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Bungie's Pathways Into Darkness comes back to Mac for free
Back before Halo was the biggest title on Microsoft's Xbox, it was actually planned as a Mac title. That's because Bungie, the game's developer, was actually a Mac game company -- they made a number of really terrific shooters for the Mac, including Marathon (which has since been released on iOS along with its sequels). But the company's first game was Pathways into Darkness, and now, 20 years after its release in 1993, Bungie's first commercial release has come in a free version to the Mac App Store. The game's been "painstakingly recreated" by Bruce Morrison, a former employee from Ngmoco and Freeverse, for his company, Man Up Time Studios. Bruce notes that developer Mark Levin worked with him on the coding for Pathways' new version. Pathways features the award-winning first-person adventure gameplay that started earning Bungie its reputation back in the day. It's great to have this classic game back on the Mac, and it's even better to get to play and download it for free.
Ngmoco shutting down some titles March 31
Ngmoco announced on its website earlier this week that some of the game maker's biggest iOS titles, including We Rule, Godfinger and Touch Pets Dogs 2, are going to be shut down for good on March 31. The games will be off of Apple's App Store later this week on February 1, so no new users will be able to download them, and the servers for the games will go offline at the end of next month, effectively ending the games completely. Ngmoco didn't give a clear reason for the shutdowns, but it's not hard to guess: The company, once one of the biggest app developers on the App Store, has been fairly steadily transitioning over to Android titles in the past few years, and has seen a sharp decline in popularity on iOS. Not to mention that many of the figures who made the company so large, including former EA exec Neil Young, have left the company in recent days. In other words, it's finally game over for Ngmoco on iOS. Ngmoco was purchased by Japanese network DeNA a little while ago, and that company is still steadily trying to grow its own iOS sales and popularity. But Ngmoco as a brand is effectively done on the App Store, especially since these once-thriving games are shut down. One of the biggest names of the App Store's first generation is finally on its way out the door.
ngmoco co-founders Neil Young and Bob Stevenson leave, Clive Downie new CEO
Neil Young left Electronic Arts back in 2008, at the time for a new mystery project – it only took little over a week for Young to announce he had co-founded mobile outfit ngmoco. After a long stint as CEO, Young has stepped down and will be replaced by Clive Downie. The other ngmoco co-founder, Bob Stevenson, is also stepping down.Young has spent 11 years at Electronic Arts before co-founding ngmoco and taking over as CEO. New CEO Clive Downie also spent time at Electronic Arts before joining ngmoco as VP of studios. ngmoco was acquired by Japanese publisher DeNA in 2010 for $400 million.[Image credit]
Neil Young leaves Ngmoco
Well it's the end of an era for one of iOS' first big companies. It was just about four years ago that I posted here in this very space that former EA executive Neil Young (no relation) was going to start up a company called ng:moco, and it was soon after that he published the breakout hit Rolando, following it up with the freemium title We Rule and eventually creating an empire (and changing the way a lot of people think about freemium games). Over the years, however, ngmoco has fallen from its peak in popularity, as it was acquired by the Japanese social gaming giant DeNA, and then decided to focus mostly on bringing cheap ports of that company's games over to Android instead. And now, Neil Young and cofounder Bob Stevenson have decided to leave the company, moving on to what they hope will be "their next adventure." They leave Clive Downie in the position of CEO with the company, another former EA VP who's been with ngmoco for a little while now. Ngmoco certainly inspired quite a bit of hate from players -- the company's focus on freemium games left more traditional titles like Rolando in the dust, and its acquisition of venerated Mac publisher Freeverse essentially resulted in the death of that classic brand. But ngmoco's popularity during the rise of iOS is also undeniable, and Young's ideas on freemium gaming have been adopted by many, many App Store game developers working today. It remains to be seen what Young's next project will be, but there's no question that, by starting up ngmoco, he's left an indelible mark on the short history of Apple's iOS platform already.
Report: Freeverse co-founders leave the company
Freeverse is a classic name in the Mac gaming field: The New York-based developer was one of the world's biggest indie Mac game developers since long before the App Store existed or the iPhone was announced, releasing big titles like Wingnuts, Horde of Orcs and more. When the iPhone and its apps arrived, Freeverse got caught up in that same market, and was eventually acquired by mobile gaming startup Ngmoco, which itself was later acquired by a giant Japanese social gaming network. Freeverse was one of the biggest pillars of Mac gaming back in the day, and had some of the best early hits on the App Store. Now, the book on that chapter of Apple's gaming history is finally being closed. Touch Arcade is reporting that founders Ian and Colin Lynch Smith have left the company they started, essentially ending Freeverse as we once knew it. Unfortunately, there's no clear source for the news, but if this departure is true, then there's really nothing left of Freeverse but the name. Chief Engineer Mark Levin has also tweeted that he's left the company for the last time. That's too bad. We'll stay tuned to see what the founders may be up to in the future (ngmoco, unfortunately, has been focusing on some less-than-impressive Android titles lately, so there's not a lot of interest there for us iOS gamers). Hopefully this isn't the last we'll hear of Freeverse's impressive legacy.
Early iOS free-to-play title Eliminate shutting down this month
Here's a weird signpost for iOS gaming. Eliminate was one of the first big free-to-play titles on iOS: It was a core title for Ngmoco when first announced a few weeks after in-app purchases were allowed and helped pave the way to the current freemium-as-standard situation on Apple's App Store. But that part of history is coming to an end, as Ngmoco has announced that Eliminate's servers are being turned off for good. The app is already gone from the App Store, and an in-game message says that the game's servers are going offline on May 25. That means after that, not only will players no longer be able to play the game, but any money or time put into the title will be gone for good. That's a shame for Eliminate fans, though it's unclear just how many of those there still are. And it means you can go ahead and put another mark on the timeline for iOS gaming: A freemium app that helped kick off the platform to begin with has reached the end of its lifetime.
Handcircus set to return to iOS with free game based on Okabu
Simon Oliver's Handcircus studio was one of the biggest winners in the early days of the App Store. His game Rolando was originally published by Ngmoco back before the company went completely bonkers with social and free-to-play casual games. After Rolando 2 sort of sputtered out into the marketplace, hamstrung by Ngmoco's own strategy, Oliver and his company strayed away from iOS and created a game called Okabu for the PlayStation Network. Oliver is coming back to iOS, according to The Guardian. The company has been working on a new mobile title set in the same universe as Okabu that will again be free-to-play. But before Rolando fans worry, don't forget that the app market changed a lot in the few years since Rolando was released, and Oliver himself has changed as well. "When Ngmoco decided to go free-to-play, I didn't know how to make games like that," he tells the Guardian. "But ideas have been bubbling away for the last couple of years." I'm interested to see what Oliver gets up to. He suggests that Handcircus still may use a third-party publisher to get the game out, which is a little bit worrying. But it'll be good to have one of the biggest original iPhone devs back on the platform with a new release.
ngmoco's Cousins expects free-to-play equivalent of Skyrim in a few years
Ben Cousins, who spearheaded Battlefield Heroes and Battlefield Play4Free for EA before being snatched up by ngmoco to head up its offices in Sweden, envisions an industry landscape where big-budget free-to-play titles dominate.Cousins spoke of several different tiers of freemium games at the Free-2-Play Summit in London, as reported by GI.biz. The highest he predicts as a "monetization super-highway," with no limit to what players can spend and rewards that are more interesting and complex. "I believe that single-player will be the next to be cracked in terms of freemium monetisation," he said. "And I'm talking about traditional, story-based, scripted, linear and non-linear single-player that we see on consoles."I am totally 100 percent confident -- I will bet large amounts of money -- that we will have, in the next few years, a free-to-play equivalent of Skyrim," Cousins said. "A game like Skyrim, where you accrue skills and equipment over time, that you can play for hundreds of hours, is actually one of the easiest games to develop for a free-to-play model. That would be a big hit."In this future, Cousins said the average user would have no problem dropping $60 over the course of playing the game. "In the future I believe free-to-play will be the way that nearly everyone plays games, it will be nearly every genre, and it will be nearly every platform."[Image credit: OfficialGDC]
Ngmoco exec: Free-to-play is not exploitative
Delivering the keynote address at the current Free to Play Summit in London, Ngmoco Sweden General Manager Ben Cousins came out in strong support of the business model. He said that his response to people asking if F2P takes advantage of players is always the same: "Any business model where 95 percent of people who don't pay cannot be exploitative." As most F2P players never spend money in such games and tend to play the most, Cousins thinks that the model works in favor of the gamer. He also stated that freemium games are not set up to trick people into paying, saying that it's "ineffective" if that is the case as a vast majority resists doing so. Cousins addressed the news stories of people who dangerously splurge on in-game purchases as a rarity: "I've never come across a big spender on a free-to-play game who has maxed out their credit cards. The big spenders I've met generally know what they're doing. Even the $5,000 spenders are not being exploited, they are just people who have found their big hobby." Ngmoco publishes freemium titles on the iOS and Android platforms, including games like We Rule and We City.
More DICE employees jump ship to Ngmoco's Swedish studio
After former DICE / EA Easy dev Benjamin Cousins left his former role, we were pretty sure he was on his way to a world bicycling championship. As it turns out, he's keeping his bicycling hobby on the side and running the Swedish branch of Ngmoco instead -- and he's bringing along some friends from his former employer. Senior artist Wille Wintertidh and senior programmers Torbjørn Lædre and Malte Hildigsson, all from DICE, have joined the team, and we don't expect they'll be the last. Cousins announced the hires via Twitter, where he characterized the trio as "fabulous new employees." We're hoping he also threw confetti in the air as he remarked as much.
EA staff leaves for Ngmoco Sweden
A few more Electronic Arts employees have jumped ship for Ngmoco's newest studio, in Sweden. After Ben Cousins (who formerly worked at EA's "EAsy" division) left to form Ngmoco Sweden, he's apparently been building a wishlist of various developers, and now he's grabbed three more, this time from EA's DICE studio (creators of the Battlefield series). Torbjørn Lædre and Malte Hildigsson are joining as senior programmers, while Wille Wintertidh is on as a senior artist. Cousins has also previously grabbed some staff from Crytek, so he's building a formidable group over there at Ngmoco's studio. It's hard to say what this will mean for iOS games specifically -- Ngmoco has said in the past that it definitely wants to expand away from just the Apple platform, and recently we've seen a pretty big push towards Android and even social games from the growing company (that originally started, you'll remember, as simply an iOS publisher founded by EA vet Neil Young). All of these acquisitions definitely point towards some sort of first-person shooter title (as most of these vets have experience on Battlefield and Medal of Honor games), but whether that's a free-to-play browser based game or something more mobile, we have no idea. But it is interesting to see that a company basically started under the iOS banner is growing so quickly. We can't wait to see what Ngmoco Sweden is working on.
Ngmoco acquires Lionside, maker of sports games on Facebook
iPhone mobile game publisher Ngmoco has confirmed that it has acquired Lionside, the San Fransisco-based maker of social networking sports games on Facebook. Ngmoco is the maker of over 20 popular iPhone games, including Rolando and Rolando 2: Quest for the Golden Orchid. There's no word on how much the acquisition cost the iPhone game maker, but a Ngmoco spokesperson did confirm to InsideMobileApps that it did indeed acquire Lionside. Lionside's website and Facebook Page have already been taken offline. Lionside is best known for their Facebook game NBA Legend, which at one point had as many as one million active monthly users. Though no plans have been announced it's reasonable to assume that ngmoco will bring NBA Legend and other sports games to the iPhone platform in the future.
Ngmoco hires Ben Cousins, creates ngmoco Sweden
Ngmoco has picked up former EA developer Ben Cousins, the man behind much of that company's free-to-play services at the EAsy division. He will establish a new studio under ngmoco called ngmoco Sweden, which will create games and content using ngmoco's (and parent company DeNA's) services and platforms. At EA, Cousins was instrumental in setting up the free-to-play shooter Battlefield Heroes, as well as the more hardcore spinoff, Battlefield Play4Free, so it's likely that in his new position at EA, he'll be heading up some free-to-play projects more tailored to a traditional gaming audience than ngmoco's current social and casual initiatives. Cousins also used to work at DICE, the company behind EA's Battlefield series, which is also based in Sweden, so there could be a few employees from that developer following him across to the new division at ngmoco. All in all, this is good news for iOS players and fans of ngmoco's games in general. I can't wait to see what titles come out of ngmoco Sweden first. [via Joystiq]
ngmoco to launch Swedish branch with former EA Easy boss Ben Cousins
When Ben Cousins left EA Easy as head of the studio earlier this year, he didn't leave a forwarding address. Cousins and his new employer revealed today his position as head of newly formed ngmoco Sweden, where he'll be leading the studio in the development of "freemium games for mobile platforms like iOS/Android" (according to Cousins' Twitter feed). His last major project with EA was Battlefield Play 4 Free. The official PR from ngmoco puts the Swedish branch in a position of support for parent company DeNA's "Mobage" social gaming platforms. And the new studios puts Cousins in a position to hire up colleagues in a part of the world ripe for the picking -- Sweden. Don't be surprised if you see some high profile ex-DICE staffers showing up at ngmoco's new Swedish office over the next few months, as we totally warned you. [Image credit: OfficialGDC]
Rolando and Rolando 2 updated with Retina Display, on sale now
Ngmoco has surprised us with some updates. Rolando and its sequel Rolando 2 have both been updated for the iPhone 4's Retina Display and have had a few bug issues fixed. To celebrate the update, they're both on sale for just US$0.99. Either one of these is a bargain at that price. They're both very solid, original platformers, designed specifically for the iOS system. What's most interesting about this, though, is that Ngmoco has updated these at all. Rolando was one of the first big titles for the now gigantic iOS developer, but when Ngmoco moved into the We Rule freemium model, the Rolando series was more or less abandoned in favor of games that could use more microtransactions and attract more "DAUs" (daily active users). A lot of Rolando fans were disappointed with that direction, though Ngmoco's We Rule and other freemium games have seen plenty of success anyway. Rolando creator Simon Oliver's HandCircus has been working on a PSN game instead, but maybe with these updates, there's a possibility we could finally see Ngmoco return to the little rolling hero and his series.
Interview: Ngmoco's We Rule after a year on the App Store
Ngmoco's We Rule has arguably changed the App Store since its release. Before We Rule, the App Store was generally based on a rather traditional gaming model -- developers released games for a price, and customers paid or didn't pay based on that price. But with We Rule, Ngmoco (as outlined by CEO Neil Young at last year's GDC) showed that freemium could really work on the App Store, and the ensuing shift led us away from more traditional games and further into the idea of games as a service -- games that took advantage of a large free audience to make money with microtransactions. Now, a year after release, Ngmoco says that We Rule is doing better than ever. It's reached 13 million downloads and has seen 13 billion minutes played over the past year. On a daily basis, 15 million bottles of mojo (the game's main microtransaction currency) are being spent, and while plenty of those are earned for free in the game, there's no question that We Rule has seen plenty of success. TUAW spoke with Caryl Shaw, an executive producer at the company, and she told us a little bit about who's spending all of those minutes in game, Ngmoco's responsibility around microtransactions, and the future of We Rule and Ngmoco's other properties.
CE-Oh no he didn't!: NGP will be 'dead on arrival,' says ngmoco boss
In all honesty, you would expect the leader of a team concerned exclusively with producing games for smartphone platforms like iOS and Android to be dismissive of a new dedicated handheld console's chances, but it's still jarring to hear such a strident dismissal of the Sony NGP's chances. In an interview at GDC this year -- yes, the same place where we were treated to some very impressive demos of the NGP's performance -- ngmoco CEO Neil Young has expressed his belief that Sony's next PSP will be "dead on arrival." Claiming that the new portable will be incapable of competing with the rich ecosystems and affordable pricing models that smartphones now offer, Young says not even the crazy specs or PS3-like gaming will help the NGP survive. This echoes comments from Satoru Iwata last year saying that Apple, not Sony, is the "enemy of the future" for handheld consoles, though Young does close off on a positive note, saying that he sees brighter prospects for the 3DS thanks to Nintendo's rich collection of own-brand franchises and reserves of fan loyalty. So that's it, folks, better start selling those Sony shares while they're still worth something! Or not, it's up to you. [Thanks, Dominick]
Star Wars: Imperial Academy seeks recruits on iPhone
Ngmoco's freemium Star Wars: Imperial Academy is available now on the iPhone and iPod Touch. The four-player deathmatch arena shooter has players leveling up to outfit their clones with the latest (addendum: a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away) in Stormtrooper weapons and armor. Of course, this being a freemium title, one can also just pay their way to fame. We hear Jabba the Hutt has reasonable interest rates on loans. The controls for the game are certainly an acquired taste, but at an initial cost of "free," it won't cost anything to see if they work for you. For us, that thing went on and off the iPhone faster than an ice cube's lifespan at midday on Tatooine -- with both suns out.
Two new titles released by Ngmoco, Adventure Bay and Star Wars: Imperial Academy
Neil Young and his company Ngmoco are running out of time to get all twenty new freemium products out that were promised earlier this year, but it looks like they're going to make a run at it anyway. Over the past weekend, Ngmoco released two brand new freemium titles on the US App Store. First up is Star Wars: Imperial Academy, a first-person shooter Star Wars game developed with THQ that basically plays like a Star Wars-themed skin of Eliminate. Unfortunately, iTunes reviews on this one aren't very good (framerates are apparently not great), but it is free, so if you're good with a blaster, it's probably worth a download anyway. Ngmoco has also released Adventure Bay recently. I'm surprised this one isn't just called We Island, because it's basically an island and pirate-themed version of the "We" series of games, from We Rule to We Farm and We City. You can build your own island (through waiting and spending in-game purchased Spice, this game's version of Mojo), do a little exploring to find treasure and collect items or do quests to earn money and fame. I can't say that it's bad, necessarily, but whatever you thought of We City will probably have you thinking the same thing about this one. So unfortunately, two less-than-impressive titles from one of the biggest iPhone gaming companies around. We'll have to see what Ngmoco plans next year. With the emphasis on "daily active users" and the freemium business model, it's possible that Ngmoco is just fine with how its business is going. But it would be nice to see a little more innovation on the gameplay side as well.
ngmoco launches its first non-iOS game: Pocket God for Android and Windows Phone 7
Game publisher ngmoco has risen to the top in the enormously crowded iOS development space going all the way back to its breakout hit Rolando two years ago, while Pocket God -- from developer Bolt Creative -- has had its own share of success. Well, users of phones that aren't iPhones have reason to celebrate today on news that ngmoco has released its first non-iOS game this week, working with Bolt to port Pocket God over to Android and Windows Phone 7. The Android version is available right now for 99 cents while the WP7 port should be available "soon," so get in any last fits of productivity while you still can. Follow the break for the press release.
