Headline RePLAY – 8.2.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Persona 4 Arena reaches top tier in Japan, World of Warcraft continues to bleed subscribers and ArenaNet sees the end of subscription gaming.  

Knocking out popular contenders like Street Fighter IV and Tekken 6, Atlus/Arc System Works’ Persona 4 Arena soars to being the bestselling fighting game in Japan. Ever.

According to Beast Note, the console version of Persona 4 Arena moved over 138,000 units in four days since its release. In comparison, Capcom’s Street Fighter IV only sold 86,000 during its first week and Tekken 6 sold 103,000.

Interestingly, the only fighting games that beat Persona 4 Arena in the sales charts were the non-conventional Dissidia and Dissidia Duodecim titles by Square-Enix, which sold 490,000 and 286,000 units respectively.  

|Source: Beast Note via SRK

The slide of World of Warcraft subscribers continues down to 9.1 million, the latest Activision-Blizzard earnings call revealed, resulting in a loss of 1.1 million subscriptions.

Activision-Blizzard noted that most of the losses were from the East, and due to users moving to Diablo 3 or waiting until the next expansion releases. The “East” includes China, Taiwan and Korea regions.

In a span of a year and a half, the MMORPG behemoth has lost around 2.9 million subscribers.

|Source: MMO-Champion

In an era of “World of Warcraft clones” and subscription models, the original Guild Wars went against the grain and adopted a “pay to own” model, which was almost unheard of at the time. With the advent of the free-to-play renaissance, Guild Wars 2 is once more embracing a subscription-less model.

Are MMO subscription models a thing of the past?

“For all we know there is a type of game out there that will continue to benefit from a subscription model, I’ve just not heard of it,” ArenaNet global brand manager Chris Lye told Polygon. “I think any developer who is looking to do an online game and wants to retain a long tail of an online community that they’re going to continue to work with has to seriously consider is subscription the best model or has that been ridden to death?

“A lot of players are telling us ‘we don’t want to be locked into a subscription, we want an a la carte model of what we spend our money on.’”

Lye concedes that while World of Warcraft is an exception to the new rule, he asserts that even Blizzard and BioWare are closely watching the paradigm shift, especially in the light of layoffs and subscription drops.

A subscription-less model is not without disadvantages, as Lye expects the Guild Wars 2 community to be “significantly” larger than its predecessor, which consequently might be harder to police.

“Does the business model incline the community toward a certain negativity? In the case of Guild Wars 2 that’s definitely been a concern of our community team,” Lye said. “Small games with small communities are easier to control and generally they’re better behaved. And the more blockbuster your title goes, you’re more likely to bring in a lot of people you can’t always control and can’t always moderate.

“There’s a relationship between the size of communities. Does free to play naturally blow the size of your community out the door? It’s definitely a concern.”

“It’s definitely something we pay attention to,” he said. “But without having the experience of having our live community under our belt I’m hesitant to make any broad statements about that because I want to see how it goes. I can acknowledge we do expect the Guild Wars 2 community to be significantly larger than the Guild Wars community and we will make sure it stays a healthy and helpful community to anyone new to the game.”

|Source: The Verge

Headline RePLAY – 6.15.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Star Wars: The Old Republic considers free-to-play, Valve hires an economist and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is 99% done.

Signal the naysayers and I-told-you-so trolls, both BioWare and EA are orchestrating a discussion on Star Wars: The Old Republic going free-to-play; seen by many in the MMO community as a death-knell.

Speaking to GamesTM magazine, lead designer Emmanuel Lusinchi describes the challenges that BioWare faces over losing 400,000 subscribers and the competition coming from their free-to-play competitors.

“I think it’s more than the free-to-play model—it’s more that there is a lot of competitive offers,” said Lusinchi. “If it was just free-to-play games and they weren’t very good it wouldn’t even be a question but there are definitely good games out there and good games coming out, so of course all of this competition impacts your plan with what you want to do.”

When asked about SWTOR possibly switching to a F2P model, Lusinchi didn’t dismiss the idea. “The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well,” he said. “Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new models and situations. So we are looking at free-to-play but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.”

EA labels boss Frank Gibeau agreed that a shift to a F2P is not out of the realm of possibility, but flexibility and timing is key. “We’re going to be in the business from a long term standpoint so absolutely we’re going to embrace free access, free trial, ultimately some day we can move in and embrace that model, Gibeau told GamesIndustry International. “It’s all a matter of timing and thinking things through. We have a great business right now and we’re not looking to make any abrupt changes.

“The advent of free-to-play is certainly a change in the dynamic of the PC market,” Gibeau continued. “I don’t think subscriptions ever go away, but when you have an IP as broad as Star Wars, we’re definitely going to look at opportunities to grow that business and look at different ways of bringing customers in and serving them.”

|Source: GamesTM 1, 2, GamesIndustry International

Virtual economies are economies too, and what better way to solve problems with an in-game economy than an economist? Valve has recruited Professor Yanis Varoufakis to consult on the issue of “linking economies in tow virtual environments” and the “balance of payments,” comparing it to the Eurozone crisis of Germany and Greece.  

The comparison wasn’t made out of a vacuum: Professor Varoufakis was writing about the economic imbalance between Germany and Greece in a blog, which co-founder Gabe Newell had been reading, and consequently inspired him to reach out to the economist.

Professor Varoufakis isn’t a gamer, but the economist was intrigued by Newell’s proposition on virtual economies and accepted a position at Valve.   

|Source: GamesIndustry International

How close is StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm to being done? So close, I’m shocked that a release date hasn’t been announced yet!

“We’re 99% done,” lead designer Dustin Browder told Kotaku writer Jason Schreier over the phone, “but that last 1% is a bitch.”

Browder says that all the missions are playable, all the units are ready, but the 1% comes down to whether “we like it or not” and lots of “tuning and polish.”

“Like we could do a play-through next week and we’re like, ‘Wow this is really great,’” he said. “Or we could do a play-through and we still have 250 items we wanna fix. You know, historically speaking we’re doing pretty well. We’re getting there. But I don’t know for sure yet when we’ll be done.”

|Source: Kotaku

Headline RePLAY – 5.21.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Guild Wars 2 aims to set a new MMO-genre standard, Diablo III problems persist and a new Castlevania game.

Is the MMO-genre formula for success set by Blizzard’s World of Warcraft changing? ArenaNet’s global brand director thinks so, and believes that the company’s upcoming Guild Wars 2 will set a new standard in the genre.

   

“We’re finally seeing a point where companies realize that they’re not going to create the next great MMO by just copying what’s come before [World of Warcraft],” said ArenaNet’s Christopher Lye. “Honestly, I think the problem is that there’s been a lack of change in MMO design and that Guild Wars 2 is a reaction to that.”  

Guild Wars 2 deviates from the World of Warcraft blueprint with the “Dynamic Events” system to replace traditional questing, which allows the development team to “easily modify and add new content.” ArenaNet’s upcoming MMO also revamps the action-bar combat system to be more like Bluehole’s TERA MMO with action-based combat that employs active dodging.  

“People will call this risky, but we think it’s riskier just to churn out the same MMO that everyone played before,” said Lye. “People can read the words, but it’s not until someone actually plays the game that they really understand some of the fundamental changes that we’ve made to the genre.”

|Source: Gamasutra

The problems with Diablo III continues to mount up like a pile of trash loot that nobody wants, except it now comes in the form of enterprising hackers rather than server gremlins.  

Reportedly hackers have compromised many Diablo III players’ accounts and stolen in-game gold, items or even the accounts they have hijacked. It appears that the Blizzard Authenticator is ineffective at preventing these attacks, as there has been speculation that hackers are simply able to ‘jump into’ accounts—completely bypassing the Blizzard authentication process.

Blizzard has yet to comment on the issue, but has been ‘rolling back’ victimized accounts to a point prior to when the hacking took place. Any items lost to the hacking, however, will not be returned.

|Source: GamesIndustryInternational

Castlevania is making a return to handhelds via the 3DS, according to rumors by Dutch Nintendo site N1ntendo.

The new game will be called Castlevania: Mirror of Fate and it is to be revealed by Konami at this year’s E3. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow producer David Cox and writer/director Enric Alvarez are rumored to be part of the development team.   

Is this the reason why Cox Tweeted from the “land of Dracul” last month and teased his reason for being there?  

|Source: NeoGAF via Kotaku

Headline RePLAY – 5.4.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Another industry insider predicts the decline of console gaming, the first details of The Elder Scrolls Online and Shigeru Miyamoto’s opinion on the PS Vita.

Former EA executive John Schappert. joins the increasing list of industry insiders that believes that “traditional” console gaming is on its way out.  

“Traditional gaming is under a little bit of pressure,” said Schappert. “If those businesses are not ready and want to live in the traditional world, they can. It’s just there’s only going to be a few big games a year. If you’re one of those games, more power to you. If you’re not, it’s going to be tough.”

Schappert reiterates a common theme amongst critics of the publisher-led console model: skyrocketing budgets and the high cost of failure. “Big console games take years to make. They need massive budgets and you have to hope the bet you started three years ago pays out. If it doesn’t, it’s a game changer for you. And not in a good way.”

He acknowledged that there still is a market for big budget console titles, but noted that it only targets core audiences at the expense of casual players. “Traditional games have become more core. They require an expensive console, use a controller which laymen are afraid of, and their interfaces are not always the easiest to use.

“People are buying fewer games and playing them longer. A lot of players are stretched for time—they don’t have two hours, they have fifteen minutes and don’t want to spend money.”

|Source: MCV

Early details on The Elder Scrolls Online have been released, and by all accounts it sounds like it will be a traditional fantasy MMO with some differences to reflect its source material.

Here is a list of highlights based on information gathered by NeoGAF:

• A third-person perspective vs. the series’ traditional first-person.
• Combat:
• Uses a hotbar to activate skills.
• Not real-time due to latency.
• Only a limited number of skills can be used at any given time, but can be switched out.
• Stamina bar to sprint, block, interrupt and break stun effects.
• Like Guild Wars 2 abilities can be comboed together by allied players (i.e. a rogue covers the ground in oil and a mage sets it on fire)
• Graphics run on the Hero Engine, which is used by MMOs like Star Wars: The Old Republic and RIFT.  
• No player housing, NPC romances or marriage.
• Inclusion of public dungeons that can accommodate players from the entire server.
• Three factions:  
• Ebonheart Pact: The Nords, Dunmer, and Argonians.
• Aldmeri Dominion: Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajit.
• Daggerfall Covenant: Bretons, Redguard, and Orcs.  
• Three faction PvP to take over and hold the Imperial City.
• Can have up to 100 vs. 100 player battles.
• The most accomplished PvP player in the player’s faction becomes emperor when the capitol is captured.  

For more information, check out the NeoGAF forums via the source link below.

|Source: NeoGAF

Nintendo’s legendary developer, Shigeru Miyamoto, couldn’t help but jab at Sony’s PS Vita for its scarce lineup of games despite praising the handheld on its technical merits.  

“It’s obviously a high-spec machine, and you can do lots of things with it,” Miyamoto told Edge. “But I don’t really see the combination of software and hardware that really makes a very strong product.”

Miyamoto admits the Nintendo 3DS suffered at launch for similar reasons. “When we launched the 3DS hardware we didn’t have Super Mario 3D Land, we didn’t have Mario Kart 7, we didn’t have Kid Icarus: Uprising. We were striving to have all of these ready for the launch, but we weren’t able to deliver them at that time.

“We were kind of hoping that people would, nevertheless, buy into the product, find the 3DS hardware promising, but looking back we have to say we realize the key software was missing when we launched the hardware.”

After the 3DS’ unprecedented price cut last August and many game releases later, Nintendo’s new handheld has been Japan’s best-selling hardware every single week.

|Source: Edge

Headline RePLAY – 1.5.12

Today on Headline RePLAY we keep it short and simple: the PS Vita just can’t catch a break and Star Wars: The Old Republic hits the record books!

For the third straight week PS Vita’s sales declined in Japan and resulted in a lackluster 42,648 units sold.

Media Create hardware charts lists Nintendo’s 3DS at the top of sales, despite the PS Vita’s recent launch and its 324,859 first week debut.

*Source: Andriasang

Star Wars: The Old Republic was hardly out for a month and its already breaking world records. Guinness World Records recognized the BioWare MMORPG as the “Largest Entertainment Voice Over Project”.

There were over 200,000 lines of recorded dialogue that were performed by several hundred voice actors, making Star Wars: The Old Republic the largest amount of voice acting in any video game— and any entertainment medium.  

*Source: MMOSITE