(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
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The Very, Very Late 2010 MMO Recap (Part 2)
Part 1 is here, including a note about why April is the best time to review what happened about 16 months ago. July: Star Trek Online Executive Producer Craig Zinkievich leaves both the title and Cryptic Studios. Capcom’s Xbox Japan- and Xbox 360-only MMO Monster Hunter Frontier Online tops the sales charts in Japan. Activision … Continue reading
Five Reasons Why SWOR Is A High Risk MMO: #5 BioWare Doesn’t Do Great Game Mechanics
It was announced recently that Eric Brown, EA’s CFO, finds that blogs about the cost of Star Wars: The Old Republic “bring a chuckle” to his day. Glad to bring a smile to your face, Eric – here’s hoping the following brings some belly laughs. Back when I started this series, I said there were … Continue reading
Five Reasons Why SWOR Is A High Risk MMO: #1 EA Is In It For The Wrong Reasons
It’s been a good week for internet video game drama. There was a nice warm-up with Nick Lovell’s contribution to the masses on 10 doomed games / businesses / products, followed by the main course of EA Louse spewing bile at EA from the inside. Putting aside the validity of EA Louse’s posts – and … Continue reading
DCUO Delayed Until Q1 2011; Please Pre-order It Anyway
In an announcement that surprised me so much I remained sitting in my chair, DC Universe Online has been delayed until Q1 2011. There was an indication that things weren’t going swimming given the lack of marketing build-up before launch, but now the November launch is off and has been replaced by a November public … Continue reading
Blizzard Has Sent You A Friend Request
Blizzard recently implemented its own social network application called RealID, which launched as a totally optional adjunct to World of Warcraft. Two weeks later and the indication is that “totally optional” actually meant “compulsory with the launch of the Cataclysm expansion“. The reaction to this move hasn’t been positive, with a lot of the criticism … Continue reading
Bobby Kotick: “WoW Basically Props Up Activision”
Okay, that isn’t exactly what he said. The head of Activision Blizzard actually said, “Today, probably 70 percent of our operating profit comes from non-console-based video games. So, while you might see a month-to-month change or volatility against expectations, that doesn’t really get us too concerned.” The key word there is ‘profit’. Not ‘revenue’ which … Continue reading
World Class Villains 