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The strategy game Evony, infamous for its salacious, cleavage-filled ads, has helped do some good. The Facebook version of the game is now credited with helping to save the life of a disabled man. More »
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According to an article by The Daily Beast's Richard Abowitz, online games like World of Warcraft are one of the top five reasons porn-for-profit is dying, and it all comes down to staying power. More »
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Atlus has completed phase one in the deployment of their internet community and online gaming portal Atlus Online, with mascot Jack Frost running rampant all over the page. More »
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Atlus fans around the world will soon have a lovely new place to play online games and chat with other like-minded individuals, as Atlus readies their new community portal, Atlus Online. More »
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Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a nice interview up with Turbine producer Jeffrey Steefel, mostly centered on the Lord of the Rings Online forthcoming Mines of Moria expansion — also discussed are things like how Steefel perceives LOTRO's performance, expansion features, and issues of designing for a license. While WoW is wide open, not being tied to anything but itself, LOTRO has slightly more constraints in what can — or should — be done. Steefel doesn't see this as a problem, however: More »
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The flow of free to plays coming from Asia to Western markets doesn't seem like it's going to stop any time soon; THQ has announced plans to bring Dragonica, a Korean-developed casual MMO, to North America next year in partnership with Chinese game operator ICE. Dragonica will be free to play, supported by pay-for-content and microtransactions, and is a 3D side scrolling game. From what I've seen of it, it looks sickeningly cute. Will we have another MapleStory-esque sleeper hit on our hands? Full release after the jump. More »
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Perhaps some of the strife in the Middle East can be attributed to the fact that they don't have any massively-multiplayer online role-playing games localized in Arabic and Farsi. New publisher Game Power 7 is looking to rectify that unfortunate oversight. They've just launched themselves as the first online game publisher in the Middle East and North Africa, established to help game developers publish localized versions of their online games in the region. Think of them as the Arabic version of China's The9. More »
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Founder and former CEO of Jamdat Mobile Mitch Lasky, now a partner at Benchmark Capital, is putting a $7 million vote of confidence behind a new game company, Riot Games, headed up by CEO Brandon Beck and president Mark Merrill. Making me feel like a total slouch, by the way, because at age 26 and 27 respectively, my age peers Beck and Merrill are heading up a multimillion-dollar company. More »
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Veteran UK game journalist Jim Rossignol, currently one of the Big Four at the Rock Paper Shotgun blog, has just published a book called 'This Gaming Life,' documenting his experiences in three different cities pursuing and documenting the culture of online games. More »
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I don't have time to waste this weekend, sadly, but if you do, there's a challenging little puzzler called Putty Puzzler, found over on the interestingly named 'Coke and Code.' It's putty. It's a puzzle. It's kinda hard. I spent a little bit of time with it and was pleasantly challenged — I'll come back for more after I've got a little time to waste. More »
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Danc at Lost Garden has done a number of essays relating to indie game design; quite a few of them involve his own 'prototyping tiles' and how best to put together a good working model if you're not terribly talented in the art department. Last month, he posted an interesting look at designing 2D avatars for use in games. A few little lessons for would-be character designers? One key point is that fashion matters: More »
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Just about everything in the Chinese gaming market is on the rise, according to a new report by Niko Partners: with the exception of internet cafés (numbers are down thanks to a ban on issuing new licenses), everything is growing by leaps and bounds. The online market jumped 71% in the past year, which is no great surprise, but the grey market success of consoles may be: More »
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While Ethan Allen makes mosquito nets look romantic, living in a country where mosquito nets are purely utilitarian and totally necessary (mine was a hideous blue color with an ugly flower pattern in the netting, and was rigged up to the ceiling with fishing line - no four poster beds to be found) will dash any romantic ideas post-haste. April 25th is World Malaria Day, and as part of the 'Nothing But Net' campaign to get mosquito nets to parts of Africa where malaria is a very real and very deadly problem, the UN has commissioned an easy little came called 'Deliver the Net': More »
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The AIDS epidemic in China is huge and of serious concern to a lot of people (the best work I've seen to date is the wonderful and heartbreaking To Live Is Better Than To Die, an underground documentary by Chen Weijun on a hushed-up tragedy in Henan), but the Ministry of Education is using computers and 'games' of the quiz variety to fine effect: More »
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It's hard to find an article on MMOs that doesn't include metrics of some stripe: registered users, peak concurrent users, et cetera et cetera ad nauseam. With the expansion of free-to-play and ad supported games, it's not as easy to compare games as it was when everyone operated on a subscription basis; but Ron Williams of CDC Games (the Chinese company that has a stable of wildly popular games in Asia and is expanding into the West with Lunia). While this set of metrics may not have any impact on the average user (as long as you like the game, what difference does it make if a bunch of acronyms are being converted into other acronyms - or not), but they do provide a good base for companies figuring out how to tweak their offerings: More »
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A couple of weeks ago, Reflexive's director of marketing Russell Carrol issued a 'startling installment' of his regular Gamasutra column. The issue? Piracy, DRM and casual games. His conclusion, based on data from Reflexive, was that 'for every 1,000 pirated copies we eliminated, we created 1 additional sale.' Well, some people had a hissy fit and he's back with some more data and discussion of the issue of piracy: More »
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Anyone who's tried World of Warcraft's crappy built-in voice knows that voice chat isn't something you can implement in a half-assed fashion. Sony Online Entertainment knows this, and they've teamed with communications company Vivox to integrate a suite of voice tools into SOE games that's worth at least three or four whole asses. Along with standard voice chat, the Vivox package includes amazing new features, such as in-game voicemail, built-in, high quality voice masking, multiple voice channels for guild chat, raid chat, etc., all running on Vivox servers so your bandwidth doesn't take a hit. You'll even be able to dial in using your cell phone and a special pin number to get in touch with your guildies while away from the PC! The best part? All of this is completely free - not only for people playing SOE games like EQ2 or the upcoming The Agency, but for anyone who uses the Station launcher, regardless of whether they subscribe to a Sony game or not. Hit the jump for the full details on one of the coolest things SOE has done in years. More »
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It's no secret that foreign games, be they WoW or Korean imports, are wildly popular in China - thus, in a clear case of local protectionism, the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) has instituted new regulations to keep out foreign game companies: More »
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I think goats are ridiculously cute, even if they are frequently giant trouble makers - if I ever wind up with some acreage, I'd love to have a lop-eared Nubian or two. But Ian Bogost points out a more sinister goat with a 'serious game' from the Swiss Volkspartei (SVP) - a mainstream, right-wing group that has all sorts of charming suggested policies - that isn't the usual light and cheery fare of factory farming and long lines at the airport. The SVP's darling mascot is named Zottel, and he's got some not-so-darling games to entertain and educate the population. Don't let passports fall into the wrong (colored) hands! Shoot EU tax collectors (or their hats, at least)! Overturn speed limits! Who needs XBLA when you've got this stuff to keep you busy? Bogost has helpfully translated the point of the four available mini-games (the game is only available in German and French): More »
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CDC, a Chinese company who has a number of wildly popular games in their lineup, is bringing the online RTS/RPG Battle of Shadows (developed by Korean company N-Log, Inc. and known as Darkness and Light in Asia) to the US, and the open beta is going up today. The general manager of CDC's American operations says CDC "believe[s] Battle of Shadows will be a well-received game in the U.S. market because it combines the appeal of an easy-to-use and quick to play online game with the depth and intensity of RPG and the fun of MMO games." Full press release after the jump. More »
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PlayNoEvil keeps an eye on skill gaming - playing for cash, and (usually) in a different category than straight up gambling - and points to SkillGround, which has some new offerings, including a fighting game, a FPS, a racing game, and more in the pipeline. Of course, with money comes problems - particularly because some of these games are particularly vulnerable to all manner of bots. More »
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Barbie, everyone's favorite anatomically impossible plastic plaything now has her own MMO: BarbieGirls. Following in the footsteps of things like Club Penguin, just a lot pinker and more irritating, it's a brilliant marketing strategy and already boasts 4 million users. And they haven't even gone out of beta yet. And continue to sign up new users at the rate of 45,000 a day. Wow. Not to be left behind, Bratz - the trashier, more badly made up version of Barbie - is also opening their own Be-Bratz MMO. More »
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Nexon and Wizards of the Coast have paired up to offer the US and Canada the 'MapleStory iTrading Card Game (iTCG),' starting this November (aren't we so lucky?). The cards will offer players the chance to, uh, do the card battle thing, but also give access to new (and exclusive, mind you) parts of the regular game. I'm having bad flashbacks to elementary school, when Magic: The Gathering was all the rage. More »
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Not really a timewaster thanks to the 'fun factor,' but for the interesting melding of real-life science with online games that slow my browser down to the speed of molasses: perhaps appropriate, since Sharkrunners is a game that's going nowhere fast, as it operates in real time. Going hand in hand with Discovery's annual Shark Week, Sharkrunners let's the player control a virtual ship to track real-life sharks: More »
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GameSetWatch has some interesting thoughts up on Kongregate and a link to a doubly interesting article on The Hollywood Reporter entitled "A place for indie developers", also dealing with Kongregate and the free-to-play, easy-to-develop-for model. The question is - can anyone make enough money to live on courtesy of revenue from free-to-play sites? Simon Carless thinks the answer is 'probably not,' but ... More »
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Yes, it's a lucrative business for everybody, so why not jump the heck in. ESPN is starting a new website where they will offer 40 free casual games. Some of the titles will obviously based on sports themes like Ice Hockey and Slam Dunk, but they will also offer puzzle games like Sudoku. According to ESPN Enterprises VP gaming Raphael Poplock: More »
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Shanda Interactive Entertainment, one of Mainland China's biggest players in the online gaming market, has just entered into agreements to license and distribute their games in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Macao. In Vietnam, VTC Intecom has gotten the rights to Crazy Kart and Woool (that would be World of Legend - where does the extra 'o' come from? Your guess is as good as mine) for a period of 3 years; Hong Kong-based CSOFT is getting the exclusive rights to Magical Land and Crazy Kart in Hong Kong and Macao. More »
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While the Army is somewhat notorious for some eye-rollingly bad recruitment advertisements, they hit on a campaign that works with their America's Army online game. Now they're sallying forth and have entered into a sponsorship with the Global Gaming League - and catching flak from anti-recruitment and anti-war groups. More »
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First came America's "Not a Recruitment Tool" Army, which the U.S. Army assured us was not a recruitment tool despite the giant glowing neon "JOIN THE ARMY" signs littering the playfield (creative embellishment - lies). Then came the talking video game commercial, which seemed to say war is just like a video game, only you can die. Now the Army has entered into a $2 million sponsorship deal with the Global Gaming League, a community site focused on facilitating worldwide tournament gaming. In June they will launch a National Gaming area, in which players can compete in an America's Army tournament for the chance at being *reads through original story* recruited by the Army. Well, at least offered a chance to possibly try out some high-end Army simulations. At the beginning of each tournament each player will receive a special briefing. More »
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A vast armada of women has invaded gaming. Where once we heard over Teamspeak the confident bluster of the male warrior, now our ears are assailed by the shrill whinging of a female in the midst of her monthly ovum flushing. Where once we casually discussed in guild chat bitch fucking and the worldwide conspiracy against women, now we pretend to have "feelings" because we are cuckolded for being "insensitive." More »
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A Buena Vista Games rep is giving a run down on how to slice skeletons, sail ships and adjust pirate nostril height. The upcoming MMORPG Pirates of the Caribbean sets sail in 2007 and offers standard features like custom avatars, guilds and raiding, but lets folks play along along side characters from the movie like Jack Sparrow. The goal? Become the most infamous pirate in the Caribbean. More »
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