DCEmu Featured News Articles

Neil Young, the CEO of iPhone developer and publisher ngmoco, has said that the revenue made from free-to-play iPhone titles can rival that made from console games if designers are able to deliver compelling enough content.

Speaking at GDC, Young said that ngmoco's own business model – which has now moved entirely to free-to-play – was developed over time following the company's launch in 2008.

To begin with the company launched two titles simultaneously – one, Mazefinger, as a free title and the other, Topple, as a paid app.

"It was very useful for us because we were able to see how a paid app performed versus a free app - a 10 times difference," the company's VP of social applications Jason Oberfest told GamesIndustry.biz. "We realised if we can figure out how to monetise that free user base that's going to be a much better business."

Thereafter, the company started to unlearn many of its previous business practices in the transition from traditional games to digital, said Young.

He noted that at the start of its life, the iPhone market was growing 400 per cent quarterly, while the numbers of games grew 1200 per cent. "I made the call it was going to get messy," he said, adding that ngmoco's first instinct to put out new apps every 1-2 months was taking its toll on the team and stunting creativity.

Deciding instead to focus on monetising the large user base its free-to-play titles had generated, the company made the decision to either adapt the current games it was making to support the freemium model, or suspend them.

"Daily active users became the basis for the whole business," said Oberfest, adding that using this model starts disconnecting the developer from chart position which, while valuable, doesn't beat having a large user base in the long term - "With a big user base you can do your own promotion," he explained.

In order to build that user base, Oberfest said the company focused on three "critical pillars" in the design of its games.

"It's not about the notification system that Apple or Facebook or anyone else offer, as much as it is about, does a game truly make you want to invite your friends to it, does it make you want to come back and does the game make you want to invest some money," he explained.

"Those are the three critical pillars of a successful free play game. We're constantly balancing those three things in our game design and using our software, which is very sophisticated in terms of the analytics it provides to make sure that any one thing that we do to optimise this cannot come at the expense of the other two."

Despite coming from an online background in business development for Facebook himself, ngmoco was still first and foremost a games maker, said Oberfest.

This opinion was backed up by Young, who says that this new business model is the most significant shift and opportunity since the start of the industry for game designers specifically.

Design is now connected to business success and has direct correlation to performance in the marketplace, he pointed out. People that can evolve to create great games, which retain users and are simple and scalable for long and short-term gameplay, will thrive.

He added that the freemium model isn't a new one as such, but more an adaptation of the model utilised by arcades in the early days of gaming.

As with the arcades, a few subsidise the many, he said – pointing out that around 2 per cent of the players of a free game will spend money within it.

Like the arcade, its the deeply engaged players that are compelled to spend the money which supports an ecosystem that a large number can participate in, he said.

Added to that is the social aspect of these games – people would put more quarters into an arcade machine if their friends were watching them, just as they're more likely to spend money on fast progression or on self-expression within an online, social game.

Other aspects to ngmoco's success included its implementation of push notifications – if someone plants some crops then, 12 hours later, they get a notification saying they've grown, they'll return to the game, said Young – and on building a big enough user base that it could offer meaningful advertising to third-parties,

The company has two new games currently being tested in Canada and due to launch worldwide imminently – GodFinger, which was developed by Wonderland Software, and We Rule, a game created by studio Newtoy in conjunction with ngmoco.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...onsoles-ngmoco ...

Joint venture with Microsoft has different uses from Apple's tablet computer, HP exec says
Apple’s iPad and the HP/Microsoft Slate are not in competition with each other, an HP exec has suggested.
Phil McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer for HP’s personal systems group, took care not to mention the rival firm by name at a press event in Barcelona today, claiming he preferred to refer to Apple as “the fruit company”.
“We never positioned the Slate against their product, the use cases are not the same, the things people do with them are not the same,” he said.
“It’s not about saying ours is a better slate than theirs, it’s about two different segments of the marketplace looking at products doing two different things.”
McKinney added that rather than competing against one another, having two tablet computers in the market was actually helpful to the vendors.


“The benefit of having both players in the market coming out with products at the same time is you’re not in the mode of having to spend a huge amount of dollars trying to educate the customer to get ready for these new categories. If we had brought the slate out two years ago when we had it done, think about what the consumer reaction would have been,” he said.
Eric Cador, senior vice president for HP’s personal systems group, made a point of showing the device at the ‘Touching the Senses’ event, saying “I just wanted to show you that it’s real, it exists.” He added that the device is on schedule to ship later this year, but did not give a more specific timeframe.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/33309...ting-with-iPad ...

Cricket, F1 and new shooter Bodycount front "next wave' of titles from Britsoft firm
Codemasters has revealed to MCV that it is working on a new cricket game, which will be released before the end of the year.
The announcement follows the recent reveals of F1 2010 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in September and brand new FPS Bodycount, which is due to hit shelves in Q1 2011.
“Following last year’s success of Ashes 2009, we are not resting on our cricketing laurels," UK general manager Jeremy Wigmore stated.
"We’ll soon be talking about the evolution of our cricket series, which will make a triumphant return later this year.
"This, added to the announcements of F1 2010 and Bodycount herald the next wave of titles created by Codemasters Studios."

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/38058/Codi...-cricket-title ...

Cricket, F1 and new shooter Bodycount front "next wave' of titles from Britsoft firm
Codemasters has revealed to MCV that it is working on a new cricket game, which will be released before the end of the year.
The announcement follows the recent reveals of F1 2010 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in September and brand new FPS Bodycount, which is due to hit shelves in Q1 2011.
“Following last year’s success of Ashes 2009, we are not resting on our cricketing laurels," UK general manager Jeremy Wigmore stated.
"We’ll soon be talking about the evolution of our cricket series, which will make a triumphant return later this year.
"This, added to the announcements of F1 2010 and Bodycount herald the next wave of titles created by Codemasters Studios."

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/38058/Codi...-cricket-title ...

With more details about the gaming aspects of Windows Phone 7 Series announced at Microsoft's MIX conference this week, Microsoft is building up a head of steam with mobile developers.
However, it seems there's one unpleasant surprise in store: multiplayer features for WinPho 7 games will be restricted to turn-based, rather than real-time.
No over-the-network deathmatching for players, in other words.

According to IGN Wireless, this is partly because Microsoft is keen to encourage developers to make games that run across mobile, Xbox 360 and PC - but mobile users may be disadvantaged in real-time games by their less predictable network quality.
The danger for Microsoft is that there are an increasing number of real-time multiplayer games available for rival platforms - particularly iPhone - which seem to work pretty well (albeit without trying to factor in consoles and PCs).
The restrictions may prevent those games coming to Windows Phone 7 Series, although this isn't to suggest that you can't do exciting stuff with turn-based games too. Witness the rise of social games...

http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/299...me-multiplayer ...

My right hand's too broken in to switch back to mousing with my left hand, but no PC gamer ever needs to know the right-handed prejudice I've suffered: Behold, the Razer DeathAdder Left Hand Edition.

http://gizmodo.com/5494667/razer-dea...se-for-lefties ...

Pogoplug, the gadget that puts a hard drive's content's online just got a new feature: sharing of media with Xbox 360 and PS3 across the local network or cloud.

http://gizmodo.com/5494642/pogoplug-...ross-the-cloud ...

Making something portable usually means stripping away the excess plastic and coming up with a streamlined beauty. Not in the world's first portable Sega Saturn's case though, which comes to us via the BenHeck.com forums.

The Saturn's been dead and gone for 11 years now, so modder Evil Nod certainly earns our kudos for turning it portable—and making me remember those brilliantly hilarious Saturn adverts from the mid-90s. If you haven't seen the delights of the Segata Sanshiro adverts on YouTube, definitely check them out.

Going back to the portable creation, it's just the full-sized console slimmed down and stuck in an ugly box, with a 7-inch LCD screen for playing NiGHTS Into Dreams and Virtua Cop. In the words of Segata Sanshiro, "you must play the Sega Saturn!"

http://gizmodo.com/5494488/portable-...-cop-on-the-go ...

Avalanche Studios has told Eurogamer that although "a lot" of Just Cause 2 DLC is planned, you will have enough on your plate wading through the extra content after the 15 to 20 hour main campaign has finished.

"Yeah, we're going to have some fun with DLC," beamed lead designer Peter Johansson, "but unfortunately I can't talk about the specifics.

"We're going to have a lot of DLC. We'll see what happens," he added with a grin. "DLC is important, but a game like Just Cause 2 can live pretty long because it's not just playing through the story and being done with it - there's the completion rating and playing with friends. That's what we do in the office!"

Johansson said his save file at the time of the interview was 60 per cent complete, a feat that had taken him 55 game hours to accomplish. Finishing the campaign, he explained, represents barely a quarter of what's on offer.

To this end, Avalanche and publisher Square Enix may produce a website to correlate user game-activity, a bit like Rockstar's Social Club for Grand Theft Auto IV.

"I'm not sure what the plans are from Square's side, but we are definitely going to do that for the game; we'll have these metrics, lots of metrics, and everything in as simple a form as we can do," said Johansson.

"In this game it's really fun to track completion rating as well, because this game is going to take people a long time to do!"

The PS3 version of Just Cause 2 allows you to record and upload videos to YouTube, and thus document your wacky stunt-filled adventure. But why did this not appear on Xbox 360?

"It was decided it was going to be an exclusive feature," said Johansson. "You know how it can be in the business."

Just Cause 2 is due for release on 26th March on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. The idea is that you, Rico Rodriguez, must bring down the ruler of Panau island by causing as much chaos with your super-powered grappling hook as possible, working for various factions in the process.

It's silly, exaggerated and fun, and Avalanche is happy about that.

"This genre is getting crowded, so you really need to find your own direction and identity. We're not taking ourselves too seriously and a lot of the ideas in Just Cause 2 started out from testing fun ideas. I guess that's down to having freedom as a developer, and that's really fun to work with," said Johansson.

"I want a grappling hook in real life," he quipped. "That would be so cool!"

That tongue-in-cheek approach is reflected in the game's name, Just Cause.

"Sometimes I get people asking me about the political stuff and is this a political statement - maybe we are naive, ha ha, but we didn't think about it like that! We're not trying to do any political statement at all. We're not trying to shove any message down anyone's throat," promised Johansson.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/ju...t-a-lot-of-dlc ...