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EA Shuts Down Developer of Mercenaries, The Saboteur

Nathan Grayson — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:58:37 -0600

As part of a restructuring plan that involves – among other, less heartbreaking things -- laying-off 1,500 employees, EA recently placed nearly all of Mercenaries developer Pandemic on the chopping block.

Studio founders Josh Resnick, Andrew Goldman, and Greg Borrud are leading the mass exodus, with roughly 200 former staffers in tow. Pandemic’s still-twitching remains will be moved to EA’s Los Angeles studio, where games under the Pandemic brand name will continue to be developed.

If it’s any consolation, though, the development community is doing a great job of making sure Pandemic’s fine folks land on their feet. Among others, Gearbox is inviting former Pandemic employees off the cold streets and into the perpetually warm state of Texas.

As always, we wish the best of luck to everyone affected by this unfortunate turn of events.

Rumor: Mass Effect 2 to Receive Massive Amounts of DLC

Nathan Grayson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:43:02 -0600

The original Mass Effect rocked our socks. Its DLC, though? Not so much. Fortunately, if a Microsoft Expert Zone retailer quiz is to be believed, BioWare’s making up for Mass Effect’s DLC deficiency in a big way with Mass Effect 2.

According to the quiz, planned content includes “episodic combat via DLC, weapon and armor packs, new downloadable characters for the campaign experience, new downloadable worlds, as well as full campaign expansions for download.”

Here’s hoping that BioWare doesn’t also take the EA Renegade route and peddle things like cheat codes and cosmetic upgrades for exorbitant prices.”Exorbitant,” in this case, meaning “anything other than free.”

Spore Movie Evolves -- Sprouts Director, Writers

Nathan Grayson — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:03:17 -0500

Looks like Spore knows how to take a hint. PC gamers weren’t quite ready to herald the game as the second coming of The Sims, so it’s jumped gaming’s ship and gotten into show business. And fortunately, thanks to a little common sense on EA’s part, someone not named Uwe Boll is walking Spore down the red carpet.

Chris Wedge, who birthed the $1.9 billion-grossing “Ice Age” film franchise, is set to be the intelligent designer behind Spore’s big screen debut. Meanwhile, Greg Erb and Jason Oremland, who recently wrapped up writing Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” are penning the script. Twentieth Century Fox is partnering with EA to produce the whole thing.

"I'm always looking for unique worlds to go to in animation," Wedge said. "From every perspective -- visually, thematically and comedically -- the world of 'Spore' provides the potential to put something truly original on the screen."

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll probably learn a bit about yourself in the process. What’s not to like?

Crazy Rumor of the Day: Microsoft Wants to Buy EA

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:07:55 -0500

Have your grains of salt at the ready, people, because this one’s a doozy. According to a bit of Wall Street chatter, Microsoft’s got its sights set on none other than gaming giant Electronic Arts.

“There’s talk that Microsoft might be interested in acquiring Electronic Arts,”said Frederic Ruffy, options strategist at WhatsTrading.com. “It’s unsubstantiated chatter, but it’s out there.”

As such, analyst Trip Chowdhry is cautioning investors from counting their chickens before they’ve hatched, and is preemptively declaring this rumor hogwash.

"Our contacts just don't see Microsoft buying Electronic Arts, no synergies whatsoever, and also not Microsoft's corporate primary focus right now," Chowdhry told Reuters.

Shame, that. We were hoping to see Faith from Mirror’s Edge leaping improbable distances with Master Chief. Or maybe a scrimmage between the Cogs and Locusts from Gears of War in Madden? You know, Mutant League Football style?

Ok -- no we weren’t. Not even a little bit.

Update: the rumor has been debunked.

New Mass Effect DLC Arrives Not with a Bang, But with a Whimper

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:56:59 -0500

BioWare recently released some spankin’ new Mass Effect DLC, but, uh, it seems like they forgot to tell everyone. Titled “Pinnacle Station,” the Mass Effect DLC made a minimal impact upon landing, mostly because there was little-to-no pre-release hype associated with its launch. Oh sure, there were some hints – a wink, a nudge, and even a leak – but not a(n official) word from Microsoft or BioWare.

You’d think it’d be in your best interest to promote a new addition to your two year-old game, seeing as how most people have probably shelved it at this point. But then, we’re not marketing experts, so what do we know?

Anyway, the DLC costs five Washingtons – or one Lincoln – and gets Shepard and co. back in shape for Mass Effect 2 with 13 brand new combat missions.

Go grab it here, if you’re interested.

Battlefield 1943 PC Delayed into Early 2010

Nathan Grayson — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 03:49:04 -0500

Another week, another game calls in sick for 2009. So, Battlefield 1943, what’s your excuse? After all, it feels like you’ve been out on consoles since, well, 1943. What’s the hold up? Said producer Gordon Van Dyke:

“We haven't released a Frostbite [DICE's game engine] built game on PC, so going into this project we lacked a starting foundation we had on Console. There are also many different and unique only challenges to the PC that has lead to us pushing the release even further to Q1 CY 2010 [early next year].”

“This was a hard pill to swallow, but it was absolutely needed to ensure the features and functionality that PC Players have come to expect from Battlefield on PC are not missing. Things like support for DirectX 9 and 10, higher player count (up to 32-player matches), wide peripheral support i.e. Joysticks for flying, VoIP, and ranked server provider hosting. So it was and still is the absolutely right decision, for quality sake, to not release until it is ready.”

Disappointing as it is, you can’t really argue with that. See you front-and-center in 2010, Battlefield 1943. Until then, at ease, soldiers.

The Game Boy: Do Videogame Companies “Get” Gamers?

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:35:11 -0500

Ever have one of those moments where you said something completely inappropriate – like, say, any number of four letter words – while strolling through a locale where things like that just don’t fly – like, say, your kindergartener’s bring-your-parent-to-class day or a nun convention? You know how it is; seas of chit-chat part, as though diving out of the way of the approaching eighteen-wheeler that is the crushing realization that you just screwed up big-time.

Electronic Arts recently found itself caught in the sizzling headlights of a similar situation. In promoting upcoming hack ‘n’ slash ‘n’ totally ignore the source material Dante’s Inferno, EA thought it might be fun for gamers to take pictures of themselves performing “acts of lust” with its already swamped staff of Comic Con booth babes. The winner of this competition would then get a night on the town with said babes, and some other odds and ends. Yeah. Predictably, the entire gaming community immediately ceased to jabber about other topics, crossed its collective arms, and sent a damning glare in EA’s direction. “Oh, haha, we didn’t mean it like that,” EA essentially said in reply, backpedaling. But obviously, that didn’t undo the damage that’d already been done.

Clearly, EA – in this situation – had its audience pegged incorrectly. Despite our apparent love of some of life’s baser aspects (shooting, explosions, and John Madden, for instance), gamers don’t take too kindly to blatant misogyny. Big whoop, though, right? In many gamers’ eyes, this is just another dark mark on a record already stained by countless instances of greed and sloth. Throwing in lust just rounds out the roster, right? It’s EA, after all. And as we all know from previous experiences, stereotypes and generalizations are always right.

Obviously, then, I don’t think EA deserves all the crap people give it. Nor do Activision, Take-Two, or any of the other alleged hair-pullers and groin-kickers that we call major gaming corporations. The Dante’s Inferno incident does, however, shed some light on the oddly paradoxical ways big companies seem to think about gamers.

See, I would have expected something like this from the “old” EA – you know, the monolithic sequel factory that gobbled up developer after developer, just to feed the flames of a machine that constantly spit out sports games and bad movie tie-ins. But we’re talking the John Ricitiello-era EA. This is the publisher that risked its 2008 holiday season on untested, innovative franchises like Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space, and is now putting its considerable weight behind Tim Schafer’s Brutal Legend, despite many of Schafer’s other games’ sleeper-hit status. Point is, this EA isn’t some brainless, tasteless money-make machine; it, at the very least, cares what people think.

Yet somehow, the aforementioned utterly tasteless Dante’s Inferno PR stunt still found its way out of the gutter and into EA’s stack of “good ideas.” So what are we to EA? Apparently, we’re intelligent and discerning enough to value quality and innovation in our hobby, yet somehow so out-of-touch that misogyny not only wouldn’t get us hot under the collar instead of hot-and-bothered, but could actually be used to promote a game.

EA’s not alone, though. Take, for instance, a recent miscalculation by Eidos. The publisher promised early review copies of Batman: Arkham Asylum to publications if they’d give the game a score of 9.0 or higher. If publications scored the game lower, their reviews would be embargoed for a significant amount of time. Problem: The RAM Raider found out and spilled the beans. One post on Kotaku later and tens of millions of savvy gamers knew what Eidos was up to. So, what’d the publisher – caught with its hand in the proverbial cookie jar – do? It still went through with the whole thing. Now an early Arkham Asylum review’s been published and – shock and awe – the game scored a glowingly positive 9.6. Newsflash, Eidos: gamers see what you did there, and they’re not happy about it.

Really though, during this day and age, that’s about the most despicable thing you’ll see a game publisher attempt to sneak under our noses. And now, it's a rarity rather than a regularity. As negatively as the Arkham Asylum and Dante’s Inferno flubs reflect on major gaming corporations, things aren’t nearly as bad as they seem. As I mentioned earlier, EA’s been attempting to scrub off its old image for years now, clearly in tune with what gamers want out of a game company. And even Activision, our new evil corporation du jour – despite its reputation as a house flimsily built on yearly sequels – ensures that its games are polished to near-perfection.

So here’s the bottom line: Big gaming companies may not always “get” gamers, but at least – for the most part – they’re trying. And it shows, too. Most importantly, they’ve picked up on the fact that many gamers value a high standard of quality above all else, and that we aren’t easily swayed by star power and cheap cash-ins. Sure, these same companies make plenty of mistakes, but over time, major publishers have learned more and more about the people they serve. Conventional wisdom, then, says that things can only get better from here on out. So, major videogame companies, keep up the (mostly) good work!

Shock and Awe: The Sims 3 Outsold All Other Games in June

Nathan Grayson — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 01:30:46 -0500

We don’t just mean PC games, either. Even console games couldn’t stand against the shockingly legal substance that is The Sims 3. And we’re talking retail sales here, too. That’s console turf! Guys in the audience, we’re sure you once told your younger sisters that playing with fake guns was way cooler than fiddling around with dolls. Well, based on the way The Sims 3 (820,000 copies sold) trounced console best-seller Prototype (419,000 copies sold), we’d say you were dead wrong.

The full PC game sales list is below:

The Sims 3 (EA The Sims Studio, Electronic Arts)
The Sims 3 Collector's Edition (EA The Sims Studio, Electronic Arts)
The Sims 2 Double Deluxe (EA The Sims Studio, Electronic Arts)
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Blizzard Entertainment)
World of Warcraft Battle Chest (Blizzard Entertainment)
Spore: Galactic Adventures (Maxis, Electronic Arts)
World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment)
Spore (Maxis, Electronic Arts)
Empire: Total War (The Creative Assembly, Sega)
StarCraft Battle Chest (Blizzard Entertainment)
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (Blizzard Entertainment)
Reel Deal Slots Adventure (Phantom EFX)
Civilization IV: Complete Edition (Firaxis Games, 2K Games)
WarCraft III Battle Chest (Blizzard Entertainment)
SimCity Box (Maxis, Electronic Arts)
Diablo Battle Chest (Blizzard Entertainment)
The Sims 2: Apartment Life (EA The Sims Studio, Electronic Arts)
Prototype (Radical Entertainment, Activision)
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GOTY Edition (Bethesda Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks/2K Games)
Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Terminal Reality, Atari)

Sickening, really. EA’s Simpire continues its conquest, and even Reel Deal Slots Adventure couldn’t stand in its way. So, how long do you think The Sims 3 will hold its position in the PC sales top ten? For brevity's sake, we'll take the liberty of adding a "billion" to whatever number of months you go with. As a conservative estimate, obviously.