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$345m invested in virtual worlds this year
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USD 161 million has been invested into 16 virtual worlds companies during the second quarter of 2008, brining this year's total investment up to USD 345 million, according to figures from Virtual World Management.
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- GameDev
- Weekend Reading: Tales from Journal Land
Entries from 11/13 - 11/19
Journal Land Pick of the Week
Warp Pipe to Professional Game Development - zyrolasting has a mini-article about how to properly manage your code in projects, based on answers he has been giving on the forums, repeating himself often. - The Daily GameDev.net
It's a Daily! Drew wanted me to apologize to you for his lack of a Daily yesterday. I am apologizing for me for a quick Daily today because I just got home (it's late) and I have God of War Collection and Assassin's Creed 2 in my bag and those games need playing.
The most important news of the week is that No More Heroes is coming to Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. This is the best news of the week and if you disagree you are wrong.
Speaking of things which are awesome: 3D Dot Game Heroes is also getting a US release in May 11, 2011. This is also brilliant news. 3D Dot Game Heroes is being brought to us by From Software (developer of Demon's Souls!) and Atlus (US publisher of Demon's Souls!) is aimed at making an awesome game that appeals to the inner video gaming child in all of us by emulating Zelda except awesomer.
And speaking of more things which are absolutely rad, the Playstation 3 beta of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 started today. Bad Company was pretty much one of the best multiplayer games of all time (as fellow Daily writer, Mike, and I can attest to) and it looks like DICE is just improving on it in every way possible for the sequel.
In case you were unaware or missed the Daily earlier this week, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sold a whole lot of copies. In the game's first five days of sales Activision claims that a "'new worldwide estimated five-day sell-through record' of $550 million" was reached. That's just an absurd number. Source Shacknews relays the information that Activision included in the press release at the aforementioned link. In tangentially related news, game blogger Matthew Kaplan wrote up a no doubt spoiler-laden summary of Modern Warfare 2's "No Russian" mission with contributions from around the Internet. As I indicated last week I think this is an interesting topic of discussion.
Game developer, publisher, and desktop enhancement developer Stardock released its yearly consumer report this week which has all sorts of stats on the company's consumer demographic information and digital distribution and other such numbers. This is the kind of plan a lot of publicly-held companies make for their share-holders every year but Stardock is a privately-held company and, as such, releases this information for the sake of its customers. Check it out. The statistic which saddened me is that, apparently, 96% of Stardock's customer base is male. That's just... Ugh.
Marvelous Entertainment reports better luck with games on the PSP than the Wii. The company cites poor sales for its huge critical hit Little King's Story on the Wii, which is sad, because while I haven't played the game I've heard nothing but praise (and keep meaning to pick it up). Presumably Muramasa: The Demon Blade saw similarly poor sales given the point of the article, but only the Japanese sales data was given. The company has, however, had good luck with its PSP releases due to sales and lower development costs. This is particularly fantastic because Marvelous made Half-Minute Hero which is, actually, one of my favorite games of the year. Not to keep linking my site in Dailies, but I want you to share in the glory of this super clever game. It's brilliant.
Now. Friday. Let's have some fun this weekend, shall we? I know I said this was a quick Daily (and it was, for the most part), but it ended up being long. This is because I pretty much just talked about video games. I like video games. OH I HAVE ASSASSIN'S CREED TO PLAY, HAVE A NICE WEE-- - irrKlang 1.2.0 released
irrKlang, a high level audio library for game developers has just been released in version 1.2.0, adding FLAC file support and performance improvments. irrKlang is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X and able to play back various file formats such as WAV, MP3, OGG, MOD etc, both in 2D and 3D. irrKlang is free for non-commercial use and can be used by C++ developers as well as with .NET languages like C#, VisualBasic.NET and similar. - Call for Papers: European Summit for Educators, Game Industry Executives
Named "the happiest place on Earth" by Oprah, Denmark is about to get a tad geekier :)
The first Game Education Summit Europe will take place at the Danish Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment (DADIU) on June 22-23, 2010 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Call for Papers: http://www.geseurope.com/ges-europe-2010-call-papers - The Daily GameDev.net
Modern Wealth: Modern Warfare 2 has been good for Activision, Grossing over $550million in 5 days. It's also been good for Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who's been exercising his stock options to rake in $20million on launch day and a further $17million recently. Go on, treat yourself to that new speedboat.
Modern Morefare: Hardly suprising, but after Modern Warfare 2's success, Activision are reported to have charged a third studio, working alongside Infinity Ward and Treyarch to work on another Call of Duty game. There's also rumors of a Call of Duty MMO. Hmm, ok.
Australia Game Dev Layoffs: Australia's Game Development industry has had a rough time as of late and I'm saddened to hear that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed developer Krome Studios has announced an undisclosed number of layoffs.
Europe PS3 Movie Rental: From tomorrow (Thursday) PS3 owners in Europe can access PSN's Video Store, allowing them to rent movies from e1.99 and buy from e7.99 per title. The service, which works in a similar way to XBox LIVE's video service, allows you to watch the video for 48 hours after you press play. A nice feature lets you transfer your films to your PSP for watching on the move. The services launches with around 2000 titles available
UK Temp Worker Ruling: Game studios in the UK may no longer enjoy the benefits of hiring temporary workers as the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 bill aims to grant similar rights as permanent staff to temp workers. Tiga are warning that this move could adversely affect game developers as it would reduce flexibility and ultimately competitiveness of UK studios overseas.
Un-Fun-Q3-Com: Norweigian MMO developers FunCom have announced a $9.59million loss for Q3 of 2009, blaming market conditions and releases from competitors such as Aion and Champions Online stealing people away from Age Of Conan. The company are looking to the future with the Q2 2010 release of their next MMO, The Secret World.
Square Enix announce Supreme Commander 2: Square Enix have announced Supreme Commander 2 for a spring release on the XBox 360 and PC. The game is being developed by Chris Taylor's Gas Powered Games. I'm looking forward to waging large scale war with giant robots and nuclear weapons again.
iPhone Piracy: Seems to be a regular feature in my posts, but Gamasutra have posted a feature detailing the findings of Pinch Media's Greg Yardley. In his report, he details that over 60% of iPhone applications have been pirated and fears that the figures could be even higher. I find it disturbing that even the low-cost games of the app store are subject to such systemic theft by unscrupulous pirates.
Zynga VC Funding: Social Networking games studio Zynga have seen a $15million cash injection from an unnamed venture capital source. The company has courted controvesy over the past few weeks over its in-game advertising models and allegations of hidden scams and confusing offers.
- DevMaster
- irrKlang 1.2.0 released, adds FLAC support
irrKlang, a high level audio library for game developers has just been released in version 1.2.0, adding FLAC file support and other enhancements. irrKlang is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X and able to play back various file formats such as WAV, MP3, OGG, MOD etc, both in 2D and 3D. irrKlang is free for non-commercial use and can be used by C++ developers as well as with .NET languages like C#, VisualBasic.NET and similar.
- GamasutraNews
- Modern Warfare 2 Infinity Ward's 'Most Successful PC Version' Yet
 Despite the online furor surrounding the PC version of Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, creative strategist Robert Bowling says the PC SKU is selling better than its predecessor did at launch, "making it the most successful PC version" the studio has done yet. "PC is the smallest percentage in terms of how much sold on each platform but that hardly means anything other than the PC is just the smallest market," Bowling ...
 - Offerpal Sets New Ad Standards As Facebook Bans Offer Providers
 Offerpal Media, an ad provider for social apps and games, announced a new set of standards for its controversial lead generation offers, just as Facebook bans other providers like Tatto Media for their questionable ads. The company's ads consist of special offers featured alongside free social games such as FarmVille, inviting users to fill out online surveys and sign up for subscriptions in exchange for virtual currency (as opposed to paying for the in-game currency ...
 - Class-Action Suit Filed Against Zynga, Facebook Over Offer-Based Ads
 Sacramento-based law firm Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff (KCR) filed a class-action suit against Facebook developer Zynga, seeking upwards of $5 million in damages due to allegedly misleading lead generation ads featured in the latter's games. The Cost Per Action (CPA) advertisements in question allow users to earn virtual currency for social games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars by completing surveys, taking quizzes, or signing up for trial offers. Some ads are for legit companies like ...
 - Gameloft Scales Back Android Game Development
 French mobile publisher Gameloft (Hero Of Sparta) says it's scaling back its investment in development for Google's Android platform -- and that, dissatisfied with Android's weak application store, other developers are following suit. "We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like... many others," Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said at an investor conference, as reported by Reuters. Android's app store is "not as neatly done as on the iPhone," De Rochefort ...
 - UK Gov't Intelligence Agency To Advertise On Xbox Live
 MI5 and MI6-linked UK government intelligence organization GCHQ hopes to attract new recruits by reaching out to them with an Xbox Live advertising campaign. According to a report in the UK Guardian, the organization's six-week ad campaign aims at the 18 to 34 demographic. It draws parallels between skills and experience required in gameplay -- like "quick thinking, problem solving and team work" -- and those required to work with GCHQ. Ads will run on ...
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Jason T Clark, IBM developerworks
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Jason T Clark is an author, inventor, and evangelist for emerging interactive technologies. Jason currently works for IBM Software Group on the developerWorks Advanced Design team, where he is a software developer creating enterprise web applications and Web 2.0 applications.
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E3 Media & Business Summit
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July 15, 2008 to July 17, 2008
The event will be open to ESA members and non-members alike. Companies involved in console, PC, online, and mobile game publishing and developing, as well as makers of video game hardware and peripherals will be eligible to participate. Attendance at all events, meetings, and demonstrations will be by invitation only.
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Nintendo Wii Flash Game Creator's Guide
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Whip up awesome Wii games using Flash and ActionScript. Nintendo Wii Flash Game Creator's Guide lays out each next-generation technique alongside real-world examples and cut-and-paste code samples. Learn how to design exciting Flash animations, create cool characters, simulate realistic motion, and use the Wii remote control in innovative ways. Plus, you'll get the latest tricks for supercharging your games and tips for distributing them on the Web.
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