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mobile gaming tweets

2013-06-22T00:00:00.000+12:00

Tweets about "mobile gaming"

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Xbox One proposition is wrong

2013-06-20T00:00:00.000+12:00

Xbox One and Microsoft's shocking discovery: gamers aren't data | Technology | guardian.co.uk: " . . .But let's say there has been a thudding realisation within Microsoft that the Xbox One proposition is wrong. What then? Is there a reverse gear? "This is a very difficult question," says Crossley. "For several years Microsoft has built its new business and console with this ROI plan as a way of justifying the astounding investment. What I'm saying is, the means and ends are intrinsically linked. It's not like turning off a light switch; if Xbox One scraps this policy, then there's a massive hole in its revenue projections. Then again, if it sticks with it, the outcome could be much worse.""

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Sailing in Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

2013-06-18T00:00:00.000+12:00

Here's Why Sailing Took So Damn Long in Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker: "There's a reason sailing the sea in the GameCube version of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was so slow and tedious. If the boat moved any faster, you'd sail off the edge of the ocean. Flat-Earthers smell a conspiracy! No, really, the GameCube didn't have the power necessary to render the entirety of Wind Waker's ocean all at once; it could do so only in chunks, and had to keep Link's skiff from sailing past what was in memory. As director Eiji Aonuma explains, that's not a problem with the Wii U's upgraded processing, which can load the entire ocean at once. Rather than subject players to sailing at the same snail's pace of the GameCube version, the Wind Waker HD remake will allow for faster travel."

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Amazon promotes little guys with Indie Game Store

2013-06-15T00:00:00.000+12:00

Amazon promotes the little guys with Indie Game Store | Internet & Media - CNET News: "The dedicated storefront on Amazon's Digital Video Games Store is designed to highlight games that can get lost in the din dominated by developer powerhouses. . . . Amazon today launched an Indie Games Store to address just that problem. A new category on Amazon in the Digital Video Games Store, it is designed to help indie developers get better exposure for PC, Mac, and browser-based games. For gamers, it means a new way to discover gems. The storefront has features and promotions like Indie Spotlight, which is just what it sounds like: a focus on individual developers, with Q&As and featured bios. Until July 17, players can get three preselected titles for free when they buy any indie title, and until July 23, consumers can get deals on bundles of games at a discount. May the independent game developer wallow in obscurity no more."

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NCAA case -- the right of publicity in video games

2013-06-13T00:00:00.000+12:00

Third Circuit Reverses Summary Judgment In Favor of Video Game Maker In Important Right of Publicity Case | Jackson Walker - JDSupra: "In NCAA Football, the player avatars are virtually identical to their real-life athlete counterparts, down to their physical appearance, jersey number, home town, unique playing style, even their wrist bands, visors and gloves. EA obtains no licenses from and pays no royalties to the ex- and current college players, citing the First Amendment's protection of creative expression. The players counter that inclusion of their life-like avatars adds the realism that makes EA's games so popular, and constitutes commercial exploitation of their identities without their consent...." (read more at link above)

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Razer takes portable gaming laptops to thin extremes

2013-06-11T00:00:00.000+12:00

Razer takes portable gaming laptops to thin extremes: " . . . The original Blade began a "technological shift" for Razer, Tan says. "Now, our industry-leading in-house systems engineering team has advanced our thermal solutions to the point that the 14-inch Blade is insanely powerful in an impossibly thin form factor. We see the Blade as the 'fourth gaming console,' so to speak.""

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Microsoft to invest $1 billion into Xbox One games

2013-06-08T00:00:00.000+12:00

Microsoft investing $1 billion into games on Xbox One | Joystiq: "Microsoft is investing $1 billion into games on the Xbox One, financing not only new studios but also securing exclusives for Microsoft's next-generation console. This is an unprecedented investment for Microsoft, much more than its most expensive game yet,Halo 4. Xbox One is planned to have 15 exclusives from Microsoft in its first year at retail, including eight new intellectual properties - the product of two years that has seen the formation of new studios in London, Washington and Victoria, British Columbia. Phil Harrison, former Sony exec, was brought on to oversee internal projects; Lionhead's new boss is John Needham, a guy with a heavy MMO background. Microsoft Studios boss Phil Spencer told OXM Rare is returning to one of its older franchises (Killer Instinct, anyone?) and Black Tusk Studios is hard at work on Microsoft's next big franchise. Lift London is working on smaller cloud-based games, while Microsoft Studios Osaka has a project under way - something Don Mattrick says will illustrate how Microsoft is "committed" to Japan. Finally, Press Play and Twisted Pixel are in Microsoft's bullpen, working on "weird, unique" games for Xbox Live. . . ."

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XCOM: Enemy Unknown a console experience on iPad

2013-06-06T00:00:00.000+12:00

XCOM: Enemy Unknown puts a current console experience on iPad | A+E Interactive: "When XCOM: Enemy Unknown was announced for iOS, it may have marked a turning point in gaming. It doesn’t sound like much but getting a current-gen console experience on Apple’s devices is a huge step for the medium. The move does two things: A) It validates the tablet as a gaming device that’s comparable with living room boxes out there and B) It changes the perception of mobile games. They aren’t as simple as Angry Birds or puzzle-oriented as Tetris Blitz."

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Official Call of Duty Ghosts Reveal Trailer

2013-06-04T00:00:00.000+12:00

Official Call of Duty: Ghosts Reveal Trailer - YouTube: Call of Duty: Ghosts takes the critically-acclaimed franchise into the next generation. New world. New story. New, next-gen engine.

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Steven Spielberg Working on Live-Action Halo Series for Xbox

2013-06-01T00:00:00.000+12:00

Steven Spielberg Working on Live-Action Halo Series for Xbox | Underwire | Wired.com: "Amidst all of the hullabaloo – and total gamer glee – surrounding today’s announcement of Microsoft’s new Xbox One came a special highlight for TV fans: the news that Steven Spielberg would be producing a live-action series based on the Halo game universe. Well, this is awesome news. When someone who is as much of a kid-at-heart as Spielberg is signed on to work on a show based on a videogame world, nothing but greatness can come of it. The series, which will be available on Xbox Live, will beproduced in conjunction with the game’s developer 343 Industries. . . ."

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Xbox One will not be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games

2013-05-30T00:00:00.000+12:00

Xbox One will not be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games | The Verge: " .. . . the new Xbox One console will have no backwards compatibility whatsoever. "No, there's not," said Whitten, when we posed the question. "The system is based on a different core architecture, so back-compat doesn't really work from that perspective." That means that Xbox 360 discs won't work, but also extends to Xbox Live Arcade downloadable titles. Anything that was designed for the Xbox 360 will have to be rebuilt, and it sounds like Microsoft doesn't plan to do so. . . ."

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Nintendo Wii U sales collapse ahead of Xbox launch

2013-05-28T00:00:00.000+12:00

Nintendo Wii U sales analysis: total collapse ahead of Xbox launch | BGR: "What makes the Wii U performance such a horror show is the fact that its sales tanked before the next Xbox has even debuted. After Microsoft and Sony really start slugging it out in the media spotlight with hardware comparisons, game exclusives and pricing speculation, the Wii U is going to be starved of oxygen."

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Conscious computing vs Cow Clicker

2013-05-24T00:00:00.000+12:00

Conscious computing: how to take control of your life online | Technology | The Guardian: " . . . By far the funniest, or maybe the most horrifying, illustration of this situation is Cow Clicker, a Facebook game created in 2011 by the game designer Ian Bogost as a satire of undemanding "social games" such as FarmVille – in which, as Bogost put it, "you click on a cow, and that's it". In Cow Clicker, you clicked on your cow and it mooed, and that was it: you then had to wait another six hours to click again, unless you were willing to part with real money (or virtual money, accumulated through clicking) for the right to click again immediately. Bogost's joke became a surprise hit: at its height, Cow Clicker had more than 50,000 users, some paying $20 or more for pointless "improvements" to their cow, such as making it face the opposite direction. "After a while," Bogost told a US radio interviewer, "I realised they're doing exactly what concerned me about these games" – becoming "compulsively attached". "I began to feel very disturbed about the product." Eventually, a few months after the launch, Bogost eliminated all the cows in a Rapture-like event he called the Cowpocalypse. After it, users could keep playing only by clicking on a bare patch of grass – and some actually did. Responding to a player who complained that Cow Clicker was no longer "a very fun game", Bogost replied, "It wasn't very fun before.". . ."

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Gran Turismo 6 Holiday Release on PS3

2013-05-22T00:00:00.000+12:00

Gran Turismo 6 Set for Holiday Release on PS3 | News & Opinion | PCMag.com: "Gamers, start your engines: Gran Turismo 6 is heading to the PlayStation 3 this holiday season. Sony announced the news on Wednesday during a celebration of Gran Turismo's 15 years as a top-selling video game franchise."

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Facebook Game Revenue Up as Zynga Presence Wanes

2013-05-18T00:00:00.000+12:00

Facebook Game Revenue Up, Even as Zynga Presence Wanes - John Paczkowski - Social - AllThingsD: "“Q1 represented our largest three-month quarter of games revenue to date despite a 37 percent drop in year-over-year payments volume from our largest developer,” Facebook CFO David Ebersman said during the company’s earnings call. “Our other developers increased their payments volumes by almost 60 percent, and we saw record numbers of people playing games on Facebook.”" (read more at link above)

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Electronic Arts - a Critical Quarter

2013-05-16T00:00:00.000+12:00

Why This Quarter Is Key for Electronic Arts (EA): The video game industry has struggled for a long time now, as console makers have been slow to produce new innovations and game producers have increasingly relied on sequels in established blockbuster series to produce sales . . . Still, Electronic Arts has had a particularly tough time even compared to its peers. The company was named Consumerist's Worst Company in America last month, as survey respondents cited failings in customer support and game quality as key contributors to the bad rating. . . . Moreover, the social-gaming space has been changing at a rapid pace, challenging EA's presence in it. Last month, EA said it would shut down three games it offers to Facebook users. For its part, Facebook has shifted the bulk of its attention toward mobile advertising and other revenue-enhancing initiatives, and the disappearance of its former emphasis on gaming has pushed EA and other gaming players back to their console roots to some extent. . . . (read more at link above)

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EA confirms 10 percent of staff laid off in major restructuring

2013-05-14T00:00:00.000+12:00

EA confirms 10 percent of staff laid off in major restructuring | The Verge: " . . . During the call, EA label president Frank Gibeau also spoke briefly on the company’sdisastrous launch of SimCity, in which network failures left millions of owners unable to play their new game. The franchise’s creator Will Wright might think that the launch was “inexcusable,” but Gibeau insists the company has learned from its mistakes. “This will not happen again,” he said."

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Microsoft IllumiRoom

2013-05-11T00:00:00.000+12:00

Microsoft IllumiRoom is a coffee table projector designed for the next-generation Xbox | The Verge: "When Microsoft first unveiled its IllumiRoom technology at CES, it did so in an unusual way. The software giant traditionally reveals its research projects in short, scrappy videos accompanied by research papers and a lot of technical jargon. IllumiRoom was different. The chief technology strategy officer at Microsoft, Eric Rudder, joined the Samsung keynote to showcase a video of an augmented reality projection unit designed to extend gaming onto nearby walls. The demo showed off a concept that appeared finely tuned, using what felt like a marketing video."

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Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep

2013-05-09T00:00:00.000+12:00

That Tiny Tina Borderlands 2 DLC Will Release on June 25 - Kotaku
Kotaku
Today Gearbox acknowledged the next piece of downloadable content coming to Borderlands 2 is indeed named Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep. It's coming out on June 25, either for $9.99 (aka 800 Microsoft points) or for free as part of the Season Pass ...

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Mozilla releases Firefox UE3 demo

2013-05-07T00:00:00.000+12:00

Mozilla releases Firefox UE3 demo
T3
Mozilla has released a demo of Epic Citadel for its recently announced Unreal Engine 3 Firefox port. The game was ported to Javascript using the new browser-based engine. Significantly, it was the first game to make use of the engine on the iPhone after it ...

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Game Design merit badge

2013-05-02T00:00:00.000+12:00

Girl Scouts Chapter Introduces Game Design Merit Badge - Mashable
Mashable
The Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles have introduced a Game Design merit badge to help encourage its members to get interested in a variety of science and technology fields. The L.A. Girl Scouts chapter partnered with the Women in Games International ...

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Zynga Revenues Decline

2013-04-30T00:00:00.000+12:00

Amid A Challenging Mobile Transition, Zynga’s Revenues Decline 18% To $264M | TechCrunch: "Zynga’s revenues for the first quarter of 2013 declined 18% year-over-year to $264 million as the company is in the midst of doing a big pivot onto mobile platforms. The company swung to a profit from a year ago though, with net income of $4 million. Last year, during the same quarter, Zynga earned $321 million in revenue. Analysts had estimated on average that the company would pull in $209.8 million in revenue and lose 4 cents a share. So this is an earnings beat — thanks to FarmVille 2. But shares are down 9.6 percent in after-hours trading. “2013 remains a transition year,” said CEO Mark Pincus on the earnings call. “We continue to expect non-linear, uneven results and a significant decline in second quarter bookings.” He said the company had to kill two unreleased games and that they would sunset about four others including The Ville, Empires & Allies, Zynga City on Tencent and Dream Zoo."

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Leviathan: Warships releases April 30 (video)

2013-04-27T00:00:00.000+12:00

Leviathan: Warships is a naval turn-based strategy game from Paradox Interactive, developed by Pieces Interactive and coming soon for PC, MAC, Android and iOS devices.

Grab a blanket and curl up in front of the computer for the new official Leviathan: Warships Jazzy Pre-Order Trailer. "You've earned it." Afterwards, congratulate yourself on a job well done and head over to the game page.

Leviathan: Warships releases on April 30th, for PC, MAC, Android and iOS tablets.
Preorder now: http://bitly.com/12LISlp

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Electronic Arts drops three Facebook game titles

2013-04-25T00:00:00.000+12:00

Electronic Arts drops three Facebook game titles - The Washington Post: "Electronic Arts said Monday that it will discontinue three Facebook game titles because player activity has taken a sharp dive. Three titles from EA developer Playfish — The Sims Social, SimCity Social and Pet Society — will be discontinued. EA will continue to support other, more popular titles, such as Bejeweled Blitz, Solitaire Bliz and Plants vs. Zombies adventures. . . .While companies aren’t seeing the mega-hits they once did on Facebook’s social gaming platform, that the genre itself doesn’t appear to be fading. Facebook said that gaming on its network continues to grow, saying at last month’s Game Developers Conference that it plays host to 250 million gamers each month — up, as TechCrunch noted, from 235 million in August 2012."

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An Always-Online Xbox 720

2013-04-23T00:00:00.000+12:00

The Pros and Cons of an Always-Online Xbox 720 - IGN: "A popular rumor that refuses to die purports that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 successor – a machine which, I suspect, will simply be called “Xbox” and may be revealed on May 21 – will require an always-online Internet connection. Since we heard the first rumblings of this prospect, the gaming community’s incendiary outrage has lit up message boards, IGN comments sections, and social media alike. Is this rage justified, or is it simply a knee-jerk overreaction without the benefit of key facts?" (read more at link above)

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