As recently reported by Gamasutra, Mike Hickey of Janco Partners stated that “We believe many investors are betting against SWTOR achieving market success, provided the company’s, and industry’s track record at releasing successful new MMOs”. In his opinion many factors come to support his claims, ranging from EA’s track record for successful MMO launches to the pending $400 million lawsuit with Activision. … More

Have you seen this girl, the new teaser trailer released by Iceberg Interactive today, comes to celebrate the global direct download launch of the game on various portals such as GamersGate and Impulse. The box versions of the game can still be preordered from Iceberg webshop and they will be shipped out early next week with the UK retail release date on the 11th.

In my opinion the story behind the trailer is many times more impressive than the actual footage to say the least, but a picture is worth a thousand words (or so they say) so a film must be worth a gazillion words. Here is the story and I’ll let you decide for yourself the truth value of that statement: … More

As soon as the calendar month tag flips to December, all hell breaks loose: the PR departments switch to hyper drive, Marketing overdoses on dirty tricks and retailers go out of their way to create a “new and exciting” web of promotions in which they hope the naive, unsuspecting consumer will get caught… again. No matter how old, cheap and obvious the whole ritual is, customers act surprised each and every time and go along with it, sacrificing embarrassing amounts of money on products they would normally ignore if it was June. I wish I could say gamers are special, that they developed some sort of immunity when it comes to advertising and that years of experience have thought them not to go with the flow, not to believe that shiny and cheap means better, and not to let themselves mind controlled by simple spells such as “Holiday Special!”. But … More

Ubisoft is renowned for using the same IP for countless iterations until it has been sucked dry of any novelty or appeal. So the press release that surfaced today, announcing a new installment for the Prince of Persia series has the same surprise value as the night-day cycle.

The video game currently in development is called Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and the storyline behind it will naturally complement the one on which Sands of Time has been build upon. The French developer has promised a gameplay experience that will follow in the footsteps of the previous game, but enriched with innovations that will not disappoint the fans of the famous series. … More

At the beginning of this month Bioware released its latest fantasy RPG for both PC and consoles, and ever since then it’s been raining roses, praises and applause. But is it really that good or are we again witnessing the power of EA’s marketing’s machine combined with the strength of the hypnotized masses? We’ve invested a few days of gameplay into it to find that out for you.

The character customization section that you will need to go through at the beginning of the game is decent enough and there is a pretty good variety of elements you can mix together in attempting to create something to suit your tastes. But don’t expect it to be extraordinary, because it’s far from it: you can create something… humanoid, but don’t try to create a character that looks, walks and talks just like you because you’ll be wasting your time. … More

Whether they terrorize us and make us shiver under the blankets or they just make us laugh hysterically until we cry, zombies will always remain a great source of entertainment. Apparently video games industry veteran Jeff Strain feels the same way, as he has recently announced the formation of Undead Labs, a game development studio based in Seattle that will focus on online games. But not any kind of online games, but the definitive massively multiplayer online zombie game (MMOZ). So double undead trouble!

Strain left NCSoft last summer (we hear a roar of applauses in the background) with the declared goal of building from the ground up, together with a few of the most talented developers, a creative studio that targets a new breed of MMO for console gamers. … More

As announced by Activision Blizzard Inc yesterday the game continues its record breaking streak. Over a five day time frame Modern Warfare 2 registered sales worth an approximate of $550 million, according to internal Activision estimates. Such numbers shatter all previous held records:

- The largest reported five-day opening worldwide box office gross figures, held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($394 million)
- The largest reported five-day opening domestic box office gross figures, held by The Dark Knight ($203.8 million) … More

The game will be released simultaneously on PS3 and Xbox360, in both Europe and North America, on the 9th of March 2010. The announcement came from Square Enix Ltd. on the November 13, 2009. It was also mentioned that the multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter Leona Lewis has come on board with Square Enix to provide the theme song for Final Fantasy XIII. The song is entitled “My Hands,” and is featured on her highly-anticipated second album ECHO (J Records/Syco Music) set for release on November 16th. As a side note: I listened to the song and I can honestly say I couldn’t have imagined a more common and boring succession of sounds as the one provided by this so called artist I have never heard of before. But maybe it’s just me… … More