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by Published on October 28th, 2011 00:08- Categories:
- PC News
The proliferation of powerful and easily accessed browser-based streaming game platforms like Gaikai poses no threat to Facebook's gaming audience, the company says.
"I think the role Facebook plays in games is an entirely different one," director of platform marketing Ethan Beard told us at Facebook's f8 conference this week. "It's not just about where you play, and it's not just about the technology. For us it's the social aspect of it – the fact that you're playing games with your friends."
Recent developments in Facebook's technology are ensuring that it can be part of games anywhere on the web, not just those hosted on its site.
"People can play games in lots of different places, and it's great that they're on YouTube now, but in many ways it's a whole different category."
Gaikai recently embedded a demo of FIFA 12 on YouTube, the first time a full 3D game has been available on the video sharing site – though an Easter egg discovered last year allows viewers to playSnake. The move could have profound consequences for developers looking to reach a wide audience quickly, but Facebook engineer Simon Cross echoes Beard's sentiment, stressing the lack of social connectivity.
"There's nothing stopping people sharing URLs that contain embedded games on Facebook, if they think it's cool," he says. "But the Facebook platform has two things: sharing, the social channels that drive more people back to the game; and then the social aspect within the game that makes sure it's super-compelling.
"Unless the game was built into that platform, it won't be designed around people. And those are the games that we, as a platform, think are super-powerful."
A recent report highlighted the significant growth in social gaming outside of Facebook, while Facebook's biggest game company Zynga recently unveiled Zynga Direct, its direct-to-consumer gaming platform. But Beard isn't phased.
"We don't think of the Facebook platform as just 'Facebook dot com', in fact Facebook Connect [which Zynga Direct makes use of] has all the same technology as the web and has been available for almost three years now.
"We want to enable social games to take place wherever they make sense, and sometimes that might be on our website, it might be on partner's websites, on consoles or mobile devices. I think most companies are looking across a wide range of platforms. You need to go where users are and make it easy for them to have a great experience on any device.
"So I think lots of smart companies who have the resources will build games on all these different devices. And I believe they're all going to use Facebook to make those games social."
EA-owned Pet Society developer Playfish has seen huge successon Facebook with The Sims Social, and the company foresees a long and healthy future for the platform, but recognises a shift away from Facebook exclusivity.
"John Riccitello's recent comments on cross-platform play were interesting: you can play a game on Facebook, you can play the same game on console - you may get a richer experience, but it's still the same game," Playfish game server director Campbell Wilson tells us. "So I think in some ways there possibly is a move going outside of Facebook to play on your own devices, but a lot of the time you're still making the call back in to FaceBook at the moment.
"But the whole thing about Pet Society is that your friends are there, the amount of users using Facebook is incredible. So if you want to write any sort of social game, the first thing you want to ask is why not use Facebook."
"While it may be great to play a game like FIFA on YouTube, a game like Pet Society isn't going to work there, and a traditionalFIFA game isn't going to work if you just port it into a window on Facebook," Playfish head of multi-platform technology Dan Borthwick adds.
There may also be a shift in the types of games Facebook's audience are willing to play, as Finnish developer Supercell can attest. The studio's core-focused MMOG Gunshine.net initially launched as a browser game, but was subsequently brought to Facebook as well, and is now performing better on the Social network than in its browser iteration.
"First of all we had good experience running the game on our own side, but we wanted to experience what it would be like to take the MMOG experience to FarmVille players," former Digital Chocolate senior product manager Timur Haussila, who now holds the same role at Supercell, explains. "We started exploring the opportunity of having the same game running in two environments at the same time so that it's connected. We found that there are some technical challenges, but they can be easily tackled, so we decided to go toFacebook Canvas.
"We're talking about social games, and multiplayer games are by nature a social game. And what could be a more natural place to play that kind of game than Facebook?"
Through Open Graph and Facebook Connect, the social platform is ensuring that its connectivity is as relevant to web, PC and console ...by Published on October 27th, 2011 00:37- Categories:
- PC News
Mozilla is now distributing a version of Firefox that uses Bing as the default search provider instead of Google. Rest assured that this is a joint project, though: the creatively-named Firefox with Bing website is run by Microsoft, and both Mozilla and MS are clear that this is a joint venture. Now, don't get too excited — the default version of Firefox available from Mozilla.com is still backed by Google, and there's no mention of an alternative, Bingy download anywhere on the site — but it's worth noting that Mozilla has been testing Bing's capabilities using Test Pilot over the last couple of months, and the release of Firefox with Bing indicates that Mozilla is now confident in Bing's ability to provide a top-notch service to Firefox users. Mozilla might be readying a large-scale switch to Bing when its current contract with Google expires in November.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10...-bing-released ...by Published on October 27th, 2011 00:35- Categories:
- PC News
Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock were both unavailable for comment, but we're guessing the pair would be quite pleased to see that the tech world's Need For Speed is hardly fading. Maingear and Origin PC have both announced this week that their high-end gaming desktops are now available with Intel's Core i7 2700K -- a beast of a processor that's clocked from the factory at 3.5GHz. Maingear's shoving this guy into its SHIFT (starting at $1,985) and F131 (starting at $1,228) rigs, with factory overclocking options pushing it beyond 5GHz. Origin is hawking its Genesis desktop with a factory speed of 5.2GHz, and yes, gratis warranties are thrown in for the paranoid. Hit the links below to give your wallet the dent it's been asking for.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/26/m...into-gaming-r/ ...by Published on October 26th, 2011 23:41- Categories:
- PC News
Facebook has admitted that the company was caught off guard by its rapid rise as a gaming platform.
Speaking to us at yesterday’s f8 Facebook developer conference in London, Facebook director of platform marketing Ethan Beardsaid: “I think it’s surprised us how quickly games took off on the platform. We built something very general-purpose – we didn’t set out to build a games platform or otherwise, we just built a platform for social applications.
“I think in retrospect, it should have been obvious: games tend to lead the way on new platforms. Whether it’s PCs or phones, the games tend to be there out the front. The other one’s probably porn, but we don’t let porn on the platform!”
Speaking candidly to us about Facebook’s struggle to balance viral game marketing and social news, Beard explained that as games took hold of the wide-reaching network, a natural imbalance between the frequency of game- and real-life-related updates arose.
“Stories of the crops you’ve harvested [in FarmVille] had to compete with your sister getting married,” he explained. “I mean, your sister gets married once or twice in her life. Maybe three times [laughs]. Whereas you harvest crops all the time, every day throughout the day – those things are just miles apart in terms of how you actually surface the relevant information.
“And so we ended up in a world where people weren’t seeing their sister getting married because it was obscured by all this game stuff.”
Facebook has settled on what it sees as the right balance between the two disparate worlds, consigning game updates to the new Ticker feed and keeping users’ main feed clear for less frequent, more meaningful news. But why has it taken so long to get to this point?
“We took some relatively drastic moves to try to be like, ‘Okay, let’s at least carve these things apart,’” Beard responds, making reference to Facebook’s initial decision to entirely remove developers’ ability to post to users’ walls. “It was definitely challenging for the ecosystem for a significant period of time, but then it helped us to understand how to build a platform that has the right technology underlying it and an API that actually works well for both sorts of information.”
These game-focused changes have resulted in collateral benefits for other sectors, too, as Facebook partner engineer Simon Crossexplains.
“There are definitely some features that we built specifically for games which are available to all developers of the platform now. The Fluid Width Canvas, which allows for wider game screens, is now being used by news apps like the Washington Post Social Reader designed for Fluid Width. Same thing with Open Graph - the way we’re solving the distribution problem for games in the news feed now works for everyone, and it’s now what powers Spotify.
“We primarily built these things for games, but everyone benefits from games forging ahead.”
While the social gaming phenomenon was unlikely to have been foreseen at the time of Facebook’s inception, its unsettling of the social network’s natural order has been a wake up call to a company that now appears to better understand not only the importance of games to its users, but also to its own evolution.
Considering the 30 per cent fee that Facebook receives from every Facebook Credits transaction, together with Zynga’s upcoming IPO - expected to value the company at $20 billion – and it’s plain to see just how crucial games have now become to Facebook’s overall revenue.
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/faceboo...-new-platforms
...by Published on October 26th, 2011 23:29- Categories:
- PC News
Entertainment retailer HMV has reacted with giddy delight to the news that Grand Theft Auto V is very much in the works.
The game was revealed yesterday, with a debut trailer due next Wednesday.
"Any new launch activity involving GTA is bound to be a fantastic development that would inject huge excitement into the games market for fans, retailers and media alike – as we're already seeing,” HMV’s head of games Tim Ellis told MCV.
“Having set the bar so very high with previous releases from the franchise, the developers do face the challenge of delivering another brilliant game that's as good if not better than anything we've seen before, but given Rockstar's outstanding track record I have no doubts they'll achieve that - and we, for one, can't wait to see what they come up with."
Of course, there is one presumption here – that Grand Theft Auto V will be a boxed retail product.
Obviously the chances are very much in favour of this. Indeed, it would be staggering should Rockstar decide to abandon traditional channels with this new release. It’s a guaranteed seller.
But a year ago who would have though that the console version of Crysis would skip retail? Or the new Burnout game? Or the HD Resident Evil Remakes and CCP’s ambitious FPS Dust 514?
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/hmv-g...-market/087006
...by Published on October 26th, 2011 22:58- Categories:
- PC News
It's hard to believe that it was ten years ago today that Windows XP first hit retail shelves. It's even more astonishing when you realize that it was still the most popular operating system in the world until the beginning of this month. The sun may finally be setting on the stalwart OS that has powered countless home and business PCs (it crossed the 400 million mark way back in 2006), but it's still number two -- right behind it's youngest brother Windows 7 and well ahead of the black sheep, Vista. Sure, our relationship with Microsoft's OS has had its ups and downs, but it's clear we've developed an attachmentto the ol' bird. After all, consumer demand kept it shipping on PCs until late 2010 and Redmond has pledged to support it until April 8th of 2014. If nothing else, XP will be remembered for its incredibleresilience.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/25/w...ow-transition/ ...by Published on October 25th, 2011 22:26- Categories:
- PC News
As professional, respected, tweed-wearing writers, we here at Joystiq consider it part of our job to protect the sanctity of the written word. It's in that capacity we're staging this intervention with Funcom.
Funcom, we're sure your team was excited when you announced today that over 500,000 people have registered for The Secret World beta. But while that's a catchy name, we're just not sure you can continue to call it that with a straight face. Observe:
"I have a secret little out-of-the-way spot I like to go for lunch, it's called Hardee's."
"My secret spice? Shh, come close ... it's called salt."
"I've got a secret method for keeping my car running well: Gas."
Might we suggest "Popular World" (which unfortunately sounds a little like a Facebook game for tweens) or perhaps "Cool World" (which not unfortunately sounds exactly like Cool World)?
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/25/ov...t-worlds-beta/ ...by Published on October 25th, 2011 22:24- Categories:
- PC News
Blizzard has made the next expansion in the World of Warcraft official as Mists of Pandaria, and after conquering other planets, the Lich King, and a big bad dragon, the Horde and Alliance are headed to ... China. Well, not China per se, but Pandaria, a long-rumored, Eastern mysticism-influenced realm, where panda-based humanoids roam, brew and drink beer, and offer players the next five levels in their continuing progression.
As is often the case with this game, many players have revolted. The Pandaren have long been used as a joke in the world of Warcraft, either referred to on April Fool's Day, or showing up in the company's parodic Christmas cards. But lead quest designer Dave Kosak says players who scoff at Pandaria should think twice. "Maybe people, because they've only been portrayed as cameos or only April Fool's jokes, people think that there's nothing to this race, and that's not it at all," Kozak says to us during BlizzCon last week. "I think the Pandaren are kind of fascinating -- they work hard, they play hard, they eat hard, they drink hard, and they don't do anything half way."
The Pandaren, in addition to some of the other announced features of the new expansion, point to the next long arc of the World of Warcraft game. In the first few expansions of the title, Blizzard has cashed in on the earlier origins of the series. But with Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard seems to be setting up the world's most popular MMO for years of content to come.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/25/wo...ection-for-bl/ ...by Published on October 25th, 2011 22:20- Categories:
- PC News
The build of Diablo 3 being shown at BlizzCon 2011 last week did have a few polish updates, but generally it was the same content previously available in the beta, which we've covered thoroughly so far. Diablo 3's Technical Director Wyatt Chang agreed while chatting with me last week that the game is basically content complete, but the polish phase is far from over. "Content complete for us usually means things like voice recording, art, assets are in place, but it doesn't mean that things like the tuning, balance, and game systems are in place."
The team is still working hard on some of the core concepts, however -- one issue that's come up lately is whether players can switch skills on the fly or not. In the beta, says Cheng, "you can play with your skill window open, and you can switch skills in the middle of the fight, which has some upsides and it's very cool in one regard, but on the whole, I think it's sort of a more negative experience, and a lot of people in the community have agreed." Just recently, the team was dealing with things like "how many Pages of Training you can have in one stack," so they are starting to dive into the nitty gritty of how the game will work.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/25/di...ease-date-yet/ ...by Published on October 25th, 2011 22:15- Categories:
- PC News
“The basement. Twenty one hundred. Come alone.”
It was with those cold, steely words ringing in my ears from a mystery telephone conversation earlier that day that last night I made my way down to the Intent Media basement to meet with a highly secretive Rockstar contact.
As I closed the basement door behind I was left in complete darkness. All that alerted me to the presence of another was the sound of strained breathing, the inhalation of a cigarette, the coughing of tight lungs.
My initial questions (“Seriously, how the feck did you get in the basement? And why the feck are we meeting in the basement anyway? There’s a new Costa Coffee just around the corner?”) were met with silence.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark I could see a shadowy figure staring me down from the far side of the filing cabinet. The figure had something on their head – a mask of sorts, fashioned from a paper bag. A paper bag from Costa. He knew about the new Costa, but chose to liaise in the basement anyway. My suspicion peaked.
He wore a white, buttoned shirt, worn jeans, old and well-worn brown leather shoes and a name badge that simply said “Sam – Happy to Help”.
He beckoned my to a makeshift shelter he had fashioned out of toner cartridge boxes and sheet bubble wrap in front of the MCV archive. We sat and he began frantically sketching pictures of cities and vehicles on a limestone slate with a red stick of chalk.
The chalk snapped. He grunted – I wouldn’t call it a scream – ate the chalk, and produced a fresh, unused blue stick from his shirt breast pocket.
“A new audience,” he muttered, though at first I was unsure whether he was addressing me directly or was absentmindedly talking to himself.
“New devices, new gamers,” he said more loudly, his crazed and blood shot red eye focused squarely on me now through a hole in the bag. “It’s not about the disc, it’s not about the platform. It’s about service, IT’S ABOUT ACCESSIBILITY.”
Seemingly agitated, I took a moment to compose myself before addressing Sam.
“It’s OK,” I said calmly. “It’s OK, I won’t hurt you. I’m a friend. My name is Ben. Please Sam, tell me. Tell me why you beckoned me here on this cold and dark autumn night?”
“I don’t understand,” he said, again almost as if to himself as he began to sketch what appeared to be an Xbox 360 joypad on the rear of the limestone. “They used joypads for years. They were fine. Our controller layout for GTA IV was spot on, responsive. Easy. WE SIMULATED A WHOLE WORLD USING TEN BUTTONS, TWO STICKS AND A D-PAD. Do none of them care? Does that count for nothing?”
Sam was now rocking on the spot, fingering his beard that peeked from the bottom of the bag. I leant closer and placed a hand on his knee.
“What do you mean, Sam? What is it you want to tell me about joypads.”
“TO HELL WITH JOYPADS,” came his screamed reply, his withered and filthy hands grabbing me by either side of the face. “We don’t NEED joypads. 3DS, iOS, Kinect, Move. Exclusive for those Grand Theft Auto V will be.”
I held his stare until his grip on my face eased. Realising now what was happening, that Rockstar had chosen me and the Intent Media basement to reveal all about Grand Theft Auto V. I reached for my notepad and, without any sudden movements, began to write as quickly as I could.
“Kinect and Move will keep us in touch with our core audience, yes,” Sam continued as he started to pull roughly at his beard. “But the iOS version, yes, that’s what will bring us the mass-market. Twenty two million sales for GTA IV? That’s nothing. NOTHING. The world is ready to welcome the seven billionth member of this miserable little race, and they expect ME to be happy with twenty two million?”
At this point Sam begun to sob, assuming the foetal position.
“But mass markets? How does that tie in with a 3DS version?” I asked before I had chance to think about whether I should be provoking him or not.
“BAH!” Sam screamed before jumping to his feet, pacing back and forth across the basement.
“Reggie…” he mumbled. “Reggie. Said he’d ‘ave me if I didn’t. I had to. Didn’t want to, you understand. Got a two-man team on it. Just gonna re-size the assets of the iOS version.” A small smile and cackle emerged from his dry, cracked lips. I leapt on the chance to probe further.
“But Sam, this isn’t 2008,” I said slowly. “This is 2011. People want Call of Duty. They want CityVille. They want to play against friends on Facebook. Shouldn’t you just concentrate on your core audience?”
Sam froze where he stood. Then, with the speed of rabid cheetah, he leapt for me, grabbing my by the collar and thrusting me into the air. “FOOL!” he howled, before tossing me into the pile of old Apple keyboards and non-functioning mice.
“I’m the man who made Grand Theft Auto. GRAND THEFT AUTO!” he shouted, crouched over me as I whimpered amongst the peripherals.
“Those witless fools live to serve MY whimsy. To serve MY design. There will be DLC, you see,” he added, ...- Search DCEmu
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Catherine: Full Body’s English translation for the Vita