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The undersea electric railway built and abandoned within six years
The seaside town of Brighton sits on the south coast of England, roughly 50 miles from the center of London. Famed for its pebble beaches, piers and cool residents, Brighton remains a popular destination for Londoners wanting a quick fix of fresh air and sea views. The town has been a tourist hotspot for hundreds of years for this very reason. Throughout its lifetime countless attractions have come and gone, but none perhaps as elaborate and bizarre as the short-lived electric railway on stilts, known at the time as "Daddy Long Legs."
Has the free-to-play bubble burst?
Richard Bartle isn't alone in thinking the free-to-play bubble is soon to burst. Talking at this week's Develop Conference in Brighton, UK, three mobile game designers with an expertise in free-to-play discussed the negative direction that F2P titles are headed and why that may be coming to an end. "I would rather have 10,000 people who play my game for two years, than a million people who only play for a short time," Matthew Wiggins of mobile studio Jiggery Pokery states. The discussion, as reported by Gamasutra, focused on the unsavory practices of quick in-and-out publishers who were only out to make gobs of cash as quickly as possible. But one industry vet thinks that the F2P bubble has burst. "I think we're moving away from the aggressive initial monetization," CSR Racing studio boss Jason Avent says. "Those people who love your game are happy to pay for it. It's getting people into that longer game... We need to move away from exploiting a small number of people, and instead work to make lots of people stick around."
Linden Lab relocates Brighton UK office
Sharp-eyed Massively readers spotted Linden Lab Brighton office staffers hard at work shifting premises over the weekend, with everything being moved upstairs. Was this some sort of fiery, demonstrative protest where office furniture would be flung from the roof? Could it have been some penthouse variant on the yard-sale, and we could get a deal on that slightly balky laser-printer that we've had our eye on for a while? Alas, neither was actually the case. The Lab was moving to larger premises within Brighton's prominent Tower Point building.
Sony's PlayStation Eye to gain facial recognition capabilities
It was almost two weeks ago that we first heard about the patent for Sony's PlayStation Eye-powered object motion detection, and now the company's announcing facial recognition for the console. According to Gamasutra, Kish Hirani, SCEE's Head of Developer Services, said that the facial recognition software would "detect gender and even the age of the face, separate facial features such as the nose, eyes and ears, and even detect whether you're smiling or not." This new gear will also work with the Sony Motion Controller, with the camera tracking X, Y and Z motion by using the glowing ball. Speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton, Hirani stressed that companies won't need to develop their own tech to work with the new controllers. "If you are working with the PlayStation Eye and think there is some new tech you're going to have to develop for the motion controllers, just get in touch with us. We have a wealth of libraries available, and the chances are you won't have to develop any technology yourself." You hear that, guys? get to work![Via SlashGear]
Linden Lab reportedly seeking EU data center
Word has come down to us that Linden Lab is in negotiations with a number of hosting and colocation firms to set up a new Second Life data-center in the United Kingdom. Linden Lab's requirements for such a facility are quite steep, and the information comes from one firm who was contacted, but whose infrastructure was unable to accommodate the Lab's initial requirements. The implications of Linden Lab establishing a fourth data-center in the UK are interesting. It would be the first outside of the USA, and provide significantly faster access for EU residents to assets and simulators (aka regions) that were hosted at the facility. By the same token, grid stability tends to be compromised when any pair of the Lab's data-centers are unable to communicate with each-other, and an additional facility would seem to double the potential risk of such troubles.
Georgetown Apple Store to move forward after redesign is approved
ifoAppleStore has an update on the battle between Apple and Washington D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission: A new design for the Georgetown Apple Store is close to approval, and includes a subtle Apple logo and trees growing inside the building. The ANC's objections, ranging from rejecting an all-glass storefront to requiring a two-story masonry facade had been the reason for so many design submissions from Apple. While Apple wanted to maintain consistency among all its stores, the ANC wanted to make sure the Apple Store fit in with the other, older buildings on that street. Most interestingly is the rear 20 feet of the store: It has a higher ceiling and skylights to accommodate two living trees inside the building. This isn't the final design, however: The ANC is requesting additional minor changes, and has wondered aloud why there isn't an actual second story behind the two-story facade. Even so, locals suggest the plan is likely to be approved today. If it is, the store will likely open in 2010. In other retail store news, MacNN notes that stores are planned or in progress for: Churchill Square in Brighton, UK Rideau Centre in Ottawa, ON, Canada Hamburg, Germany (Thanks, Steffen!) and Greensboro, NC, which we mentioned in July. [Via MacNN.] Update: Commenters Brad and Chris noted that in a meeting last night, the Georgetown board rejected Apple's plans even after the ANC approved them. So much for that. Thanks, guys!
Linden Lab bulking up
Linden Lab's hungry for staff. They've got thirty-three different classes of position open that they're hiring for (we don't recall ever seeing so many at once). That would make quite an influx right there. Linden Lab will have people at Barcamp Brighton, in the UK on the 15th and 16th (Saturday and Sunday), so if you're looking to meet, greet, press flesh and have a chance to show off your charm, poise and overall coolness with a view to landing a job at the Lab (they have an office in Brighton), this is your chance to strut your stuff.
More NCsoft hiring news, but for what? FOR WHAT?
NCsoft Europe, after announcing that they're looking for employees for an as-yet unannounced new title, have stepped up again with good news for those game enthusiasts eager to break into the industry: they're hiring for a full-time, year-long game tester position (open to UK residents only -- near Brighton, England, to be specific -- sorry, Tennessee). From the website:"The position offers learning whilst at work and block release learning at City College Brighton and Hove, resulting in a Games QA NVQ. Applicants should be IT literate and have Maths and English at GCSE grade C or above. Interviews will be held early February, with the lucky candidate starting 3 March."For more information, check out the listing on their site. This is a pretty quick hiring window; given that, and the fact that it's a tester position makes me wonder exactly how far along this mystery title is in development, if testers are already needed. Of course, they're just hiring one tester so far, so I'm flummoxed. We'll keep track of further developments as they occur!
Brighton's colorful line of lilliputian USB chargers
In case you haven't noticed, we've got a thing for gizmos that serve their purpose without being unnecessarily large, so it's easy to understand why Brighton's diminutive USB chargers are just so darn irresistible. These things do one thing (and one thing well), and that is to transmit juice from the AC outlet into whatever USB-connected device you choose to plug in. The adapters are available in green, orange, pink and yellow hues, weigh just 30-grams apiece and are set to go on sale next week. Sadly, we've yet to be clued in on pricing details, but we can't imagine these things putting a strain on the budget or anything.
NCsoft expands in Europe; creating more jobs
NCsoft is expanding in Europe and creating 100 new jobs over the next three years in Brighton, England. The company will grow and add another 116 new jobs to the 110 employees they already have there and a move to Brighton's City Point in the next couple years. The studio is responsible for assisting with Lineage II, City of Heroes, City of Villains, and Guild Wars.The Korean company is expanding its operations due to a "major investment" by the South East England Development Agency. English developers are still seeking the kind of tax breaks found in France, currently Australia is struggling with the same issue. Expect to see greater expansion if NCsoft continues to do well.
Develop 2007 dated, detailed: July 24 to 26 in Brighton
Develop Conference organizers Tandem Events have announced new information regarding the 2007 edition, which is taking place July 24 to 26 in Brighton, England. The conference, which is the British equivalent to US-based Game Developers Conference, will purportedly include 45 sessions and over 70 speakers. Currently known speakers include Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, movie special effects expert Peter Chiang and LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule, according to Gamasutra.The sessions are spread over seven tracks: design, production, coding, business, art, audio, and newcomer world vision. The latter category is intended to provide European developers an international perspective and give them the chance to learn from their global peers.Running alongside the conference is the Develop Expo, which will serve as a venue for hands-on demoing of the latest developer tools, technology and very likely a few games.The first day of Develop is being set aside for Develop Mobile, focusing on mobile development, and GAMES:EDU, focusing on serious and educational games.Registration is now open. Develop Mobile and GAMES:EDU is will take place Tuesday, July 24, and the Develop Conference and Expo will be July 25 and 26. Currently, there is no schedule of events set and the keynotes have not been announced. [Via Gamasutra]
Apple preps England's 10th and 11th store
ifoAppleStore - watchdogs that they are - report today that Apple is preparing to open two more stores in England. Specifically, the Touchwood mall in Solihull south of Birmingham has been identified as a likely location as well as Churchill Square in Brighton. If any of our operatives on the other side of the pond spot any construction or other tell-tale signs, please let us know!
PS3 dev kit BSOD... sorta
For the Develop Conference in Brighton, Sony (who was the primary sponsor of the conference) set up a booth equipped with multiple PSP "pods" and a couple of large widescreen LCDs showing PS3 tech demos. One of the demonstrations was a large shoal of different types of fish swimming around a large space, and the other was a 3D water simulation with semi-realistic waves.I spent a few seconds playing with the surprisingly light Dual Shake controller -- my first time, I didn't attend E3 -- and pressed select. For whatever reason, and this is why development kits are generally never shown to the public, the demo slowed to a halt, with the nice blue picture jerking away at 3fps continuously in the frame. In a technical sense this isn't a blue screen of death, but it did die displaying a blue screen, so therefore I proudly claim the title of "world's first non-developer to cause a PlayStation 3 to display a blue screen of death". It's certainly the most pretty pseudo-BSOD that I've ever seen.
Joystiq interviews Rob Kay of Harmonix
In our second interview from the Develop Conference in Brighton this week, Jen and I sat down with Rob Kay of Harmonix. Rob was project lead on the cult classic Guitar Hero, a game which is part of a new wave of hyper accessible games that is all about catching the mindset of the mainstream, as well as addicting millions of hardcore gamers. We talked with Rob about song licensing, Konami's recent "Guitar Revolution" trademark and the possibility of a Trombone Hero.You talked about clones of Guitar Hero in your seminar. Specifically you talked about how other companies are being inspired by the premise of games like Guitar Hero. I don't know if you heard about Konami trademarking a Guitar Revolution game?Yeah, I read that on the internet. To give Konami props, they started this whole instrument simulation in games thing when they did games like GuitarFreaks which they released in Japan. We worked with Konami on Karaoke Revolution and Karaoke Stage as well. So, I think it's great actually. I'm kind of the opinion that whoever is making these games with us then we're exploring this new ground together. I've got friends who have played Karaoke Revolution, and they wanted more songs so they've gone out and bought SingStar. So I think great, more people are out there playing these types of games.
Joystiq interviews Peter Molyneux of Lionhead Studios
Yesterday at the Develop Conference in Brighton, Jennie and I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with the founder of Lionhead Studios, Peter Molyneux. We chatted about the issue of hype, frustrations surrounding PC gaming and Peter's early days in the industry, amongst other topics.Fable was pretty much portrayed as one of the most open games of all time, but in terms of hype, it failed to meet the high expectations that you gave the game. There was even a forum post where you apologized about this: why did it get to that level?Well, it started with this fatal line that I made and that was that I wanted to make Fable the greatest role playing game of all time. I kinda still defend that because I honestly don't see the point in making a game that you don't honestly believe has a chance of being the greatest game of all time. I meet the press quite a lot, every 6-8 weeks there's some sort of press interview. The way I work then is to get a system in, play around with it, polish it, make it better. Sometimes I leave it as it is and sometimes I throw it away.
Xbox Live numbers just keep rising
At the Develop Conference in Brighton, England, Microsoft's Jeff Sullivan dropped the news that 60% of 360 users are connected to Xbox Live. The long and short of it: things look good for Live."'Every time I do this presentation I have to check what the new figures are,' Sullivan said, before rattling off up-to-date stats such as Xbox Live has hosted over two billion hours of gaming, including over 500 million games of Halo 2. It also handles over 900,000 voice and text messages per day. But there's plenty more where that came from, with Microsoft on-track to hit its target of six million Xbox Live accounts in 2007.On Xbox Live Arcade:". . .on Arcade (which is used by 65 percent of connected users), over five million games have been downloaded. Conversion rates between free content and paid for downloads currently averages around 21 percent, with top games such as Geometry Wars and Uno up at 50 percent, while the lowest conversion rate is around 10 percent."It should be noted that even %10 percent is a substantial improvement over casual PC games, which average 2%. Sullivan also covered many other topics including Live Anywhere, in-game ads, and XLSP -- a tool that allows third party developers to integrate their own servers with Xbox Live. I think this Xbox Live thing might be going somewhere.[Via Xbox-Scene]
Overheard@Develop: Mark Rein - "I need a stiff drink"
Mark Rein is currently sitting 3 feet away from me, and is heavily immersed in an interview with a journalist. Only five minutes ago I heard him saying "I need a stiff drink" in not-too-subtle tones as he walked past the press area. The reason? Most likely his supposed "heckling" from developers over his strong opinions cited in the opening keynote of the Develop Conference this morning (UK time). One developer went as far as calling Mark "a dinosaur" regarding his views about the industry's direction.In the keynote this morning he called episodic content a "broken business" and stated that "Episodic games that offer faster turnaround will inevitably be using a lot of recycled content, walking through the same environments and shooting the same enemies with the same weapons." So that's opposed to the refreshing experience that we get from walking through Unreal game after Unreal game?At least one thing's on the up: Mark seems to have got something to drink, as the picture above illustrates.
