Archive for February, 2010

1. Activision culls up to 400 jobs

   February 15, 2010

   Activision has made a swathe of cuts across its development studios, according to the LA Times: Luxoflux, acquired by Activision in 2002, is being shut down. The studio, which employs about 56 people in Santa Monica, worked on movie-based games aimed at casual audiences such as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen NeverSoft, the developer of [...]

   Go to the post

   Posted in: Game Over Zone

   Tagged with: activision, closures, job loss tracker, layoffs, luxoflux, neverSoft, radical entertainment, red octane, redundancies

   No Comments

2. How “Don’t Be Evil” leads to Guantanamo Bay

   February 15, 2010

   Google Buzz is Google’s latest consumer misfire. In its attempt to out-Facebook Facebook and out-Twitter Twitter, the company decided that every user of Gmail really wanted to have every frequent email correspondent treated as a social networking friend. Many didn’t. Whether it was because they hadn’t given their permission, or because they didn’t want to [...]

   Go to the post

   Posted in: Featured, Opinion

   Tagged with: controversy, google, starred

   No Comments

3. GAME to lose 80 back office jobs?

   February 9, 2010

   GamesIndustry.biz reports that GAME Group is consolidating its GameStation business with the potential loss of 80 jobs. The company has been moving to combine the York-based operations of GameStation with the Basingstoke head office of GAME. According to GI.biz, “The company is to move its call centre and refurbishment facility in York to Basingstoke, with [...]

   Go to the post

   Posted in: Game Over Zone

   Tagged with: game group, gamestation, job loss tracker, layoffs, redundancies

   No Comments

4. Gamesbrief’s Weekly Tweets for 2010-02-09

   February 9, 2010

   Surprised to see Average Selling Price of an XBLA game up by 10% last year to $9.12 http://bit.ly/aEN1Aq # Just posted: Last 7 hours to bring a colleague to my self-publishing Masterclass http://tinyurl.com/yfwhwx8 # Just posted: Ngmoco: “If we can’t make a game free to play, we’re going to kill it” http://tinyurl.com/yjjko7f # @PaulFish I'm [...]

   Go to the post

   Posted in: Sandbox

   Tagged with: twitter

   1 Comment

5. Six companies make over $4 million on XBLA in 2009

   February 9, 2010

   GamesIndustry.biz reports on a FADE report estimating XBLA sales in 2009. Here’s the top 10. XBLA Estimated Top Titles by Revenue, 2009 (Average Price) Battlefield 1943 (EA Dice) – $12.5 million ($15.00) Castle Crashers (The Behemoth) – $7.3 million ($15.00) Trials HD (RedLynx, LTD) – $7.1 million ($15.00) Shadow Complex (Chair Entertainment / Epic Games) [...]

   Go to the post

   Posted in: Analysis

   Tagged with: console, microsoft, self-publishing, statistics, xbla, xbox live

   No Comments

6. Last 7 hours to bring a colleague to my self-publishing Masterclass

   February 8, 2010

   Just a brief reminder that the earlybird booking for bringing a colleague at half price to my self-publishing masterclass on 25th February in London. You can find out more at the GamesDev Masterclass website Hope to see some of you there.

   Go to the post

   Posted in: Events

   Tagged with: conferences, masterclass, self-publishing

   No Comments

7. Ngmoco: “If we can’t make a game free to play, we’re going to kill it”

   February 8, 2010

   Inside Social Games ran a big interview with Neil Young, CEO of ngMoco, last week. Two things leaped out at me. If we can’t make a game free to play, we’re going to kill it Young comes from EA, and you might think he has boxed product DNA in his blood. They’ve had more than [...]

   Go to the post

   Posted in: Analysis, Featured

   Tagged with: iphone, ngmoco, starred, statistics

   No Comments