We’re fortunate enough to have visited quite a few game and technology development studios, and we’ve noticed many repeating themes. Desks covered with toys and walls plastered in concept art are one thing, but one less explicable trend is a common move towards the upper floors of whichever building houses them.
“You might not recognise them as games,” David McCarthy, a member of the EMEA Developer Relations team at GREE, warned at Develop Liverpool this morning, in a talk that described how GREE rules the Japanese social mobile game market.
EA has belatedly followed through on the promise of a free copy of Battlefield 1943 for PlayStation 3 owners of Battlefield 3.
Sony's Jack Tretton announced the offer at E3 in June, but it failed to materialise, and a class-action suit was filed in the United States on behalf of those affected.
Jim Ryan, president and CEO of SCEE, has signalled that Sony has learned from its experience this generation, saying that launching its next console after the competition, as it did with the PS3, would be "undesirable."
Speaking to Eurogamer at a press event in London yesterday to promote the upcoming PlayStation Vita, Ryan said: "I think we would consider it undesirable to be significantly later than the competition."
Apple has pulled Big Fish Games' iPad app, the first videogame app to make use of the App Store's subscription service, without explanation.
"We were notified that the app was removed," founder Paul Thelen told Bloomberg. "We're trying to follow up with Apple to try to figure out what happened."
I’m discussing LA Noire with an industry friend. I say I find it simplistic, unfair and like playing Deal Or No Deal. There’s no strategy. My companion says he thinks it represents a step forward for storytelling, and that my cynicism perhaps indicates that it’s so good that it’s beyond most players.
This makes me pause for a moment. I ask what he means and he says it plainly: gamers are not good enough for a game such as this. They don’t get it.
EB Games, the Canadian subsidiary of US retail chain GameStop, has reportedly merged its used and new game sections, with minimal distinction between which is which and new copies of games hidden behind pre-owned ones.
UK trade association TIGA says that Square Enix's announcement this week of a new studio in Montreal further highlights the need for the UK government to introduce targeted tax breaks for the videogame industry.
The latest Call Of Duty game outsold high-profile new Japanese releases to debut at number one on the country’s weekly sales chart.
Published by Square Enix in Japan, the subtitled shooter shifted 180,000 copies on PS3, while the Xbox 360 edition placed at number seven with 30,000 sales.
Industry veterans Martin and Gareth Edmonson have taken senior roles and seats on the board of directors at Liverpool-based mobile game publisher Thumbstar Games.
The company is to open a new studio in Newcastle, where Martin, one of Thumbstar's early investors, will serve as chief creative officer; brother Gareth, who recently quit his position as managing director of Ubisoft Reflections, joins as CEO.
Big Fish Games has announced a cloud game streaming service for the iPad after securing Apple's approval to use App Store subscriptions for videogames.
Bloomberg reports that the Seattle-based casual gaming company will offer users instant access to its library of games from iPad for $4.99 a month, rising to $6.99 next year when more games are added.
There will also be a free membership option, supported by adverts and with access limited to half an hour a day. An Android version is also planned for release early next year.
Codemasters has announced Dizzy Prince Of The Yolkfolk, which will be released on December 9 for Android, iPhone and iPad.
It's a remake of the sixth game in the Oliver twins' series of adventure games, first released in 1991 for Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, DOS, NES and Amiga.
UPDATE: The overall value of transactions has been called into question. See here for details.
German browser game company Bigpoint made €2 million from sales of one of its virtual goods in just four days.
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The latest Humble Indie Bundle has launched, this time featuring all four of UK studio Introversion's games.
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Labour party MP and chairman of the home affairs select committee Keith Vaz has called on Parliament to express "deep concern" at Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's depiction of a terrorist attack on London.
Vaz, a frequent critic of violent videogames, also calls for UK ratings board the British Board Of Film Classification (BBFC) to more strictly control the sale of violent games.
Following Friday's article on the apparent decline of cheats in games we speak to the founders of Cheat Happens, which offers cheats for a price that many are happy to pay. Its trainers are the type that patch a game in memory, sitting on your desktop and activating cheats via hotkeys. Search Google for such things and you enter the sprawling grey market that fills the void left by official exploits, full of scams, trojans and click-through merchants.
Following Friday's article on the apparent decline of cheats in games we speak to the founders of Cheat Happens, which offers cheats for a price that many are happy to pay. Its trainers are the type that patch a game in memory, sitting on your desktop and activating cheats via hotkeys. Search Google for such things and you enter the sprawling grey market that fills the void left by official exploits, full of scams, trojans and click-through merchants.
Id Software has released the source code for its 2004 shooter Doom 3.
Shares in Game Group have more than halved since the UK retailer lowered its revenue forecasts last week.
PlayStation Vita will launch in Europe next February with 11 firstparty games, including two newly announced titles, Zipper Interactive’s Unit 13 and Evolution Studios’ MotorStorm RC.
They will be joined by a selection of thirdparty offerings, providing what Michael Denny, SVP Worldwide Studios Europe, labelled “one of the best launch line-ups of any games console ever”.
The latest update to the Xbox 360 dashboard will be released on December 6, Xbox Live mouthpiece Major Nelson has confirmed.
The update, revealed in June, adds cloud storage for game saves and Xbox Live profiles, and has been designed around Kinect, with the dashboard fully controllable by voice commands.
Microsoft will also begin adding content from TV companies including the BBC, Channel 4 and HBO, which it announced last month.
If you were part of an experienced team making your first iOS title quickly and on a tight budget, the result might well look a little like Extraction: Project Outbreak. ShortRound’s Cannon Fodder-inspired zombie shooter is confidently constructed around an original, and extremely promising, single-finger control scheme. When the game struggles, it tends to be with content rather than concept.
Call Of Duty: Elite, the stat-tracking platform that launched alongside Modern Warfare 3 on November 8, amassed a million paid members in just six days, Activision has announced.
In a press release, the publisher claims that more than four million have signed up for the service, which is available for free with a premium version, costing £34.99 per year, offering extra features including clan support and video content.