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Aeria Games acquires Punch Entertainment, brags about growth
Even if you've never heard of Aeria Games, chances are you've heard of one of the company's free-to-play MMO titles. A new press release touts the California-based firm's recent growth and boasts of its desire to cater to "hardcore and medium-core players who play as much as four hours per day." Aeria's latest acquisition includes the internal development team at Punch Entertainment as well as an unnamed iOS and Android game that will soon be added to a stable of titles that numbers over 30 strong, including Shaiya and Eden Eternal. "As we move forward, we will continue to form strategic partnerships and grow our development teams while building and acquiring more engaging content to reward our dedicated power gamers," said Aeria CEO Lan Hoang. [Source: Aeria press release]
Free for All: Why I play free-to-play
I hid in waiting under a soggy sheet of cardboard for the past three days with stale Cheetos as my only nourishment. I had but a single target, who finally exited his house with bleached skin, a red fuzzy head and blurry eyes. As he stood at his front door trying to shoo away the sun like a vampire, I made my move. At last, I thought, Beau's spirit hood will be mine. By the time I was well into a Keanu Reeves-style flying scissor-kick, I realized an important tactical error. It wasn't the horror-filled eyes of a man who had spent too much time indoors staring at a computer screen that I was looking into, but the fierce come-get-some eyes of a teenager with spiky, dyed hair who was practicing his karate moves. Had I thought beyond simply looking cool as I made my attack, I would have realized I spent every ounce of energy I had to pull off the insane leap-kick that actually looked more like what you'd expect: a tired, wet, dirty, malnourished geek hop-skipping and shouting gibberish through a yard with a piece of cardboard stuck to his back. The three-day diet of stale Cheetos did not give me enough fuel to defend myself from the brutal pummeling that the pint-sized Bruce Lee gave me. It turns out Beau lived in the house next door. He had seen my wild display and subsequent beating, so he came out to help me. He invited me into his house to let me clean myself up, extolled the dangers of trying to live out movie fantasies, and offered to let me write his column for a week. It wasn't a spirit hood, but it was a very nice gesture. The dog-shaped cookies were a nice gift too, although I don't know why he snickered every time I ate one. No. The above tale really didn't happen, but Beau is letting me write his column today so I can tell you why I love to play free-to-play MMOs.
Aeria Games: "If you don't have fun playing, we'll give you a refund"
There aren't many MMO publishers out there who would actually offer refunds for gamers who don't have fun in their titles, but this is exactly what Aeria Games is doing. We did a double take when hearing about this but it's legit. Superman0X is a USA Gamemaster for Aeria Games, and has declared "April is Fun Month at Aeria... GUARANTEED". That's a bold statement. But what does it mean for players of the various Aeria Games MMOs? Superman0X writes, "We are so sure you will have fun we are going to put our AP [Aeria Points] where our mouth is. If any player does not have fun we will refund all their AP purchases for the entire month up to 5000AP." Players who didn't enjoy themselves in April will have a window of opportunity to request a refund from May 1st to May 10th . You can check out the full details in the announcement but we're guessing Aeria has a lot of faith in their titles if they'd even consider making such an offer.
Can your other favorite games be predicted based on your most played?
GamerDNA regularly likes to data mine their own site and look for possible correlations between games and the gamers that play them. What ends up surfacing is almost always intriguing and thought-provoking.This time GamerDNA has put your second favorite game to the test as they look at what players of online free-to-play games like to play in their spare time in their second round of "Also Played." Does playing Shaiya mean that you'll be more likely to try and enjoy World of Warcraft? Do MapleStory users really enjoy Counter-Strike? Is playing Runescape akin to playing Solitare or Minesweeper?These questions and more are probed inside of Also Played, and trust us, the answers can be pretty surprising. For the full story, check out the article over at GamerDNA, complete with handy charts.
The Daily Grind: How much free-to-play game coverage do you want?
In the last six months or so, Massively has refocused quite a bit since our early days. When we started out, we went really broad, trying to encompass every element of the MMO genre out there. We talked about everything from RuneScape to semi-obscure Korean imports, all the way up to Warhammer, World of Warcraft, and Lord of the Rings Online. In the last six months, though, we've primarily been focused on AAA titles. We primarily did it because we thought it was what you wanted to see, but in the last month or so we've seen signs your interests may be broader.Free-to-play games are constantly improving, formerly maligned Korean imports have seen a lot of development and localization love, and the microtransaction market is a moving target. Games like Atlantica Online, Runes of Magic, Wizard101, DOMO and Shaiya are increasingly showing up on our collective radars. What do you think about these games? Do you want to see more coverage of free-to-play games on Massively? What's your favorite free-to-play game that we really need to pay attention to? And if we do put more coverage of these games on the block, do you want to see things like patch notes or just the highlights/holiday announcements? Let us know!
Aeria Games gives away five million dollars in points to players
Do you play Last Chaos, Shaiya, Dream of Mirror Online, or any one of the other Aeria Online games? Check your e-mails and spam filters for a nice stocking stuffer of Aeria Points, as the company is sending over five million dollars worth to their player community.Any member of the Aeria Games community is eligible to recieve one of these e-mails, and Aeria will be sending them out from now all the way to Christmas, so keep checking as you might not know when one of these may fly into your inbox. The number of points that each person will get can vary, and so far a limit has not been mentioned on how much you may receive.Good luck for those of you who are members of the Aeria community! We hope you get showered with points! Plus, if you find yourself rich, your favorite news site might like a few points too.[via Allakhazam]
Aeria adds Diablo-like Cronous to its library
MMO portal Aeria Games has acquired a new game called Cronous, which was originally developed by Lizard Interactive. Cronous' gameplay is similar to that of Diablo, Mythos, or Dungeon Runners. That makes it somewhat unique in Aeria's library, which is otherwise made up mostly of games of a different character such as Dream of Mirror Online and Shaiya.The game's info page lists most of the usual action-RPG features, plus "nonlinear storytelling" with regards to quests, guild castle building and management, and siege warfare. We don't fully understand the nonlinear storytelling bit, although it's included in the press release as one of the major selling points of the game. It sounds cool up front though.Sign-ups are already underway for a closed beta test, so if you want to give the game a try, that's probably your best bet.[Via Ten Ton Hammer]
Despite devastation, Chinese return to online gaming
After the devastating earthquake that took the lives of over 40,000 people in China two weeks ago, the Chinese government is doing all they can to restore civility to over seven million people who were directly affected by one of the largest natural disasters in recent history. In addition to this, we can all rest assured that the MMO market in China didn't miss a beat and is back in full swing.Yes, you heard me right. CDC Games, the Chinese game distributor responsible for the distribution of such popular titles as Shaiya Online, stated recently that its revenues for its online games have rebounded almost immediately. They say their game service was only suspended for three days during the tragedy, and are now back on track to making the income they made previous to the disaster. Whew!
Aeria devolves with Stone Age 2
Aeria Games, providers of popular free-to-play MMOs Dream of Mirror Online, Last Chaos, Shaiya, and Twelve Sky, among others, continues its wild growth with a new game set in a fictional prehistoric time: Stone Age 2. A 2D, isometric view, similar to Dofus, is the milieu for this title, which will be released in North America at an unspecified date. There are a couple of intriguing game mechanics for this new MMO, including a deeper Pet system than exists in most games, allowing players the ability to train their pets (which is the heart of gameplay), and receive updates on pet status via email sent directly to their cellphones. There is even mention of being able to access video of in-game events by way of fixed cameras, while you're unable to drop into the game itself. Could this type of game-to-real world interaction be the precursor to a new wave of always-on content? Get screenshots of this new title at its website.[Via WorthPlaying]
What if WoW had Easy Mode and Hard Mode?
I was just casually wandering about the Internet yesterday, when I stumbled upon one of those random new MMORPG advertisements that you see popping up on a number of the WoW-related websites nowadays. It's for a game called Shaiya, which (like all the others), I'll probably never play, but a quick glance through it's game features revealed an interesting design choice. Without splitting up the playerbase, they've nonetheless created different "modes" to the game, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. There's an "Easy Mode," which lets you advance more quickly, but also limits you a great deal. There's also a "Normal Mode," a "Hard Mode," and even an "Ultimate Mode" for the most hardcore of players. It got me thinking about how such a system might work if transplanted into WoW:Easy Mode: This is basically just a tutorial. Not many experience points are needed to advance from level to level, but you can only reach a maximum of level 30. You cannot create or join a guild, and you get no access to any Talent points. You also are limited to Common and Uncommon items -- you cannot use any Rare, Epic, or Legendary items.Normal Mode: This is where most players will start off. You need an average amount of experience points to advance (something like what we have today). You can create and join guilds normally, and you also get Talent points. In addition, you also get access to Rare items.
Shaiya, Guild Wars most anticipated in China
According to new research from Chinese gaming portal 17173.com, Guangdong-based distributor Optisp (EVE Online) is home to the most anticipated online game in China, the Korean import Shaiya: Light and Darkness. WoW distributor The9 is hosting two of China's other highly anticipated Korean titles, Guild Wars and Soul of the Ultimate Nation. The fever over Shaiya is reportedly due to some racy ads that prompted Chinese censors to request less suggestive promos. I'm sure the two half-naked women prominently featured in the game's propaganda had nothing to do with that. 17173 has collected some in-game screen shots and wallpapers of Shaiya's physical embodiments of "light" and "darkness" (can you guess who's who?).See also: China online gaming trends
Fan Art Image Theft
You may recognize this image as one of the winners of the recent one year anniversary contest held for European Warcraft players. However, have you seen this image, art for the Korean MMO Shaiya? They do look awfully similar, and the markings on our supposed Night Elf's face do look rather poorly done, on second glance. The original artist's homepage contains more work for Shaiya, including a note saying that the series of six images took two months to complete. Ouch - all this for a video card? This was originally reported to and acknowledged by Blizzard in this thread, which won't do you much good unless you speak German.
