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August 19, 2010

Grasshopper And Digital Reality Join Forces

Grasshopper And Digital Reality Join Forces

The Killer 7 developer partners with Hungarian studio to create a range of digitally-distributed titles.

Killer 7 and No More Heroes developer Grasshopper Manufacture and Hungarian studio Digital Reality have announced a co-development partnership. The union will focus on digitally-distributed games.

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Sega And Blitz Join Activision In Dundee

Sega And Blitz Join Activision In Dundee

The Creative Assembly and Blitz Game Studios announce recruitment events for staff from ailing APB developer, Realtime Worlds.

The Creative Assembly and Blitz Games have joined Activision in setting up recruitment meetings in Dundee for staff from Realtime Worlds. The APB developer entered administration on Tuesday.

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August 18, 2010

Realtime Worlds Attracting Buyer Interest

Realtime Worlds Attracting Buyer Interest

Administrator Begbies Traynor says that 53 jobs have been retained at the Dundee developer; company owes creditors in the UK in the region of £3 million.

Joint administrator Paul Dounis has said that Realtime Worlds is attracting interest from potential buyers in both the UK and US. “We are actively pursuing all these expressions of interest which have come from both the UK and US,” he said in a statement this afternoon.

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Patching Backbreaker

Patching Backbreaker
As an animation software developer, NaturalMotion has seen its Euphoria engine powering everything from the flailing storm troopers of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, to the stumbling horses of Read Dead Redemption. It can also be found at the very heart of Backbreaker, the studio’s own American football game.

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Tooling Up Torchlight

Tooling Up Torchlight
Torchlight’s success took even its creators by surprise. Designed to introduce players to the world in which Runic Game’s upcoming MMORPG would be set, the Diablo-esque RPG resonated with players craving an accessible dungeon crawler, and left many fans demanding a sequel – this time with a multiplayer mode.

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Portal 2 Release Date Confirmed

Portal 2 Release Date Confirmed

Valve's sequel to debut on February 9 next year. Stephen Merchant also confirmed as voice actor.

Speaking to Game Informer at Gamescom, Valve confirmed Portal 2's release date and also said that Wheatley, the friendly robot in the reveal trailer, will be voiced by British actor and writer Stephen Merchant.

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Avatars Will Be Redesigned For Kinect

Avatars Will Be Redesigned For Kinect

Rare updates Xbox 360 Avatars as unrealistic proportions affect hand-eye coordination when using Kinect.

Rare senior programmer Nick Burton has told Official Xbox Magazine that the developer is redesigning the Xbox 360's Avatars for Kinect. The change is as a result of users struggling to co-ordinate themselves with the cartoony proportions of the current Avatars, which Rare also designed, when using Microsoft's motion control device.

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No Motion Control For FIFA Yet

No Motion Control For FIFA Yet

Peter Moore expresses doubt over current 3D TV take up and says that Kinect and Move will not add to FIFA experience.

EA Sports president Peter Moore has told Eurogamer that Kinect, PlayStation Move and stereoscopic 3D won't be coming to FIFA in the near future. Speaking at Gamescom, Moore felt that the technologies wouldn't enhance the traditional FIFA experience.

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New Resistance And Rachet And Clank Games Announced

New Resistance And Rachet And Clank Games Announced
Insomniac reveals Resistance 3 and four player co-op title Rachet And Clank: All 4 One at Gamescom 2010.

Speaking at Gamescom 2010 Sony Conference yesterday, president and CEO of Insomniac Games Ted Price revealed Resistance 3 and Rachet And Clank: All 4 One.

A trailer for the latest game in the Resistance franchise was shown (below), but didn't include any gameplay footage. According to Insomniac's Twitter page, the game is scheduled for release in 2011.

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Zynga Acquires Conduit Labs

Zynga Acquires Conduit Labs

Boston-based social music gamemaker purchased for undisclosed sum; Zynga uses it to form Zynga Boston.

In yet more news from the social games specialist, which today launched its first game in east Asia, it has established another studio to complement its existing studios in San Francisco, Austin, Baltimore, Bangalore, Beijing and Los Angeles.

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Riot Games Counter-Files 'Defense Of The Ancients' Trademark

Riot Games Counter-Files 'Defense Of The Ancients' Trademark

League Of Legends developer responds to Valve's trademarking of 'DotA', aiming to keep the game open to modding community.

Riot Games, the developer League of Legends, has counter-filed a trademark application for 'Defense Of The Ancients' in response to Valve Software's recent copyright application for acronym 'DotA'.

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Zynga Launches First Game In Asia

Zynga Launches First Game In Asia

Zynga Poker is social game maker's first step to building playbase in Asia.

The game, launched as a beta in Taiwan and Hong Kong, is a Mandarin localisation of Zynga's first social game, which opened in July 2007, seven months after the company's founding. It is not currently available in mainland China, where Facebook is currently blocked.

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Bill Roper Leaves Cryptic Studios

Bill Roper Leaves Cryptic Studios

Former Blizzard director leaves Champions Online and Star Trek Online developer after two years, citing "restlessness".

Cryptic Studios has announced that chief creative office Bill Roper is departing the company after two years working with the Champions Online and Star Trek Online developer.

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Gamescom 2010 Roundup

Gamescom 2010 Roundup
Check here for our coverage of the European videogame trade show.

PS3
New Resistance And Rachet And Clank Games Announced
Insomniac reveals Resistance 3 and four player co-op title Rachet And Clank: All 4 One at Gamescom 2010.

PS3 Move Bundle Priced And Dated

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Report: Star Wars: Force Unleashed III Cancelled

Report: Star Wars: Force Unleashed III Cancelled

Anonymous source reveals cancellation of third Force Unleashed game and upcoming redundancies. Staff morale at "all time low".

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Activision To Hold Dundee Recruitment Event

Activision To Hold Dundee Recruitment Event

Publisher and recruitment agency aim to attract Realtime Worlds staff in the wake of the company entering administration.

Following yesterday's news (which we have updated today) that Realtime Worlds has entered administration, Activision and game industry recruitment specialist Specialmove have announced a recruitment event in Dundee aimed at attracting staff from the ailing developer.

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August 17, 2010

PS3 Move Bundle Priced And Dated

PS3 Move Bundle Priced And Dated

Sony confirms the pricing and release dates for two new PS3 SKUs, both of which will offer greater hard-drive capacity.

As previously predicted,  Sony will release two new PS3 SKUs, one of which will be packaged with Move. Speaking at Gamescom 2010, Andrew House confirmed the price points and revealed that both SKUs will feature larger hard-drives.

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Gran Turismo 5 European Release Date

Gran Turismo 5 European Release Date

Polyphony Digital's driving simulator will be released in Europe on November 3rd.

Speaking at Gamescom 2010, Andrew House has confirmed that the latest game in the PlayStation racing series will be released in Europe on November 3rd, just one day after its U.S. release date.


Playing It Straight

Playing It Straight
Over the years, developers have asked a great deal of our imaginations. We’ve had to project into the shoes of an Italian plumber, identify with the plight of a pill-hungry yellow blob, be men and women of all ethnic backgrounds, children, animals, criminals, lunatics, invalids, gods, aliens. But there’s one thing we’ve never been asked to do: play as a homosexual character.

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BioWare Announces Mass Effect 2 For PS3

BioWare Announces Mass Effect 2 For PS3

Speaking at Gamescom, Bioware's CEO Ray Muzyka announces PS3 port and gives release date  for Dragon Age 2.

As part of Electronic Arts conference at the trade show in Cologne, Muzyka revealed that the well-received science-fiction sequel will be released on Sony's console in January 2011.

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Realtime Worlds Has Entered Administration

Realtime Worlds Has Entered Administration

UPDATE BELOW ORIGINAL STORY

Adminstrative receiver Begbies Traynor has confirmed to us rumours that the Dundee-based APB and Crackdown maker has entered administration.

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Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

A highlight from our community-written blogs, featuring a discussion about the danger of comparing new experiences to nostalgic memories.

Whenever we play a new game, a dewy eyed Christopher_ Anthony argues, we measure it against experiences from the past that have provided enjoyment, even if they aren't directly comparable.

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Game Industry All-Party Group Reformed

Game Industry All-Party Group Reformed

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Computer and Video Games Industry has been reformed with a new executive committee.

The new group will be co-chaired by the Culture, Media, Olympics and Sport Select Committee Chair, John Whittingdale OBE MP and the former Labour Minister, Tom Watson MP. It will look at various industry issues including Games Tax Relief, skills and training, and the relationship between industry and universities.

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$3.3 Billion Social Network Ad Spend In 2010

$3.3 Billion Social Network Ad Spend In 2010

Industry analyst eMarketer predicts 31 per cent increase in worldwide social network advertising spend this year.

Industry analyst eMarketer has predicted that social networks worldwide will attract $3.3 billion in advertising spend this year. 39 per cent of that figure will go to Facebook alone, and the estimate represents a 31 per cent increase over 2009's $2.5 billion.

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Blizzard Wins $88 Million In Lawsuit

Blizzard Wins $88 Million In Lawsuit

Developer wins default court judgement in lawsuit against host of unauthorised World Of Warcraft server.

Gamasutra has acquired court documents that reveal a U.S. District Court judge awarded Blizzard $88 million last week. The developer won a lawsuit against Alyson Reeves, who operated an unauthorised World Of Warcraft server on scapegaming.com.

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