Atari Vs Turbine: A Challenger Appears


Not on this lawsuit...

(Updated at bottom with response from Hasbro)
It’s been a while since I’ve updated you all on the ongoing Turbine Vs Atari lawsuit, so a recap is in the bill, Judge Judy style:

  • Plaintiff: Turbine is the developer of Dungeons and Dragons Online. They are suing Atari, the publisher, for not doing an efficient job of promoting the title. Turbine is also accusing Atari of purposely downplaying the game in order to, at a future date, cut the license with the intent of shutting down Dungeons and Dragons Online in favor of Atari’s own rumored upcoming MMO based on the same franchise.
  • Defendant: Atari is the license holder for Dungeons and Dragons and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons video games, and is also the publisher of Dungeons and Dragons Online. They are being sued for fraud.

The implications of a developer-publisher lawsuit are pretty clear. If Turbine wins, they get to keep the license until 2016, which will most likely be several years after DDO is six feet underground. If Turbine loses the lawsuit, you can certainly expect Atari to cut them off at the earliest opportunity, possibly shutting the game down along with them.

More after the break…

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Should WoW Go Cheaper?


If Funcom's money was gold-backed...

Here in the first world, most of us have the luxury of looking upon $15 dollars as a small fee, hardly enough to buy dinner for two at a restaurant slightly more fashionable than McDonald’s (Actually, you probably won’t get a combo meal for two for $15 at McD’s either). When it comes to MMOs and subscriptions, however, people seem less keen to offer up their hard earned cash.

Which segues into Blizzard and the most popular MMO on earth, World of Warcraft. I think Blizzard would see a massive influx of profit and subscribers if they were to lower the monthly subscription price to $9.99, out of the enormous amount of new and alternate accounts that would be created. It seems like a slight change in price, however to the consumer’s psyche, ten dollars feels like a lot less than fifteen. To put it into perspective, whenever the store I work at has a sale on Vitamin Water, the price drops to 10 for $10, or $1 a bottle. The price, without sale, is $1.02 per bottle. For the fact that it’s a two cent drop in price, the sale (the image “sale”) always generates a massive response that knocks the product out of stock after just a couple of days. Without fail, every time. After about five sales this past year, no one has apparently caught on.

Lowering the subscription rate on World of Warcraft would effectively knock off the numerous players who are sitting on the fence about starting/restarting their Azeroth adventures, and what better time than right before the release of a new expansion? Try the new and improved World of Warcraft, now at a cheaper rate! It is the most popular, now it’s among the cheapest!

More after the break…

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Microsoft G.O.D Announced: Good Luck With That


Microsoft aims to crucify Steam

Delusions of grandeur are funny and all, but they are a sign/warning of deeper issues, especially in a company that looks to do business. For starters, how many self-proclaimed “Wow-killers” have you seen that ended up being disappointments? Aside from virtually all of them. Yes, it seems that by the time a product (WoW, Steam, Ipod,  Windows, etc) gets to the point of success where other products use it as a focal point of sales (___-killer), the product has become so successful that it has rooted itself in the number one spot, at least for the time being.

Microsoft’s Games on Demand (Or GOD) was just recently announced, and is essentially a digital download addition to Games for Windows Live. The company aims to take a chip off of Steam’s 70% hold of the digital download market, and I say good luck with that. Good luck in the same manner you tell your friend “good luck” as he dons his helmet, cape (bath towel), and proceeds to jump off the roof of a building to prove he can fly.

Continue reading “Microsoft G.O.D Announced: Good Luck With That”

Play Age of Conan My Lord, Free Forever!


Hey, Fileplanet subscribers! Do you want to experience the action, breasts, excitement, breasts, and breasts that Age of Conan has to offer, but don’t want to deal with the pesky process of buying the game and paying for a subscription? Subscribers to Fileplanet can participate in a free unlimited trial, con limitations, today!

Head over to Fileplanet today and claim your key. Aren’t a subscriber to Fileplanet? Look at it this way: Spend the 6 bucks for a month, cancel your renewal, and still grab the key. Limited trial members will be unable to participate in the less important aspects of the game, such as public chat, trading, or using the forums, among other restrictions. You weren’t planning on using those anyway, I have a hunch.

Access the original game today! This desperate grab for subscribers brought to you by Fileplanet, Funcom, and viewers like you! Well maybe not you exactly. Mainly people who fall for not really unlimited, unlimited trials.

Funcom, For Kids!


Not a breast or nanobot in sight...

It’s been a while since I talked about Funcom, almost a month! It’s good to see that Funcom continues to stride through whatever low points life throws its way.  Slashing 20% of the company’s workforce, dropping 68.5% of revenue, and a loss of subscribers due to recent MMO releases, is just a flesh wound. Not only has Funcom opened a subsidiary, SweetRobot, but said subsidiary has been working on a free to play MMO for two years!

Set to go into open beta later this month, and pictured above, is Pets Vs Monsters. PvM, not to be confused with the popular MMO term, is…I’ll let Funcom explain it to you, but after the break.

Continue reading “Funcom, For Kids!”

Interplay Will Continue Work on Fallout MMO


Pre-Alpha Project V13

Motion Hearing held on 12/10/2009 re [3] MOTION for Preliminary Injunction filed by Bethesda Softworks LLC – Argued – “DENIED” as stated on the record by Judge Deborah K. Chasanow. (Court Reporter – Sharon O’Neill) (td, Deputy Clerk)

Depending on who you support in the ongoing lawsuit between Bethesda and Interplay, this news will be either a victory or a setback for you in the great war to develop a Fallout MMO. I didn’t report on this before, mainly because I have a rule against posting rumors, but back in October news was leaked that Interplay may have blocked an injunction by Bethesda, that sought to stop Interplay’s current work on Project V13 (Or the Fallout MMO, as you know it).

According to Gamasutra, in court documents discovered by a Fallout fansite, the judge blocked Bethesda’s injunction, which will allow Interplay to continue working on the fabled, and just recently screenshotted, Fallout MMO. And by work, I mean the 3D Realms kind of work: Playing World of Warcraft, or in this case, Fallen Earth.

A recap on the case after the break.

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Stargate: Still Not Here Yet, Have a Replacement…


Damn you Cheyenne!

With no end in sight to the development of Stargate Worlds, Cheyenne Entertainment has been taking quite a bit of flak, being called the Duke Nukem Forever of MMOs, a ponzi scheme, and other names of varying levels of ridiculous and accuracy. Between the lawsuits and the delays of funds, you’d think there was no chance of the MMO ever coming out.

But this article has nothing to do with Stargate Worlds, the anticipated upcoming MMO by Cheyenne Entertainment. No, this article is about Stargate Resistance, a third person shooter that isn’t so much massively as it is multiplayer and online. Two out of three, and a 66% is technically a passing grade if you set your sights low enough. Stargate Resistance, whose website was just recently revealed above, is a third person shooter being developed by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, the minds who did not bring you Stargate Worlds. It is set for release in Q1 2010 which makes just a few months until the first official delay.

More after the break…

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Pirates of Burning Sea 75% off


Been wanting to give Pirates of the Burning Sea a try, but don’t want to fork down a whole bunch of money for it? Boy does Steam have your back this week! You can grab Pirates of the Burning Sea, the naval MMO, at 75% off, only $4.99 US! If you’ve been hesitating to grab your cutlass and join in the action, now might be the best time.

And for those of you who have asked: I am following the Direct 2 Drive December Sale, keeping a lookout for MMO sales. There has not been a single one yet.

Hellgate: Tokyo Coming Nowhere Near You!


It's alive!!!

On Halloween 2007, Hellgate: London launched in the United States and, much like Tabula Rasa that launched not too far away, both were launched at the same brick wall. Publisher Namco-Bandai shut down the MMO in February 2009. Back when Hellgate: London still had interest in the West, we wondered how they could introduce expansions in the form of Hellgate: Mumbai, Hellgate: San Francisco, and my personal favorite: Hellgate: Hello Kitty Island.

Well, Hellgate: London still isn’t coming back. Although Flagship Studios pulled a Flagship Studios♦ and dissolved in August 2008, Korean company HanbitSoft has obtained the rights and currently operates Hellgate: London in Asia. Although the company would like to reintroduce the game to the Western market, they have been blocked by Namco-Bandai;

“HanbitSoft does own the intellectual property of Hellgate: London and is interested in providing the game in the US and Europe, but is unable to do so at this time because Namco Bandai has the publishing rights for those regions.”
-HanbitSoft on reopening Hellgate: London in the West

Hellgate: Tokyo hits Asian markets in 2010.

Continue reading “Hellgate: Tokyo Coming Nowhere Near You!”

Blizzard: Don't Copy Us


Look, it Harry Truman!

Harry Truman once said that, given the choice between a Republican and a Democrat pretending to be a Republican, people will always vote for the real Republican. Saying that, we can translate the phrase to our own MMO world with World of Warcraft, where when given the option of World of Warcraft and WoW clones, the majority will always stick with World of Warcraft.

Blizzard has caught in on this, with producer Shane Dabiri saying;

“I know that World of Warcraft is very successful, and so people think if they were to make another game just like it they could somehow capture that audience. However, I don’t think that’s what players are looking for.

“Players that have invested time in WOW don’t just want to do the same thing in other game – they want to try something completely new and different,”

Absolutely true. Let’s look at World of Warcraft’s biggest competition, shall we?

  1. Eve Online reports over three hundred thousand subscribers, a number that continues to rise. What differentiates Eve is that you’re not at a disadvantage because someone else has been playing longer than yourself. All ships have their weak spots, and knowing those weak points can help you turn a fight to your advantage. The free expansions are a nice addition.
  2. Lord of the Rings Online may be low on player vs player, but the game’s long arching storyline and plentiful free updates is where the draw comes in.
  3. Runescape, with over a million paying subscribers, thrives on the stat system, and weekly updates. Unlike many other MMOs, quests move above the boundary of kill, fetch, and kill/fetch, to create a world with a rich history.