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Archived News:
Shacknews reports
June 9 is the release date for Red Faction: Guerrilla, the third
installment in Volition's ground-breaking shooter series. Previous
indications had the game coming this summer, making this one of those rare
announcements that a game is coming sooner than previously expected.
Earlier this month
GameStop announced a demo would be released on April 3 for preorder
customers, but this offer now only remains listed with the
Xbox 360 and
PlayStation 3 editions of the game.
GamesIndustry.biz reports that Starbreeze Studios' Project
Redlime is a new installment in the Syndicate series, precisely as rumored in
Computer
and Video Games in September '08. The report is chalked up to
"sources," so they didn't just make this up.
GOG.com announces the addition of
Teenagent, as the 100th
game on their DRM-free marketplace for good old games. To celebrate they are
offering this point-and-click adventure from Metropolis Software for free,
joining Beneath a
Steel Sky and
Lure of the Temptress in the free game area on the service.
Pixel Mine Games announces plans for Dungeons of Dransik, an upcoming
expansion for Ashen Empires that will
include a map editor allowing the creation of custom content for the MMORPG. In
an unusual twist, content creators will pay for the disc space where their
creations will be hosted, while users can download and play the content for
free.
Frictional Games has released a new teaser trailer for Unknown, their
upcoming more action-oriented puzzle game. The clip shows an in-game environment
from a first-person perspective, and the player's ability to manipulate objects
with telekinesis, or at least with no hands. The clip is posted on
AtomicGamer,
Gamer's Hell, and
MyGameTrailers.
Variety reports that the controversial plan to offer bonuses
to Midway execs for helping sell off franchises like Mortal Kombat
has been significantly revised. According to their story, CEO Matt Booty is no
longer eligible for bonuses, the Wheelman transaction will not be part of
the bonus scenario (as it was sold before the bonus arrangement was made), and
the bonuses will now only be earned if all the publisher's IP is sold off,
not just Mortal Kombat. They also report the minimum pile of cash in the
bonus pool is smaller than before, but the maximum is higher.
New EA Game Authorization
Management Tools are now available to help users manage Electronic Arts
games saddled with SecuROM activation limitations. There are two options, one is
to download and run a general tool to scan your computer for EA PC games
released after May 2008 to learn how many computer authorizations you have
available for each detected game, and the second is to download one of the
Game-Specific
Authorization Management Tools to remove authorizations to free them up for
installation on other machines. Thanks Ant and
Slashdot.
Ars Technica
outlines some comments they got from Hal Halpin of the Entertainment Consumers
Association about a couple of suggestions the consumer-affairs group has made
about game packaging to the US Federal Trade Commission (thanks Mike Martinez). One is to
standardize the End-User License Agreement (EULA) and the other is to offer
disclosure of Digital Rights Management (DRM) on the outside of the game
package. The conversation also covers the negative reaction game publishers have
had to these suggestions, and discusses the licensing model for games that means
your up to $60 purchase does not actually mean you own anything. Here's the
outline of what they propose: "We suggested a few things to the FTC, one
of which was we'd like to see DRM disclosed," Halpin started. "So when people go
to the store and buy the packaged good, the PC game, they'll see something on
the front of the box saying there is DRM inside, and to what degree it will be
invasive."
"The second thing that we recommended was that EULAs get standardized, so again,
rather than have 30 or 40 types of agreements, there would be one standard one
for all different types of computer games. People go into the store, buy the
game, open it, and they can no longer return it... by standardizing the EULA,
consumers will have the confidence to know what it is they're agreeing to before
they buy the product."
Aspyr Media announces Death Track: Resurrection is now available in North
American stores and for digital distribution via
GameAgent. Two demos for the game were released last year if you are looking
for a test drive of this vehicular combat game, one in June and
the other in September. Here's the announcement: Austin,
Texas- March 31, 2009 - Aspyr Media, under license from leading Eastern and
Central European publisher 1C Company, announced today that Death Track:
Ressurrectionfor PC is now available at North American retail outlets and via
digital download at www.gameagent.com.
Death Track: Ressurrection introduces high speed vehicular chaos to North
American gamers without the use of DRM software. The first five titles published
by Aspyr under license from 1C in North America - Men of War, Death Track:
Resurrection, Cryostasis, Necrovision, and 4X4 Hummer - are all DRM-free.
Death Track: Resurrection travels players to a not-too-distant future in which
the world has been plunged into chaos. Traditional sports have been replaced by
the far more aggressive, violent and thrilling type of entertainment the public
demands. The main event of the year, Survival Racing, is a world tournament that
takes place in the largest cities across the globe. Powerful vehicles and
spectacular road battles are performed by world-renown and feared drivers.
Players strap in as a rookie driver aiming at the top prize.
Death Track: Resurrection is available for PC for the suggested retail price of
$19.99 and is rated 'T' for Teen by the ESRB. For more on the game, please visit
www.death-track.com.
VentureBeat has an article based on the widespread skepticism about the
OnLive service unveiled at
GDC, as pundits have expressed disbelief that cloud gaming is practical from
technological and/or financial standpoints. They have feedback from a number of
industry luminaries on the topic, most of whom say they are taking a
wait-and-see approach. They also get a response from OnLive's Steve Perlman to
speculation that OnLive will not be practical, here's a bit, which specifically
addresses a recent editorial on
Eurogamer: He’s confusing compression latency (1ms) with frame time.
The frame time is NOT 1ms (which would imply 1000 fps). It’s 16.7ms (which
implies 60fps). Just as linear video compression time is much HIGHER latency
than one frame time (e.g. 500ms latency does NOT imply a 2fps frame rate),
interactive video compression is much LOWER latency that one frame time.
Regarding server costs, he does not understand server economics. It doesn’t
matter how many subscribers you have per server. It matters how much revenue you
earn per server. Most web services are ad-supported and CPM-based and need to
have thousands (if not millions) of users per server over the course of a month
in order to pay for the server because they earn a tiny fraction of a cent per
user.
OnLive servers earn many dollars per user each month (many orders of magnitude
more than a CPM-based business), and when one user is offline, another user is
online, so even a server that is only serving one user at a time (e.g. for
Crysis), is reused by many users each month. The useful life of a server is
probably around 3 years. so, if you amortize the cost of a server over 36
months, you quickly realize that on a monthly basis, the cost per server is very
low. And lastly, the cost of a server is much less than a home gamer PC: we
don’t have the case, disk drive, optical drive, etc. And we don’t have to worry
about retail markup, customer service, etc. Long story short, the revenue per
server per month is much higher than the cost of the server. It makes OnLive a
very healthy business.
The Operation
Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Website now showcases a new movie from the
sequel to Bohemia Interactive Studios military shooter in the works at Codemasters. Word is:
"Presenting tactical, immersive warfare on a scale never seen before in a
shooter, the new video demonstrates how Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
takes gamers to the vast 220 km² island of Skira, a rigorously researched and
meticulously recreated battlefield, located off the eastern coast of Russia and
north of Japan. The game authentically recreates conflict on a 360-degree
theatre of war, allowing players to approach objectives on Skira from any
direction. On this immense and realistic battlefield, where one bullet can kill,
players face the fear and mortality felt by soldiers immersed in deadly modern
warfare as they are challenged to survive the rapidly evolving situations of
battle." The clip is also mirrored on
ActionTrip,
AtomicGamer, and
Gamer's Hell.
IGN has a new video showing off gameplay from Mount & Blade: Warband,
the newly announced expansion for TaleWorlds' action/RPG. The clip
demonstrates mounted combat, projectile attacks with arrows and crossbows,
javelin chucking, co-op play, siege defense, and more. Thanks Ant.
The Star Trek Online Website
has word that IGN is holding a chat session tonight at 7:00 pm EDT to discuss
Star Trek Online with Craig Zinkievich, executive producer on the upcoming
Trekkie MMORPG. The chat will be conducted using
Voon.
MSNBC - How young is too
young for video games?
"The gamer side of me is looking forward to playing video games with Oz.
In my fantasy future, video gaming is something my son and I do together to
bond. Plus, he thinks I’m super cool because I own all the latest video
games and because I kick major ass when we play 'Halo 14' together. But
there’s also the paranoid parent side of me that can’t help but worry that
video games, somehow, will warp my beautiful boy’s brain — that he’ll become
badly addicted to them, that they’ll distract him from important things like
school, the great outdoors and a career as a successful whatever. Yes, in my
weakest moments, even I fall prey to the anti-gaming rhetoric."
Ten Ton Hammer - The
Launch That Faced Thousands of Ships.
"The full impact of Frogster's choices will be difficult to measure for a
while yet, but the sales charts don't lie: there is room for success in the
West if a F2P game is built well, handled properly, and marketed wisely. In
the short term, the first dent into the armor of F2P skeptics is here. In
the long term, I expect to see more hybridization of revenue models from
MMOG. Gamers can expect to see more companies use the plans like Dungeon
Runners that allow people to play for free forever but also offer a
subscription and/or a box sale. SOE's Free Realms is the perfect example of
a future title that will likely have all the polish and shine of RoM and use
a mixed method of generating future development dollars."
Happy birthday to France's Eiffel Tower, which opened 120 years ago today. The
tower was originally supposed to be semi-temporary, and has now outlived it's
planned lifespan by a full century.
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