black-and-white-2
Latest
Former Blizzard dev starts Atomic Operations game studio
Industry veteran Chris Millar has been around -- he's been with Blizzard since the WarCraft II days, and has worked on everything from Black and White 2 to Fat Princess – but now he's off to head up his own company called Atomic Operations. In this quick Q&A with Gamasutra, he says that the company will be a grab-bag of methods and products, all using "an evolved production method similar to that of movies." They've already got a project out the door, too: Atomic is the company that's supporting Fat Princess, with the bugfixes released the other day and presumably more to come. Millar and Atomic Operations join the multitude of other Blizzard veterans off working on their own companies. Let's see, there's Keith Lee and his crew at Booyah, the ex-Blizzard folks at Red 5 Studios, the unfortunate souls at Castaway Entertainment and Flagship Studios (now Gravity Bear and Gargantuan Studios), new WoW TCG licensees Cryptozoic, and a few other little developers and divisions headed up by ex-Blizzard devs. Whew, that's a whole lot of babies -- Blizzard is like the Zeus of gaming studios lately. What are they serving in the cafeteria over there, startup cola?
Buyer's Guide: Graphics cards compared
Choosing a new graphics card can involve a difficult and lengthy hunt for comparative benchmarks to work out where to put your cash. Fortunately, Tom's Hardware Guide have put together a handy interactive comparison chart which can help reduce this problem to the simple act of staring at a few graphs. It may be reasonably old, but it's useful, with a few caveats; not all of the cards were tested on identical systems, so some of the results are a little surprising -- clicking on the individual bars of the results reveals the relevant system specs. Also, although it is "updated on a regular basis", several cards are missing from the list. Still, if you're in the market for a new graphics card, this should help simplify your search. [via digg]
Molyneux's Lionhead cuts staff, axes projects
Lionhead has confirmed recent job layoffs, downsizing its total staff from 250 to 200. The cutbacks also signal the end of some of the studio's current projects. Lionhead founder Peter Molyneux told remaining employees that only two titles, both for next-gen consoles, will continue to be developed. The sequel to Fable—said to be in development for the past year—is expected to be one of those games.Analysts have cited poor sales of Lionhead's most recent PC titles, The Movies and Black and White 2, as primary causes for the decision to resize the studio. Activision, publishers of The Movies, dropped the title last month, destroying hopes for a console port. In addition, rumors have begun heating up that Molyneux is again seeking to sell Lionhead. Microsoft and Ubisoft are the most prominent potential buyers. Although, Microsoft is likely wary of offering the big bucks given Rare's poor performance since the Xbox-maker acquired that studio for $375 million back in 2002.[Thanks, The1]
