Biz

In what might prove to be the most meta post ever, I'm going to talk about gaming journalism and how it's changed in recent years. Now, the mainstream media -- by which I refer to traditional magazines like Time and Life, and news outlets like the Wall Street Journal the New York Times -- have always worked diligently to maintain a high-quality standard for themselves. As a collective, they follow the rules set down in regulatory tomes such as the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook. Of course, every publication has its own house style to which its writers must adhere, but by and large there are many generally accepted guidelines concerning tone, editorial slant, and the like.

As video games grew as a phenomenon, it quickly became evident that the mainstream press wasn't going to give it the coverage its enthusiast audience demanded. Typically adopting an outsider's approach, traditional news outlets left their coverage at "Here's a new trend. It's kind of strange and we don't understand it, but the kids seem to like it." This journalistic void left the field wide open for a new generational voice to inhabit.

The developers at Sweden based GRIN are reaping in the praise of their recently release of Bionic Commando Rearmed and today the company announced an expansion . . . sort of. The developer announced that it would team up with Dutch company Streamline Studios for "a strategic agreement that will allow both companies to achieve greater flexibility and game development capacity for AAA titles."

While not exactly a merger of the two companies, the new agreement will allow Streamline to augment "GRIN's development capacities in art, design, and programming." GRIN is currently working on two announced projects; the full blown Bionic Commando retail action game and a title based on the recent action movie Wanted. Streamline has created art content, CGI movies and other content for a wide variety of games including Gears of War, Unreal Tournament 3, Overlord, Battlefield 2142 and others.

It's our weekly ritual for us. We await word from the NPD Group on what PC games are on the top 10 list of best selling titles in the US. Today NPD announced the latest list of games for the week ending August 9. As you can see there's no new titles on the list this week; just some movement among previous titles to new positions in the top 10. So with that out of the way here's the latest list:

1. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
3. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
4. Nancy Drew: The Phantom Of Venice - Her Interactive
5. Spore Creature Creator - Electronic Arts
6. Diablo Battle Chest - Blizzard
7. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard
8. World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - Blizzard
9. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff - Electronic Arts
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Activision

Nvidia continues to hype up its support for the PhysX game physics software solution that Nvidia can now support via new drivers for its Geforce series of graphics chips. Today Nividia announced that future versions of Gamebryo, the game graphics engine developed by Emergent Game Technologies, will fully support the PhysX physics features.

Gamebryo is used in a number of previously released and future games including Bethesda Softworks's Fallout 3 and Mythic's upcoming MMO Warhammer Online. While it's too late for those games to intergrate the PhysX support, one of the first games that might use the PhysX features in Gamebryo is the recently announced RPG sequel Divinity 2 from developer Larian Studios.

We have heard Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli complain more than once about the rampant piracy that occured after the release of their first person shooter Crysis last fall. In fact Yerli claimed at one point that just one legit copy of the game was sold for every 20 copies that were pirated.

Well it appears than even all that illegal downloading of Crysis wasn't enough to totally sink the ship at Crytek. IGN reports that during a speech this week at the Games Convention Developers Conference in Leipzig, Germany, Yerli stated that Crysis was actually profitable, saying, "if it wasn't profitable I wouldn't be able to stand here." The actual cost of develping the game was 15 million Euros (about $22 million). The second game in the series, Crysis Warhead, is due out in mid-September.

The PC Gaming Alliance was first announced to much hype last February at the Game Developers Conference as hardware and software companies teamed up to both promote PC gaming as well as to give those hardware and software companies some concrete info on things like hardware specs for games and other matters.

Today the organization announced a summary of their first Horizons report on the industry with their claim that PC gaming revenue brought in a whopping $10.7 billion in 2007. Only 30 percent of that number comes from sales of games in retail stores, according to the report. Asia was named as the biggest territory for games accounting for half of the industry's revenues.

Online game revenues total $4.8 billion in 2007, according to the report, with digital distribution of titles accounting for nearly $2 billion last year. The report also included reviews from ads on gaming web sites, portals and in-game ads which generated $800 million last year. The full report is for PC Gaming Alliance members only.

Earlier this year a new game publisher called True Games Interactive was formed. Founded by former members of K2 Network, the MMO based publisher has now gotten a cash infusion from UTV Software, an Indian based company. In exchange, UTV Software has purchased 80 percent of the California based True Games. The specific dollar numbers were not revealed.

True Games' has already announced plans to release a free-to-play MMO from developer Petroglyph Studios, the former Westwood Studios team members that developed the RTS titles Star Wars: Empire at War and last year's original title Universe at War: Earth Assault. Details on the new Petroglyph game with True Games have yet to be announced.

In an interview with Develop, Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack broke his silence regarding the legal battle his company is tangled in with developer Epic Games.

"The trial is proceeding, we feel really good about our claims, and we're hopeful that justice will be done," Dyack commented to Develop. "We all feel really strongly that they have defrauded us, and a major portion of the industry."

In July 2007, Silicon Knights filled a lawsuit against Epic Games - developers of Gears of War - alleging that the developer's Unreal Engine 3 code was inadequate and has "caused serious damage to not only Silicon Knights, but a number of other developers in the industry," as reported by GameDaily. In August of the same year, Epic Games filled a counterclaim stating that Silicon Knights had copied its technology when a new engine was developed for Too Human.

It appears the heated battle rages on and considering the amount of licensees Epic Games has for its Unreal Engine 3 tool set the outcome could largely impact the games industry.

[via GameDaily]

Electronic Arts has been extending its $25.74 per share offer to buy Take Two Interactive for several months now but today that offer will finally expire. EA issued a press release today announcing that the current deadline for the offer, which was scheduled to expire late today, will be allowed to expire.

However, that isn't the end of the EA-Take Two saga as EA CEO John Riccitiello and Take Two Executive Chairman Strauss Zelnick spoke on the phone on Friday, according to EA's press release. After that the two companies chatted over the weekend with the result being that EA will allow Take Two "to provide a management presentation to EA containing non-public information."

In letters between Riccitiello and Zelnick, it was revealed that EA no longer feels they could intergrate Take Two into their company before the holiday season (where over 50 percent of games are sold). So while the current takeover bid is winding down it's also clear that EA and Take Two could be making some kind of deal in the future.

Funcom released its regular quarterly financial results on Friday, giving some more info about their post launch results for their fantasy MMO Age of Conan. According to the report the game currently has about 415,000 customers but that play time in the game for each customer has been less than expected. So far 800,000 copies of the game have been sold to customers.

Revenues for Funcom increased higher than expected but the company still had an operating loss for the quarter. However the company still feels it is in good financial shape with a lot of cash available. Funcom plans to expand Age of Conan to other territories in the coming months and is working on other projects, including two casual MMOs expected to launch in 2009. Their next major MMO, The Secret World, is ramping up development but no word yet on a release date.

KOEI has announced that the sixth entry in their button-mashing Dynasty Warriors series will be available on November 18 for PC and PS2, according to GamesPress. The PS2 edition of Dynasty Warriors 6 will comprise two discs containing the full cast of characters, lots of scenarios, new weapons and a mode dubbed "Mosou."

Though no specific carrier for the PC version was announced, Dynasty Warriors 6 will be available through digital distribution, while the PS2 version will be released via traditional retail routes.

During a recent interview with Eurogamer, Spore executive producer Lucy Bradshaw discussed the game's Digital Rights Management (DRM) and how it will affect players eager to legally obtain Spore when it releases early next month.

Bradshaw said that, sadly, copy protection "is a necessary part of our biz," but the development team has gone to great lengths to ensure that legal buyers will not be encumbered. Upon initial installation, Spore must be authenticated. The game can be installed on up to three computers total, and registration is required for access to online features.

In terms of expansion packs, Bradshaw considers those to be inevitable. Spore was designed with expansions and DLC in mind, "so yes, we'll add to the experience," she said.

The full transcript with Lucy Bradshaw is available on Eurogamer's site.

Despite earlier reports that Flagship Studios would remain optional after the massive layoff comprising most of its staff, ex-COO Max Schaefer has told Gamecyte that the studio has only remained open to "take care of the final affairs."

A Blizzard Entertainment veteran, Schaefer admits that closing down a company was a new experience for him, as it was for most of Flagship's executives. The doors have remained opened so that Flagship CEO Bill Roper can "take care of the debts and the employees in an orderly fashion."

Sitting in on the interview was free-to-play-MMO Mythos lead designer Travis Baldree, who lent a bit more insight into the build up to the studio's premature demise. Baldree says that he, along with the other executives, knew that closing was a possibility, "but we were in very advanced negotiations with a couple of people for deals that would have kept Flagship open and would have kept everything running." For a time, the future seemed brighter.

Unfortunately, none of those deals came to fruition, and the closure became inevitable. "We all were up all night, every night, not getting any sleep, working every day trying to get it to work out for everyone, and in the end it just didn't," says Baldree.

Just as before, Baldree, Schaefer and others are looking ahead to the future, and the second chance it offers. The Mythos team has reformed as Runic Games and continues to do what they love most regardless of setbacks and layoffs: create games.

Gamersgate continues to add new publishers to its digital distribution network and today the company announced that 2K Games will join the many others that offer downloads of their titles through Gamersgate.

Only two games from 2K Games will be distributed via Gamersgate at first; Sid Meier's Civilization III: Complete and Shattered Union. However other titles will be added over time including Sid Meier's Railroads, CivCity Rome and Sid Meier's Pirates. However, There's no word yet if Gamersgate will over day-and-date releases of upcoming 2K Games titles like Borderlands, Mafia 2 and Bioshock 2.

Hot on the heels of their first profitable quarter in years, publisher Atari has just announced plans to work with another publisher, Empire Interactive. Under the terms of the agreement, Atari will distribute a number of Empire's mass market themed games in North America in 2008 and 2009. Three of the game will ship to stores in September including Pipe Mania for the PC and other platforms.

Empire Interactive has had its own financial issues recently. It announced last month plans to sell off its Razorworks development studio to UK based Rebellion. That allowed Empire to reduce its staff by 30 percent to save money. Empire is best know for publishing the Flatout racing franchise; the PC version of Flatout: Ultimate Carnage should appear in stores later this month.