Capcom has revealed a new mobile version of Monster Hunter. Titled something to the effect of Monster Hunter Exploration Journal: Phantom Island, they’re taking per-registrations for the Gree mobile platform now.
The game will be based off of the Monster Hunter Frontier Online franchise and be set on the titular Phantom Island. There, players get embroiled in a quest to train and fight monsters with one another.
Source: Andriasang.com
Cryptic has confirmed that Star Trek Online will be going free-to-play on January 17, 2011. “We’ve always wanted the game to be free-to-play, in fact we tried to make it free-to-play at the original launch, but our publisher [Atari] didn’t want us doing that so we didn’t do that,” said Stephen D’Angelo, Executive Producer on Star Trek Online and Chief Technical Officer.
The developer learned from the rough transition of Champions Online to make sure that beginning loot is easy to acquire and later loot is satisfyingly difficult. “A lot of the things people acquired weren’t worth very much to them,” D’Angelo says. “[So we’re] revisiting the game’s economy.”
One big change is going to be switching over the myriad means of acquiring items with Dilithium. This material can also be exchanged for Cryptic Points, which grants access to things like certain starships, pets and consumables.
“Dilithium buys you the cool gear. People who buy Cryptic Points can go to our store and can buy the cool ships, but they can’t get the cool gear. We’re going to let people sell their Dilithium to other players for Cryptic Points,” noted D’Angelo, “if you have no money and want to spend no money you can literally get everything available in our store.”
Source: IGN
PopCap today revealed that 118.5 million people now play social games at least once a week, up 71 percent over last year. People are also more willing to spend money, with 31 million players having purchased in-game currency, up 86 percent.
“The survey found that 30 percent, or 35 million people who now play social games are new to the category since February 2010, and that 17 percent of people who play social games regularly are new to gaming altogether, having never previously played a video game, representing 20 million new gaming consumers,” notes PopCap. “And while the average age of social gamers has gone down from 43 to 39, the average first time new social gamer is a 50+ year-old woman.”
PopCap also said 81 million people, or 68 percent of social gamers, play social games at least once a day, and that 49 million people, or 41 percent of social gamers, play social games multiple times a day. Demographic stats showed that the percentage of social gamers under 30 years old increased from 19 percent to 30 percent, that women comprise 55 percent of social gamers, and that 20 percent of all social gamers in the U.S. are over 60, compared to only 7 percent in the U.K.
Gamigo has announced that it has bought 20.1 percent of developer OnsOn Soft. The German publisher has made the investment in the Korean free-to-play developer in order to gain the European and U.S. publishing rights for OnsOn Soft’s next game.
“We’ve had a close business relationship with OnsOn Soft for years; this step will cement that further,” commented Patrick Streppel, one of Gamigo’s board members. “With this strategic investment we are securing the future of Fiesta Online in Europe and will be able to make other projects a reality with their team.”
Gamigo previously published OnsOn Soft’s popular MMO Fiesta Online.
Publisher Take-Two has issued $200 million worth of senior convertible notes for purchase. Given that the company will likely receive a large influx of cash with the release of Grand Theft Auto V next year, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter thinks the reason for the move is to acquire a company in the social or mobile space.
“We cannot envision any scenario where the company would run out of cash at any time in 2012,” reads Pachter’s investment note, “particularly taking into consideration that management has repeatedly stated it expects the company to earn ‘in excess of $2.00 per share’ in FY:13. A review of Take-Two’s line-up in 2012 reinforces our view that the company will generate even more cash in FY:13, and leads us to conclude that the proceeds can only be intended for acquisitions or strategic investments.”
“Take-Two is likely exploring an investment in the mobile or social games space,” claims Pachter. “We note that digitally delivered content accounted for 25 per cent of net revenue in Q2:12, and management consistently lists digital as a component of the company’s growth strategy.”
Welcome to the North Pole Letters Department where it’s Christmas every day! On the official website for Arthur Christmas, fans can write their letter to Santa courtesy of Arthur Christmas (Santa’s favorite son). Click on the blank spaces and choose a word to fill in the sentence mad-lib style. Please be aware that Santa can’t bring such things as weaponry, pets, enriched uranium or private jets. Head over to the official Facebook page and check out the Santa’s Secret app to check out the official trailer, play some mini-games and take the naughty or nice quiz to find out if you’re on Santa’s List.
Sony Online Entertainment has confirmed that EverQuest II will be going free-to-play early in December, merging the separate F2P community in EverQuest II: Extended back with the main community. All of the EverQuest II content through the Sentinel’s Fate expansion (released in February 2010) will be a free download.
Free-level members can now play up to level 90, but have limited access to races, classes, the mail service and spell tiers, as well as a smaller number of character slots, bag slots, and active journal quests. The Silver tier will cost $5 instead of the old $10, whereas a Gold membership costs $14.99 per month.
Check out the full list of new features at everquest2.com/free_to_play.
Perfect World and Nexon have announced that they have teamed up to form a new venture based out of Korea. The combination of the Chinese and Korean online companies is tentatively called . . . “New Company.”
“We are very pleased to build a strategic partnership with Nexon,” said Perfect World CEO Michael Chi. “This strategic alliance will help us further expand our user base and provide the highest quality services to local players in the Korean market. The introduction of more of Perfect World’s online games into the Korean market will help further strengthen our international reputation as a comprehensive online game developer and operator.”
“We are very excited about establishing this New Company with Perfect World to bring more of their titles into the Korean market. Nexon was originally founded in Seoul, and moved its headquarters to Tokyo earlier this year,” said Nexon Korea CEO Min Seo.
Brands were rather unceremoniously tossed from Google+. Now, however, Google has announced Google+ Pages which gives brands, business, and other organizations a public presence on the social networking site and a way to connect with customers and fans.
“The people who we kicked out and have been waiting in the wings—the brands and bands and organizations and entities—are now welcome back in our system,” said Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product for Google+. “We did something rather rude, we kicked these brands off 100 days ago. We noticed that they were taking up residence in the user space and, rather abruptly and rudely, said, ‘We have something else in mind for you. We didn’t anticipate this much interest this fast, please wait.’ We’ve developed something that we think is good for the brands and good for the users.”
Using Google+ Circles brands can target customers at various levels of activities. The Pages can also exist on mobile and can use Hangouts to host conversations with customers and brands.
However, Brands can’t add people to Circles until their pages are added first and have a +1 button and can’t be shared with “extended circles.” Brands can notably place new icons and badges on their websites to help direct traffic to their Google+ Pages.
Google+ Pages also links up with AdWords search and display campaigns, so that helps brands manage their overall Google integration. To make sure that Google+ Pages are genuine brands, Google has also created a verification program, primarily for select brands.
Brands can also use the Direct Connect feature that lets users simply type in a brand’s name after the “+” sign in a Google search box to get a direct path to its Google+ page. This will be available to a handful of brands at first but eventually expand them out.
Source: AdWeek
SOE has confirmed that DC Universe Online has signed up a million new players since switching to a free-to-play model. Reports were that concurrent users were up 1000 percent after the switch to F2P.
“DC Universe Online‘s transition to free-to-play has been welcomed by the community and gamers with heroic enthusiasm. In just one week alone, 1 million new players have joined DCUO with a 50/50 split between PC and PS3,” said Lorin Jameson, Executive Director of Development, SOE Austin. “DCUO now joins the ranks of SOE’s other successful free-to-play titles, including Free Realms and Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures.”
“Our business model philosophy of Free to Play Your Way makes DCUO accessible to every type of player so they can choose to play the game in a way that suits them best,” added Jameson. “We have a lot of exciting things coming up for players to enjoy in the game and are thrilled at the initial enthusiasm for the game’s free-to-play transition.”
