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Take-Two officially no longer publishing Champions Online
It was a just about five months ago that 2K games' publishing deal with Cryptic Studios was announced. The publishing label in the Take-Two collective had scored the rights to publish Champions Online in the midst of a steamy summer season, and the independent developer behind the game seemed thrilled. It's cold now, and the recent purchase of Cryptic by Atari seems to have changed and reshaped that original business relationship. Gamespot is reporting that Take-Two is now officially on the outs when it comes to publishing Champions Online.A post-earnings conference call with analysts saw Take-Two president Ben Feder specifically stating "We no longer intend to publish the MMOG Champions Online due to Atari's acquisition of Cryptic." Gamespot further wonders whether the game will attempt to launch in early 2009. The loose "Spring 2009" timeframe was suggested when the game was first announced, and it remains to be seen whether the developer can stick to that timeframe post-acquisition. Massively will continue to follow this story as it develops.
Hanbitsoft admits their Hellgate rights don't extend to US/EU
Hellgate London's state of flux over the past week has been somewhat infuriating for us to follow. No doubt it must be even moreso for players who just want to know if they'll get their game back after Namco Bandai's servers close in the spring. First it seemed that Hanbitsoft would be rezzing the game worldwide, then it was less clear based on Redbana's development. Now it seems even Hanbitsoft has acknowledged that they don't have rights to the game in the US and EU.WarCry is reporting based on a press release from Namco specifically stating that they own the IP for publishing here in the states and over in Europe. Gamecyte follows that announcement up with a more detailed look, noting that Hanbitsoft would like to run the game and do some profitsharing with Namco for these two lucrative markets. Namco's position on the matter, though, seems to be that the service is closing and everyone is moving on. So - for the time being - it looks like we'll be bidding farewell to Hellgate London.
WinMo mag suspends publication; will publish iPhone Life
In a rather surprising move, the publishers of the top Windows Mobile monthly magazine, Smartphone & Pocket PC, have announced that they're suspending publication. What's even more interesting is that they will be publishing a quarterly iPhone-oriented magazine titled Smartphone magazine's iPhone Life. Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine publisher Hal Goldstein noted in a blog entry that the reason isn't that sales of Windows Mobile devices are plummeting -- on the contrary, almost 20 million Windows Mobile devices were sold during the last Microsoft fiscal year. It's just that advertising support from Windows Mobile manufacturers, cellular carriers, and developers has dropped significantly.It appears that they are expecting big things from the iPhone market and advertisers, as they will be publishing the quarterly iPhone mag in paper and online versions. My personal speculation is that they realize that with all the venture capital going into iPhone development, there will be a lot of developers who will want to buy ad space to flaunt their products.Do you think this move is indicative of a larger trend that may spell doom for Windows Mobile? Voice your opinion in the comments!
Back to School: Canvastic v3.5
TUAW's going Back to School! We'll be bringing you tips and reviews for students, parents and teachers right up until the bell rings in September. Read on cool software for K-8 classrooms.Canvastic LLC has announced a new version of the Canvastic graphics, writing, and publishing tool. Canvastic is designed to be used in K-8 classrooms, and is fun and productive for students.Canvastic 3.5 is designed for use on both PPC and Intel Macs (which is great, as many American schools still use older Macs). The student publishing tool includes drawing, text and presentation tools, plus an Audio Tool for voice recording, insertion of sounds and integration with iTunes. Audio tracks can be played in documents or presentations. Other new features include: Transparency and color tones in graphics and text Teachers can enable or disable spell checking, and also keep students from "customizing" the dictionary New brush shapes The ability to import digital photographs Additional templates, backgrounds, and art As before, Canvastic presents a customized user interface depending on the grade level of the student. Canvastic 3.5 is a free upgrade for all registered users, and those with free site licenses can upgrade for 50% of the posted educational prices. Pricing ranges from US$39 for one user to US$949 for an unlimited school building license. Schools can do an unlimited pilot of Canvastic for up to 60 days, and many school districts qualify for a free site license for half of their schools.Click here to download the free trial.
2K Games to publish Champions Online
Look, up in the sky! It's a bird- no wait, it's a plane! No! It's 2K Games (the publishing label of Take-Two) announcing that they'll be publishing Cryptic Studio's upcoming Champions Online for both the Xbox 360 and PC in North America. Sorry, the opportunity presented itself and we couldn't resist. As you may or may not know, we here at Massively follow both Cryptic and their MMOs very closely -- you could call us fans. So it's great that the game officially has a publisher, because that only further solidifies Champions Online as a very real MMO. It's also worth noting that this makes Champions Online the very first MMO published by 2K games.This revelation -- while wonderful for everyone involved -- is also a change of tune from Cryptic's original plans to publish in-house. We're honestly happy to know that more money and manpower can now be spent on creating their next MMO (and subsequently other MMOs) rather than publishing them in tandem. No firm release date has yet to be announced but all good things will come in time, cousin.
Axel Springer AG moves to Mac
Axel Springer AG, Germany's largest newspaper publisher, is moving its entire organization -- 12,000 computers -- to the Mac platform. Axel Springer will become Apple's largest corporate customer in Europe, and second largest customer worldwide. (Google is number one.) The article is only available in German so far. Axel Springer owns Bild and Bild am Sonntag, tabloid-style dailies (not unlike The Sun in the UK or the New York Post in the U.S.) and several magazines sold under the Bild brand. The company currently uses large-scale publishing solutions from WoodWing Software and CCI, both of which support Mac clients. In a video message to employees, CEO Matthias Döpfner cited ease-of-use, appearance, and total cost of ownership in the reason to switch. Employees can start buying and using Macs and iPhones this month, though the entire organization will be migrated over the course of a year or two five years. (Hey, I took French in high school.) Thanks Alex, Rouven, and bimbum for the tip (and the help with the German)!
Sega on the Platinum Games deal
We hope Sega made a good decision when they decided to publish Platinum Games' works. Both Sega and Platinum (or Clover, really) are companies who make great games, but have had serious problems recently. We would like to see two of our favorite game companies succeed together.Gamespot spoke to Sega of America president Simon Jeffery and VP of marketing Sean Ratcliffe about the deal and what drew Sega to Platinum. Jeffery believes that Capcom's Japan-focused marketing and organization contributed to the Western failure of Clover's products, and that because Sega runs a very Western-oriented organization outside of Japan, Sega can more effectively market Platinum's games.A few interesting details about the deal came up, as well. This publishing agreement isn't just game-by-game -- Sega is Platinum's exclusive publisher for some unspecified period. Sega also holds the IP rights for the new games.%Gallery-22964%
NCsoft begins selling 14-day MMO trials at retail
NCsoft Europe announced that it has begun selling in the U.K. what it calls "starter packs" for some of its games - City of Heroes, City of Villains, Guild Wars, and Lineage II. Tabula Rasa will follow later in the year. The packs cost £1.99 at retail, and come with all game content plus a two week trial subscription period, encouraging players to return to buy the game at retail when the period ends.This is essentially your standard 14-day trial -- a staple in the industry -- made available through retail for would-be subscribers who might not come across such opportunities on the web. NCsoft hopes that this move will net some new customers -- especially for its struggling properties."In an ever increasingly digitally orientated retail environment, encouraging players to return to retail is a win-win for both outlet and publisher," said an NCsoft rep. We had heard that the whole digital download thing could be the saving grace of the PC platform, but whatever!
DS Daily: Would you publish Myst?
Imagine you're in charge of a video game publisher. You've been given the opportunity to publish a DS version of Myst. Myst is one of the most popular games of all time, and the DS is one of the most popular systems of all time. Do you decide to pick up the project, or do you pass? Are your reasons financial or artistic? Do you think Myst is a timeless classic, bound to sell on the most adventure-friendly system in ages, or is it an archaic slideshow? Does that matter business-wise?
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.
Realtime Worlds takes APB distribution rights from Webzen
It always seemed to us that MMO-maker Webzen had a bit too much on its plate, what with working on APB, Huxley and Soul of the Ultimate Nation year after year with no signs of any actual releases. Well, Webzen's plate got a little less full today, as developer Realtime Worlds announced it has regained the global distribution rights to APB. Realtime Worlds' announcement follows a an intriguing demo of APB at February's Game Developer's Conference and a $50 million cash infusion for the Crackdown developer in March. As for Webzen, maybe this disquisition will finally give it the focus it needs to finish up the long-dormant Huxley.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Strategic Planner
As consumers, we hardly look into the business side of gaming. That doesn't mean we don't take a look at stocks and sales numbers, because we like to play the part of video game analyst at times. Yet, we usually don't think about the behind-the-scenes decisions that publishers have to make. When we want games, we just want them, publishers be damned. Games like Electroplankton bother us because they're so hard to find, and even when Electroplankton was available way back when, it was only available online and at the Nintendo World Store. We never stopped to think that maybe retailers refused to put the game on their shelves. (Note: We're not saying that this was the case with Electroplankton, only that it may have factored into Nintendo's decision).MTV Multiplayer's interview with Christian Svensson, the Senior Director of Strategic Planning & Research for Capcom, brings some of these issues to light. Svensson talks a lot about the first Phoenix Wright game specifically, and how it was difficult to convince retailers to stock the title despite fan interest. There are also many other issues that come into play, like first week sales and production speeds. If companies can't provide retailers with games almost immediately after orders are placed, stores will just move on to the next hot title on the market. This makes proper estimates for DS games especially important, since they take about two months to manufacture. No pressure.The article is definitely worth a read, and the next time you find yourself irritated because so-and-so game is impossible to find, you might be a little less quick to yell out objections.
Overheard@GDC: Ken Levine on Steamworks
Throughout his discussion of BioShock's story on Wednesday, Ken Levine referenced the folks at Valve and the top notch work they had done on games like Half-Life 2. Before the talk started we overheard him talking about the Steamworks announcement, and when we joined a large discussion of attendees after the event ended we asked the man himself what he thought.What do you think of the Steamworks announcement?"I think the great thing about Valve is they understand you don't have to make every penny off of everybody every second to make the big dollar. Google has a similar approach. You don't feel like you're being constantly fleeced - Valve has a very sophisticated model, they're very smart guys, and I think it's really exciting. It's great for developers. It's great for Valve, it's great for everybody else, and it's great for people making games. How much do you think Steam helped BioShock?"I think one of the great things about Valve is that they are developers. I've worked with some big companies, and as developers they're professional, they're on the ball, I can't think of a single mistake that they made. They're taking it very seriously."
Future Publishing buys share of N4G.com
Editorial judgment? Original content? What are those? Everyone who's anyone knows the hot new thing is letting readers vote on what counts as news on sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and N4G, the last of which got a cash infusion from mega-publisher Future U.S., it was announced today.The publishing giant behind all three official U.S. gaming magazines spent an undisclosed sum to obtain an undisclosed minority share of the site. It might be a sound investment -- according to the press release, "N4G received 3.65 million visits in January 2008, with 17.8 million page views and nearly a million unique visitors." Not bad for a site that makes its readers do all the work.
Shawn Blanc on MarsEdit 2.1
Even though we can't use a tool like MarsEdit to post here at TUAW, some of us are still big fans of the program and use it when creating content for our other, more personal sites. Like Ecto, another very good tool for this type of content creation, Mars Edit allows you to compose blog entries, complete with text, links, photos or whatever, on your own computer and once finished, post them directly to your blog.Of course, we're not the only fans of MarsEdit using it to put up content around the internets. Shawn Blanc, writer, Mac guy, drummer, Tae-Qwon-Do blackbelt and enthusiastic Mars Edit user has posted a very in-depth review of the application at his site. Among the program's many virtues, Blanc praises it for having a "perfect preview" of draft content, that it functions very well as a text editor and the "blatant absence of a WYSIWYG feature" which makes him "extremely impressed with how well it serves the writer." MarsEdit 2 may not be the right choice for your blogging needs, but if you've never considered it before, this review might just make you want to give it a try. It's $29.95 for a new license, and $9.95 for an upgrade from ME1.
iCal can publish through FTP after all
Well color us surprised: Mac OS X Hints just found out that iCal actually can publish calendars through FTP (not just WebDAV), opening the doors for many users to publish their calendars and integrate them into services like Google Calendar and the like. One simply needs to use ftp:// when using the Publish... command, and all should be well. While it should be noted this still doesn't enable full sharing and editing of calendars like SyncBridge, it should allow users with non-WebDAV enabled hosts to get their iCal publishing on.
QuarkXPpress 7 released, but not as a Universal
QuarkXPress 7 has hit the streets, but it oddly isn't a Universal Binary (Steve Jobs, if you remember, announced at January's Macworld event that Quark had a beta UB version available). A UB update to version 7 is reportedly going to be made available later this summer (I guess Adobe isn't the only big software house having trouble). This new version brings plenty of new features to the table including enhancements to typography, color management, transparency (apparently it can do such advanced things as color opacity, drop shadows and alpha channels now), non-destructive mask manipulation, revolutionary 'Composition Zones' which let you design once and use anywhere with live updates, as well as improvements to productivity and collaboration, output and digital workflow and much more. Check out Quark's entire new feature list for the full details, as well as Macsimum News with summaries of what all the new features mean to you.Quark is also taking QuarkXPress on tour through seven US cities as well as Toronoto, Canada. Take a look at their schedule for details and registration information.
Getting a game idea published
Over at the IGDA, there's some advice for a hobbyist game developer looking to pitch (and protect) a game design. Pitching a random idea for a game to a developer or publisher isn't easy, but there are some solid hints on how to get an idea towards reality: Come up with a demo Attend game industry events to make contacts Read up on the pitching process Pay attention to NDAs Indie game development competitions and pitching opportunities offer a lot of scope for an idea to become an actual game; accessible platforms like Flash and the Xbox Live Arcade add further ways it can happen. One thing's for sure, though -- you have to be serious and committed to make this process work.See also:Advice for wannabe game developersThe life of a lapsed game developer
AquaMinds NoteShare 1.0
AquaMinds, makers of the popular NoteTaker, has released NoteShare 1.0, a "powerful desktop application for creating, publishing and sharing media rich, multi-page notebooks." NoteShare allows you to "instantly" share a notebook for presentation or collaborative editing across a room, a network or even the web. Interestingly, their product page states that you don't even need hosting space in order to publish and share a notebook.While NoteShare sounds like an interesting product for its target users, AquaMinds is a little slim on details as to whether NoteShare represents a new level of note taking and rich media abilities above and beyond their NoteTaker product. However, since NoteTaker sells for $70 and NoteShare is priced at $150 for a 3-machine license, I'd bet the premium price is all about that collaborative ability, rather than some fancy new note taking features. If all this notebook sharing business has your interest piqued, AquaMinds offers a 30-day NoteShare trial; just follow the link on the right here.
Switched On: Why Adobe should cook the books
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a weekly column about the future of technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:Now that Adobe has finished applying the magic eraser tool to its longtime graphics rival Macromedia, it needs to enter or create new markets to continue growth beyond its dominant position in professional publishing. With the recent focus on what is admittedly the nascent e-book market, Adobe is looking at a unique window in which it could step up and become a market leader. However, it had better hurry, because Microsoft is getting tired of staring at the walls when it comes to this market.The recent interest in e-books is due to the commercialization of electronic ink, which enables thin, crisp, paper-like monochrome (and soon color) displays that require a fraction of the power needed by LCDs. While their refresh rate makes them prohibitively slow for any kind of animation, they are the best technology for the medium developed to date and have attracted the attention of Sony and iRex, a spinoff of Philips.Electronic ink is the kind of disruptor that has allowed opportunistic companies to seize markets. Sony, for example, capitalized on the CD-ROM with the original PlayStation and entered the digital camera market via the floppy disk with its first Mavica cameras. Apple, of course, leveraged the 1.8-inch hard drive with its first iPod.Adobe is, in fact, already in the e-book business. but it is not providing a complete solution, which would require an end-user device. Sony's Reader will support the display of PDFs, but the electronics giant will use its own proprietary format and its own online service for distribution of content. The e-book market -- like the online music and video markets prior to the entry of Apple -- is so immature that it's just waiting for a company to step up with an integrated solution.
