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The Game Archaeologist: The Chronicles of Spellborn
Hey! Hey you! Yeah, you the I'm-so-bored-with-all-of-these-MMOs gamer! You've been grousing about for years how MMOs never take risks, never innovate, and are merely content to rehash the same-old fantasy tropes that were stale even when World of Warcraft launched, right? Yes, we at Massively saw your poorly spelled reddit post on that subject, thank you. Well, what if I were to tell you that there's an MMO that bucks the clichés? It's true! Imagine an MMO that exists in a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting that's unlike anything you've seen before. Imagine that combat isn't merely hotbar button mashing but tactics mixed with positioning. Imagine that you can create your character to look any way you want from the onset instead of having to collect certain pieces of gear. Imagine an immersive world that is a delight to the eyes and ears. Got all that? Want to play it? Well, you can't. That game was The Chronicles of Spellborn, and since you and pretty much everyone else on the planet ignored it, it tanked in 2010 after less than a year of operation. Yet for its lackluster run, Spellborn has been strongly mourned by those who saw tremendous potential in it and who keep creating internet petitions to bring it back. Because petitions change everything. Today we're going to take a look back at an MMO that took the path less traveled.
Marvel: Avengers Alliance to shut down on Playdom
Playdom has announced that Marvel: Avengers Alliance will be shutting down for good on April 20th, 2014. "Although it is a difficult decision to shut down a game," a note to the players states, "this decision will allow us to focus on building new, more engaging games." This shutdown will affect only the Playdom version of the game, not the Facebook version. Playdom says that it will offer no refunds or credits for "virtual goods, game currency or other items purchased" once the game stops being offered on Playdom's platform.
Marvel: Avengers Alliance brings Marvel and Disney to Facebook games
Disney begins its inevitable assault on Facebook through its subsidiary Marvel, with the upcoming Q1 release of Marvel: Avengers Alliance, a new game for the platform developed by Playdom. It's a "combat role playing game experience with dozens of familiar Marvel superheroes and villains to be collected," in which players can train their stable of Marvel superfolks to upgrade their abilities and stats. This, of course, means we can expect to see more Facebook games from both Disney and Marvel -- the floodgates have been thrown open (let's say by the Hulk, in the interest of following the theme). We're surprised that this hadn't already happened!%Gallery-143601%
Facebook's most popular games list topped by Playdom (which isn't Zynga)
You'll excuse our baffled aghast, but we just saw Facebook's most played games of 2011 list and were mesmerized by this list of stuff we've never heard of. Also, we're surprised that Disney-owned Playdom sits at the top of the list with Gardens of Time, while Zynga's myriad "Ville" offerings, "... with Friends" games, Empires & Allies, and Adventure World are instead scattered throughout the bottom nine. EA's The Sims Social edges out Zynga as well for the number two spot, though neither Playdom nor EA can compare to Zynga's four entires on the top 10. According to Facebook, the list is put together by "looking at the top games on Facebook with more than 100,000 monthly active users and giving priority to those games with the highest user satisfaction scores."
So long and thanks for all the pics: One Shots favorites
We bid a final farewell to One Shots yesterday, but we couldn't let almost four years and 1,500 reader-submitted screenshots go without a little nod to some of our favorites. First up, of course, is the first-ever One Shots entry. Liz Harper had this to say about the image: I wanted to start our daily screenshot feature on Massively off with something, well, massive. A memorable, recognizable, and important scene from MMO history... and while you may all argue with me about what makes this particular shot important, it was the first thing that came to mind. Here we see a group of City of Heroes players gathering at City Hall in Atlas Park to "salute the memory and inspiration that is Christopher Reeve on the 2nd anniversary of his death." It's rare to see an in-game event that brings players together for a cause other than slaying dragons and similar. Ready for more? Follow along after the jump for more of the best of One Shots!
Disney's Interactive Media division reduces losses in Q3
Disney's studio shutdowns may have had at least some of the desired effect: The Disney Interactive Media Group reports that the third quarter has brought decreased losses for the division year-over-year. The group remains the only division in the company operating at a loss, but revenues increased (thanks to Lego Pirates of the Carribbean and Cars 2, according to the studio) and losses decreased to $86 million a year. Disney still blames most of the losses on the acquisition of social developer Playdom last year, but good news is good news. Hopefully this means an end to all of the layoffs around the division.
SWTOR's loss is Playdom's gain -- Gordon Walton
It's always a sad thing to see a developer leave your favorite game, especially when the game has yet to be released like Star Wars: The Old Republic. Last month, Gordon Walton stepped down as General Manager at BioWare Austin to take a job at the social gaming company Playdom. SWTOR media site Darth Hater quoted Community Manager Stephen Reid as saying, "With great thanks and appreciation, we say goodbye to Gordon Walton for helping bring the game to the phenomenal state it is in today [...] It is business as usual at all BioWare studios, where we remain committed to creating, delivering and evolving the most emotionally engaging games in the world." Gordon Walton spoke quite frequently about MMOs as a business. He was not afraid to speak frankly to other developers. You may remember his GDC 2007 quote about "the grind" in most MMOs. He explained that the "object is not to keep people as long as humanly possible, but to provide entertainment. [The players] will do it, but they will hate you." Walton was at BioWare for five years, and we at Massively look forward to seeing his work at Playdom. Good Luck, Gordon! [Thank you Justin for the tip!]
Report: Game companies raise record $1.05B in 2010, up 58 percent
VentureBeat estimates game funding by venture capital broke $1.05 billion this year, a 58 percent increase from last. It's also a significant growth from the previously recorded high of $936.8 million in 2008. The video game industry – which is now spread across boxed, digitally distributed, mobile and social (i.e. Facebook) products – has obviously given VC firms plenty of places to gamble, er, strategically invest millions of dollars. Big winners this year (at least, those that revealed investments) were Zynga (Farmville) with $150 million from SoftBank (with, possibly, significantly more from Google). Also, ZeniMax Media (Fallout, Elder Scrolls, id Software), also received $150 million. There were also major investments in Gazillion, OnLive and Playdom. Head on over to VentureBeat to see the millions of dollars going to game companies you'll likely never hear of... ever.
Zynga and Playdom hug it out, trade secret lawsuit settled
Zynga and Disney-owned Playdom have reportedly reached a settlement in their 2009 legal dispute over an alleged conspiracy by Playdom to hire Zynga employees and retrieve Zynga's "playbook" -- a book Zynga described as "the company's key and collective efforts to develop and fit games to the social networking platform in the most successful manner ... It is a 'how-to' manual that belongs to Zynga." Next-Gen.biz confirmed the settlement with Zynga, though neither Disney nor Zynga provided details of the arrangement. Zynga did, however, issue a statement stating that it's "extremely pleased with the final resolution of its trade secret suit against Playdom and various individuals." The company added, "The settlement reflects the very serious nature of the conduct involved, as reflected by the preliminary injunction, restraining orders, and contempt order issued by the Santa Clara Superior Court. We have great respect for Disney and are thankful that following its acquisition of Playdom, Disney resolved the matter to our satisfaction." We have to imagine Disney sent over at least five or six Mickey Mouse hats to really seal the deal.
Disney Interactive likely to invest less in console games following $234M loss
Losing $234 million over the course of 12 months is pretty unimaginable to most individuals. For Disney, it's not such a big deal, especially when that loss is recorded by just one of its six company divisions -- the other five all profited over the last fiscal year (ending October 2, 2010), including its Media Networks, which pulled in more than $5 billion in operating income (profit excluding interest payments and income taxes). Unfortunately for gamers, that one bad division was Interactive Media. Uh-oh. "On one side we've got a collection of games businesses," Disney CEO Bob Iger explained of the Interactive Media division to investors during a call this week, "and the other side we have a collection of largely dot-com businesses." For both the fourth quarter and entire fiscal year, Interactive's revenues actually increased marginally over the previous year's earnings, and "operating results" were "improved" (meaning: the division lost less money -- perhaps unimaginably -- in fiscal 2010 than in the previous fiscal year). Still, when you end up $234 million in the hole, something's gotta change. A new Toy Story game (the division's big breadwinner for the year) can't be released every year, after all. Reflecting on a "pretty big shift" in the games industry, in which "everything from mobile apps to social networking games" has become a player, Iger said of Interactive, "It's our goal not only to be profitable, but obviously to get there by shifting our investment and reducing our investment, too." You know what that means: "We probably will end up investing less on the console side than we have because of the shift we're seeing in consumption [...] Consumers are obviously spending time playing games -- from casual games online to mobile apps to social networking to console -- and we felt all along that we need to be where the consumer are [...] we want to be there." No doubt. Quick -- everybody go buy Split/Second before it's too late! Like, for real this time.
Disney Interactive Media president resigns
Steve Wadsworth, head of Disney's Interactive Media Group -- better known to us as "the guy in charge of Disney's video game arm" -- has stepped down. According to a New York Times report, Wadsworth issued a late-night missive to his staff last Thursday announcing his resignation. "I have been thinking about this for quite some time, and while it is difficult to leave a great company, an exciting business and a wonderful group of people, my desire and excitement to pursue other opportunities is too great to ignore." Disney confirmed the news and offered an official statement from Wadsworth: "While there is never a good time to leave a great role at a great company, for many reasons now is the right time for me to move on. I am extremely proud of the huge progress we've made at Disney Interactive Media Group, and am confident that the business is well-positioned for continued significant growth." The split appears to be amicable, with Disney CEO Robert Iger offering only kind words about Wadsworth (found in full after the break). The NYT also heard from "people with knowledge of the matter" that a replacement should be revealed "shortly," with Playdom head John Pleasants allegedly being eyed for the position (a social game developer that Disney acquired earlier this year).
Playdom kills off almost all Acclaim games
In a move that no adoption agency would ever endorse, Playdom has basically killed off Acclaim just a few months after acquiring it, as Gamasutra reports. Acclaim's site says that all of its online games have been shut down as of August 26 and unused "Acclaim Coins" are being refunded. A couple of games, Kogamu and RockFREE, will continue to live on under the Playdom banner. Playdom was bought a month ago by Disney which apparently had little interest in continuing to support Acclaim titles like 9Dragons. Though we can't claim to be big fans of any of their MMOs -- and can't really say we know anyone who fits that description -- it does seem kind of a jarring way to leave consumers.
Acclaim shuts down all games and main site
It looks like Acclaim is going the way of the dinosaur. Things have been increasingly uncertain for Acclaim titles since Playdom acquired Acclaim back in May, and visitors to Acclaim's site yesterday were met with a bare-bones message: "We regret to inform you that all Acclaim games will no longer be in service effective August 26, 2010." Other than a few instructions on refunds for Acclaim coins and an invitation to check out Playdom's Facebook games, the site is blank. The company's former games aren't all completely gone; 9Dragons was recently picked up by GamersFirst, but the publisher itself seems to be gone for good. [Thanks to CowMooFlage for the tip!]
Chronicles of Spellborn servers going offline next month
After a few years of service in various incarnations, Playdom's Chronicles of Spellborn MMO is calling it quits and will be shutting down its servers next month. Recent server outages are unrelated, apparently, but the game, which started out as a pay-to-play title and then redeveloped as a free-to-play game after the original developers went bankrupt, will be done for good at the end of September, according to an email from a company representative. The game still had a small but active community, and they've started the usual Internet petition to try and keep it online. We contacted Disney to see what part, if any, it might have had in the game's shutdown, given that it now presumably oversees the property, but the House of Mouse declined a comment. Whoever decided to pull the plug, looks like the Chronicles has reached its last page.
Spellborn shutting down in September
It seems the bell has finally tolled for The Chronicles of Spellborn, the troubled free-to-play MMORPG from Playdom. The fantasy title, which boasted a unique combat system and attempted to alleviate the grind common to the massive genre through its mission system, will be shutting its doors for good in September. Spellborn has had a checkered history since its 2009 inception as a pay-to-play title. Shortly after release, its development team went bankrupt before it was slated for free-to-play distribution by Acclaim and Frogster. According to a report published on Games.com, last week's server outage (which sparked a brush-fire of cancellation rumors) was temporary, but the game will nonetheless be closing next month. "Yes we do plan to close the game at the end of the month," said a Playdom rep via email. "The servers were down on Monday, but that was due to an unrelated technical issue; the game should be back up now until the end of this month."
Google launches social networking initiative, more Farmville than Facebook
It looks like there is a social networking initiative in the works at Google, which will presumably start with social gaming (think Farmville) and move outward from there. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company's been in talks with game developers, including Playdom, EA's Playfish, and Zynga (which Google's recently invested in). While sure to incorporate Buzz (remember that?), one thing Google does not want to do is come across as just another Facebook, with Schmidt addressing the possibility thusly: "the world doesn't need a copy of the same thing." OK, then. How about Google Match? We already have an idea for your homepage design. One thing is certain, however: expect the service to be in beta until early 2037.
Disney acquires social game firm Playdom
Stick with me on this one -- it's not strictly Apple-related, but I think it will have a big effect on the App Store in the future. Last week at Comic-Con, I saw the head of Disney's mobile gaming division, and I had to congratulate him; the company's Toy Story 3 app nabbed over 1.7 million downloads from the App Store. That's huge for them; as he'd originally told me at GDC earlier this year, the Toy Story app was part of a test to see if "selling" an app for free would increase its audience (which could then be sold on in-app purchases and add-on content). That test was apparently passed with flying colors. Then, of course, Disney purchased Tapulous a while back, and now they've picked up Playdom, an online social game developer, for a whopping $563 million. Connect the dots there, and it's pretty apparent that Disney has big plans for both gaming and the App Store. Social networking games are the hottest thing around in terms of in-app purchases, so I would not be at all surprised to see Disney combine its brands and marketing experience with Playdom's online gaming savvy and Tapulous' iPhone development talent in order to go big on some major free-to-play titles for the iPad and iPhone. And let's not forget that a certain black-turtlenecked CEO happens to be on Disney's board of directors, too. I doubt that he's solely masterminding any of these purchases, but Jobs would definitely have the access and intelligence to see the power of free downloads on the App Store, and how those apps can use programs like iAds and in-app purchases to make a big splash. I expect we'll see some really big initiatives by Disney thanks to these Tapulous and Playdom purchases -- it's only a matter of time.
Disney acquires social game dev Playdom for $563.2m
Disney Interactive today announced its acquisition of social game developer Playdom. Rumor of the deal surfaced late last week, when it was suggested that Disney was ready to pay in excess of $600 million for the company. The final handshake was over a much more reasonable sum of $563.2 million (plus a "performance-linked earn-out of up to $200 million"). And now, our expert analysis of the transaction: "Sweet baby Jesus, that's so much money." Playdom, which has only been in operation for two-and-a-half-years, has created a number of successful social gaming properties that you've ... probably never heard of, including Social City, Sorority Life and Market Street. It's properties have about 42 million active players every month, which gives some indication as to why Disney was so eager to bring Playdom into its magic kingdom. Then again, maybe Ole D didn't want to be the only publisher that missed out on the recent craze over social game developers. Haven't you heard? They're all the rage.
Rumor: Disney eyeing Playdom acquisition
TechCrunch and VentureBeat both have sources claiming Disney is ready to purchase social gaming developer Playdom for over $600 million. There are currently obscene amounts of money being invested in the social gaming arena; just last year EA purchased Playfish, another big player in the space, for $300 million. Disney Interactive Media, which continues to have annual losses, has been working on making or buying a mega-money maker. Split/Second obviously isn't panning out, but Club Penguin seems to be doing fine. There's also the question of how the company will eventually incorporate the Marvel properties, unless it opts to continue licensing those out. The Playdom purchase, if true, would give the company access to a demographic that its current mouse house of studios doesn't directly service.
Social gaming company Playdom acquires Metaplace Inc.
It seems as though Playdom has added Metaplace Inc. as a Facebook friend. While earlier this year Metaplace closed up shop, Ralph Koster dangled a morsel of hope for fans by saying that "Metaplace Inc. isn't about to go away. In fact, we have some pretty exciting plans to announce in the not too distant future." Consider that "not too distant future" a present reality, as Metaplace Inc. has been purchased by social gaming company Playdom. The deal includes the transfer of the Metaplace Inc. game design group over to Playdom's domain. Metaplace Inc. was focusing on two Facebook games, Island Life and My Vineyard, prior to its closing. Both games boast an impressive number of players: Island Life with 457,000 monthly users and My Vineyard with 822,000. Playdom is especially excited to get their hands on Metaplace's technology. "We think the Metaplace engine is a competitive advantage in that it will take other companies years to duplicate its capabilities which will streamline and quicken our game development cycles," said David Sobeski, Playdom's CTO. Metaplace Inc.'s purchase is the latest in a string of studio acquisitions for Playdom, including Acclaim Games in May. Metaplace's technology, team and games represent a significant step forward for Playdom, and we're interested to see how the social gaming firm handles its new toys in the future.
