Following recent layoffs at Trion and his comments that the industry was “fundamentally broken,” departed Trion CCO elaborates on his remarks and what the industry needs if it wants to see change. …
‘This model of game making is so fundamentally broken.’
May 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
How an enemy gets made: Art from concept to final model
April 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A full evolution from rough basic concept through refinement, final design, modeling, animation, and even a high-quality CG render of a single in-game enemy character. …
Video: The ethics and psychology of the ‘freemium’ model
April 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
GDC 2013 played host to a live recording of the popular mobile developer podcast Walled Garden Weekly, with Touch Arcade’s Eli Hodapp and Temple Run’s Keith Shepherd debating the merits of freemium for mobile games. …
Supergiant may break free of publisher model with Transistor
March 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Supergiant doesn’t have a publisher for its next game, Transistor – but more importantly, it doesn’t need one. Supergiant worked with Warner Bros. to publish Bastion, and since its launch in 2011, it’s sold 1.7 million copies across PC, Mac, Linux, XBLA and iOS.
“It did well everywhere,” Supergiant Lead Designer Amir Rao tells Joystiq at PAX East. Supergiant is now in a position to publish its own games, and Transistor might be the ideal candidate.
“We’re showing it to the world for the first time,” Rao says. “We don’t have deals with anyone. This is the first time anybody has seen this game. It’s really way too early for us to say if we’ll have a publisher or what platforms it will be on.”
For what it’s worth, Bastion moved the most units on Steam, Rao says. Supergiant may not seek a publisher at all, but anything’s possible, Rao says. If it did want to snag a publisher, Transistor faces an issue recently vocalized by Epic Games and Dontnod. It features a female lead, and apparently that can make it a tough sell to publishers. Internally, it’s not an issue for Supergiant.
“We put characters in our games that are representative of the worlds they’re in,” Rao says. “We don’t think of her as a female character. She’s just our character.”
Supergiant may break free of publisher model with Transistor originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 23 Mar 2013 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
EA: Consumers are ‘enjoying and embracing’ the microtransaction model
March 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen is pretty sold on the idea of microtransactions as a business model. In fact, such pint-sized payout opportunities will likely be even more abundant in the future, from the sound of things:
“The digital business is broken up into a couple of pieces, one is pure digital downloads of full games,” Jorgensen said during an investor conference call last Tuesday. “The next, and much bigger piece is microtransactions within games. So, to the extent that as [EA CTO Rajat Taneja] said, we’re building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level, to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun; whatever it might be. And consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business.”
Jorgensen went on to say that EA’s extensive technical infrastructure has been instrumental in its success with microtransactions, and that many related business operations are now being handled in-house, rather than being outsourced, as had previously been the case.
EA: Consumers are ‘enjoying and embracing’ the microtransaction model originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 01 Mar 2013 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Sony Calls Subscription-Based Model ‘Our Dream’
February 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Back in July 2012, Sony announced that it had acquired streaming-content service Gaikai. Shuhei Yoshida, Sony president of worldwide studios, provided a bit of insight about what that partnership could offer in the future, including the potential of a subscription model.
Yoshida said in an interview with the Guardian that the prevalence of digitally distributed content allows Sony to examine how they get games into players' hands. "So hypothetically we can look at different models – like a cable TV company," he said. "We could have gold, silver or platinum levels of membership, something like that. We can do subscription services when we have more content – especially now that we have the Gaikai technology available. With one subscription you have access to thousands of games – that's our dream.
It sounds a lot like a refined and expanded version of the PlayStation Plus service that's currently available. Considering that PlayStation Plus didn't release until about four years after the PS3's launch, there's plenty of time for Sony to figure out the specifics, if the company even decides to explore this model further.
We also interviewed Yoshida at the PS4 event about PS4 and Vita interoperability, the new camera, and more. Check out that interview here.
[Via: Edge Online]
Switcheroo: Free-to-play MMO adds a subscription model
January 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
We’re getting used to hearing about subscription-based MMOs adding a free-to-play mode in order to attract more players, but rarely do we hear the inverse. …
Troubled MMO The Secret World drops the subscription model
December 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Following a disappointing launch earlier this year, and troubling times for its developer Funcom, MMORPG The Secret World has dropped its monthly subscription model. …
90% of UK Wii U consumers picked up the Premium model
December 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment
90 percent of all Nintendo Wii U consoles sold in the UK during the console’s launch week were the Premium model, meaning that only 10 percent of consumers picked up the 8GB Basic pack. Breaking this down, the ZombiU Pack, which bundled together the third-party Ubisoft title with a Wii U Premium model, made up 30 percent of all Wii U hardware sales while the Premium console on its own had a 60 percent share …
Havok acquires 3D character model specialist Rocketbox
November 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Newsbrief: Intel-owned middleware company Havok today announced that it has acquired Rocketbox Studios, a provider of 3D character models and animations specifically designed for the training and simulation communities. The Hannover, Germany-based company’s services will now be integrated into Havok’s technology framework, allowing Havok users to build virtual simulations in a more cost-effective manner. Rocketbox’s library of character models and other 3D animations has been building since the start of the millennium, with the Rocketbox …