assets
Latest
Another AR headset startup closes its doors
Augmented reality filters are popping up everywhere -- from the NFL's partnership with Snapchat to YouTube's beauty filters for creators. But AR headsets seem to be struggling. Today, TechCrunch reports that another well-funded AR headset startup is shutting down. Daqri, the company behind the Android-powered smart hard hat, has closed its headquarters, laid off employees and plans to sell its assets.
Google lets developers find 3D assets without leaving VR
Google recently unveiled Poly to give VR and AR developers an easy way to find 3D assets for their virtual worlds. Now, it has introduced Poly API to help developers work with and discover those assets directly in virtual reality. "It's just so much more natural to work in VR in something like [VR painting tool] Tilt Brush and then use it in a VR project," said CEO Max Weisel from VR developer Normal.
LeEco's assets frozen by Chinese court as debts mount
Chinese firm LeEco's financial situation is deteriorating rapidly. A Shanghai court has frozen $180 million in assets owned by co-founder Jia Yueting, his wife Gan Wei and three subsidiaries, according to Chinese news site Tencent and the Financial Times. The order was carried out on behalf of the China Merchants Bank, reportedly because of missed interest payments by LeEco's mobile, watch and other divisions.
38 Studios assets auction dated for November 14
We first got word of an auction to sell off 38 Studios' assets for Project Copernicus earlier this month, but now we have an actual date for the auction: November 14 and 15. This sale will include the Amalur universe IP and all merchandise and sequel rights to the single-player Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, as well as IP rights to the properties of Big Huge Games. If you'd like to buy yourself an MMO, this might be the time. Head over to the auction page for more information.
FCC approves AT&T acquisition of Alltel assets
In a process that started back in January of this year, the FCC has given the thumbs-up to AT&T on its proposed $780 million acquisition of Alltel assets. The package includes retail stores, approximately 620,000 customers in the midwest, network equipment and spectrum in the 700MHz, 850MHz and 1900MHz bands. AT&T isn't getting away scot-free, however, as the FCC will only approve the deal based on a few conditions: first, the network needs to deploy HSPA+ and LTE in the new areas within 15 and 18 months (respectively); second, AT&T must keep Alltel's 3G EVDO network alive and kicking until at least June 15, 2015. Third, AT&T needs to ensure that every affected customer gets a comparable phone for free without a contract extension. These types of conditions are nothing new for network acquisitions; such transitions are never fun for the customers involved, so it's refreshing that the FCC isn't forgetting their immediate needs in the process. The full details of the approval are located in the FCC docs, which we've included in the source link.
Rhode Island selling 38 Studios' game assets
Do you have a few million on you and a desire to preserve some gaming history? Then pick up the phone and call Rhode Island, as the state is getting ready to sell 38 Studios' assets, including its games. The state is looking to recoup some of it $130 million debt that it fell into once 38 Studios went belly-up. One of Rhode Island's lawyers says there "is interest" in the studio's assets, including concept art, design documents, and computer software. The sale of 38 Studios' IP includes the Amalur franchise, which encompassed the Project Copernicus MMO. The state is also set to begin a lawsuit this week against former 38 Studios execs, including founder Curt Schilling. The suit claims that the executives did not inform the state when they knew that the studio would have a hard time keeping afloat financially. Schilling has asked the judge to dismiss the suit.
Shadow of the Eternals uses assets purchased from Silicon Knights
A bit of that old Silicon Knights black magic lives on in Shadow of the Eternals, the "spiritual successor" to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem from Precursor Games. Art assets originally created by Silicon Knights employees have been bought, paid for and implemented into this new project. "We did purchase some art assets from Silicon Knights," Precursor Games CEO Paul Caporicci told Wired. "We were very happy to be able to put those assets created by the talented past employees to use." It was reported last October that as much as 40 percent of Silicon Knights had been working on a sequel to Eternal Darkness, which may explain the existence of said art assets. Shadow of the Eternals is being built in CryEngine 3, Caporicci added – an important distinction to make considering the major issues Silicon Knights suffered after using Unreal Engine 3 and subsequently employing its own game engine. Though Nintendo owns the rights to Eternal Darkness and has patented the game's sanity mechanics, Caporicci said similar gameplay ideas can be safely implemented without breaking the law.
Will work for Wasteland 2: inXile asks fans to create its Unity assets
Wasteland 2 is hosting a crowdsourcing experiment that feels more like a straight-up art contest: interested artists can create game assets in Unity, based on concept images, and inXile will review the entries. inXile will pay and credit artists to use any designs it likes in-game, with other creations that meet the requirements available for purchase in the Unity Asset Store.The first batch of concept art is live now, and artists have one week to create something beautiful and submit it to the Unity Asset Store. inXile has a special start-up artist pack available for free here. The concept art will update weekly until inXile has all the cheap labor assets it can handle.
38 Studios assets to be auctioned off in October
After a series of misfortunes, 38 Studios closed down last May and then filed for bankruptcy in June. Next month, the assets of the company that was working on the MMO known as Project Copernicus will be auctioned off. The auctions -- scheduled for October 16th and the 23rd -- will include office furniture and equipment, TVs, audio recording equipment, graphic design and animation equipment, computers, servers, and more. Currently listed in the assets are XBox 360 Development Kits, which Microsoft is requesting be removed since they are the property of Microsoft and not 38 Studios.
38 Studios loan could impact state elections
If you've started to forget about the saga of 38 Studios' collapse, rest assured that Rhode Island politicians certainly have not. With the election coming soon, many in the state are scrambling to offset the blame for the $75 million loan decision and protect their positions. The Associated Press is reporting that it's being seen as a "liability" among candidates. One candidate, Mark Binder, addressed the continued furor over the issue: "If I don't bring it up, other people bring it up. Everyone is infuriated. There's this game going on in Rhode Island right now called 'pass the blame on 38 Studios.'" While many of those directly responsible for voting the deal through have since resigned from their positions, the search to pin the fiasco on one of the state's leaders is still underway. Another 2012 candidate, Laura Pisaturo, said that the public is demanding more answers: "People read in the paper about 38 Studios and think 'we elect these people and expect they will lead and ask tough questions.'"
Rhode Island possesses 38 Studios' games, looks to sell
While 38 Studios is finished, its employees laid off, and its projects canceled, there's really only one thing left to be done: figure out what to do with the leftovers. The court granted the state of Rhode Island all of 38 Studios' assets, including rights to its single-player RPG and the unfinished Project Copernicus. The Rhode Island Economic Development Corp said that it will attempt to sell these assets to recoup as much of the loan made to the studio as possible. This may be a slight blessing in disguise for fans of the studio's projects, as the move was made to keep the intellectual property intact instead of having it be lost due to the company's dismantling. The games are being transferred to servers for safe-keeping and constitute a majority of the studio's remaining net worth.
Apple expenditures to grow on solar project, new campus
Apple's got incredible amounts of money in the bank, as you probably already know. According to recent financial filings, Apple is about to spend a good bit of it. The company will reportedly spend US$8 billion during the next financial year, which is more than twice what it spend during the last 12 months. A full $900 million of that will go straight to its retail stores. Last year, the company (only?) spent $614 million on retail, so that's a nice improvement. Other areas of spending are a little bit more about company infrastructure, presumably. Apple is moving forward on that brand new "mothership" campus, and presumably no expense will be spared there. The data center down in North Carolina is also set to receive a number of updates, including a rumored "solar farm" to power it. Apple's been growing by leaps and bounds lately, and while money in the bank is always nice, it seems like this upcoming year is going to be one where the company in Cupertino invests a little bit more in itself rather than just cash.
MetroPCS may be top contender for AT&T's post-acquisition assets
The likelihood of a successful acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T may largely depend on what the latter is willing to give up. The largest GSM carrier in the US may need to throw a few assets overboard in order to satisfy the Department of Justice, and has reportedly been Rethinking Possible by engaging in discussions with several parties interested in scooping up the leftovers. According to Bloomberg, MetroPCS appears to be the frontrunner in the talks, and plans to meet with the Justice Department (alongside AT&T, of course) in the next two weeks to determine if the strategy will appease the regulating body. No guarantees here, of course: it seems like a lot of assets would have to change hands for MetroPCS -- a regional carrier with roughly nine million subscribers -- to be considered a large enough competitor to assuage the government's concerns here. We can't imagine the Feds would be satisfied with any small offering, considering the Department's filed a lawsuit against Ma Bell to block the merger. We have a feeling this saga is just starting to get real interesting, so stay tuned.
Aventurine squelches Darkfall 2 rumors, for now
Darkfall news has been flowing fast and furious of late. Whether it's info on the newly minted Hellfreeze expansion and its patches, upcoming character model upgrades, or new lore, it seems like the little Greek MMO that could is gathering a head of steam. One bit of news that got blown slightly out of proportion was a reported mention of Darkfall 2. Aventurine's Tasos Flambouras briefly mentioned Darkfall 2 at a recent event, and some fans took that to mean the company was already working on a sequel to the sandbox MMORPG. In reality, Flambouras was speaking of reusable assets and the fact that the development firm is "keeping the future of Darkfall in mind while we work on this version of the game. It doesn't mean that we're working on a new game." In a post on the official forums, Flambouras reiterates that Aventurine's devs are not currently making a Darkfall sequel, and even if they were, "it would take years to complete and we would not stop full development of Darkfall 1."
Interview focuses on creating the ships of Black Prophecy
In a massively multiplayer online game where a player's avatar is essentially a spaceship, the designs of those spacecraft have to be appealing. After all, the look of a ship is generally not as customizable at the appearance of an avatar in most other MMOs. In fact, the ship avatar may not be customizable at all, so ship aesthetics are important to some players. This is the focus of an interview with Rocketbox Studios, the people who created the 3-D models for ships and space stations in the sci-fi MMO Black Prophecy. Rocketbox Studios worked from the concept art provided by Black Prophecy developer Reakktor Media and (according to their portfolio) created 165 spaceship modules, 70 weapons, 5 space station module systems, and 5 level locations. The main requirement Reakktor had was that, given that Black Prophecy is a space-based MMO, these assets would look good even from great distances while holding a significant amount of details and textures up close. And although Black Prophecy is clearly focused on the ships, it's been mentioned that there will be 3-D mini avatars seen in player-to-player communication. This is evidenced by the fact that Rocketbox Studios built 27 character models for the sci-fi title, albeit without heads.
Phishing attempt targets EVE Online subscribers
They're baaack. The phishing emails targeting EVE Online players, that is. While you're sound asleep dreaming of your next Machariel, or thrashing about in a nightmare about that last pod killing, there are legions of very bad men seeking to crack open your EVE Online account and liquidate your assets. Of course, they need your help to do so. The phishing attempt has evolved to its next genius incarnation... no wait... it's exactly the same as last month. They haven't innovated at all! They're just plowing ahead with it, regardless. They pretend to be CCP Games and email you, stating that they're EVE Customer Support. Of course, they're emailing you to let you know about their latest database issue, and that they'd like you to log in and verify that everything's OK. They're even kind enough to provide you with a convenient link that brings you to "your account", where the phishers log your username and password, and proceed to rip you off as thoroughly as possible.
Winterblink: asset control and consolidation in EVE Online
Warp Drive Active podcaster Winterblink is a man who's got everything, apparently. And too much of it, scattered throughout his hangars in New Eden. It's a common problem in EVE Online, particularly for players who roam a lot throughout the galaxy. Mission runners, ratters, and adherents of most any trade or livelihood in the game accumulate a lot of random assets, individually of low worth but which can hold substantial value when seen as a whole. Unfortunately, what Winterblink describes in his blog gets even worse when a player uses containers to organize their possessions by category across multiple stations. The contents of those containers cannot be viewed remotely; one has to be docked in that particular station to see what's inside. Winterblink decided he couldn't handle the clutter anymore and shared the most efficient way he's found to deal with it all, step-by-step. He also had a good idea about having a container that only has the modules for his preferred ship fittings. Slowboating all over New Eden to consolidate his assets worked out for Winterblink. But this writer found that the negligible value of his junk and the time lost consolidating it wouldn't be worth the effort, and opted to ruthlessly destroy a fair amount of it, rather than collect and reprocess or resell the odds and ends. The slash-and-burn approach works for Tech I modules, but once ships and Tech II of anything enter into the picture, Winterblink's way is best. Especially in that he opted to reprocess the materials rather than trying to sell them all on the market.
Watch a Stargate Worlds artist's video dev diary
Cheyenne Mountain has released a developer profile of Stargate Worlds artist Jake Johnson, who works on all sorts of visual assets -- most prominently the attractive skies of the game's many planets. Johnson talks about how he landed the Stargate gig, the assets he had the most fun creating, and the process he employs to create sky domes. Oh, and his favorite season of SG-1 -- Season 2. Good choice, Jake! Every one knows Sokar was the coolest SG-1 villain!SGW's skies aren't just skybox textures, apparently; Johnson composes a geosphere to blanket the game world. Planets and other celestial objects can be placed inside it after the fact. The video includes a sneak peak at the sky of the planet Dakara, so that's pretty cool. Also, there's a gigantic Stargate replica in the studio lobby. Nice!The clip is worth a look, if only for snickering at all the miscellaneous gaming memorabilia littering the art department's desks, including a copy of Battlefield 2, Mario 1UP mushrooms, and an XBox 360 controller. But don't take the controller as a hint; Cheyenne's Joe Ybarra made it clear in an interview a few days ago that the team is focusing on the PC for now.
Ubisoft takes a leak, reveals new titles
The NeoGAF forums exploded when an archive of assets from Ubisoft was stolen and leaked. The game of most significance for PSP owners has to be FarCry, a first person shooter that's been seen on the PC, Xbox and Xbox 360 (with a Wii version coming).Other games featured in the leak included a new Splinter Cell (before Double Agent even makes it into stores!) and Ubisoft's upcoming Naruto game.[Thanks, steve!]
