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Archived News:
Electronic Arts reports their preliminary Q1 FY2014 financial results,
reaffirming their forecasts for the year and offering the following summary of
the quarter: "For the quarter, non-GAAP net revenue of $495 million was above
our guidance of $450 million. Non-GAAP diluted loss per share of ($0.40) was
above our guidance of ($0.62)." Here's their list of highlights:
- EA was the #1 publisher in Western retail markets
in calendar year 2013, and the #1 global publisher in the iOS game market in
the June quarter.
- EA received 116 E3 awards from over 220 industry
nominations, including 8 out of 15 awards from the official E3 Game Critics.
Battlefield 4™ won a total of 21 awards at E3, including GameSpot’s Best of
E3 award, Need for Speed™ Rivals was named Best Racing Game, and NHL® 14
took the honors for Best Sports Game. Titanfall™ from Respawn Entertainment
won six major awards, including Best of Show, Best Original Game, Best
Console Game, Best PC Game, Best Action Game and Best Online Multiplayer.
- The Simpsons™: Tapped Out recorded its highest
revenue quarter* in Q1 since launching in August 2012.
- EA’s mobile and handheld digital revenue generated
$103 million* in the quarter, a 30% year-over-year increase in digital net
revenue.
- Real Racing™ 3, the #1 racing title on iOS, has
generated more than 45 million downloads, and has averaged over 2 million
daily active users since launching in March.
- The Battlefield 3™ Premium community continues to
grow with over 4 million members to date.
- FIFA 13 digital net revenue topped $70 million* in
the quarter, a 92% increase versus FIFA 12 in Q1 FY 2013.
- FIFA Online 3 digital net revenue in grew 88%* in
the first quarter compared FIFA Online 2 in the prior year, and was the #1
online sports game in Korea based on revenue and traffic.
- EA signs publishing agreement with TenCent for
FIFA Online 3 in China, with details to be announced in an upcoming joint
press release from EA and TenCent.
- EA’s Origin™ platform for downloading digital
games has registered over 50 million users, including 22 million mobile
users.
Trailing twelve-month non-GAAP digital net revenue was up 28% to a record
$1.72 billion*.
Eidos Montreal founder Stephane D'Astous has resigned his post,
telling Polygon he left the company on Friday, and that he is being replaced
by David Anfossi, producer for Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex:
The Fall. He also
talks with Polygon about his departure, and holds no bars in criticizing
studio owner Square Enix. Here's a taste: "Since last year's financial
short-coming performance of Square Enix Europe, we (HQ London and GM Eidos
Montreal) have had growing and divergent opinions on what needed to be done to
correct the situation," he said. "The lack of leadership, lack of courage and
the lack of communication were so evident, that I wasn't able to conduct my job
correctly. I realized that our differences were irreconcilable, and that the
best decision was unfortunately to part ways."
Stardock sends along their announcement covering the
recent
news that they have acquired the rights to the Star Control franchise.
They say development of their new game in the series will begin later this year,
and will use Star Control 2 as its inspiration (there's a discussion
on IncGamers about what Stardock did and did not purchase here questioning
whether they have rights to use the races and plot points of SC2). Here's word
on their plans: PLYMOUTH, MI – July 23, 2013 – Stardock is pleased to
announce that it has secured the rights to the classic PC franchise Star Control
with the intent to develop a new Star Control game. Development on the new game
will begin this year with a release date to be determined at a later time.
“We expect the new Star Control to come in the form of a reboot, similar to what
Firaxis did with the XCOM series last year,” said Brad Wardell, president and
CEO of Stardock. "We are looking at Star Control II as a major source of
inspiration.”
Entering its 20th year as an independent studio, Stardock remains one of the few
development studios solely dedicated to PC gaming. Its critically-acclaimed PC
games include the timeless Galactic Civilizations series and the award-winning
Real-Time Strategy game (RTS) Sins of a Solar Empire, which has sold more than
two million copies worldwide. PC Gamer Magazine recently chose Galactic
Civilizations II and Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion for inclusion in the top
100 PC games of all time.
Star Control maintains a cult following as a beloved PC franchise, with the
first title including options for melee or strategy gameplay set in a science
fiction universe. The sequel—Star Control II—expanded on the Star Control
universe as an adventure game and shooter. Star Control II still holds spots on
critics’ lists of the best PC games of all time among both new and seasoned PC
gamers.
Codemasters announces that the Peak Performance Pack is now available for
GRID 2, a new DLC pack adding new cars to the racing sequel. They offer
this trailer to show
off the pack, explaining it like so: "To mark the launch of the Peak Performance
Pack, Codemasters has released a new video showing the three customized U.S.
Muscle cars and three tuned European classics contained in the pack cruising
down the California Coast and being put through their paces around the city
streets of Miami." Continue here to read the full story.
Piranha
games announces they are now offering sales of
Sarah's Mech for MechWarrior Online,
a new USD $10.00 ride in the multiplayer mech game to honor a young fan who
recently died of cancer, with all proceeds from this mech going to the
Canadian Cancer Society.
This
discussion thread and
FAQ have details, and here's the background on this: The five year
old Vancouver native loved piloting the Jenner ‘Mech in MechWarrior Online with
her father, Jon Parries. Calling the enemy ‘Mechs “baddies”, she and her father
dominated the Inner Sphere on a regular basis in the current Open Beta. Her
favorite ‘Mech chassis was the Jenner ‘Mech with streak SRMs, “because she liked
to move fast, lock on, and liked using night vision,” according to her father.
“Sarah’s passion for ‘Mechs and her battle with cancer had a profound impact
everyone at Piranha,” said Russ Bullock, president of Piranha Games. “She was an
inspiration with her passion and energy for the game and our hearts and deepest
condolences go out to her family. The outpouring of heartfelt sympathy from the
MechWarrior community and the support and encouragement we’ve received to
develop this unique ‘Mech has been nothing short of incredible. We have the best
fans in the world.”
Here's a new video from
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag with about 13 minutes of gameplay footage
from the game, showing Edward Kenway tooling around a Caribbean seaport, beating
people up, taking the schooner out for a spin... the usual stuff. Word is: "From
open-ended assassination contracts to boarding and plundering enemy ships,
Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag let’s gamers seamlessly explore the Caribbean
world from land to sea. This director’s cut of the 13 minute Horizon walkthrough
features commentary from Game Director Ashraf Ismail." Continue here to read the full story.
Indie Statik reproduces a quote from Valve's Tom Bui responding to
criticisms of the Steam Greenlight program. He acknowledges the system has
problems, but they are doing what they can. Here's part: "Until we can ship
everything we want, Greenlight is serving the purpose of helping us prioritize
what we ship. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and has a
bunch of downsides (even with all its failing, it is much better than our old,
opaque system). We are making improvements to Greenlight where we can, but right
now we are focusing on what we can do to ship more games." Thanks
Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
Steam now offers the
rumored but never announced
Stasis Interrupted DLC for Aliens: Colonial Marines, proving
the
report saying this would happen to be accurate. The pack will be the last DLC
for Gearbox's FPS and requires the base game to play. It is offered for USD
$9.99, though it is free for those who purchased a season pass. Here's word on
how this bridges the story of Aliens with the not-masterpiece that was Aliens
3: 'Stasis Interrupted' is the final piece of Aliens™: Colonial Marines
DLC telling the story of what happened to Hicks between Aliens™ and Alien³™.
In this new campaign you play as 3 different characters through an interlocking
story. Waking up unexpectedly from hypersleep, Lisbeth and others must figure
out why the spaceship they are on, the Legato, has been diverted to intercept
the Sulaco leaving LV-426's orbit.
Fight your way through the alien infested spaceship, find out what Michael
Weyland is after and discover what truly happened to Hicks.
Battle.net
outlines Blizzard's plans to celebrate the third anniversary of the release of
StarCraft II on Saturday. They offer a
reworked
15th Anniversary ‘line up’ wallpaper and have boosted the experience points
doled out by the real-time strategy sequel. Here's word: "For a limited time,
we’ve increased the XP gains you get when you play StarCraft II by 25%. It’s the
perfect time to log in and play some Multiplayer, or Versus A.I., or Training
Mode games. Perhaps you’d like to level up the race you don’t play the least
often. Now’s the time!"
Nordic Games announces the release of the first chapter of The Raven – Legacy
of a Master Thief, a new point-and-click adventure for Windows, OS X, and
Linux that's also coming soon to last-generation consoles. The Nordic Games
Online Store offers the
standard edition and the
digital deluxe edition at a 10% discount for a season's pass, which includes
two more chapters. Both versions with the same discount are offered on the
digital distributors listed on this
page, and one of them may be preferable, since Nordic uses Digital River,
where they charge an additional €5.00 for two years of guaranteed re-download
service (defaulting to Euros will probably be a problem for U.S. users as well).
Here's word on the game: Set across 1960’s Europe, The Raven combines the
thrill of the chase ‘whodunit’ with the risk and reward of a heist story where
players get to experience both sides of the story as the investigator and the
thief. Paying tribute to Agatha Christie’s crime stories and gangster movies
from the 60s and 70s, The Raven is set to be a thrilling episodic
journey.
The StarMade website offers downloads
of StarMade (also variously written as Star Made and Starmade), a Wing
Commander-style sandbox space game using Minecraft-inspired voxel graphics for
Windows, OS X, and Linux. The game is offered for free from the website and the
Indie DB, but the
Buy StarMade page offers
the "full version" for USD $3.00, and the game is the subject of a current
Steam Greenlight campaign, to there are some commercial aspirations behind
this. They offer Episode 1
and Episode 2 in a
video series on the game's basics, and a
screenshot gallery with a
look at what can be made in StarMade. Thanks Ant via
LinuxGames.
NeoGAF has a
translation of
this Japanese announcement saying Capcom plans to announce no fewer than 13
new games on August 1st. The drama and potential appeal of this is diminished by
word that these are online, smartphone, and social games, which are so often
not Scottish. Here's
the NeoGAF translation: "Capcom Online Games will be holding a conference (which
will be streamed) on August 1 in Japan to announce 13 brand new online,
smartphone, and social game titles. There will also be news updates for Monster
Hunter Frontier G and Onimusha Soul." Thanks
GamesHQMedia.
Thanks Ant and Acleacius.
Fight Club sequel in the works (thanks Acleacius). Hmmm. A graphic novel is
fine I suppose, but I have to strongly echo the sentiment of the author in
saying that I don't need a follow-up to one of my favorite movies of all time,
so hopefully no film adaptation will come of this.
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