Headline RePLAY – 5.3.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: ‘notch’ slams EA for its ‘indie bundle,’ The Elder Scrolls series goes MMO and the creator of Firefall proclaims that consoles are “dead.”

Markus ‘notch’ Persson, the man behind Mojang and Minecraft, blasted EA today over its release of the ‘indie bundle’ on Steam, claiming that the publisher is “methodically destroying” gaming.

“EA releases an ‘indie bundle’? That’s not how that works, EA,” Tweeted Persson at the news. “Stop attempting to ruin everything, you bunch of cynical bastards.”

Persson went on to define what constitutes as ‘indie’ while downplaying his own studio’s status as one. “I don’t even call Mojang indie any more. Vlambeer is indie. Polytron is indie. Stephen, Ed, Terry, Derek, Tommy and Chris are indie.

“Indies are saving gaming. EA is methodically destroying it.”

|Source: Develop

Many have demanded it, and Bethesda is delivering it: The Elder Scrolls series next installment is a MMO aptly called The Elder Scrolls Online.

“It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years,” said Matt Firor, the game’s director and MMO veteran whose resume includes Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot. “The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made—and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.”

The Elder Scrolls Online is set a millennium before the events of Skyrim and players will be thrust into the machinations of the daedric prince Molag Bal as he tries to pull the world of Tamriel into his demonic realm.  

Developed by Zenimax Online Studios, The Elder Scrolls Online is scheduled for a 2013 release on PC and Macintosh.

|Source: Game Informer

If it’s not someone prophesizing the doom of handhelds, it’s someone predicting the death of video game consoles. Mark Kern, the creator of the upcoming MMO Firefall, explains why the publisher-led model is “broken” and free-to-play titles are the future of the video game industry.

“The model is transitioning away from these big boxed games where you’re pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a title, to these sorts of games that don’t count on the distributor,” Kern explained to Eurogamer.

The former World of Warcraft lead argued that free-to-play titles can risk “middle ground innovation” while AAA titles have to continually play it safe with “rehashed” gameplay when “hundreds of millions of dollars” of investment are on the line.  

“I think the model is broken,” Kern continued. “You keep making these bigger and bigger bets and what that forces you to do is play it safer and safer. And if you play it safer and safer with your gameplay, people will get tired of the crap you’re serving. When that happens, they get bored and they will leave. And you haven’t fostered any of the middle ground innovation and new ideas that you need to tap into next.

“So something has to change. Consoles, I believe, are dead.”

|Source: Eurogamer

Headline RePLAY – 2.28.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: DOOM 4 cancellation rumors strikes again, 600,000 PS Vitas are sold in the west and Justin Bieber gets sued over a Joustin’ Beaver app.

No news can be bad news in the videogame industry; it leaves openings for rumors like DOOM 4 being cancelled that sent Bethesda Softworks scrambling to respond. AllGamesBeta reported the latest rumor that DOOM 4 was cancelled, in addition to posting screenshots allegedly from the game.

“DOOM 4 isn’t cancelled,” Bethesda’s VP of PR and Marketing Pete Hines told Joystiq. “When we’re ready to talk about it and show it off, we’ll let everyone know.”

It’s not the first time that Bethesda had to fend off such rumors either, back in October the publisher had to fight back stories insisting that DOOM 4 was “indefinitely postponed.”

*Source: Joystiq

U.S. PlayStation CEO Jack Tretton got his wish two weeks ahead of schedule: 600,000 PS Vitas were sold in just one week since its launch in the west. Add in Japanese sales and worldwide sales equaled to over 1.2 million units sold!

According to Media Create sales data, PS Vita sales hit 578,812 units on February 19, which meant that around 600,000 units were sold in Latin and North America, Europe and Australia since last Wednesday.

“PS Vita was designed to deliver the ultimate portable entertainment experience,” said president and CEO of SCE Andrew House, “and we couldn't be more thrilled with the reaction we're seeing from consumers and the pace at which PS Vita is selling,”

“The market has responded and there is clear demand for a mobile device capable of providing a revolutionary combination of rich gaming and social connectivity within a real-world context.”

In order to sustain momentum, House assured that Sony is working with third-party developers and publishers closely and that there will be “something for everyone across the globe” for the remainder of 2012.

*Source: Edge

Joustin’ Beaver is innocuous as it sounds; it’s a Justin Bieber pun-inspired game developed by RC3 about a beaver superstar that “jousts” his way down a river to sign “Otter-graphs” to his fans. When I said pun-inspired, I sadly meant it.

It’s clearly a parody about the teenage superstar, but Justin Bieber’s attorneys don’t see it that way. The attorneys claim that the app infringes on the singer’s trademark and publicity rights. Bieber’s attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter that threatened legal action if the app wasn’t terminated.

RC3 countered by preemptively launching the very legal action they were threatened with: a lawsuit against the superstar for the right to release Joustin’ Beaver. The lawsuit claims that the game is a parody app, and is therefore protected by the First Amendment.

The developer wants a judge to determine that the game “doesn’t constitute misappropriation of Bieber’s name for commercial purposes and that Joustin’ Beaver is protected by the First Amendment.”

In light of the landmark 2011 Supreme Court ruling that videogames have the same free speech protection as other media (i.e. film, books, and music), this case can be an important litmus test on just how protected videogames are under the U.S. Constitution.

*Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Headline RePLAY – 1.9.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Hints of a Black Ops sequel is afoot, the legal battle for the Fallout name comes to a conclusion and thousands show interest in seeing Dark Souls for the PC.

A sequel for Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops became inevitable today after the publisher secretly acquired the domain rights to blackops2.com.

Fusible reports that the domain was registered in May 2010 shortly after Black Ops was announced and switched from Domains by Proxy to MarkMonitor, an internet brand protection company that has Activision as a client.

Treyarch, the developer behind Black Ops, has never went on record in creating a sequel but the blackops2.com domain acquisition is a strong indicator towards such a possibility.

*Source: Fusible

Bethesda Softworks and Interplay’s battle in the courts over the rights to the Fallout name finally ended today.

The suit was in regards to a Fallout MMO, which Interplay announced five years ago. Bethesda announced that as part of the settlement Interplay lost its license to develop the Fallout MMO “null and void” and “all rights granted to Interplay” to develop the MMO “revert back to Bethesda, effective immediately.”

Consequently, Interplay’s rights to sell Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics will expire in December 2013 in addition to any merchandising rights it had in association with the Fallout IP.

*Source: Joystiq

A Namco Bandai employee last week offered this quest to fans of Dark Souls: show “demand” for a PC version of the acclaimed RPG— and the fans have answered in the tens of thousands.

As of this news posting, there are over 54,000 signatures on a petition asking Namco Bandai to release Dark Souls on the PC and the numbers are still rising.

For those that would like to show support for the effort, the petition can be found here.  

*Source: Destructoid