third-party-development
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Trion picks up David Luehmann to head third-party dev program
Trion Worlds has hired on games developer David Luehmann to take care of its third-party development arm, and Luehmann says he'll be working on "two, three or four more" titles for the company to develop and publish in conjunction with third parties. Luehmann formerly worked with Microsoft Game Studios, a division that knows quite a bit about dealing with cross-company development, having acquired Rare and Lionhead, as well as dealing with other developers like Epic Games, Double Fine, and lots of other solid game houses. Trion Worlds of course made and released the popular MMO Rift, and is currently working on an MMORTS title in conjuction with Petroglyph called End of Nations. Luehmann says that Trion isn't looking for any specific number of third party games to publish, but that the company is looking for "something that will turn into a fantastic experience" from a studio that's working on "connected" titles.
EVE Evolved: Third-party development
When EVE Online was first released in 2003, it was a primitive beast from a small indie studio operating out of a tiny office in Reykjavik, Iceland. Although EVE has been expanded over the years, not all of that development has come from creator CCP Games. EVE players routinely step in to fill gaps in the game's functionality through the development of third-party applications, websites and tools. Early apps like the EVEMon skill planner were very limited in what information they could access about a player's character, but with the introduction of the EVE API system, a huge wealth of information became available. Since then, we've seen a resurgence of third-party app and tool development, producing impressive apps like Capsuleer and Aura for the iPhone. We've also seen some incredibly useful websites like the ICSC jump planner suite, gambling site SOMER.blink and the Dotlan EVE maps with regularly updating statistics. Most app developers work on the projects in their spare time, and until now they've relied on donations or advertising revenue to keep up with server costs or keep development worth the time invested. As EVE is CCP's intellectual property, it's illegal for anyone to make money from it without the company's permission. This week, CCP released the first draft of a contract that would allow developers to monetise their apps, but the proposal was not received well by the EVE community. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at third-party app development and what's wrong with the proposed deal.
The Daily Grind: Do you like the idea of monetizing third-party utilities?
Between licensing issues and the general way of the internet, we've gotten used to the idea that MMO services outside of the company don't cost anything. World of Warcraft players might rely on Wowhead's database services, but that's free to anyone who knows where to look. But with the recent EVE Online move to allow third parties to make money on applications and services, there are some interesting questions to be asked about the way things work now. On the one hand, charging money for services means that it's possible for good services and databases to go professional, helping to ensure a higher level of quality. On the other hand, no one likes paying money for something that used to be free, and the idea that said free services may not always be free is a bitter pill to swallow. So what do you think? Are you happy with the idea that independent developers can make money off of a game, or does the EVE Online change fill you with apprehension? 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!
Third-party development acquiring monetization options from EVE Online
If you're running a service in EVE Online at the moment, you're running it for free. If you're developing an application for the game, you're doing it for free. This isn't unusual, really -- pretty much any fan-developed application or service is done free of charge. But that's soon to change for fans of CCP's cutthroat game, as a new developer blog outlines upcoming changes that will allow developers to charge for services, applications, and website access. For a $99 license fee, developers and service providers will be able to sign up and start charging money for their products while having full access to the EVE Online API. The entry itself goes into more details on the restrictions of the program and what it will mean for non-commercial sites (which will not be required to pay any sort of fee). It's an interesting move, one that means that the game will be able to develop a more robust real-world economy to complement the in-game activities.
3rd Party iPhone Apps Roundup
The 3rd Party iPhone applications are starting to roll in. Here's TUAW's list of currently available packages. I'll update this list as more apps become available and we hear back from more developers. Hello World. Hello World Demo KBDemo. Proof of concept Keyboard demo. Part of the larger Mobile Terminal for iPhone project. Do Shell. Runs shell script embedded in App. Can be customized by end user. iDecor. App version of the javascriptlet we posted about here. Sets your iPhone wallpaper based off an image left up on Safari. TextViewDemo. Allen aka Pin's excellent UITextView sample.
