channie's shared items in Google Reader

News: Kotick exercises stock options worth $20 million

(author unknown) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:03:43 PST

Shared by channie
C'est beau. J'en chialerai presque.

Activision CEO Robert Kotick has exercised options on just over 1.93 million shares this week, allowing him to buy them at a price of USD 1.03 and sell them at between USD 11.43-11.54 each.

The initial options, which dated from April 18, 2000, cost just under USD 2 million to purchase, while generating USD 22.2 million when sold, leaving the publishing boss USD 20,194,957 better off.

Meanwhile, one of the company's directors - Brian Kelly - also exercised options which he acquired in 2004 and 2006, costing USD 5.1 million and selling for USD 15.6 million - the balance being USD 10.5 million.

News: MW2 street date "one of the most commonly broken in history"

(author unknown) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:41:00 PST

The release date for Modern Warfare 2 has been one of the most disregarded in the history of UK games retail, according to SimplyGames MD Neil Muspratt.

Evidence suggests that many online retailers received stock of the game as early as last Wednesday and shipped it immediately, he told GamesIndustry.biz; an action which has led to hundreds of cancelled pre-orders for stores adhering to the official November 10 release date.

"So far it appears that the street date of Modern Warfare has been one of the most commonly broken in the history of UK games retailing. We only got our stock on Saturday and have had to pay for every copy to go out by courier in order that it reaches people tomorrow.

An Important Announcement

(author unknown) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:10:58 PST

Shared by channie
WTF!

About a month ago, a corporate representative sent along a message with strong interest in my blog and my services—something that had happened multiple times before, but there was never a promise of editorial integrity nor any tangible synergy between my property and their portfolio.

There was something different in this instance—it was an extremely large non-media corporation with a track record of diverse, successful and independent properties that prides foremost never talking to an audience. This was a business partnership I could actually see working, and one where I would not be constantly accused of “selling out.”

And so with that I announce I struck a deal with PepsiCo last Monday to acquire superannuation, and become a full-time employee of the company. I will be leading the editorial direction of an as-yet-untitled Mountain Dew-branded alternative gaming network slated to be launch in March, and this blog will be a core component of that new site.

If any PepsiCo brand has prided itself at never talking down to an audience, it is the Mountain Dew soft drink line—thousands of employees at PepsiCo and affiliated organizations have worked endlessly and tirelessly to ensure that no product has more of a cachet among gamers and the gaming community than Mountain Dew. The coming relaunch of Mountain Dew sans high-fructose corn syrup—which will be entirely eradicated from PepsiCo’s North American portfolio by the end of next year—will only increase that cachet.

For the coming months, superannuation will be in the same place as it always has, but thereafter it will be relaunched on the new site. I would like to emphasize that there will be no change in superannuation’s focus or goal, as my search for gaming-related information is simply insatiable, and I—or we, as there will be two more members of superannuation in time for the March relaunch—will not succumb to external pressures urging us to suppress certain stories. In PepsiCo, we have a partner fervently committed to editorial independence and intellectual content.

Thank you all for reading this blog over the last year, and I am confident this partnership will usher in a golden age that will keep you coming back for many years to come.

(We both agreed that the best reception to the news would come from me posting about it a few days before a press release was issued.)

mbismi: Official French Game Dev Barcamp project thread: http://bit.ly/2EKLP4

(author unknown) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:55:48 PST

mbismi: Official French Game Dev Barcamp project thread: http://bit.ly/2EKLP4

Level Designer Mateusz "Seir" Piaskiewicz Interview

(author unknown) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:02:31 PST

Mateusz seir Piaskiewicz is a professional level designer currently working at Techland. Techland is a game developer located in Poland. They are known for Call of Juarez series.

Unreal Developer Kit now available

(author unknown) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:23:34 PST

NVIDIA now offers the Unreal® Development Kit, a free version of the award-winning Unreal® Engine 3, the software development framework used to create computer and video games, 3D simulations, TV...

Out of Hell 2009

(author unknown) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:03:00 PST

Entering the zombie-infested city of Grinwood, over fifteen levels of singleplayer undead-slaying action stand between you and the truth behind the zombie outbreak. You might be armed with firearms and melee weapons but the zombies have numbers on their side. This singleplayer Unreal Tournament 2004 mod is amazingly developed almost single-handedly by Long Nguyen, who created 100% new assets for the mod including textures, models, animations--everything except the 27-track soundtrack by musician Justin Lassen.

Mickey Moose?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Rogers) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:17:00 PST

Mr. Boss goes international!

For those of you who missed me at GDC, I will be presenting "Everything I Learned About Level Design, I Learned From Disneyland" at the Montreal International Game Summit on November 16th in the Westmount Room at 16:00 (that's 4pm for you Americans)

Make sure you drop by and say "hi"!

News: Capcom predicts sales for Lost Planet 2 and Super Street Fighter

(author unknown) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:47:46 PST

Shared by channie
Dahahark Void à 1,3 millions ? 'sont vachement optimistes !

Capcom has released sales expectations for its biggest games of 2009 and 2010 including Lost Planet 2, which it predicts will sell 3.7 million units.

Taking into account sales across North America, Europe and Japan, the company also estimated sales of Dark Void at 1.3 million. Super Street Fighter IV, due for release in spring 2010, is expected to sell 1.1 million, and Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles on Wii 800,000 units.

The figures formed part of a first half financial report for fiscal 2010 released by the company, in which strategic goals for the second half of the year were also detailed.

Trillian for Windows 4.1 Public Beta!

smw — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:08:38 PDT

Trillian for Windows 4.1 Build 15 is now available for public beta testing. We’ve removed the authentication requirement from our download page and all interested customers are now free to participate in the beta. Trillian for Windows 4.1 features the following new improvements:

We’ve also worked on improving overall stability, fixing bugs, and reducing resource requirements whenever possible. Moving forward, we’ll be continuing to work with beta testers to resolve reported issues as we push towards a final release. Remember, 4.1 is still beta and will contain bugs and crashes. Don’t upgrade unless you’re comfortable running pre-release software! Thanks for your support and we hope you enjoy the newest Trillian.

In-Depth: Unity Launches Free Option, Announces Xbox 360 Support

(author unknown) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:29:00 PDT

The Unity engine is becoming even more affordable to independent and hobbyist developers, as Unity Technologies has retired the $200 "Unity Indie" offering and replaced it with a free license, simply called Unity. Developer Unity Technologies is keeping the full-fledged Unity Pro license priced at $1500. Alongside the new pricing shift, Unity is moving from version 2.5 to version 2.6, adding new graphics and pipeline capabilities. And Unity CEO David Helgason tells Gamasutra the company ...

Brütal Legend’s Tears Of The Hextadon DLC Launches For Free On PSN!

Jem Alexander — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:00:52 PDT

Looking for some more Brutal Legend content? You’re in luck! EA and Double Fine are announcing an upcoming DLC pack, coming soon to the PSN. Not only that, but PS3 owners will be getting some special treatment. I won’t spoil it for you — you’ll have to check out the message below.

Now that Rocktober of the year of our metal Lords 2009 is coming to a close, we at Double Fine Productions and Electronic Arts are taking the time to reflect back upon a pretty eventful year. Here are just a select few of the very many Brütal Legend highlights that have lodged into my memory banks:

1. Jack Black, Tim Schafer, and Rob Halford unveiling Brütal’s gameplay for the first time to the coalition of the willing PS3 gamers at the Spike VGAs.

2. E3 – staying up until 9am the day of the show loading builds (I may have never recovered from this all year), live Twitter chats, a banner 1/3 the size of a football field, debuting our talent trailer, the coalition of the unwilling finds its leader. Pandemonium!

3. Comic-con – the infamous Brütal Legend concert featuring 3 Inches of Blood and GWAR. Picture is pretty much self-explanatory.

4. Wherein Tim Schafer tries to solve a Rubik’s Cube in the time that it takes Emily Ridgway, Double Fine’s audio director, to recite the bands and titles of the 108 songs off of the (I would say EPIC) Brütal soundtrack.

5. Launch! Marketing and PR! Dancing monkeys! Jack Black makes the ultimate sacrifice to promote the game.

Skipping forward to the future, since I know fond memory #6 will be one of my highlights of the Brütal campaign:

6. Free DLC on PSN! The Tears of the Hextadon downloadable content pack launches on November 5 for the PS3…and did I mention it is FREE for two weeks exclusively on PSN?!

We love the PS3 and we’re excited that connected PS3 gamers across the world will able to enjoy 2 multiplayer maps, The Circle of Tears and Death’s Fjord, as well as the Blade of Ormagöden axe, courtesy of the fine folks at Double Fine, Sony, and EA.

We hope to see you online for a skirmish or two or three.

Du piratage sur iPhone

CBL — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:20:45 PDT

On connaissait les joueurs PC qui gueulent contre le prix des jeux après avoir claqué 900 euros pour se refaire une config'. On connaissait les joueurs console qui choisissent leur prochaine console e...

A Patch Of Gaming Pumpkins

(author unknown) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:57:28 PDT

Shared by channie
Pretty !

helping hand

(author unknown) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:55:13 PDT

"helping hand"

Brèves de Paddle : Martin DeFries

(author unknown) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:19:00 PDT

Martin DeFries , Directeur Général de Rising Star Games , Nerd Rage "Ici en Angleterre, {Muramasa} ne sera pas disponible dans la plupart des magasins de jeux vidéo. De toute évidence, ce n'est pas à cause de la qualité du jeu, ni à cause d'un retard ou d'un manque de sensibilisation du public par les relations publiques. C'est parce que les revendeurs deviennent de plus en plus sélectifs, et réduisent avec entrain la variété de ce qui est offert au consommateur. Si ce n'est pas un j...
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Sid Meier Announces 'Civilization Network' For Facebook

(author unknown) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:51:46 PDT

Shared by channie
Cet enculé de Sid Meier vient de me convaincre de passer plus de temps sur FB.

Sid Meier of Civilization fame said this week that he and his studio, Firaxis, are working on a project dubbed "Civilization Network," a rendition of the strategy game for Facebook, due in 2010. The announcement comes after the most recent franchise entry, Civilization Revolution, a turn-based strategy game that appeared on consoles and handhelds that streamlined the traditional PC-derived hardcore Civilization experience. "I wanted to let you know we'll soon be looking for beta testers ...

MTV Games: 'We Outsold [Guitar Hero] Two To One'

(author unknown) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:34:00 PDT

With this month's NPD figures showing that Harmonix's The Beatles: Rock Band outsold Neversoft's Guitar Hero 5, Beatles publisher MTV Games wants to set the record straight on some misconceptions about music games and the Activision/MTV battle. "We outsold them two-to-one on a revenue basis and we outperformed on a unit basis as well, despite the fact that they had an eight-day advantage, and were giving away free software," claimed MTV Games general manager Scott ...

You were so busy worrying about 1984 you didn't notice you were living Brave New World

(author unknown) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:31:24 PDT

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.” -Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 1985 (purchase)

fourzerotwo: No delay on PC for Modern Warfare 2. You'll also have Prestige Mode in PC as well as lots of Steam support. Hopefully min specs will be soon

(author unknown) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 07:02:20 PDT

fourzerotwo: No delay on PC for Modern Warfare 2. You'll also have Prestige Mode in PC as well as lots of Steam support. Hopefully min specs will be soon