So Infinity Ward loses more staff after Jason West and Vince Zampella created a new studio, Respawn Entertainment. Lead game designer, lead software engineer, senior animator, not everybody is joining the new game studio but the thing is, Modern Warfare as an IP is sort of dead now. It didn’t take long.
So Activision, biggest game publisher in the world is in trouble: Guitar Hero is going down, DJ Hero has never been a success and Modern Warfare is no more existing. Developers, be prepared for more layoffs.
About the iPad. I think it’s the endless Apple pattern: they hate games. They don’t understand gamers. They sell and unveiled their new product as a thing to read digital stuff on it while everybody go crazy for the game possibilities. 2/3 of iPad apps are games. They unveiled (at last) the social gaming network and claim they have 50 000 games against 2 500 on the Nintendo DS.
Well, as a consumer 2 500 games is already a hell of a lot. I have like, ten of them. As a developer battling against 2 500 others is hard, battling against 50 000 other games is just not interesting. The noise is gigantic and you can’t really find a niche market on an appstore like Apple did (there’s not even categories for iPad games). And they want developers not being able to do cross-platform? Did I say that they don’t give a shit about developers? It just makes sense: developers, as musicians for iTunes are just appealing products to sell more Apple hardware. They don’t care about developers making say, a living by producing apps. They don’t care about the software economics of today where any app needs to be on as many platforms as possible (except for three or four lucky early iPhone developers) to make money. They just want to dictate you and screw you.
For the sake of innovation and freedom, no thanks.
Hi Robot!
Beatnik Games launches their first game, Plain Sight. They’re working on another game about Ada Lovelace (amazing story!), produced by Channel 4, english TV.
Please take note, France.
Market wise, Nintendo announcing the 3DS is really smart. No useless Wii HD that would confuse consumers, no Wii motion controller add-on that would say that they are scared by Sony/MS upcoming Move and Natal. No, something new and hot like mobile 3D screen, setting a new trend in discussion and putting the motion control and touch control (iPhone) so last year while staying true to the good old gamepad scheme that millions of people know.
Now, let’s see what it’s going to be in real world. Maybe that.
24 minutes about Sid Meier and his career.
Music Master: Chopin is sort of a Romantic Band or Piano Hero I guess.
That is all for today.