You Found The Grappling Hook - PRO EDITION
Posted by Terry Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:43:00 GMT
Much of the gameplay is different. It now involves espionage and national security.
Gleemax Sponsors the IGF
Posted by Derek Yu Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:08:00 GMT
Gleemax is a new online gaming community started by Wizards of the Coast (you know, the Magic: The Gathering guys?). It’s essentially a social networking/news site focused around tabletop strategy and RPG games. It’s also, apparently, going to be an indie video game portal.
IGF Platinum Sponsor and Magic: The Gathering developer Wizards of the Coast have announced their own “Gleemie Award,” giving IGF entrants and finalists a secondary cash and a chance for a distribution agreement, in conjunction with its recently launched community site Gleemax.
The top three winners will receive $2000, $3000, and $5000 cash prizes, respectively, along with the chance for distribution on Gleemax. The seven contestants are World of Goo, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Skyrates, Depths of Peril, Quadradius, Desktop Tower Defense, and Polarity.
This sounds very similar to Gametap’s unsuccessful involvement in last year’s IGF, although the big difference is that WotC is offering cash prizes and not advances (on 5 or 10-year distribution deals).
(Thanks, Alec!)
Simon Carless Says XBLA/PSN Games Too Cheap
Posted by Derek Yu Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:00:00 GMT
Simon Carless has written a really good article on GameSetWatch where he argues that downloadable games on XBLA and PSN are too cheap to sustain themselves as a viable business model.
The problem, as I see it, is that setting a $10 precedent for what are often complex, multi-mode, multi-level games presumes that you can pretty easily get to 100,000 units sold – given that you only get 70% of revenues and that most games probably cost in the low to mid hundreds of thousands of dollars if you’re actually using hired staff that you pay and take a year to a year and half to make it including (lengthy!) approval processes. Given the amount of games flooding onto the service, I’m not sure that’s quite so easy now. And it’s just going to get harder.
Also, keep in mind that in 2006, Garage Games’ Jeff Tunnell revealed that “The publicly available information on this is that the distribution fees for bringing a game to XBLA is 35 to 70 percent, depending upon participation by [Microsoft]” (via Gamespot). In other words, Tunnell implied that the “70% of revenues” is actually a ceiling… and one that you get only when you are doing the most work.
But yes, good analysis, and a must-read for anyone who’s interested in developing for consoles.
(Thanks, Alec!)
Free Lunch Design Bought by Advergaming Publisher
Posted by Derek Yu Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:48:00 GMT
Free Lunch Design, the developer behind the freeware megahit Icy Tower, has been acquired by Muskedunder Interactive, a Swedish game development company and publisher that specializes in Flash “advergames.” (I really don’t like that term!) From Gamasutra:
Muskedunder primarily develops advergames and serious games for clients including Doritos, Paramount Home Entertainment and Red Cross. Through the acquisition, Peitz becomes lead programmer and shareholder.
Muskedunder Interactive CEO Magnus Alm says his company will not be leaving the advergames space, but aims to expand its development profile.
So far, the only change is a spiffy new Flash-based website. All the FLD games are still up for download, with a promise from Alm that there will be more free games to come. I’m hoping the content of the games don’t change either!
In any case, all the best to Johan, and I hope we can see more great freeware from him in the future (it’s been a while since the last, hasn’t it?).
(Thanks, Alec!)
Undertow Creators Working on Ender's Game... Game
Posted by Derek Yu Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:21:00 GMT
Chair Entertainment, the developers behind the underwater XBLA game Undertow, have announced that they have secured the rights to Orson Scott Card’s timeless sci-fi novel “Ender’s Game,” and will develop the first video games based on it. That’s right, video games. Chair is planning on releasing games on multiple platforms, including PC, next-gen consoles, and handhelds.
The games, which will have no tie-in to the upcoming film (when’s that coming out?), will be based on the infamous “Battle Rooms” from the book. It’s unclear how similar the games will be to one another, although Chair revealed that they would be using the Unreal Engine 3 for all of them. Even the handhelds?
“From the moment I started working with Donald Mustard and his team at Chair, I knew that these were the guys I wanted to do the first Ender’s Game video game,” said Card. “It’s not enough to slap the Ender’s Game name on just any game – it has to be exciting, memorable, and endlessly replayable. Chair shares my understanding of this and I am looking forward to working with them to ensure the game is as authentically Enderish as possible.”
I was really surprised about this, until I learned that Chair has had a long-time relationship with Card, which resulted in the award-winning sci-fi novel Empire.
What can I say? I love Ender’s Game, and I hope they do a good job with it! (But actually, what I really want to play is that game inside Ender’s holographic desk.)
(Source: Earnest Cavalli, via Game|Life)
Mount and Blade v1.0 Gets Publisher
Posted by Derek Yu Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:58:00 GMT
...and a tentative release date of “Q2 2008” otherwise known as “coming this summer” in the Northern Hemisphere. (Actually, the developer is quoted as saying that they are “aiming for May” on their forums.)
Mount and Blade, the insanely awesome combat/cavalry sim by husband and wife development team TaleWorlds, has been in open beta for nigh 3 years now, and is currently at version 0.903. The official release of the game will be published by Paradox Interactive, best known for developing the Europa Universalis series of historical strategy games. Paradox is also publishing the next installment of the indie horror series Penumbra, titled Black Plague, which is coming out on February 12th!
Fortunately, this deal will not affect current players, who can still pre-purchase the game at $25 (final version $40) and look forward to new beta releases until 1.0.
Check out the official press release and also some new screenshots at Worthplaying.
(Source: Kieron Gillen, via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
Who Has the Biggest...
Posted by Derek Yu Sun, 20 Jan 2008 04:01:00 GMT
John Romero had some not-so-nice words for Gamecock CEO (and former Ion Storm CEO) Mike Wilson on his blog, and Mike responded in kind in the comments. The whole incident is funny and ugly and not a little bit sad. Read it and weep. Or don’t!
Gamecock is worth mentioning at least once, however. Wilson once described his group in a Gamasutra interview thusly:
It’s indie but it’s “big indie”, with proper distribution and marketing money and all that stuff.
Which could be a good idea if its founders weren’t destroying their reputation (what there is of it) piece-by-piece by throwing money away on lavish clown orgies and generally making cocks of themselves. Independent developers could always use more resources, but do they really need this? Well, no.
Cryptic Sea Megasale
Posted by Derek Yu Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:33:00 GMT
Edmund McMillen, artist/designer at Cryptic Sea, has informed me that Gish is now on sale for about the next week or so (via Steam). The formerly $10 game is now $5. If you haven’t yet tried this totally sweet platform game, now’s your chance.
And Blast Miner, the physics-based puzzler which I once panned (like a total dick) and eventually accepted (but only after Edmund added a puzzle mode and also did a 360 piledriver on me at IGF), is now $10, down from the original $20.
Casual Game Reviews Don't Matter
Posted by Derek Yu Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:00:00 GMT
“[Casual gamers] are not swayed by a low score on IGN or a low score out of one of these gaming sites,” she continues. “It’s a little bit amusing, in that it’s people reviewing games against measures that are important to core gamers yet are not important to casual gamers.”
-Kathy Vrabeck, President, EA Casual
Next-Gen has an interesting look into the correlation between casual game reviews and casual game sales. Not surprisingly, bad reviews don’t really impact the sales of casual games, since ostensibly casual gamers don’t read reviews. (And if we’re talking about IGN, then that’s probably a good thing.)
What I find amusing, though, is how callous the perceived attitude is toward casual gamers by the people who publish them. Here’s a quote from EA Casual VP, Russell Arons:
”...The measurement [of a game’s appeal] for women aged 25 to 34 would more likely be whether or not they’d hang up on their girlfriend to play this game.”
Geez. I realize that no one is forcing people to buy casual games and that a lot of people enjoy them. Regardless, I’m looking forward to the day when women aged 25 to 34 are not viewed merely as apathetic cash cows with money-laden milk udders, content to chew whatever gaming cud you give them.
Casual Games, Cloning, and Discussion Thereof
Posted by Derek Yu Fri, 30 Nov 2007 03:24:00 GMT
Russell Carroll, all around nice guy, marketing director at Reflexive, and the webmaster of Game Tunnel, has an interesting op-ed on Gamasutra called “Cloning Created the Casual Business.” In it he talks about the impact of cloning on the casual games industry (now apparently worth $2.25 billion).
The argument has been made that clones don’t pay the bills, so developers shouldn’t make them. I would argue the opposite is true. Clones do sell, which is why people keep making them. Money drives the casual games market just like it does any other industry. Where there is no money, people take a different path. Clones are being made because they are often more lucrative than original titles.
Russ reveals that the average Hidden Object game on Reflexive sells roughly 3 games to the sale of every average “original” title. I think this indicates that clones can sell. It doesn’t, however, convince me that they sell better than original games (note: which is not the argument Russ is trying to make), since a number of important comparisons are overlooked, such as the sales of clones to the originals that spawned them. Nor does it speak to the quality of the original games that didn’t sell so well. I think clones are just easier to make, and probably give a better return on investment than your average original game, which is why people make them.
It’s interesting to note that Digital Eel, the developers behind Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, have just made two more of their games free, and have also released a $10 casual matching game, Soup du Jour. The game has a neat physics-ey aspect, but it seems like quite a deviation from their other games, so I wonder…
My attitude about casual games has vacillated from derision, to indifference, to some appreciation (for bringing in non-gamers to the fold, so to speak). Now, I think it’s a bit of all three. I still hope that “core” and “hardcore” developers will not see casual cloning as an easy way out. My belief is still that a good original game will outsell any clone, and creating an original title has side benefits, like curing cancer.
I’m serious, they did a study where they placed two monkeys with cancer in a basement and had them make games. One monkey made a clone of Diner Dash, and the other made an original title about dealing with cancer as a monkey. The Diner Dash monkey died after a week with a tumor the size of a minivan, and the other monkey survived and lived a long and prosperous life! Look it up on the internet.
Anyway, thanks, Russ, for the article, and I hope to see more like it!
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