A little late this week but its time for the week that was:
Lead SimCity developers leave EA and form indie studio
Former SimCity Creative Director Ocean Quigley, Gameplay
Lead Dan Moskowitz and Lead Architect Andrew Willmott have formed a new indie
studio called Jellygrade. They refer to themselves as “recovering ex-AAA game
developers.” They have begun work on a new game aimed at the iPad with a new
engine about “a simulation about the dawn of life on earth; about lave, water,
rock and the emergence of the first primordial creatures.” Not sure how I feel
about this move. iOS games are great for new studios but with the experience
these guys have I feel their talents might go to waste. On the other hand, the
new SimCity was TERRIBLE and plagued by many bugs and EA’s mighty fist ruled
over the playerbase to milk as much money as possible out of consumers. I will
keep an eye on what the guys at Jellygrade do in the future and hopefully Maxis
and EA can get their shit together with a new team to develop a new SimCity
sometime in the near future to make up for the latest disaster of an
installment in the series.
Ubisoft: “No new games unless they can be made into
franchises”
Ubisoft’s VP of sales and marketing, Tony Key, came out this
past week to say that the studio won’t give the go-ahead to any new game unless
they believe it can be built into a franchise. “There’s no more fire and forget
– it’s too expensive.” This is a double edged sword to me. On one hand, new IPs
that do get the go-ahead will be given plenty of resources to create the game and
with that comes higher quality, on the other hand this could end up in what I
call the Assassin’s Creed syndrome. That series has become stale to me, and I
really have lost interest. So while franchises are good and if you have the
right idea, you can create an amazing world, that world could grow boring by
the time game 3 and 4 hit consumers. Plus another note against franchises is
the lack of innovation and imagination. While Ubisoft’s upcoming lineup looks
great (Watch Dogs, The Division) I don’t know if I would like multiple games
from those universes.
Mad Max gameplay trailer debuts
The game set in the world based on the movie that inspired
the post-apocalyptic genre, the new Mad Max trailer showed some awesome footage
of what to expect. I got a Fallout feeling from the trailer which is great as
Fallout really was Mad Max DC. Hopefully this game fills the void that is
missing right now in the genre. Other games tried (RAGE) and failed but I am
looking forward to see what Mad Max brings to the table to push innovation.
Watch the trailer below:
Officially licensed Firefly game announced for 2014
FIREFLY ONLINE! Yes, fans rejoice, maybe if the interest is
there they can bring back the show…. Wait…. Oh no…. no no no….. “the social
online role-playing game based on the cult TV series Firefly, is currently in
development and slated to launch on iOS and Android-based smartphones and
tablets during the summer of 2014” NOOOOOO. The hopes and dreams where
astronomically high and then came crashing down in one sentence. Bad move in my
eyes, make a full fledged PC/Console game and you will have hordes of people
throwing money at you! In my eyes this a huge mistake and a missed opportunity.
Steam Summer Sale winding down
The Steam Summer Sale is almost over and it has been a blast
as always. I’m sure the encore deals will be the big ones tomorrow so look out
for those. I picked up quite a few
games and I cannot wait to get through them and do some more reviews. I
currently have started the new Tomb Raider which is fantastic so far and then I
will probably dive into some indie games like Don’t Starve, Monaco and Faster
Than Light, so be on the lookout for more content from me. Leave some comments
and tell me what you picked up!
That’s all for this week. In other news from me, I finally
got my recording software to work so I will be uploading some gameplay videos
very soon (SC2 will be my test video). Once I get settled down I will start
streaming and if I start to gain more views and an interactive community, I
will start reaching out to some industry people to get some interviews going.
Until Next Time
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