Ride dev Robomodo sucked into parallel dimension, increases staff
Tragic news today as we report that, due to the detonation of a hydrogen bomb on a weird island in 1977, Tony Hawk Ride developer Robomodo has shifted sideways into a reality running parallel to our own. We may not have all the details, but we’ve got all the evidence we need here in this Gamasutra article.
As you know, here in our reality, Tony Hawk Ride was a poorly-received, overpriced game and peripheral that moved only 114,000 units during its first month at retail. In this parallel world though, the studio calls the game “high-selling” and is looking to actually increase its staff by as much as 17 percent in the near future for upcoming projects “across all platforms.” The developer added that, at least in its dimension, its debut game is “very compelling.”
You know, maybe it’s not so tragic, after all. As near as we can tell, Robomodo and Ride may be better off in this other reality. Perhaps it’s best if we just let them be.
Ride dev Robomodo sucked into parallel dimension, increases staff originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero: March DLC
Next month’s Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero DLC should satisfy would-be rockers of all types, offering an eclectic mix of – oh, there’s totally some Flogging Molly! Sorry, we just had to get that out of our system, because St. Patrick’s Day is next month and because, man, Flogging Molly is totally awesome.
There are four distinct track packs coming next month, featuring OK Go, Blink-182, the aforementioned Molly Floggers and an ’80s track pack — because nothing says March like a dusty old denim jacket with the sleeves cut off and some Night Ranger.
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Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero: March DLC originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It’s a dim Friday for Guitar Hero Black Sabbath DLC
Were you looking forward to playing some Black Sabbath songs in Guitar Hero 5 this weekend? Of course you were — that sounds awesome. Anyway, it’s not going to happen. (And, it’s certainly not happening for you either, Band Heroes — whoever you are.)
Before the scheduled Thursday release of three tracks from Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality album, Activision announced on its Guitar Hero Facebook page that the DLC wouldn’t make its appointed release date, and added, “We hope to have the content available for download at a later date, so stay tuned!”
We were going to say, maybe the DLC was turned into steel in a great magnetic field, but, unfortunately, Iron Man isn’t one of the songs in the pack. (Although, it would appear we just said it anyway.) We’re checking in with Activision to find out what happened.
It’s a dim Friday for Guitar Hero Black Sabbath DLC originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Bakugan is bak … ugan on DS with Battle Trainer
If you’re like us, you were left with plenty of questions after Bakugan Battle Brawlers dropped on DS, questions like “Who bought that thing?”, “What’s a bakugan?” and “Shouldn’t I do some research about it in case I have to write a post about a sequel getting announced?”
We have an answer for that last question, friends, and it is “No.” Bakugan Battle Brawlers is a new game coming to the DS, and here are some words you can read about it. We’re pretty sure it’s a game.
Bakugan is bak … ugan on DS with Battle Trainer originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Regular franchise updates still risky, says investment firm [update]
![b5db8_call-of-duty-blaze-1 Regular franchise updates still risky, says investment firm [update]](http://wii.wowgoldit.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/b5db8_call-of-duty-blaze-1.jpg "Regular franchise updates still risky, says investment firm [update]")
There’s nothing quite like an investment firm’s corporate finance director to ruin your company’s carefully orchestrated release strategy. Speaking to GI.biz (account required) IBIS Capital’s Tim Merel cast some aspersions on the common industry strategy of frequently iterating on major franchises. He noted that major franchises are receiving increasing investments and producing increasing returns, but added that there is a significant risk involved. “The gaming equivalent of Eddie Murphy’s Pluto Nash ($100m cost, $4.4m revenue) is what scares the money men,” said Merel, “so the risks of launching new franchises or making a mess of existing franchises becomes enormous.”
Merel elaborated that the major fear is that the games industry will follow the Hollywood path, “with accountants and lawyers running the show” while developers are relegated to the role of “execution monkeys” — sounds like someone’s been reading Bobby Kotick’s diary. According to Merel, it makes sense to invest in major properties in the “short-to-medium term, but overdoing it could become very “risky.”
Of course, all this comes on the heels of Ubisoft announcing its plans to “come out more often” with new titles. The company even went so far as to aim for 12-18 month release schedules for its major franchise titles. Meanwhile, Activision makes no secret of its own strategy, iterating its franchises every single year (though it’s hard to argue with its success so far).
Update: Tim Merel is the corporate finance director for IBIS Capital, not an analyst as we previously wrote.
Regular franchise updates still risky, says investment firm [update] originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Luxoflux shuttered as layoffs hit Activision dev studios, publisher confirms
Reports began circulating this morning about major layoffs at a handful of Activision-owned development studios, affecting as much as half of Radical Entertainment’s staff (Prototype), an undisclosed amount of Neversoft employees (Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk), and the entirety of Luxoflux (Tranformers). An Activision rep confirmed two former studio layoffs to us this afternoon, though a representative didn’t city any official numbers — the rep also told us he could “confirm the closure of Luxoflux.”
The full, significantly more vague, company statement given out to everyone reads: “Activision Publishing continually evaluates its resources to ensure that they are properly matched against its product slate and strategic goals. In 2010, the company’s SKU count will be smaller than in 2009 driven in part, by a decrease in the number of music-based games we will be releasing. As we discussed on our earnings conference call yesterday, we are directing our resources against the largest and most profitable business segments, and as part of this initiative, we are realigning our resources to better reflect our slate and the market opportunities. At the same time, we are increasing our digital/online capabilities as we expect that digital/online will continue to become a more meaningful part of our business model in the years ahead.”
Luxoflux shuttered as layoffs hit Activision dev studios, publisher confirms originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Activision severely cutting music game releases in 2010
Activision plans to cut down on the number of Hero games in 2010. According to Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith in a conference call, the company expects the music game business to decline further as “the casual consumer proves less robust” and people are saturated enough with instrument controllers that they start buying only new discs.
“Fewer SKUs will service a broader audience,” Griffith said. “In 2009 we released 25 music SKUs, and in 2010 we plan to release less than 10.” The cuts will come in the form of PS2 versions and Band Hero bundles (leaving only standalone discs for that game), as the company focuses on Guitar Hero and DJ Hero releases in the “back half of the year.”
That 25 SKU number, by the way, is a pretty conservative estimate. We added up just each console version of Guitar Hero Metallica, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero Van Halen, Guitar Hero On Tour Modern Hits, DJ Hero, and Band Hero — not counting various instrument bundles or special editions, and not counting cell phone versions — and came up with 26. If you were to add things like the Renegade Edition of DJ Hero and add standalone disc releases to instrument bundles, that number would go up significantly.
Activision severely cutting music game releases in 2010 originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero: February DLC
Things took a step towards the alternative in last month’s Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero DLC offerings, but it seems February will see the games’ downloadable music get back on the path of straight-up rock. We’ll be seeing new (old) jams from 30 Seconds to Mars, Breaking Benjamin, Third-Eye Blind and Black Sabbath. We personally can’t wait to see Taylor Swift cover Ozzy’s part on “Sweet Leaf.”
All track packs will be available for $5.49 on PS3, 550 Wii Points or 440
on Xbox 360. In addition, all songs will be available seperately for $1.99, 200 Wii Points or 160. Head past the break for the complete list of February’s downloadable songs.
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Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero: February DLC originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Rhythm game devs: genre hasn’t peaked, user-generated content is key
In the latest issue of Edge Magazine, Harmonix head Alex Rigopulos and Neversoft project director Brian Bright both speak out regarding the current state of rhythm-music gaming. As you might imagine, neither developer thinks that the genre is flatlining. In fact, Rigopulos even believes that “future music games will exceed the sales success of the last generation.”
Surprisingly, though, while each heads up their own approach to the genre, the two seem to be in near-direct agreement on the next step for their franchises. “User-generated content will be absolutely critical to the ongoing success of the genre, I think,” Rigopulos says. Bright echoes his statement, saying, “I think user-created content is key to the evolution … if you can’t create or edit licensed music due to copyright laws, then you’re limited to pretending to play someone else’s music.”
That said, each developer differs in their definition of exactly what that “user-created content” will be. In the case of Rigopulos, he believes the Rock Band Network and its potentially “huge community of power-users — skilled music creators” will be his company’s next “defining moment.” Bright is less sure of a plan, simply stating, “I think the key is to create music, but make it compelling to create, so the game is in the creation.”
Rhythm game devs: genre hasn’t peaked, user-generated content is key originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tony Hawk: details on next Robomodo project coming soon
It looks like we’ll get to see the next Tony Hawk joint soon enough. The skateboarding legend recently tweeted that he just concluded a meeting with developer Robomodo. Tony Hawk said the project is already “much better than I expected,” though we think he may be a bit biased on the matter. He added that details would be available “soon.”
As for what it is he liked so much, all signs point to a Tony Hawk Ride sequel — the sequel that Tony himself said was already in the works during a recent interview. And should that be the case, we think Robomodo and Mr. Hawk have a lot to think about, especially if they want to avoid releasing another critical bomb.
[Via MCV]
Tony Hawk: details on next Robomodo project coming soon originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Top 10 Best Selling Games
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