Thursday, December 2, 2010
FarmVille no longer king of the Facebook hill
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
APB: Reloaded's Book-Larsson Explains Business Model For Free-To-Play Rebirth
The company acquired the intellectual property rights for APB two months after Dundee, Scotland-based Realtime Worlds announced the closure of the game, pledging to re-release it as a free-to-play, microtransactions-supported title in the first half of 2011.
Writing on the game's official blog over the weekend, Book-Larsson outlined plans to balance Free and Premium accounts in the game, with the latter paying for the former. "When you turn a game into a free-to-play game, we generally expect that there will be several times more players playing the game than during its original run," he wrote.
"This [influx] puts stress on all our systems (which in the end costs a lot of money to operate). The goal then becomes nudging the most hardcore players into 'Premium' account status, in order to help pay the bills, while also letting people lease weapons and perform micro transactions for other items."
GamerFirst intends to provide incentive for players to switch to Premium accounts by offering various benefits and perks, such as the capacity to create larger clans in the game. Additionally, the developer will encourage the upgrade via the game's customization system, which allows players to create complex bespoke objects for use in the game.
"Instead of limiting what you can customize as a free player," Book-Larsson wrote, "you will be allowed to customize almost anything, but you will not be able to store (and share) complex customizations above a certain complexity level unless you are a Premium player at the time of customization."
The developer argues that this solution will limit server stress while allowing users to create customized content during their free month of Premium membership, before continuing to use those items even after that membership has lapsed. Additionally, Book-Larsson hopes that the complexity cap will encourage creativity from the game's free-to-play members, who he expects will "squeeze the living daylights out of the Basic complexity cap."
Book-Larsson has invited comments and suggestions on the ideas from the game's fanbase, albeit with the plea that users "keep in mind during the discussion that in the end the game has to actually make money."
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WorldsInMotion/~3/DhYNGFEIR2o/apb_reloadeds_booklarsson_expl.php
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Kongregate Virtual Currency Now Purchasable With GameStop Gift Cards
Footage of Introversion's Subversion at World of Love
As Rock Paper Shotgun has so rightly reminded me, footage from the UK indie gaming conference World of Love in the summer has been emerging on the old interwebs each week, and this week's addition is very much worth watching.
Chris Delay from Introversion Software (Darwinia, Defcon, Uplink) presented a packed room with gameplay from upcoming Subversion, a procedurally-generated bank-robbing game. Apart from the place-holder graphics, many of the main ideas are shown, from working your way through security to the more finer points of money-takery.
There's a second World of Love conference coming on January 28th 2011 - check here for all the details.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndependentGaming/~3/j-hi2ogpKmc/footage_of_introversions_subve.html
Indie Games Winter Uprising Begins
The Xbox Live Indie Games Winter Uprising begins today, and to mark the occasion, the above trailer has been released, showcasing each game that will land on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel within the next week.
Apparently the first game to be released will be Epic Dungeon sometime today, a fast-paced roguelike. We'll be following along with all the releases and letting you know which ones are worth picking up.
If you want to find out more about the Indie Games Winter Uprising, make sure you listen to our podcast - we talked to the ringleader Robert Boyd and Radiangames' Luke Schneider about the whole affair.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndependentGaming/~3/WButpZ5r2_g/indie_games_winter_uprising_be.html
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Best Of GamerBytes - Ready To Make Some Crazy Money?
It's an incredibly strong line-up over the past few days, featuring games games games galore for the major console digital download systems.
The week's seen the release of Pac Man CE, Crazy Taxi, Pitfall II, Funky Lab Rat, Auditorium, Spelunker HD, Magic The Gathering, ilomilo, and more. What are you waiting for? Go play some damn games!
Store Updates
XBLA Update - Crazy Taxi, Blades Of Steel, Pitfall II And More
NA PSN Store Update - Completely Ridiculous Amount Of Games, DLC, and Deals
EU PlayStation Store Update - Pac Man CE DX, Funky Lab Rat, 40 Winks, Impossible Mission And More
NA Nintendo Update - WiiWare Demos, Tetris Party Live And More
EU Nintendo Update - Flowerworks, Need for Speed Nitro-X, DodoGo! Challenge, Frenzic, Faxanadu And More
Top Stories
In-Depth: Xbox Live Arcade Sales Analysis, October 2010
We look at the Leaderboard statistics for October to see what sold and what didn't on the Xbox Live Arcade.
Xbox Indies - Will you save the world, Commander? (Ephemere Games) (XBLIG)
A fantastic looking XBLIG Tower Defense game joins the fray.
Game Room Pack 012 Includes Sunset Riders, Twinbee, Detana TwinBee, Blades Of Steel, Pitfall II And More (XBLA)
The best Game Room update yet?
Double Fine's Stacking To Be Their Second DLC Title (XBLA / PSN)
Splinter Cell with stacking dolls.
You Can Play ilomilo Right Now (XBLA)
Go to website, get demo download!
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gamesetwatch/~3/QI7Or-N4_aE/best_of_gamerbytes_ready_to_ma.php
Phrases Overtakes FarmVille As Top Facebook App
FarmVille has held the top spot on the site since August 2009 and reached its peak of 84 million monthly active users earlier this year. Then Facebook implemented changes to its notification system in an effort to reduce spam in March, and many of its top social games have shed millions of users since.
The farming sim currently has 53.9 million monthly players and continues to lose users each week. It remains the most popular social game on Facebook, though, and it has a bigger daily active audience, 16 million, than any other app -- its closest competition is Windows Live Messenger with 9.7 million daily users.
Developed by Takeoff Monkey, Phrases enables people to post sayings, images, and quizzes from a variety of pre-generated topics on their newsfeed. It's managed to grow virally to 54.3 million monthly users by attaching links to itself on newsfeed posts, and by enabling users to create and share quizzes for others.
Phrases isn't expected to stay at the top of the social network for long, as Takeoff Monkey recently disabled the app for U.S. users without offering any explanation, and its daily active count is dropping fast, according to Inside Facebook. It could drop to #2 and even further soon if this restriction remains.
And despite this likely temporary setback, Zynga still operates five of the top seven most popular apps on Facebook: FarmVille, Texas HoldEm Poker, FrontierVille, Mafia Wars, and Cafe World. The developer is also planning its first international game launch, CityVille, with a public beta in the coming weeks.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WorldsInMotion/~3/0UBAE-WlVs4/phrases_overtakes_farmville_as.php
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