Jonathon Dornbush joins Naughty Dog after giving Last Of Us 2 a 10/10.
Continue reading “Ethics: Naughty Dog Hires IGN Reviewer Who Praised Game”
Jonathon Dornbush joins Naughty Dog after giving Last Of Us 2 a 10/10.
Continue reading “Ethics: Naughty Dog Hires IGN Reviewer Who Praised Game”
Humble Monthly is rebranding as Humble Choice and that can only mean one thing: Higher prices? Check. Lower value? Double check. Holding current subscribers hostage? Triple check.
Humble Monthly is a pretty damn good deal if you look at it. $12 per month or $132 per year for ten games per month is crazy. Add in the fact that they offer some otherwise expensive titles like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot and you’ve got an even better deal. Don’t like the games? Sell the keys and you’ll probably make back more than what you’re buying them for.
But Humble Monthly is changing. Starting in a few months the service will reboot as Humble Choice, a cynical marketing decision to make it seem like you’re getting more while stripping away value and increasing prices. The basic package will now cost $14.99, a $2 increase per month, and give you three games to choose from out of that month’s selection. Yes, you are going to pay a roughly 15% increase for 70% less product. If you want something closely resembling the Humble Monthly bundle, you’ll have to pay $20 per month and even then you don’t get all of the games. Current subscribers will need to remain subscribed in order to keep their “classic” plan in effect.
Everyone wanted to know how long it would take IGN to flip the table and start gouging Humble Monthly and it looks like the answer is two years. The most entertaining part of this announcement is seeing Humble’s PR people try to spin this as even vicariously resembling something pro-consumer.
Humble Bundle has been owned by gaming website IGN, by which we mean that IGN is now the owner of Humble Bundle. It will take helm of one of the top gaming charities, whose bundles have not just supplied gamers with endless piles of cheap fun, but have also supplied charities to the tune of over $100 million.
“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” said Galbraith, who explained that IGN started looking to make a deal like this nearly a year ago. “The idea is just to feed them with the resources they need to keep doing what they’re doing.”
The news has no doubt called into question the ethics of having a company that reviews games be directly connected to a store that could sell those games, but IGN has stated that the two entities will remain entirely independent.
(Source: Gamasutra)
(Our thoughts: To the dismay of Humble Bundle’s finance department, IGN pushed the contribution slider 100% toward giving the money to charity. This news also comes alongside the announcement that IGN has once again not acquired MMO Fallout)
IGN managed to interview Zenimax’s own Matt Firor, who revealed that housing is coming to The Elder Scrolls Online in the first quarter of 2017. Before player owned houses come to Tamriel, Zenimax plans on dropping an update in August that will add a customizing barbershop and an Argonian dungeon pack.
The dungeon pack represents a new form of content delivery that Zenimax is aiming for, creating smaller, almost episodic content for players to come back to.
“It’s interesting to see what happens when you take away the subscription model away,” Firor explained. “You don’t see a hardcore playstyle – like playing for six months and then quitting – we don’t see that. We have a lot of players who will play for two or three weeks because they want to get through a zone and then stop. Then they come back two months later for another month, because there’s no pressure to play all of it at once.
Housing is a staple of the Elder Scrolls series, so it’s not surprising that players have been clamoring for it since the game initially launched. Housing joins recent major revelations, from the impending launch in Japan to content scaling to the player’s level.
(Source: IGN)
Ever since Jagex released RuneScape 2 in 2004, the developer has looked at making its skills more varied in use than simple gathering from nodes and production using those items. Skills like farming require patience and timing, construction is directly related to player owned housing, summoning brought in familiars, and dungeoneering opened a whole new area of the game’s lore. While skills normally release around two to three years apart, Jagex unveiled two new skills coming in 2013, without giving a whole lot of information surrounding them.
IGN has unveiled that the first skill will apparently be Divination.
Two new skills will also be added to the game; while one hasn’t been revealed, the other, divination, will apparently play a key role in the latter stages of RuneScape 3’s story.
Jagex recently shook up the RuneScape world by ushering it into the Sixth Age of the timeline. The god Guthix has been killed and with his death the edicts preventing the other deities from meddling in the world are gone as well. In the months and years to come, players will decide which god prevails.
(Source: IGN)
Ever since Jagex released RuneScape 2 in 2004, the developer has looked at making its skills more varied in use than simple gathering from nodes and production using those items. Skills like farming require patience and timing, construction is directly related to player owned housing, summoning brought in familiars, and dungeoneering opened a whole new area of the game’s lore. While skills normally release around two to three years apart, Jagex unveiled two new skills coming in 2013, without giving a whole lot of information surrounding them.
IGN has unveiled that the first skill will apparently be Divination.
Two new skills will also be added to the game; while one hasn’t been revealed, the other, divination, will apparently play a key role in the latter stages of RuneScape 3’s story.
Jagex recently shook up the RuneScape world by ushering it into the Sixth Age of the timeline. The god Guthix has been killed and with his death the edicts preventing the other deities from meddling in the world are gone as well. In the months and years to come, players will decide which god prevails.
(Source: IGN)
Is the Avatar MMO a possibility? A question best left to James Cameron himself, perhaps asked by IGN. And by the good grace of Grendaline, IGN has come through with just such an interview. In an exclusive interview with Cameron, IGN asked the all important question, “what are your thoughts on turning Avatar into an MMO experience?” While the answer isn’t a confirmation that such a game is in the works, it does open the door to an Avatar MMO in the future.
I think Avatar is a perfect IP for an MMO. It’s a very, very big world and based on the first film, you might not sense that, but we’re talking about an entire planet, an entire alter world, and in fact a universe that has other planetary bodies, as well, and other cultures, other life forms. Eventually people will see enough scope to be able to see how the MMO will work, but that’s going to have to be launched…the timing of that is going to have to be carefully orchestrated with the release of the second and third film because we don’t want to be giving away elements before the fact. And also I think one of the cool things about an MMORPG is that you have to have a lot more possibilities for characters than what you see in the film. The film is really just a leaping off point, so we’ve got to create a rich and diverse world that lives well beyond the films.