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每日观察:关注Chillingo新游戏《Terra Noctis》(9.7)

发布时间:2011-09-07 11:39:42 Tags:,,

1)继与日本手机社交平台GREE合作之后,Unity Technologies最近在日本东京成立了一家新工作室。这个新团队将由Shinobu Toyoda领导,John Goodale任总监兼总裁,Hiroki Omae任地区总监。

tokyo-Unity(from techcrunch)

tokyo-Unity(from techcrunch)

据Toyoda所称,Unity开发群体近年在日本国发展迅速,公司将通过新工作室为客户提供更周到的本地支持,以及本土化的开发平台。

Toyoda之前曾在世嘉美国任职15年,而John Goodale此前也曾为世嘉、动视和Crytek等多家西方游戏公司效力,Hiroki Omae则曾在Form Software担任五年的技术总监,自2009年以来一直致力于开发独立游戏。

Unity在今年7月融资1200万美元,主要用于拓展亚洲业务,并计划在未来数周扩大在中国影响力。

2)休闲游戏公司Big Fish Games日前聘请亚马逊前高管David Stephenson任公司西雅图工作室的首席财务官,负责监管公司全球战备及运营策划及财政事务。

david stephenson(from gamasutra.com)

david stephenson(from gamasutra.com)

Stephenson拥有20多年的高级财务及运营领导工作经验,曾任亚马逊北美零售部门财务副总裁。

3)据Digitimes报道,2011年智能手机出货量预计将达4.26亿部,比2010年的2.88亿部增长60%。

苹果iPhone今年的出货量将超过8640万部,将占所有智能手机出货量的18.7%,而2010年苹果智能手机出货量为4750万部。

smartphone shipments(from Digitimes)

smartphone shipments(from Digitimes)

Digitimes预测,诺基亚智能手机今年出货量将下降至7440万部,而去年出货量却是1亿部。如果这种预测成真,那就意味着苹果将超越诺基亚,成为全球智能手机出货量第一位的公司。

最近有传言称苹果将于10月发布iPhone 5,并首次通过Sprint渠道发售iOS移动设备。

该公司还预测,华为和ZTE这两个中国智能手机品牌也会大获人气,前者今年出货量增长率可能超过400%。

4)黑莓应用商店App World日前更新至3.0版本,该版本通过推荐渠道优化了内容浏览功能,为用户提供了更为便利的应用、游戏和主题搜索服务。

BlackBerry App World 3.0(from taihe.net)

BlackBerry App World 3.0(from taihe.net)

除此之外,该应用商店还在用户主界面新添加了一个“我的帐户”按钮,方便用户访问所有的黑莓服务ID,付费和帐户信息。

另一项新功能My World支持用户浏览和访问订阅管理选项,而新的App Social Sharing选项将支持用户通过Facebook、Twitter、BBM、电子邮件和短信分享应用内容。

其应用搜索选项还添加了“应用名称”、“售价”、“评分”、“最新”、“最佳匹配”和“流行”等过滤功能。RIM希望通过本次更新,让该应用商店实现每日300万次下载量的目标。

5)据pocketgamer报道,备受赞誉的PC/Mac独立游戏《King of Dragon Pass》(游戏邦注:曾获第二届独立游戏节最佳视觉艺术大奖)将于9月8日登陆App Store,该版本游戏采用了重新设计的UI,售价6.99英磅/9.99美元。

King of Dragon Pass(from hillcantons.blogspot.com)

King of Dragon Pass(from hillcantons.blogspot.com)

该游戏玩法可持续40个小时,结合了交互式的故事和资源管理元素,其开发商A Sharp还为其添加了一些新故事让玩家体验更多任务。

6)尽管《美女餐厅》Facebook版本已经停止运营,但该游戏开发商PlayFirst最近又将其推出向苹果应用商店,目前推出了限时免费下载服务,但促销活动结束后将恢复2.99美元售价。

Diner Dash-iPhone(from ifreeware.net)

Diner Dash-iPhone(from ifreeware.net)

7)据pocketgamer报道,英国发行商Chillingo将于今年12月推出新款iPhone游戏《Terra Noctis》。

Terra_Noctis(from firefruitforge.com)

Terra_Noctis(from firefruitforge.com)

玩家在游戏中需控制一个名为Allen的怪物,在回家过程中一路打败敌人。该游戏四个可玩区域的画面风格各异,拥有不同的恶魔、敌人和挑战性关卡,目前尚未公布游戏的具体售价。

8)独立开发者Daniel Fedor最近调查了100多名游戏开发者,发现“创意自由”是多数人走上独立道路的首要原因。

freedom(from michaelken.com)

freedom(from michaelken.com)

调查发现,在121名受访者中,有70%开发者称自己想要“更多创意自由”,还有许多人自称他们如果成为独立开发者,主要是为了“与世界分享自己的想法”,享受“自我安排的工作时间”。

此外还有47%受访者称走上独立道路是因为“找机会赚到更多钱,而不是替人打工拿点固定薪水”;54%受访者称拿不到稳定收入的风险,是阻止其走向独立开发领域的主要原因之一。许多目前仍为大公司效力的开发者表示,自己需要养家糊口,加上与同事建立起的深厚感情,这是他们不愿脱离公司的主要原因。

Fedor分析调查结果后指出,游戏公司应给开发者更优厚待遇,更多发展机会,不要过多干预开发者创作自由,这样才能避免流失大量人才。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

1)Unity strengthens Japan operations opening a Tokyo office

by Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman

Further to its recently announced hook up with Japanese mobile platform GREE, Unity Technologies is additionally expanding its reach into Japan by opening a subsidiary office in Tokyo.

The Japan office team will be led by chairman Shinobu Toyoda, director/president John Goodale and regional director Hiroki Omae.

“The Unity community throughout Japan has grown at an expeditious rate over the last few years,” said Toyoda.

“With the opening of our Japan subsidiary, we look forward to offering our customers in the region full support and localisation of the development platform.”

Nihon no Chiimu

Toyoda moves to Unity after serving as executive vice president at Sega of America for 15 years.

John Goodale has worked for many western companies in the region, including Sega, Activision and Crytek, and speaks Japanese, while Hiroki Omae served as technical director at From Software for five years and has been developing games independently since 2009.

“The establishment of the Unity Technologies Japan office and the addition to our company of such a knowledgeable, passionate team further cement Unity Technologies’ commitment to democratise games development globally,” said Unity CEO David Helgason.

“We look forward to offering the Japanese development community local support.”

The company raised $12 million during July, particularly to fund Asian expansion, and is expected to further announce its plans for China over the coming weeks. (source:pocketgamer

2)Former Amazon.com executive hired as Big Fish Games CFO

Greg Lamm

Big Fish Games has hired former Amazon executive David Stephenson as chief financial officer of the Seattle game maker.

His new job at Big Fish will include overseeing worldwide strategic and business planning and finance operations, the company said in an announcement.

Big Fish is one of the largest distributors of casual games. Stephenson follows Mike Vernon, Big Fish’s former CFO who now is CFO at Zulily.

Stephenson has than 20 years of senior financial and operational leadership at Procter & Gamble and Amazon, where he spent 11 years, Most recently he was Amazon’s vice president of finance for the company’s $15 billion North American retail division.

“Big Fish has kept a low profile,” Stephenson said in a statement, “and when I came to know the team and the business I was incredibly impressed, particularly with their culture and talent base, their obsessive focus on developers and customers, and their data driven decision making and operational rigor. Big Fish is a great brand with terrific opportunities ahead and I’m thrilled to be part of the team.”(source:techflash

 

3)Report: Apple to ship over 86 million iPhones in 20110

Digitimes is reporting a few interesting numbers for the mobile industry, particularly Apple’s smartphone business. Their research concludes that total smartphone shipments in 2011 will quite possibly exceed 462 million units. This is a 60 percent increase from 2010, in which 288 million units were shipped.

Apple alone is expected to ship over 86.4 million units in 2011. This means that the iPhone would represent an impressive 18.7 percent of all smartphone shipments this year. Last year, Apple shipped 82 percent less, at 47.5 units. On the other hand, Digitimes forecasts that Nokia smartphone shipments will decrease to 74.4 million in 2011, down from over 100 million last year. These statistics, if proven true, mean that Apple would become the number one smartphone vendor in terms of shipment volume.

The numbers regarding Apple are no doubt taking into consideration the imminent release of the iPhone 5. The company is rumored to announce the new product at some point during this month, with a possible release in October. Not only is anticipation for the iPhone 5 extremely high, but it’s likely Sprint will carry the iOS device for the first time. These factors both point to huge demand for Apple smartphones.

Chinese brands Huawei and ZTE will supposedly see large growth in popularity. Digitimes estimates the former company’s shipments will rise over 400 percent this year. While Google’s operating system is very much on the ascendancy right now, it’s clear iOS still drives plenty of demand.(source:intomobile

4)Blackberry App World updated to version 3.0

by Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman

With a sleek new design that aims to improve the user experience, RIM has released Blackberry App World 3.0 for smartphones running its BlackBerry 7 OS.

Content browsing has been streamlined through the introduction of Channels. These will act as categories for apps, games and themes, making searching for content much smoother.

There’s also a new option to have a My Account button on user’s home screens, by which they will be able to access all BBID, payment and account information.

The new My World feature enables users to instantly view and access subscription management options. The new App Social Sharing option also allows users to share apps through Facebook, Twitter, BBM, email and SMS.

Finally, app search options have been updated with more filters including App Name, Price, Rating, Newest, Best Match, and Popular.

RIM will be hoping the update will boost the three million apps downloaded per day from the store. (source:pocketgamer

5)Indie strategy title King of Dragon Pass flying onto iPhone on September 8th

by Anthony Usher

The award-winning Mac/PC indie game King of Dragon Pass is set to hit the App Store on September 8th, complete with a reworked UI and a £6.99/$9.99 price tag.

The game, which combines interactive stories and resource-management, is set in the fictional kingdom of Glorantha, which RuneQuest and HeroQuest fans should already be familiar with.

Developer A Sharp has dropped everybody’s least favourite moments from the game, and has added plenty of new stories to complete.

King of Dragon Pass – which won the Best Visual Arts Award at the 2nd annual Independent Games Festival – has been designed to feature 40 hours of gameplay.

You can pick it up from the App Store from September 8th for £6.99/$9.99. (source:pocketgamer

6)Diner Dash serves up good eats on iOS for free

by Brandy Shaul

Were you sad to see Diner Dash close its doors on Facebook? If you have an Apple mobile device, you can now fill in a bit of the hole left behind with the game’s closure, as the original Diner Dash is now absolutely free to download via iTunes. Technically, the free version is only for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but you can download it on your iPad as well (the graphics will be much poorer in that case).

Before this sale, Diner Dash could be purchased for $2.99, which makes this a pretty good deal. Add to this the fact that the game is frequently updated with new content (new themed restaurants and levels, for one) and the deal becomes even better!

Sure, downloading an iPhone game won’t bring back the joy of playing as Flo on Facebook, but we certainly won’t turn down a free game. The only thing to keep in mind here, folks, is that this free price will only be around for a limited time. How limited? Unfortunately, PlayFirst doesn’t say, but that just gives you all the more incentive to download it now, even if you don’t plan on playing it until later! (source:games

7)Chillingo bringing new iPhone platformer Terra Noctis to the App Store this December

by Anthony Usher

Publisher Chillingo is bringing brand-new platformer Terra Noctis to the iPhone this December, just in time for the Christmas rush.

Set in a ‘land of nightmares’, the game sees you controlling Allen – a monster who has been exiled for being too sweet – as he attempts to return home as the scariest beast the world has ever seen.

Each of the game’s four playable regions features unique graphics and nightmare bosses to defeat, as well as fully animated enemies and tough bonus levels.

Each stage houses a secret coin – which allows you to buy new levels – and the word ‘scare’. It’s your job to seek out and collect them.

There’s currently no word on how much Terra Noctis will cost, but we’ll let you know as soon as we’re privy to the price.

Check out the gameplay trailer below while you wait.(source:pocketgamer

8)Survey: ‘Creative Freedom’ Drives Devs To Go Indie

by Kyle Orland

A new survey of over 100 game developers pursuing or considering independent development finds “creative freedom” is the most popular reason for choosing to forgo a job at an established studio.

The non-scientific survey, conducted by independent developer Daniel Fedor from among readers of his blog and of Gamasutra’s blogs, found 73 percent of 121 respondents saying they “want more creative freedom” in explaining the appeal of indie development.

A majority of respondents also cited a desire to “share ideas with the world” and enjoy “improved working hours” as reasons to make the move.

In addition, 47 percent of respondents said “the chance to earn more than a salary and/or benefits” made independent development look good. A recent Game Developer survey found salaries increasing for many independent developers and contractors through 2010.

A majority of respondents (54 percent) said that the risk of losing steady pay was one of the main reasons preventing them from turning to independent development. Many of those currently working for a major studio said their need to support their family and their personal affinity for co-workers might stop them from making the jump.

Fedor offers his own analysis of the survey’s full results on his Gamasutra blog, recommending that studios offer employees less crunch, more profit-sharing, and more opportunities to be creative to prevent them from striking out on their own.(source:gamasutra


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