Independent Melbourne-based development house Transmission Games has laid off more than 20 staff members, Gamasutra has learned from multiple reliable sources. According to one source, the employees were notified today, Thursday, October 1. Founded in 1996 and one of the longest running Australian studios, Transmission Games was known as IR Gurus, until it adopted its current moniker in 2008. Despite the redundancies, the studio has been busy in 2009. This month, the company released the ...
A new study that monitored the aggression-prompting effects of video game competition in male gamers found that whether players are going up against teammates or unfamiliar opponents has a measurable effect on testosterone levels, which contribute to aggression. As reported by New Scientist, the study split 42 college students into three-man teams, familiarized them with one another over a week of practice sessions, then organized matches between them in Unreal Tournament 2004's deathmatch and capture ...
Social game developer Zynga says it now reaches 34 million unique players per day and 70 million unique players each month with its games, which include major hits FarmVille and Mafia Wars. And in terms of what it calls "monthly active users" -- one player of two different Zynga games counts as two monthly active users -- the company's base has grown from 30 million in April of this year to the current count of ...
Twentieth Century Fox said Wednesday that it hired former Vivendi Games executive producer Andre Emerson for the newly-created position of VP of video game production. At Vivendi Games, Emerson led production of the 50 Cent video game franchise, which Fox said sold over 2.5 million units. Emerson was also formerly CEO of video game consultancy firm Bad Butterz Productions. He was also executive producer of the recently-released Wet, and was writer and director on the ...
It's difficult for a game developer to release an adult-themed video game in Australia. That's because there is no game rating assigned for titles intended for people 18 and older -- the highest rating for video games is MA15+. If a game falls above that classification, then the game is blocked from release. South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson said in a report on news.com.au that he would like to keep it that way. "It ...
U.S.-based Movie Gallery said this week that it is shutting down about 200 locations out of approximately 680 stores. The company blamed a difficult economy on the closure of the Game Crazy stores, which are located with Movie Gallery movie rental locations. Movie Gallery told weblog Joystiq in a statement, "Movie Gallery, Inc. is currently operating in an unprecedented consumer/retail environment. In order for us to continue to best serve our millions of customers across ...
Shanghai-based game company Radiance Software has licensed development tools from Emergent, and is using Emergent's Gamebryo engine in its upcoming free-to-play kart racer Go-Go Racer. The license includes Gamebryo itself as well as the more recently-released Gamebryo LightSpeed, intended for rapid prototyping and iteration. Radiance said it made the choice in part because of past experience with Gamebryo tech on the part of its CEO, Monte Singman, as well as Emergent's existing familiarity with worldwide ...
Professional talent guilds are a mainstay of film, television and other entertainment media, so why not video games? The issue is actually quite complex, and a new Gamasutra feature explores the issue -- do we need a Game Developers Guild? What would it look like, and what are some key roadblocks? As Tim Carter writes: Our CFO, who comes from film and television, can hardly believe this. In film, writer-directors will wash dishes, wait tables, ...
RSS Feeds
