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| | Free Radical Sees Massive Layoffs! | Submit News! | | Posted by: Oliver at 02:36:35 PM | Monday, January 05, 2009 |
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After it was announced last year that Free Radical were in administration, it's now been announced that the company has lost 140 employees with a remaining skeleton staff of just 40 developers. The company is also up for sale...
In lighter reading, BBC News has spoken with a cornucopia of game industry luminaries, including Richard Garriott, Will Wright and Peter Molyneux, to find out about their top 2008 moments and what they're looking forward to in 2009; also, Gamasutra come up with the goods again and have put up an interview with PopCap's Jason Kapalka. | | Free Radical in Administration! | Submit News! | | Posted by: Oliver at 01:17:51 PM | Friday, December 19, 2008 |
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What, more bad news for game developers? It appears as though Free Radical Design (Time Splitters, Second Sight, Haze) are in bad financial shape and are now in administration (dealing with debts).
Rumours are also appearing that the PC hardware manufacturer, ABIT, is set to close at the end of the year; meanwhile, next year's QuakeCon has been located at dated; you can now get a 3D version of your Spore creatures; 3D Realms get in the holiday spirit by using a Duke Nukem Forever wallpaper as wrapping paper(hey, it's DNF news!); and Gamasutra have some interesting articles, one dealing with job interview etiquette, and the other an interview with Min Kim and Herb Yang from online developer Nexon regarding their latest title, Combat Arms.
| | Take-Two's Wheeling and Dealing! | Submit News! | | Posted by: Oliver at 01:58:09 PM | Thursday, December 18, 2008 |
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After Take-Two's earnings call yesterday, there's been a ton of news surrounding the company, including its financial results, a new deal to retain key Rockstar talent as well as the announcement that they will no longer handle publishing for Champions Online.
In other news, the PC Gaming Alliance is restructuring its membership and needs your help; a de-authorisation tool has been released for Spore to make future re-installs less painful; and Develop have put together a pretty good list of the top ten most interesting industry deals of 2008. | | Midway's Cost Cutting Schedule! | | Posted by: Oliver at 07:23:04 PM | Wednesday, December 17, 2008 |
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After an extremely difficult year, the suffering continues for Midway as they are set to lay off 25% of their staff, close their Austin studio and put certain current projects on hold.
The bad news continues as Turbine also lays off staff; nearly half of Factor 5's staff have been made redundant; Steve Jobs' traditional MacWorld keynote will see its last appearance next year; and depending on how you view it, certain employers have been urged not to consider players of MMOGs for prospective employment.
To drown your sorrows, you can read a great article on Gamasutra regarding The Top 20 Trends of 2008. Nothing depressing in there... much. | | EA Publishing Brütal Legend! | | Posted by: Oliver at 06:37:53 PM | Friday, December 12, 2008 |
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In the only news that matters today, it's been announced that Tim Schafer and Double Fine's next game, Brütal Legend, will be published by EA Partners next year, after the game was dropped from Activision Blizzard's release lineup following the finalisation of their merger earlier this year! Rejoice!
Head over here for the official announcement! | | Spielberg: Filmmakers Are Learning From Videogames! | | Posted by: Oliver at 02:42:04 PM | Thursday, December 11, 2008 |
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As Steven Spielberg gets his hands dirty working with EA on videogames, his analysis of the games market is becoming more accurate, although, if he wants to see non-intrusive storytelling in games, he needs to play more Bioshock and less Medal of Honor...
Otherwise, you can read about the possibilities of Havok's next product; the renewed troubles of EA; an early Apple tech-support experience involving Steve Jobs himself; Time naming their Top Ten games of 2008; and Atari acquiring Cryptic Studios. | | Spore Breaks Piracy Record! | | Posted by: Oliver at 05:44:38 PM | Monday, December 08, 2008 |
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It seems Spore has become the most pirated game ever, with 1.7 million downloads since September - half a million of which occurred in the first 10 days!
Elsewhere you can read about an AIDS awareness game releasing in Kenyan youth centres; Electronic Arts may face further staff and project cuts; the iPhone's latest SDK adds TV-Out; SEGA have launched their very own Flash casual games portal; and the UK game development industry is losing status in the global development industry. | | A Look at Modern Game AI | | Posted by: Nitrogen at 11:15:38 PM | Thursday, December 04, 2008 |
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IEEE Spectrum has an interesting article about AI in games and how it's helping to drive AI development in general. They explore several of the current avenues of research and look at potential solutions to some of the common problems.
"The AI of F.E.A.R. is based loosely on an automated planner called STRIPS (for STanford Research Institute Problem Solver), which Richard E. Fikes and Nils J. Nilsson, both now of Stanford University, developed way back in 1971. The general idea of STRIPS was to establish one or more goals along with a set of possible actions, each of which could be carried out only when its particular preconditions were satisfied. The planning system kept track of the physical environment and determined which actions were allowed. Carrying out one of them in turn modified the state of the environment, which therefore made other actions possible."
It's very light reading, but I thought I'd share it... | | Ken Levine is a PC Gamer First! | | Posted by: Oliver at 03:06:46 PM | Thursday, December 04, 2008 |
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Bioshock/2K Boston head honcho, Ken Levine is a PC guy first, according to a chin-stroking interview with Forbes.
Elsewhere you can see that Petroglyph (Universe at War, Star Wars: Empire at War) will be focussing on a micro-transaction based, free-to-play model for its next game; Half-Life 2 mod, Garry's Mod has generated over $3 million through Steam; you'll now be able to find Flash games via a Flash game search engine; and you should read about the dreams game developers have (including Peter Molyneux) as a result of working for extended periods of time on their games. | | Breaking: Gabe Newell Says DRM is Dumb! | | Posted by: Oliver at 02:58:05 PM | Wednesday, December 03, 2008 |
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In a shocking piece of news, Valve's Gabe Newell has called most Digital Rights Management initiatives "dumb." Huh...
In other news (old and new), Dungeon Keeper is set to become a MMORPG; you now get to play the original Doom 1 shareware in Flash; Midway has basically been sold for $100 000; the Half-Life recreation mod, Black Mesa, has a new official trailer; and for those with a thirst for knowledge on what makes shooter games tick, you can read this in-depth look at Bio-Sensory Reactions to 3D Shooting Games. |
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