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Bungie's next game is 'massively multiplayer'
There are a lot of rumors surrounding Bungie's mysterious next project. With the Halo torch passed on, many are curious as to what Bungie's first project with Activision will entail -- and what genres it might straddle. It appears the answer is that the unnamed franchise will be a massively multiplayer game of some sort. During a panel on networking technologies, Bungie lead network engineer David Aldridge told GDC attendees that the game will be "massively multiplayer," though added that it would not simply be "WoW in space." Beyond that tidbit, Bungie's project still remains shrouded in secrecy.
Peter Molyneux's 'FeedMe' is a 256-player Populous pet project
After taking a trip back through the development of his first game, Populous, at GDC today, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux revealed that he's actually still working on the game. Programmed by Molyneux in his spare time, "FeedMe" is a 256-player version of the original Commodore Amiga title -- and the audience for his presentation got a rare look at it. Showing if off wasn't easy. Molyneux had to compile the Visual C++ code, encountered a fatal error and sucessfully debugged it. The result: a very basic, high-res Populous world map with almost no user interface. In the course of watching this, we realized that the famed designer has only one game in the taskbar on his computer: Minecraft -- which, when you think about it, does draw inspiration from Molyneux's world-manipulation-based classic.
Totally crazy, totally canceled indie games, and the people who made them
From World of Goo dev Kyle Gabler to Plants vs. Zombies director George Fan (and everything in between), GDC's "The Failure Workshop" panel was full of thrills. Each of the panel's developers brought a project that never managed to make our acquaintance, offering a detailed explanation of what went wrong. Gabler, of 2D Boy, kicked the chair out from under his studio's robot-based sidescroller Robot and the Cities That Built Him when he and his cohorts finally decided that it simply wasn't very fun. After months of mock-ups and brainstorming, the game was finally turned into a fairly basic prototype (playable here) that sealed the project's untimely fate.
The MMO Report: Now is the winter of our discontent edition
We're not sure whether he was inspired by the recent Oscars or other recent winning theatrics, but this week we're treated to a breathtaking performance from the MMO Report's very own Casey Schreiner. Admittedly, he likely won't be picking up any golden statuettes from the Academy -- this is internet video, after all. However, we feel relatively certain that he will likely find his bag quite swollen over owing to this week's subtle combination of stellar performance and particularly well-groomed facial hair. Well, that and because this week's episode is really short. Starting off running, Casey touches on the February game update in DC Universe Online while simultaneously saving us from having to look at cherubs from the game's holiday event. After that, it's a quick jump to Runes of Magic, which is determined to make it even easier to spend tons of time wandering aimlessly in the game while telling your Facebook friends all about it. Next, it's a nod to our GDC 2011 coverage with our ArenaNet localization panel writeup and an aside about the large amount of Guild Wars hardcore Norn we got to enjoy last week. Finally, the bag returns to equally rapidly disappear once again. As always, this week's episode lurks beyond yon break -- or you can catch it on G4TV every Thursday! Until then, anon good readers; anon!
Battlefield Heroes is far from 'practically ruined,' GM Ben Cousins says
Today's GDC panel on Battlefield Heroes had general manager Ben Cousins rectifying the misconceptions about his studio's first free-to-play Battlefield game being "practically ruined." Cousins' talk centered around the allegations made by press (originating with his game's own forumgoers) that paid weapons were introduced that allegedly unbalanced the game in favor of players willing to shell out cash. Rather than panicking and reacting directly to the loudest voices -- and perhaps some overly reactionary press -- Easy Studio instead applied math. The develoeprs noticed that, despite all the negative attention, user numbers weren't dropping. Furthermore, they took the information of their forum members and discovered that, while the average BFH player would spend around 25 cents per month, forum members were spending -- on average -- about $22 (dollars!) per month. Moreover, the actively complaining population only made up about 2 percent of the overall player base. What Cousins' team discovered as a result is that most folks playing the game really didn't care about the introduction of the paid weapons. Cousins likened it to fancy sports equipment -- while it might impart a slight advantage to folks willing to pay, the disparity was made up for by the game's mechanics. User numbers remained consistent and, eventually, the complaints subsided. Having established what he considers to be this working business model in Heroes, Cousins is confident in East Studio's next effort, Battlefield Play4Free.
Fruit Ninja surpasses 20 million total downloads
At this point, Halfbrick's gotta be in talks for a major motion picture deal, action figures, a television show, lunchboxes -- all of it. To say Fruit Ninja is a "success" is an understatement: Halfbrick's Phil Larsen revealed to us during GDC that the game has reached a ridiculous 20 million downloads across all platforms, including iOS (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch), Android and Windows Phone 7. The figure includes downloads of the free "lite" versions, but Larsen reminded us that the paid iPhone app has been purchased by 6 million players, accounting for a huge bushel of the total downloads. So, where does the game go from here? Well, disregarding the aforementioned movie and action figures, might we suggest making a Facebook game? Oh, right.
GDC 2011: Jeff Strain lets us eat... err... pick his brains on Undead Labs' upcoming zombie MMO
The team at Undead Labs has big plans for the studio's first two projects currently under development: Class 3 and Class 4. So far, we know that Class 3 will be a non-MMO console zombie shoot-em-up game developed for Xbox Live, and Class 4 is intended to be the game that crosses into a massively online world. That's why we were glad to sit down with Jeff Strain, founder of Undead Labs, to hear more details on the studio's gory game goodness, which is surely lurking and primed to pounce on us and eat our brains -- or at least some of our gaming time. Are you hungry for all the meaty details of this ambitious console horror game? Join us behind the break for more!
How 'Another World' almost became a point-and-click adventure
Famed game designer Eric Chahi shared an interesting yet somewhat terrifying anecdote about his legendary action-adventure Another World during his GDC talk today. It seems Another World nearly ended up being essentially another game. According to Chahi, when he got to the point of shopping the game around to potential publishers, he initially approached (the now defunct) Virgin Interactive. The company proceeded to try and sway him to rework the game into a point-and-click adventure since "that's what was popular at the time." Given the amount of work he'd already done on the game and the formidable task it would have been to re-tool all of it, Chahi decided to leave Another World alone. He went on to work with Delphine Software, which he described as being "very supportive" of the game as it was -- and how it will appear on iOS devices later this year.
Sony celebrates PS3 success at GDC, 41 million sold worldwide
It's tough to get solid numbers out of Sony for hardware sales, usually they're cloaked behind a vague "shipped" figure, but at GDC this week the company gave us one rather impressive number: 41 million. That's the number of PS3 consoles the company says it has sold worldwide, and over 80 percent are sucking down data from ye olde internet. Confirming the moneymaking trend we heard about last month, in 2010 the PlayStation store saw a 60 percent boost in traffic and a 70 percent boost in revenue from a total of 70 million PSN accounts. Let's see... 70 million PSN user accounts, 41 million PS3 consoles, 80 percent of which are online -- that means almost everyone has one account for gaming and a second for griefing. Sounds about right.
Battlefield Play4Free closed beta granted 'access' to 600K participants; Mac version doubtful
Battlefield Play4Free senior producer James Salt told us this week at GDC that the game's closed beta granted access to 600,000 participants; who obviously weren't all online at the same time. He explained that's why for the open beta, starting in April, Easy studio is planning a staggered launch, to avoid a massive "day one" spike of concurrent players that would crash the game. Asked about a Mac version of the free-to-play title, Salt said the game runs on the fifth generation of the Battlefield engine, which was designed for PC. Even if a Mac version could be ported, the update schedule required for a title like this would necessitate a seperate Mac team at Easy for the game -- which isn't currently in place. "It still might happen," Salt added. "But it's going to be quite a fight to make it be [on Mac]." %Gallery-106828%
GDC 2011: Curt Schilling talks about free-to-play, or not
Things are pretty quiet on the 38 Studios front. That's rarely stopped Curt Schilling from talking in the past, though, and he recently sat down with the lads at Joystiq during this year's GDC to give everyone an update on the big Rhode Island move. "The team is incredibly excited. It's our building! We have all six floors -- it's our studio and we're alone. It's our space," Schilling enthused. Joystiq also queried the former World Series MVP about whether or not 38 Studios' Copernicus MMO project might opt for a free-to-play business model in order to compete in what has become an extremely crowded game market. "We have an open mind about everything, except the game," Schilling said. "We look at what we're creating and we say, 'What is the best possible guest experience we can create with this product?' And that'll answer your business model questions and your goals and objectives for the game." Sooo, is that a yes-we're-considering-free-to-play or a not-in-a-million-years? It's anyone's guess at this point, but one thing's for sure: With Schilling at the controls, the trip is bound to be eventful (and full of juicy quotes).
Angry Birds passes 30 million downloads on Android
Turns out people like Angry Birds -- and free things. The freemium Android release of Rovio Mobile's wing-slinging hit has been downloaded over 30 million times, according to Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka, who is speaking at GDC as part of a Google-run Android monetization panel. He also provided evidence that people continue playing Angry Birds after that initial download. 80 percent of Android users, Vesterbacka said, downloaded subsequent updates, indicating that they've retained interest in the game. This is good news for Rovio, but bad news for those birds -- sustained anger isn't good for you.
Capcom Vancouver has two projects underway
Dee Jay Randall, of Capcom Vancouver (formerly Blue Castle Games), revealed during his GDC talk -- covering Dead Rising 2 multiplayer -- that two projects are currently underway at the studio. Without going into specifics about either project, Randall spoke at great length about Capcom Vancouver's efforts to improve the overall experience of co-op game design, including minimizing network workload. Wild guess: At least one of the new projects will feature co-op. [Image source: CapcomVancouver.com]
Monster Games is behind Pilotwings Resort on 3DS
We didn't expect to get news about Pilotwings Resort during a Donkey Kong Country Returns panel, but here it is. During Retro Studios' GDC postmortem, Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe cited two other American developers that Nintendo works with: Next Level Games, which made Punch-Out for Wii, and ExciteTruck/ExciteBots developer Monster Games -- which he said is working on Pilotwings Resort. Until now, it seems that this detail had been a secret (and Pilotwings creator Nintendo EAD had been assumed to be the Resort developer) -- or, at least, it just wasn't mentioned. Resort isn't the first Pilotwings game to be co-created with an American company: Nintendo EAD worked with Paradigm Simulations for the Nintendo 64 sequel.
GDC 2011: ArenaNet unveils new profession and Norn starting area for Guild Wars 2 [Updated]
Yesterday at GDC, we had the privilege of spending some time with some of the ArenaNet and NCsoft staff. We were promised a look at the new Guild Wars 2 demo, so we were hoping for a look at a new race's starting area or maybe a tour of a few places we hadn't seen before. ArenaNet delivered that and more: Imagine our surprise when the team casually unveiled the bad girl (and boy) of Guild Wars 2: the Thief. For the next hour, we enjoyed an up close and personal look at the Thief as well as a demo of the Norn starting area of Hoelbrak. The press release describes the Thief well: "As a master of stealth and surprise, the thief is deadly in single combat – particularly when catching enemies off guard. Thieves compensate for their relatively low armor and health by being quick and evasive. They can travel through the shadows, vanish into thin air, or steal items from their opponents and use them as weapons." Ree Soesbee made the experience even better by giving some insight into what the Thief is and is not (don't worry, this is definitely not a reskinned Assassin) and chatting about the origins of the class. The grand finale was our very own Shawn Schuster's first hands-on experience with Guild Wars 2 gameplay -- he created a Charr Thief and did some serious dual-pistol damage, helped along by cheers, direction, and encouragement from the ArenaNet and NCsoft staff. Check out our firsthand look at the Guild Wars 2 demo, insight from Ree Soesbee, and hands-on gameplay in the videos after the jump, and don't miss our in-depth analysis of the Thief in Monday's Flameseeker Chronicles. Our thanks go out to ArenaNet and NCsoft for their hospitality and for plenty of fun! [Update: The second video, this one of the demo, is finally uploaded and included after the break. Enjoy!]
GDC 2011: Gods & Heroes hopes to give its audience something unexpected
The in-game story for Gods and Heroes begins with a Roman general returning home after his time in war only to be thrust into battle again. The history of the game itself mirrors this journey: In October 2006, the original creators of the game, Perpetual Entertainment, shut down. However, in August 2010, independent developer Heatwave Interactive picked up the rights to develop and distribute the game. Our hero's journey started once more. Just as your character in G&H returns home to an estate in ruins and a craving for revenge, Heatwave developers are fighting back the old gods and attacking the game with renewed vigor. At GDC 2011, our editor-in-chief Shawn Schuster discussed the rise, fall, and rebirth of the game with CEO Anthony Castoro, Lead Designer Tim Schubert, and Community Manager Donna Prior. "I think a lot of people expected us to go free-to-play and microtransact the minions then put it out there. But in early alpha tests and beta tests, people really wanted a full game out of this and expect us to treat it a certain way. We are working really hard to do that," said Castoro, who went on to assure us that he is not just out to make money -- he hopes to deliver a great game too. Follow after the break to find out what is going to make this game victorious in the gladiatorial arena. %Gallery-118322%
Eric Chahi's classic 'Another World' coming to iOS
Timed to coincide with the conclusion of Eric Chahi's GDC 2011 postmorterm on his adventure classic Another World, comes the announcement that the game is being ported to iPone and iPad, courtesy of DotEmu and publisher BulkyPix. The game won't hit iOS until later this year, but is evidently up-and-running according to Chahi himself. "The first prototype looks beautiful on iPad; they are doing a great job on it," he said in the announcement. It's unclear whether the iOS version will be based on the 1991 original or the 2006 15th anniversary remastering (or both!), although DotEmu founder Xavier Liard promises his team will "put a lot of love and care to insure that the gamers get best user experience playing this game on iOS."
GDC 2011: GameSamba talks about its upcoming plans
While you may have only heard about GameSamba from our recent beta key giveaway post, the company's intent is to hit the ground running in the free-to-play market this year. How will it accomplish that? The plan is to bring out a bunch of fun games that all kinds of people will enjoy. Currently, the company's site only shows two games -- Remnant Knights and Cocolani Island -- which are both in closed beta. However, we understand from our talk at GDC that the publisher is working on releasing six more titles in the near future so it can give players even more gaming choices. For now, we wanted to focus on finding out more about the two GameSamba free-to-play titles that players will be able to check out soon: Remnant Knights and Cocolani Island. So if you like the idea of adorable anime girls with obnoxiously enormous guns or tiki-themed minigame madness, join us behind the break for videos and more -- and don't forget the galleries! %Gallery-118257%
GDC 2011: Massively takes on TERA's Smuggler Hideout, and Brian Knox teases the political system
Ah TERA, you're such a tease. And we're not just talking about your skimpy outfits, oh no. Your political system, your endgame, your Westernized (whatever that means) makeover... all of these have conspired to leave us breathless with anticipation. Fortunately, we were able to take TERA for a spin at this week's GDC 2011. Along with help from a PUG comprised of En Masse Entertainment staffers, we ventured deep inside the game's Smuggler's Hideout, battling BAMS (En Masse shorthand for big-ass monsters) and checking out the title's streamlined UI and spiffy combat mechanics. Join us after the cut for a brief recap of the demo as well as an interview with producer Brian Knox during which we (politely) demanded a definition for the much-discussed concept of Westernization.
NGP games will come on 2GB and 4GB cards, with room for save data, patches
This slide, shown during Sony's Next Generation Portable GDC panel, shed some light on NGP's still-mysterious storage details. Unlike the experimental PSP Go, the NGP doesn't sport any internal storage. Things like save data and patches will be stored on the actual game cards themselves which, notably, will be offered in both 2GB and 4GB varieties, with 5 to 10 percent of the storage allocated to the aforementioned data. On a 2GB card, that leaves 1.8GB to 1.9GB for game data; on a 4GB card, that leaves 3.6GB to 3.8GB. That puts the NGP's game media storage size between that of the PSP's, whose UMD discs range from 900MB to 1.8GB, and the PS3's, whose Blu-ray discs hold up to 50GB, though "many PS3 games" (i.e., multiplatform titles) remain around 9GB, thanks to the Xbox 360's DVD-ROM size limitation. Of course, as pointed out in a second slide (afer the break), this leaves the NGP with far more storage per game than a "10MB phone game." But that's not all! As previously suggested, the NGP has another storage option, simply called "removable memory" in this presentation. "Cards will be large to support a variety of downloaded content," the slide says. This includes games available over PlayStation Network; and, thankfully, Sony says it's implementing a "single submission for both formats" to streamline the process of getting games approved for both card-based and downloadable releases. We're hopeful this streamlined process obviates current embarassments like the continued absence of high-profile games in the PSN catalog of PSP titles, which has crippled the appeal of Sony's PSP Go handheld.
