Games Industry Podcast Season 2 - Ep 16

[Ashlann]

In this episode: Predictions for 2010, The Cost of Gaming, Rockstar Wives Upset, a Blizzard MMO?

[Ashlann]

Recorded: Wednesday, January 20th 2010

Episode 16: Get it on iTunes now!

In This Episode:

• Gameplay and News
• Blizzard doing an MMO?
• The Rockstar Wives take action
• Predictions for 2010

Direct Link:

Download here (36M mp3 - Right Click, Save As - PC)


Notes from Father and Ashlann

A special message from Ashlann.

We'd like to again encourage all our listeners to send in their feedback to us on our email address:



Feel free to send in audio questions for us to play on future casts as well

Regards,

Ashlann & Father

[Atrayo]

Hello Ashlann & Father,

Woot, i was plugged twice by my handle. Thanks Ashlann. Interesting that you'll pick it up as a additional talking point in your next podcast.

Here's the thread I wrote originally that was discussed in this podcast. Link When i was looking for additional information a couple of weeks back on this topic. I was surprised to see my thread listed via the Google Search engine for the TOG forum.

EA CEO John Riccitiello did state in the other video interview i linked from "Nightly Business Report". That the EA strategic plan was to release fewer games and those that are released would be more so AAA game titles. (IE like "Battlefield: Bad Company 2") Besides those focused on social media sites, such as "Facebook" with a micro-transaction bent.

EA CEO Video lasting 18 minutes by NBR.

Besides Microsoft or Disney as potential hostile takeover bidders for EA. There is also "Blizzard / Activision" that could be in the running.

Another gamer technology that could take off besides that of "Natal" from Microsoft. Is that of "OnLive" where a catalog of games is streamed to you for game play purposes. A user won't be dependent on a elite gamer PC rig since all the hardware will be on the "OnLive" side.

OnLive is launching the world's highest performance Games On Demand service, instantly delivering the latest high-end titles over home broadband Internet to the TV and entry-level PCs and Macintosh® computers.

Founded by noted technology entrepreneur Steve Perlman (WebTV, QuickTime) and incubated within the Rearden media and technology incubator, OnLive spent seven years in stealth development before officially unveiling in March 2009.

OnLive, together with its Mova subsidiary, lies directly at the nexus of several key trends, all of which are reshaping the way we think about and use digital media:

• The shift to cloud computing, displacing the limitations, cost and complexity of local computing;
• An explosion of consumer broadband connectivity, bringing fast bandwidth to the home;
• Unprecedented innovation, creativity and expansion within the video game market.

"OnLive", would also minimize the piracy of games as a trend. Since the game titles would be streamed to a user that has a broadband like connection.

[Ned]

Playlists.


Ashlann is still addicted to Guild Wars... as Stef said.. MMO anonymous may need a call!
(and maybe from me soon, I bought the GW trilogy on the recent Steam sale)




News.

Stef mentioned that Infinity Ward may be making a Call of Duty MMO.. There's a discussion thread going in the public shooter forum about this topic - LINK - and it looks like "Sledgehammer Games (a videogame development studio owned by Activision) will extend the Call of Duty franchise into the action-adventure genre."


ColdCamV mentions a MMOFPS called World War II Online: Battleground Europe in that CoD MMO thread which also looks interesting.

Battleground Europe is fought on an accurate half-scale map of 1940's Western Europe.

SOURCE Play Guide - Battleground Europe Wiki


PlanetSide gets a mention and how well it worked regarding the joining of MMO & FPS..
It looks like PlanetSide 2 is on the way, discussion thread - HERE -


I haven't played a MMOFPS yet. I don't know if it'll suit my online gaming needs. I like idea of being able to sometimes just jump into a FPS for 20-30 minutes and play a round and leave satisfied. From what I heard this can't be done with anything MMO. A MMOFPS is still on my to-do list though




Blizzard doing an MMO? topic.

It looks like we find out what this is during BlizzCon 2010.

SOURCE Blizzard's New MMO Wiki




Cost of Gaming topic.

Stef mentioned the huge sales Steam offered during the xmas period. I ended up getting BioShock for $10 and Mirror's Edge for $5. Both of these games have been on my to-play list for a while so I snapped them up at a good price. Like you both I don't have to get most games on release at full price. There are of course others that I simply must have on release day!

Cost of Gaming.... mmmmm... even if consoles were significantly cheaper than PCs for gaming I still wouldn't leave the PC world. I'm an enthusiast gamer so in my opinion that requires a PC. I'm sure many console gamers would disagree with that though. I suppose the term "best" is relative.

Lucky for the PC gamer the hardware is advanced to a point where required upgrades are less frequent. I used to be an avid overclocker but now-a-days it's more of a hobby for most overclockers than a requirement ie. years ago to play a game on max settings or even just high settings you needed to overclock. The best default systems in the world couldn't run games at high-max. Today that isn't the case.




Predictions for 2010 topic.

I'm hoping that the next Medal of Honor will be good. I'm predicting the singleplayer will be great but I'm a bit concerned the multiplayer with be a stat-noob fest. Here's a link to a discussion thread in the public shooter forum - LINK.





Thanks again for another great podcast!

cheers
nedd

[Father]

With the implosion of Infinity Ward we can certainly assume that we won't see a COD MMO anytime soon but who knows, was a rumour and certainly not confirmed that IW was even directly involved in it's development, my guess is that they weren't.

We haven't touched on the IW issues but next cast it sounds we may have Hoppy on who is a seasoned COD player so the topic will inevitably come up there.

Planetside2 has to happen:

Planetside - News

We will find out soon based on that link.

Only needs one thing that game which is the Crysis engine, the rest can stay intact and I'll never sleep again that's how much I loved that game.

I think MOH will be good, I thought they were good games in general. The last few just suffered from WWII fatigue and IW was smart enough to be the first in making a really polished modern day time shooter. I'm sure that it's still a formula that can be improved.