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"Action-packed!" "A wild ride." "Nearly as exhilarating as the video game industry!" Ah, who am I kidding? The first two don't even come close to matching the third, and today serves as a large, billowing banner for that fact. We've got mergers, buyouts, children, slavery, drugs, and even CliffyB! If every day were this exciting, action movies would be out of a job. Now click that "Read More" link; you know you want to.
Video games are the new rock 'n' roll? Hah! Fallout 3 is, on the controversy scale, a comic book about rock 'n' roll that chronicles the adventures of a bumbling, but well-meaning Nazi. Kidding aside, though, Fallout 3 looks to cover some interesting ground. But don't get too excited about the chance to revel in filth; child-killing and nudity will both be calling in absent. Check out the rest of the interview, though, because that's far from all. It explores Fallout 3 from all angles -- from character creation to being able to conquer the whole game unarmed.
High-end gaming's stalwart supporters number few these days, but they're certainly not tight-lipped about their position. id Software's Todd Hollenshead essentially said that he believes it won't be long before casual gaming's vice-grip on the industry shatters. "[Gaming is] a technology-driven industry, and I think people who say it’s not a technology-driven industry don’t know what industry that they’re in, and they probably won’t be here for very long," he said. Hollenshead's words may be wrong, but his heart's in the right place. As long as developers like id exist in the gaming industry, hardcore gaming isn't going anywhere. Of course, neither is casual gaming, but as long as both sides have ardent supporters, neither will crumble.
CliffyB knows his controllers. Apparently, he also knows his alien spaceships, as that's what he says the Xbox 360 pad most resembles. His solution? Remove all of the escape pods or buttons or whatever. Now, I don't know about you, but I rather like our current controllers. How about we just agree to not add any more buttons? Also, Cliff uses Mario Galaxy and Zack & Wiki (both on the Wii) as examples of a controller feature (waggle) replacing button-presses. Well, if the feature works so well, why can't Cliffy list any other stand-out examples?
Eidos dev boss Ian Livingstone isn't too happy with the UK's government. Why? Because they're not doing anything to aid game developers in what he declares to be "the most expensive country in the world in which to develop."
Meet your new overlords. After roughly seven months of approvals and paperwork, Activision and Blizzard have cleared their final hurdle, and tomorrow, the merger will finally take place.
Hooray. Now we can go back to hearing about EA's foiled buyout attempts every other day.
Comments are closed on this article
CadonMado
July 09, 2008 at 8:32am
Sounds like someone wanted to sell High, so to speak.
Blizzard is sitting pretty with Diablo 3 & StarCraft 2 being developed and WoW still going strong. What reason would a company that is making money everymonth (residual income anyone) over 8 million players, even if only half of them are active that $14.99 a month from 4 million peeps (or $12.99 if they pay for a year in advance).
So why sell? ... O.o
Oh well, I am excited to see what changes are made, note* I am not part of the 8 million so good or bad I will be watching as a curious bystandard.
- Cadon Mado
bluedog98
July 08, 2008 at 4:59pm
So what does this leave us with now, except Ea and Blizzard/Activison. It seems like whenever a standalone company makes something good you usually have someone else buy them and ruin the whole thing.
Vahn16
July 08, 2008 at 5:41pm
Gaming is a business foremost, so buyouts happen. Note that Blizzard/Vivendi was looking to sell -- not the other way around. In an interview, Blizzard said that they chose Activision. Point is, you can't always blame the big, evil corporation for this kind of thing.
