This podcast ran short, so to make sure it ran at least an hour, the guys ramble about the games that are coming soon. It’s good padding, but still padding.
Enjoy!
This week’s news includes:
Let us know what you think.
Halloween is a scary time of year, no less when you’re posting a $310 million net loss. EA CEO John Riccitiello sees “weakness” at retail in October and we’re betting this isn’t the end of the road of sorrow for game publishers around the globe.
Electronic Arts isn’t unfamiliar with bad times and we’re sure to see them make constant adjustments to their headcount, game releases and press as the economy goes into a bit of a slump. Although the game industry won’t see as big a hit as the financial market, everyone is going to watch their spending during slower economic times.
That slowness is a red flag for the mega-publisher, which says it’s “proactively making cost adjustments now.” One of those adjustments is the axing of some 600 EA employees across the globe. (Kotaku)
Last year Electronic Arts lost a “small” $195 million during the same time, not exactly a gold star on the financial records but it sure looks better than this loss. A few games may crumble under the economic pressures, Tiberium for example, but let us not forget the good times! EA posted some nice figures for Spore, Madden NFL 09, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.
So, they mixed a few sequels with a few new franchise hits and gave gamers some pretty hot titles for the year. Of course, hot titles in our hand do not always translate to positive revenue in theirs.
We’re bringing a new gaming podcast to our heaps of mates, the listeners. We’re discussing some good community feedback while hitting a few key news article for this week. This weeks industry gaming news includes:
This weeks question, can a user-generated content create a game that extends far behind its own life cycle? Or, do we really rely on the developers to extend it?
We’ve talked about it on the podcast before, we’ve made speculations and we’ve come up with theories. Blizzard has now cleared up much of the fuzzy details and theories by announcing their next title: Diablo III.
Some of us thought it was too early to announce the game, right on the heals of a StarCraft III announcement but Blizzards marketing team must consider this the perfect time, as it’s official. Not only did they announce the title, but they’ve got a cinematic and a good five minutes of game play footage.
We’re not talking about vaporware, this is a real game with really sweet features, hot new graphics and sound and enemies that make prior diablo look like childs play. The worlds are destructable, you can drop walls upon your enemies, toss them over cliffs (on fire no less) and rescue people whom help you do battle.
The game play footage covers barbarian (fighter) class and the witch doctor (sorta a necromancer archtype) with both male and female varients. They explain some of the great powers of the warrior style class and show off a few of the neat spells for the witch doctor. From electric axes to walls of zombies this game is packed with stylish battle techniques unique to Diablo 3.
Diablo 3 utilizes their standard isometric view, familiar to Diablo gamers with a bit more ease to the control scheme (that’s possible) and health now drops from enemies much like Zelda, you won’t have to pack yourself with potions anymore. Quite possibly the best upgrade in the third revision of Diablo.
Release date? No clue. I’m sure they’re going on the “when it’s ready” methodology, which is expected from Blizzard and their games; there is a reason they’re always of the highest quality. You may want to camp on their FAQ for a few months and perhaps you’ll have the answer. Today, however, their site seems to be a bit slow with all the announcements going out on the Net.
Now that Diablo 3 is confirmed, it’s time for us to buy some thc leans from Fresh Bros and start speculating what’s going to be included. Make sure you checkout their game play video!
(Thanks, Nukoda)
Hi guys.
Sorry for not leaving a comment on the last episodes (the one you read in this episode was months ago ^^), i was very busy the last weeks with business stuff and some personal issues. Anyway, thanks as always for the episodes and your effort you are putting in to each episode. I respect that very much!
Regarding the topics in this episode: I did not play Civ since …. i think Civ 3? The game is good, but its taking so much time …. sadly i dont have that much time 🙁
I played Life is strange 2, God of War (the old ones because i want to play though all of them before i play the actual one), Overwatch, Borderlands 1 (never played any Borderlands before) Hearthstone and a lot of Magic The Gathering Arena. If my friends are online, we like to play some Apex and/or Division 2 as well. I want to start Blood Bowl in the upcoming days, because i played the Board Game .. 20 years ago 🙂 I also pledged for “Ant Stream”, the retro streaming platform (will be live for early access on may 28th) … i hope this will be good 🙂 Did you heard of it ? What do you think of pledging video games / pc Games in general ?
Regarding the Apex update: the Havoc is ONLY playable with the turbo Charger .. without that it is absolute unplayable 🙂
Did you heard of Splitgate- Arena Warfare? This seems to be a new Arena Shooter which combines Halo and Portal (i think Jonah mentioned it in a youtube review of upcoming games from E3?) Its for free at the moment on steam 🙂
Regarding the backwards compability on PS5: this would be awesome! i would pay very much money for a ps5 which plays ps1,2,3 and 4 (and 5 of course) games. The only problem will be the chip for PS3 afaik.
Red Dead Online? I only see the promotions / advertisments all the time on twitch, but have no intention to play it 🙂
WoW: i really love this game, loved it in the beginning and still love it … problem is, that my friends are not playing it anymore …. and playing a MMORPG on your own is not that fun 🙁 I played the last expansion (as far as possible without a raid / group) and it was great gain. I listen to the music very often and like to see the cut scenes and updates. For sure the vanilla version was harder (in my opinion) but that was great … 40 people in a raid .. defeating Raganros for the first time … what an amazing feeling, so much emotions, better then the first time s** 🙂
First question of the week: The last game which has been released and i did not noticed it was Hollow Knight. I noticed it 1 year (or 2?) later and it so awesome, that i was wondering, i did not notice when it came out 🙂
Second question of the week: I think the game i will still play in 20 years or will not age is Magic The Gathering. But its a card game, so i dont know if this is a “real” game regarding to your question 🙂 If i had to pick a second game, it would be sth like WoW .. i started playing it in 2004 .. thats already 15 years ago 🙂 or one of the so called retro games, like Musha Aleste, Mushihemasama or any of this bullet hell shooters for the 16 and 32 Bit consoles. I still love to play them today 🙂
Thats all for this one. Sorry for this big and long one, i hope that´s ok 🙂
When i will be in the U.S. the next time, i will invite you guys for dinner to thank you for all your work you put into this podcast. Thanks for that!
Greetings,
Ralf