iGame Radio

If you are looking for a place to get your game project noticed, you might want to look at the Selected Projects program at Game Connection America. Held in San Francisco this year March 5-7th, Game Connection America is inviting devs for the first time to submit console, mobile and online games at any stage of development for consideration.
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Our friends at G5 Entertainment have promised a big game lineup for 2012 at CES, and in keeping with that have sent us their list of iOS games to come out for January. They promise intrigues, mysteries, magic, stories of prince and princess, and some criminal cases to solve. But no All-Night Food Marts. Ah well.
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Art dealership Cook & Becker have recognized the importance of digital art in entertainment and design industries. So, last week they opened a new online gallery for unique and limited edition art from artists working in computer & video games, movies, urban lifestyle, and the broader design industries.
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On November 7, several sites, including Eurogamer, started reporting that the Steam forums were down and that certain information led to a possible conclusion that the Steam forums had been hacked. Valve made no statement at the time, and traveling to the forums site showed one the message, “The Steam Forums are temporarily offline for maintenance. Your patience is appreciated.” That message has remained up for the past four days with no official message as to why.

Until now.
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We’re in LA the rest of this week, attending the convention Blogworld 2011. So our posting will be sporadic for the rest of the week. Just to warn ya. But, hey, we still were able to tell you about Batman: Arkham Asylum, so who knows what else may come out of this!

Chief Editor Omaha Sternberg weighs in on gaming achievement systems.

Gamification rewards us for doing stuff we are already doing.

This is the core to an article posted on Bitmob today titled Gamification has gone too far. And it sums up the problem with gamification in the business world handily. But I would go further and state that companies use gamification improperly in two different ways. One is the way pointed out in the Bitmob article, as a means to basically bribe consumers into involving themselves with a website, product, or service that they would not otherwise have done.

Another, however, is what I see in games more and more. Especially mobile and casual games, developers feel the pressure to place achievements, a form of gamification, into their games because, well, that’s what games are supposed to have. But those achievements are slapped onto the game, almost as an afterthought it seems. The player often doesn’t even notice the achievements even exist in the beginning, and when they do, they are receiving them for actions that they are already taking.
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Recently, Virtual Programming told the world that they had been getting chummy with Epic Games. Specifically, VP was a key development partner in helping Epic out with releasing a Mac OSX version of their UE3 SDK. We wondered just how chummy this relationship was, and more importantly, what we Mac gamers might get out of this friendship, so we shot over a few questions to the UK developer.

Brad Cook, their Director of PR and Marketing, very kindly handled the job of getting our questions answered by VP CEO Mark Hinton:
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Everyone can use an occasional makeover. So Aspyr has decided to introduce their new ‘do to the public this week with a bang that includes the chance to win a new iPad 2 and 25% off all game titles in the GameAgent store.
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Today saw the passing of a legend. Steve Jobs, co-founder, chairman of the board, and (until just recently) CEO of Apple, passed away today with family by his side.

Steve revolutionized the personal computer industry, he revolutionized the music industry, and he invented the first true smartphone. But he also revolutionized the gaming industry and made way for the creation of an entirely new gaming scene — iOS gaming.

The release of the first iPhone and iPod Touch in 2007 had an immense impact on mobile gaming. Fully half of the prototype apps showcased at the SDK launch in 2007 were games. The iPhone and iPod Touch were perceived from the very beginning as a mobile console device, a multimedia device that one could purchase at a higher price-point than mobile gaming devices such as the PSP or DS but included a large amount of functionality beyond game-playing.

Games were available on day one, and the revolution took off. Soon, Sony and Nintendo had something to be worried about as more and more developers began to realize the attractiveness of developing games that they could own on a platform that didn’t smother their creativity.

The mobile gaming industry saw a huge shift in game price point, as more and more games available on iTunes were being priced at lower and lower values. And whether you happen to believe that the “drive to the bottom” price point is right or wrong, it has caused developers and publishers to rethink the pricing of games in the mobile space and beyond.

Steve made an impact on Mac gaming as well. With his return to Apple in 1997, the company began to turn around from its dark days as the joke of the computer world. But, sadly enough, that turnaround did not happen in the same way for Mac games…at least in the beginning.

During the latter part of the 90′s, Mac gaming saw a resurgence as games were a part of the Steve Jobs keynote, and each Macworld included a gaming pavilion. But after the turn of the Millennium, this began to fade, until the “pavilion” was a joke, and few Mac game developers even had a booth at the event.

Strangely enough, at that same time, sales of Macs began to take off. With the introduction of OS X, the Mac Intel line, and finally Macbook Air, more and more everyday consumers were buying Macs. And more of them were wondering where the games were.

They were coming onto forums and asking…and finding ridicule. But developers and publishers saw this and heard this, and realized that the market had opened up. First it was Telltale Games, then Valve with Steam.

Now more and more companies work to bring out Mac versions of their games. When we ask developers and publishers now if there will be a Mac version, we don’t get laughter or scorn. We get eager responses, or excuses for why it hasn’t happened yet. In fact, many will say that they all own Macs themselves, “We want to play the game on our Macs, so yes we are trying to publish it for the Mac.”

Today we see the influence of Steve Jobs everywhere in Mac and iOS gaming. They would not, in fact, exist the way they do without him. And his legacy will live on…every time you play a game on your Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.

Apple held their iPhone Event today in Cupertino. Many rumors were circulating regarding the announcements that would be made today, but surprisingly enough less was announced than expected. But among the news was a new iPhone and a new game.

The iPhone 4S looks like an iPhone 4 on the outside, but on the inside it’s totally different. The inside includes an A5 chip, running a dual-core processor with speeds up to two times faster than previous iPhones. The iPhone 4S also comes with dual-core graphics which Tim Cook claimed is seven times faster than the iPhone 4.

To prove the speed of the graphics, Cook brought Epic’s Mike Capps onto the stage to show off a new game for the iPhone: Infinity Blade II. You can catch the teaser trailer at the IGN site, but basically you’ve got a world that has been expanded to a fully 3D environment…everything is playable. The worlds is bigger, and there are more monsters to fight and weapons to choose from. And the castle is new as well. You can check out a full interview about the game with developer Chair head Geremy Mustard at the IGN site. Infinity Blade II will be available on the iTunes App Store on December 1st, and will run its best on the 4S.

Apple also claimed that the download speeds for the iPhone 4S can reach 14.4 Mbps, which is twice the speed of the iPhone 4 and comparative to phones on the 4G network, such as the Motorola Atrix 4G, HTC Inspire 4G, and LG Thrill 4G. However, this smartphone doesn’t run on an actual 4G network…it intelligently switches between the two antennas on the phone between transmit and receive.

What this may mean is a big boost not just to phone calls, but to online gaming. As more and more mobile games invest in Cloud technology, for example, or add multiplayer modes, a faster download speed from the Internet becomes vital. A simulated 4G network will really speed up online mobile gaming.

Oh, hello, Airplay Mirroring. With AirPlay Mirroring, not only can you wirelessly stream what’s on your iPhone to your HDTV and speakers via your AppleTV, but whatever you see and do on your iPhone appears on your HDTV at the same time. This can happen wirelessly or through a dongle that you attach to your iPhone 4S. This means that you can now play games on your iPhone, but have it stream onto your HDTV for a big screen affect, in effect turning your iPhone 4S into a gamepad of sorts.

Game Center has been augmented slightly, allowing friend suggestions and a wider range of social connectivity, such as adding multiple email addresses to your profile, achievements, photos, and downloading games directly through Game Center. But unfortunately Game Center is still the sad stepchild of the Apple gaming world, suffering from a lack of attention to detail.

That 8 megapixel camera may end up doing more than just take pretty pictures. With a high-end camera like that, we should start seeing some better augmented reality games based your own environments. In fact, the 1080p HD video recording might spark some new ideas for AR-style games as well, so look for something interesting around Christmas time.

In addressing the battery life, Apple stated that the 4S will offer eight hours of 3G talk time, six hours of browsing (nine on WiFi), ten hours of video, and forty hours of music. We are all aware of how much game time eats into our battery life, and are leaning more between nine to ten hours of battery time for gaming on the iPhone 4S.

And the price? iPhone 4S, both black and white versions, will be $199 for the 16GB, $299 for the 32GB, and $399 for the 64GB (with carrier agreement). Too rich for your blood? Well, the iPhone 3GS and 4 will live on. The iPhone 4 is now $99 for the 8GB. You can also get the 8GB 3GS for free…with a contract, of course. Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S start this Friday, October the 7th, and will become available on October 14th.