Today on Headline
RePLAY: One of BioWare’s best retires, about half of Japanese developers are returning a profit and Ubisoft’s jarring prices for Dungeon Hunter: Alliance.
Drew Karpyshyn, writer and
contributor to the first two Mass Effect
games and recently Star Wars: The Old
Republic, has retired from BioWare and is moving onto writing novels,
screenplays and other projects.
“I’m proud of
everything we [BioWare] accomplished, and I know going forward that BioWare
will continue to live up to its well deserved reputation for making the best
story driven games in the industry,” wrote Karpyshyn on his blog.
In his twelve years of
service at BioWare he wrote in the Baldur’s
Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire and of course, Mass Effect and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
As to foreshadow his novelist
aspirations, Karpyshyn also wrote the Baldur’s
Gate, Mass Effect and Star Wars: The Old Republic books.
“The Dragon Age games
and the continued success of the Mass Effect series after my departure make it
pretty clear that BioWare can get along just fine without me,” assured
Karpyshyn.
“I’ll always have fond
memories of Bioware, and a great appreciation for everything it meant to me.
But my future is wide open, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store. (Plus, now
I’ll have more time for golf.)”
*Source: Drew Karpyshyn’s Blog
A recent report is
showing that only 55% of Japanese development studios are profitable, and
nearly half of them lost money over the past two years.
The study was
conducted by Mirko Ernkvist, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg.
Ernkvist found almost half of the companies sampled in the study didn’t break-even
and the average profit margin was minus 2.6%— a loss.
The report attributed
the poor performance to declining exports both domestically and internationally,
increasing development costs and Japan’s
own economic challenges.
*Source: Develop
I heard of price
disparity but this has to be the most baffling case of it: Ubisoft’s Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is going for a
retail price of $39.99 on the PlayStation Vita.
On PSN the title is
priced at $12.99 and on iTunes it’s currently at $0.99. I had a brain aneurysm
seeing the gap for what amounts to be the same game.
According to Destructoid's Jim Sterling, the PS Vita iteration does have a “few minor
alterations” but he ultimately deemed it as an “ostensibly a big port.”
*Source: Destructoid
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