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Wideload announces 'Shorts' division for digital downloads
After the beans pretty much spilled yesterday that Wideload Games (Hail to the Chimp), headed by former Bungie CEO Alex Seropian, is working on XBLA games, more details emerged later in the day. In an interview with GameDaily they discuss their new Wideload Shorts division designed to focus on smaller downloadable games "via established and emerging download channels." The first game is expected later this year.Heading the new division is Scott Corley who says he doesn't want to use the term "casual games" for Wideload Shorts because it has so many different meaning now. He says the games they are creating are "meant to have clear goals, allow shorter periods of play, and have interfaces that are intuitive even if the player is new to games." He says they are planning on releasing games on XBLA, PSN and WiiWare. There's no word yet what these games will be, but they will have Wideload's "trademark humor," which means if you like Stubbs the Zombie and the upcoming Hail to the Chimp intrigues you, keep an eye out for the first game from Wideload Shorts this fall.
Wideload working on XBLA games
With Hail to the Chimp coming along quite nicely, Alex Seropian admits they are working on Xbox Live Arcade "games." Speaking with Gamasutra, Seropian says they have two teams now at Wideload Games. One is working on HttC and the other is on games for "digital distribution." When pressed, he admitted they were for Live Arcade. Wideload Games seems be looking toward the future of digital distribution and learning the ins and outs of XBLA. Hail to the Chimp, despite being a retail product, plays like an arcade game. It's quite obvious how Xbox Marketplace could add to the coffers of Wideload if they sell extra battlegrounds and animals for the game. There's no word yet on what the actual XBLA games they are working on are.Seropian also talks about Hail to the Chimp using the Unreal Engine 3 and his experience with the controversial engine. He says it's a "great toolset, it's a great engine, and you have to be a little careful about what you want to do with it." He says the engine was designed to make Gears of War, so it's been a challenge getting it to work, but that's it's been "really good" for them.
Seropian: E3 'was really a big strokefest'
Wideload Games' Alex Seropian -- who in another life was the CEO of Bungie (the Halo studio) -- recently had choice words for the former incarnation of E3, calling it a "strokefest." Speaking with ArmChairEmpire, Seropian says, "E3 ends up being a huge drain on resources to focus and to prepare for an event that really, from a developer's perspective, did not seem to serve any purpose whatsoever. It was really a big strokefest for the publishers to see who could make the most noise. It generated a lot of buzz in the industry but as far as translating into how good a game is, it seemed to have zero effect -- if anything a negative effect."Other than creating the horrible image of the big three personified and touching themselves, Seropian later says that he can't possibly see how the expense that went into these E3 presentations translated into sales to justify said expense. That may be why Seropian seems to be aligning himself with Gamecock's other E3, which many PR folks may be into as well. Obviously the publishers agree with Seropian, as the monstrous E3 has morphed into the more managable Min-E3; although, given the map of the showfloor, this new Min-E3 may not even be big enough to justify that name. It's more like E3 in your pocket -- Pok-É3-mon?
Joystiq interviews Wideload Games' Alex Seropian
As one of the first to leave Bungie Studios after co-founding the developer, Alex Seropian transitioned from creating Xbox's then-surprising megahit Halo to starting afresh with Wideload Games, a small development firm he founded in Chicago. After finding success with the humorous Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse (which sports a pretty hip soundtrack, we might add), Wideload went silent until earlier this week, when they revealed Hail to the Chimp as their sophomore title. The game, which is a political-party title involving animals vying to become head of the animal kingdom, is being published by the fowl-loving, former Gathering of Developer heads now known as Gamecock. With the candor and humor, Alex endured bad audio quality to talk to Joystiq about gaming, politics, and chicken suits. How did the Gamecock deal come about? I've known Mike Wilson for a number of years back to the Gathering of Developer days, and we kind of became friends back then when we were both working with Take Two. This is when I was running Bungie; we had a distribution deal with Take Two, like Gathering did. We've kept in touch for a long time and he kind of gave me some fair warning that he was going to try and get something started up again about a year ago, which is about the same time we were coming off of Stubbs and planning our next project. We were trying to figure if it would be possible to do something together and the timing worked out really well, and the whole way that they are set up and the things that are important to them kind of aligned really nicely with how we're set up and what's important to us. It was like getting our chocolate and their peanut butter or something. [Laughs]
Stubbs developer unveils new title: Hail to the Chimp
Claiming to be bringing "the party back in party politics for the first time since the Caligula Administration," Wideload Games announced that its next title will be Hail to the Chimp, a four-player party game where players vie to become the new leader of the Animal Kingdom. The website is live but currently lacking anything other than the main page.Little else is known about the title. The press release promises online play (still only four players) and that they are expecting a Spring 2008 launch for an as-of-yet unnamed new-gen console. It will be published by Gamecock, who promptly broke through a wall and danced the funky chicken to someone playing "No One Knows" on Guitar Hero.Wideload Games have previously only published one title, the heralded gem Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse. The company was founded by Alex Seropian, whose previously co-founded Bungie Studios and headed up development of Halo.
