THQ exiting kids’ licensed games market
THQ has announced plans to revise its business strategy by exiting the kids’ licensed games market and focusing its resources on core franchises and digital initiatives. More >
THQ has announced plans to revise its business strategy by exiting the kids’ licensed games market and focusing its resources on core franchises and digital initiatives. More >
The first of these is Trion Worlds, its MMORPG Rift already available to download from the service. Ten other publishers will release games on Origin over the coming months: CD PROJEKT RED, Freebird Games, Recoil Games, Autumn Games, 1C Company, inXile entertainment, Paradox Interactive, Core Learning Ltd. and N3V Games . More >
Zynga is in "active conversations with potential partners" regarding online gambling opportunities. "Zynga Poker is the world's largest online poker game with more than seven million people playing every day and over 30 million each month," a Zynga spokesman said in a statement to All Things Digital. "We know from listening to our players that there's an interest in the real money gambling market. We're in active conversations with potential partners to better understand and explore this new opportunity." More >
PopCap's Giordano Bruno Contestabile on how today's huge audience of gamers is shaping the future of videogames.
One of the platform holders is to bow out of the hardware race at E3 in June, according to an executive at cloud gaming service Gaikai. Speaking to Industry Gamers at this week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Gaikai's chief product officer Nanea Reeves said: "Not all of the current console makers will have one more generation. That will be the big news at E3." More >
3Metro, Windows 8, Xbox 360 and Kinect - all the highlights from CEO Steve Ballmer's Las Vegas keynote.
The new division will be headed up by former Electronic Arts staffer James Wright as executive producer. More >
Carl Jones tells us why "the whole business of technology providing will change".
CEO David Helgason tells us increasingly powerful 3D engines mean middleware is becoming a thing of the past.
Eutechnyx has announced plans to establish a London-based publishing team to support the release of upcoming free-to-play online racer Auto Club Revolution. The news follows the award last month of £1.8 million in government funding, which the Gateshead-based studio said at the time would be used to set up a publishing division and more than double its current headcount of 160. More >
1EA COO Peter Moore has warned publishers that they must prepare for the day when the industry fully transitions to digital distribution, saying: "unless they change their ways and invest in the future, those companies will die off." Speaking to Industry Gamers, Moore - who was promoted to COO in August - said: "Transitions are hard because revenue slows down and costs speed up. You're getting ready to develop for new platforms, whether they be hardware platforms or software, and it's getting to be even more complex now." More >
4Strauss Zelnick, CEO of publisher Take-Two, has questioned Zynga's business model, saying the social gaming titan's proposed IPO has yet to go through because of its "sketchy metrics." Speaking at the Reuters Media Summit yesterday, Zelnick said: "Zynga is a direct marketing company, 97 per cent of [whose customers] don't pay them anything, three per cent who do. They churn quite quickly and they get new customers. That is their model." More >
2From heavy metal to Sesame Street, the studio that’s so much more than just ‘what Tim Schafer did next’.
1Ian Shepherd, CEO of Game Group, the UK's largest specialist videogame retailer, has insisted the company will survive despite its lowered earnings forecasts and plummeting share price. Speaking to MCV, Shepherd said: "It is very easy to look at any retailer on the high street and write an apocalyptic headline. Our market share is high and growing. Game is very important to the overall health of the videogame industry." More >
The city of lights is home to a group of developers who plan to take the ‘French touch’ to the rest of the world.
Microsoft has unveiled Kinect Accelerator, an program to support the creation of Kinect applications for use in the business world. The programme, which runs from March to May, is part of Microsoft's effort to expand the use of Kinect beyond the living room. It intends to launch a commercial version of the Windows Kinect SDK early next year. More >
Good Old Games, the digital distribution service that sells games that are at least three years old, has confirmed plans to add newer titles to its catalogue. During an investor and press briefing in Warsaw today, managing director Guillaume Rambourg said: "Traditionally, GOG.com has looked for great classics that are three years old or older. We will continue to add classic games, of course, but we are actively working to sign newer titles now." More >
Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono is spearheading Capcom's new company-wide approach to social games with Kazunori Sugiura, producer of Monster Hunter Frontier. Speaking to Famitsu magazine, translated by 1UP, Ono said that the announcement of a new Monster Hunter for the Gree mobile network was just the first step in Capcom's effort to bring its established franchises to social and mobile platforms. More >
CTO Tom Paquin highlights the development opportunities of cloud gaming, saying: "The best things to happen on OnLive won't come from OnLive."
Ant Hive Games, developer of The Line, tells us about the challenge of being an indie developer in big-business Shanghai.