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Crackdown returns as open-world Xbox One exclusive [Update: Trailer added]
Microsoft has revealed a new entry in its Crackdown franchise, one "powered by an army of dedicated servers" that offers the sort of open-world superheroic police warfare the series has been known for. Series creator David Jones introduced a short vignette, before confidently stating that "we have the right team to build the game." Scant gameplay details were offered, but the game features both the de rigueur open-world campaign, as well as multiplayer and co-op. So far there's no word on when Crackdown might arrive, though when it does it will be exclusive to the Xbox One.
CES 2013: Shazam adds TV (and TV ads) to its music finding service
Shazam's Executive Vice President of Marketing, David Jones, kindly found some time to meet up with me during CES 2013 today, and we chatted about what the company has been up to lately. You probably remember Shazam from their very early days on the iPhone as a music-finding app (you can use the app to "listen" to any music you hear, and it will tell you the artist and title of the song), but in the past few years the company has grown to be a lot more than that. Specifically, instead of just finding music, Jones says the big push for the company lately is in recognizing television shows and television ads. The company's two biggest news stories out of CES have nothing to do with iOS: The Shazam app is going to come pre-installed on a series of Android phones, and the service is also joining the QNX car audio architecture. But both of those new developments are really signals that Shazam has grown way beyond its now humble iOS roots. The app can now be used to identify any television broadcast, and the company has joined up with over 200 brands, and more all the time, to try and make every TV ad "Shazam-able" as well. Jones said that Shazam not only fingerprints every broadcast, but even the specific time of every broadcast, so the company can know exactly when and where you set the app to listen in. "We can make TV ads, for the first time ever, interactive," Jones told me. Shazam's monetization strategy is a patchwork quilt of different deals and techniques: Generally, the company will make content "Shazamable" for free, but will then ask the broadcaster to somehow mention (either via a quick explanation or just a logo on the bottom of the screen) that Shazam is enabled. As a result, says Jones, Shazam has picked up about 10 billion impressions from TV in the last year, which not only drives users back to the iOS app, but also just raises awareness among users that they can "Shazam" shows and ads. Shazam also deals in sponsorships and advertising, and will sometimes make money off of referral links directly into iTunes or other marketplaces. As Shazam has opened up into tracking more and more content, the company's technology has gotten better as well. Right around this time last year, the company started doing "live ingestion" which means that as soon as something was broadcast, it could be identified by the app. And better search and find algorithms mean that identifying a broadcast is faster than ever. When Shazam actually finds your program, it provides you with a list of options and content related to it. For TV shows, it can pull up cast information, or, Jones says, a very popular option that lists music heard in the show. Sportscasts are one of the most Shazam-ed forms of content, and when those shows are brought up, Shazam can show sports scores around the league, and can even time them out to the exact point in the broadcast that Shazam was listening in (if a user happened to be watching a game on DVR, for example, and didn't want the results of other games spoiled). Live music shows are another popular choice for Shazamed content, and awards shows are big as well: Jones expects a lot of traffic for the upcoming Golden Globes show. Of course the Super Bowl is a big win for Shazam, and Jones says we can expect the app to show up in the worldwide broadcast at some point (though he said details on exactly what that will entail are still being kept secret for now). Jones says there's still plenty of room to grow for Shazam. The company has done all of this pushing on TV and ads even while keeping its music-finding business going (and growing), so that part of the app is still very important. 2013, said Jones, will likely be dedicated to continuing to grow the TV ads business, but there are plenty of other places for Shazam to go, including radio, and even inside retail stores (so you could hold a phone up in a retail store, and automatically get information about not only the music playing, but any current sales or promotions on what you're shopping for). Shazam started out early on the iPhone with its music history, but there's a lot more left for this company to do.
David Jones joins APB Reloaded in 'advisory role'
You know what they say: If at first you don't succeed, join the team doing the remake. Veteran game developer David Jones, responsible for classics like Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto and Crackdown, made an MMO called APB a little while back that eventually closed up shop in record time. Then, a company called GamersFirst bought the rights to APB, and made plans to redevelop it as APB Reloaded. Now, that same David Jones has joined the free-to-play remake in "an advisory role." Really? GamersFirst says it's excited to have Jones around to "share his vast game design experience during critical design stages of the ongoing development of APB Reloaded." That sounds good, we guess. Everybody deserves a second chance, right?
Rumor: Firaxis working on Unreal 3-powered console game, Civ Revolution sequel existed
Working through LinkedIn profile pages and various resumes of current and former Firaxis Games employees, internet detective Supererogatory unearthed what appear to be two juicy bits of information about the studio. First up: Apparently Firaxis was developing a sequel to Civilization Revolution back in 2008 for PC, PS3 and 360, according to the resume of David Jones, a current character artist at Firaxis. Also of note, the LinkedIn profile of ex-Firaxis level engineer Chris Doyle and the resume of former game programmer Will Miller both reference an "unannounced," multiplatform title, using Unreal Engine 3, as being in development at the Civ studio. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Miller's resume classifies the mystery game as a "AAA strategy title." Supererogatory posits that it could be the same title that was first spotted on a resume from 2008. We've yet to get a response from Firaxis or 2K Games on the matter.
APB needs partner to make console version, but willing
The idea of console MMOs is nothing new. After all, EverQuest Online Adventures, Final Fantasy XI, and the Phantasy Star titles have managed to successfully publish on consoles. With that said, it seems as if there's been a trend with recent MMOs to say they were going to console like Age of Conan and Champions Online, only to change their minds later. That's why we weren't surprised to see that David Jones, Creative Director of Realtime Worlds, sat down with Eurogamer and discussed the potential of a console port for his company's recent release, All Points Bulletin. What we did find interesting was that, despite knowledge of consoles from working on the first two Grand Theft Auto titles and Realtime Worlds being partnered with EA for distribution, there has been no discussion between the two companies regarding porting All Points Bulletin to consoles. Jones notes that the team at Realtime Worlds will remain focused on working on the PC version, as opposed to shifting into trying to build a console version, or trying to "shop around" for a partner. That said, he certainly sounds willing to discuss a deal if the right distribution partner for consoles were willing to contact them. Be sure to pop over to Eurogamer if you're wondering what else Jones may have in mind for All Points Bulletin.
First Look: Sudoku Real Edition
According to its developers David Jones and Amy Burton, Sudoku Real Edition offers a game play experience that aims to be "as real as possible, almost as if you bought a Sudoku book and sat down at a table to play." As this sneak peek video shows, that goal is not too far off the mark. Priced at $2.99, this new iPad app was built using real world graphics that were digitized for game play. If you're into Sudoku, you'll probably be impressed by this application's beautifully designed interfaces. It's nice to see how thoroughly the developers created a custom iPad experience. One discordant note is that they used standard Apple switches (ON-OFF buttons) in their Settings dialog instead of creating a custom choice control that better matched their other UI elements. Also, it's not clear whether you'll be able to use full screen play in addition to the tabletop presentation in the video; it seems like a natural transition for landscape to change into a full screen portrait view. That having been said, it looks lovely. I particularly liked their sliding bookmark element, that keeps track of an on-going game. All in all, it looks like a beautiful game and a worthy member of the new iPad App Store community.
APB impressions from Joystiq at GDC
Our friends over at Massively's sister site Joystiq have weighed in with their impressions of Realtime Worlds' forthcoming All Points Bulletin MMORPG, recently demoed at last week's Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco. The article drops a few interesting nuggets, including the fact that APB will not feature hand-to-hand combat on release day, as well as observations on the vehicle customization tools, enforcer versus criminal PvP, mission types, and other items shown at GDC by studio founder (and Grand Theft Auto creator) David Jones. "I have to admit that the concept of a "GTA MMO" was never one that seemed like it would "work." After seeing APB in action, though, with its multitude of customization options and spectacular shootouts, my feeling has definitely changed. It really could work," Joystiq concludes.
More APB beta invites going out
Did you miss out on the APB beta last year? Tipsters have begun alerting us that a new wave of invites is going out. If you still want an early look at Realtime Worlds' massively multithug online game, you should probably head over to the site and apply now. At least with the knowledge that more invites are going out, there seems to be more chance that you'd be able to get one now, right? While you're on pins and needles about your potential beta invite, why not read this Eurogamer interview with RTW CEO David Jones? In it, he says that APB is a release during the first half of this year is "achievable" (though EA says pretty much exactly the opposite). He also describes the game's pay model as "a very unique business model because it's a unique game." He did not say what that model was. [Thanks, Paul & Jesse!]
1.5 million copies of Crackdown sold is 'breaking even' for Realtime Worlds
During a recent interview with Gamasutra, Realtime Worlds CEO David Jones talked about the success of the first Crackdown. Well, okay, maybe it wasn't a really huge success or anything, even though 1.5 million copies of the Halo 3 beta Crackdown were snatched up by consumers. It turns out that Realtime Worlds only broke even, which it partially blames on GameStop's used game sales. "With Crackdown we sold about 1.5 million copies, but even at that we pretty much only managed to break even," Jones said. "It was due to the amount of factors that were out of our control as the developer, influences such as GameStop's amazing used-game sales; we know 1.5 million new copies were sold, but it's likely there were 2.5, three million sold when you include used." Hey, that sounds like another game we've heard about recently! Hopefully this whole game downloading thing will help with some of those trade-ins. Not that it's Realtime Worlds' problem to worry about any more.
Close to half of Crackdown team working on Crackdown 2
Close to half of Ruffian Games' Crackdown 2 team is made up of developers from the original group from Realtime Worlds. So says Ruffian Creative Director Bill Thompson in an interview with Edge, where he explains that the developer has "core members from every discipline who worked on [Crackdown], the majority of the design team," along with the coders and artists. That talent drain from Realtime Worlds might explain why its creative director, David Jones, was a "bit miffed at Microsoft" for giving the sequel to Ruffian Games.Producer Jim Cope states that the company still maintains a "really strong working relationship" with Realtime, noting that they are neighbors in both "personal and professional relationships." Cope says the team firmly believe they're "the right people" to make the sequel and that they know what to fix and enhance in the second outing.
Interview with Real Time Worlds' David Jones
Back in April we were starting to worry about APB because we hadn't seen or heard anything new about the game in a while. Thankfully, the information is starting to flow again due to E3 and an impending "early 2010" release date. GamesIndustry recently caught up with Realtime Worlds' Creative Director, David Jones and he had a lot of interesting things to say.You won't learn anything earth-shattering about APB, but this interview gives us a good look at one of the leading forces behind the MMO (darn that pesky label). Given the global economic downturn, David feels his studio needs to focus now more than ever because there's not much chance of raising more venture capital. He's also very happy about the publishing partnership with EA because he feels they'll be able to help build APB a strong marketing presence at retail. Maybe the loaning of Paul Barnett is icing on the cake?For all of you hoping for closed beta, you might be waiting a little longer since APB is still in an internal testing phase. For all of you worrying about a F2P/RMT business model, your fears can probably be eased since David feels that an online distribution strategy is "maybe pushing the envelope too far" for APB.
Crackdown 2 situation one of those 'awkward moments' for Realtime creative director
Imagine: Your company makes a hit game (and gets bundled with a hit beta). The publisher won't green light a sequel, so your team begins work on another franchise. Then the sequel is awarded to a developer ... in your own town, who permanently borrows your talent. With all that said, it's understandable that Realtime Worlds Creative Director David Jones was a "bit miffed at Microsoft" for giving the Crackdown sequel to start-up Ruffian Games.Speaking with GI.biz, Jones explains that Realtime Worlds was all set to do a sequel before Crackdown's release. When the company didn't receive the go-ahead from Microsoft, it moved on to create APB. Jones wishes that Microsoft had chosen one of its shuttered internal studios to make the game instead of going with Ruffian Games, a company that's in the same town and takes from the same talent pool. He notes it's "challenging to get enough developers in one region as it is." Maybe Realtime can get the third title in the series? Trade off like Infinity Ward and Treyarch did with Call of Duty.
Develop 2009's speaker lineup partially unveiled
A selection of the 2009 Develop Conference speakers has been revealed today. Realtime Worlds' David Jones will be keynoting at the conference and will cover "how to make a game successful." Having created titles such as Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto and Crackdown, he should know. Nevertheless, we're expecting an hour long speech about how to bundle your game with an online beta for a Halo game. Usually does the trick.Other notable speakers include Team 17's Martyn Brown, SCEE's Arran Green and Climax Studios' Simon Gardner. Check out the Develop website for the full list. There will be more speakers announced closer to the event, which will take place in July.
APB gets interrogated
Back at E3 2005 I had the opportunity to interview David Jones, creator of Grand Theft Auto, about their cops and robbers MMO, All Points Bulletin . Since its announcement at E3 not much has been revealed about the game... until recently. Last week rumors swirled that APB was going to turn into GTA Online, then there was the re-acquisition of the IP rights by Realtime Worlds from Webzen, and now we have an in-depth and revealing interview with Walter Kong, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Realtime.While the concept of APB may sound similar to Grand Theft Auto, it's not. In APB gamers can play as either cops or robbers within the three dimensional, open world. What's more, Realtime is going to use "players as content. " Basically, they are attempting to take the PvP experience and craft missions around it. Most games are either PvE or PvP; APB will bring those two very divergent styles together.
APB's Walter Kong on financial flexibility
In a new interview with Walter Kong, the Senior Vice President of Business Development at Realtime Worlds, explains the logic behind his team's recent reacquisition of the publishing rights for their upcoming game All Points Bulletin. Their latest round of fund-raising, which netted them a cool $50 million, gives them the a much higher degree of flexibility than they would have had under Webzen, so they took the opportunity to go independent, for a while anyway.Kong explained that just because that just because they moved out from under Webzen doesn't mean they are necessarily looking to self-publish; they just want to keep their options open. What seems clear from the way they've handled themselves so far is that all the veteran blood, including CEO David Jones -- the brainchild of the Grand Theft Auto series, has made them shrewd in the ways of the business. Here's hoping they're as savvy at making their game as they are financing it.
Interview with David Jones
Xbox.com has a nice interview with Dave Jones of Real Time Worlds about Crackdown. The touch on some cool things like the Achievements in the game, potential downloadable content and how the leaderboard statistics are tracked. When going into detail about the leaderboards and how they worked, it helped shed some light on the way they intend on tracking player activity to decide on the Achievements for the last 100 points. Give it the once over by clicking the "Read" link to help cope with the wait for tomorrow's release. [Thanks, DjDATZ]
Real Time Worlds has MS raise total Achievement limit
When David Jones of Real Time Worlds was looking at the ideas for Achievements for Crackdown, they had at around 200 or so to choose from. Jones said he wanted to just reward gamers for doing what they do best, having fun. When Microsoft told them they were allowing a total of 50, David felt that would cripple the whole concept of how they were going to approach the game's Achievements. So, when Microsoft recently altered their policy on Gamerscore, they also moved the total Achievements to 80 at Real Time Worlds' request. This gave Crackdown some breathing room with the upcoming 100 and potential 250 Gamerscore add-ons. Hopefully with proper feedback, their new content will be as fun and fulfilling as the current list. What Achievements would you want to see on top of the current set in Crackdown?
Crackdown glitches already found
The Crackdown demo has only been available since yesterday, and glitches are already popping up. Posted on the Flickr account of im_the_real_scooby are several images of glitchified Crackdown in action. It looks as though he managed to fall through the map and look at its undersides from the ocean below. We can't help but think of Saints Row (and its fabulous musical). With any game of this scale, glitches are bound to be discovered, but we never expected them to be found so quickly. Considering that Crackdown is already gold, it looks like the glitches are here to stay, too. Hit the "read" link to see more images.
Crackdown demo assaults Xbox Live
The day has finally arrived. Today is the day that all of us can finally try out that free game that comes with the Halo 3 beta. We keed, we keed. We're actually genuinely excited about Crackdown and even woke up early to get the demo downloaded. We'll be playing it as much as possible and updating you with our impressions later today. The demo is over 1 gig so you'll want to get started with the download as soon as you can. Anyone manage to play this already? What do you think?
Crackdown goes gold, demo not so much
Microsoft announced today that Crackdown, the much anticipated sandbox action game (and golden ticket to the Halo 3 beta) has gone gold. In other words, Crackdown has been certified and is ready for production. Microsoft notes that interest in the game is high, citing the game's significant number of pre-orders. While we don't doubt that the game will be a lot of fun, we imagine the high number of pre-orders has something to do with the Halo 3 beta invite. Maybe just a little. Still we're excited to get our hands on the demo, which 360 Fanboy readers will know is not certified yet, and should arrive some time this month. Crackdown is scheduled to hit shelves February 20.Full press release after the break.
