Rock Band 3 lead designer Dan Teasdale has left Harmonix to do more hands on work at The Maw and ‘Splosion Man developer Twisted Pixel.
Jul 052010
Jul 052010
Mythic Entertainment, also previously named EA Mythic, is now called Bioware Mythic.
The news was revealed by Warhammer Online producer Carrie Gouskos in a letter to the game’s community, in which she said that the company is to take over management of the title in Europe from publisher GOA, as it did with Dark Age Of Camelot in February.
Jul 052010
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick would like to break the walled gardens of online console services like Xbox Live.
The executive told the Financial Times he’s frustrated by existing business models that see companies like Microsoft benefiting most from the success of online third party content, such as that released for Activision’s Call of Duty series.
Jul 052010
Independent pressure group Gamers’ Voice is working with TIGA on the trade association’s efforts to persuade the UK’s coalition government to introduce games tax relief.
Formed by Tom Watson MP in November 2009 , Gamers’ Voice is a Facebook group with over 17,000 members. It’s currently emailing MPs asking them to show support for games tax relief by signing a new Early Day Motion (EDM) tabled by Stewart Hosie MP.
Jul 052010
Lionhead Studios boss Peter Molyneux will demo Fable III at next week’s Develop conference in Brighton.
He’ll discuss how the game’s development team has married story, cast and simulation. His talk will culminate in the exclusive UK demo of the game, showing how his theory works in practice.
Jul 052010
The NPD Group has released a top 20 software sales chart for May, following the publication of the top ten last Friday.
The chart shows that the Xbox 360 version of Capcom’s Lost Planet 2 debuted at 11, while Sony’s PS3-exclusive ModNation Racers ranked at 18, Gamasutra reports.
Jul 052010
While software sales have fallen during 2010, the quality of games released is up year-on-year, according to a new report from review aggregator Metacritic.
US software sales to the end of May were down six per cent year-on-year, but Metacritic says the average game Metascore has been higher in 2010 than during the first six months of 2009, meaning titles have been receiving better reviews.
Jul 052010
Warner’s Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 held the top spot on the UK all formats chart during the week ended July 3, according to data from GfK Chart-Track.
Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2 were non-movers in second and third respectively, ahead of the week’s highest new entry, EA’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 in fourth.
Ubisoft’s Dance On Broadway was new at six, while City Interactive’s Sniper: Ghost Warrior debuted in tenth place.
Jul 052010
The country manager for Sony Computer Entertainment in India hinted over the weekend that Gran Turismo 5 will get not one but two special editions. One has already been announced, but the manager suggested that an even larger one has yet to be revealed.
“For GT5, there are two collector’s editions,” said Atindriya Bose on July 3rd, who mentioed the one Sony already announced for all regions. “The other is in a really big package with a lot of paraphernalia that goes beyond the game.”
Jul 052010
['Design Discussions' is a new, regular-occurring column for Kombo by Daniel Johnson, explicating on elements of game design through a case study approach. This piece is a footnote to the initial column Deconstructing the Video Game: Three Pillars of Design for Interactive Drama (Heavy Rain), so it is recommended that you read the prior article first.]
With contextual interactivity, players are somewhat at the mercy of the director. The director is the person who assigns all points of interactivity and the time frame in which they can be initiated, rather than the player. This system coerces players into cooperating with the narrative, and although a handful of people seem to outright refuse this system, it’s a far more persuasive, even-handed approach towards director control than the alternatives. Let us assess the issue of persuasion with traditional video game narrative techniques and conclude with a contrast to Heavy Rain.