In part II of our interview with Runic Games (you can check out the first part right here) we talk about what went wrong at Flagship Studios and what the future holds after the single-player part of Torchlight is released on Oct. 28.
The Tokyo Game Show is over, and the dynamic duo, Scott Jones and John Teti, will soon be home enjoying all that North America has to offer. But while they imagine making love to giant Chocobo’s and Slimes, we ponder the reason why attendance for this year’s TGS doesn’t match up to 2008 and 2007 (total number of people).
Kotaku has a nice break down of attendance numbers for every day of this year’s show and compares it to the same days in 2008 and 2007. So let’s have some fun with math, shall we?
Business Day 1 - 2009: 27,435 people, 2008: 27,435 people, 2007: 29,783 people
Business Day 2 - 2009: 24,605 people, 2008: 24,178 people, 2007: 32,390 people
Public Day 1 - 2009: 61,138 people (9,579 kids), 2008: 71,639 people (9,207 kids), 2007: 64,795 people (11,829 kids)
Public Day 2 - 2009: 71,852 people (12,369 kids), 2008: 71,166 people (13,963 kids), 2007: 66,072 people (15,347 kids)
Total Attendance - 2009: 185,030 people, 2008: 194,288 people, 2007: 193,040 people
So while the numbers vary by each day, according to these figures, total attendance numbers are short by a considerable number. The weakness this year seems to be among “business” and kids, who apparently decided that they had better things to do. Hay, if Nintendo isn’t going to show, why should you?
Source: Kotaku
The Beatles: Rock Band is in stores today in various SKUs including with and without a custom themed guitar, by itself and on various platforms including the Wii, PS3, Xbox 360 and VHS. Okay, it’s not out on VHS but if you’re interested in buying it on that format then you are probably really old and need some assisted living.
For our part we offer three great articles about the game: a brand new Games For Lunch, Harold Goldberg’s The Beatles Rock Band review and Kyle Orland’s The Beatles Rock Band inspired feature - Nine Songs We Want as The Beatles: Rock Band DLC (and Four We Don’t).
Finally, and not surprisingly The Beatles Rock Bandmania has hit the Crispy offices. Thank you Harmonix and The surviving Beatles for giving my co-workers another reason to get drunk after work. Yes, I’m am slightly jealous.
Codemasters DiRT 2 makes its way onto stores shelves across North America for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS and PSP - with a Games For Windows LIVE edition with support for DirectX 11 to follow soon.
The sequel to the popular 2007 racing game delivers a new driving experience with benchmark tech, new race types, a big event atmosphere, new locations, a new batch of off-roading heroes and a line-up of super-charged speed machines. Full online functionality with head-to-head competitive online play and social features are also in the mix. Of course we have all the DiRT on DiRT 2, thanks to Tom Chick’s DiRT 2 review. Thanks Tom.
DiRT 2 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is rated T for Teen and is available for $59.99. The Wii, and PSP system versions are rated E 10+, The DS is rated E for everyone; the Wii version is available for $39.99 and the Nintendo DS and PSP system versions are available for $29.99.
GamerDNA wants its users to have a better user experience when using Twitter - especially when trying to find tweets that are game related. As you probably know, it’s a pain in the ass sifting through all your tweets to find specific people or topics, and while there are plenty of applications to help you o that, GamerDNA’s solution for its users is probably one of the first game related ones.
Launched at E3 2009, that solution is called TweetMyGaming.com, and it aggregates the video game conversations happening on Twitter in real-time. The site is powered by the GamerDNA Helix API which also provides game trend data from its web site. TweetMyGaming uses keywords (titles of games) that are scanned from the GamerDNA Helix API and then displayed by order of popularity.
Tweets and play patterns of games are also charted and graphed to show the trends that are happening at the moment. This enables you to see what games people are talking about and excited by, in real-time. Percentages on the homepage also show the increases or decreases in tweets for a particular game. Players’ attention numbers found on each game page are based off of GamerDNA data pulled from our API.
You can check it out by visiting TweetMyGaming.com. You don’t need to sign up for GamerDNA to use it, but you probably should because the service offers the best editorial content on the planet: OURS.
Where is the best place to see live streams of all of this week’s E3 Expo press conferences? If you’re not near a TV to watch G4, then the next best place is G4TV.com. This week G4’s web site is teaming up with Justin.tv to provide live streams of all the top press conferences including Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft. But the great news is that you’ll be able to catch them right here on Crispy Gamer, through a live stream embed. It’s really the best of both worlds.
The following events will be streamed live on Justin.tv and G4tv.com:
June 1st
10:30am - 11:30am: Microsoft Press Conference
2:00pm - 3:30pm: EA Press Conference
5:00pm - 6:15pm: Ubisoft Press Conference
June 2nd
9:00am - 10am: Nintendo Press Conference
9:00am - 10:30am: Donkey Kong Record Attempt #1
10:30am - 12:30pm: Donkey Kong Record Attempt #2
11:00am - 12:30pm: Sony Press Conference
3:00pm - 6:00pm: Donkey Kong Record Attempt #3
6:00pm – 6:30pm: TheFeed’s E3 Nightcap
June 3rd
6:00pm – 6:30pm: TheFeed’s E3 Nightcap
Following the broadcast coverage on Tuesday and Wednesday, Billy Berghammer and special guests will discuss the biggest news, surprises and disappointments of the Expo.
Tuesday June 2nd 9:00PM ET:
Billy Berghammer – Director, Games Editorial G4tv.com
Brad Shoemaker - Editor, Giant Bomb
Adam Sessler - Editor in Chief, G4
Victor Lucas - Electric Playground
Wednesday 9:00pm ET:
Billy Berghammer
Chris Kohler: Wired/Game|Life
Thomas Puha: EIC Pelajjja Magazine Finland
N’Gai Croal - Chief Consultant, Hit Detection
For our part, we’ll provide recaps of all the press conferences and post the live stream a little bit before the biggest events. Look for the first one at 10:25am PST (that’s 1:25pm EST).
Our own Scott Jones served as Roastmaster General for the GDC panel “But What I Really Want to do is Make Games,” and it was good. And he rested. Selah. The panel featured some notable former journalists turned game developers talking about the transition from people that write about games for a living to people that make games.
The clips show some of the highlights of this panel, including some of the best advice I’ve heard from a game developer in my 11 years covering the business: “Don’t Be a Dick.” Of course one panelist didn’t agree with this advice. Check them out below, and if you want more check out the entire session in audio format at the very bottom of this story - after the break. Video provided the irrepressible Evan Narcisse.
