Yager signs licensing deal with Epic for AAA title powered by Unreal Engine 4 that may include microtransactions, cross-platform play.
Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager has signed a deal with Epic Games to license the Unreal Engine 4 to power a AAA next-generation title. The Berlin, Germany-based Yager is the first European independent studio to license the technology.
Yager's mystery project will be unveiled in the coming months. No further information about the game, or the terms of the deal, were specified.
Though Yager has not divulged its new project yet, job listings at the studio hint that the game may feature microtransactions and cross-platform play. A desirable candidate for a "monetization designer" will have "in-depth knowledge of cross-platform games and microtransaction based business models."
In addition, this person will "seek out and incorporate feedback from the team, QA, and playtesters throughout the production in order to maximize monetization whilst minimizing negative impact on game experience."
Additional job listings seek developers with experience on real-time strategy and role-playing games, as well as first-person action titles.
Developer says it has "no plans" to take over the operation of the IPL, is extending offers to those who lost jobs during recent IPL6 cancellation.
Over the last few weeks, Blizzard Entertainment's name has come up as one of the leading developer candidates interested in buying out the IGNProLeague. Sources tell GameSpot that the developer behind the widely popular competitive esport StarCraft are interested in acquiring the production talent from IGNProLeague, which includes general manager David Ting.
Blizzard has provided a statement to GameSpot indicating no such deal will be made, but that the company has extended offers to those who lost jobs during the recent IPL6 cancellation.
"We typically don't comment on rumors or speculation, but we want to make an exception here because it's important to dispel any misconceptions surrounding Blizzard and the IPL," a representative from Blizzard Entertainment told GameSpot. "While we were fans of the IPL and disappointed to learn that it was coming to an end, we have no plans to take over operation of the IPL business or operate third-party eSports leagues. Our focus is on making great games and supporting our players. When it comes to eSports events, we generally prefer to work with experienced partners on the operations side while we focus on ensuring quality in terms of how our content is incorporated."
"While we were fans of the IPL and disappointed to learn that it was coming to an end, we have no plans to take over operation of the IPL business or operate third-party eSports leagues."
"That said, there were many talented and passionate gamers working for IGN/IPL whom we feel would be valuable additions to our team. We've already extended job offers to some of the employees who've been laid off, and we plan to make offers to others who may become available soon. Obviously they bring a lot of web-development knowledge and eSports expertise, which we can use to help us with our online presence and eSports-related projects. We're also looking into picking up some of the IPL technology and other assets, but again this is to support our own initiatives and does not have anything to do with any Blizzard-related continuation of the IPL."
Last month, an internal memo by Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah, posted on Polygon, said the company was looking for active buyers of IPL. "IGN's role going forward will be to broadcast and cover a variety of eSports events," Shah said.
"As stated several weeks ago, we are actively speaking with parties interested in acquiring IPL," Will Guyatt, a spokesperson for IGN, told GameSpot. "We will not comment on rumors or speculation surrounding our current activity."
Wargaming, home of the widely popular free to play game World of Tanks, and Ubisoft, home to new competitive arcade shooter Shootmania, are both said to also be interested in IPL. Wargaming recently held an event with the IGNProLeague at SXSW Interactive this past week. Representatives from Ubisoft and Wargaming were not available for comment at the time of publishing.
Electronic Arts executive producer Giordano Contestabile recently tweeted, "Assassin's Creed IV is made by 7 studios and (I hear) nearly 1,000 people. Is this new new AAA?"
Asked to comment on this figure, a Ubisoft representative told GameSpot, "Ubisoft does not traditionally comment on developer headcount."
Ubisoft employs more than 7,450 people across the world, including 6,250 dedicated to game production. If Contestabile's claim is accurate, 16 percent of all Ubisoft production talent is working on Assassin's Creed: Black Flag.
The eight studios working on Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag are the company's outfits in Montreal, Singapore, Sofia, Annecy, Kiev, Quebec, Bucharest, and Montpellier.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag launches October 29. It is in development for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PC, Wii U, and "other" next-generation platforms. For more, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.
"I'm sure there was a negotiation that went on," Tony Tamasi, Senior VP of content and technology at Nvidia told GameSpot, "and we came to the conclusion that we didn't want to do the business at the price those guys were willing to pay."
"Having been through the original Xbox and PS3, we understand the economics of [console development] and the tradeoffs."
Announced by Sony earlier this month, the upcoming PS4 is powered by rival chip-maker AMD. The company is also strongly rumoured to be behind the hardware of the next Xbox, but Nvidia does not appear to be troubled by the loss.
"We're building a whole bunch of stuff," continued Tamasi, "and we had to look at console business as an opportunity cost. If we say, did a console, what other piece of our business would we put on hold to chase after that?"
"In the end, you only have so many engineers and so much capability, and if you're going to go off and do chips for Sony or Microsoft, then that's probably a chip that you're not doing for some other portion of your business. And at least in the case of Sony and Nvidia, in terms of PS4, AMD has the business and Nvidia doesn't. We'll see how that plays out from a business perspective I guess. It's clearly not a technology thing."
The Pikachu 3DS XL system will be available at Walmart, Target, Toys R Us, and GameStop. According to Nintendo, quantities are "limited."
Nintendo yesterday lost a 3DS patent infringement lawsuit over the glasses-free technology used in the portable. The Mario maker was forced to pay former Sony inventor Seijiro Tomita $30.2 million in compensatory damages as a result.
New study from research group finds PlayStation 3 owners in US in 2012 spent majority of their time with video services, not games.
PlayStation 3 owners in 2012 spent more time with non-gaming media services than they did actually playing games, according to a new Nielsen study based on responses from more than 2,500 consumers in the United States.
The research group found that video-on-demand and streaming viewing through PS3 jumped from 15 percent to 24 percent for the year. Add to that time spent watching DVDs/Blu-rays (15 percent), watching downloaded movies/TV shows (4 percent), and all other uses (8 percent), and PS3 owners in 2012 actually spent most of their time not playing games through the console.
The study found PS3 gamers spent 28 percent of their time playing offline video games and 18 percent playing online games. Overall, PS3 owners spent 46 percent of their time in 2012 playing games and 54 percent with non-gaming media services.
Video streaming was most popular on Wii, accounting for 32 percent of time spent on the platform. Microsoft came in last for video streaming, with users spending 13 percent of their time watching on-demand content through the system. The PS3 was the only platform to see gains in video-on-demand viewing.
Overall, video-on-demand and streaming viewership across Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii stood at 22 percent, up from 19 percent a year earlier.
Xbox Live director of programming says all sign-up pages for next-generation platform are fake.
All sign-up pages claiming to offer testing access for the rumored Xbox 720 are fake, Microsoft has warned.
"Confirmed: All sign-up pages for testing the 'next Xbox' are fake," Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb said. "Do not give them your information--it's a scam."
Microsoft is believed to announce its highly rumored next-generation platform during a one-off media event in April. Rumors about the device have run rampant.
Capcom and developer Neowiz mutually agree to halt development of Mega Man MMO.
Capcom has cancelled development of MMO Mega Man Online.
The game was announced in 2010, but now it transpires that Capcom and developer Neowiz mutually agreed to halt development on Mega Man Online in November 2012.
Speaking to Korean website This Is Game (translated via Kotaku), a Neowiz spokesman explained the situation. "Both companies have continually discussed to find agreeable points on quality, development time, communication and etc. Ultimately, both companies have agreed to stop the development of Rock Man Online last early November."
The game was to be set in the distant future, long after the Mega Man and Mega Man X timelines, with copies of the series' heroes being put into mass-production to combat an invasion of robotic baddies.
Capcom cancelled both Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe in 2011, but promised at the end of 2012 that the character had plenty of life left.
"I can say with certainty that you've not seen the last of the Blue Bomber on consoles and handhelds, and, with luck, we'll be celebrating his 50th anniversary, including all of the games you're going to enjoy over the next 25 years," said Capcom senior vice president Christian Svensson at the time.
Federal jury awards former Sony veteran $30.2 million in damages; Nintendo says verdict will not impact 3DS sales.
Nintendo has been found guilty in a patent infringement lawsuit relating to the 3DS. As reported by Reuters, a federal jury Wednesday awarded former longtime Sony inventor Seijiro Tomita $30.2 million in compensatory damages. The patent in question relates to technology Tomita created for developing 3D images without the need for 3DS glasses.
During courtoom proceedings last month, Tomita's legal representation--Joe Diamant--told jurors that his client showed a prototype of his technology to seven Nintendo officials at the 2003 meeting, four of which would go on to assist in the creation of the 3DS.
Nintendo attorney Scott Lindvall argued that the suit was without merit, claiming the 3DS does not use key aspects of Tomita's patent. He further argued Tomita's 2003 meeting with Nintendo was merely one of many the Mario maker had with merchants selling 3D technology.
Tomita originally sued Nintendo in 2011. He claimed last month that he was entitled to $9.80 for every 3DS sold, meaning the $30.2 million in compensatory damages are just a fraction of what he could be been awarded. As of December 31, Nintendo has sold 29.84 million 3DS units, meaning Tomita believed he was owed $292,432,000 from the Mario maker.
Nintendo responded to the decision in a statement sent to Kotaku. It affirms the compensatory damage figure, but claims Tomita's patent "did not relate to the 3D games playable on the 3DS."
"A jury awarded $30.2 million in damages to Tomita Technologies in a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Tomita against Nintendo," a line from the statement reads. "The Tomita patent did not relate to the 3D games playable on the Nintendo 3DS. The trial was held in U.S. District Court in New York before Judge Jed Rakoff."
"Nintendo is confident that the result will be set aside. The jury's verdict will not impact Nintendo's continued sales in the United States of its highly acclaimed line of video game hardware, software and accessories, including the Nintendo 3DS," it goes on. "Nintendo has a long history of developing innovative products while respecting the intellectual property rights of others."
SimCity's 20-minute offline limit circumvented by UK modder.
A SimCity modder has found a way to partially circumvent the game's always-online requirement and allow for indefinite offline play.
Modder UKAzzer posted a YouTube video (via Reddit) with SimCity's disconnection prompts disabled, showing the game not booting him out after about 20 minutes of offline play.
The feat is achieved by using SimCity's debug mode, with UKAzzer also able to edit highways outside of the game's oft-criticised small boundaries.
"You can edit the highways ANYWHERE - even outside of your city boundary… and even if you quit the game and log back in later, it's all saved safely on the server," wrote UKAzzer.
"This shows that highway editing will be easily possible, AND that editing outside of the artificially small city boundaries should be very viable too."
Inside the SimCity files is also a way to edit the inflated "fluffed population count" statistic to show the true amount of people inside the city, another feature that has been regularly criticised by the SimCity community. "My large cities have a population of about 15k now, not 100k," wrote UKAzzer.
There are restrictions in place when using the mod, such as having no access to SimCity's regional features. Players also have to log back into EA's servers if they want to save, or launch the game.
Files in the game also suggest that the full developer build of SimCity features terraforming tools, a long-standing feature of the series removed from the 2013 version.
EA and Maxis' decision to have SimCity require an always-on Internet connection has proved highly controversial since the game's hobbled release last week, with Maxis insisting that the online requirement is to enable social play.
Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw said in an interview with Polygon that the game's always-on requirement is also there because SimCity offloads "a significant amount of the calculations to our servers so that the computations are off the local PCs and are moved into the cloud."
Meanwhile, an anonymous Maxis employee has claimed to Rock Paper Shotgun that "it wouldn't take very much engineering to give you a limited single-player game without all the nifty region stuff."
Minimal announcement confirms Sniper Elite 3 for 2014 on current and next-gen platforms.
Publisher 505 Games has announced Sniper Elite 3 for both current and next-gen platforms.
The game is expected to launch in 2014.
Last month UK developer Rebellion, who made Sniper Elite V2, was announced as one of the developers working on the PlayStation 4. 505 Games added that Sniper Elite V2 sold 1.1 million copies worldwide.
No gameplay details were divulged as part of the announcement.
A Wii U version of Sniper Elite V2 is also in the works.
Upcoming toy-based game will still launch ahead of Activision's next Skylanders.
Skylanders-like Disney Infinity will now reach store shelves in late August, a two month delay from its original June release date.
The New York Times reports that the game, which features its own line of toys it can interact with, will release in the US on August 18 and in the rest of the world on August 20.
Disney Infinity's original June release date was scheduled to coincide with upcoming Pixar flick Monsters University, but was pushed back closer towards the lucrative holiday season at the request of retailers.
Speaking of conversations with retailers, Disney Interactive co-president John Pleasants said …the [June] date became an issue in terms of them asking, …Is there a better opportunity here?…"
…We could deliver in June if we wanted to,… added Pleasants. …Will a two-month timing change help us? Sure, of course. It gives us a little more time to add bells and whistles and make sure it really sings and pops.…
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