Jonah is in LA, TJ is at EVO, and who knows where Scott is.
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PopCap’s Bejeweled Franchise Hits 25 Million Units Sold MarkPopCap’s Bejeweled Franchise Hits 25 Million Units Sold Mark
Congratulations to PopCap for showing why casual games will always be a viable market. Let’s put this in perspective, investors believe GTA IV will push 13-million sales by the end of 2008 and, as of January 2008, Halo 3 had sold 8 million copies. PopCap’s little casual game has hit 25 million units sold, that’s fairly impressive considering these blockbuster titles haven’t achieved such numbers.
You may say “well, these titles sold 3+ million in the first week, what about Bejeweled?” True, Bejeweled probably didn’t hit 3 million in a week, but which game will still be played in 2010? Bejeweled or GTA IV and Halo 3?
Casual games age well, they’re not competitive on the graphic space and, instead, focus on fun value. Fun value is a lasting appeal and is immortal in the time line of video games. The same reason people still find fun in Pac-Man gamers still find cash to pickup their copies of Bejeweled.
Which game had the smallest budget? Bejeweled or GTA IV? We’re pretty sure PopCap did not give the bejeweled team $100-million to make it! Investors take notice, casual games have a long lasting appeal.
Read on for full press release details.
Sierra’s Franchise Titles Fade Into HistorySierra’s Franchise Titles Fade Into History
One of the great downfalls of an acquisition or merger, in the game industry, is the loss of great franchise titles. Sierra, or Sierra Online, once stood on its own as a company with great gaming titles but later fell into the depths of Hades under many different company names.
Sierra’s last stop on the acquisition highway was Vivendi, years after much of Sierra’s steam had slowed. Now, they’re part of Activision Blizzard so we had high hopes they’d find a great use for some of the old Sierra properties long since collecting dust. Space Quest, Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and especially Gabrielle Knight were some of our favorites, but times have changed.
“We are retaining only those franchises that are a strong fit with our long-term strategy including Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age and Spyro, as well as Prototype and a second game that has not yet been announced. We will not publish any other titles that previously were part of the Vivendi Games portfolio and we are currently reviewing our options regarding those titles,” says Activision Blizzard (joystiq)
This is unfortunate news, Activision Blizzard now has a large set of franchises on their hands, many of which have collected dust for years. Those dust collecting franchises could rise from the dead and reinvigorate their old fan base… or be dropped to the earth as unwanted scrapes after a big hunt with the vultures awaiting their take (sorry, too much watching of Animal Planet)
A reworked Kings Quest or Gabriel Knight could have seriously awesome potential in this time and age, imagine a dark comedy version of Gabriel Knight or a huge scaled world in King Quest using todays graphic engines. Although, these titles could also go the way Atari has gone and taken a well remembered franchise and made mud of its great name (*cough* Alone in the Dark).
Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know the distance an old franchise could go in this new world. We’ll have to pull out an old copy of our prized posessions and remember just how great they once where.
Episode 360: City of WarcraftEpisode 360: City of Warcraft
This week’s Gaming Flashback is a major one, in particle for Gaming Podcast: World of Warcraft, as the WoW guild established by Derrick and Jennifer is well-remembered. For Paul, however, World of Warcraft was and is the source of some deep pain.
Along with the Gaming Flashback, this week’s news includes:
- NCsoft might allow players to resurrect the City of Heroes IP
- Sega accuses Gearbox founder of “doing whatever the f— he likes”
- Free full-version Xbox One game trials coming for Gold members
- Thousands of developers sign plea for tolerance in gaming community
- Dev on PS4?s 8GB RAM: “It didn’t really change that much for us”
All this plus Listener Feedback and the Question of the Week: “What are the strongest memories of World of Warcraft that you have?”