Games

Nvidia Vice President and PC Gaming Alliance Chief Technology Officer Roy Taylor thinks that video game companies are missing out on future revenue growth.

"The West needs to recognize that the free-to-play model is the future, before it's too late," Taylor said, citing the massive growth of gaming across Asia.

I wrote recently about a report stating that the PC gaming market generated $10.7 billion worldwide during 2007. Half of that came from Asia, where, according to Taylor, "the free-to-play microtransaction and ad-supported model has found huge success." But it seems that outside of … Read more

Spore isn't the only thing on Electronic Arts' mind. The company still wants Take-Two Interactive.

On Monday, CEO John Riccitiello sent an open letter to Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick saying that EA's existing offer to acquire the smaller game manufacturer for $25.74 per share would officially expire just before midnight Eastern time on Monday. It sounds like EA is simply losing patience.

"Given the passage of time, we have to validate the assumptions used in the model to support our offer price of $25.74 per share in cash," Riccitiello's letter read. "In … Read more

Electronic Arts, the world's largest video game publisher, announced Thursday that its long-awaited Spore had gone "gold."

The announcement means that the game, the latest from famous designer Will Wright, is finished and on its way to manufacturing for a September 7 release. It's a momentous step for EA given that it is probably the most anticipated video game of 2008, and one of the most important titles the company has worked on in years.

Last year, the company reorganized into four separate divisions, or labels: EA Games, EA Sports, EA Casual Entertainment, and The Sims, … Read more

His all-time favorite movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey and as a child, he aspired to be an astronaut so he can form colonies in space and help solve world overpopulation.

Now 48, Will Wright has yet to make it to the Milky Way, but he can take some pride in having created the best-selling PC game franchise of all time, The Sims. First released in 2000, the video game has sold over 100 million copies across the globe.

Developed at Maxis, which was co-founded by Wright and is now part of Electronic Arts, The Sims shot the American game designer to fame, earning him widespread recognition as one of the most important figures in the realm of video games.

Wright was in Singapore for the first time this week as part of a global promotional tour for EA's much-anticipated simulation game Spore, slated for mass release September 7.

During a game demo, he said the concept for Spore was spawned from a desire to encapsulate everything else that The Sims was unable to--leading to his initial moniker for the game, "SimsEverything."

His inspiration for the game also came from the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, an organization that aims to explore the origin of life and seek potential life-forms in the universe.

Wright explained that the fundamental concept behind entities such as SETI and the Drake Equation all seek to answer one simple question: "Is there somebody out there?" Developed by astrophysics professor Frank Drake, the Drake Equation attempts to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the galaxy.

With these in mind, Wright laid the foundation for Spore. Set in the backdrop of space galaxy, the game lets players develop civilizations and create species, allowing these creatures to evolve from a unicellular organism into intelligent social beings.

Described by Wright as a unique hybrid of single-player and massively multiplayer online games, Spore can be played as a standalone single-player game, as well as an online real-time strategy game where players can develop and share their own user-created content.

… Read more

As always, when video game industry research firm The NPD Group puts out its monthly numbers, each of the big hardware companies--Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony--find their own unique positive spin, regardless what the numbers show.

But with the July numbers, which were released Thursday, there's little question that Nintendo gets the biggest bragging rights.

That's because, according to NPD, Nintendo's DS handheld gaming machine and its Wii console far outsold any competition from Sony or Microsoft.

NPD reported that the DS sold 608,400 units in July, while the Wii moved 555,000 machines. No other gaming … Read more

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--Electronic Arts announced partnership deals with two independent games companies Thursday, including Gears of War publisher Epic Games.

The news of the two new members of the EA Partners program, which also revolved around Japan's Grasshopper Manufacture, publisher of games like No More Heroes, was part of EA's annual Studio Showcase event here.

During just over an hour of announcements and presentations, EA showed off 17 games it didn't show at E3 last month, as well as unveiled the partnerships.

Grasshopper Manufacture will create an all-new action horror game for EA. It will be … Read more

As was first reported here last month, Electronic Arts' hotly-anticipated new evolution game, Spore, was about to go "gold."

Now, EA says, the game from SimCity and The Sims designer Will Wright has indeed done so, meaning that development on it is finished, and Spore is off to manufacturing.

Now all that's left is for the Spore marketing operation to kick into high gear, getting ready for the game's September 7 launch.

It's hard to imagine that this video game, which was first announced in 2005, and which has had its ship date redefined several … Read more

After several years of waiting, video game fans will soon be able to get their hands on the long-awaited new title from legendary designer Will Wright, Spore.

But if the game's publisher, Electronic Arts, has its way, a much wider audience of fans may someday be exposed to the game. Or at least a version of the game.

That's because, according to a Reuters report Wednesday, EA is hoping that it may one day be able to license the film and/or TV rights to Spore. … Read more

The video game industry had better thank its lucky stars that hard-core gamers do what they do.

According to a report issued Monday morning by industry analyst firm, The NPD Group, the most active group of players, which it termed "extreme gamers," devote more than a full-time job's work week to their avocation. But they don't get insurance benefits for their efforts.

Rather, NPD's "Games Segmentation 2008" report explained, extreme gamers put in an average of 45 hours a week playing games, and, even better--for the video game industry's coffers--bought a whopping 24 titles in the last three months.

True, these committed gamers make up just 3 percent of the 174 million that NPD said play on PCs or Macs or dedicated video game machines. Still, that means 5.22 million people out there are putting in serious amounts of time gaming away. And if you stop and think about the dollars they're spending, if they're buying 24 games every three months, it's kind of breathtaking.

The NPD report identified seven different segments of gamers, including our extreme friends. The others include 9 percent who are "avid PC gamers," 17 percent who are console gamers, 14 percent who are online PC gamers, 15 percent who are offline PC gamers, 22 percent who are "young heavy gamers" and 20 percent who are "secondary" gamers. … Read more