gamesbeat-2009
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Marvel Comics to share writers and artists with Gazillion for MMO
We were disappointed back in 2008 when we learned that the Marvel MMO project was being shuttered. But, roughly a year after the bad news broke, Gazillion Entertainment announced that they're working on a Marvel Comics MMO. Two, in fact. While a number of comics fans who play MMOs are excited about DC Universe Online (which is slated for release in 2010) comics fans often have their particular allegiances to a certain IP, and not everyone is a huge fan of the DC Comics universe. Marvel purists should have even more to look forward to from the upcoming MMO. Joystiq reports that Marvel Comics will lend its writers and artists to the project. That comes straight from Ira Rubenstein, who holds a senior position with Marvel's global digital media group. Rubenstein made the announcement during the GamesBeat 2009 conference in San Francisco.
Pachter says this console generation is the last
Micheal Pachter foresees a world without console wars, calling the current crop of hardware "the last generation of consoles." The ballsy claim was made during GamesBeat 2009, a conference going on in parallel to GDC, where the Wedbush Morgan analyst reportedly declared that the future belonged to a "standard delivery platform" instead.According to 1UP, Pachter based his claims on the rising cost of console game development, stating that third-party publishers "are not going to support a PS4 or Xbox 720." His opinion, however, was not shared by fellow analysts David Cole and Colin Sebastian, who instead believe we can expect new hardware in 2012, though all three soothsayers agree that should this come to pass, Sony will drag its feet in getting something new onto store shelves. But how long will Sony loyalists have to wait for a new fix? According to the "Church of Pachter," don't expect Sony's fourth-coming until sometime around 2015, coincidentally the same year the aliens attack.
Microtransactions anticipated by game industry professionals
If you thought microtransactions weren't taking off, think again. In a recently conducted survey by VentureBeat, the microtransaction business model was voted the most impactful area of the games industry by a sample of 160 industry professionals.The second place choice for the professionals who answered the survey was the appearance of smartphones as a game development platform. The two results came in very close, with 66 percent voting for microtransactions as the most impactful and 61 percent voting for smartphones.The survey comes as a part of VentureBeat's GamesBeat event, where the main conference is scheduled to take place tomorrow in San Francisco. The GamesBeat conference isn't a part of the main Game Developers Conference, but their wish is to view their conference as complementary to the main GDC instead of competing against it.
GDC09: Run for the hills? No! We have a Gazillion interview to finish
In the middle of an interview with Paul Baldwin, VP of marketing at Gazillion Entertainment (and former Eidos exec during the good years), at GamesBeat 2009 (a side conference taking place during GDC), there was a fire drill. Just when we finally got some good answers to what the company is up to. So, while running exiting the building in an organized fashion, we kept on trucking and asking questions about the company's plans with its Marvel MMOs, Lego Universe and its other projects. We'll try to get that interview up as soon as we find a good internet connection.
