Games Industry Wire

Wow! It looks like the rumors were true, after all. Cryptic, creator of all things superhero MMO related, is indeed developing Star Trek Online or more sexily known as just “STO”.
Cryptic Studios™, a leading developer and publisher of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), announced today that it has secured the global rights to develop and publish Star Trek® Online, a massively multiplayer online game based on the legendary Star Trek franchise, from CBS Consumer Products.
Cryptic will unveil the first Star Trek Online gameplay footage as well as details about this highly anticipated MMO at the annual Star Trek Convention …read more

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Flagship Studios has also put its other MMO, Mythos, on indefinite hold following reports that the company has laid off most of it’s staff and has shut down Hellgate London.

We regretfully announce that on Friday, July 18, 2008 at 11:59 CST the world of Uld known as Mythos will be going on hiatus. On behalf of all of the Devs and Community team we want to thank you to everyone for their support and assistance with Mythos Alpha and Beta testing and we hope to see you soon.
I loved Mythos much more than Hellgate and if some developers/publisher would pick …read more

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EA confirms KOTOR MMO is in the works! Should World of Warcraft be worried?
In an interview at E3 2008, Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello said that EA is working on the next version of Star Wars game Knights of the Old Republic, and it will most certainly have a massively multiplayer online component to it.
“We’ve got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development,” said Riccitiello. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. “And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about — in partnership with Lucas, …read more

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2K Games has announced that it will be the North American and international publisher for Cryptic Studios’ newest MMO, Champions Online for the Xbox 360 and PC. Champions Online is scheduled for release in spring of 2009.
“2K Games is excited to work with such a talented group as Cryptic Studios,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Given their stellar pedigree and amazing grasp of the MMO genre, we are confident that Champions Online will deliver an innovative and exciting action MMO experience to gamers.”
If Cryptic has learned a thing or two since COH/COV launched, then we may just be in …read more

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EA and Maxis has announced a collect…err Galactic Edition for its upcoming life simulator Spore. While i am personally a big fan of extras packed inside a premium version of the game, i am a bigger fan of actual bonuses that enhances your gameplay such as additional parts, exclusive features or ingame bonuses that this package sadly lacks. I have no doubt that this will be gobbled up by excited consumers upon launch but i feel it is a missed opportunity of EA.

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Sydney, Australia, May 16, 2008 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning™ (WAR) will ship in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia simultaneously with the North American and European Fall 2008 release.
In addition, WAR will also feature a dedicated server in Australia, ensuring the best game play experience possible for players in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and other Southeast Asian territories. Players will still have the option of connecting to North American servers.
“Warhammer is a world-wide franchise with a strong following in Australia and New …read more

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IGN says: “Developer id Software is reportedly ready to roll with Quake Live, a free-to play web browser shooter based in the popular Quake universe, now with ad-supported content. Ad-driven games are hardly new, Battlefield Heroes is attempting to champion it and so is Gearbox Software; as a matter of fact, most Asian countries are thriving upon that model because piracy is often rampant in those territories. id is teaming up with in-game advertising company IGA Worldwide. Game Daily was able to speak with Steve Tucker, vice president of brand integration at IGA, where he expounded upon the advertising aspects …read more

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…because the Wii doesnt have a hard drive. Harmonix’s design director Rob Kay speaks out:
Come on Nintendo, we need a hard drive.
That’s what we want. The whole problem is there’s nowhere to store [DLC]…If the platform could do it, we’d jump on it.
Kotaku says: “But the Wii isn’t a completely closed system. It can accept SD cards, a cheap form of media storage that Hamonix seems to be overlooking.
Sure, they couldn’t depend on everyone to be able to download multitudes of tracks, but I’m betting that those shilling out big bucks for Rock Band wouldn’t mind …read more

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March 17, 2008 – Epic Games, Inc. and Valve, two of the PC industry’s leading technology and content development studios, have inked an agreement to bring Epic’s award-winning titles to Steam, a leading platform for PC games and digital content with over 15 million accounts around the world.
The Epic hits now available on Steam include Epic’s debut classic, Unreal Gold, as well as Unreal II: The Awakening and the Unreal Tournament series of games, including the recently released Unreal Tournament 3, which has shipped over one million copies to date.

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According to Age of Conan Developer Funcom, you will need a Conan-esque rig just to run their Conan MMO quite well. Take a look:
Minimum Specifications:
OS: Windows Vista/XP
Processor: 3GHz Pentium IV
RAM: 1GB RAM
Video Card: Shader Model 2.0 and 128MB RAM: NVIDIA GeForce 5800 or ATI 9800
Recommended Specifications:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz (E6600) or better
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 or better
RAM: 2GB or more

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