people like us. We want to change that by building immersive games for the mobile and tablet-enabled core gamer.”

He continued, “Developing ‘core’ content for tablet isn’t about porting over something from the Xbox or PlayStation. It’s about understanding touch and gesture-based controls and how users interact with their device. We want to build an experience that spans multiple engagement points throughout the day. Since these devices are always with you, providing different levels of involvement, we’re designing our games to do the same.”

“Accel has been investing in gaming businesses for many years. As we’ve seen, each new platform shift yields a crop of large, independent gaming companies. The shift to mobile and tablets is no different, but has largely targeted the casual or mid-core gamer. The opportunity to ‘activate’ core gamers is even bigger — the content just hasn’t been there. Alex and team are developing for the gamers who’ve largely been underserved in this push to mobile,” added Vas Natarajan, with Accel Partners.

Source: GamesIndustry International

‘DOTA 2’ International Tournament Set

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Ever since its inception three years ago at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, the International has become one of the most highly regarded gaming tournaments around, where players compete in Valve’s DOTA 2 for a grand prize of $1 million. This week, the company announced that it’s returning once again.

The tournament will take place from July 18th through the 21st at the KeyArena in Seattle, Washington. Tickets are expected to go on sale April 4, ranging from $99 for general seating to $499 for VIP level. The tickets will be good for all four days.

11 teams will compete in four Regional Qualifiers beforehand, starting May 12 through the 25, and the remaining teams will make their way to the International tournament thereafter. Although not specifically mentioned in the announcement, a $1 million prize is expected to be up for grabs once again.

Good luck to those devoted DOTA 2 players taking part!

Source: Valve

Machinima Finds New CEO

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Video game content-oriented network Machinima has found a leader to help guide it in a new direction.

Chad Gutstein, formerly a chief operating officer with the arts cable channel Ovation, has signed on to become the company’s new CEO. He replaces co-founder Allen DeBevoise, who stepped down from his position last November, but remains on board with the company as a chairman.

This news follows Warner Bros. $18 million investment in the channel, as well as the dismissal of approximately 30 percent of its workforce.

Gutstein has stated that he doesn’t intend to stretch Machinima’s content outside of its core offerings for video game players and “fanboys,” although he is looking to create a better “tool set” that will benefit content creators.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Splinter Cell Movie Gets Scripter

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Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell games have never had a problem telling an intricate story, along with serving up plenty of stealth action. Nevertheless, the company’s upcoming Cell film adaptation has found a screenwriter to help flesh out the story.

Sheldon Turner, who previously worked on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, is on board for script writing duties, polishing a script that was worked on beforehand by American Hustle writer Eric Warren Singer.

The film, which will be directed by The Bourne Identity’s Doug Liman and starring The Dark Knight Rises’ Tom Hardy, could begin production as soon as August, with an intended release sometime in 2015.

Splinter Cell is just one of many projects in production at Ubisoft Motion Pictures. An adaptation of Assassin’s Creed is also in the works, featuring actor Michael Fassbender.

Source: Digital Trends

This Week’s [a]list Jobs – April 2

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[a]list daily is your source for the hottest job openings for senior management and marketing in games, entertainment and social media.

To see last week’s jobs, click here.