Tuesday, November 18, 2008

No Jimi Hendrix DLC For You, Guitar Hero Wii Owners

10:00PM Luke Plunkett | Having Jimi Hendrix DLC in the latest Guitar Hero is a big selling-point! Pity for Wii owners, then, that you won’t be seeing it. A Blactivision PR rep has told MTV: More »

Cops Blame Driving Games For Crap Young Drivers

9:00PM Luke Plunkett | Some background: reckless driving and young deaths on Australian roads are a fairly big problem here. We’ve got lots of long roads, lots of kids with big cars, and a culture of people driving big cars fast. It’s been a problem in Australian society for decades, but since games are around these days, they’re becoming a convenient scapegoat amongst those who should really know better (ie the police). Having armed himself with a German report on the subject, Superintendent Dave Evans of the NSW Police has told the Daily Telegraph: Video games can have a negative impact on young drivers because it increases their complacency and their indulgence in risk-taking behaviour. In games you race, you crash and it is a matter of pressing the buttons and off you go again. In real life it doesn’t work that way, you can be killed. More »

Two Devs Sue Brash For Not Paying Up

8:00PM Luke Plunkett | Brash Entertainment are no more. It’s OK, your grief will pass. While you’re waiting, know that two developers working with the now-defunct publisher are suing the company. 7 Studios – who were working on a game called 9, based on a cartoon produced by Tim Burton – are suing because Brash owe them $US581,000. The other studio suing is Zootfly, who claim Brash owe them $US748,000 for the Prison Break game they were working on. Oh Brash. They didn’t live with dignity, guess it’d be too much to be expecting they die with some. Brash sued by two developers [Variety] More »

Did EA And The NFLPA Conspire To Lock 2K Out Of The Football Market?

7:00PM Luke Plunkett | It certainly looks that way. As part of a lawsuit involving retired NFL player rights, a 2007 e-mail from NFLPA executive Clay Walker to an NFLPA attorney was released. That email reads: I was able to forge this deal with the [Pro Football Hall of Fame] that provides them with 400K per year (which is significantly below market rate) in exchange for the HOF player rights. EA owes me a huge favour because of that threat was enough to persuade Take Two to back off its plans, leaving EA as the only professional football videogame manufacturer out there. More »

Guitar Hero World Tour Not Selling Like Guitar Hero III Did

6:00PM Luke Plunkett | When Guitar Hero III was released in 2007, it sold 1.39 million copies across the various platforms in its first week on sale. That generated $US115 million for Activision. When Guitar Hero World Tour launched in 2008, it sold 534,000 copies in its first seven days. That “only” generated $US67 million. That’s got to be disappointing for Activision. Sure, you can point to the fact the complete GHWT package is prohibitively expensive in these troubled economic times, but you didn’t need to buy the whole pack. Indeed, so many people own a previous Guitar Hero a lot of people could just buy the disc. So what gives? Who knows. Rock Band’s probably got a lot to do with it, but I’d never overlook the fact that more casual gamers – and a lot of Guitar Hero owners are just that – don’t stomach annual updates as easily as us suckers do. NPD: Behind The Numbers, October 2008 [Gamasutra] More »

Fuel Your Preconceptions With This Deus Ex 3 Concept Art

5:30PM Luke Plunkett | Thanks to the Viking warriors at Gamereactor, we have our first good look at how Deus Ex 3 is shaping up. Not the game itself, mind you, it’s far too early for that kind of business, but this concept art should at least give you an idea of the tone Ubisoft are shooting for. First thing we noticed? There’s sunshine! Second thing? Somebody’s been watching a lot of Blade Runner. More »