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China bans all government departments from using US-made technology
It was only a matter of time before China started offering trade bans to US companies in return for the ban on Huawei's gear. The Financial Times is reporting that Beijing has ordered all government institutions and public bodies to get rid of their foreign (i.e. western) computer gear. According to the report, China will spend between now and 2022 transitioning off American hardware and software in favor of local alternatives.
'West of Dead' is a fast-paced shooter starring Ron Perlman
After it popped up in the Microsoft Store perhaps a little earlier than intended, twin-stick shooter West of Dead is available in open beta on Xbox One. You'll play as the Ghost Rider-esque William Mason, who's voiced by Ron Perlman of Hellboy and Sons of Anarchy fame.
'El Hijo' is a Spaghetti Western stealth game with heart
The art at the top of El Hijo's website says it all. A young boy in a red poncho stands at the edge of a cliff, overlooking a sun-bleached desert valley with a stuffed bear dangling from his fingertips. His shadow unfurls across the rock behind him, the teddy bear transformed into a pistol. This little boy is a fighter.
The Coen Brothers are bringing the Wild West to Netflix
Joel and Ethan Coen are bringing their considerable filmmaking chops to Netflix for an anthology series about the American West. The brothers will write and direct The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which will feature six different stories about life on the frontier and star Coen brothers veteran Tim Blake Nelson as the eponymous Buster. The project will come out for Netflix subscribers worldwide sometime in 2018.
How artificial intelligence can be corrupted to repress free speech
The internet was supposed to become an overwhelming democratizing force against illiberal administrations. It didn't. It was supposed to open repressed citizens' eyes, expose them to new democratic ideals and help them rise up against their authoritarian governments in declaring their basic human rights. It hasn't. It was supposed to be inherently resistant to centralized control. It isn't.
Rockstar is teasing a new 'Red Dead' game
The rumors of a new Red Dead game appear to be true. Over the weekend, developer Rockstar posted some less than subtle studio logos with the series' iconic red and black color scheme. Now, we have our first piece of art -- seven silhouetted individuals, walking forward with a bright sunset (or sunrise?) in the background. Has the studio been working on a prequel? A sequel? The group could be a reference to the gang John Marston rolled with before the events of Red Dead Redemption. Or maybe the Magnificent Seven, an iconic Western (inspired by Seven Samurai) recently remade with Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt and Vincent D'Onofrio, among others.
HBO's 'Westworld' sci-fi series arrives October 2nd
JJ Abrams' and Jonathan Nolan's TV adaptation of Westworld hit its share of snags on the way to release (it was originally supposed to debut in 2015), but it's nearly here. HBO has confirmed that the robot-theme-park-gone-wrong show will debut on October 2nd at 9PM (both Eastern and Pacific). As before, the TV series isn't really a thriller in the vein of Michael Crichton's 1973 movie. Instead, it's more of a philosophical investigation into both simulated experiences and artificial intelligence. If you can do anything you want in a robotic world, what does that say about you? And how does AI grapple with questions of consciousness and self-awareness?
Bone Gulch is a Wild West online sandbox with a Kickstarter campaign
Four years ago I was deep in the throes of Red Dead Redemption's lovely, lusty Old West. I wondered why a sprawling, frontier-based MMO wasn't yet a thing, and sadly I'm still wondering. Indie company Nesoi Tech apparently shares my affinity for the genre, judging by its new Bone Gulch Kickstarter project. It's a Unity-based sandbox game featuring "an advanced crafting system, a unique bounty system," and "extensive player customization," among other things. Nesoi's press release also mentions single-player story-based campaigns "in addition to local and online multiplayer action," so we're not quite sure how MMO it is at this point. There's some pre-alpha video footage available, though, and we've embedded it for you after the cut. [Source: Nesoi press release]
InnoGames' The West receives item balancing patch
InnoGames' free-to-play, browser-based, cowboy-centric MMO The West has been updated with a new patch, bringing with it some extensive item rebalancing as well as "more than 280 new items," which the devs hope will "allow for a more streamlined character progression." On top of that, the patch introduces "an improved social interface." The press release notes that the item revamps in this patch are "part of the preparation for the upcoming level cap raise and the third part of the [game's] recently introduced main story." For more information on The West and its new patch, just click on through to the game's official site. [Source: InnoGames press release]
Jukebox Heroes: Wurm Online's soundtrack
When is a soundtrack not a soundtrack? When it's Wurm Online, of course. This cult sandbox has one of the most unusual scores that I've ever heard paired with an MMO. It's made up of sparsely used incidental music that just so happens to be folksy blues songs (with lyrics), composed by Joss Sanglier and performed by 21st Century Blues. It's catchy, don't get me wrong, but it comes with a case of mental whiplash if you were expecting the typical fantasy fare. Think of it this way: All of these songs sound as if they were originally made for a steakhouse commercial. "In Wurm, we don't play music constantly," explained Lead Designer Rolf Jansson. "Instead we play a song every now and then often based on the setting or a special event such as when you form a village. If you ever played the Lara Croft Tomb Raider game, the rare music scores really enhanced special situations, and that's what I was aiming for as well." To make matters more interesting, recently the Wurm Online team has sponsored the creation of not one, not two, but three concept albums that will be worked into the game itself. The first such album, Meditation and Work, is now out and is quite good. While we're going to look at the "classic" Wurm tunes today, I didn't want to overlook this new project. Perhaps we'll even get back to it some day!
Jukebox Heroes: Fallen Earth's soundtrack
How would you score the apocalypse? What would the end of the world sound like if you put it to music? Perhaps it would be wrapped in a Western twang with notes of regret, longing, uncertainty, and struggle playing throughout. Whatever the end result, it wouldn't be your typical sword-and-sorcery anthem. This was the task given to the Fallen Earth team of Lead Composer Enrique Varela and Audio Director Michael Franke: to put the apocalypse to music. In addition to faction themes, the team wanted to create music to compliment the emotions that players would most likely experience while traveling the wasteland. "My intentions were to have a range of moods, playing with dichotomies," Varela said. "You have negative or dark moods such as fear, sadness, suspense, danger, and then you have positive or light moods like triumph, tranquility, security." Franke put it best, not just for Fallen Earth but for all MMO music, when he said, "I really wanted the audio to melt into the game's setting, and become another believable part of the world. For me, the highest compliment is when a player can leave that little check-box for sound alone." It's a Western apocalypse, and it's all ours to listen to in this week's Jukebox Heroes!
DeNA to publish Godus on iOS
Peter Molyneux's studio 22cans has been working on a Populous followup game called Godus, and the company has just announced a deal for a publisher. DeNA, the Japanese company behind the Mobage social platform, will be publishing Godus on iOS. And the game will also connect up to Mobage in Western companies and in Japan and Korea. DeNA is an interesting choice for Molyneux -- the company is usually known for casual games, and the audience is largely Japanese so far. But DeNA has definitely been looking to expand to the West and seeking well-known developers to do that with, including a game they're working on with former EA designer Ben Cousins. Plus, Molyneux has released Curiosity on iOS already, and that game didn't quite have the reception that he hoped for. So it sounds like this teamup will be good for both sides. Godus is set to arrive, after being previously crowdfunded on Kickstarter, sometime this year.
Black Desert shopping for Western publisher, shares more details about its game world
Black Desert, a soon-to-be-released sandbox MMO in Korea, is shopping around for publishers to bring the title to the U.S. and Europe. MMO Culture spoke with Pearl Abyss' Director of Business Development Brian Oh about the progress of the game's development and all of those pesky details that we MMO players like to know when checking out a new title. While the interview took place last September, it's only now being posted. Oh spoke on several topics relating to Black Desert's development, such as why the team decided to create its own game engine instead of licensing an existing one. "We aspired to create an entirely different game from typical MMORPGs available today," Oh said, "including the rendering of art and graphics. So with an abundance of in-house experience in developing game engines gained through previous projects, we made our own." Details about Black Desert's world were shared over the course of the interview, including the news that all classes are available to both genders and can engage in mounted combat. Oh pontificated on the castle siege system, the limited player housing market, and backstory and setting for the game.
Free for All: The West: The most realistic fantasy MMO yet
There's something distinctly unfair about being an American fantasy fan. If you enjoy all of the movies or run around in all of the wonderful fantasy landscapes you'll quickly notice how un-American the inhabitants are. Sure, monsters or knights in a fantasy MMO don't really belong to any one nationality or time, but they are more likely to sound like they're from England rather than Long Island. It's not fair. What do Americans have in their past that is anything as cool as knights and swords? Actually, we've had some pretty cool stuff over here as well. And, if you think about it, a lot of it is pretty much like a more recent middle ages... sort of. The thought sunk in as I was looking at Salem, a hardcore free-for-all PvP MMO by Paradox Interactive. Then the thought really sunk in when I recently fell in love with The West by Innogames, a German publisher. America has a very primitive, and recent, past that had to feel a lot like a time of magic and wonder to those who were in it. Why aren't we seeing more Western MMOs or games set in the time of the founding of our country?
Rise and Shiny: The West
I've been on a browser-based kick, more so than normal. Thanks to my Chromebook series, I have been rediscovering the joys of all-in-one gaming. I'm so tired of messing with bloated, heavy machines that do nothing but suck up my money. The future of gaming is light, thin, and still capable of playing MMOs. I've had just as much fun now as I ever have on larger machines. One of the unique games I've rediscovered is The West, a browser-based sandbox set in the wild West days of the United States. Gameplay is simple yet effective, and I love how the game uses basic graphics alongside deep gameplay. Innogames, the game's publisher, has been offering a unique batch of games for a while, all available within the browser or mobile. Let me tell you what I found while crawling through the great vistas of The West.
The Daily Grind: Would a wild west MMO work?
Whenever the topic of alternative MMO genres comes up, my mind almost always shoots straight to the wild, wild west. Westerns have experienced a little bit of a renaissance in Hollywood these past few years (True Grit, Django Unchained, 3:10 to Yuma), and even video games (Red Dead Redemption) have not been immune to the allure of the rough-and-tumble frontier. But here's the thing: Would it work as an MMO? If it could, I think it'd be an awesome game with plenty of evocative elements. At the same time, the devs would certainly have to deal with the not-so-politically correct aspects of the era, including the treatment of slaves, minorities, and indigenous peoples. Throwing that at a community that isn't always best-known for being respectful toward others seems like a bad idea to me. So what would need to happen to make a western MMO work? Would it have to be sent into space, a la WildStar, or into the post-apocalyptic future, a la Fallen Earth? 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!
GREE tweaks US operations, invests in MunkyFun
GREE is a very large Japanese social network similar to Facebook or Twitter that has been trying to secure some mindspace in the West by acquiring game developers and their large audiences. The company is making a heavy investment in MunkyFun, makers of My Horse and Bounty Bots, for $3 million. It's also switching up its US business to focus on its own titles. That includes "some redundancies," and GREE says its platform business will start transitioning back to Tokyo in the future. Probably the most high-profile acquisition GREE made on iOS was in the OpenFeint social network, and that system is being shut down this month, so it's not too surprising that the company is making some cutbacks. But this is the first sign we've seen that GREE might be changing its mind about trying to take over the West. These social networks have bought a lot of access to users, but haven't seen much growth, so they might have to come up with another tactic to connect up with the big audience of Westerners using iOS devices. Update: This post previously stated that GREE was acquiring MunkyFun, but the $3 million put in is just a minority investment, not a full acquistion. Show full PR text GREE Expands its U.S. Games Business With New Mobile Games Fund and Announcement of $3 million Investment in Hit Developer, MunkyFun San Francisco, CA December 06, 2012- GREE is today announcing that it's expanding its focus on 2nd party mobile game development with a new mobile investment fund managed by a new publishing and partnerships group. The fund's first venture is in mobile game developer, MunkyFun, maker of games such as My Horse and Bounty Bots. MunkyFun received a minority investment of $3 million from GREE. GREE, which recently announced the closure of mobile social gaming platform, OpenFeint, is focusing its US business primarily on its own titles and developer partner titles. As part of the company's internal US reorganization, a majority of the GREE games platform team will be transitioned to new departments with redundancies in some areas. The overall GREE Platform business will begin transitioning to its operations in Tokyo as a part of this change The US operation continues to build a strong portfolio of mobile games- including recently launched titles Monster Quest and MLB: Full Deck. The mobile investment fund is the latest in a series of commitments to first party and second party titles including full-out acquisitions of mobile game developers App Ant in September 2012 and Investment in IUGO Entertainment earlier this year.
Blade & Soul opens Western website, debuts trailer
If you've been long awaiting NCsoft's Blade & Soul, then today might be the shot in the arm that your anticipation needs. The publisher unloaded a brand-new website for its Western fans as well as a North American trailer. The website offers many goodies right out of the gate, including an overview of Blade & Soul's world, races, and classes; screenshots, concept art, and videos; a newsletter signup; and frequently asked questions and answers. As for the trailer, it's a high-octane mix of splendid videos and flashy combat, as you might have expected. Massively recently met with NCsoft to talk about the title's voyage to the Western market, and the following trailer is certainly part of that transition.
DOA5 lead: Japanese view of women in games 'not going to change'
The Dead or Alive franchise is notorious for its blatant emphasis on sexy female fighters in tiny, physics-defying outfits – in the western world, at least. In Japan, this form of female representation is "common sense," Team Ninja's Yosuke Hayashi tells MCV."With the representation of female characters in the Dead or Alive franchise, we've always wanted to make the girls look as attractive as possible, and that's something that's not going to change for us at all," Hayashi says. "We are a Japanese developer, and we're making the female characters with our common sense and our creative sense. When you take that to countries outside of Japan, it tends to be very misinterpreted in some cases, people considering it sexist or derogatory, etc."In February, Hayashi said Team Ninja would attempt to shift focus in Dead or Alive 5 away from sex and violence, heading instead in "a direction that contains emotional experiences that can move players." It's entirely possible that Hayashi was pandering to western sensibilities with that statement, but it's also possible he plans to combine deep, emotional experiences with sex-infused character models. There's nothing immoral in making beautiful things, as Hayashi sees it."For us, within our culture, we're showing women like that, and we're trying to make them look attractive," he says. "We can't help if other cultures in other countries around the globe think that it's a bad representation. Within our nationality and within our national borders, we obviously have morals that we create our female characters from, but within our Japanese sensibilities, we've made those characters the way they are and we're not going to stop doing that."
Amazon and Avalon in a tree, publishing romance books di-gi-tal-ly
Amazon Publishing and long-running book-maker Avalon now has more in common than rhyme schemes. The pair have struck up a deal to publish over 3,00 titles from the publisher's back-catalogue, broaching its romance, mystery and western genres. It'll be the first time that these books will be digitized and, well, Oprah's always looking for stuff to read.
