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ZeniMax Media hiring for MMO division
ZeniMax Media Inc., is currently seeking out MMO development talent for its online game division, GamesIndustry.biz reports. Why is this significant? ZeniMax is the owner of Bethesda Softworks, and thus both Fallout and Elder Scrolls. A Fallout MMO is entirely possible, but the business side of producing this title is somewhat complex. Daedren over at r1ft Gaming dissected the issue as it stood in November:Bethesda Softworks owns the rights to the the Fallout IP, while Interplay retains rights to a Fallout MMO. However, those rights are forfeit provided Interplay is unable to raise $30 million and begin development of the Fallout MMO by April of 2009. (This is presumably Interplay's "Project V13" which involves other original Fallout team members.)
VC Friday: Sonic Clayos
There's a decent surprise for Europe today on the Virtual Console: the Mega Drive version of Clay Fighter, whose title is a 100% accurate description of the game. It's a fighting game whose characters are made of clay! It accurately parodies the attitude and "edginess" of Mortal Kombat with goofy Claymation characters, and happens to be entirely playable on top of that. The other Mega Drive release is the Master System Sonic Chaos. While it wasn't exactly lauded upon release in the US this week, it's even less noteworthy in Europe: while we never got the Master System version of the game (only the Game Gear one), Europe did, so it's totally not special. Clay Fighter -- Mega Drive -- 800 Wii Points Sonic Chaos -- Master System -- 500 Wii Points Footage of both games is available after the break.
VC Monday Madness: Boogerman
Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure (Sega Genesis, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)Wii Fanboy says: do not download Well, this week doesn't have much for us in the way of Virtual Console releases. All that is available for download is the mediocre platformer Boogerman. For 800 Wii Points, you'd be better off checking out another title on the long list of titles available for download. Do yourself a favor and skip this one. Each week, we here at Wii Fanboy like to check out the latest Virtual Console releases in our VC Monday Madness feature, in the hopes that you can make the most sound decision possible regarding purchasing retro titles from the Wii Shop Channel. If you're looking for more retro goodness, check out Virtually Overlooked, which talks about games that should be on the Virtual Console.
The fine print of a Fallout MMO
Earlier this month, our very own Kyle Horner explored the real possibilities of a Fallout MMO in his Digital Continuum column. He talked about how the post-apocalyptic MMO could work in regards to an absence of lush scenery and a combat system based on pausing time. Expanding into another realm of that discussion, Daedren over at r1ft.com goes more into the financial and legal probabilities of the development of a Fallout MMO.According to Interplay's agreement with Bethesda, there are a few stipulations when it comes to their retention of the IP for an MMO. For instance, they need to raise $30 million and begin development of the game by April, 2009. Even if they were able to raise that much based on investor faith in the wildly-successful Fallout name, where would they get the rest of the money? $30 million, an MMO does not make, and that's exactly what this article is about. Will Bethesda end up retaining the IP through fine print complications and actually make a better MMO than Interplay ever could? Check out Daedren's complete argument, including the facts as we know them today.
The Digital Continuum: Let's talk about the Fallout MMO
Fallout 3 is out this week and I've spent a whole lot of time exploring and fighting in Bethesda's singleplayer MMO world. I've always wondered whether a post-apocalyptic MMO would work well or not, which is part of the reason I've kept a close eye on Fallen Earth in the past. But what's always been in the back-burner of my mind is whether or not the Fallout license would be necessary for a post-apocalyptic to flourish. While endlessly exploring our own personal post-apocalypticia is incredible fun, do we want a massive one?
Original Fallout designer expresses concern for Fallout MMO
What could possibly be a bad idea about an impending MMO based in the Fallout universe? We've heard the rumors, and we're very excited about the possibilities. So why would it be a bad idea? Well, according to original Fallout designer and newly-promoted Carbine Studios Design Director Tim Cain, "It's not necessarily the direction I would've gone."Cain's main concern with a Fallout MMO is that the original game was designed to make you feel like you were living in a post-apocalyptic world. In other words, there's not going to be 100+ other players running around you killing (Oh God, please no!) the same 10 boars as you in the same area. Although Cain doesn't really offer any alternatives to this, would a Guild Wars-style instanced world be the solution? We'll have to wait and see what Interplay has up their sleeves.
Fallout's Tim Cain promoted for unnamed Carbine MMO
NCsoft's Carbine Studios has just announced the promotion of Tim Cain from programming director to design director for an unannounced project that is in the works. Tim Cain, for anyone keeping score at home, is the former producer and designer for Fallout and Fallout 2, and has been with Carbine Studios since its inception in 2005. Before you get too excited about Carbine's MMO project being a Fallout-themed MMO, that has already been claimed by Interplay.So what does this promotion really mean for Cain? Our friends at Joystiq pondered this very question and asked Cain to clarify: "As the programming director, I was responsible for trying to realize the ideas of the design director. I would take his requests for features and system specifications and coordinate my team of programmers to create those features and systems. If game development was a train, I was shoveling the coal into the engine to keep it chugging along. Now as the design director, I am the conductor of the train. I get to decide where we go and where we stop."We wish Cain the best of luck in his new position as we anxiously await more information on this new project.
David Perry: Selling Earthworm Jim was the "dumbest move ever"
When you stop to think about iconic characters for each of the big three a few easy ones come to mind. Master Chief owning on Xbox, Super Mario fighting for Nintendo and Kratos breaking dudes on the PlayStation (or insert your own characters if these examples don't work for you). One character that had the potential to be a huge gaming icon after his introduction was Earthworm Jim.Jim had it all. Fun games, ridiculous cartoon and even action figures. Then one day the team that owned the rights to Earthworm Jim decided to call it a night and sell the character off for fear they wouldn't be able to bring him into the 3D world. David Perry, founder of Shiny Entertainment, has recently come clean on one of the biggest mistakes his company ever made; letting Jim get away."[Selling the rights of Earthworm Jim to Interplay] turned out to be the dumbest move ever," Perry said in an interview with Kikizo. "There's been other versions of Earthwork Jim done that were done without our permission really, licensing deals, and I was very unhappy about them." We'd be happy enough to see the original titles added to the Xbox Live Arcade or any news on the announced fourth title in the series.You know, it's funny to hear losing Earthworm Jim was the biggest mistake in Shiny's history. We could have sworn it was just being involved with Enter the Matrix. Just saying.
Former Fallout dev rejoins Interplay for 'Project V13' MMO
Original Fallout designer Chris Taylor – not to be confused for Total Annihilation and Dungeon Siege designer Chris Taylor – has re-upped with his former employer Interplay to work on unannounced MMO "Project V13," currently in development with several other members of the Fallout team.While Interplay isn't coming out and saying it, all signs point to this being the Fallout MMO. Besides the Fallout-infused dev team, the company itself reaffirmed plans for the game last April. Even the logo bears resemblance of the Fallout aesthetic, and V13 could stand for either "V13" or if you interpret 13 as a 1337 version of "B", you have Project VB, the initials of which make the codename for Interplay's Fallout 3 (i.e. Project Van Buren) from before Bethesda took the reins. If Interplay's looking to ride next month's Fallout 3 hype train, we'll know more soon enough.[Via EuroGamer]
Interplay launches new site, hires Chris Taylor for Fallout MMO
For several months now, the Interplay website has been host to a simple splash page promising an upcoming revival of the once-great company. We heard news a while back that they had sold the property rights for the Fallout name to Bethesda (which will be in the form of Fallout 3), but retained the rights to a Fallout MMO.Now we get word that they've just relaunched their new website and (re-)hired Chris Taylor for a super-secret "Project V13". It doesn't take a rocket-scientist to figure out that V13 is Vault 13, and since Chris Taylor worked on the original Fallout, it's a safe bet that this project is the highly-anticipated Fallout MMO.
Revolutionary: Most Deceptive Kontraction
In the year 1997, with Sylvester Stallone's Demolition Man still fairly fresh on our minds, developer Shiny took the opportunity to name one of their games after an abbreviated phrase that was mentioned several times in that film. Under the assumption that MDK stood for "Murder, Death, Kill" and the fact that you run around as a guy whose head is a sniper rifle, the Playstation generation couldn't wait to get their hands on it. As it turned out, the game was not the gruesome murder simulator many people expected, but a humorously quirky action title like most of the prior games Shiny was known for. In the sequel, the main character from the first game, Kurt Hectic, would share the duty of saving the earth with Doctor Fluke Hawkins and the four-armed, gun-toting, cigar-chomping robotic dog, Max, the other members of the game's titular trio. It's the crazy sort of stuff that keeps gaming fresh, and with its recently-announced comeback in the making, I can think of no better place for the franchise to make a killing than on the Wii.
Atari and Interplay settle D&D licensing drama
Although using an image of "Bum Fighting" would have been insensitive, that probably would have accurately portrayed the feeling of watching publishers Interplay and Atari fight over Dungeons & Dragons rights. Big Download reports the once great publishers have settled a D&D licensing dispute, with Atari agreeing to purchase all rights that Interplay had to the franchise and canceling a $1 million promissory note.Wonder what we could get the two companies to do for a block of cheese and a bottle of Listerine?
More great VC news: Mega Man 1, 2, Earthworm Jim 2 rated
The latest ESRB update confirms two wonderful things that we knew were happening at some point: first, that Mega Man and the sublime Mega Man 2 would be on the way to our Virtual Console soon; second, that Earthworm Jim would make an appearance. Even more interesting -- Earthworm Jim has been rated for a while, but the latest update includes a rating for Earthworm Jim 2 on the Wii! Strangely, the new rating is for the Wii and Genesis versions, while another rating is already on the site for the Genesis game. Now it's got two E ratings! It's extra appropriate for families.Other interesting new games found in ratings: Professor Heinz Wolff's Gravity, an Incredible Machine/Crayon Physics hybrid; Potpourii, a matching puzzle game; and Midnight Pool and Midnight Bowling from Gameloft.
Fallout irradiates GameTap this Thursday
The feel-good post-nuclear-apocalypse game about finding a Water Chip, Fallout, joins GameTap this Thursday. There are still no details about when Fallout 2 will make an appearance on the service, but when GameTap originally announced Fallout was coming, the company did say it would be adding the "series." For those with some patience, the original Fallout should be available on GameTap's free service at some point in the future.[Thanks Joshua]
GameTap to add Fallout titles to its Interplay library
After last month's announcement of Interplay catalog titles coming to GameTap, we surely weren't alone in wondering where the Fallout games were. Sure, MDK and Earthworm Jim are great additions but, with Fallout 3 coming out later this year, the absence was enough to make us reach for the bottle. Now, just a few weeks later, the 'Tap has announced that those previously announced Interplay titles – as well as the "widely successful Fallout titles" – will be available not only through the subscription service but also for free play on the ad-supported website.And just like that, put another check mark on Interplay's ongoing quest to monetize their stable of properties and turn all that red ink black. Next step: sequels and that Fallout MMO they keep talking about.
Is Facebook gaming 'the next big thing'?
Worlds in Motion recently covered events at the InterPlay Conference in San Francisco. InterPlay is devoted to social gaming, and is billed as 'the premier conference on the business of games on the Social Web.' Among the speakers at InterPlay were Charles Yong and Jing Chen, co-founders of Developer Analytics. The company offers a social networking metrics platform that provides a leaderboard of the top Facebook applications, where casual games predictably rank high. Their talk focused on the monetization of social games and the feasibility of adding greater depth to casual games, an opportunity that's drawing a 'significant surge of venture capital funding,' Worlds in Motion reports.On the topic of generating more revenue from social games, Charles Yong said, "Social gaming is where the really great monetization is at. You can prototype with little to no money down. The whole premise of this is that marketing cost is really, really low, compared to a real game, like Grand Theft Auto IV." Before casual gamers could take offense at this statement, Yong clarified that casual gamers can be hardcore about their chosen style of play, but "they haven't seen GTA IV, they haven't seen Half-Life 2, and real money is coming out of virtual goods and currency."
GameTap welcomes back Interplay, adding more Take-Two
GameTap has re-acquired the rights to Interplay titles and has also finalized a deal with publisher Take-Two. The return of Interplay, following an awkward departure last December, means that titles like Earthworm Jim, Descent and MDK will return to the service beginning in June. GameTap also announced it'll be losing six titles (all listed after the break).The finalized deal with Take-Two, which brought Civilization IV and Pirates! to the service late last year, could yield some interesting titles. There's no word yet what games are being added beyond Civ IV's expansion Warlords, but getting some Rockstar titles (like Max Payne and GTA) would be sweet.
InterPlay conference coming May 22nd
theMIX agency and RoomFullofPeople just recently announced plans to host InterPlay, a one-day event that will explore the overlap of online games and social networks that has nothing to do with that other Interplay. The conference is planned for May 22nd and will take place at the Kabuki Hotel in San Francisco.If you happen to attend you can expect to see speakers from companies such as Bebo, DoubleFusion and Electronic Arts. Their will also be a strong showing of venture capitalists to offer their own perspectives on several subjects. The panels being offered seem like they'll vary, some of the included examples are "Micro-Transactions and Virtual Goods", "Funding the Social Gaming Sphere "and "Advertising and Marketing on Social Games".Sounds like a fairly well-rounded event and being that it's only one day it should be full of interesting discussions for those interested in either social networks or virtual worlds.
Earthworm Jim 4 announced by an overenthusiastic Interplay, no platform yet
The announcement of Earthworm Jim 1 and 2 for the Virtual Console was just a warning shot: Interplay is prepared to overexpose the hell out of Shiny's old character, starting with a new game! For Earthworm Jim 4, Interplay has brought back Doug TenNapel, creator and original character voice of EWJ, as a creative consultant. No details of the game, including which platforms it is planned for, have been released, but Wii seems likely given the aforementioned VC announcement.Interplay is getting all the mileage out of Jim they can -- they've also announced both a new cartoon series and a feature film based on Jim. For his part, TenNapel is happy to be reunited with the character, and happy with Interplay's treatment: he states in his forum that "Interplay is being really cool ... they're hungry, so they want to see Jim fly again. That's a different strategy than just sitting on a dead license and try to milk more re-hashes that continue to weaken the brand."
Earthworm Jim begins long crawl back to relevance
Earthworm Jim is sort of an anomaly. It's been 13 years since he last starred in a good game, but people still call out for his return. If Kid Icarus had been a good game, he'd be the Pit of the annelid world. Now, after breaking our hearts with the 2007 cancellation of his PSP game, it seems that Jim is finally poised to make his return. Interplay has announced a new deal with original creator Douglas TenNapel to revive Jim. So far, plans reportedly include "an animated series and feature film to expand the well known brand" and, most importantly, Earthworm Jim 4 for unspecified consoles (which we sort of knew about already). As much as we'd like to be excited, after being strung along on Jim's hook for more than a decade, "cautiously optimistic" is the best we can muster.[Via X3F]
