Star Wars video games have risen from the Sarlacc pit. The Walt Disney Company shuttered LucasArts in April, but a month later, George Lucas’s beloved sci-fi franchise already has a new video game home.

Electronic Arts announced today that it secured a multiyear deal to produce Star Wars games (as first spotted by Kotaku). EA will focus its efforts on producing big-budget titles for core gamers playing on traditional platforms.

“While we don’t have any details to share today on specific titles, our development teams are already brimming with design ideas,” EA Labels president Frank Gibeau wrote in an EA blog. “The EA Studios that will develop these games are some of the most innovative and popular creative teams in the world, and include DICE and Visceral, in addition to the BioWare team, which is already developing for the Star Wars franchise. These imaginative teams will make games that may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories. Powering it all will be the Frostbite 3 development engine – guaranteeing incredible graphic fidelity, environments, and characters.”

DICE is EA’s top first-person shooter team. The developer produces the popular action franchise Battlefield and the powerful Frostbite 3 game engine. Visceral is best known for its sci-fi horror series Dead Space.

“We believe the collaboration between the creative teams at both Lucasfilm and Disney Interactive, working with the best in class development and publishing teams at EA, will take Star Wars gaming to a whole new level,” a Lucasfilm spokesperson said in a statement provided to GamesBeat. “We’re tremendously excited about the unlimited new opportunity to provide fans with Star Wars stories and experiences never before seen in the Star Wars galaxy.”

Under this deal, Disney maintains certain rights to publish Star Wars-related games on social and mobile platforms. Disney Interactive has had a lot of success on mobile with titles like Where’s My Water?

“This agreement demonstrates our commitment to creating quality game experiences that drive the popularity of the Star Wars franchise for years to come,” Disney Interactive co-president John Pleasants said in a statement. “Collaborating with one of the world’s premier game developers will allow us to bring an amazing portfolio of new Star Wars titles to our fans around the world.

Pleasants has a history with EA. In 2008, he worked as the publisher’s chief operating officer. He left in June 2009 to join social-game developer Playdom.

As EA’s Gibeau mentioned, the company has experience with the Star Wars franchise. The publisher poured million of dollars into producing the BioWare massively mulitplayer game Star Wars: The Old Republic.

That game failed to find the necessary audience for the company to maintain the game’s monthly subscription fee. It instead moved it to a free-to-play model to maintain a stronger player base.

That wasn’t enough to scare EA off of the lucrative Star Wars name. DICE, Visceral, and BioWare are arguably EA’s most important internal developers that aren’t working on a sports game. By committing those major resources to Star Wars, EA is betting big that the galaxy far, far away will make it a mountain of big, big bucks.

Finally, we asked EA if Visceral will abandon the Dead Space franchise to work on Star Wars.

“Visceral has multiple teams working on different projects,” EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg told GamesBeat.

EA will post its earnings results for its fiscal year. Expect new information about the timing for the Star Wars games at that time.

The next Star Wars film, Episode VII, is due out in 2015.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

The galaxy was such a nice place before the Hutts moved in. Now crime is on the rise in The Old Republic thanks to those slug-like gangsters, and property values are in decline.

Earlier today, developer BioWare launched Rise of the Hutt Cartel, the first major expansion for its massively multiplayer role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic. The downloadable content costs $19.99, or $9.99 for subscribers.

The add-on pack will raise the level cap to 55, introduce a new planet, and offer up new story-based missions for players.

“We’ve worked hard over the last year to ensure we were listening to player feedback and acting on it,” The Old Republic executive producer Jeff Hickman said in a statement. “This month, we’re not only adding hours of new story-driven content and features with Rise of the Hutt Cartel, but we are also adding depth and content to the end game with our latest Game Update 2.0: Scum and Villainy. All of this new content, combined with a much larger, more active, and engaged community since the addition of the free-to-play option last year, makes this the best time to join or return to The Old Republic.”

Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the bigger free-to-play MMOs in terms of scope. BioWare released the title in December 2011 under publisher Electronic Arts. The game originally operated under a subscription-only model, but the big-budget title moved to free-to-play in July.

The Old Republic’s failure to maintain a subscriber base is one of the many failures attributed to former EA chief executive officer John Riccitiello, who resigned from that position in March.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Kate Edwards has had a long career in video games, and now, she has become a leader of the industry. In December, Edwards became executive director of the International Game Developers Association. Her job is to run an organization with 10,000 members who are navigating all of the big changes in the game industry.

At Microsoft, she was the first “geopolitical strategist” who had to identify geopolitical and cultural land mines for the company as it moved into different regions of the world. She implemented a geopolitical quality review process for Microsoft’s games from 1995 to 2005. She worked on titles like Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and other releases. She was the founder and chair of the game-localization special interest group within the IGDA and a leader in the IGDA Seattle chapter. She runs her own consultancy, Englobe.

This week, she attended the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and had to handle the tough issue of women in games, particularly as a dispute erupted among IGDA members about an IGDA-sponsored party where scantily clad female dancers appeared. We sat down with Edwards on Monday, March 25, before any of that happened. Here is our edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: How big is the IGDA now?

Kate Edwards: We hope to approach the neighborhood of 10,000 members by the end of this year. That’s the overarching goal. We have about 90 chapters worldwide. We have 20 or 25 special interest groups.

GamesBeat: How would you describe the IGDA to people who don’t know what it is?

Edwards: The way I like to describe it is, the IGDA is a professional development community. We’re a professional association focused on development. We’re focused on advocacy for issues that affect game developers. We have an international presence. We serve as a place of networking and community for individual game developers.

GamesBeat: Has the membership been growing?

Edwards: It leveled off for a while. Part of that is due to the structure of how we do membership, with studio affiliations versus individual memberships. We’ve gone through some adjustments there. That added to a bit of a plateau. Plus, with the industry being the way it is these days, that affects membership to a degree. We see studios that close, like 38 Studios for example. The members retain their membership, but the studio affiliation goes away.

GamesBeat: It’s hard to tell whether there’s more growth or more contraction.

Edwards: I like to the word “evolving.” That’s the way I see it. This is still a relatively young industry. It’s finding its way. We’re so receptive to the technology that arises in how we deliver and how we develop. It’s only natural that we’ll see a bit of evolution. Some things are going to die off and some things are going to rise. It’s not something that we necessarily want to see, when we see people laid off. It’s not a good thing. But unfortunately or not, it’s a natural part of a changing industry.

GamesBeat: Has anybody done a lot of tallying up there, working out whether they see growth or change like that?

Edwards: We have not done that kind of thing, no. We do the quality of life survey, which is an empirical survey along those lines. The latest one came out recently. But we don’t focus on the numbers as far as layoffs. That’s something that the ESA would know better than we would.

GamesBeat: It’s good that people do surveys, but yeah, I do wish there was more information to give people, a way to give them sound advice. “Okay, here’s where the wind is blowing. Go in that direction.”

Edwards: Within the IGDA, the chapters do communicate with one another, which is one of the strengths of the organization. Developers who are in the IGDA can do that. They can reach out to other chapters. “My studio is downsizing in Boston. I might move to San Francisco or Los Angeles. What’s going on out there?” You get a lot of qualitative information. You get some quantitative information on a per-studio basis. Someone in L.A. might chime in and say, “My company has 35 positions open.” I know it happens at that individual chapter level, but there’s not any oversight quantifying all of that.

GamesBeat: Has that quality of life gotten any better?

Edwards: It’s changing. In general I think the trend is better. Studios are getting more aware. A lot of times [quality of life] is equated with the notion of crunch. We like to look at something broader. It’s not just the crunch mode issue, although that tends to be a major issue. More studios are aware of it. That doesn’t mean all studios don’t do it, but they’re more aware of it. I was at Microsoft for 13 years, and even within my time there, the company became far more aware of work-life balance issues and all the other things that go along with them, for all kinds of good reasons.

GamesBeat: I wondered if some of these problems would carry over from the console business into the mobile and social studios.

Edwards: I think that’s inevitable. They’re going to carry over to some degree. When you’re self-employed or a small shop, you tend to have more control, but that affects your time schedule. It affects all kinds of other things. A lot of the indies that I know, or smaller studios, that’s one of the reasons they might have left a larger developer. They felt they would have more control over their work-life balance, and they do for the most part. At the same time, I’ve seen some of those small studios go through the same issues as any large studio. It comes down to promising a date and not delivering. That’s a reality in any business, not just the games industry.

Pages: 1 2 3

Unless you’re playing competitive multiplayer games at a professional level, you don’t have much incentive to get better. Positive kill/death ratios and a high-ranking might snag you a fancy new logo for your gamertag or maybe a shiny weapon skin that not too many other players have, but that’s usually it.

MekTek Studios takes it one step further. It wants to transform the best players into e-sports stars.

The developer has ambitious plans for Heavy Gear Assault, a first-person multiplayer-only mech simulator coming to PCs in 2014. It will be the first title in the Heavy Gear universe (which started life as a table top role-playing game nearly 20 years ago) in over a decade. MekTek is bringing back the franchise in style: It’s using Unreal Engine 4, the newest iteration of Epic Games’s tool for next-generation development.

The first teaser trailer (embedded below) is all in-game footage, and I’m told this is what the final product will look like when it releases later next year.

Are you not entertained?

Heavy Gear Assault has its sights set on the exploding e-sports scene. Gameplay revolves around a gladiatorial arena where giant robots and their pilots fight each other for fame and money. You can obliterate the opposing mech’s limbs and weapons using your own guns or get up close with swords and hammers. All of this carnage takes place on a battlefield with destructible terrain.

MekTek had an early demo to show during the Game Developers Conference, depicting just the arena and basic combat skills. Since it’s a simulation, controlling a mech requires a bit more dexterity than the usual first-person shooter: The mouse controls the direction your torso is facing and WASD keys handle the legs. Mechs accelerate like cars, so the longer you hold down the keys, the faster you’ll move. When I fired my rifle at the player next to me, his armor gradually twisted and darkened from taking too much damage.

The edges of the arena contained sections for audience members. When the game is live, these avatars will represent real players watching a match. But they aren’t passive observers; they have the power to influence a fight. If they don’t like what the participants are doing or if they’re just bored, they can activate environmental hazards in the arena by voting. If enough people vote, the fighters will have another obstacle to deal with as they lunge for each other’s throats.

The audience can also grade their performance, which will affect the fighters’ reputations. It wasn’t clear what happens if a player has a bad reputation, but Mektek hopes this system will encourage good sportsmanship — by weeding out jerks and cheaters — in the community.

If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, you can even sponsor mech pilots with your in-game money (earned from winning matches) and follow their exploits throughout different tournaments, leagues, and seasons. Alternatively, you can place bounties on players’ heads so you don’t have to do the dirty work yourself.

The features sounded really exciting, but at this early stage in the development process, it’s difficult to tell if they’ll actually pan out.

Source: MekTek Studios

Concept art for the arena.

MekTek is adopting the popular free-to-play model for Heavy Gear Assault. You can either play the base game for free or sign up for a premium subscription, similar to free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing games (such as Star Wars: The Old Republic).

Premium subscribers (for a rate not yet finalized) will have more benefits in the long run: discounted prices for cosmetic improvements like new pieces of armor and invitations to exclusive tournaments and events are just a few rewards the developers have planned.

Currently, MekTek and Heavy Gear Assault publisher Stompy Bot Productions are running a pledging campaign on its website to help fund the game with a simultaneous crowdfunding initiative launching on Kickstarter in two weeks. The goal is to raise $900,000 (so far they have $100,000). If all goes well, a beta version will come out some time in the first quarter of 2014.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

John Riccitiello left Electronic Arts yesterday with a mixed record.

In the nearly six years he led EA, the gigantic video game publisher faced a massive shift in the market, from games primarily sold on physical media and played on consoles to games sold and delivered wirelessly and played on everything from consoles to smartphones and tablets. The market shifted from expensive games you buy and own to free-to-play games that cost nothing to play at first, but which charge you for extras. The market expanded from the living room to mobile devices. Through it all, EA survived — which is more than some of its rivals can say — but it hasn’t exactly thrived.

In this story, we’ll try to recapture the ups and downs of Riccitiello’s tenure at the top of one of the video game industry’s most visible companies, and by the end of it, we’ll sort through the complex picture of his record at EA. We’ll also take a look at where the company is going in the future.

Lessons from success — and failure

Ostensibly, the board fired Riccitiello because he missed his quarterly and annual financial targets. In the past, the board might have excused this, since many companies were in the same boat. But at a time of great change in the video game business, so-so performance is no longer good enough. (EA’s temporary CEO is former chief executive Larry Probst, who is looking for a permanent replacement for Riccitiello.)

Still, it’s too simple to say that Riccitiello was a big screwup. In fact, Riccitiello was in many ways a very successful CEO who guided EA through a very difficult transition. By comparison, rivals such as THQ have crashed on the shoals of the digital gaming revolution while Riccitiello arguably saved EA from such a fate. But to demanding shareholders, merely surviving is not good enough. They want EA to seize the opportunities before it to become the dominant player in digital gaming. And it hasn’t quite done that.

EA declined to make an executive available for an interview for this story. But an EA spokesman said in a statement to GamesBeat, “ In the course of seven years, there’s a lot of puts and takes in that equation – recession, extended console cycle, etc. Beyond the macros, we knew this would be a difficult transition – one that required a great deal of investment in people and infrastructure. We knew that the ROI wasn’t going to be immediate. That said, it’s been more difficult than expected – the turnaround took longer than expected.”

Meanwhile, EA’s chief operating officer, Peter Moore, said on his Facebook page, “[Game news site] Kotaku reveling in what, due to their self-smugness, they don’t realize is a sad day for our industry, which is the platform on which they actually make money. John not only helped propel our company and interactive entertainment into new experiences, thus enticing millions of new people to become ‘gamers,’ his work leading the [Entertainment Software Association] in recent years has helped ensure that we don’t experience the fate of the music industry. Sad loss for all of us who had the pleasure of working with him as we emerged from The Burning Platform.”

Many rivals have beaten EA in small pieces of the larger industry war. If you can fault the company for anything, it may be for trying to fight too many battles at once.

The publisher didn’t lose all of those battles. In his parting message to his employees, Riccitiello pointed to their successes.

“Personally, I think we’ve never been in a better position as a company,” Riccitiello said. “You have made enormous progress in improving product quality. You are now generating more revenue on fewer titles by making EA’s games better and bigger. You’ve navigated a rapidly transforming industry to create a digital business that is now approximately $1.5 billion and growing fast.”

John Riccitiello’s commencement speech in 2011. (Courtesy of UC Berkeley)

Riccitiello set many things in motion. But giving him credit or assigning blame is a complicated matter, as the execution always lies in the hands of thousands of employees.

It is easy to point to EA’s failures, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that took so long to finish that the market changed from underneath it, moving from lucrative subscriptions to free-to-play. After six years and perhaps $200 million in development costs, The Old Republic didn’t get the audience that EA had hoped for, and it had to shift to free-to-play to hang on to its players.

The reboot of the first-person military shooter Medal of Honor was a sad failure. More recently, big franchises like Crysis 3 and Dead Space 3 didn’t perform as expected. And the recent SimCity launch — which sold more units faster than any other title in the city-simulation game’s 24-year history — was marred by EA’s failure to provide enough servers for the always-connected game.

On the positive side, EA’s Battlefield military shooter series became a big hit, and FIFA Soccer has become a monstrous franchise, with a large component of digital revenues.

EA’s shares are down 60 percent since Riccitiello began. Shareholders and boards often show no mercy when they fire a CEO, and in this case, they had plenty of failures to point to as reasons to fire Riccitiello, who once told VentureBeat, “I don’t think investors give a shit about our quality.”

“Transitions are painful,” said P.J. McNealy, a longtime game industry follower and analyst at Digital World Research. “Look at Sony and the changes they had in leadership. EA has struggled. THQ has struggled. At some point, there has to be accountability for it. Typically, it’s not any one reason. But EA’s struggles are not limited to just this quarter.”

But it’s easy at a time like this to forget about Riccitiello’s successes and how each failure was also rich with learning.

“I’ve had first-hand experience with failure, and I have had the opportunity to learn and recover from it,” Riccitiello said in a speech at his alma mater, the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, in 2011.

He’ll have plenty of time to ponder the lessons he learned at EA now.

In its own statement defending Riccitiello’s record, EA said to GamesBeat, “Our definition of turnaround swung on how quickly we could transition from the packaged goods model to digital goods and services. John made it clear that this was life or death. The dissolution of THQ this year makes it clear how right he was. By every measure, the turnaround is happening. As noted in an earnings call, this is the last year that digital revenue will be under 50 percent of EA’s total. One example is the first two weeks of [digital] sales for SimCity were just under 45 percent, and we expect the percentage will go even higher. Riccitiello’s turnaround is an article of faith inside EA – if it hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be in business today.”

Riccitiello’s first tour of duty at EA

Riccitiello joined EA as chief executive in 2007. It was his second stint at the company. He had previously served as president and chief operating officer from 1997 through April 2004. He left in between to become a co-founder of Elevation Partners, a private equity investment firm that hatched the merger of game developers BioWare and Pandemic.

John Riccitiello (GamesBeat/Dean Takahashi)

In his first tenure, Riccitiello was new to games. He had spent a career in consumer products at companies such as Clorox, Pepsi, Haagen-Dazs, Wilson Sporting Goods, and Sara Lee. Probst hired Riccitiello on the bet that his experience in consumer marketing would pay off at a time when video games were becoming a worldwide mass market. With properties like Madden NFL and FIFA Soccer, EA had become a household name. Its biggest rival today, Activision Blizzard, hadn’t yet been formed.

During Probst’s 16-year tenure as CEO, the company became the undisputed giant of the video game business. EA was the king maker, breaking Sega’s Dreamcast console when it chose not to create games for that platform and making the PlayStation 2 by throwing all of its weight behind Sony’s system. By the time Riccitiello joined, EA was in its glory years, and it was looking at how to further exploit its position as a giant in sports games, licensed movie titles, and online games.

He was a newcomer to games, but Riccitiello immersed himself in them as a player and as a cultivator of talent. Probst, the former chief executive and now the acting CEO again, and Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick have both admitted to not being gamers, or at least not the really hardcore kind. But Riccitiello played games and tried to understand the way they were built. He was sharp and a quick study and formed relationships with key creators.

Riccitiello made contributions, but always as part of a larger executive team. He and studio chief Don Mattrick encouraged the company to get behind Will Wright, who was working on a dollhouse-like title that would later become The Sims, the best-selling EA game series of all time. Riccitiello encouraged his leaders to take risks, egging Neil Young to create a visionary title in Majestic, an early alternate-reality game that turned into a commercial flop. In one case, Riccitiello made a brilliant bet. In the other, the outcome was a dud. These results would be typical of Riccitiello’s life at EA. He could share a vision with marquee developers and get behind them like a zealot. Sometimes it panned out; sometimes it didn’t. But he was always willing to bet big.

Riccitiello’s job was to diversify EA, and he did so through acquisitions of companies like Pogo.com, a casual game website for older, less serious players. EA picked up Westwood Studios, the creator of the Command & Conquer real-time strategy series; and Dreamworks Interactive, the original developer of Medal of Honor. It also bulked up with acquisitions of racing game studios and rode the success of titles based on the Harry Potter books and films. EA stole the James Bond 007 movie-game license from Nintendo, convincing the Hollywood owner that it could take the series multiplatform. Riccitiello and executive Frank Gibeau played a role in that coup. EA came to specialize in multiplatform blockbusters.

The company had become so dominant during the era of the PlayStation 2 that developers feared it would homogenize the industry and drive out all of its creativity. That led some to do everything they could to stay out of EA’s clutches, an issue that persists today. EA’s acquisitions follow a pattern. Some thrive for a while, but as soon as their magic wares off, EA shuts them down and puts its efforts behind another.

And during the run-up of the huge dotcom boom, Riccitiello searched for a way for EA to cash in. After Richard Garriott’s Ultima Online became the first major hit in massively multiplayer online games, Riccitiello started EA.com, a web games business that would be home to a whole collection of MMOs. With these games, EA could keep much more of the profit since it charged subscription fees. Under Riccitiello, EA initiated big-budget online titles like Motor City Online, Earth & Beyond, The Sims Online, and Ultima Online 2.

But the dotcom bubble burst and brought down everything with it. That was a costly lesson. EA wrote off more than $400 million. Of all of the things that Riccitiello had achieved at EA, the failure of EA.com would, fairly or not, become a huge part of his legacy. You could argue that he had been caught up in the Internet wave and that he deserved to be fired for making the wrong bet. But then, you could also fire just about everybody in Silicon Valley, where EA is based, for the same thing.

During Riccitiello’s stay as the No. 2 executive at EA, the company got bigger and stronger. It had setbacks, but that’s entertainment.

Pages: 1 2 3

When a game sells too many copies at its launch, it’s usually not a bad thing. But with SimCity, it turned into a nightmare for Electronic Arts, because the city-building simulation was designed as an always-connected single-player game. When players overwhelmed the servers on the March 5 launch day, just about no one could play the game for which they had paid at least $60.

EA said that the point of making SimCity always-connected was so that players could build cities in regions with their friends and establish interactions between the cities, such as one city buying garbage services from another. But skeptical players figured the real reason was that EA wanted to stop game pirates. And that skepticism turned into anger after the launch, when the overload locked out hundreds of thousands of players around the world. EA had to slow down its marketing while it brought more servers to bear.

EA’s Maxis Label, which made the game, responded with an emergency server overhaul. Lucy Bradshaw, a senior vice president at Electronic Arts and the general manager of Maxis, issued regular blog updates on the server demand, which was double EA’s initial expectations. She eventually promised a free game download to SimCity players. [Update: And, in a blog post today, Bradshaw said that the always-connected feature did not come as a mandate from corporate].

Could EA have avoid this PR disaster? What lessons has EA learned? Was technology unable to handle a tsunami of demand?

Bradshaw candidly acknowledged that EA was “dumb” to underestimate demand. But she is grateful for the support of fans, who are playing the game in huge numbers without connection problems now, and she says her team has moved as fast as possible to fix the situation. Eleven days after the launch, EA has put in place enough computing hardware to handle the traffic, and it is beginning to sort through the lessons it has learned.

Bradshaw has been heads-down trying to rectify the situation, but we sent her some questions via email and she got back to us. Here are her answers.

GamesBeat: As technically and as clearly as possible, can you describe the problems you encountered with the launch?

Bradshaw: The problem was a combination of issues: an early surge in sales and playership and our servers not handling that load to our expectations. This left us with higher playership and lower capacity. We reacted quickly to improve the situation by adapting our server setup, improving it and deploying new servers.

GamesBeat: Maxis ran a beta test not long before the launch. Why didn’t you discover the problem during that test?

Bradshaw: The beta was helpful in addressing some of the early game issues, and it helped us improve the player journey to get into the game. However, we have experienced issues at launch that were not seen during either our beta or our load testing. One lesson is that we needed longer, more comprehensive beta tests. And another is that a sandbox game like SimCity is not entirely predictable, so our load scenarios needed to be better informed by this and test a wider variety of player variables.

GamesBeat: Also, why was the beta test so limited? Was it really just an hour?

Bradshaw: At that point we had completed numerous internal betas and server load testing and nothing indicated that we would have any issues. We leaned on load testing and the combination of results were positive. As I’ve noted, the mix of our approach to understanding the stresses our systems would undergo was not adequate. This and the early surge put us on our heels, but since then we have adapted our server configuration, enhanced performance of our servers and code, made client side improvements, and deployed and upgraded new and existing servers

GamesBeat: Would a longer beta test have revealed the problems?

Bradshaw: I do think that a different approach to our betas would have better informed our automated load testing and helped us to better analyze the results from both of these means of testing. So, yes, if we had it to over again, I would change how we approached our betas and I would have used this information to improve our load testing..

GamesBeat: Given the changes in server technology from the days of The Sims Online, what are the advantages of servers, and what are the lingering disadvantages?

Bradshaw: I don’t think of the challenge as one of servers today vs. yesterday necessarily. Basically, technology has changed since we put SimCity 4 out in 2003. We envisioned a design for this SimCity that takes full advantage of these technological advances. We see PCs today as inherently connected and social in use. The idea of creating a connected SimCity where players can connect within an region and the choices that they make in their city can affect those surrounding them. That felt like a huge leap for SimCity. It allowed us to think of how cities often specialize, how they have a symbiotic relationship. And we set about making a connected, social SimCity that reflects our dynamic, social, global world that we live in today. We think this is the right leap for the franchise, and players who are in the game today playing are experiencing this connected game and giving us great feedback.

So I see it as today’s technology enabled us to envision and create a SimCity that really innovates the game from a solo-city-in-isolation experience that was fun and creative to a connected, dynamic and social game that makes you think differently about your choices, gives you a familiar but new experience and challenges, and reflects our world of today.

GamesBeat: In other words, if you had a dream server, what would it be?

Bradshaw: Again, I think the challenge is not the servers. We configure our servers to meet the needs of our service. The challenge we face as game makers is that today’s gaming behavior has changed as have our ambitions. We came up with a SimCity vision for a connected and social game that is dynamically evolved by its players, with all playing in the same context. We fully embraced and believed in this vision. It’s an ambitious vision that takes advantage of the technology of today, high bandwidth connections, social play behavior, and cloud servers so we could have our game easily played form multiple devices and saves that are accessible anywhere.

This vision implied new design, new ways that our simulation needed to work to support multiplayer interactions and world events and challenges, ways to keep a persistent state of the world for players to interact in – each player’s city updating, trades and information passing between cities, etc. We have made both a new SimCity but also took on the challenge of a service and all of the systems that go with that. We clearly did not deliver on our service at launch and have worked to quickly rectify that situation.

GamesBeat: Why aren’t you able to offload a lot of the server demand to other providers, such as Amazon Web Services? Don’t you already use them or some similar outsourcing vendor for part of the demand?

Bradshaw: We do use AWS quite extensively on SimCity, and very satisfactorily. We basically had to reconfigure things to perform better. Our server availability is no longer a problem. Players are logging on and playing in the hundreds of thousands.

GamesBeat: How did user behavior exacerbate the problem of having too much demand and too few servers? What did you anticipate in the design of the game on that front, and what came as a surprise?

Bradshaw: What we did not expect out of the gate was the length of time each player played: seven hours average at launch. Which is cool but again meant we had players on for long amounts of time and this affected our peaks. The ways in which they navigated the game, which being a sandbox style game is not predictive. These just led to results that we did not experience in our Betas.

GamesBeat: When you fixed the problem and rebuilt servers, what did you actually do? How did you quickly redeploy them?

Bradshaw: A combination of optimizing our server architecture and improving our response times, deploying enhancements on both a series of new and the original servers and issuing a few critical client updates has greatly reduced the number of connection issues, wait time and improved the overall stability of the game. From the moment we realized we had load issues to the last deployment of our new and updated servers, it took us less than a week.

GamesBeat: How is the infrastructure partitioned on a worldwide basis? If I log into my home server, I can see my city. But if I log into another server, I can’t. Why is that?

Bradshaw: Each server is unique. If you log in to a specific server, and build and save a city, then you will need to return to that server to play that city again. You can save up to 10 regions on each server. We let you know when you choose a server if you have cities saved there already. We also make sure that if you have played on a specific server that we have space reserved for you, new players are guided to servers that have capacity. And we also default your server selection to the last server you played on.

GamesBeat: Six or seven days is a relatively short time to tackle a really big technology problem. How did you solve it quickly?

Bradshaw: It was heartbreaking to see something we poured so much into stumble in such a visible way, but on the other hand the support from across all of EA has been entirely heartwarming. The whole EA organization really rallied together behind our team at Maxis. We worked 24/7 in very long shifts to do what we needed to do to deliver on our promise to the SimCity fans. We’ve definitely got servers that are available, players are logging in, playing for great lengths of time. As of today, 5.6 million cities have been created and 12.9 million total hours of actual play time has taken place in the game. Wow!

Pages: 1 2

It turns out that Star Wars is some dystopian nightmare for homosexuals.

At least that’s how BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic massively multiplayer online role-playing game paints it. When the developer launched the game, it provided 20 “romanceable” companion characters. Meaning, players can enter into relationships with them as they travel around the galaxy together. The problem is that the flirtatious dialogue options never appear for characters of the same sex — rendering out homosexual couplings from the romance pool.

BioWare announced it would add options for homosexual characters, but its solution is kind of odd.

In the upcoming Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare is adding a new planet called Makeb. This world is the only place in The Old Republic’s universe where characters of the same gender can get it on. Oddly, the developer didn’t just open the companion dialogue options to player characters of the same sex. Instead, a few gay nonplayer characters are on Makeb, but they don’t have the depth of a full companion.

In doing this, BioWare has set up a fiction where homosexuality is only physically possible on one cordoned off place in the galaxy (that players have to pay extra for), and the relationships are shallow compared to the fully fleshed out companion characters. It is literally separate and unequal.

While this is probably a matter of resources — it’s expensive to rerecord all the dialogue to account for a change in genders — it comes across as inconsiderate.

BioWare isn’t new to homosexuality in its games. The Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises both provide several options for players to hop into bed (or space bed) with the various other human and alien creatures in those titles.

Source: PC Games N

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

We thought we were so smart back in January with our release lists and RSS feeds. We really believed we knew what was going to happen this year. “I can’t wait to play BioShock Infinite when it releases in 2012!” we said. We were so naïve back then. It doesn’t matter how closely you follow the news or how often you refresh your browser; some companies can still manage to catch the gaming public completely unaware.

Here are some of our picks for the biggest surprises of 2012.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Contributor Rus McLaughlin

I hated the first Black Ops. Hated. It. I even went back and replayed parts of it just to refresh every design misstep and weak idea in my mind before its sequel arrived. You’d better believe that I’d sharpened all my knives in anticipation of carving up Black Ops II like a particularly ugly turkey who killed my dog. And then it turned out good … like, really good.

It’s as if developer Treyarch, a company that consistently churned out the worst entries in the franchise for years, suddenly ditched their old playbook and started fresh. The flow and encounters hit a sweet spot that I haven’t felt from the series since the first Modern Warfare, which came out in 2007. The branching storylines — often based on your in-game performance rather than flat yes/no answers — lock in unless you replay the entire mission … and every mission after it.

Very nice. Sure, the real-time strategy chapters don’t hold up as RTS games, and it’s still the bro-tastic Michael Bay of video games, but I can’t deny that I’m actually excited about Call of Duty again right when COD fatigue had fully set in. Can Activision deliver at this level every year? I’m still skeptical, but at least now I know that the possibility exists.

Rediscovering adventure games

Contributing editor Stephanie Carmichael

This was a momentous year for point-and-click adventure games, and Kickstarter played a huge role in that. Fans donated more than $3.3 million to Double Fine Adventure, making it one of the most successful video game campaigns on the crowdfunding service, let alone one of the greatest outpourings for the genre to date. Luminary Jane Jensen raised enough money for her Pinkerton Road Studio and the upcoming adventure game Moebius. And Telltale Games launched one of the hottest titles of 2012 with The Walking Dead. Those are only a few of the promising or excellent titles that found an audience in the past dozen months. Who said adventure games were dead?

Street Fighter X Mega Man

Contributor Samir Torres

Street Fighter and Mega Man turned 25 years old in 2012, and that calls for a celebration. Street Fighter X Mega Man is a free, PC-only, old-fashioned Mega Man adventure game in which you battle Street Fighter characters instead of Robot Masters. When you beat them, you acquire their abilities. It came out on December 17.

The most interesting part is that Capcom is working with die-hard Mega Man fans to make the title — fans whom the developer has neglected in recent years with the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe and the Blue Bomber’s omission in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

The PlayStation Vita

Intern Giancarlo Valdes

Though I only bought the Vita a few weeks ago, I honestly think it’s the best handheld I’ve ever owned — with its gorgeous screen and sleek hardware design, it’s also the prettiest. Games such as Gravity Rush, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, and Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack are great — even when I’m not commuting and just playing on the couch at home. The proprietary memory cards are still ridiculously expensive, and game-wise, the lineup doesn’t look too bright in 2013, but for now, I’m happy with just catching up with all the gems that came out this year.

Guild Wars 2

Contributor Rob LeFebvre

I quit playing World of Warcraft a few years ago because, meh, I thought the third-person fantasy massively multiplayer online genre was over, and I was tired of it. After messing about with Star Wars: The Old Republic and Eve Online, I figured that Guild Wars 2 would just be another WOW clone. Instead, it’s much more interesting and compelling to play, has many different ways to progress in the game, and made me an MMO player yet again. Not having a monthly subscription is a big factor as well.

Warlock: Master of the Arcane

Copy editor Jason Wilson

I hadn’t realized how much I had missed Master of Magic, the fantasy equivalent of Civilization from the 1990s. I didn’t realize that I had been yearning for a game like this until I encountered Warlock: Master of the Arcane. It isn’t as deep as Civilization — the focus is more on combat than in Sid Meier’s legendary turn-based strategy series — but in some ways, it’s more fun. The factions each have their own personality (I love the voices of the goblin units or the flying galleons of the Undead), and Warlock’s A.I. actually knows how to play its game. If you enjoy turn-based strategy that focuses more on combat than on expansion and empire-building — and dig fantasy — check it out.

Guild Wars 2

Intern Mike Minotti

I’m one of those MMO players. You know, the kind who plays World of Warcraft casually, sometimes tries something new, but always returns to the welcoming arms of Azeroth. I never thought I would find an MMO that I would genuinely like better than WOW, but Guild Wars 2 hooked me with its beautiful world and innovative quest systems.

The Phantom Pain/Metal Gear Solid connection

Editor-in-chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Every year, the best part of Spike’s Video Game Awards — meaning the good part of Spike’s Video Game Awards — is all the world-premiere trailers for upcoming titles. 2012′s show was no different, and the announcement trailer for developer Moby Dick Studios’ The Phantom Pain was the highlight of the evening.

Even more interesting is the fan-driven speculation that the title is secretly the next installment in Konami’s Metal Gear franchise. The evidence is circumstantial at best, but if you think back on it, this is exactly the sort of thing that we’d expect from the stealth action series.

Dragon’s Dogma

Contributing editor Rob Savillo

Capcom’s underrated action-adventure caught me completely by surprise. I’d heard nothing about it until a few weeks before release when then-Bitmob staff writer (now at PC Gamer) Omri Petitte published his “A Series of Epic Events” preview. Instantly, I saw Monster Hunter- and Dark Souls-style gameplay dancing in my head, and I wasn’t too far off once I got my hands on the disc.

Here’s a game that makes nighttime feel dangerous and isolating, not merely a moonlight-blue hued palette swap. Here’s a game with a detailed, skill-based combat model that encourages creative solutions. Here’s a game that makes exploration feel grand and of consequence such that smart preparation becomes a necessity. Here’s a game that blends asynchronous multiplayer into an experience that’s not turn-based or on a phone. Here’s a game that doesn’t waste your time with bland, boring, and ultimately useless dialogue from cardboard non-player characters. Here’s a game that’s not afraid to challenge modern design conventions and show them to be a poor way forward for the medium.

The PlayStation Vita

Intern Jasmine Rea

I was all prepared to dislike the Vita based on how woefully under-supported it was at launch and Sony’s silly choice to make a 3G-enabled model. Since I really wanted to review Persona 4 Golden, I knew I’d buy one at some point, and boy was I shocked by how much I loved it. The screen is mesmerizing, and the increased size and heft fixed all the problems that I had with the PlayStation Portable’s shape. Most of all, I didn’t mind forking over money for digital versions of PSP games that I already own. They just look so much better on that pretty screen. The Vita deserves more support, and if you like Japanese role-playing games, you’re sure to adore this flashy little handheld. Just don’t buy into the touch panel gimmicks, and I think you’ll love it, too.

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare

Intern Evan Killham

Alan Wake, developer Remedy Entertainment’s Stephen King/Twin Peaks-fusion thriller with a dash of Lovecraft, was one of my favorite games of 2010. I was a little disappointed that the follow-up, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, was a bite-sized Xbox Live Arcade downloadable title, but I checked it out anyway because, hey, more Alan Wake. And you know what? It is glorious.

Remedy drops the first game’s moody tension in favor of a more action-based, grindhouse dynamic, and while such a drastic shift in tone might be the worst thing that could happen to a franchise, somehow it just works for Alan Wake. It could be because this is a series explicitly about storytelling and creativity, and as such, it can include any genre Remedy feels like throwing in there. And seemingly as a test of this hypothesis, American Nightmare is a time-travel story.

The game has three levels, and you play through them three times. You could assume that this is a clever way to reuse assets and keep the game XBLA-sized, and you would be right, but on each time through, the characters around Alan remember bits of information about their experiences in the previous loop. For example, one time through, Alan has to go out to a character’s car to retrieve an item; the next time around, she remembers that someone will need that object and has it with her when you first (second?) meet, saving you the dangerous trip outside.

It’s really clever storytelling that keeps the repetition from feeling, well, repetitive, and it also serves as a fascinating commentary on game mechanics in general. What are checkpoint restarts, after all, but a form of time travel?

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

This week, THQ reported less than stellar numbers and hired a firm to “evaluate strategic alternatives,” Rockstar revealed details about Grand Theft Auto V, and the Wreck It Ralph film crew discusses movie development.

You’ll also find reviews for Halo 4, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, and LittleBigPlanet Karting.

News:

• October NPD: Dishonored charts high while XCOM fails to chart at all
• The good and, yes, the bad from today’s Grand Theft Auto V reveal
• Nexon to publish Dota 2 in Japan and Korea
• Mechs never looked so pretty as AirMech launches open beta on Steam
• Get BioShock for free on GameFly’s just released PC client
• This week in the Nintendo Download: Paper Mario, Epic Mickey, and a Pokédex
• You can live stream Call of Duty: Black Ops II directly to YouTube from your console
• Activision: ‘Spectacular innovation’ will prevent Skylanders from fizzling like Guitar Hero
• What’s in the box? Nintendo Wii U Deluxe Edition and Pro Controller
• The Wii U’s online service is an ‘empathy network’ — what the heck is that?
• PlayStation 3 passes Chinese bureaucratic inspection but ban on consoles remains
• Give Epic Mickey 2 a whirl in Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 demo
• The Last Guardian developer still has ‘nothing concrete’EA celebrates Battlefield 1942′s 10th anniversary by giving it away for free

MMO news:

• Star Wars: The Old Republic set for free-to-play debut
• First gameplay footage of The Elder Scrolls Online
• World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria sees 1 million concurrent players in China
• Jordan Mechner launches Karateka remake on digital gaming platforms
• DeNA invests in its golden goose, taking 20 percent stake in Cygames for $92M
• Obama is the overwhelming favorite in Nexon’s MapleStory online game (exclusive)

Mobile news:

• Yahoo and Japan’s DeNA expand PC social gaming alliance to mobile devices
• Nvidia CEO: Consumers realize a great tablet is better than a cheap PC
• Sword & Sworcery EP finally comes to Android in the latest Humble Bundle
• Angry Birds Star Wars is out now, and it’s kinda cool
• Once focused on 2D mobile games, Machine Zone hires a 3D graphics expert
• Best day to launch your mobile game? Chartboost says it’s Monday through Wednesday
• Kabam launches The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth mobile game
• Execution Labs raises $1.4M to incubate indie mobile game studios in Canada
• Budge makes a mobile game out of charitable giving
• New mobile game hopes to trick players into learning an anti-drug lesson
• Mobile games winning the war for your attention
• Apple still hasn’t made Game Center interesting
• Fourth-generation iPad smashes PlayStation Vita in raw graphics power
• Microsoft rolls out new Xbox SmartGlass iOS app
• The hidden truth of enigmatic experimental game Curiosity
• Xbox Surface: Microsoft’s 7-inch gaming tablet is still happening

Earnings:

• Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard beats earnings estimates and raises guidance
• Ubisoft posts a six-month loss — but Assassin’s Creed is riding to the rescue
• THQ’s stock crashes 47 percent as it faces cash crunch
• Mobile gaming has its giant: DeNA posts $627M in quarterly revenue
• Desperate for cash, THQ hires firm to ‘evaluate strategic alternatives’ (It’s up for sale)
• THQ reports smaller loss than expected but pushes back South Park, Metro, and Company of Heroes 2

Interviews:

• Is Gree really spending money on user acquisition like there’s no tomorrow? (interview)
• Wreck-It Ralph’s film crew discusses bad guys, cameos, and portals inside toilets (interview)
• Why Ubisoft has eight games coming for the Wii U (interview)
• Silent Hill: Revelations 3D director on respecting the source material, immersion, and secret UFO endings (exclusive)
• Guitar Hero co-creator unveils startup with a plan to mobilize the living room (exclusive interview)
• Tapjoy’s ad network now reaches a billion mobile devices (interview)

Reviews:

• What’s in the box?! Ragnarok Odyssey Mercenary Edition (review)
• What’s in the box?! Halo 4 Limited Edition (review)
• Paper Mario: Sticker Star fails to justify its gimmick (review)
• LittleBigPlanet Karting shows off Sackboy’s serious driving skills (review)

Pieces of flair:

• Halo 4: Infinity Multiplayer Unlock GuideGamesBeat’s massive Street Fighter tournament: The finals

Get to level 50 without paying a single cent? Yes, please.

Bioware, the developer behind Star Wars: The Old Republic, has just posted a fairly thorough explanation of what it’s doing to prepare its Star Wars-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game for the free-to-play option that should hit next Thursday.

“The team developing this option has been working hard to hit this date,” writes Damion Schubert, the lead designer of the free-to-play option, “and as I write this, we have an alpha version of the complete experience up and running, and we have been running extensive play tests of the experience.”

BioWare wanted to make sure that all free players could reach level 50 without paying any money, though it may take them longer to do so than paid subscribers.

“That’s not to say there won’t be restrictions,” he wrote. “Free-to-play players will earn experience more slowly, for example, and several aspects of the gameplay experience are limited.”

Still, fans of the game who were wary of the original $60 up-front cost and a monthly subscription should feel a lot more comfortable jumping into the massive amount of content that exists in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Subscribers shouldn’t notice anything different, either. “Those of you who are still paying a monthly fee should still get the same gameplay experience,” wrote Schubert, “and you won’t find anything taken away from you and the gameplay that you currently enjoy.”

Subscribers will get new benefits from the update as well, including two more quick slot bars, a new Cargo Hold tab for purchase, and a monthly amount of complementary Cartel coins to spend in the Cartel Market, a microtransaction cash shop that has items that aren’t dropped in game, like experience boosts, which enables players to advance much faster than typical.

BioWare has a new rewards program to thank current subscribers, which includes extra Cartel coins commensurate with the number of months subscribers have been paying for the game. Schubert wrote that they’re “literally granting millions of dollars worth of Complimentary Cartel Coins as part of this program,” but only if players stay subscribers during the transition.

Those players who cancelled their subscriptions are also being given an incentive to return. “Any player who has ever paid a monthly subscription fee will be given Preferred Status automatically when free-to-play option is launched,” wrote Schubert. Players with this new status won’t face all the limitations that just straight free-to-play members will. The You can also earn Preferred Status by spending $4.99 or more at the Star Wars: The Old Republic web store.

Source: BioWare

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

What if LucasArts never existed? What if the irascible filmmaker, beloved (and despised) the world over for his invaluable contributions to the pop-culture lexicon, had stuck to making space operas and juvenile fantasies about archeologists in fedora hats? What if George Lucas never entered the arena of gaming 30 years ago?

LucasArts revolutionized, created, or nurtured several whole genres, so its absence would’ve irreparably hindered the burgeoning video game medium. The San Francisco-based developer and publisher gave the point-and-click adventure – a heretofore obscure niche – a serious shot in the arm (and doctors everywhere an influx of carpal tunnel patients).

It reinvigorated the space shooter, redefined console RPGs, and when Jar Jar Binks took a dump on the collective geek fandom, it even reignited the ailing Star Wars franchise. LucasArts games have appeared on every major console, from early 1980s consoles such as the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision to the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, including dank parlors of teenage truancy (i.e., arcades).

LucasArts has dabbled in almost every genre in gaming: point-and-click adventures, space shooters, first-person shooters, action, sidescrollers, role-playing games, MMORPGs, and even fighting games.

Suffice to say that the forerunner of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Maniac Mansion, and Monkey Island had a significant impact on gaming.

Humble beginnings

George Lucas founded LucasArts, the gaming arm of LucasFilm, in 1982 – the same year that Lucas’ frequent collaborator, Steven Spielberg, unleashed the interactive version of his adorable, alcoholic, bipedal alien, E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial. While the latter nearly destroyed gaming in its infancy, LucasArts would weather the great crash of 1983 and reemerge for the medium’s second renaissance in North America in 1985.

LucasArts originally partnered with the premier North American video game company – Atari – and in 1984, produced inventive action titles like Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus! for the 5200 and 7800 systems. PC versions followed a year later.

During the era of Reagan, greed, and the imminent fall of the Soviet Union (aka the 1980s), LucasArts developed a number of military simulations, including PHM Pegasus (1986), Strike Fleet (1987), and Battlehawks 1942 (1989). This was no accident.

One of Lucas’ prime inspirations for the Star Wars trilogy – especially the gee-wiz, outerspace dogfighting scenes – were swashbuckling, jingoistic World War II flicks, and he’d explore this more directly with the 2012 film Red Tails.

LucasArts would revisit combat sims years later, but under the guise of its flagship franchise – Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (1998) and Star Wars: Starfighter (2001), to name but a few. They’d also return to the WWII era with 2003′s aerial-warfare title, Secret Weapons Over Normandy.

Planting the point-and-click adventure flag

LucasArts found its stride with repetitive mouse clicks and a little game called Maniac Mansion (1987). Creators Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick designed a loving tribute to B-movies, kitschy horror films, and ’80s teen flicks.

Maniac Mansion – based on Skywalker Ranch – gave the intrepid point-and-click explorer the opportunity to solve puzzles, navigate the sort of prepubescent stupidity that only exists in horror flicks, and for the budding serial killer, microwave a hamster. Seriously.

It also introduced the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion (SCUMM), a scripting/programming language that saw action in every subsequent LucasArts adventure game.

SCUMM was the subject of numerous in-jokes, not the least of which was the Razor and the Scummettes band from Maniac Mansion and the “SCUMM bar” in The Secret of Monkey Island (1990).

The latter, of course, established LucasArts as the premier developer of adventure games on the planet. Maniac Mansion and SCUMM alumni, Ron Gilbert, returned for The Secret of Monkey Island, and a young Tim Schafer (Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Brütal Legend) cut his teeth on this seminal adventure title.

Apart from Star Wars, Monkey Island is probably LucasArts’ most enduring franchise.

Teenaged pirate Guybrush Threepwood returned for four sequels, including Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge (1991), The Curse of Monkey Island (1997), Escape from Monkey Island (2000), and the episodic Tales of Monkey Island (2009).

Talk about longevity – from the original Monkey Island to Tales, the series spans nearly two decades. This puts it roughly equivalent to video game stalwarts (and franchise superstars) like Mega Man, the latter of which only has about four years on Monkey Island.

Indy takes the spotlight

Before LucasArts made its bones in the adventure genre with Maniac Mansion, it dipped its toes in the water with Labyrinth, based on the Jim Henson (and Lucasfilm) fantasy movie. But that was just a taste.

The globetrotting archeologist (of the fedora hat and whip variety) also saw numerous video-game adaptations. Many of the early Indiana Jones titles were movie tie-ins (Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari 2600, The Last Crusade for the Genesis and NES), and LucasArts didn’t publish or develop most of them.

The house that Lucas built assumed auteur duties for the point-and-click adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992), a critically acclaimed genre title, and LucasArts subsequently took charge for Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine (1999), Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb (2003), and Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings (2009).

Alas, I feel like I’m forgetting one particular franchise…

Wars among the stars

LucasFilm’s cash cow was a stalwart of video gaming since Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1982) for the Atari 2600 and Mattel Intellivision and the Star Wars arcade game (1983). But Lucas’ in-house development studio didn’t work on it until the X-Wing franchise.

The DOS-based space-combat sim put you in the cockpit of various Rebel starfighters – X-wings, Y-wings, and A-wings – ultimately tasking you with assaulting the Death Star itself. Lead designer Lawrence Holland borrowed a number of gameplay elements from his previous WWII flight sim, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe.

X-Wing included a revolutionary 3D flight engine, the template for every succeeding space-combat sim, and won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1993.

But it was the sequel – much like with the Star Wars cinematic franchise – that ensured X-Wing’s enduring legacy.

Remember Vader’s wingmen from A New Hope (DS-61-2 and DS-61-3, if my memory serves … yes, I’m a hopeless Star Wars geek)? Ever wanted to be them (or a reasonable facsimile, given that those two chuckleheads screwed up, one collided with Vader, and essentially helped saved the Alliance)?

Star Wars: TIE Fighter (1994) gave budding Imperialists the chance to play as the bad guys. This was followed by the multiplayer-oriented X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter (1997) and later by X-Wing Alliance (1999).

Star Wars: Rebel Assault (1993) uses FMV cut-scenes, pre-rendered 3D backdrops, and digitized music and footage from the movies to re-create the trilogy beneath the helmet and behind the trigger of “Rookie One” (a transparent stand-in for another famous Tatooine moisture farmer who walks among the sky).

The sequel, Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire (1995), incorporated original footage of real actors, with high production values and expert use of John Williams’ iconic score. But the clunky, on-rails gameplay kept the game from achieving its predecessor’s fortune and glory (to reference another famous LucasArts franchise).

Meatbags, Jedi, and console RPGs

By 2002, the consensus among the collective Star Wars fandom was that the franchise was overexposed. Episode I: The Phantom Menace took the series in what some perceived as a new kid-friendly direction, alienating long-time fans, and most of the games that followed in its wake were mediocre (at best).

Then along came a console role-playing game called Knights of the old Republic (2003), featuring customizable classes, witty dialogue, and a mature, multilayered narrative. In other words, it was everything that the prequel trilogy (Episodes I, II, and III) tried (and mostly failed) to be. KOTOR was an immediate hit with gamers, and PC and Mac ports followed shortly thereafter.

LucasArts published the sequel, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II — The Sith Lords, for the Xbox and Windows PC in 2004 and 2005, respectively.

‘Block’ party

In 2005, LucasArts inaugurated the Lego video game craze with Lego Star Wars: The Video Game, an instant multiplayer classic. And since your characters could never truly die (they explode in a cacophony of cute, Lego body parts, only to instantly respawn), it’s also a family-friendly classic.

While not the first Lego-branded video game (that would be 1997’s Lego Island), it indisputably launched the current renaissance, and its success compelled LucasArts to release a slew of sequels and spinoffs, including Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (2006), Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (2007), a compilation of the prior two, and Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (2011).

Henry Jones Junior (aka Indiana) also got a couple titles, Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (2008) and Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (2009).

Credit LucasArts for igniting the Lego gaming craze – non-Lucas franchises, including Batman and Harry Potter, rode the former’s wave of success.

Experimental phase

Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995) capitalized on the popularity of Doom and took the Star Wars franchise into the realm of first-person shooters. It spawned a sequel, Star Wars: Jedi Knight — Dark Forces II (1997) and the Star Wars: Jedi Knight third-person action series.

LucasArts dabbled in strategy with Star Wars: Rebellion (1998), Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds (2001) and Star Wars: Empire at War (2006), and it ventured into the tempestuous world of massively multiplayer online role-playing games with Star Wars: Galaxies (2003) and Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011). While the former was plagued by bugs and an overly complex progression and class system, the latter acquitted itself much better.

In one of the most bizarre uses of the Star Wars license, LucasArts created the 1997 fighting game, Masters of Teräs Käsi, a poorly received mess.

Third-person action title Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, a multimedia craze (punctuated by the official canonical sanctioning by one George Lucas), launched with the Nintendo 64 in 1996, while the recent Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (2008) presented an uncommonly superb narrative, even if it was mechanically flawed (and even if the 2010 sequel threw out all the nuance and subtlety of its predecessor).

The future

By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard that everybody’s favorite cartoon mouse purchased Lucasfilm (and LucasArts) for a cool $4.05 billion. What does this mean for the future of the gaming division? Lucasfilm spokesperson Barbara Gamlen told GamesBeat that “For the time being, all projects are business as usual.”

This might suggest that Disney has no plans to tinker with the forthcoming Star Wars 1313, the M-rated action-adventure title revealed at this year’s E3 (to the delight of fanboys everywhere, myself included). But considering the mass-media juggernaut’s family-friendly facade, gamers are rightfully concerned.

GamesBeat will continue to document the rich history of LucasArts as it develops and hope that a new chairman of the board subscribes to the light side of the force.

Here’s to 30 more years of quality LucasArts gaming.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Sports games saved the day. EA reported fiscal-second-quarter earnings today, beating analysts estimates for the period ending Sept. 30.

The bellwether video game publisher said it had $1.08 billion in revenue for the quarter, compared with $1.03 billion a year ago. Non-GAAP net income was $49 million, or 15 cents a share, compared with $17 million, or 5 cents a share, a year ago.

Analysts had expected non-GAAP earnings of 10 cents a share and revenues of $1.08 billion. They also expected EA to target revenues for the third fiscal quarter (ending Dec. 31) of $1.05 billion to $1.1 billion and 7 cents to 12 cents in earnings per share.

“EA is performing well, once again beating street consensus in fiscal Q2,” said chief executive officer John Riccitiello. “We delivered yet another quarter of sharp digital growth, with digital revenue up 40 percent compared to the same period last year, reflecting our strength across multiple brands and channels.”

Game sales at retail stores have been weak all year, but a larger and larger part of EA’s revenues come via digital distribution. Digital sales were $1.4 billion in the trailing 12 months. For the second fiscal quarter, digital revenues were $314 million. About $43 million in Battlefield 3 Premium subscription revenue was deferred until the fourth fiscal quarter.

One of things that investors always watch closely is the number of subscribers to EA’s marquee massively multiplayer online game, Star Wars: The Old Republic. But EA hasn’t broken anything out yet in its initial press release.

After the call, analyst Colin Sebastian of R.W. Baird said, “Solid quarter on the back of EA Sports titles, but the December quarter looks weak, and the company lowered the full year financial guidance. I don’t think this is a big surprise, but clearly the company still has its hands full, and it is still a difficult selling environment.”

Analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities said, “No real surprise. They beat in Q2 on the strength of sports games, guided pretty light for Q3 on Medal of Honor being a horrible game, and are guiding well above consensus for Q4 on Battlefield Premium — $110 million in deferred revenue, almost 100 percent margin — which contributes $0.24/share.”

Arvind Bhatia, an analyst at Sterne Agee, anticipated before the earnings came out that FIFA 13 and Madden NFL 13 outperformed expectations. But in the upcoming fourth quarter, he is worried about “weak trends” for Medal of Honor: Warfighter and further market share loss as EA appears to lack big titles to drive holiday sales.

Last week, Riccitiello took note of how social games faltered because “consumers won’t pay for crap.” He predicted that high-quality games will come to dominate gaming on mobile and social platforms.

On a non-GAAP basis, EA reported in its previous fiscal first quarter ended June 30 that it had revenues of $491 million, down from $524 million a year earlier, and a net loss of 41 cents a share, compared with a net loss of 37 cents a share a year earlier.

“We delivered a very strong performance in the second quarter, backed by great performances from our EA Sports titles,” said chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen in a statement today. “We are forecasting annual non-GAAP EPS growth of at least 25 percent at the midpoint of our guidance, and Operating Cash Flow of over $400 million.”

FIFA 13 sold 7.3 million units to end users, not including mobile downloads, in its first four weeks. FIFA generated digital net revenue of $115 million in the first half of the fiscal year. Battlefield 3 Premium now has more than 2 million subscribers.

EA’s stock has been frozen since Hurricane Sandy prevented stock markets from opening Monday and today. For the third-fiscal quarter, EA expects to report non-GAAP net income will be $350 million higher than GAAP revene because of the impact of a change in deferred net revenue. That also includes $5 million in expected restructuring $5 million.

Non-GAAP revenue is expected to be $1.25 billion to $1.35 billion for the third fiscal quarter, with non-GAAP net earnings per share expected to be 50 cents to 60 cents. For the full fiscal year ending March 31, EA expects non-GAAP revenue of $4.05 billion to $4.2 billion. Non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to be $1 a share to $1.15 a share for the full year.

On the digital front, EA reported mobile game revenues of $88 million, up from $55 million a year ago, on a non-GAAP basis. EA now has 250 million core registered online users, up from 140 million a year ago. EA’s social gaming user count sank to 42 million monthly active users from 101 million a year ago.

EA’s smartphone and tablet revenue was $66 million, up 128 percent from a year ago. Feature phone was $144 million, up 45 percent from a year ago. Console digital revenue was $81 million, up 31 percent. PC digital revenue was $23 million, up 12 percent. EA expects digital revenue will hit $1.6 billion to $1.65 billion for the full fiscal year.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Cliff Bleszinski leaves Epic Games, online developer Kixeye comes under fire after a former employee blogs about alleged racism in the workplace, and Zynga pre-announces weak third quarter earnings.

You’ll also find reviews for Resident Evil 6, FIFA 13, and Bad Piggies, as well was previews for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Skylanders Giants, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

News:

• The DeanBeat: Raptr’s gamer data shows that building real communities pays off in profits (it’s the community, stupid)
• Words With Friends co-creators leave Zynga
• Rovio teases Star Wars-themed Angry Birds
• Loot Drop reveals RPG storyline on Kickstarter
• Photo gallery of Skylanders creator Toys for Bob studio
• Activision gives Skylanders Giants the mega-investment treatment
• Zynga ‘pre-announces’ weak earnings again for third quarter
• Full Mario, Zelda, and Star Fox retail titles headed to 3DS eShop
• The 3DS eShop’s best game, Pushmo, gets a sequel in Crashmo
• AppFlood is one of the fastest growing developer-to-developer ad networks
• Kixeye fires four after investigation into allegations of racism
• Dishonored isn’t a Choose Your Own Adventure game, but this trailer is
• Artillery aims to make web browsers into game consoles (exclusive)
• Cliff Bleszinski leaves Epic Games
• Bethesda hires former Star Wars: The Old Republic executive producer to run new Austin studio
• George Washington stars as the villain in Assassin’s Creed III extra content
• Patch notes: Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition update includes Creative Mode, strongholds, and dozens more
• Game veterans launch a two-fer ‘old-school RPG’ game on Kickstarter
• Kixeye takes ‘substantial corrective action’ after black contractor calls out alleged racist behavior at social gaming firm
• Notch to Callaham: ‘Thanks for the personal attack’ (UPDATED)
• Ubisoft continues support for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier with new multiplayer maps
• Resident Evil 6′s science is not just for ‘old men in tweed suits’
• Buy certain games on the 3DS eShop, get Donkey Kong: Original Edition free
• Possible box art appears for the unconfirmed Star Wars: First Assault Xbox Live Arcade game
• Mass Effect trilogy on Xbox 360 won’t include any of the paid DLC
• Aaargh! KingsIsle Entertainment’s Pirate101 online game world to launch as early as Oct. 8
• Maingear launches a 17-inch gaming laptop with free custom paint jobs
• What were the cheapest and most expensive consoles in gaming history? (infographic)

Mobile news:

• Angry Birds maker Rovio plans to reveal its mobile book app
• Battlefield 3 graphics for mobile? EA has developer DICE on the job
• Directly record your iPhone games with Kamcord

MMO news:

• Mists of Pandaria sales fall short of previous two World of Warcraft expansions

Interviews:

• How animators bring Skylanders Giants to life (video interview)
• How Toys for Bob turned Activision into a giant toy company with Skylanders (interview)

Reviews:

• FIFA Soccer 13 strives for perfection through gameplay imperfection (review)
• Bad Piggies is a painfully challenging departure from Angry Birds (review)
• Resident Evil 6 thrives on its silliness but stumbles when things get serious (review)
• Pokémon Black and White Versions 2 take few risks but still offer classic thrills (review)

Previews:

• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance may need to rise above its surprisingly conventional design (hands-on preview)
• How animators bring Skylanders to life (video interview)
• Medal of Honor: Warfighter wants to be ‘Saving Private Ryan meets Hurt Locker,’ but its gameplay is in the way (hands-on preview)
• Activision gives Skylanders Giants the all-in, mega-investment treatment (hands-on preview)
• Giant robots with frickin’ laser beams: MechWarrior Online closed beta (hands-on preview)
• Will Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified lure gamers to the PlayStation Vita? (hands-on preview)
• Beef up your NBA 2K13 career with Facebook and mobile apps (preview)

Pitch us in one Tweet:

• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#2: Colour Bind)
• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#3: Hackycat)
• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#4: Ring Run Circus)
• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#5: Dunk Dreams)

Pieces of flair:

• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 4: It came from Japan)
• A insider’s photo tour of the Toys for Bob game studio, where Skylanders are born (photo gallery)
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 3: PC)
• Steampunk NES’s creator spent 20 hours on the coolest gift a nephew ever got (gallery)z
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 2: Popular franchises)
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 1: The modern era)
• Mmm…10 video game cakes and other sweets (gallery)
• 15 bizarre Street Fighter Alpha mysteries

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Bethesda Softworks announced today that it has opened a new studio in Austin, Texas.

Former Star Wars: The Old Republic executive producer Rich Vogel will helm the new developer, which Bethesda dubs as Battlecry Studios. The company is hiring now to fill production roles on an unannounced project.

“I have always admired and respected Bethesda’s approach to making great, original games,” said Vogel. “It’s a belief and passion I share, and I’m looking forward to building a team of high-quality developers who want to bring that same commitment and creative energy to the games we’ll be creating.”

Vogel has been in development for over 20 years. He left BioWare in July after seven years there. Prior to that, he was with Sony Online Entertainment and also worked on Ultima Online.

“We are very pleased to have someone with Rich’s vast experience join us at Bethesda,” said Bethesda Softworks president Vlatko Andonov. “Rich has a history of building and managing talented development teams and bringing high quality games to market, and we look forward to working with him on a new exciting project.”

Neither Bethesda nor Vogel hinted at what type his new team is working on, but considering his experience with massively multiplayer online games, it’s easy to speculate this venture could lead to something in that genre.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

The doctors left BioWare, but the show must go on.

Developer BioWare announced today that it has updated Star Wars: The Old Republic, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the classic sci-fi film franchise.Version 1.4 of the game is available to download now. The update offers new group content for high-level players and includes new features and gear.

Operation: Terror From Beyond is this patch’s biggest addition. It’s a new group-combat mission set on planet Asation. An ancient alien race was messing around with some technology it shouldn’t have, and you know the story: It’ll open a portal to a place filled with unspeakable horror.

Sounds like Event Horizon.

Update 1.4′s new features include an improved group finder and an option that’ll let players join an operation and then return to the exact location they were prior to joining.

For the fashion-conscious Sith and Jedi, BioWare has added the ability to set a unified color for companion characters. You can now set an option to have all of a companion’s gear match his chest piece.

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a decent update to an MMO if it didn’t include more emoticons. More specifically, this patch is adding a set of commands that will animate the player character’s face. Did an angst-ridden teen Jedi just murder your entire Tusken Raider family? Command that frowny face to show your disapproval!

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Firefall is one of the more interesting and brave massively multiplayer online games currently in the works. Despite lofty promises to the contrary, games like Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, and The Old Republic all feel incredibly samey. Firefall dramatically shifts the MMO template with heavy real-time first-person shooter elements, a Borderlands-esque art style, and a bold free-to-play strategy.

I participated in the ongoing closed beta a few months back and found the game to intriguing but somewhat unbalanced and undercooked. Since then, Red 5 has implemented what could easily be considered Firefall’s Adventure Update (for any Minecraft fans out there), adding and tweaking lots of game systems and content. This includes removing the typical MMO leveling system altogether, allowing players to build the characters they want with fewer restrictions on a more open-ended customization tree.

With that in mind, GamesBeat sat down with Red 5 Studios CEO Mark Kern to chat about what’s new, Firefall’s Kickstarter-inspired Founder system, and cosplay.

GamesBeat: Can you highlight some of the major changes based on the ongoing feedback from the beta?

Mark Kern

Mark Kern: We learned that our PvP, while it was very approachable, would sort of max out for skilled players. They’d say, “OL, I can go this far with my skill and not any higher.” What we did is we raised the skill ceiling. It’s a lot higher. At the higher tiers of competition, you have a lot more capability to display your twitch reflexes and everything else. That was one major change, based on feedback.

The other one was that the whole leveling system wasn’t working out for people. It didn’t seem to fit right with the game. It kind of fought against the horizontal progression that we’ve wanted to do. But we still wanted to have some type of different classes of progression. We broke it up into tiers instead, and that way we give you a road map of your character. You know what to expect. You kind of plan your way to what you want to unlock. That’s been very well received. It’s something where it wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t been willing to share our earliest systems in the beta.

A lot of companies, companies I used to work for, they would polish the heck out of something. Then they’d put it out there and get the feedback. If you’re Blizzard, good, you take it and you redo it. That’s very demoralizing for the team, though, because they polished it to such a high level in the first place. If you’re another company, you often don’t have that luxury. You’ve done a commercial beta, not a real beta. By the time you get that feedback, you can’t make dramatic changes to the system.

GamesBeat: I did play the beta several months ago, and I noticed that I felt that the difficulty, even from the onset, was pretty rough if you tried to do it either solo or with a two-man team. Especially for newbies who are starting out and maybe don’t know how to work together. Do I just suck, or is the game intentionally designed to be a multiplayer-only experience?

Kern: It’s really good that you picked up on that, because that’s the next round of beta feedback for this milestone. Our PvE milestone. We did our classes-tuning and our leveling progression in the last couple months. Now we’re working on the PvE aspect and the solo-ability of the game. We want you to be able to participate in world events and get credit for it even if you’re not grouped up. If you just show up, we’re going to be building in public quests. That type of dynamic where you can get points for participation even if you’re not grouped.

We also want to make sure that when we guide you down the path, the difficulty is matched much more to the ability of the solo player, but group players can still have that social experience and get a couple special things out of it. So I’d agree with you. I think the game, as it stands right now, is too hard to solo. That’s one aspect that we’re getting feedback on. We change everything and create fun. That’s our motto.

GamesBeat: What has the overall reception been to the game so far? And the player retention? How long do people play the beta before they move on?

Kern: I can’t give out specific numbers, but I can say that prepatch and postpatch, we’re about three times stickier than we were when you played the beta. So the changes we’ve made have gone to great lengths to make it stickier. We’re still in closed beta. We’re not inviting everybody in yet. But everyone who plays at PAX automatically gets in. That’s kind of our thing. I’m really happy with the retention rate right now. It’s much better than it was, and it’s going to get even better with the PvE patch.

GamesBeat: How do you guys feel now that PlanetSide 2 is on its way? Do you feel that kind of gives you a little extra competition?

Kern: Oh, I know [Sony Online Entertainment's] John Smedley really well. I put him in the Firefall beta a while back. He likes the game. I like PlanetSide. I was a big PlanetSide fan. I think we fill two different niches. They’re about the massive PvP, we’re more about the eSports PvP, as well as this big component of PvE, exploration and co-op multiplayer that you can’t get in PlanetSide. So I think we complement each other really well. But I keep teasing him, because we’re coming out with a massive PvP mode that we’re going to be in beta with in the fall. At that point, maybe it’ll be a bit more competition. But right now I think it’s a really good way to get two different experiences.

GamesBeat: At the beginning of PAX, you guys unveiled your founder system. There’s three different tiers. Was that inspired by Kickstarter?

Kern: It really was. I was amazed by Kickstarter, and then I saw… like, MechWarrior Online did a pack. I asked the community months ago, “Would you like to see something like this from us?” Overwhelmingly, the response was “Yes.” They want to support Firefall. So, OK, let’s put something together. We did three packs, and they’re doing really well.

GamesBeat: It’s a cool system. Plus the XP gain, the permanent XP gain, I was sold. In-game pets and XP boosts will do it for me every time.

Kern: Yeah. The Merch is really special. When you unlock it, we’ve got a lot of behaviors we’ve coded into it to be true to the Penny Arcade version.

GamesBeat: Can you talk about the cash shop and what players can expect there?

Kern: OK. We’ve got the beta shop open now. We truly mean “beta” shop, just like our beta is a true beta. We set some price points to experiment. You can buy a lot of aesthetic items, eyepieces, different hairstyles, different hats that you can wear. We sell temporary XP boosts — 1 hour, 3 hours, 8 hours — for 20 percent. We also sell garage slots. If you like the game, you want to experiment with more tiers of battle frame. If you unlock more garage slots, you can keep them all on the same character.

GamesBeat: I know that, for a year or more now, you’ve been using Crystal [Graziano], the cosplayer, to represent your game. But in this weird unprecedented move, you’ve also sponsored the other costuming she does. Non-Firefall, non-gaming sometimes. I was wondering, why that very specific move?

Kern: I think it’s because we wanted someone to play Mourningstar at conventions who was really a gamer. Not only that, we wanted a real cosplayer, someone who could appreciate the costume that we’re building. It turned out that Crystal is a huge fan of Steve Wang, who’s a Hollywood effects guy that designed the Predator. A big name. He did these costumes for us, for Typhon and Mourningstar. She was just thrilled to meet him. We’re actually shooting a show about here, kind of behind the scenes with her and Steve about building these costumes. We’re going to be releasing that as a video pretty shortly here. Something you can view for free online.

We sponsor her other costuming because Red 5 is really about getting the gamer’s story out there. A lot of our stuff, in the industry, is very PR-focused…. Here’s the front of the mask, right? We want to change that. Because now we’re a direct-to-consumer industry, especially us. PAX is the show that we love the best. Sponsoring player activities, cosplay is well-loved by gamers, that’s how they show love for games…. So let’s sponsor that. Let’s sponsor eSports. Make it about players in the game.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

A few years ago, it was easy to write Electronic Arts off as a dinosaur. Zynga passed it up in social games and held the most successful initial public offering in U.S. gaming history. But Zynga has faltered, and some of the mammals that made EA seem like a dinosaur are having troubles of their own.

“That’s a tortoise and the hare story,” said Frank Gibeau, the president of EA Labels and the head of the company’s game development efforts. “I would never say, ‘I told you so,’ but we’re a multiplatform company. We’re not a single-platform company.”

As others falter, EA has emerged as a broad-based company that is transforming itself from a packaged goods retail gamemaker to a live services firm, he said. In a wide-ranging conversation at Bloomberg’s San Francisco office this week, Gibeau acknowledged that he learned a lot from Zynga in terms of responding quickly to user demand. But he told a group of reporters that social network games are slowing down because mobile games are pulling people away from their desktop computers.

“People have stopped playing FarmVille, and they’re on their phones,” he said. “How that shakes out and those dollars shift will continue to accelerate in the next year.”

And Gibeau likes that because EA has the top position in mobile, in part because it made its major mobile gaming acquisition in 2005. (That’s a frustrating secret, said Gibeau.) And mobile is monetizing much better than Facebook, he said. But Gibeau, like his boss, EA chief executive John Riccitiello, acknowledges that the water is “choppy” in games. Life is far more complicated for game industry leaders than it was when the industry moved from the PlayStation to the PlayStation 2.

“It’s a very dynamic time, and it is really wiping out a lot of conventions that companies have held,” he said. “A lot of new companies have emerged, soared high, and gone back down…. We expect this chop and complexity will continue for the next year.”

Zynga is starting to lose high-profile executives and may be in the same position that EA was a few years ago. The first iteration of OnLive, the cloud gaming service, has gone belly up, says Gibeau, because “they needed to pay more attention to the economics.” (Cloud gaming proved too expensive to implement with current server and broadband technology.)

“They tried to take the hardest games in the world to stream, and your backend economics become difficult,” he said. “I think that cloud gaming is an enabling technology for IPTV [Internet protocol television], for sure,” particularly for those bundling games and video services. “Streaming will be a big part of the gaming sector, but not for a while.” Gibeau believes that Apple and Google will fight it out in IPTV, but there won’t be a large-scale game market for apps on TVs for a while.

The troubles at Zynga and OnLive don’t mean that gamers are simply boomeranging back to EA games. EA has had its share of layoffs, and just last week its PopCap Games division lost 50 jobs.

Console games are slowing down because they are at the end of their long life cycle. And EA’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, which was six years in the making, has lost a considerable number of subscribers. EA launched it in December in the hope of challenging Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, but Gibeau said that the amount of free content in the industry has forced EA to switch to the free-to-play business model (where users play for free and pay real money for virtual goods) a lot earlier than Gibeau thought.

“We always knew we would move to free to play, but in all honesty, I didn’t think we would have to pivot this fast,” he said. “We were worried that when we announced that, we would have a lot of subscriber flight. We have not seen that.”

Gibeau admitted that he “coveted Blizzard.” Overall, free to play has become 17 percent of EA’s mobile and PC revenue. The trick is to grow it to a massive scale, he said. EA is making a bet on free to play with the announcement last week that its next Command & Conquer game (pictured right) will follow the model. With consoles, EA may invest $50 million over two years in development and marketing, and then it won’t make a dime until it launches. But with free to play, EA can invest $3 million to get the game to its launch point and then continue to invest after that as users deliver feedback.

Gamers may not start making purchases until they get deeper into a free-to-play game, well after launch. And maybe only 10 to 15 percent of gamers will buy something. (The conversion to paid is higher for hardcore games than it is for social games.) But the profits can be similar to console games in the long run.

“With free to play,” said Gibeau, “you can fail fast and fail cheap, but get back to break even and then build it out slowly over time.”

The new waters are treacherous. But Gibeau counts himself as an optimist because of the growth of gaming platforms and users. In 2005, there might have been 200 million gamers. Now, thanks to new platforms, the number of gamers has grown to 1 billion and is on its way to 2 billion. Mobile gaming is expected to grow for the next five years. Tablet sales are exploding. Russia, Brazil, the Middle East, China, and North Africa are starting to produce real revenues. We’re on the verge of the launch of “Gen 4″ consoles — EA’s name for the next-generation of game machines.

“At no other point in the history of games has there been this many viable platforms, this many addressable markets, or this many gamers,” he said. “I see long-term fundamental growth drivers that don’t stop growing for five years.”

And the free-to-play business model is expanding the market.

“If it wasn’t for free-to-play, Asia would be a black hole of piracy,” said Gibeau. “In the next four years, Russia will probably pass Germany as a game market. You never thought that was possible 10 years ago.”

The core gamers will rally back when the next Xbox and PlayStation consoles launch, he said.

Consoles are “an entertainment form and type that are still resilient even with mobile gaming,” he said. “I read a lot about the demise of the console. I don’t buy it. If you look at the intensity of gamers, we are not losing them to mobile. There is a mass-market slowdown, but it’s natural. In the sixth or seventh year of a hardware cycle, there is fatigue.” In that kind of market, the big will get bigger.

But now EA’s investing in many more platforms beyond consoles, mainly to catch up with users who have limited time with any given platform. In China, browser-based games are starting to take off and challenge the heavy-download online games. EA is also investing in its own ecosystem, so that its gamers can play EA games across any platform and pick up where they left off in their last session.

“The next five years is going to be a war of ecosystems,” said Gibeau.

Production values on mobile will rise, and simultaneous multiplayer sessions will be the norm. The tablet experience will very quickly become like an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 experience, and that kind of change in mobile gaming tastes will play into EA’s hands, said Gibeau. At the same time, he says, the mobile market will be diverse enough to accommodate both hardcore and casual games.

“As I look at tablets and mobile, it will be the largest platform, bar none,” said Gibeau.

“Mobile is complimentary to your console experience,” he said. “A lot of the long-range trend lines are positive for engagement.”

Gibeau said that EA doesn’t really need to acquire more companies to fulfill its vision. Last year’s $750 million-plus acquisition of PopCap Games gave it more talent in casual games.

“I feel I have all the talent and development capacity we need right now,” he said. “Acquisition is not in my top five priorities right now.”

Neither is the upcoming Wii U, he said. EA is developing some games for the new Nintendo game console coming this fall, but it is not heavily investing.

“I don’t know how their platform is going to do,” he said. “The Wii U is not in my top five priorities.” He said it is “not as breakthrough as the Wii was.”

The path through the choppy waters to the good times is still visible. But hopefully EA won’t be a tortoise in getting there.

“I can definitely see a path through the turbulence, and that is the one I’m betting the company on,” he said.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Zynga is in hot water after allegations of insider trading, Diablo III players top 10 million, and a Konami employee won an Olympic gold medal in gymnastics.

You’ll also find game reviews for Deadlight and the Dark Knight Rises.

Game news:

The DeanBeat: How fast will the shift to huge growth for mobile games happen?

Papo & Yo and 10 other games that feature graffiti

As Sanctuary beckons, Diablo III players top 10M

Konami employee wins Olympic gold medal in gymnastics

Saban Brands buys Zombie Farm iOS gamemaker The Playforge

New online game from Schell lets fans contribute story lines, artwork, music, and more

Twin Engine Labs launches Pentakill app to not suck at League of Legends

Working on generations of game consoles: a developer’s perspective

Bing Rewards earns you Microsoft Points, but not when you use it on an Xbox 360

Why you’re likely to be playing Grand Theft Auto V by March

For Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One, success is measured in DeLoreans and geeked-out fans

Spy vs Spy game creator tells the story of a rerelease nearly 30 years in the making

Oculus launches Kickstarter campaign for virtual reality gaming headset

Leaked pictures of the next Xbox’s developmental kit, codenamed Durango

Nintendo’s Japanese servers struggle to keep up with New Super Mario Bros. 2 digital sales

MMO news:

World of Warcraft loses over one million subscribers in second quarter

Tracking Star Wars: The Old Republic’s declining subscribers

How to engage 200M users: The secrets of MMO storytelling success (exclusive)

With subscribers below 1M, Star Wars: The Old Republic will go free-to-play this fall

Dragons, dinosaurs, and Transformers: RuneScape’s CEO on the future of free to play

Lawsuits:

Nintendo wins Wii patent lawsuit

Zynga stuck in real-life BadNewsVille: more lawsuits, COO demoted

First Zynga insider trading lawsuit filed

SeeYouInCourtVille: law firms investigating Zynga for possible insider trading

End of the quarter news:

As blockbusters keep selling, Activision Blizzard beats Wall Street’s expectations

Sony slashes Vita sales forecast after slow Q1 sales

Despite Star Wars slowdown, analysts aren’t in despair over EA’s performance

EA hits on earnings but misses on revenue target for June quarter

EA hires new CFO as it prepares to announce earnings

Previews:

Pokémon Black and White 2 looks to the past for inspiration (preview)

The Nintendo 3DS XL is the bigger, wiser brother of the 3DS (hands-on impressions)

Reviews:

Deadlight sets a poetic survival-horror tone but stumbles with melodramatic writing (review)

The Dark Knight Rises fails to soar above the mediocrity of licensed games (review)

Interviews: 

Death Rally paves a developer’s path into brave new world of games (interview)

Gamers at Work reveals the risks and emotional complications in entrepreneurship (interview)

Papaya Mobile’s new ad-exchange program could lure new developers to the platform (interview)

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Our line graph above shows the declining subscriber numbers for publisher Electronic Arts’ massively multiplayer game, Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Although the game launched last December, EA didn’t report subscriber numbers until February, which were at 1.7 million at the time. Just a few months later, the number of active players hit the 1.3 million mark in May. EA reported today during its Q1 earnings call that the number has dipped below one million, though it didn’t give an exact figure.

As you can see from the chart, subscribers have been steadily leaving The Old Republic. During the conference call, EA stated that it only needs 500,000 active players to make a profit, but the game still performed under expectations. The publisher is hoping to bring back old and new players with a free-to-play model, launching this fall.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Asking consumers to drop $50 on a game they already own might seem like a lot to ask, but more than 1.3 million Battlefield 3 players have happily done so for publisher Electronic Arts.

Battlefield 3 Premium is a one-time $50 service that grants buyers early access to the game’s downloadable content, including new maps and weapons. Premium purchasers also receive exclusive items. The experience launched in early June.

EA revealed the Premium figure in its Q1 earnings report. The same document mentioned that FIFA Ultimate Team, a web-based extension for FIFA 12 that allows players to manage their virtual teams remotely, earned more than $30 million in net digital revenue. The report also told us that the publisher’s massively multiplayer game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, will be going free-to-play in the fall with a premium subscription service available as an option.

Clearly, EA is looking for creative ways to earn digital revenue from retail games. When taking that direction into consideration, Battlefield 3 Premium is an early success.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts, announced today plans to implement free-to-play and a microtransaction system within its massively multiplayer game Star Wars: The Old Republic, a move predicted by many gamers as a necessary step by the developer to stave off dwindling subscription numbers.

Free players can level characters to 50, the current level cap, “with some restrictions,” according to BioWare’s press release. A subscription option will remain available.

[Update: EA said on its analyst conference call that the number of subscribers for Star Wars has fallen from 1.3 million last quarter to less than 1 million in the first fiscal quarter ended June 30. That explains why the company is shifting to free-to-play.]

BioWare additionally revealed plans for instituting in-game microtransaction purchases via Cartel Coins, a new type of currency fueling a Cartel Market providing cosmetic and customizable gear — because getting in between a Hutt and his credits never ends well.

“Since launch, we’ve been listening to feedback from our fans, adding new content, and refining The Old Republic at a breakneck pace,” BioWare executive producer Jeff Hickman said. “We believe we’re in a position to help improve the service even more, not only by continuing to add new content, but also by expanding the game to many more Star Wars fans, increasing the populations on worlds and the vibrancy of the community.”

On a conference call with analysts, EA chief executive John Riccitiello said Old Republic’s performance was “disappointing.”

BioWare updated The Old Republic’s website with a comparative list of content available for both free and subscribed players. Here’s a rundown of both account types and what to expect, yanked directly from the press release:

• Subscription: In addition to gaining access to all game content, subscribers receive ongoing monthly Cartel Coin grants.

• Free-to-play: The first 50 levels will be free-to-play with restrictions on access to new content and advanced player features, some of which can be unlocked through Cartel Coins.

A few sampled items available for purchase in the Market include a chittering Kowakian Monkey Lizard pet of Return of the Jedi fame, a Sith Meditation Throne (no, it’s not a toilet), and the Lost Helm of Darth Nihilus, a relic from Obsidian Entertainment’s Knights of the Old Republic II.

Star Wars: The Old Republic launched on December 20, 2011 for the PC platform. Padded by an enormous development budget and the equally enormous Star Wars license, Old Republic Force-gripped over 1 million players into a galaxy far, far away within its first three days. Nevertheless, server consolidations and a taciturn BioWare — further aggravated by layoffs and the departure of previous executive producer Rich Vogel — etched concern across the community eager for more content and new faces to stab lightsabers into.

Although Old Republic’s numbers have noticeably dipped since its strong launch, free-to-play could very well offer an enormous boost in both player count and confidence for BioWare and EA. What do you think?

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Troubles continue to mount for Star Wars: The Old Republic. After months of layoffs and a shrinking player base, executive producer Rich Vogel has left BioWare Austin. He oversaw all aspects of the massively multiplayer role-playing game during its development and after its launch.

He leaves amid reports that his former studio will be suffering more layoffs, according to game-business website Gamasutra.

Vogel (pictured right) has a long history with MMOs, having previously worked on Ultima Online (one of the first successes in the genre) and Star Wars: Galaxies (the first attempt at a Star Wars MMO) before he spent seven years at BioWare Austin working on Star Wars: The Old Republic.

We once wondered if SW:TOR would be able to take on the famously popular World of Warcraft, but after a decent start came dwindling subscribers and a series of layoffs at developer BioWare Austin. It seems like we’re just waiting to see how long it takes publisher Electronic Arts to throw up its hands and make The Old Republic free-to-play.

[Update: Andrew Wong, a spokesman for EA, said in a statement, "As we announced in May and detailed at E3, the BioWare Austin team is refining Star Wars: The Old Republic to continue to grow the game and the service. "

He added, "As with the launch of any MMO, the size and skillset of the teams needed to maintain the game is different than the ones that built it. Starting in May, there have been staff reductions in the BioWare Austin studio and Rich Vogel left BioWare in June.  Some people have been platooned to other projects at BioWare Austin and EA SPORTS/Austin. Others have been released – qualifying personnel receive severance and outplacement assistance. BioWare Austin is currently staffed to ensure the continued delivery of new, high quality game content for The Old Republic, and at a more frequent cadence.  In the weeks ahead, we will announce plans for growing SWTOR with new content, new players and new ways to play."]

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

The sensory smorgasbord of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) heaved itself upon the video game industry for three straight days, and GamesBeat’s intrepid crew enthusiastically hit showfloors, conference halls, and meeting rooms to offer our readers piles of previews, interviews, and news.

What follows below is our collected coverage during the show. You’ll find everything here sorted into categories for easy navigability.

Awards

Who needs stickers? We analyzed, judged, and sorted our top picks for the show’s offerings directly for you. Take a look — the results might surprise you.

GamesBeat’s E3 2012 Game of the Show…plus staff picks – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

The GamesBeat E3 non-award awards: The least prestigious awards in the industry – by GamesBeat staff

The coolest technologies we saw at E3 2012 – by Dean Takahashi

The best family games of E3 – by GamesBeat staff

The top 8 trends of E3, from bows to brutality – by Mike Minotti

The top 15 swag shirts of E3 2012 – by Rus McLaughlin

Previews

You’ve found the beating heart of E3′s overwhelming magic. Whether from observatory impressions or direct, hands-on experiences, GamesBeat discussed and dissected a sizable stable of upcoming games and hardware.

Hands-on

Hitman Absolution lets you perform hits in giant crowds – by Dean Takahashi

Metro Last Light fights shooter fatigue with deeper single player – by Dean Takahashi

Crysis 3 brings the jungle, gun hacking, and silent stealth kills to Manhattan – by Dean Takahashi

EA reveals Dead Space 3, coming with drop-in cooperative play – by Dean Takahashi

Sleeping Dogs turns Hong Kong crime movies into a video game – by Dean Takahashi

From the creator of Portal, Quantum Conundrum caters to physics-based puzzle gamers – by Dean Takahashi

Capcom remakes hack-slash-shoot-grapple formula with upcoming DmC: Devil May Cry – by Dean Takahashi

Capcom shows three playable characters for Resident Evil 6 – by Dean Takahashi

Finding similarities between Arma III and Carrier Command: Gaea Mission – by Omri Petitte

Neverwinter’s user-generated content could elevate it above the competition – by Stefanie Fogel

DmC: Devil May Cry is full of swagger…and F-bombs – by Eduardo Moutinho

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed leaves Mario Kart in its dust…and wake…and vapor trail – by Mike Minotti

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is an anime you can actually play – by Eduardo Moutinho

Sony Online Entertainment’s PlanetSide 2 – by Rob LeFebvre

Slice, dice, and julienne enemies in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – by Eduardo Moutinho

Medal of Honor: Warfighter deploys fire teams to the front lines – by Eduardo Moutinho

Hell Yeah! is like Metroid with a chainsaw jetpack-riding demon bunny – by Mike Minotti

Dead or Alive 5 wants to deliver a power blow to the competition – by Eduardo Moutinho

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s simplicity is just what consoles need – by Omri Petitte

Hands-off

Just what kind of game is Star Wars 1313? – by Dean Takahashi

Warner Bros. confirms LEGO: Lord of the Rings video game – by Dean Takahashi

EA’s cute The Act romance game exploits iPad’s touchscreen for unique gameplay – by Dean Takahashi

Turn the snow crimson with redcoat blood in Assassin’s Creed III – by Dean Takahashi

Far Cry 3 demo leads you deeper into drug-induced insanity – by Dean Takahashi

Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls is one of the best games of E3 – by Dean Takahashi

The 5 different games you’ll be playing in Dishonored – by Sebastian Haley

Final Fantasy XIV brings new gameplay and western sensibilities to venerable franchise – by Rob LeFebvre

Windows 8 works hard to meet the needs of all gamers – by Rob LeFebvre

A trio of Mario games strengthen Nintendo’s 3DS lineup – by Mike Minotti

OnLive’s MultiView spectating entices multiplayer and co-op gamers – by Omri Petitte

Player choice matters in The Walking Dead: Episode 2 – by Stefanie Fogel

The Last of Us is even smarter than you think – by Rus McLaughlin

Star Wars 1313 is a game of firsts for the sci-fi franchise – by Eduardo Moutinho

The adventure-game renaissance continues with The Cave – by Eduardo Moutinho

Heroes and villains join forces in Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion – by Mike Minotti

007 Legends proves personality makes or breaks a game – by Omri Petitte

Breaking down what’s exactly new in God of War: Ascension – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Turning technology against your friends in Watch Dogs – by Omri Petitte

Interviews

Chasing after the wayward developer or evasive executive amid a sea of journalists and industry luminaries didn’t slake our interview appetite, and we nabbed a slew of thoughtful talks with members across various gaming companies. Take a look.

Why Ubisoft is pouring a lot of resources into Wii U games – by Dean Takahashi

Harvest Moon creator wants to spread happiness with his new game – by Jacob Lopez

How Shenmue’s lead programmer rescued a bad game – by Jacob Lopez

The Last Story developer talks Operation Rainfall, reason for cover system, and Wii U – by Jacob Lopez

With 1.3B tanks obliterated and 30M players, Wargaming.net plans to conquer the online gaming world – by Dean Takahashi

Even Scribblenauts’ creator is surprised by the things people make in his new game – by Jacob Lopez

The Witcher developer CD Projekt RED wants to set new standards with Cyberpunk – by Stefanie Fogel

Japan’s Gree moves mobile gaming into the spotlight at E3 – by Dean Takahashi

THQ’s Brian Farrell talks about looking for a bottom and staging a comeback – by Dean Takahashi

Crytek says CryEngine 3 already does awesome graphics as good as Unreal Engine 4 – by Dean Takahashi

Our opinions

During the craze-filled days of E3, our minds typically busied themselves with ensuring our legs avoided snapping off our torsos and running away with yelping noises. But sometimes, a cohesive thought miraculously coalesced within our overloaded brainpans. Our hands shakily reached for the keyboard, keys started tapping, and well…these are the results.

The DeanBeat: What to expect at E3 – by Dean Takahashi

4 ways developers will use SmartGlass to enhance Xbox 360 experiences – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Nintendo’s Wii U: Safe on first, weak on third-party – by Rus McLaughlin

Why Nintendo will have a tough time adding a second GamePad tablet controller to the Wii U – by Dean Takahashi

Tomb Raider is not torture porn – by Rus McLaughlin

Would it be a mistake for E3 to move out of LA? – by Dean Takahashi

Bored, impressed, and giddy: Our final thoughts on E3 2012 – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Move over, consoles – mobile is the future – by Rob LeFebvre

Microsoft’s E3 2012: Analysis of 16,000+ comments shows Halo 4, South Park impressed, rest did not – by Andrew Hiscock

Sony’s E3 2012: Analysis shows “shotgun blast” won big, Wonderbook lost – by Andrew Hiscock

Nintendo’s E3 2012: Reactions show hardcore gamers lost faith in Wii U – by Andrew Hiscock

Memes

All it takes is one memorable quote, one Freudian slip, or some facepalm-worthy banter to prompt the Internet community’s creative and unrestrained hand at animated gifs, a worshipful use of Impact font, and hastily jangled Photoshop edits. Here’s what we’ve found.

The best memes of E3 – by Jeff Grubb

Remember these crazy memes from past E3s? – by Jeff Grubb

The wildest memes from the Microsoft E3 press conference – by Jeff Grubb

Silly memes inspired by Sony’s E3 press event – by Jeff Grubb

Aisha Tyler: Ubisoft’s meme machine – by Rus McLaughlin

The oddest Nintendo E3 gifs and Photoshops from the Internet – by Jeff Grubb

Galleries

We snapped plenty of pictures while attending parties, pressers, and meandering the showfloor. Direct your eyeballs upon these galleries, and enjoy the view!

The big gallery of E3′s huge banners – by Mike Minotti

E3 2012 will get your hands up – by Evan Killham

Our editor-in-chief’s E3 adventure – by Evan Killham

The many costumes of E3 2012 – by Jacob Lopez

Retro games have a place at E3, too – by Jasmine Rea

Videos

Dubstep. A beleaguered Lara Croft. Ham-handed hosts. No, this isn’t the latest entry in Alex Trebek’s dream diary — it’s some of our E3 video and trailer content below. Enjoy!

Tomb Raider trailer shows how Lara Croft feels sorry for shooting you – by Dean Takahashi

Konami pre-E3 2012 event: More Castlevania and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – by Jasmine Rea

Ubisoft shows strong commitment to the Wii U – by Mike Minotti

6 awkward moments from the E3 press briefings – by Evan Killham

Why we wub wub wub E3 2012: The dubstep of E3 – by Jacob Lopez

Press conferences

Surprises and snooze-fests alike emanated from E3′s five major press briefings held by Microsoft, Electronic Arts (EA), Ubisoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Check out all the announcements and debuts here.

Microsoft (video)

Halo 4 trailer video shows Forerunners, new tech – by Rob LeFebvre

New Splinter Cell: Blacklist borrows from Uncharted – by Jeff Grubb

Gears of War: Judgment sets Sera on fire (again) – by Rus McLaughlin

Microsoft previews Xbox Music at E3 press conference – by Rob LeFebvre

Forza Horizon brings street racing to the franchise – by Jasmine Rea

Microsoft introduces Xbox SmartGlass to integrate smartphones and tablets with Xbox 360 – by Dean Takahashi

Nike+ Kinect Training brings in-depth fitness measuring to Xbox 360 – by Jeff Grubb

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer coming to Xbox 360 this fall – by Jacob Lopez

Usher hits the stage to announce Dance Central 3 – by Rob LeFebvre

Xbox Live is getting Nickelodeon, Machinima, and tons of live sports – by Tom Cheredar

Kinect voice commands hit EA Sports flagship titles – by Eduardo Moutinho

South Park creators introduce their game and playfully mock Microsoft – by Jeff Grubb

New Xbox 360 games coming from Signal Studios, Twisted Pixel, and…Gore Verbinski? – by Stefanie Fogel

Microsoft E3 2012 press conference recap…in limerick form – by Andrew Hiscock

Electronic Arts (video)

SimCity Social: If this free-to-play game is too good, will you pay $60 for the full PC version? – by Dean Takahashi

EA reveals Battlefield 3 Premium and fields “15 million players worldwide” – by Omri Petitte

Star Wars: The Old Republic gets new planet, new species, and free trial – by Jacob Lopez

EA nabs UFC from THQ – by Jeff Grubb

Medal of Honor: Warfighter’s beautiful carnage – by Rus McLaughlin

EA shows off Need for Speed: Most Wanted at E3 – by Rob LeFebvre

Ubisoft (video)

Rayman Legends rhythmically runs to the Wii U – by Eduardo Moutinho

You are the network in Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs – by Rus McLaughlin

Here’s where that Watch Dogs cube-head QR code goes – by Jeff Grubb

Sony (video)

Experimental developer Quantic Dream reveals the haunted life of Jody Holmes in Beyond – by Jasmine Rea

Nathan Drake and the Big Daddy Bouncer join PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale – by Mike Minotti

J.K. Rowling is writing PlayStation’s Wonderbook – by Rus McLaughlin

Sony announces Assassin’s Creed III Vita and PS3 bundles with exclusive content – by Jeff Grubb

Sony brings down the house with The Last of Us demo – by Dean Takahashi

Sony E3 2012 press conference recap…in limerick form – by Andrew Hiscock

Nintendo (video)

Social networking comes to Wii U, Miiverse will interface with PCs and phones – by Jasmine Rea

First look at action-strategy game Pikmin 3 – by Jeff Grubb

Nintendo confirms 23 games at E3, video streaming, and more for Wii U – by Mike Minotti

Wii Fit U will make you sweatier, livelier, and happier – by Rob LeFebvre

Brag to the Miiverse and take on new modes in New Super Mario Bros. U – by Eduardo Moutinho

Zombify your face with ZombiU for the Wii U – by Mike Minotti

Nintendo bets big on “asymmetric” tablet-based gameplay – one player against several – by Dean Takahashi

Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition utilizes Wii U’s GamePad screen – by Omri Petitte

Nintendo details 3DS Mario titles, Luigi’s Mansion, and third-party games – by Jeff Grubb

Nintendo Land brings asymmetrical multiplayer to Wii U – by Jasmine Rea

Nintendo’s E3 2012 press conference recap…in limerick form – by Andrew Hiscock

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Although SWTOR managed to snare 1.7 million active subscribers in the early days of its launch, publisher Electronic Arts recently revealed in a quarterly earnings report that the game has lost 400,000 subscribers since February. BioWare says transfers are now necessary to “maintain population balance across the service and create a better overall gameplay experience.”

BioWare says only select servers will offer free transfers initially to prevent potential server load issues. A small number of the lowest population servers will get first dibs. More will be added gradually, and will be listed as they become available at www.swtor.com/transfer.

To qualify for a free transfer, a player cannot have a banned account, and the character being transferred cannot be a guild master. More information on the character transfer process is on the official SWTOR website.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

If your head is spinning with all the breaking E3 news, GamesBeat wants to help. At the end of each day, we’ll compile a handy roundup of the day’s best content in one convenient post. If you want to keep track of them all, just type “E3 roundup” in the search bar.

Four out of the five major press conferences happened today, and that means GamesBeat is nearly overflowing with breaking news, previews, and commentary. Below you’ll find coverage from Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Sony.

Sony brings down the house with The Last of Us demo

Sony announces Assassin’s Creed III Vita and PS3 bundles with exclusive content

J.K. Rowling is writing PlayStation’s Wonderbook

Nathan Drake and the Big Daddy Bouncer join PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale

Experimental developer Quantic Dream reveals the haunted life of Jodie Holmes in Beyond

THQ confirms that it has laid off employees of WWE developer THQ San Diego

E3 2012: You are the network in Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs

Here’s where that Watch Dogs cube-head QR code goes

Rayman Legends rhythmically runs to the Wii U

Ubisoft shows strong commitment to the Wii U (videos)

Far Cry 3 demo leads you deeper into drug-induced insanity (preview)

Turn the snow crimson with redcoat blood in Assassin’s Creed III (preview)

Why Ubisoft is pouring a lot of resources into Wii U games (interview)

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot embraces disruption, new business models and new platforms (interview)

Ubisoft will make eight games for the Nintendo Wii U

Ubisoft’s creative director on why hooded assassins still fit in the American Revolution (interview)

EA shows off Need for Speed: Most Wanted at E3 2012

E3 2012: Medal of Honor: Warfighter’s beautiful carnage

EA nabs UFC from THQ

Star Wars: The Old Republic gets new planet, new species, and free trial

EA reveals Battlefield 3 Premium and fields “15 million players worldwide”

Madden NFL 13 is now even more of a contact sport

SimCity Social: If this free-to-play game is too good, will you pay $60 for the full PC version?

NCAA Football 13’s Heisman Challenge mode puts the “I” in team (hands-on preview)

EA reveals Dead Space 3, coming with drop-in cooperative play (hands-on preview)

Crysis 3 brings the jungle, gun hacking, and silent stealth kills to Manhattan (hands-on preview)

Hitman: Absolution trailer is indicative of gaming’s broken culture

New Xbox 360 games coming from Signal Studios, Twisted Pixel, and…Gore Verbinski?

South Park creators introduce their game and playfully mock Microsoft

E3 2012: Nike+ Kinect Training brings in-depth fitness measuring to Xbox 360

Forza Horizon brings street racing to the franchise

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

During Electronic Arts’ media briefing at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), BioWare announced a handful of new features coming to Star Wars: The Old Republic, a massively-multiplayer online game based in the Star Wars universe.

BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka took the stage to announce a handful of new features coming to the game, including the a new difficulty mode, a level cap increase, a new planet named Makeb, and a new species called Cathar. In addition, fan-favorite HK-51 will be available as companion.

“Over 1 million players logged in on day one,” said Muzyka, which made it the biggest MMO launch in history. No doubt the first month was a success, but the game has been through some rocky times since launch. They lost about 400,000 subscribers in roughly three months, and BioWare Austin, the studio behind the title, laid off staff in May.

In a move that may increase subscriber base, starting in July, SWTOR will be free-to-play until players reach level 15.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, game developer 38 Studios laid off its entire staff after ongoing financial troubles, BioWare laid off a number of people working on Star Wars the Old Republic, Take-Two faces a larger than expected financial loss, and Blizzard announces its first patch for Diablo III.

You’ll also find previews for Defiance, Kingdom Hearts 3D, and When Viking’s Attack.

The DeanBeat: Playstudios launches myVegas social casino games with MGM as a partner

Blizzard announces first Diablo III patches and delays the real-money auction house

Kingdom Hearts 3D welcomes casual fans back into the series (hands-on preview)

Bringing back Tomb Raider: Our need to fill the old archeologist’s shoes

38 Studios lays off its entire staff

Sony’s When Vikings Attack offers goofy street combat (hands-on preview)

Konami kicks off pre-E3 character battle (gallery)

GameFly buzzes into mobile publishing

GREE mobile gaming platform enters open beta, plans two new Moshi Monsters games

Diablo III sets launch-day record

ShootMania Storm is geared for mass, competitive gaming

Take-Two CEO says product delays signal an “unwavering commitment to quality”

Marvel Heroes’ online game world will let you smash evil for free

SOE announces free-to-play shooter, Bullet Run…which sounds a lot like Super Monday Night Combat

What does a game “producer” do, exactly? (exclusive)

Plant a money tree in Farmville as Zynga and American Express launch new rewards program

ArenaNet president discusses careful monetization of Guild Wars 2, the least greedy Western MMO

Twilight Zone table to rise again in Pinball Arcade with the help of crowdfunding

Origin offers 90 days of free distribution to successful Kickstarter games

VentureBeat:

Video game series contract will be tough for Bungie, easy for Activision

Square Enix’s Mike Fischer says Activision was “crazy” to abandon True Crime: Hong Kong (interview)

Gaming art for your Facebook Timeline (Part 5: Social and Mobile)

Nvidia expects a “breakout year” for mobile chips

Nvidia CEO describes strategic importance of cloud graphics

THQ releases Metro Last Light cinematic story video

Seagate agrees to acquire LaCie for at least $186M

Take-Two disappoints Wall Street with larger-than-expected loss

Activision reacts to fan response to Call of Duty: Black Ops II (video interview)

BioWare lays off staff on Star Wars: The Old Republic, EA to shift employees [updated]

Trion’s Defiance is one story told in an online game and SyFy TV show (hands-on preview)

YoYo Games unveils GameMaker: Studio for cross-platform development

RocketFrog wants to revolutionize online gambling with real-world prizes

How Ghost Recon is gunning to take over the hardcore and social markets (interview)

Are You a Human replaces annoying CAPTCHAs with games

Game of Thrones Ascent aims to please fans with a Facebook game (exclusive)

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

[UPDATE: We added Electronic Arts' official response below.]

BioWare Austin, a division of Electronic Arts (EA), is cutting staff. This comes after less-than-stellar performance of Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). Despite a strong start, the game has seen a considerable drop in subscriptions.

During a quarterly earnings report in early May, publisher EA announced that the game had lost 400,000 subscribers since February, when they had 1.7 million online players.

We also learned in January that the game took a massive sales drop in the U.K. This didn’t bode well for the game.

Greg Zeschuk, co-founder of BioWare, released the following statement on the official SWTOR community forums:

Hey folks, since you’re reading this you may likely have heard that we’ve done some restructuring here on the SWTOR team. Sadly, we are bidding farewell to some talented, passionate and exceptionally hard-working people who helped make SWTOR a reality. Impacting people’s lives this way is always very hard, but we’re ensuring the affected people are treated with dignity, fairness and respect.

Looking back at launch, we all came together and did something historic. We executed one of the largest, most successful and stable launches of any MMO yet in industry history. That is not an easy feat for any development team or company and we are humbled and honored by our fan community’s strong support both at launch and beyond.

Looking forward, the studio remains vibrant and passionate about our many upcoming initiatives for Star Wars: The Old Republic. We still have a very substantial development team working on supporting and growing the game, and we feel we are in a strong position, with your continued involvement and feedback, to continue to build Star Wars: The Old Republic as one of the most compelling and successful online experiences in the world today. There are many strong initiatives planned for cool new content and new features that we’re excited to tell you about in the upcoming weeks and months.

Rest assured that we remain dedicated to delivering a high quality service in SWTOR to you, our fans, and we will continue to support and grow Star Wars: The Old Republic over the weeks, months and years to come.

Thanks,
Greg and Ray

A representative from EA offered this comment as well:

BioWare has restructured its studio in Austin today.  Of the employees impacted, some will be able to join other projects within EA, others will leave the company. These are very difficult decisions, but it allows us to focus our staff to maintain and grow Star Wars: The Old Republic.

BioWare Austin remains a large and important part of BioWare and EA, working with other studios around the world to continue to deliver a high-quality service and exciting new content for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Electronic Arts shareholders are being sorely tested again after the video game giant posted good earnings but warned about a tough quarter ahead. The stock has fallen 4.8 percent today to $14.41 a share, valuing EA at $4.77 billion. That takes the valuation back to around 1999 levels.

Analysts who cover EA have had their patience tested as the publisher makes the transition from a company that sells $60 packaged goods in retail locations to a digital company with titles on online, social network, and mobile-game platforms (it is focused on brands, platforms, and talent). Here’s a summary of what some of the analysts said today in their research notes:

Atul Bagga, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, said that the performance of massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic, which went from 1.7 million subscribers to 1.3 million, disappointed. He is optimistic about EA’s platform strategy, where it will leverage its database of 220 million online gamers. He noted EA’s online store Origin’s revenue was $150 million in the fiscal year, up four-fold from a year ago. The Play4Free freemium web platform generated $23 million in the fourth fiscal quarter, up 80 percent. Bagga said he was encouraged by the long tail of digital sales of console games, a healthy pipeline for social and mobile, and strong mobile execution. He lowered estimates, reflecting a delay of one of EA’s mystery titles.

Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities, said he expects the recent momentum in digital revenues to continue with increased adoption of EA Origin, Star Wars subscription payments, social game The Sims Social and the release of the next Sim City (slated for this fall). He thinks digital revenue could grow from $1.2 billion for the year ended March 31 to $1.7 billion in the next fiscal year. But he noted that the change in guidance for lower revenues in the coming quarter magnified concerns about a potential decline for Star Wars this year and weak packaged goods sales for the whole video game industry.

Pachter took his fiscal year 2013 estimates down from $4.52 billion to $4.4 billion, and earnings per share came down from $1.25 to $1.20. Overall, he believes EA shares can hit $29 a share, or six times fiscal year earnings per share of $1.58, during the next 12 months.

Ben Schachter of Macquarie Securities said that his company was previously too optimistic about EA’s transition to digital games. In February, he cut his estimates. But now, he is slightly more positive, since EA’s long-term margin expansion and revenue goals around key brands are still viable. Consoles are weak, but digital should grow 20 percent in the next few years. He said Internet connectivity for the television is coming, and that could lead to more game sales. He said those who shorted (bet its stock price would fall) EA have seen their bets pay off, and now that will reduce downward pressure on the stock.

“Given the company’s execution history, we are not yet ready to upgrade, but we see limited downside from current levels,” Schachter said. “A key problem for video game stocks remains investor apathy. While this issue will not turn overnight, we believe valuation can bring more value investors to the table and potential catalysts such as E3 [the key industry conference in early June], new hardware launches, and the powerful theme of increasing Internet use through mobile devices and televisions will also draw attention to the industry.” He said he believes in the stock because the digital transition will lead to higher margins.

Arvind Bhatia, an analyst at Sterne Agee, said that the guidance for the coming year wasn’t as bad as feared. He believes that EA’s stock will go back up as the console cycle begins anew. Bhatia believes that the title that was delayed was Overstrike, a game that EA will publish for Insomniac Games. EA will launch 14 packaged goods games in fiscal 2013, compared with 22 in fiscal 2012. But EA will publish 41 digital titles. He is raising estimates slightly. He believes the majority of EA’s new investment in future consoles will be directed toward Sony and Microsoft consoles, not Nintendo’s Wii U.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---