It’s been a little while since I’ve updated what I’ve played and what sits on my shelf, staring balefully at me. Dispatched The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (X360): If anyone says, “You can’t put almost 130 hours into a game that you don’t enjoy!” point them this way, because despite spending that amount of time … Continue reading
Filed under PC …
The Secret World: Fighting The Previous War
There has been one MMO that I’ve been interested in for a long time and that’s The Secret World (TSW). I joined the forum back in June 2007, but my account had issues with posting in threads, plus I’ve long since got over my interest in taking part in the “wouldn’t it be cool if…”-style … Continue reading
Marriwage Bwings Us Togethwer, Skyrim-Style
Skyrim made my Argonian Lizardwoman a lesbian. Or at least outed her to me, anyway. There were early signs: the dialogue in “A Night To Remember” indicated that my character’s fiancée was a woman, Evette San called her “the best man for the job” in helping her with her spiced wine issues, and there were … Continue reading
How Many Players Did City of Heroes / Villains Have After Launching Freedom?
Converting from a pure subscription-based title to a hybrid free-to-play (F2P) is something than more than one MMO title has seen happen. And generally the indication from the studio is that such a move makes mad bank. When Cryptic Studios converted Champions Online to F2P, they said revenue went up 1000%; when Turbine Studios converted … Continue reading
Double Fine & Kickstarter: Everyone Is Still Going To Their Day Jobs Tomorrow
One of the hot topics at the moment is Double Fine’s Kickstarter project, with the mere words “a Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert point-and-click adventure” was enough to send some gamers into a donating frenzy – at this point a shade over 47 500 people have donated over US$1.6m towards the project. And there is … Continue reading
Star Wars: The Old Republic – SWTOR vs. WAR!
… and Age of Conan, for that matter. EA announced during their earnings call that Star Wars: The Old Republic had sold over 2 million boxes and had 1.7 million subscribed players, beating EA’s internal projections. A lot of sources took that at face value as a great result, but was it? Let’s look at … Continue reading
An Online Platform User Statistic For Comparison
Valve’s Steam has 40 million users (up from 35 million in 2010). It made Valve almost US$1 billion in games sales in 2010. Microsoft has 40 million users on Xbox Live (up from 30 million in 2011). This earned an an estimate of over US$1 billion revenue from game, movie and TV show-related content in … Continue reading
How Many Players Did City of Heroes / Villains Have Before Launching Freedom?
In the rush before Xmas, I missed NCsoft’s investor relations release for the Q3 2011 period. NCsoft is unique among MMO developers in that its quarterly earnings releases include a breakdown of revenue collected from each of their key titles in that period, making it very easy to track how a title is performing. Although … Continue reading
Star Wars – The Old Republic: And The Final Price Is…
In my previous examination of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the development budget from various sources ranged from the probably too-low US$80m (plus US$20 for advertising) through to US$300m. The LA Times has indicated that SWOR’s development cost sits at US$200m, while analyst Doug Creutz of Cowen & Co. suggested that EA’s “total all-in investment … Continue reading
The Unplayed Gaming List – January 2012
Xmas has come and gone. The Xmas and post-Xmas sales have come and gone. Time to update the unplayed gaming list. Dispatched Bayonetta (X360): Finished this on Normal difficulty, started again on the next harder difficulty and have shelved the game after running into a roadblock at a particular Alfheim Portal. Might come back to … Continue reading
World Class Villains 