iMEvil for iPhone released

If you’re looking for something a little odd for your iPhone or iPod Touch, then you may be interested in checking out TechPad Productions’ iMEvil application. iMEvil is a soundboard application featuring the professional voice talent of David Sobolov that features 32 creepy utterances that you can use to scare your friends or just creep yourself out.

While the app may not be a game it is game related: Sobolov’s voice acting work has been featured in over 40 games including Halo Wars, Call of Duty 1 and 4, Red Alert 3, Transformers, Unreal Tournament 3, Chronicles of Riddick, Everquest II, Prototype, and upcoming games Brutal Legend, Dragon Age, Aion and Diablo III.

For more information, be sure to check out imevil.techpadproductions.com.

BlizzCon Tickets on sale May 16

Tickets for Blizzard Entertainment’s fourth BlizzCon convention will go on sale May 16. Live coverage of the event will be available as a DIRECTVR Pay Per View event (just like last year’s event) and as a live Internet stream. BlizzCon takes place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on August 21 and 22.

In addition to serving as a gathering place for the different Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, BlizzCon offers an number of activities, including discussion panels, hands-on playtime with upcoming
games, tournaments, contests, and more.

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BlizzCon 2009 Announced

Blizzard Entertainment announced this morning some light details and the location of BlizzCon 2009. The fourth BlizzCon gaming convention will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on Friday, August 21 and Saturday, August 22.

As is the case with an event named after a company, BlizzCon will offer a variety of events and activities related to its games including hands on play time with its games (perhaps StarCraft 2, Diablo III, and the newest content for World of Warcraft?), discussion panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers, competitive and casual tournaments for players, community contests, special merchandise, a silent auction, and other activities to be announced. Further details, including ticket availability and pricing, will be announced on the official BlizzCon website, www.blizzcon.com.

StarCraft II Beta Test This Year

Somebody is going to be getting lucky in 2009! Will that somebody be you? During its conference call to gab about its financial results, Blizzard Entertainment COO Paul Sams said that a StarCraft II closed beta would be launching in 2009 on top of a bare bones version of a revised Battle.net system.

“Coming up in the months ahead will be the StarCraft II beta test. The beta will be played on a basic version of our new Battle.net architecture, which will give us the opportunity to test the game and the service in a live environment,” said Sams during the conference call.

This beta, the details of which really haven;’t been fleshed out yet, i’d imagine, will roll out in ” a few months,” While the details on that thin, I think this is a good indication that we could see StarCraft II be year’s end.

On other fronts, Sams said that Blizzard is also working on new World of Warcraft content, an undisclosed MMO project and Diablo III. Naturally all of these projects will have to jump through various internal hoops before we’ll hear anything more about them.

Activision Tops in 2008

 Activision Blizzard posted a net loss for the fourth quarter, but the good news is that most of it was due to accounting rules for deferred revenue. The company did manage to beat the street’s expectations on sales of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Guitar Hero: World Tour, and Call of Duty: World at War, which were strong performers during the Christmas shopping season. For the quarter that ended on Dec. 31, 2008, Activision reported a net loss of $72 million, compared to earnings of $86 million, for the same period a year ago.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said during the earnings call that followed  that 2008 was the company’s 17th consecutive year of growth and that operating income was up 20 percent from the previous year.  Activision ended the year with $3 billion in cash and no debt.

The company also said that it would only be introducing three new original IPs in 2009:  Raven’s first-person shooter Singularity, an unnamed racing game from Bizarre Creations and Prototype. The rest of the company’s catalog will consist of familiar brands like Guitar Hero, and the next Call of Duty game. The company said that 2009 won’t see a new James Bond game - with talk of this new game being some type of driving - shooting game. Finally it was revealed that Blizzard will release at one title this year, though what it will be was not revealed.

BlizzCon 2008 Opens Oct. 10

Blizzard Entertainment’s annual two-day lovefest - BlizzCon - begins on Friday, October 10, at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. The convention celebrates Blizzard Entertainment’s Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo game universes - and the fans that love these franchises. Attendees of the show (which is sold out) will be able to play the latest versions of Blizzard Entertainment’s games as well as speak with developers in special panels, participate in tournaments and contests, and meet with fellow gamers and friends.

Mediocre comedian Jay Mohr will host the live contests this year, and the show will close on Saturday evening with an epic concert featuring comedian Patton Oswalt, Blizzard’s own Warcraft-themed metal band Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, and Video Games Live, who will be performing special orchestral arrangements of music from Blizzard games.

For those unable to attend, DIRECTV will be broadcasting the convention live as a pay-per-view event. Visit www.blizzard.com/blizzcon/dtv.

ATI’s Blizzard Bundling Deal

AMD has inked a deal Blizzard Entertainment to bundle Blizzard’s games across all ATI Radeon graphics products. As you may or may not know, AMD is the exclusive graphics sponsor for BlizzCon 2008 in Anaheim, Oct. 10-11, and its ATI Radeon HD 4800 series will be used in all PCs at BlizzCon. AMD does not go into what specific Blizzard properties it plans to bundle with its graphics products.

I could speculate about what products AMD could bundle with its graphics card offerings - Starcraft II, Diablo III, or World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - but why bother? Oh wait, I just did.