2D-Boy
Latest
Devs show Steam love as Pitchford defends his criticism
Just under two weeks ago, Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford let out his less than pleasant feelings regarding digital distribution platform Steam and its owner, Valve Software. Today, Ars Techinca posted a rundown of developers from World of Goo's 2D Boy to Sam & Max's Telltale Games who all feel ... the exact opposite of Pitchford. "If this is exploitation, more please," Audiosurf creator Dylan Fitterer said.According to Telltale CTO Kevin Bruner, "Steam may be one the greatest things to happen recently ... we put Steam as one of the A-list distribution channels; up there with XBLA and WiiWare." The praise doesn't stop there -- Ars points out that it was unable to find even one developer who would "admit to feeling exploited" by Valve's business practices concerning Steam. We reached out to Pitchford, who told us, "As a gamer, I love Valve ... as a customer, I love Steam." He clarified, "From an industry perspective, Steam would be even better off if it were a separate company ... trust issues that result from conflict of interest could be mitigated." To Pitchford, it's a question of appearances rather than actual impropriety. "It's just perception within segments of the publishing and development community that, I guess, no one is really talking about."We've posted Pitchford's entire (and quite lengthy) response after the break. Hopefully we're not alone in hoping everyone will just hug it out.
World of Goo birthday sale deemed 'huge success'
2D Boy seems quite satisfied with the results of its "pay what you want" World of Goo experiment. In celebration of Goo's first birthday, developer 2D Boy allowed people to determine the game's price at checkout. The result: 57,000 sales at an average price of $2.03. Although a significant number took the game at one penny (really, people?!), the developer's graph of purchases reveals that almost as many bought the game for $1. There were also sales spikes at $5 and $10.What's probably most interesting is that while this experiment was going on at 2D Boy's site, sales on Valve's digital distribution service, Steam, went up by 40 percent from the previous week, at $20 a pop. WiiWare sales increased by nine percent, but the devs aren't sure if that was just normal fluctuation.2D Boy also put up a survey asking why customers decided on the amount they paid. The top answer, at 22.7 percent, was "That's All I can Afford Right Now." We seriously hope those weren't the penny payers, because that's just tragic (even in a recession). A close second, at 22.1 percent, were people who wanted to support the pay-what-you-want model.
World of Goo on sale for 'your' price; iPhone port coming
My my, how time flies. On this date one year ago, World of Goo entered our lives and, well ... it made everything all gooey. (The good, warm kinda gooey.) To celebrate the game's birthday, 2D Boy is offering the title for -- wait for it -- whatever price you want to pay.Seriously, once you enter a price into the appropriate checkout field, you buy the game for that amount. We'd encourage you to cough up as much as you can spare though, because 2D Boy totally deserves your money. The sale ends Monday, October 19, so start digging under those couch cushions.You may also want to set aside some loose change for the upcoming World of Goo iPhone port. 2D Boy has a build running on a 3GS right now and is working to get the game going on the vanilla 3G. We'll be sure to keep you posted on its progress.
2D Boy's Gabler clarifies next project
2D Boy's Kyle Gabler tells Joystiq that the current project he's working on with Henry Hatsworth creator Kyle Gray and World of Goo programmer Allan Blomquist is not the next game from 2D Boy. Following up on yesterday's confusing reports on the new game, Gabler told us that he and 2D Boy co-founder Ron Carmel don't want to prematurely announce their next project, which he believes will have huge expectations following the plaudits plopped on World of Goo.Gabler explained the game he's working on with Gray and Blomquist isn't a 2D Boy or EA title, and he later sent us a link which goes into more detail on the Experimental Gameplay Project website. The game he's working on with the "EGP guys" will be high quality, though only a couple of hours long.
2D Boy's Gabler drops hints on upcoming WiiWare game
2D Boy's Kyle Gabler, speaking with Nintendo Dpad, mentions he's currently working on a new WiiWare project with Henry Hatsworth creator Kyle Gray. Programming things along will be World of Goo code guy Allan Blomquist. Gabler states that the trio hasn't mentioned "anything about it to anyone," but drops the gooey detail that the new game is based on an experimental title from their past. Hmmm.We're following up to find out if there's any further information on the title and whether Ron Carmel -- 2D Boy's other co-founder -- is also involved in the project. We'll update as soon as we receive more details.Update: Gabler let us know this is not the next project from 2D Boy, but a separate thing he's working on.[Via Go Nintendo]
The industry chimes in on the importance of reviews for Wii games
Various industry figures have come out in support of Peter Moore's claims that review scores don't impact the success of Wii games. One developer told Eurogamer that how a Wii game does is contingent entirely upon marketing, calling Wii games "pure risk." "A lot of these games that you think are the perfect game for Wii don't sell because companies don't have the money to market them," the developer said. "Whereas Nintendo is spending gazillions of dollars marketing their games."Michael Pachter suggested that review scores aren't important because many Wii owners don't read reviews. ""I think that Metacritic scores are irrelevant for people who don't look at them - how's that for obvious?" Pachter said. "While there are many Wii owners who are hardcore and who care very much about scores, there are many - perhaps half - who are quite casual, and wouldn't know Metacritic if it fell on them." He offered games like Carnival Games and Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum as examples of successful titles with little critical acclaim.However, 2D Boy's Kyle Gabler offers an instance in which Metacritic scores and reviews do make a difference: indie games, like his own World of Goo, which happens to be the third highest-rated game on Wii. He compares mainstream games to Will Smith movies, which draw audiences without reviews."But for indie guys like us, Metacritic and review scores matter a lot," Gabler said. "In fact we link directly to them from our web site. So does Steam. It makes a lot of sense - potential players don't feel comfortable dishing out cash for some random unknown indie game without an aggregate thumbs-up from solid reviewers."
PC game developers foretell the death of DRM
If you were one of the many recruits in last year's war on restrictive, invasive DRM, you may want to check out a recent article on Gamasutra that features opinions on PC gaming piracy protection (that's a mouthful) from a number of gaming industry movers and shakers.The general sentiment of these interviewees is that DRM is extremely ineffective when it comes to preventing piracy, and that developers should either come up with alternate ways of ensuring the retail product is more valuable than the pirated product, or determine a different way to make money altogether (such as micro-transactions). For interesting insight from fine folks like 2D Boy's Ron Carmel and Stardock's Brad Wardell, we highly suggest checking out the full article. [Image]
WiiWare games appear on Amazon
Hot on the heels of moving into the Xbox Live Arcade market, online retailer Amazon has started offering Wiiware games for purchase, as spotted by a savvy shopper on NeoGAF. The first one spotted in the wild is 2D Boy's puzzler World of Goo.Though discounts were a big selling point for the XBLA portion of Amazon's e-storefront, this first offering is at the full $15 price tag. Here's hoping that's not the case for all Wii releases. This isn't how we want to buy our games, but we could definitely be lured in by the prospect of saving a few bucks.Update: Just like with the XBLA codes, there are no plans to sell WiiWare codes through Amazon's UK branch, reports CasualGaming.biz.
SXSW 2009: Being Indie and Successful in the Video Game Industry
There's a wealth of indie-related gaming panels and goings on at SXSW this year, ranging from the previous "Games By The People, For The People" panel, the GameSalad folks, and the retro-cool Get Outta My Face arcade cabinet. Heck, there's even a company that wants to bring back Hypercard stack games. So we went back for more indie gaming panel goodness, just because we could. This was a panel by the game developers this time, rather than the people who run the companies ... so what did we learn? A lot of the same from the previous panel. Sadly Jonathan Blow couldn't make it, and was replaced by the above inflatable doll with the Freddie Mercury mug. Although covering his absence nicely were panelists Kellee Santiago from thatgamecompany, John Baez of The Behemoth, Ron Carmel of 2D BOY, and Joel DeYoung from Hothead Games who moderated. Check out the highlights after the break.
2D Boy examines creating a World of Goo [Update]
Independent game developer 2D Boy has begun to detail the early days of development for World of Goo. In a recent blog post (the first of seven), the team revealed its original version of what would eventually become the award-winning title. One week into development, 2D Boy had a basic idea of what to expect: A small game with simple physics and collision detection ... and which sported no music or animation at all.If a screenshot (pictured above) of 2D Boy's creativity coming to fruition isn't enough, the developer has also made the original version of the game available to download -- for free. 2D Boy warns players that the 2006 version "feels like you're dragging balls inside a jar of honey" and has stability issues but it's a great extra for fans of the final product. Also, it guest stars Chairry ... so it captured our Pee-Wee's Playhouse loving hearts immediately.Update: Part two of the feature, which includes a newer version of the 2006 build to download, is also available.
Steam gets us all gooey, sells World of Goo for $5
All weekend long, Steam is selling 2D Boy's critically acclaimed (and Joystiq-approved) World of Goo for $5, which is 75% off the normal going rate. Knowing that, anyone connected to Steam should, at the very minimum, give the demo a test drive.Truthfully, we can say that World of Goo offers at least $5 in sticky, sticky fun. For that price, there's really no way one could justify Goo piracy.%Gallery-20573%
World of Goo coming to Japan in Q2
Earlier this month, a Japanese trademark for World of Goo was spotted, registered by Nintendo of Japan. This lead to conjecture that Nintendo would publish the indie WiiWare hit in that territory. Nintendo's Tom Prata has kindly confirmed the speculation, telling us that "Nintendo will distribute World of Goo for WiiWare in Japan starting in the second quarter of 2009."The company certainly seems taken with the game, which is now pretty much the poster child for WiiWare. At the DICE summit, 2D Boy's Kyle Gabler even joined Prata onstage for a presentation about Nintendo's interest in putting more indie games on WiiWare and DSiWare.%Gallery-16000%
Nintendo publishing World of Goo in Japan [update]
Update: Tom Prata, Nintendo's senior director of project development, said that "Nintendo will distribute World of Goo for WiiWare in Japan starting in the second quarter of 2009." Confirmed!Siliconera found a new Japanese trademark registration, for something called ... hmm, "World of Goo?" Oh, wait, that's probably just that WiiWare game, World of Goo, that came out in other territories last year and was loved by all. 2D Boy's puzzle masterpiece has yet to hit Japan, but it could soon, judging by this registration. Surprisingly, Nintendo is the registering company, meaning that it may choose to publish World of Goo in Japan. That's a testament to Nintendo's high estimation of the game's quality belief that it will sell! World of Goo isn't the first Western WiiWare game from a smaller developer to be picked up by a huge publisher for Japanese release. Square Enix released Frontier Developments' LostWinds in December.%Gallery-16000%
World of Goo publisher files for bankruptcy
GameDaily BIZ has learned that family-friendly publisher, Brighter Minds, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on January 28. Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows the publisher to remain in control of its business as it makes organizational changes, unlike chapter 7, which would mean a complete liquidation of its assets. In July 2008, Brighter Minds launched its own online games portal, BeanstalkGames.com. Recently the Ohio-based company published the critically acclaimed and award-winning World of Goo from developer 2D Boy. Winner of the IGF award for Design Innovation and Technical Excellence, World of Goo recently made NPD Top 10 sales list for the week ending January 17. The NPD listing was a surprise, considering World of Goo designer Ron Carmel revealed the game to have staggering 90% piracy rate in November. Those damn dirty pirates!
Get the World of Goo soundtrack for free
Fans of great games and game music have a fan in 2D Boy, which happens to have made a great game with great music: World of Goo. The developer is such a fan of its fans that it has made the game's soundtrack available for free via its website.Not only that -- one-half of the two-man dev team, Kyle Gabler, has taken the time to remaster the tracks, "like they do to Snow White DVDs." 2D Boy's site has links to download mirrors of the 49-minute score; there's even a set of fan-created sheet music, in case you like to play great music as well as great games.
Free World of Goo soundtrack gently caresses your ears
World of Goo didn't only look and play wonderfully -- we also fell in love with how it sounded. The cute squealing of gooballs was backed by one of the most varied and memorable soundtracks of 2008.And now, it can be all yours! 2D Boy's Kyle Gabler spent a weekend compiling and remastering several of the game's marvellous tracks "like they do to Snow White DVDs," and has put it up for grabs here (be warned: at the time of writing, the site is flitting on and offline). We're yet to download and listen to our copy, but we suspect it is the sweetest-sounding 85MB of anything we download this year.%Gallery-16000%[Via 2D Boy]
Peter Moore not so ignorant about World of Goo anymore
If you're unfamiliar with the story of 2D Boy, they left the corporate juggernaut EA, founded their own company and pretty much made one of the best games EVAR, World of Goo. Then Peter Moore saw it on some list and really didn't know what it was. Tunes change, however.Peter recently gave the game's demo a whirl and came away impressed. He found "a ton to admire" and said it was "full of impressive physics that make for an elegant and somewhat addictive experience." He promises more on his experience with the game later, so that's all he said for now.If you're interested in more from EA, like NASCAR Kart Racing, he goes on about it later in his blog post. Check out the full post here.%Gallery-16000%[Via 1UP]
2D Boy 'honored' by Peter Moore's World of Goo ignorance
Eurogamer posted its "Top 50 Games of 2008" list last week, and was immediately scolded by EA boss Peter Moore for daring to exclude FIFA 09. This story was picked up by numerous sites, but one detail that wasn't so heavily reported were Moore's views on the game that came tenth, World of Goo. Moore said he was "surprised to see [World of Goo] up so high," despite ... not having played it. For their part, 2D Boy (former employees of EA, no less) described the remark as a "compliment," and said they were "honored that World of Goo has crept this far into mainstream awareness." The pair have also confessed to deriving a "sick pleasure" from an "industry bigwig's indignant, self-righteous incredulity," though we suspect tongues were firmly placed in cheeks at this stage. %Gallery-16000%
Wii Warm Up: Building a tower
Quite a specific Wii Warm Up this morning, in that it's just for World of Goo players. Having recently started the game (remember that it only came out in Europe recently), I'm still only on the third chapter, but find myself constantly drawn back to the "World of Goo Corporation" mode. Here, players can construct huge, wobbly towers of goo from the excess goo balls they rescue in the main game.I am transfixed by this mode (which I realize is basically Tower of Goo, the game that kicked off 2D Boy's WiiWare adventure), and will contentedly spend a couple of hours building, before inevitably watching my creations collapse. So far, I've managed a tower of around 23 meters, which I know you guys have bettered. What's the highest you've managed?%Gallery-16000%
Nintendo helping spread the World of Goo word
If you see your Wii's slot light a-glowing in the next few hours, then don't worry -- it's not some homebrew-destroying firmware update (or, regrettably, the storage solution as an early surprise Christmas present). Rather, it's Nintendo trying to bend your ear with an e-mail advert for award-winning WiiWare hit World of Goo. It's massively heartening to see the big N spreading the message for 2D Boy's puzzler (and for anything on WiiWare, actually). Next time some chump complains about Nintendo failing to lend a hand to third-parties, point them this way, eh? %Gallery-16000%
