The October 1 submission deadline for the second Indie Game Challenge (IGC) is now less than a week away.
2011’s competition has been expanded to include international professional and amateur game developers competing in different categories for two grand prizes of $100,000.
Organisers will also offer additional prizes and scholarships in excess of $350,000, as well as one-on-one meetings between competition finalists and publishers like Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and EA.
Marketers are slaves to trends. The success and fame of others is distracting and seductive. Like a siren, the zeitgeist draws brands big and small toward it, onto rocky shores or casting them into aimless drifts in boundless seas. Businesses often invest substantial time and money in the new and the shiny for its own sake; the pace of culture and business today fueling a deep veined paranoia that they might ever be out of touch.
Format: 360
Release: September 29
Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Dark Energy Digital
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Activision CEO thinks studio autonomy is essential to successful publishing, and that EA has failed to realise this.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick impressed by Kinect and Move, but reveals the publisher is working on new bespoke peripherals.
Speaking during an exclusive interview in issue 220 of Edge (which will reach UK newsagent stands tomorrow), Activision Blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotick, says that he doesn't think that Kinect and Move will spell the end for peripherals. Kotick reveals that the publisher will continue to produce them where appropriate and that it has new devices ready for next year.
Zynga Germany has been founded following the social studio's acquisition of Mainz-based game engine developer Dextrose.
The purchased company’s primary product is its commercial engine for making browser-based games. Dubbed the Aves Engine, it allows developers to create 2D or 2.5D titles using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, TechCrunch reports.
Popular German tabloid paper Bild is reporting that Nintendo’s 3DS will launch on November 11 in Japan for the equivalent of €200 (£170 / $269).
The paper also claims (via NeoGaf) that the new handheld won’t launch in Europe until the first quarter of 2011.
It listed Mario Kart 3D, The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time 3D and Professor Layton And The Mask Of Miracle as launch titles.
F1 2010 debuted atop the UK all formats chart during the week ended September 25.
Codemasters’ game is the first Formula One title to reach number one since Sony’s Formula One 2001 over nine years ago, and it outsold that game’s launch week total more than tenfold, according to GfK Chart-Track.
Responding to widespread criticism, Microsoft has acknowledged that it needs to “step up” its PC gaming efforts.
“There’s been a fair bit of criticism aimed at Microsoft that we were spending a lot of our focus on console, and we need to be putting resources behind PC as well,” Microsoft Games Studios’ general manager Dave Luehmann told MCV.
The administrator for collapsed studio Realtime Worlds has said that APB purchasers won’t receive a refund following the online title’s closure earlier this month, but publisher EA has reportedly offered a number of affected customers vouchers and free games as compensation.
Publisher hopes to promote science, technology, engineering and maths literacy using videogames.
Activision Blizzard, the publisher behind Call Of Duty and World Of Warcraft, has joined cross-industry educational intiative, Change The Equation. The initiative is aimed at promoting literacy in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).
Industry analyst Screen Digest reports rising sector value, but ten per cent reduction in average revenue per user.
Industry analyst Screen Digest has released a report which shows "mixed fortunes" for the MMO sector. According to the report, the European and North American total market value rose from $1.4 billion in 2008, to $1.6 billion in 2009.
Pokemon Black and White debut at number one in the Japanese software chart during the week ended September 19.
Nintendo's collect 'em up shifted 2,557,779 copies, going straight in at number one and becoming the fastest ever selling Pokemon title. Halo: Reach debuted at number four, significantly boosting Xbox 360 hardware sales.
Pokemon keeps Nintendo’s handheld at top of hardware sales chart in Japan during the week ended September 19.
The DSi and DSi LL occupied the top two spots with 47,379 and 31,254 respectively (a huge sales increase over last week, thanks to the release of Pokemon Black and White), while the PSP was third best selling with 29,866 units.
PS3 was the top selling home console yet again, shifting 21,096 units, while the release of Halo: Reach saw 360 sales double to 5,804 units.
Update: Nintendo confirms existence of new controller.
FlingSmash boxart suggests that new Remote with built in Motion Plus is on the horizon. Nintendo decline to comment.
Interactive Media Group president announces he is leaving following difficult tenure.
Disney Interactive Media Group president, Steve Wadsworth, has announced that he will be leaving the role. Wadsworth joined Disney Online in 1995 and in his most recent position, was responsible for Disney's online operations, including entertainment, news and games.
Publisher seeks to partner with websites that host illegitimate versions of its games through Games Online Affiliate Program.
Atari has announced its new online gaming initiative, GO (which stands for Games Online). Speaking in an exclusive Edge interview, executive vice president of online and mobile, Tom Kozik, explained the Affiliate Program, which seeks to work with sites who host illegitimate versions of the publisher's games.
The company reveals growth and traffic stats - now employs more the 1,200 staff and adding 1,000 servers a week.
Speaking at the Oracle OpenWorld conference, Zynga CTO, Cadir Lee, revealed stats which detail the company's global operations, including server farm sizes, employee counts and data transfer levels from games like FarmVille and FrontierVille.
Though one of the most recognisable brands in gaming, Atari's fortunes have taken a turn for the worse in recent times. Hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars and appointing no fewer than four chief executives in the last five years, things have looked grim for the pioneering publisher which was once at the forefront of the industry.
Introducing our latest issue, looking at Bizarre Creations' bid to bring Bond from cinema to console entirely intact.
Two books leading to two games today: a pretty appropriate state of affairs, as I’ll be taking a very quick look at the shapes literature assumes as it becomes entangled with videogames.
Halo: Reach becomes the most talked about game by a significant margin in its debut week.
Unsurprisingly, Halo: Reach has usurped Mafia II as the most talked about game this week, accruing a whopping 26,887 mentions compared to Mafia II's second place total of 5961. PlayStation Move game, Sports Champions, makes its debut as the fourth most talked about game with 2913.
New company to focus on free-to-play online titles for the European market.
Neonga, a new online games company that will specialise in free-to-play games for the European market, has been founded by former staff from Berlin-based online publisher, Frogster.
Former Frogster Online Gaming director of marketing, Rolf Kloeppel, left the company earlier this year and is working with Benjamin Kaiser, who was previously Frogster's director of research and development, on the new venture.
Publisher announces milestone two years on from the launch of Apple's digital platform. 100 Gameloft titles released in that period.
Gameloft has announced that it has achieved over 20 million game sales through the App Store, releasing 100 games since its launch in 2008. According to the publisher, 42 of the 47 games it released this year made it into the top five best-selling games on the platform.
