Worlds In Motion

The shift of the game-playing population to internet-based games is analogous to the growth of the American supermarket, according to EA's Ben Cousins. In a talk Friday at the Game Developers Conference, Cousins explained how studying the history of the American retail experience solidifies his somewhat controversial theory that quick, convenient,...

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Casual gaming portal and developer Big Fish Games announced the release of My Tribe, its second Facebook game and a port of its downloadable Mac and PC game originally released in 2008. The company says the new release is the second in a series of social game initiatives its launching in...

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Casual gaming network WildTangent announced that social game studio Playdom is incorporating its recently launched BrandBoost advertising platform into the developer's Tiki Farm Facebook title. BrandBoost enables Playdom to reward gamers with virtual items and premium content in exchange for viewing a video or a "rich media advertisement" within Tiki Farm....

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R.A. Salvatore, the popular fantasy author best-known for his Forgotten Realms novels starring Drow Elf Drizzt Do'Urden. For the past several years, he's been working with Curt Schilling's 38 Studios to produce a game codenamed Copernicus, an MMO. With the disclaimer "I'm not here to tell you how to create...

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In a lecture Thursday at GDC, Blizzard EVP of game design Rob Pardo shared Blizzard's core design concepts, offering examples of places where the World of Warcraft developer succeeded and failed in creating compelling multiplayer experiences. Pardo offered a plethora advice to the designers present, stressing that these lessons may not...

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Independent consultant and lawyer Alexander "The Mittani" Gianturco gave an impassioned talk Thursday at GDC, urging developers to examine the inherent "espionage" metagame of EVE Online and take inspiration from it for other products. "In my opinion, espionage is the ultimate in user-generated content," said Gianturco. "You don't constantly have to...

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Social advertising and analytics company Sometrics launched its first direct-to-consumer product, GameCoins.com, a community where gamers can meet friends, participate in forums, and discuss news about their favorites games and virtual worlds. The site is also an online marketplace for virtual goods and currency. Members can use the Sometrics Offer Solution...

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As part of its recent efforts to compete against rival social networks Facebook and MySpace in the thriving social games space, hi5 has announced a new Game Developer Program designed to encourage developers to release games to its platform by offering various promotion, distribution, and monetization benefits. The Game Developer Program...

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Prepaid card company InComm has acquired virtual currency provider Zeevex, a move the two firms believe will help them grow sales of prepaid digital content and speed consumer adoption of open virtual currency. Zeevex offers a platform that supports both token-based and point-based virtual currency models. It provides an open virtual...

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Level 3 Communications announced an agreement with online game developer and publisher Funcom to expand their current relationship and offer content delivery network services to more titles from Funcom's catalog. Funcom has worked with Level 3 since April 2008 to take advantage of the latter's Origin Storage, Caching, and Download services...

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"Free" has often been a dirty word to the game industry, says Playfish co-founder Kristian Segerstrale -- but it shouldn't be. "Far from being a threat to our industry, 'free' and the lowering of barriers is actually the biggest growth opportunity in our industry in the next five years," Segerstrale...

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MySpace revamped the Games section of its site to make it easier for users to discover and share games, and also revealed new application and analytics tools for developers on the MySpace platform. The new MySpace Games Gallery is designed to make it easier for users to stay up-to-date with games...

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Sony Computer Entertainment America is rolling out a new update to PlayStation Home tomorrow. The company says Home version 1.35 will bring faster load times and a new navigation interface to its console virtual world. The new interface features several categories designed to make it easier for users to find their...

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As part of a technical talk at GDC’s Social Games Summit, Amitt Mahajan, lead developer of Farmville, revealed a number of interesting statistics about the game, including current stats of 32 million players per day. Farmville, a Harvest Moon-like farming social game, is one of Facebook’s biggest success stories, earning...

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Panelists billed as the world's foremost experts on funding, buying and selling game companies have a view of gaming's future that's likely to be controversial to those working in traditional development. In a panel at GDC 2010, Northwest Ventures' Tim Chang, Trinity Ventures' Gus Tai, Pacific Crest analyst Evan Wilson and...

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