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Archived News:
A round of layoffs hit ZeniMax Online Studios today, and there is an official
statement about this
on Joystiq saying this involved customer service representatives hired to
support the launch of The Elder Scrolls Online who are no longer needed
now that things are running smoothly.
Polygon also heard from ZeniMax and paraphrases them as saying this
also involved cuts in the area of "development" but that the team size has simply
returned to pre-launch levels. This is not actually the case according to
one of the developers who was fired, who shared details about the situation with
us under the condition of anonymity (though we have confirmed his authenticity). Our
source explains that approximately 20 of those cut today were not contractors or
people hired temporarily to launch the game, but full-time developers who had
expectations of continuing indefinitely. Most if not all of them have been
working on The Elder Scrolls Online for at least two years, and were actively
involved in developing expansion content and fixing bugs. The idea that
customer service calls have slowed is disputed as well, and the conclusion he
draws is that the game is not earning its keep, and that as some players are
dropping their subscriptions ZeniMax is cutting staff to get costs under
control. We have not yet heard back from ZeniMax after asking them to comment on
this, and will follow up if they respond.
SEGA made a court filing yesterday in the
lawsuit over the marketing of Aliens: Colonial Marines, the poorly
received sci-fi first-person shooter. The suit claims the game did not live up
to its marketing, and did not visually match what was demonstrated publically
before its release, but Gearbox has
fought inclusion, laying responsibility of this at the feet of publisher
SEGA, even refusing to
participate in a settlement to end the legal action. Now
Polygon has details on SEGA's rebuttal to this, saying the publisher makes
the case that Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford frequently strayed from agreed upon
boundaries in discussing the game, showing an internal email fretting "Randy [Pitchford]
doing whatever the f*ck he likes," but the context of that mail and several
other of their assertions seem to focus on Randy leaking details about the game,
not about him talking about features it will not include. The one item on that
subject is an email concerning the controversial demo showing at E3 2011 where
SEGA producer Matt Powers says he spoke with Gearbox and "verified that the E3
Demo is indeed the bar that we should use to determine where the entire game
will be." The filing also refutes Gearbox's contention that they never received
any payments tied to the sales of Aliens, saying some of their milestone
payments included advance royalty payments. Gearbox's claim that it spent
millions of dollars of its own money to complete the game goes unaddressed.
GamingOnLinux has word from Aspyr Media that Borderlands 2 is coming
to Linux. There's not much for now, but following up on
Steam Database post with
some indications, they got a confirmation from Aspyr's Michael Blair: "Yes! BL2
Linux is absolutely real! We've been working hard on it for months and will talk
about a release date as soon as possible." Thanks Ant via
Linux Today.
Spiderweb Software announces Avernum 2: Crystal Souls, another installment in
their old-school fantasy RPG series coming to Windows, OS X, and iPad later this
year. The Avernum 2: Crystal Souls
website is online with some screenshots and
a trailer. Here's
word: Avernum 2: Crystal Souls is an epic fantasy role-playing adventure
in a unique, massive world, full of strange caves, cunning dungeons, and the
alien inhabitants of the underworld. Fight to complete up to three game-winning
quests. Explore a massive nation of tunnels and caverns, seeking over 100 towns
and dungeons. Master over 60 spells and battle disciplines and hunt for hundreds
of magical artifacts. Avernum 2: Crystal Souls is a total, ground-up rewrite of
the award-winning indie hit Avernum 2. It will be open for adventuring in Q4,
2014.
Continue here to read the full story.
Link of the Day:
Mendel Epstein and the Orthodox Hit Squad. Crazy story. Also, I can't get
"Little Green Bag" to stop running through my head when I look at the top photo.
Thanks nin via Digg.
A new official website is now online
introducing Deadhold, a MOBA game in development for Windows, OS X, and
Linux for release next year. Word is: "Deadhold is a multiplayer Action Real
Time Strategy game inspired by Bungie’s 'Myth' RTS series and Valve’s DOTA2.
Deadhold focuses heavily on squad based combat. Players must use superior
tactics, cunning, and environmental advantage to succeed in battle." The unnamed
studio behind this boasts some of their developers worked the Borderlands
series, Battlefield 2, Frontlines: Fuel of War, Homefront, and Myth 3. Here's
a video developer diary
showing off the game, and here's word: Combining elements of traditional
real-time tactics games with the action real time strategy (ARTS) and
multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genres, the game features a dark fantasy
Viking inspired setting with different races and abilities, a stoic Norse
empire, exploding Goblins, enraged Frost Giants and a horde of mutated horrors.
Doug Zartman, former Bungie PR Director, said, "I'm excited by Deadhold's
ambition to bridge the gap between tactical RTS and MOBA. The careful
maneuvering, formations, use of terrain and unit specialties that players loved
in Myth, plus the frenetic backandforth of a game like LoL promises to be a
powerful combination indeed. Cannot wait to play this."
Deadhold eschews base building and resource collection and instead focuses on
squad customization, positioning and tactics. Combat is easy to play but hard to
master. The initial focus of development will be on multiplayer and developing
the core gameplay systems for maximum fun and robustness; coop and
singleplayer gameplay will follow.
Continue here to read the full story.
Ubisoft
announces Bad Blood DLC coming later this month to Watch Dogs/ Watch_Dogs,
their third-person phoner. This will bring a new single-player campaign, a new
player character, new weapons, and more when it is released on September 23rd
for Season Pass owners and on September 30th for everyone else. There are more
details in the product
section for the DLC and there's also
a video from the pack.
Here's word: Today, Ubisoft announced that
Watch_Dogs Bad Blood, a new downloadable piece of content for Watch_Dogs, the
record-breaking open-world action game that has sold-in more than 8 million
units, will release on September 23 for season pass holders and September 30 for
all other players.
Watch_Dogs Bad Blood features an all new story campaign starring T-Bone, the
brilliant and eccentric hacker players first met in Watch_Dogs, who is now
playable for the first time. The campaign explores T-Bone’s story through 10 new
missions set in new locations throughout Chicago. Shortly after the events of
Watch_Dogs, Raymond “T-Bone” Kenney infiltrates Blume one last time to plant a
false trail in their system. Before he can disappear from the grid, he receives
a panicked phone call from Tobias Frewer, a former colleague from Blume’s ctOS
prototype days, who’s in desperate need of help. Putting his own escape at risk,
T-Bone decides to help, but quickly realizes the details of his old friend’s
story aren’t adding up.
Watch_Dogs Bad Blood also grants players access to “Street Sweep” contracts, a
dynamic new system of side missions that offers players endless hours of
challenges. All Street Sweep contracts are playable in co-op mode (friend or
public sessions), a first for Watch_Dogs, allowing two players to work together
to combat Chicago’s criminal groups. The popular online ‘Hacking’ and ‘Tailing’
modes as well as the ctOS Companion App are also fully playable as T-Bone in
Watch_Dogs Bad Blood.
In addition, Watch_Dogs Bad Blood features exclusive weapons, perks and outfits,
including the remote-controlled car “Eugene,” T-Bone’s latest creation that can
be upgraded with both offensive and defensive perks.
Players looking for early access to the upcoming Watch_Dogs Bad Blood DLC, as
well as the “Access Granted Pack” and “Conspiracy!” Digital Trip can still
purchase the Season Pass. For more information on the Watch_Dogs Season Pass,
please visit:
http://watchdogs.com/badblood.
Continue here to read the full story.
Kalypso Media announces the Tropico Dictator Pack, an upcoming bundle of
the first four games in the Tropico series of management simulations. This will
be released in the U.K. on September 12th, though we have no details on plans to
bring the bundle to other territories. Here are
some
screenshots and here's word on the package: The Department of Tropican
Historical Manipulation is proud to announce Tropico Dictator Pack, a brand new
gaming bundle designed to preserve the legacy of El Presidente and remind the
people of his absolute brilliance. Out in the UK for PC on 12th of September,
Tropico Dictator Pack combines Tropico 1, 2, 3 & 4 with each one of their major
expansion packs. Observe Tropican history and see where it all began in 2001’s
Tropico, reign as a pirate king in Tropico 2: Pirate Cove and then rule and
build El Presidente’s empire in Tropico 3 and Tropico 4. Face natural disasters
in the expansion Paradise Island, add creative new ways to maintain your rule in
Absolute Power and then bring Tropico into the present day in Modern Times.
Tropico Dictator Pack is a testament to the greatest leader of all time – El
Presidente. Witness again all his greatest achievements, grand deeds and kindly
acts of benevolence in the name of the people. Viva El Presidente!
The
Saints Row Mods website now offers a first release of an SDK to support mod
development for Saints Row IV, the latest installment in the open-world
action series. Word is: "This SDK (Release A) includes tutorials, template
files, and tools for creating your own new weapon models for use ingame." They
also have a tutorial including sample assets, saying: "archive of *all* weapons
from Saints Row 3 / 4 in FBX form." Thanks
Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
EA announces the hiring of Chris Bruzzo as their new Chief Marketing
Officer, touting his success at his previous gigs at Starbucks and Amazon in
expressing enthusiasm for the move. It's not often that a company comes out and
says marketing actually improves their finished products, but that's the pitch
here, as they say: "Chris will ensure we are delivering personal and meaningful
experiences for players every time they connect with us and play an EA game."
They also mention his bona fides as a gamer: "Chris is just as comfortable sharing
stories about his days playing Escape from Rungistan and Ultima back in the
early 1980s on his Apple IIE as he is debating tactics in FIFA, Battlefield or
Peggle. I’m thrilled to bring him on board at EA."
The Carbon
Footprint of Games Distribution is an analysis of game distribution that
draws the counterintuitive conclusion that in many cases, digital distribution requires more
energy and creates more pollution that boxed games (thanks
MCV). Here's a bit: Contrary to findings in previous research on music
distribution, distribution of games by physical BDs results in lower greenhouse
gas emissions than by Internet download. The estimated carbon emissions from
downloading only fall definitively below that of BDs for games smaller than 1.3
GB. Sensitivity analysis indicates that as average game file sizes increase, and
the energy intensity of the Internet falls, the file size at which BDs would
result in lower emissions than downloads could shift either up- or downward over
the next few years. Overall, the results appear to be broadly applicable to
title games within the European Union (EU), and for larger-than-average sized
games in the United States. Further research would be needed to confirm whether
similar findings would apply in future years with changes in game size and
Internet efficiency.
The Commish has spoken, as Batman followed through on his idea of adding a
Pigskin Pick'em Group using the point spread (password "bn2") in addition to
the
straight Pick'em Group (password "bn") which simply requires picking the
winning team in each NFL matchup. Sorry for pimping this three days in a row
(I'm counting tomorrow in advance), but the spread league was started so late I
want to make sure all who want to participate hear about it before the season
gets underway tomorrow night. Though maybe I should just keep this quiet, since
if it continues on with just a trio of participants, I'm guaranteed at least a
third-place finish.
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