By Nadia Oxford on Jul 3, 2011 in Business, Casual Games, Digital Distribution
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Zynga’s aspiration to file an initial public offering (IPO) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has made the social gaming giant the talk of the town. Well, Zynga always seems to be the talk of the town; let’s just say the IPO filing has cranked the volume up to 11.
Zynga’s valuation is rumored to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 to $20 billion–more than EA, more than Majesco, more than THQ, more than...
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By Nadia Oxford on Jul 1, 2011 in Business, Culture, Game Design
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Zynga is a company that ought to be saluted for its tenacity, its drive, and its successful linking of friends and families through familiar, free games that are easy to play. But let’s back up and study one particular word in that sentence: “Familiar.” Zynga knows how to make money, but the social game giant doesn’t have an original bone in its body.
That’s probably why Zynga’s lawsuit against and alleged imitator, an...
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By Nadia Oxford on Jun 26, 2011 in Business, Casual Games, Digital Distribution
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EA has a lot of confidence in the social games market. Oh boy, does it ever have a lot of confidence in the social games market.
Multiple reports indicate that EA has dished out a billion bones to acquire PopCap, one of the biggest and most recognized developers of casual and social games. Bejeweled, Peggle, and Plants vs Zombies are just three of PopCap’s hits.
Given EA’s breathless dive into the social games market, including its 2009 acquisition of...
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By Nadia Oxford on Jun 22, 2011 in Facebook, Game Design, Game Development
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Whether you enjoy Fallout, Dragon Age, Final Fantasy, or Dragon Quest, you can thank one man for sculpting the foundations on which most modern role-playing games (RPGs) rest: Richard Garriott, also known as Lord British. Garriott developed the Ultima series of games, which pioneered the tile-based RPG and hugely influenced massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) with Ultima Online.
And now the Lord of the modern RPG genre admits he’s...
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By Nadia Oxford on Jun 10, 2011 in Business, Digital Distribution, Game Development
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If you’re amongst the growing number of gamers who are unhappy about the gradual dissipation of the single-player experience, Silicon Knights’ boss, Denis Dyack, has someone you can blame: GameStop.
Last month, Dyack told IndustryGamers that developers are being forced to build their games around multiplayer options because the used game trade–which GameStop more or less owns–is putting a serious hurt on game studios.
Dyack said,...
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