Two interesting things I saw recently: 1) Cryptic bows out of trying to get either Champions Online or Star Trek Online onto consoles. There are some out there who saw these moves as vindication that Cryptic is a horrible company who deserves to fail, but it is probably more a case of Microsoft being incredibly … Continue reading
Filed under Industry …
The Only Way to Succeed Is to Be #2
A lot of hopes and dreams rest on Star Wars: The Old Republic being a major hit. It is the largest ever production for EA and the rumours I’ve heard indicate this means the development budget is over US$200m, maybe even US$300m. (As Lum points out, some back of the envelope calculations put the break-even … Continue reading
‘Tis the Season For Replacement, Apparently
Bill Roper moves on from being the Executive Producer on Champions Online to other projects within Cryptic. He is replaced by long-term Cryptic man Shannon Posniewski, also known as Poz. It’s an interesting move and one I take as a strong indicator that Cryptic either 1) has another MMO in development that they want an … Continue reading
Old News Is Still Interesting News
Matt Miller, aka Positron, former lead developer of CoH/V and now free creative element at Paragon Studios, spent a few days in Seoul at the end of last year. Given NCsoft’s headquarters is in Seoul, I don’t think he was going over just for the sights. Speculation to follow.
A Random Thought: If I Were Head of Blizzard…
This thought occurred to me as I was reading We Fly Spitfire’s comments on the console MMOFPS rumour around Blizzard’s next game… If the rumour was true and I were head of Blizzard, I’d: Take a trip to the Money Room at Blizzard HQ and have a swim around in the Money Pool ala Scrooge … Continue reading
The Power of Free (and Hence F2P)
I came across this article the other day about the power of free stuff – a free product / item / service is much more widely accepted by people than the same product / item / service that has only a minimal cost attached to it. As the article points out, the difference between free … Continue reading
Nostalgia: Good. Criticism of Nostalgia: Bad.
Keen and Graev’s blog has been doing a bit of introspection about MMOs – how they are moving backwards in terms of design and how nostalgia is a great thing. It’s a common cry in discussions about MMOs – today’s titles aren’t as good as the previous ones – but the interesting defence here is … Continue reading
Cryptic’s 100k Plan?
This could just be an interesting coincidence, but I also think it answers a number of questions about Cryptic’s MMO development strategy. In July 2009, G4TV asked Cryptic’s Chief Creative Officer (and fan favourite punching bag) Jack Emmert how many players Champions Online needed for success: G4: Speaking of it being successful, when you’re launching … Continue reading
EA To Slash Staff; Starts By Cutting WAR Down
As part of its third quarter financial announcements, EA has posted a significant loss and has indicated that up to 1500 jobs are going to be cut. The full cuts won’t be made until April 2010, but some studios were hit quicker than others, including Mythic, developer behind Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (WAR). There are … Continue reading
NCsoft Responds To My Article: “Alarmist” and “Sensationalist”
Massively got a response from NCsoft about my article on the future of CoH/V. The terms “alarmist” and “sensationalist” are used, as are how “excited” NCsoft is about the future of CoH/V. All fair enough and par for the course. This blog is my opinion and NCsoft is completely free to challenge that opinion. If … Continue reading
World Class Villains 