Activision has admitted that the launch of social service Call of Duty Elite was bungled, and despite the high uptake amongst players, the company isn’t yet celebrating success of the 7 million strong network.
Speaking at the 2012 D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas, CEO Eric Hirshberg said even before the service was announced, internally there were doubts at Activision about how to launch such a technically ambitious service.
“I hesitate to talk about Elite, because even though we’ve had some early success with the numbers, it’s far from time for us to be doing any victory laps on Elite,” he said.
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Source: GamesIndustry.biz – News
Investment firm Spark Capital has appointed former Zynga general manager Nabeel Hyatt as its first venture partner.
“As you could imagine I thought about this decision rather carefully. I’ve been an entrepreneur as long as I’ve been anything, and I still have boundless energy to work in start ups,” said Hyatt in his blog.
“For me it felt like time to see if I could shift my focus from building a single company to impacting the broader ecosystem. Joining Spark now provides me with an amazing opportunity to empower entrepreneurs who are passionate, innovative and out to change things forever.”
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Source: GamesIndustry.biz – News
Trion Worlds and Shanda games have signed a deal to release fantasy MMO Rift in China.
“We are delighted to bring Rift, Trion Worlds’ much-acclaimed award-winning title, to China,” said Mr. Alan Tan, Chairman and CEO of Shanda Games.
“Rift offers an adventurous online world with fantastic dynamic content and stunning graphics and has attracted many devoted fans worldwide. Based on our experience and expertise in the China market, we are excited about the upcoming launch of Rift to our broad gamer audience and are confident in the success of Rift in the China market.”
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Source: GamesIndustry.biz – News
A recent interview saw Rocksteady game director Sefton Hill lament the UK’s diminishing talent pool, as developers are forced to travel in search of employment.
“A lot of my friends have moved abroad to get work; there’s a real talent drain,” Hill told CVG.
“Montreal is a central place for development and it’s mainly because the tax breaks they give are so phenomenal.”
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Source: GamesIndustry.biz – News
Epic Games has secured the iOS rights to Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s choose-your-own adventure Fighting Fantasy books.
As part of the Make Something Unreal contest, the developer is tasking students to create a game based on one of four books from the series, with the winning title unveiled at The Gadget Show Live 2012.
“Steve Jackson and I are delighted to see our Fighting Fantasy gamebooks being developed as iOS games by new teams of talented and enthusiastic students. It will be really interesting to see how our IP will be captured and interpreted for the iOS platform,” said Ian Livingstone, who is currently writing a new book in the series.
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Source: GamesIndustry.biz – News
Unity Technologies and LG have partnered to feature Unity authored games on the manufacturer’s 2012 range of Smart TVs.
“The television technology LG is introducing this year is very impressive and offers an incredible opportunity for the developers under the Union umbrella to reach a new market,” said Unity CEO David Helgason.
“Our goal with Union is to create new avenues of distribution for developers using Unity, and LG smart TVs are creating a massive and new gaming audience.”
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Source: GamesIndustry.biz – News
GamesIndustry.biz and IndustryGamers.com are set to merge this month, relaunching the new site with added staff, tools and services.
The site will become available to all readers, with verified industry professionals still able to take advantage of advanced tools, industry-only discussions areas, a redeveloped company directory, and more.
The current network already unites more than 90,000 registered industry professionals, freelancers and students, and with the help of IndustryGamers’ US audience is targeting more than 500,000 unique users per month.
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Source: GamesIndustry.biz – News
Nippon Ichi’s latest consolidated earnings estimate for the fiscal year has increased totals for operating income and net income.
Net income estimates are up to ¥203 million from ¥59 million, and operating income is now ¥303 million, previously ¥107 million. Strong sales on both PlayStation Vita and PS3 for the Disgaea have helped boost the numbers for the Japanese publisher.
Sales are down from ¥2,288 million to ¥2,246 million, which the company attributes to release delays for The Witch And The Hundred Soldiers and the US edition of Disgaea 3 Return.
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Source: GamesIndustry.biz – News
