Zdnet has an article containing some comments by Mark Bracken, vice president of marketing and business development for Rat Bag, on Vivendi Universals recent slump. Vivendi Universal are the no. 2 publisher of PC games worldwide with titles such as the Half-Life, Diablo, Warcraft and Tribes series, and movies such as "The Scorpion King" and "A Beautiful Mind."
Publishers need to keep product in their pipeline for future sales,? Bracken told ZDNet Australia. They need to keep the money coming in…
AustralianIT has an interesting article that claims more and more people are buying PC games, possibly because of their online abilities and other things..
"Data from market research firm Inform show sales of PC games have grown 30 per cent so far this year, compared to just 18 per cent for console games."
Read the article here.
The Jurrasic Park trailer that Blue Tongue displayed at E3 is available for download at their site (requires Quicktime 5). The trailer is cool, and even shows off the editing capabilities for this game. Yes, design your own Jurrasic Park!
They're also planning regular updates and screenshots for Jurassic Park, so make sure you visit their site often. :)
From their press release, you can tell how much 3D Studio Max 5 has a focus as a game developement tool. It's looking ahead with hardware shaders:
"it's already DirectX 9 enabled, allowing you to easily add custom hardware Shaders that reflect the world you need to simulate in real time. And you can easily export the visual realism you create to real time 3D environments"
..and better polygon modelling abilities..
"The power behind UVW Unwrap has been unleashed to give artists ultimate control…
There's a news snippet from GTA3.com which tells how to uncensor Grand Theft Auto 3.
"If you are unfortunate to live in a country (eg Australia) which disallows the 'naughty' parts in GTA3 (AKA the censored version), then there's a simple way to show your government who's boss. Simply change (in the windows control panel) your location, language and regional settings to USA (or any other country which doesn't have a censored version) and you will now have a version of GTA3 that allows the items…
A hint as to when Xbox2 will be out...
"In an interview with Nikkei News, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the Xbox 2 would be ready in time for the next World Cup tournament, which is scheduled to take place in 2006."
The brief Zdnet article here. And Australian IT saying pretty much the same thing with more words here.
Eurogamer has interviewed various European and International developers on who's at fault when games turn out bad. The blame pointed at Designers, individuals and inflexibility, project management, and external pressures.. The article is here.
Hey, Infogrames Melbourne House have had a web redesign. Looks good too.. The previous one was mostly a general Infogrames site, but this has a focus on the Melbourne studio, which is a good thing. Check out the new site! Oh, and also their Men in Black II pictures!
The final demo of Gore has been released. Gore, as you know, is the the FPS shooter from Eyecon/4D Rulers/Slam software. The demo is 101mbs large, and contains a section of the single player game and 2 online maps playable with Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Tactical and Capture the Flag modes. Here are some places to download the demo:
3d Gamers Blues News
So get downloading and tell us what you think in our forum!
Designation winners announced
By Rob Irwin, iTgraphics
Thursday, 13 June 2002
iTgraphics magazine held its inaugural designation awards at East Sydney's ultra-trendy M Restaurant and Bar, Wednesday evening.
The competition, for both student and professional designers, was broken into seven categories (Packaging; Multimedia; Web Site Design; Digital Imaging; Print - Advertising; Print - Corporate; and Short Animation), with an additional two awards for Outstanding Student and Outstanding…