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videogames
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Videogames
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videogames
Gamers annoyed at Nokia
Videogames which run on Nokia's N-Gage cell-phone gaming platform are locked to a specific phone, requiring a new purchase when the phone is replaced. Cell-phone users typically buy a new phone every 18 months. [BBC News]
Videogames which run on Nokia's N-Gage cell-phone gaming platform are locked to a specific phone, requiring a new purchase when the phone is replaced. Cell-phone users typically buy a new phone every 18 months. [BBC News]
ipo
RealNetworks to spin off its games business
RealNetworks' games business grew revenues 33 percent since the first quarter of 2007. CEO Rob Glaser thinks it could grow even faster on its own. RealNetworks announced today it plans to spin off the casual games business and "may precede the spin with an initial public offering and sale of up to 20 percent of the shares," according to a press release. RealNetworks will also buy back $50 million worth of stock.
exits
Ad sales VP leaves Yahoo for Electronic Arts
Yahoo VP Elizabeth Harz has left the company to become SVP of global ad sales at videogame publisher Electronic Arts. At Yahoo, she was most recently in charge of poring over marketing data — the kind of background that will be invaluable to EA as the company develops advertising strategies for casual games on sites like Pogo.com and mobile devices. And in the wake of Jerry Yang's announcement that the new AMP brand advertising platform will be ready to go by the third quarter, it sounds like more bad news for Yahoo. Even if the code works, you need people to bring in customers.
videogames
I would've written this earlier, but I'm about to beat Rainbow Six Vegas 2
Apparently being addicted to videogames is like being addicted to crack, with addicts going through physical withdrawal when they couldn't play. Gaming addicts have personality traits similar to people with Asperger's syndrome. So they'd do well on Wikipedia? [The Telegraph]
great moments in journalism
CNET reporter, still employed for time being, asks EA and Take-Two to stop fighting in public
Industrial-sized video game publisher Electronic Arts is in negotations to buy the only real competitor in the sports game market Take-Two Interactive. Take-Two's shareholders want more than EA is offering and may be stalling until the release of the latest Grand Theft Auto installment. The two companies have taken their negotiations public by issuing dueling press releases — and CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman is tiring of it.Get your highly-paid keisters into a meeting room. Order some takeout. Lock the doors. And work this out yourselves.With all due respect to Terdiman, Valleywag loves it when companies air their grievances in public. It's like hip-hop MCs exchanging dis rhymes, but with less rhythm and poetry! So to everyone on the EA and Take-Two negotiating teams, feel free to send us anonymous tips and call each other the dirty, backstabbing double-dealers you know you want to. (Photo by AP/Paul Sakuma)
videogames
BusinessWeek releases "Web-based" games that download to your computer
With great fanfare, BusinessWeek released a compilation of twenty "free, independently developed Web-based games" on its website today. "Casual games," free games that are easy to play and addictive (think Tetris), are big business. Nickelodeon recently announced it was developing 600 games for its websites. Why is BusinessWeek playing tastemaker in this market, though, under the guise of praising the outlandishly simplistic videogames for their "design"? More »
iphone
Jesusphone getting God game Spore
It's fitting; the Second Coming of the phone will get a game from On High. Alongside Apple's SDK demo today, Electronic Arts' Travis Boatman showed off a version of Will Wright's magnum opus Spore running on the iPhone. The release date hasn't been finalized, but the hope is it will coincide with the game's multi-platform release this September. That BART ride just got a helluva lot more interesting. More »
videogames
Search isn't working, so Diller tries another flooded market
As his search engine Ask.com inches toward irrelevance, besieged IAC CEO Barry Diller has found another crowded market to pour cash into: videogames. According to Variety, Diller plans to invest $50 million to $100 million of IAC's money on InstantAction, a new site from recently acquired IAC subsidiary GarageGames. GarageGames doesn't develop games quite so "casual" as the type Mark Pincus's Zynga produces, but the venture's product will still be Internet-based games made for those who don't want to waste time in front of a TV. Just like everyone else in the market, only a year or two later.
clips
Streeter Seidell and Jeff Rubin, editors of CollegeHumor, announce in this clip that "videogames" will henceforth be spelled as one word on the website. Why spelling matters on a postliterate collection of clips is beyond me, but I appreciate CollegeHumor's adoption of Valleywag's style on this matter. My favorite part: 1 minute, 12 seconds in, where the editors take a break, off-camera, to clean the filthy lens.
CollegeHumor adopts Valleywag style
Streeter Seidell and Jeff Rubin, editors of CollegeHumor, announce in this clip that "videogames" will henceforth be spelled as one word on the website. Why spelling matters on a postliterate collection of clips is beyond me, but I appreciate CollegeHumor's adoption of Valleywag's style on this matter. My favorite part: 1 minute, 12 seconds in, where the editors take a break, off-camera, to clean the filthy lens.
acquisitions
Electronic Arts' Take-Two takeover made simple: It's about sports and cars
Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello isn't content to sit idly by twiddling his thumbs until retirement. He'd rather spend as much as possible to keep his company relevant to the vanishing-attention-span generation of males whose spending pads his pension. They're interested in fast cars and sports — which makes Riccitiello keenly interested in EA rival Take-Two. Riccitiello has placed a $2 billion bid on Take-Two Interactive, the notorious publisher of the Grand Theft Auto series. More »
careers
Carnivores not welcome at videogames startup
A job listing sent recently to an email list: "A vegetarian-owned and managed emerging sports games startup in San Francisco is looking to hire vegetarian software development interns for summer 2008." An odd qualification, but apparently legal. A recent court case in California found that employers can discriminate against vegetarians. That would imply that a startup could equally choose not to hire omnivorous sorts. One would think that the pool of candidates who simultaneously favor sports videogames and eschew meat products would be a bit shallow. The full job listing: More »
"I forgot to mention something important earlier: I don't think Wii Fit's purpose is to make you fit." Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, on the origins of Wii Fit. Too bad it's already sold 1.2 million in Japan based on the notion that it does. The non-exercise videogame is out in the U.S. later this year. [Wii.com]
electronic arts
John Riccitiello should just get himself fired
Curious: It's in Electronics Arts CEO John Riccitiello's best interest to get the company's board replaced, or the company sold. If only he were working at Yahoo, Microsoft would have a much easier time of things. EA has penned a "Key Employee Continuity Plan," a nice little safety net for its executives. If Riccitiello is fired without cause after a change in corporate control, he would receive $2.3 million. And 18 months of health coverage. God knows insurance can be expensive. More »
clips
Wall Street Journal nerds out with LAN party video
Rupert Murdoch has clearly issued a diktat: The Wall Street Journal must now cater to the Slashdot crowd. And Andy Jordan has simperingly scampered to obey. On the front of WSJ.com's Technology section: "Andy Jordan hangs out at a LAN party, where caffeine-fueled videogamers battle till the wee hours of the morning." Jordan follows the pasty gamers to the local deli, hears from the lone Mac user who unplugs a comrade's computer after getting killed in-game, and finds out who consumes seemingly 90 percent of all energy drinks. This is the kind of high-level reporting we expect from the paper with which Murdoch hopes to beat the New York Times. Here's the video: More »
facebook
Electronic Arts wants its games on Facebook
Electronic Arts is learning to ask questions like "What is your sex song?" and "Hottie" requests. That's right, the videogames giant is leaping into the world of Facebook applications. Former EA Los Angeles general manager Neil Young is in charge of a "stealth division" believed to be EA Blueprint, which will develop and publish games to social networks. At least someone who knows what they're doing will be making games for the network. But if these rumors pan out, this at least sheds a bit more light on the threatened shutdown of Scrabulous. More »
hardware
Smaller chip mean a cheaper PS3 -- and a comeback for Sony
Gadget battles are won and lost on the price of components. In that regard, Sony has had poor luck with its latest PlayStation console. Its hulking size, exorbitant price, and dearth of interesting titles left it vulnerable to the Wii's unexpected rise. Gamers were more interested in the Wii's casual fun than the PS3's sophisticated Cell processor, especially since the available games hardly made much use of the expensive piece of gear. But the Cell is about to get cheaper. Manufacturer IBM has reduced the size of the chip to 45 nanometers, a technological leap which will at once make the processor cheaper and easier to cool, requiring a smaller case. Good news, at long last, for Sony.
virtual worlds
