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California introduces 'right to disconnect' bill that would allow employees to possibly relax
A California assemblyman has introduced a new bill that would give employees the "right to disconnect."
'Burnout Paradise Remastered' hits Switch on June 19th
The open-world racing game will cost $50 on Nintendo Switch.
The next Need for Speed game will be made by Burnout creator Criterion
Need for Speed fans, rejoice: Electronic Arts (EA) is giving the long-running racing franchise back to Criterion Games. "With a strong history and passion for racing games and vision for what we can create, the Criterion team is going to take Need for Speed into the next-generation," an EA spokesperson told Gamesindustry.biz. Criterion is a Guildford-based developer that worked on the critically-acclaimed Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010) and Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012). The studio was also responsible for the breakneck and destruction-focused Burnout franchise, including the open-world (and recently remastered) Burnout Paradise.
Original 'Burnout Paradise' servers shut down August 1st
All good things must come to an end, and that includes multiplayer support for the original Burnout Paradise. Emails sent to players and a tweet from Criterion confirm that the game's servers -- which have been in operation since it launched in 2008 on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC -- will shut down on August 1st. There's still offline play, but getting every trophy, even using backwards compatibility, will be impossible unless you make the jump to the Remastered edition that launched last year for newer platforms.
'Burnout Paradise' is back with a $40 4K remaster March 16th
Burnout Paradise was one of those rare racers that transcended its genre and was just a killer game. If its recent 10th birthday had you feeling nostalgic, then we've got good news. Come March 16th, you'll be able to hit the streets of Paradise City once again, to the complete original soundtrack, and replete with all 150 cars and eight main expansion packs -- including the "Big Surf Island" premium DLC -- in Burnout Paradise Remastered.
Twitch's workshops will teach streamers how to be better hosts
Streaming on Twitch might look easy, but it really isn't. Between the various technical hoops you have to jump through (oh hi, OBS) and the pressure of people watching your every move -- or, on the flip-side, streaming to an audience of zero people -- you also need to be entertaining. In that spirit, the next way Twitch is investing in its community is with workshops that aim to help folks get better at hosting and interviewing. It's a little like what YouTube has done before with its Creator Spaces.
'Danger Zone' turns the best part of 'Burnout' into a full game
It's been nine long years since we had a proper Burnout game. But when Paradise launched back in 2008 it didn't come with the franchise's trademark Crash Mode, the arcadey feature that tasked players with hurtling themselves through an intersection to cause as big of a car accident as possible. That debuted in 2002's Point of Impact, returning in Takedown in 2004 and Revenge a year later before it was scrapped for an inferior clone in Paradise. Well, today there's some good news: the latest project from former Burnout developers is Danger Zone, a game that sounds an awful lot like Crash Mode: The Game.
Revisit 'Burnout: Paradise' for free on Xbox next month
Xbox's Games With Gold subscription service has come a long way. At the start of the generation, Games With Gold offered very few AAA titles, its game lineups paling in comparison to Sony's PlayStation Plus counterpart. Over the last couple of years however, Microsoft's service has seen a very noticeable rise in quality.
The 'Burnout' successor from Criterion Games is no more
Electronic Arts' E3 keynote last week featured an awful lot of soccer (football to the rest of the world), Battlefield and Titanfall, but no word on how developer Criterion's post-Burnout racing game was coming. That's because the team is occupying different pastures, according to GameSpot. An EA spokesperson tells the publication that the studio has "moved on from the previous project they've spoken about and aren't pursuing it." It was teased at E3 2014 during the company's media briefing and never heard about since.
'Dangerous Golf' is a crazy game from the creators of 'Burnout'
The co-founders of Criterion Games, Fiona Sperry and Alex Ward, left the EA-owned property last year to start their own company. We now know that venture as Three Fields Entertainment, which today is introducing its first game ever: Dangerous Golf. As the name suggests, it isn't your average take on a sports title, with a story that lets you create chaos on over 100 holes across four different locations -- all insane in their own right.
'Tropes vs. Women in Video Games' is changing a bit
Culture critic Anita Sarkeesian has made some significant waves since launching her wildly successful Tropes vs. Women in Video Games Kickstarter over three years ago. But it wasn't without a heavy cost. In an update to the backers of her crowdfunding campaign, Sarkeesian reveals that she was dealing with a very serious case of burnout that was affecting both her physical and mental health last year after the scope of the project ballooned unexpectedly. Sarkeesian says she's been coping with depression her entire life, but the online harassment at her expense since launching Tropes, combined with the decline in her physical health, amplified it.
MMO Burnout: Engineers in spaaace
I missed the whole Minecraft craze. I was stupidly grinding my virtual life away in various MMORPGs, plus I couldn't get past Minecraft's so-fugly-it's-hip aesthetic. No matter, though, because Space Engineers takes Minecraft's core concepts and dolls them up with pleasing visuals, a nifty near future sci-fi setting, and addictive gameplay that's much more than the sum of its parts.
The Daily Grind: What's the longest you've gone without playing an MMO?
I'm in the midst of an MMO sabbatical. I won't call it full burnout because I'm still logging into Elder Scrolls Online and Marvel Heroes to hang with friends a couple of nights per week, but other than that I've basically taken a couple of weeks off from the genre while I wait for an ArcheAge launch announcement. What about you, Massively readers? Do you periodically step away due to burnout or other reasons? What's the longest you've gone without playing an MMO? [Image credit: Vintage Customs LA] Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: Have you ever come back to a game for the double XP?
I logged into Star Wars: The Old Republic this weekend and came to a sad realization. I really don't want to play it any more. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, so I usually find something to like about the game even though themepark mechanics and eternal gear grinds aren't my first choice. Lately I lack the desire to keep leveling, though, which is unfortunately at odds with my goal of seeing all the cutscenes for all eight class stories (again, Star Wars fan, completionist, can't help it). Fortunately for me, there's a double XP week starting July 1st, at which point I will be blasting through levels like a man possessed on as many characters as I can! I feel a sense of urgency because I doubt I'll be leveling again in SWTOR until its next double XP event. And really I'd love to just check the game off my MMO to-do list and uninstall as soon as I've viewed the stories and taken a few screenshots. What about you, Massively readers? Have you ever come back to a game specifically for the double XP, or am I sailing alone across my own personal ocean of crazy? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
'Burnout' developer Criterion is making another racing game
Criterion Games is working on another racing game; it isn't Burnout, however. This time it's not just about cars: It's about motorcycles, helicopters, wing-suits, jet skis and ATVs from the looks of early footage shown at Electronic Arts' press briefing. What's more, it's all from a first-person view (sort of like a GoPro POV) at all times. There are tricks too, and the team said that it's been largely influenced by action-sports footage it's seen online. Some very early gameplay footage and concept art was shown, but if we're being honest, the latter looked much better than the former -- often the case with in-development games. Given Criterion's pedigree, though, we're expecting pretty great things whenever it actually launches.
Blizzard should rethink their content release model
Blizzard changes many things for each new expansion: raid structures, class spells and talents, game systems, UI elements -- few aspects of WoW survive an X.0 patch untouched. It's time for Blizzard to change the one thing that has stayed the same since The Burning Crusade: the "event patch" release cycle. In WoW today, every patch is a big deal. We get previews. We get a trailer. We get fancy artwork with the X.X numbers. The patch release is an event. Every patch has tons of content for nearly every aspect of the game. It's exciting -- there's almost too much to do. When a new patch releases, we're in WoW heaven. Then months go by and that content grows stale. Blizzard doesn't give us new content at that point, but peeks at future content. We're starving for a delicious content meal, but we can only look at pictures of the food. It's a feast and famine cycle that has to end. It creates this massive gap between the final content patch of one expansion and the release of the next. We must cross it once again in 2014. Players put up with it because we know Blizzard will deliver, eventually, a tremendously fun experience. But should we have to endure this, still, after the game has been around for almost ten years? It's time for Blizzard to rethink the way they release content.
The Daily Grind: Do you feel guilty for not playing an MMO?
As a fan of much of the MMO field, I often feel torn, stretched, and downright guilty that I'm not playing more than I am. The allure of a familiar berth is often much more preferable than trying out a new game and having to fuss around with learning all of these unknown systems. Then there's the guilt that comes when I'm going through a low point with one of my staples. When I'm not "feeling it," I don't log on much and then I realize that it's been weeks since I've really played. Then a tear trickles down my cheeks as I wonder if the game and my guild feels abandoned from my stellar presence. It's horrible, I tells ya. So do you ever feel guilty for not playing an MMO? Is this a completely weird emotion for me to have? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Burnout creators set out to find paradise in new studio
When Criterion Games co-founders Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry both left the developer in January, they revealed plans to open a new studio. That studio is Three Fields Entertainment, and according to recent tweets from Ward, it is seeking talented individuals that are "skilled in at least three fields of creating electronic entertainment." While the British studio's website doesn't offer anything that further explains its mission, Ward added on Twitter that the developer "will make games for all platforms where we can self-publish." Ward and Sperry's departure from the Burnout developer followed an internal decision to downsize Criterion in September 2013. Many of the developers moved to Need for Speed: Rivals developer Ghost Games, while those remaining at Criterion were said to be "hard at work on a new project for next-gen consoles," according to EA. [Image: Three Fields Entertainment]
Criterion co-founders leave EA to form new studio
Vice president Alex Ward and studio director Fiona Sperry have both left Criterion Games, a development house best known for the Burnout series of arcade-style racing games. "Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry have decided to leave EA," a spokesperson for the publisher told Polygon. "We appreciate their many contributions through the years and wish them well in their future endeavours." These departures come less than four months after Criterion was hit by downsizing, an EA decision that moved many Criterion employees to UK-based Need for Speed: Rivals developer Ghost Games. Following this forced exodus, Criterion was reportedly down to "about 20" employees, though EA claims that the developer remains hard at work on a new, as yet unannounced project aimed at next-generation consoles. "The incredibly creative and talented team at Criterion are hard at work on a new project for next-gen consoles as new IP continues to be a major priority across EA," the publisher stated. Following his announcement, Ward took to Twitter, saying, "The news breaks. Along with @FionaSperry I have left @CriterionGames. Welcome to the REAL #tothefuture." In a later tweet Ward explains that he and Sperry plan to create a new development studio, though further details on their plans have yet to appear. This marks the second time in as many days that we've received word of a shakeup at one of EA's development studios. Only yesterday we learned that PopCap Games CEO David Roberts would be departing the company, and that John Vechey, the sole PopCap founder remaining at the studio's Seattle headquarters, would assume the role. Edit: The original version of the above article included a sentence stating that Matt Webster is a senior vice president at EA, when in fact he is only leading the development of Criterion's next project. We apologize for any confusion.
MMO Burnout: State of Decay
With an all-star dev team steering the ship, Undead Labs' State of Decay is topping sales charts and impressing fans, but it's certainly not done yet. The single-player zombie survival game for the Xbox 360 was created by several ArenaNet alumni (including ANet co-founder Jeff Strain) and aims to one day release an MMO version titled Class4. But in the meantime, it's breaking XBL sales records and showing us all how a decaying game premise like zombie survival can gain new life. I grabbed the game at launch to give me an idea of what to eventually expect from Class4, but I was quite surprised at what I found. A console game with a living world? A single-player action RPG with purpose and incentive? That's just what you get when you interrupt traditional console game development with a few designers from this crazy new genre known as MMORPG.
