I’ve noticed a trend worth commenting on in Western MMOs. It is only based on limited data points, but it’s worth codifying. The trend is: If you launch a AAA MMO in Western markets, you are going to attract about 1 million players at launch. My evidence: Age of Conan shipped 1.2 million boxes at … Continue reading
Filed under Video Games …
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
Why NCsoft Doesn’t Sell Off Its Failures
Adam Martin picked up on my previous entry and expanded it in a fantastic way based on his time there – basically, NCsoft Korea has too much money to bother with small projects, so only big projects are worth considering. I am a complete outsider here – not worked for NCsoft Korea or any other … Continue reading
City of Heroes / Villains 2009: Running Twice As Fast To Stay At The Same Place
UPDATE: I’ve repeated /facepalmed myself over getting Cryptic and Paragon Studios mixed up a few times in this article; Cryptic used to develop CoH/V but that is all handled by Paragon Studios now. Hopefully fixed! Also probably should have mentioned that DC Universe Online might launch in 2010, but this is still open to change. … Continue reading
I Suck At This
I’m new to WordPress, so apologies to anyone who’s comment disappeared in the spam filter until I looked at it just now! So that there is some meat to this post: the last two console games I’ve played were Batman: Arkham Asylum and Prototype. Both have similar elements – superhero theme, fighting waves of bad … Continue reading
Nielsen GamePlay Metrics – Is It Doing It Right?
I’ve been interested in Nielsen’s GamePlay Metrics service since I came across it a while back. The basic intent is to record which games people are playing and for how long – in much the same way Nielsen’s does for TV – in order to be able to sell that data back to various interested … Continue reading
Rumour: Slighted Nerd Claims Cryptic Doing Godzilla MMO
A post on the City of Heroes / Villains forums by an angry nerd, slighted by not winning a Twitter competition HE RIGHTFULLY WON, hints that one of Cryptic’s unannounced MMOs is going to be a Gozilla / giant monsters MMO. Being coy, they don’t want to say outright (because threats help you get what … Continue reading
Champions Online Alpha / Beta: A Retrospective (And Some Fallen Earth Too)
It’s funny how quickly things can change. If you’d asked me how Champion Online (ChampO) had been in its alpha / beta phases and how well Cryptic had run it, I would have told you that it was the best alpha / beta I’d been in. The devs were open to feedback, made a lot … Continue reading
Why City of Heroes / Villains Needs to Worry More About Itself Than Champions Online
Cecil Adkins wrote a point / counter-point article about why City of Heroes / Villains (CoH/V) should both not worry and worry very much about the launch of Champions Online (ChampO). Although I agree with his points on both sides, I think that too much focus has been put on CoH/V vs ChampO. Yes, it … Continue reading
World Class Villains 