RitualEntertainment
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Ritual acquired by MumboJumbo, absolved from SiN
It was announced today that Ritual Entertainment has been acquired by purveyor of casual games, MumboJumbo. The latter company describes the move as "consistent with our strategy to bring high-quality casual game content to the major platforms," citing Ritual's multi-platform development experience as a key advantage in creating a "major industry powerhouse." Interestingly, Ron Dimant started up MumboJumbo only after departing his CEO position at Ritual Entertainment in 2001.GameDaily BIZ delves into some of the repercussions of the purchase, the most obvious of which is Ritual's shift to creating casual and seemingly SiN-free titles. "If there's an opportunity to have them do something on the SiN episodes, we would look at that, but that will not be the focus of the company," explains Mark Cottam, CEO of MumboJumbo. "The combined companies will focus exclusively on casual, unless opportunities present themselves that we think are strategic from a business standpoint." Considering the muted reaction generated by the first (and apparently final) installment of SiN Episodes, continuing the franchise would likely not be considered "strategic" in the slightest. [Thanks Serban.]
More maps and modes for your Sin Episodes
Ritual Entertainment is about to release four extra maps and a new gameplay mode for Sin Episodes, at no extra charge for auto-download via Steam (the "no charge" bit will no doubt make many console owners jealous). The four new maps will be dedicated to the new mode called "Arena"--which is a single player experience akin to many games' survival modes--and will be designed around typically generic first person shooter situations like an office, a turbine room and a processing plant. Shawn, the lead game designer of Sin lays it down on his blog; "It's an infinitely repayable single player mode where you continually try and beat your high score". Our translation: "shoot loads of people and then obsess over the number of enemies you shot in the groin".Other bits mentioned on Shawn's blog include a comprehensive stat tracking system, enabling yourself and other players to compare their groinshot score, the mention of the impending release of a Software Development Kit (SDK) and a Sin development Wiki, and absolutely no news about when Episode 2 is going to hit Steam; Shawn got a little excited and forgot to give us any information beyond saying that he'd "be on the look out for some Episode 2 media in the near future" if he was you. We want dates dammit![Via EuroGamer]
Video interview with SiN: Episodes guys
GameTrailers has a video interview up with some of the key players at Ritual Entertainment creating the upcoming episodic SiN series. There's some interesting talk about episodic delivery, including staying ahead of the tech curve due to the familiarity with an evolving engine, the dynamic difficulty system, which aims to remove the frustration some gamers have with games, and they even hit some tech buzzwords like iPod when discussing the jump to a short-form, serialized product. There's still no date for the "first AAA episodic" game but it should be soon (just not early March-ish). There's two versions of the video, be sure to check out the HD feed if your system can handle it.[Thanks, Nick]
Ritual raps SiN, episodic, and Xbox 360
GameDaily talked with Ritual Entertainment's Tom Mustaine and Levelord (not his birthname... we think) about SiN Episodes, episodic content, and even their Xbox 360 plans. They have some valuable insights into episodic distribution, equating it to the popular shareware format, explaining, "Finally, let's remember the shareware model used by game developers not so long ago. It was actually an episodic delivery paradigm. With shareware, we would release the first episode, usually before the completed game was finished. Then the full game would be released, which usually was the second and third episodes. These would then, if the game was successful, be followed by a series of add-on packs, each of which to be called another episode."Episodic delivery is gaining a lot of "Steam" in the industry thanks to games like SiN Episodes, Telltale's adventure game offerings like Bone and the upcoming Sam & Max, and the 800lb. gorilla in the gaming room, Half-Life 2. Figuring out how to offer episodic content over Xbox Live is something we're very eager to hear about. Ritual's Mustaine says, "[Microsoft does] have limitations on Marketplace download sizes. Since we are still in discussions with Microsoft about the 360 version, details about that product should appear in the near future." Titles distributed via XBLM are expected to fit onto the Memory Unit, which is obviously out of the question for a game like SiN. Unfortunately, the hard drive, with only 13GB free, is another limiting factor. What's the solution: larger hard drive sizes? Streaming content? Or direct-mail episodes on DVDs? If anyone wants to drop specifics, send us a tip!
