Archived News:
There's now
a
Spore EULA on the Steam Website, offering fairly convincing evidence that
EA's life simulation will be released on Valve's distribution service, and
suggesting the absence of most other EA titles on Steam may be ending soon.
Thanks Shacknews. in
other Steam-related news, new automatic updates are now available for
Team Fortress 2,
Defense Grid: The Awakening,
and Garry's Mod.
GamesIndustry.biz announces that Turbine has cut QA and Account Management
staff at its Massachusetts and California studios following the launch of The
Mines of Moria expansion for The Lord of the Rings Online. They
decline to discuss specifics about the cuts, but say there are no further
layoffs planned, and according to a representative: "In fact, Turbine is still
hiring and we will continue to grow in 2009." The cuts come just a couple of
months after the formation of Turbine West, headed by Flagship
cofounder Dave Brevik.
The F.E.A.R. 2: Project
Origin Community Website offers "Unsung Heroes: IT (Part 2)," a non-gameplay
movie having fun with some BOFH-style support Monolith gets from its IT
department, where they also show off some of their security techniques for
wiping old hard drives. On a more game related note, a new "comic" trailer
offers a 2D cinematic setting some of the grim mood for the upcoming shooter
sequel. This clip is available from
ActionTrip,
AtomicGamer, and
Gamer's Hell.
Stage
Select has an excerpt from a rambling chat session between
Axl Rose and some
fans on the mygnrforum.com touching on a number of topics. The point of
interest here is his perspective on the participation of former Guns N Roses
guitarist Slash in Guitar Hero III and the game's use of Welcome to the Jungle,
which he implies may not have been properly sorted out as far as licensing goes.
Here's the somewhat disjointed comment: "It doesn’t bother me unless it’s
being done at my expense and or to keep him associated as in Guitar Hero. Him
being Guitar Hero’s fine but not when Activison in using Jungle, having Yahoo
use Sweet Child unauthorized, claims no involvement with Slash, his or anyone’s
image or VR or anyone or anyone’s music in either camp in promotion or
commercials etc. I wasn’t broadsided. I read about it as it moved along but
Activision continually denied it right up to the release. That’s some low life
chicanery on all their parts.
Yes Slash was in Guns and on Jungle (and the whole I came to him for his riff is
as much crap as him saying he brought Locomotive and Coma in as complete songs)
and he has rights to perform it but not to be represented in this context in
association with Guns. And since they weren’t granted the license it’ll take
some sorting.
Universal has Guns under contract but I own the name.
I don’t have problems with whoever doing the songs but film or video gets into
sync rights and I don’t have an interest in anyone new, old or whatever trying
to sell themselves as GNR under another name that way."
Namco-Bandai Shifts West For Survival With Surge on Gamasutra is an
interview with Namco Bandai's Andrew Lelchuk about their recently
announced plans to open a Western studio called Surge: "But the reality is we
want to focus on innovation -- everything from tech to art styles to storylines,
to creating that totally immersive experience for the consumer. Whether it's
creating a new genre or sub-genre, we really want to focus on creativity and
innovation. This isn't us going out and doing another FPS or action game, but
doing something that truly is creative and makes a difference."
Thanks Mike Martinez and Ant.
Thanks Mike Martinez and Ant.
Midway Games to cut 25 percent of jobs has a repercussion of
recent reports that Midway is in serious trouble with
tumbling stock prices after a sell-off by Sumner
Redstone. According to the report, 180 employees are losing their jobs in
this holiday season, with Midway Austin being closed down and further cuts
coming at Midway's Chicago and San Diego studios. It is reported that unnamed
"noncore" games have been cancelled, and the moves are described as "a response
to the specific challenges we are facing at Midway, many of which have been
amplified by the current economic conditions." As a result of the cuts, Midway
expects to take a charge of $1.6 million in the fourth quarter.
Massively summarizes the proceedings from a chat transcript on the
EVE Online Forums recapping a recent meeting of the Council of Stellar
Management, as the player-elected advisory body for CCP's MMORPG met to dig into
the details related to the recently revealed exploit that allowed
resources to be re-used in manufacturing in EVE Online. It is alleged
that this bug was exploited for four years, and CCP confirms it was present as
early as February 2007, but while the data they are currently analyzing offers
no indications that this was being exploited by players before March 2008, they
cannot nail down when it first surfaced until they load up some archived data
and see what it reveals. They are likewise still examining claims that this bug
was reported and ignored four years ago; an investigation complicated by an
outsourced email system and changes to their petition system from right around
that time. And while the economic impact of this was described as vast, CCP's
in-game economist says this was not noticeable sooner because it wasn't used on
a grand scale until this year, though they are not able to place a number on how
much ISK (game currency) was produced thorough the exploit. There is also a
discussion of appropriate punishment for participating players, especially where
it's not clear if they were knowingly benefitting from exploiting this bug.
Finally, the burning question is raised as to whether any CCP employees were
involved after a scandal early last year that revealed some CCP
staff taking advantage of their positions; at this time they have no evidence
yet that anyone from CCP was involved, but investigations about this are still
underway.
Games On Net has a follow-up to news from last month that
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin was refused classification for sale in Australia due
to its violent imagery. They report that Monolith's horror-themed
shooter has now been given a MA 15+ rating, and is therefore to be legally sold
down under. In a confusing twist, they indicate the game that was approved
included the exact same content as the one that was not, quoting an explanation
from Acting Classification Review Board Convenor, Trevor Griffin: "After
considering extensive submissions and demonstrations of game play across all
levels, the Review Board concluded that the level of violence in the computer
game, whilst strong, could be accommodated within the MA 15+ classification."
The
Ghostbusters: The Video Game Interview on Kikizo talks with Mike Douglas and
Drew Haworth of Terminal Reality about their Ghostbusters game, and its recent
brush with the afterlife. They discuss the game itself, as well as its
behind-the-scenes drama, confirming one of the reasons Activision didn't want to
publish the game is because it wouldn't make for good annual sequels: "Yeah,
even [Activision boss] Bobby Kotick came out with that... They can't really
serialise and annualise a game like this where there's not a movie released
every year, and we kind of understand their position on that. We used to have a
good relationship with those guys. It's unfortunate, and we were still shocked
that they weren't going to carry on with Ghostbusters - it seemed like such a
no-brainer to us - but we understand the position, that's just their business
problem." Thanks Mike Martinez.
World of Warcraft: Dear Greatfather Winter (thanks Ant) has word on
celebrating the holidays in Azeroth, while NCsoft announces winter events for
City of Heroes,
GuildWars,
and Lineage II.
Wow, I know there's a nasty cold snap in some places, but it was balmy enough
here yesterday that I found a tick on the Gunnar-man. I think it's supposed to
end pretty quickly, so we're not putting away the winter clothes just yet
though, I heard yesterday was to be the warmest day for the rest of the season.
Today is the 64th anniversary of the beginning the Ardennes Offensive/Battle of
the Bulge (it's also the 235th anniversary of the event known as the Boston Tea
Party). When I was young my mom always urged me to ask my Great Uncle about his
participation in the Battle of the Bulge, and much to my regret, I never did.
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