Gamasutra News

Best of FingerGaming: From Rolando 2 to Doom: Resurrection

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 15:00:00 -0400

[Every week, Gamasutra sums up sister iPhone site FingerGaming's top news and reviews for Apple's nascent -- and increasingly exciting -- portable games platform, as written by editor in chief Danny Cowan and authors Louise Yang and Jonathan Glover.] This week, FingerGaming highlights notable titles like ngmoco's Rolando 2, id Software's Doom: Resurrection, and EpicTilt's TapStar. - ngmoco's Rolando 2: Quest for the Golden Orchid Debuts in App Store "Players can expect several new gameplay ...

Interview: Ubisoft's Mallat On New Toronto Studio's Future

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 13:37:00 -0400

Following Monday's press conference announcing a new Ubisoft development studio in Toronto, Gamasutra had a chance to talk to the studio's new CEO, Yannis Mallat. The unveiling of the "full development studio" in Toronto, Ontario marks the company's first development presence in the province, and is intended to create 800 new jobs in the next decade. Mallat -- who is also to continue overseeing Ubisoft Montreal -- talked to us about the big plans for ...

LucasArts Releasing Loom, The Dig, Star Wars, Indiana Jones To Steam

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 10:36:00 -0400

After years of decreasing support for its older titles, LucasArts today announced it will be releasing through Steam ten of its games across numerous genres, franchises, and developers. Included amongst the planned digital releases for July 8 are original adventure games Loom and The Dig, as well as numerous Indiana Jones and Star Wars titles. No pricing plans were included in the statement, and the Steam storefront does not yet list the games in its ...

Ubisoft Opening New Ontario, Toronto-Based Development Studio

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 10:47:00 -0400

Paris, France-headquartered Ubisoft said Monday that it is opening a new "full development studio" in Toronto, Ontario, marking the company's first development presence in the province and creating 800 new jobs in the next decade. Ubisoft called the opening "significant", as the government of Ontario is investing CAD$263 million ($226 million) over ten years. Ubisoft said its own net investment will amount to over half a billion Canadian dollars in the new studio, whose operations ...

Nielsen: Gaming Hours Spike In Midst Of Recession

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 10:26:00 -0400

The economic recession could be pushing up gaming hours, and accelerating the used games and video game rent-by-mail businesses, according to a new report from research firm Nielsen. As seen in the chart below from Nielsen's report [PDF link], average gaming hours per week in 2009 have been ahead of the comparable months in 2008. Nielsen Games' director of client consulting Michael Flamberg said, "Primarily, we believe mainstream gamers are playing more of the broadly ...

EA Titles Dominate U.K. Charts, As Fight Night Wins Again

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 07:21:00 -0400

The Xbox 360 version of EA Sports' Fight Night Round 4 topped the weekly U.K. sales charts for the second week in a row, and was one of seven EA-published SKUs to make the top 10 in the region for the week ending July 4, according to Chart-Track. The PlayStation 3 version of Fight Night Round 4 dropped one slot to number three, pushed down by Nintendo's Wii Fit, which climbed to the second slot ...

Artificial Technology Lines Up New Investors

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 07:02:00 -0400

Middleware provider Artificial Technology GmbH has attracted new investors in its recently-concluded second round of funding. The German firm, which has developed the EKI One Middleware since last year, said in a statement that Munich's Falk Strascheg Holding GmbH is now Artificial Technology's lead investor, with Clusterfonds Innovation GmbH & Co. KG also investing in the company. Existing financiers High-Tech Grunderfonds GmbH & Co. KG, Technologie Seed-Beteiligungsfonds Bayern GmbH & Co. KG, and Falk Strascheg ...

Monkey Island's Grossman: Adventure Game Puzzles Can Be 'Hard [But] Not Cruel'

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 06:44:00 -0400

Talking to Gamasutra about the new Tales Of Monkey Island franchise update, Telltale design director Dave Grossman has commented that "lack of cruelty is an important feature if adventure games are going to be palatable to large audience." The update of the classic LucasArts franchise is initially debuting for PC and WiiWare, with the PC version due out tomorrow,. Grossman, who worked on the original Secret Of Monkey Island at LucasArts in 1990, has notable ...

Report: Killzone 2, Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 Bundle Spotted

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 06:14:00 -0400

Retailer Best Buy is poised to release this coming Sunday an 80GB PlayStation 3 bundle that includes the high-profile action games Metal Gear Solid 4 from Konami and Sony's own Killzone 2 for $400, according to online reports. A photo on weblog Kotaku shows packaging (pictured) indicating that there is indeed a PS3 bundle with Killzone 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 ready to hit shelves. A media rep for Best Buy did not immediately ...

Nintendo Tops First-Half 2009 Sales In U.K.

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 06:08:00 -0400

Games published or co-published by Nintendo top the list of best-selling games in the United Kingdom for the first half of 2009, according to GfK Chart-Track. Nintendo holds six of the top ten software slots, with Wii Fit, Wii Play, and Mario Kart Wii in the first three positions, and representing sales of 1.65 million units together. Also on this list at number seven is Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training (Brain Age in North America), which ...