New details and Outland screens from “World of Warcraft within Minecraft” project (exclusive interview)
A 27-year-old U.S. graduate student known as “Ramses” is creating a stir in the community of Minecraft, the sandbox-building game by Swedish development studio Mojang. Within Minecraft’s blocky world, he has spent about 100 hours so far on a re-creation of Azeroth, the enormous setting of Blizzard’s massively multiplayer game, World of Warcraft (WoW).
Minecraft generates customizable 3D worlds that are made of cubes. Because every single part of the landscape can be altered, it … Continue Reading
Activision’s Eric Hirshberg: turning games into brands and other non-douche moves (exclusive interview)
Eric Hirshberg was an experiment when Activision Blizzard‘s chief executive hired Hirshberg as CEO of the Activision Publishing division about 18 months ago. Hirshberg was an art school graduate who rose through the ranks of the creative side of advertising and eventually became CEO of billion-dollar ad agency Deutsch LA. Most video game CEOs rise through the ranks of finance or game development. But Hirshberg was a lot more comfortable with a paint brush in … Continue Reading
Call of Duty Elite: It’s not a douche move — Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg
Eric Hirshberg, chief executive of Activision Publishing, talked about the role that creative people should play in making decisions about running a video game business. Too often, he said, creative people leave it to the business experts. But creative people shouldn’t sell themselves short, as Hirshberg learned in the last 18 months running the division that includes Call of Duty franchise.
With the launch of the latest Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Activision Blizzard … Continue Reading
Activision Blizzard earnings: Diablo III to debut in Q2, 2012
During Activision Blizzard’s earnings call to analysts today, the publisher revealed that the long-awaited action-role-playing game Diablo 3 will be coming out the second quarter of this year.
(That puts the release date sometime within April to June, for those of you who are counting down the minutes.)… Continue Reading
Activision Blizzard earnings: Call of Duty Elite snares 7M subscribers
Activision Blizzard reported today that its new Call of Duty Elite social network service for hardcore gamers has signed up 7 million subscribers since going live in November.
That includes both free and paid memberships, and it represents a sizable chunk of the overall numbers of consumers who bought the game. About 1.5 million of those users have chosen to pay $4.99 a month for the privilege of getting the latest content for titles such … Continue Reading
Activision Blizzard earnings: World of Warcraft resists the assault from EA’s Star Wars
Activision Blizzard has beaten earnings expectations for its third fiscal quarter, which ended Dec. 31, and its major cash cow is still holding up. World of Warcraft didn’t suffer after Electronic Arts launched its massively multiplayer online game Star Wars: The Old Republic. World of Warcraft ended the year with 10.2 million paying subscribers, down only slightly from 10.3 million in the previous quarter.
Bobby Kotick, chief executive of Activision Blizzard, said in an analyst … Continue Reading
Star Wars: The Old Republic isn’t hurting World of Warcraft as much as you may think
To what extent has Electronic Arts’ Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) been keeping users away from Activision Blizzard’s cash cow World of Warcraft (WoW)? Surprisingly little, according to traffic reports from leading independent community websites for both online games.
The high-risk, high-reward market of subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) has become more competitive since Electronic Arts bet the farm on SWTOR, which took six years to develop and allegedly cost about $200 … Continue Reading
Review: How Final Fantasy XIII-2 saves the franchise…for now
2010’s Final Fantasy XIII may have sold well enough, but the perplexingly bad design decisions quickly made the title a bitter disappointment for many fans. Coupled with the disastrous launch of Final Fantasy XIV, and even publisher/developer Square Enix admitted that its legendary role-playing brand had been severely damaged.
Rather than develop an entirely new game that would typically release in 5-6 years, Square Enix sought to make use of their existing engine and team … Continue Reading
GamesBeat weekly news roundup
You may not have noticed, but we’re now publishing a lot of game stories exclusively on the GamesBeat section of our site these days. These are stories that we feel are less geared to the general readership but will especially appeal to gamers and readers involved in the game industry. If you’ve missed any of those stories, our weekly roundup will point them out for you. And please visit the GamesBeat section to catch up … Continue Reading
Activision Blizzard to fix Modern Warfare 3 map access from multiple Xbox Live profiles
Lots of players are enjoying the release of two new multiplayer maps for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Call of Duty Elite premium paid members get early access to those maps.
But some players ran into a problem. When they tried to access the maps from multiple family member profiles — even after they paid for the Call of Duty Elite subscription and for Xbox Live Gold family members — they found they were … Continue Reading
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 gets fixes, improvements, and Akimbo nerfs
Hot on the heels of the first set of new maps and downloadable content schedule, Activision has updated Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 with the eighth title update. TU8 makes a number of fixes and improvements to the game, including a major speed increase for users uploading their recorded videos to YouTube.
The update is already live on Xbox Live and is in certification for the PlayStation 3, meaning it should be live across … Continue Reading
Modern Warfare 3 DLC schedule revealed: 12 maps, 6 missions, 2 game modes
Activision has outlined its downloadable content (DLC) schedule for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 during 2012. There are 20 pieces of DLC due in total, which will be made available to Elite Premium subscribers over a nine month ‘content season’.
The DLC is key to Activision Blizzard’s ability to charge a monthly fee for its new Call of Duty Elite service. Premium members who pay $4.99 a month can get the “content drops” for … Continue Reading
First downloadable Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer maps unleashed (hands-on)
I just downloaded and played the new multiplayer maps for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Since the game is the best-selling title of all time, you can bet that millions of other premium Call of Duty Elite members will do the same.
Such downloadable content (DLC) is becoming more and more popular, and the release of Call of Duty content is so big that it probably generates as much revenue (in the past, map … Continue Reading
Arrest fallout: Kim Dotcom drops to No. 2 rank in Modern Warfare 3
Getting arrested for the illegal downloading of copyrighted material hasn’t done wonders for Kim Dotcom, also known as MEGARACER, who is now the former No. 1 player in the world for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. In the past day, MEGARACER slipped from No. 1 to No. 2 when he was overtaken by a player named Arazos. Mr. Dotcom undoubtedly has more pressing things on his mind.
As we noted in a popular story … Continue Reading
The world’s most wanted alleged pirate was also the No. 1 multiplayer player for Modern Warfare 3
Not only was Kim Dotcom on the top of the list of the FBI’s list of alleged digital content pirates, he was also apparently known as MEGARACER, the No. 1 player worldwide in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer.
A few weeks ago, Dotcom, who was born Kim Schmitz, posted a video that showed him taking the No. 1 position in Kills and No. 1 in Leaderboards in Modern Warfare 3, which is the … Continue Reading
Activision unveils new downloadable maps for Modern Warfare 3
Activision Blizzard unveiled two new multiplayer maps which will be the first downloadable content for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3.
Downloadable content is becoming more and more popular and the release of Call of Duty content is so big that it probably generates as much revenue (in the past, map packs sold for stand-alone prices) and gives players a reason to subscribe to the Call of Duty Elite social network service, which offers free … Continue Reading
Quantifying our lives will be a top trend of 2012
The Quantified Self is one of the big trends of 2012, as we noted in our recent summary of the Consumer Electronics Show.
As everything analog shifts to digital, we can collect a huge amount of data about ourselves. As I noted in our earlier story, the trend was spearheaded by researchers who wanted a “quantified self,” or self-knowledge through numbers that measure things such as how long we sleep or how many stairs we … Continue Reading
Surprises abound as Amazon reveals its 10 best-selling games of 2011
Amazon has released its top-selling digital and physical game titles from 2011. The online retailer has quickly become the quintessential center of great gaming deals, release-day shipping, and exclusive pre-order bonuses (including up to $20 back, in some cases).
There are a few surprises to be found, including Deus Ex: Human Revolution as the top digital download. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the top-grossing video game of all-time, dominated physical sales, but barely made … Continue Reading
Call of Duty Elite finally accessible via an iPhone app
Game maker Activision Blizzard is finally launching a mobile app for its Call of Duty Elite service. Now fans of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 can engage with the game and the social networking service built around it via the iPhone, starting on Tuesday.
The iPhone version of the service includes a subset of the services available on the gamer social network, which has been available since November on the Xbox Live online service … Continue Reading
Blizzard: Diablo 3 ratings delay in Korea won’t hurt global launch
A delayed approval and classification process for Diablo 3 in Korea has caused anxiety about the release date of Blizzard‘s action RPG, one of the most anticipated games for 2012 and a sure-fire million seller.
Blizzard PR manager Shon Damron confirmed to VentureBeat that a news story published by the Korean Times is correct: “We are still working with Korea’s Game Rating Board to attain approval and classification for Diablo 3″.
Asked whether the situation … Continue Reading
