“I think going back to the core essence, I used to be an assassin and that really reflects on what kind of games I want to make. [Laughs] I’m sorry, that’s me just being jetlagged. When you defeat an enemy, that equals death. If defeat equals death and you’re thinking about the fine line between living and dying, to express that in an action-oriented game an assassin makes it much easier to express that.”

– Grasshopper Manufacturer’s Suda51

Well, that’s certainly a Suda-like thing to say! But of course he was joking, and I’ll admit I’m not sure I follow his reasoning for using assassins over other types of characters fully, since it sounds like a non-assassin would be equally as effective in expressing the fine line between life and death… his games are great though, so I’m just going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume I’m missing something!

Via Siliconera

GBA emulator briefly available for iPhone via “Awesome Baby Names” app

Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

People like putting copyrighted material onto the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad– that’s not terribly surprising on any given day. What’s surprising about the story we have today is that our perpetrators hid the copyrighted material inside of an app that helps you generate names for your baby called “Awesome Baby Names”.

The app has since been removed, but while it was up users could pay $1.99 for it, and if they knew the secret tapping combination the emulator would boot up and give you access to many of the GBA’s best games in ROM form. Reports are that it wasn’t a very good emulator, however, citing control issues and graphical glitches all around that made it not terribly fun to play.

Via PocketGamer

EA senior producer says he “heard” that Assassin’s Creed IV is being made by “nearly 1000 people”

Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments

It is true that seven studios are contributing to the development of Black Flag, but as far as the number of specific people is concerned, Ubisoft won’t say. They’re staying silent on the issue (as they say they always have), which does poes the interesting question of how much the game will have to sell to turn a profit for Ubisoft.

Via Gamespot

Former Gamestop VP sentenced to 51 months in prison for defrauding the company of $1.7m

Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News | 0 comments

Frank Olivera used to be the VP of corporate communications and public affairs for Gamestop, but recently it was found that he had been stealing money from the company and transferring it to a fake company he had created (“Cloud Communications LLC”) before transferring it to his personal bank account. The total amount stolen added up to over $1.7 million dollars, which is, according to the courts, enough for him to be sentenced to 51 months (just over four years) in prison.

On top of that, he must return the stolen funds and an extra $134,651 in additional costs.

Via Eurogamer

ESRB changes marketing requirements, details

Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

“This policy addresses cross-marketing of games, not bundling products together. The fundamental goal is to ensure that the cross-promotion of products is appropriately targeted. In doing so we may consider a variety of factors including the nature of the product, audience composition of the media vehicle being used, the intended audience of the game, whether registered users are of a certain age, whether an age-gate is employed, etc.”

– ESRB Statement

– Publishers and developers can now create “General Audience” trailers for M-rated games that won’t require an age gate to watch
– If one of these is made, it must begin with a four-second statement reading “The content of this trailer has been approved for a general audience.” with a green background, similar to what you see in a movie theatre before previews
– M-rated games can now be marketed alongside lower-rated games, if the two games appeal to the same audience (ie. you can put a God of War pamphlet inside of the Uncharted game box)

Via GameInformer

Spin the Bottle targeted for May

Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

KnapNok plans to release Spin the Bottle on the Wii U eShop in May. No specific date, unfortunately, but it’ll be available in just a couple of months.

A new teaser for Spin the Bottle was released earlier today. Watch it here.

Source

EA snatches up “Supreme Heroes” domains

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Gaming, News | 0 comments

EA has been snatching up domains for something called “Supreme Heroes” left and right. The company now owns Supreme-Hero.com, Supreme-Hero.org, Supreme-Heroes.org, SupremeHero.org, SupremeHeroes.com, SupremeHeroes.fr, SupremeHeroes.org, SupremeHeroesRock.org, SupremeHeroesRocks.org, SupremeHeroesSuck.org, and SupremeHeroesSucks.org. Each domain was registered on March 5.

What might EA be up to here? Could Supreme Heroes be a new game?

Source

EA: It’s “really not true” that we’ll have micro-transactions in all of our games, but all our mobile games will

Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

“I made a statement in the conference along the lines of ‘we’ll have microtransactions in our games,’ and the community read that to mean all our games, and that’s really not true. All of our mobile games will have microtransactions in them, because almost all of them are going to a world where they are play-for-free.”

– EA CFO Blake Jorgensen

It’s understandable that these two statements got lumped together, but the fact that Dead Space 3 includes micro-transactions up and down would seem to indicate that– even if it’s not 100% consistent– a lot of EA’s console games will be going this route in the future. Perhaps some will be left out, but just because they’ve now clarified their position it doesn’t indicate that they won’t use micro-transactions as a primary source of income going forward.

Via Gamespot

Various WayForward employees break off to form “Yacht Club Games”

Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

The studio behind such great games as Mighty Switch Force! and A Boy and His Blob (Wii) has lost a few of its members, as a former designer and director, a lead programmer, and a gameplay programmer have all left the company to form a studio called “Yacht Club Games”. It’s unclear whether any more employees have left WayForward, or if the new studio is any larger than just the three people, but what we do know is that they’ll be making a software announcement soon.

Rumor has it that their game will be for Android, Steam, iOS, Ouya, and Google Play– so nothing you guys will be hearing about here!

Via NWR

Ubisoft responds to PETA’s criticism of whaling mechanic in Assassin’s Creed IV

Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Wii U | 0 comments

“History is our playground in Assassin’s Creed. Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is a work of fiction that depicts the real events during the golden era of pirates. We do not condone illegal whaling, just as we don’t condone a pirate lifestyle of poor hygiene, plundering, hijacking ships, and over-the legal-limit drunken debauchery.”

– Ubisoft senior PR manager Stone Chin

Eh, that’s a fair response. Hiding behind the guise of “it’s historical!” is more or less false considering that “glorification” implies you’re stretching the truth to make things seem cooler than they were, but simply stating “sorry, it’s a game, get over it” is completely fair, and I would be obliged to agree with that sentiment! They aren’t being historical, but too bad, it’s a piece of storytelling.

Via Polygon