One news story doing the rounds is a Battlefield 3 launch event in Texas that has banned women from attending. Initially it was on the grounds of not wanting to expose women to “immature, misogynistic male-gamers” before unashamedly backpedalling revising their position to the event being a “gentleman’s retreat“. Others have addressed the matter more … Continue reading
Filed under Media / Press …
Insert Coin To Continue: Perfect World Buys Cryptic Studios
Atari has sold Cryptic Studios to Chinese online game developer Perfect World for €35 million (US$50.5m), pending the final factors of the deal coming together. I’m sure it will, which is why they announced it, so Cryptic’s ownership will be transferred over and thus Cryptic will continue under its third master after NCsoft (sure, not really … Continue reading
Duke Nukem Forever: Duke Nukem, Makes You Feel…
I had a “say what?” moment recently when reading some of Randy Pitchford’s further comments about the character of Duke Nukem. And how Tony Stark slaps around women. Here’s the quote. “In this case, Duke is like a Tony Stark style character,” begins Pitchford. “You just played the Capture the Babe mode – you know … Continue reading
The Very, Very Late 2010 MMO Recap: Here Comes the New Stuff, Same As the Old Stuff
(All you have is my word that I haven’t made any substantive revisions to this document since January 30, 2011. Trust me. I’m a blogger. For a point-by-point recap of 2010, see either the January to June or the July to December articles.) 2010 was an interesting year for the MMO industry in that it … Continue reading
Duke Nukem Forever: Respect Yo’ Momma, Slap The Rest
Part of me is dreading the launch of Duke Nukem Forever. As a horribly misogynistic, outdated franchise that is more remembered for containing pixellated boobs and ripping off Bruce Campbell than great gameplay (and for a game development cycle from hell) it is something that should have died off long ago. Sadly, no – Gearbox … Continue reading
Mortal Kombat: Flawless PR Work, But…
Warner Brother Interactive Entertainment’s approach of “we failed the first time, but here is the same thing again but this time we’ll point out how wrong you are” around getting Mortal Kombat classified in Australia hasn’t worked, with MK being refused classification a second time. WBIE then thanked “the thousands of Mortal Kombat fans in … Continue reading
Battle Royale: CoH/V vs ChampO vs DCUO vs SHSO vs Marvel MMO
Back in 2008 (sheeh, that long ago?) I wrote a piece on City of Heroes / Villains versus Champions Online versus DC Universe Online. It’s time for a review of how these direct competitors are travelling, plus the new challengers in this space. City of Heroes / Villains (Paragon Studios / NCsoft) The self-proclaimed “world’s … Continue reading
The Brave, Brave Marketing Decisions of DCUO
A defining aspect of the superhero genre is bravery. The hero stands often outnumbered and outgunned, but is driven to do things to create a finer world. Regardless of what powers they have, the hero has bravery as a shield against doubt and as something that drives them forward. Inspired by this theme, Sony Online … Continue reading
APB: Well, Since Everyone Else Is Doing It…
The failure of All Points Bulletin is a current hot topic, especially since it looks to have pretty much destroyed the generally well-regarded developer Real Time Worlds. A great look at this toppling can be seen at GameBrief – the only thing that appears wrong are claims that APB only sold around 10k copies, whereas … Continue reading
DCUO: Madly Scrambling To Launch
On November 2, 2010, DC Universe Online is scheduled to launch. Public beta still hasn’t started and announcements of features being cut are starting to appear. At the SOE Fan Faire, the DCUO panel revealed that DCUO is likely to launch with only six power types: Ice and Fire are the ‘tanker’ powers. Gadgets and … Continue reading
World Class Villains 