Last week, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg revealed the company was preparing for an “awesome” launch this week. A formal announcement is expected today at a media event at Facebook HQ, but several blogs in the past few days have claimed Facebook is set unveil a partnership with communication giant Skype (recently acquired by Microsoft) to bring video chats to the social network, an interesting possibility at the light of Google’s new Plus foray into the social sphere, which among other things features a Hangout functionality to start group video chats with multiple contacts at once. TechCrunch, however, seems to believe that Project Spartan, an HTML5-based development and distribution platform that’s being built with Mobile Safari for iOS in mind, won’t be part of the announcements today, which may or may not also include the long-awaited official iPad app, supposedly nearing a public release. Read more
Posts tagged with "game"
Ahead Of “Awesome” Launch, Screenshots Show Facebook’s Project Spartan
OnLive To Bring Cloud Gaming to iPad This Fall
OnLive, the cloud-based gaming platform that allows you to play a variety of PC and console games from a web browser on your computer or any TV through a cheap set-top box always connected to the Internet, has announced that the official app for iPad and Android tablets will be available this Fall in both the United States and Europe. Teased several times in the past, it appears the final version of the OnLive Player app has been completely rewritten to fully take avantage of cloud gaming features such as voice chat and multiplayer, but more importantly the developers have figured out a way to run PC games on a server, send video to the iPad, and let iPad owners interact with the game using touch input – not just buttons. In fact, it’ll be possible to enjoy OnLive on the iPad with a standard controller, but according to OnLive CEO Steve Perlman some games will be updated to support touch controls on the iPad and the server. This means that whilst you’ll be playing a game that doesn’t actually run on your local machine and doesn’t normally support touch on consoles and PCs, thanks to the iPad app (and developers’ support) it will.
The power of the cloud is definitely the theme this week, displacing what had been assumed to be platforms that could never be displaced,” said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. “The OnLive Player App for iPad and Android shows how with the power of the cloud, the question is not whether cloud gaming will be able to catch up to consoles, it will be whether consoles will be able to catch up to cloud gaming.
Check out the demo video from OnLive CEO after the break. Currently, OnLive comes with a native Mac app that enables gamers to play the rather large selection of title available through the platform.
Backflip Studios Hits Milestone With 100 Million Downloads Of Its Mobile Games
Backflip Studios, the developer behind the popular iPhone games of Paper Toss, Ragdoll Blaster 2 and Strike Knight today announced that their mobile games have been download more than 100 million times - as a comparison, Angry Birds has been downloaded over 200 million times. It notes that roughly 80% of the downloads have originated from the iPhone, with about 20% from Android.
Backflip has around 25 million monthly active users, which is already up from 20 million in December last year, even more impressive is the 2.5 million daily active users that Backflip entices across its entire network of games. Roughly a third of the company’s revenue comes from App Store sales whilst another third comes from advertising (last October advertising was worth half a million dollars per month for Backflip) and another third from in-app purchases. Backflip’s success isn’t slowing down either, its revenue and user growth is between double and triple what it was just a year ago and its free games generate more than a billion impressions a month.
The Backflip team, which is self-funded and has 23 employees, is ramping up for a number of game releases coming this summer. Launching today was Strike Knight HD, the iPad version of the popular bowling game, and then there will Shape Shift, Backflip Solitaire and Boss Battles. Most, if not all, will initially be offered for free, following the success of Backflips ‘Summer of Free’ promotion that drew the company a huge success.
[Via VentureBeat]
Angry Birds Reaches 200 Million Downloads→
Angry Birds Reaches 200 Million Downloads
At the paidContent Mobile conference today in New York City, Rovio “Mighty Eagle” Peter Vesterbacka announced Angry Birds has reached a total of 200 million downloads on all platforms. This figure includes the Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio games available on the iPhone (free and $0.99 version), iPad (free and $4.99 version) and Android handsets (free, ad-supported). BusinessInsider also reports other announcements from Vesterbacka, which will possibly extend the popularity of Rovio’s brand even more:
On top of the app’s success, Vesterbacka says an Angry Birds book will launch this summer with distribution through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Google. Plus, the company is working with animators for its own Angry Birds movie.
And then there’s the merchandise. Rovio has deals with manufacturers in China for Angry Birds gear such as lunchboxes and toys.
The number is impressive and I’m pretty sure it makes Angry Birds the most downloaded mobile game of all time, or at least the most download App Store title ever. In the past months, Rovio reported other notable figures such as 10 million downloads for Rio in 10 days, or the 200 million minutes people spend playing Angry Birds every day.
Castlerama Takes On Epic Citadel with Unreal Engine for iOS
If you were one of those who followed or watched Apple’s September 1, 2010 media event – where, among other things, iOS 4.1 and Game Center were officially unveiled – then you most definitely remember Epic Games’ Mike Capps and Steve Jobs talking about a revolutionary game that would set new technical standards on iOS devices. The game was based on the popular Unreal Engine ported to iOS, and on stage it was presented as a work-in-progress demo called Epic Citadel, also released for free on the App Store. The demo was impressive: there was nothing to do besides wandering around a medieval village, but the graphics, the lightning and the details were impressive. Tech-wise, everything about Epic Citadel was amazing. And as you may know, the game evolved and eventually became a real adventure with a plot and sword fights: Infinity Blade, based off the Unreal Engine and Epic Citadel’s first-person setting, was a huge success on iPhones and iPads.
As the story goes, however, other developers have tried to implement the Unreal Engine powerful set of tools in their games. The latest entry in the Unreal Engine-based game market is Castlerama by the Codenrama development studio, a first-person game with a striking resemblance to Epic Citadel and its environment. Castlerama seems to offer different landscapes though, as well as its own control scheme based on two virtual analog sticks displayed on screen.
The developers also explain their decision to accept “compromises” in order to make the game run on new devices like the iPad 2 and older units like the iPhone 3GS:
While developing Castlerama, we had to face the fact that newer devices such as iPhone4s and iPad2s are very different from their predecessors, iPhone3GSs and iPads, in that the former have twice as much memory. In order to have the app run on all devices, we had to compromise quite a bit, pushing the old devices to their limits (risking crash if other applications are left running) while keeping the new devices well behind their capabilities. In the future we believe we will have to develop two versions for each application.
Castlerama is available for free in the App Store as a universal download. With more games supporting the Unreal Engine coming out in the near future, it’ll be interesting to see how Castlerama will manage to provide a unique experience for iPhone and iPad owners. In the meantime, check out the app’s demo video and a walk down the Epic Citadel memory lane below. [9to5mac via TouchArcade]
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Halo Creators Likely Working On New Game for Mobile Devices
Take this with a grain of salt, but the creators of popular first-person shooter Halo may be working on a new online game for iOS and Android devices. As noted by TouchArcade and GameInformer today, a new filing at the USPTO confirms Bungie Aerospace has trademarked “Crimson”, a “computer game software for use on mobile and cellular phones.” Sounds intriguing, but what’s Bungie Aerospace? The company is likely a subsidiary of the “real thing” Bungie, and that’s already been incorporated in Delaware and Washington. Mounting speculation suggests that this new company is the official mobile division of Bungie, something that the Halo developers hinted several times in the past. Bungie has been busy hiring and opening positions for mobile developers in the past months, so it seems pretty clear at this point that something in mobile is going on. And mobile these days means two things: iOS and Android. If Bungie is really working on a new mobile game, than we can assume it’s most definitely coming to the iPhone or iPad.
What the game really is, however, it’s unclear. TouchArcade speculates it might be heavily online based, as also suggested by a Bungie staff writer in 2010 when he said it’s be great to have a world that’s “always there for you, with lots of stories to tell.”
What this project actually is, however, is still shrouded in a cloud of secrecy and, presumably, really hardcore non-disclosure agreements.
My gut says Bungie Aerospace and “Crimson” are connected to the studio’s next project, an original IP set to be published by Activision. Word on the street is that this game is a shooter MMO — an MMO that might just offer increased connectivity via mobile apps.
As a big Halo and Bungie fan, I’m looking forward to what’s next for the company in the mobile space. A new iOS game would sure make for a big announcement at a certain Apple event in September.
Angry Birds’ Theme Song Recreated with Real Instruments [Video]
Sure, you can play Angry Birds on multiple devices, install all the possible versions and spin-offs from the App Store – heck, I’ll even go on to say it’s fine if you bought some of those shady guides to get the most out of the game. But can you play the official theme song like those indie Pomplamoose folks did? As noted by TUAW, the duo seems to enjoy the world of Angry Birds quite a lot, and even if there’s some Samsung advertising weirdness going on in the video, the overall result for your viewing pleasure is undoubtedly nice.
Video is embedded below. As for anyone else willing to recreate his own version of the Birds’ song, I’m pretty sure GarageBand for iPad has a share button somewhere. [via YouTube]
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Apple Stops Serving iAds In Apps Targeted To Kids
Since its introduction last year, Apple’s iAd advertising network has been off to a somehow rough start: touted as the best way for advertisers to build interactive campaigns to deliver effortlessly to iOS users, the service was repeatedly criticized by advertisers and ad agencies due to Apple’s strict design requirements and control, expensive minimum buy and low fill rates compared to Google’s AdMob network. In the past months, Apple tried to address several issues reported by iAd’s initial partners: they released a desktop tool to design iAds visually on a Mac, they cut the minimum buy in half from $1 million to $500,000, and rolled out fullscreen ads with even more interactivity on the iPad. They updated the official iAd website to display more information and details, and released an iPhone app entirely focused on showcasing experiences built for the iAd network.
A change in the way Apple chooses the apps that can display iAds, however, might cause a little bit of confusion among developers that, until now, have relied on iAds as the sole source of income for their free apps. Mike Zornek, developer of the free Dex app for iPhone and iPod touch (a Pokèmon browser application), relays an email from the iAd Network Support team in which an Apple employee explains how iAds may not be displayed anymore in apps targeted to “young children” because of the advertisers’ preference to not show ads to this particular audience. Read more
Mobile Devices Claim Largest Share Of Digital Game Downloads
Digital game downloads have been on the rise in recent years and according to the latest NPD report, a large portion of that increase can be attributed to mobile devices which count for nearly half of all video game downloads. The report, which focused solely on full game downloads (not micro-transactions, add-ons or previously purchased games), notes that even those who owned a console would generally download more games to their mobile devices.
Following mobile devices were personal computers as the second most common platform for downloading games, no doubt driven primarily by Steam, then consoles and finally portable gaming devices (Nintendo DS, Sony PSP). Obviously it should be pointed out that, typically, a full game download for a mobile device is priced far lower than a game for consoles and even computers. Nonetheless, Anita Frazier notes in the report “Mobile gaming represents one of the fastest growing segments of the digital games market, and potential for future growth remains strong.”
Interestingly, of those that have purchased a mobile game in the past three months, a surprising 60% said they still spend the same amount on console or portable gaming device games. The report also revealed that if a game was available in physical and digital form at the same time, at the same price, 75% would buy a physical copy because they liked to own a “real” copy – the remaining 25% mainly cited convenience as their reason.
[Via TUAW]