Napalm Riot

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An article up in Ars Technia caught my eye today. It's about a Town Hall meeting that the Federal Trade Commission is going to hold on March 25th 2009, about the effects of DRM, and whether or not the FTC should step in.

Ars is banking on the probability that the FTC will step in, and describe what will happen when they do.

"Is this a matter that deserves government attention? Absolutely. Having standards for disclosure of what exactly you're installing with your software, along with easi . . . Read more

Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two says it's established new long-term agreements with the Houser brothers and other members of wholly owned label Rockstar Games' creative team, putting to rest speculation on what might become of the publisher without them.

"We are excited to continue our partnership with the new management team at Take-Two, who have helped us to protect the unique atmosphere that fosters creativity and innovation," says Rockstar founder and executive producer Sam Hou . . . Read more

Straight from WebProNews.com:

Though it was a conference call, three parties in three different locations, it was easy to imagine 21-year-old game developer and college student Evan Miller sitting in a dark room, two corporate suits tapping their feet and looking at their watches behind him.

The kid spoke of passion and the soul, and how he’d never played Atari and had never heard of Pitfall; the suits stayed on pitch, crunched numbers, oversold the kid. Their mutual need for each other . . . Read more

Straight from Blog.Wired.com:

Colorado resident Molly Elvig has filed a class-action lawsuit against Nintendo, claiming that the straps designed to secure the company's Wiimotes to player's hands are insufficient for the task, reports Gamecyte.

Additionally, Elvig's suit claims, Nintendo covered up evidence that the straps were faulty. To support her claim, Elvig offers internal Nintendo documents in which representatives for the firm acknowledge consumer complaints regarding cracked telev . . . Read more

Straight from GamesIndustry.biz:

The organiser of the San Francisco Game Developers Conference 2009 has detailed its programming, visual arts, audio and tutorial sessions, scheduled to take place over March 23-27.

The additions to the programme will see input from Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Lionhead, Naughty Dog, Dice and Rockstar Games among others, who will talk about the best practices developers should implement in the coming year.

Some of the year's top and upcoming titles will b . . . Read more

Straight from Bit-Tech.net:

Electronic Arts is being hit by the credit crunch too it seems, with company CEO John Riccitiello saying that he is disappointed with Christmas sales so far and that the mega-publisher will have to take efforts to reduce costs next year as a result.

EA, which laid off 6 percent of its global staff earlier of this year, has long had a reputation for producing games mainly in established, safe franchises. This year however the company has sought to bring more inno . . . Read more

Straight from WarCry.com:

Infogrames Entertainment, the parent company of Atari, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to fully acquire Cryptic Studios Inc., one of the world's leading developers, publishers and operators of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games.

The transaction encompasses all of Cryptic's proprietary IP, tools, technology and work-in-progress and integrates all members of the leadership team and employees into Infogrames. This acquisition is . . . Read more

Straight from Tomshardware.co.uk:

Once considered an elite who couldn’t be bested when it came to action-adventure titles, London-based publisher/developer Eidos Interactive may be taking several bids from companies interested in an acquisition. While Electronic Arts and Ubisoft have expressed interest in the past, the two front runners appear to be Square Enix and Warner Bros.

Square Enix, whose success derives primarily from RPGs like the Final Fantasy series, is desperately seeking we . . . Read more

Straight from Gamasutra.com:

Developer Splash Damage (Enemy Territory franchise) appointed Richard Ham, previously lead designer on Fable II for Lionhead, as its new creative director.

In his new role, Ham will lead the design team on a new multiplatform title being developed in partnership with Fallout 3 studio Bethesda Softworks.

Previous to Splash Damage and Lionhead, Ham was creative director at Edge of Reality, where he helped adapt Electronic Arts' The Sims to consoles and contrib . . . Read more

Valve has finally decided to come forward and report total sales on some of their more popular titles. These numbers only reflect the In-Store retail sales and do not include sales over Steam.

"Half-Life - 9.3 million
Half-Life: Opposing Force - 1.1 million
Half-Life: Blue Shift - 800,000

Counter-Strike - 4.2 million
Counter-Strike: Condition Zero - 2.9 million
Counter-Strike: Source - 2.1 million
Counter-Strike (Xbox) - 1.5 million

Half-Life 2 - 6.5 million
Half-Life 2: Episode O . . . Read more

December 5, 2008 - Best Buy and Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) in association with The United Inventors Association (UIA) and By Kids For Kids (BKFK) announce the "Invent-A-Game Challenge," a national competition offering America's young people a unique chance to design an online game that Electronic Arts ("EA") will produce. The Grand Prize winner will also receive a $10,000 (face value) U.S. Savings Bond. Complete contest rules can be found at www.bkfk.com.

The Invent-A-Game challenge i . . . Read more

Shortly followed by Sumner Redstone's offloading of the majority ownership of Midway, stocks are reaching a deadly low of $.18 per share. With this comes the annoucement that if they do not manage to get their stock back over $1 then the NYSE will be delisting Midway. (oh noes!)

source

Straight from News.TeamXBox.com:

A2M (Artificial Mind and Movement), Canada's largest independent game developer, announces that it has acquired Wanako Games, a video game studio located in Santiago, Chile. The first and largest game studio in South America, Wanako Games specializes in the production of downloadable interactive content. The studio is acquired by A2M from Activision Blizzard. With this transaction, A2M is expanding its offering across Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) and Playstation Ne . . . Read more

Straight from Bit-Tech.net:

No doubt in last few days many of you will have marvelled over the awesome "amateur video" recently posted onto Youtube of a film maker playing Guitar Hero with a bike. The footage is fantastically well choreographed, with the rider cycling over the familiar guitar hero note patterns painted onto the ground in with correspondingly flashing LEDs fitted to the handlebars that are perfect time to the music.

While the level of skill required to create the general aw . . . Read more

Straight from MCVUK.com:

Blitz Games Studios founders Philip and Andrew Oliver received Honorary Doctorates from Coventry University on 20 November 2008

In recognition of their significant contribution to technology and business across the computer games industry, the Oliver Twins have been awarded with doctorates in separate disciplines in the graduation ceremony held at Coventry Cathedral.

Philip Oliver, founder and CEO of Blitz Games Studios received an Honorary Doctorate in Business . . . Read more

Taken from "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly" in Game informer
DEC, 2008; page 28

"While we're against piracy, the government's new PRO-IP Act goes overboard. It significantly beefs up the penalties for pirated material. For instance, stealing a 10-song CD makes you liable for 10 separate criminal counts for each individual song, instead of one count for the CD itself. Likewise, if you're busted for game piracy, you may be also be charged with stealing the licensed music in the game as a separat . . . Read more

Straight from Examiner.com:

It’s no secret that more women are now gaming than ever before. According to an in depth study conducted by the ESA, over 40% of gamers today are female. As the male/female gamer ratio is now starting to even out, it only makes sense that more women would want to start being involved in the production of video games.

Last week, the women in gaming movement took a major setp forward when senior vice president of Global Sales and Marketing at Sony Online Enter . . . Read more

Straight from Statesman.com:

Legendary game developer and amateur astronaut Richard Garriott said Tuesday that he is leaving NCsoft Corp. but didn't say what his next move would be.

Garriott, who is still in Russia after completing a recent trip to the international space station, posted the news in an online letter to players of his most recent game, "Tabula Rasa."

The space trip was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Garriott had taken a leave from his duties at NCsoft to train for . . . Read more

Straight from PS3News.com:

After the secret source code for its then-unreleased shooter Half Life 2 showed up on file sharing services in 2003, game-maker Valve Software cooked up an elaborate ruse with the FBI targeting the German hacker suspected in the leak, even setting up a fake job interview in an effort to lure him to the United States for arrest.

The gambit ultimately failed, and Axel "Ago" Gembe remained safely in Germany. He was indicted last month in Los Angeles on new charges o . . . Read more

Straight from BigDownload.com:


It's been a long, hard road for the Unreal Engine 3 based sci-fi MMOFPS Huxley. The Webzen-developed game was first announced way back in 2005. Earlier this year it was announced that NHN USA had picked up the US publishing rights to the game and planned on launching it as a free-to-play MMO on their web site ijji.com before the end of the year.

Unfortunately it looks like that's not going to happen after all. Big Download has learned that Huxley's launch h . . . Read more

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