Stormfront Studios is apparently closing after a 19 year history of game development.
The studio closure is being reported by Gamasutra, citing sources close to the developer. As of writing, Stormfront has not returned a request for confirmation.
Stormfront was responsible for the original Neverwinter Nights for which it earned a technology and engineering Emmy Award at CES in January.
More recently, the company developed games based upon The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Eragon.
On Wednesday, GameStop said in a regulatory filing that in total, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and Electronic Arts accounted for 65 percent of the retailer's new product purchases from vendors.
As a vendor, Nintendo accounted for 21 percent of GameStop's new product purchases, Sony accounted for 17 percent, Microsoft accounted for 16 percent and EA accounted for 11 percent.
It's not at all surprising that in fiscal 2007, nearly two-thirds of GameStop's new product inventory is purchased from those companies, considering Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo sell consoles worth hundreds of dollars, and EA is the leading publisher.
But how do GameStop's purchases from those big four translate into actual new product sales to customers?
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter told Next-Gen that although 65 percent of GameStop's inventory is purchased from the big four game companies, that doesn't mean that those four companies necessarily make up 65 percent of sales to customers.
Taking into account a slim 5 percent hardware margin and a 20 percent software margin, Pachter said Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and EA actually account for "closer to 76 percent" of GameStop's new product sales.
The fact that Nintendo tops GameStop's 2007 vendor list can be attributed to hot-selling first-party software and the Nintendo Wii and DS.
GameStop said that it purchases its new products from about 75 manufacturers and software publishers and approximately five distributors.
GameStop's top ten vendors accounted for around 80 percent of new product purchases in fiscal 2007, according to the company.
In the end though, Pachter said it wouldn't matter too much even if GameStop somehow spent less on companies such as Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.
"It's not like the console makers are going to stop selling to GameStop," he said.
Used game sales continued to be GameStop's most profitable segment in 2007, with gross profit in used games reaching $772.2 million and margins of nearly 50 percent.
Gross profit for new game software was $581.7 million.
Since the 1980s, cities like Guiyu, China, have been taking in electronic waste from other countries for dismantlement and processing. It's great for other countries, but takes a huge toll on the people managing the effort because of the "metal extraction of circuit boards" and "open dumping of waste and ash residue into open water". It's made the well water and ground water of Guiyu undrinkable, and has to be trucked in from other villages. The lead poisoning level in children is 69%.
The 18-year-old actor Tom Moorcroft, who was chosen to play Regulus Black in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, gave us an exclusive interview where he confirms his role on the sixth movie and talks a little bit about the scene.
How was the process of selecting for your character in HP6?
Well, to be honest it came quite as a surprise. My drama school contacted me and told me that it was for a “Harry Potter photo shoot”, but I discovered during the first time I went up there that it was actually for the next film.
Can you explain to us what happens on this scene?
It’s for one of Professor Slughorn’s photographs, for his office.
A 2-year-old girl was in a coma Monday after her mother's boyfriend allegedly beat her with a video game controller, police said.
York police Lt. Ron Camacho said the girl suffered severe injuries to her head and body and was being treated at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. Police did not release her name.
The girl's mother, Neida E. Baez, 19, called an ambulance Sunday afternoon after her boyfriend, Harve L. Johnson, 26, brought the unconscious child to her, limp and wet from his attempt to revive her in the bathtub, according to a police affidavit.
Both Baez and Johnson were in York County Prison, police said. Baez was charged with endangerment of a child and Johnson was charged with aggravated assault, simple assault and other counts.
Johnson admitted to beating the girl with a video game controller before she lost consciousness, police said. Baez said Johnson has abused the girl in the past, the affidavit said.
The staff of District Judge Richard E. Martin II said they did not know whether Baez and Johnson had attorneys.
Sega's UK-based Racing Studio has been closed, MCV sister site Develop understands.
According to a former staff member from the studio, the Solihull-based outfit has shut down effective immediately.
Sega Racing Studio had so far developed just one game, its PS3/360 and PC remake of Sega Rally. Released in September 2007, the game debuted to fairly good reviews (with an average score around 75 according to Metacritic), but less stellar sales.
The reason for the closure is not yet known. Reps from Sega UK had not returned Develop’s call for comment at the time of publication.
Nintendo's recent success story has marked up another chapter with the revelation that its Japan-based studios sold games in the UK in 2007 worth a total of GBP 129.8 million (USD 257.3 million), up significantly on the previous year, and almost double the amount made by second-placed EA Canada, whose FIFA 08 title helped to make it GBP 68.8 million (USD 136.4 million).
Other notable entries in the list, compiled by Chart-Track for ELSPA and published by Develop, include Ubisoft Montreal in third with GBP 52.2 million (USD 103.4 million), Konami in fourth with GBP 41.7 million (USD 82.6 million) and Infinity Ward - the team behind astonishingly popular Call of Duty 4 - in fifth with GBP 39.6 million (USD 78.5 million).
The highest-placed UK studios were Traveller's Tales in tenth, taking GBP 27.1 million (USD 53.7 million), and Rebellion in 16th taking GBP 20.1 million (USD 39.8 million).
The top ten was dominated by studios in the US, Canada and Japan, with three entries apiece, while only three Europe-based studios featured in the top twenty.
In fact it took 36 European studios in the list of the top 100 to beat out the performance from the 12 studios featured from just Canada, with total sales equalling GBP 284 million (USD 563 million) and GBP 221 million (USD 438 million) respectively.
Studios in the UK did dominate in terms of European representation in the list with over a quarter of all entries, while there were just three entries from France, and one each from Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Romania.
The European Space Agency has just released images showing all the satellites and human-made debris now orbiting space as a result of 51 years of launching stuff since Sputnik. That's about 6,000 satellites up there—of which only 800 remain operational—plus thousands of other objects from launches and accidents. According to their mindblowing simulations things are getting a lot worse:
About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10).
Yes, we knew that there was a lot of crap out there, but not to this extent. According to the ESA, this is really bad news and urgent measures are needed. Explosions in space are not disastrous on their own, but because of the aftermath. One example: a geostationary satellite travels at 6,213 miles per hour. If it explodes, all the debris stays near the orbit, forming a cloud around the Earth within a few days, as this simulation shows: in the article link here.
Malicious hackers beware: Computer security expert Joel Eriksson might already own your box.
Eriksson, a researcher at the Swedish security firm Bitsec, uses reverse-engineering tools to find remotely exploitable security holes in hacking software. In particular, he targets the client-side applications intruders use to control Trojan horses from afar, finding vulnerabilities that would let him upload his own rogue software to intruders' machines.
He demoed the technique publicly for the first time at the RSA conference Friday.
"Most malware authors are not the most careful programmers," Eriksson said. "They may be good, but they are not the most careful about security."
Eriksson's research on cyber counter-attack comes as the government and security firms are raising alarms about targeted intrusions by hackers in China, who are evidently using Trojan horse software to spy on political groups, defense contractors and government agencies around the globe.
The researcher suggests that the best defense might be a good offense, more effective than installing a better intrusion-detection system. Hacking the hacker may be legally dubious, but it is hard to imagine any intruder-turned-victim picking up the phone to report that he had been hacked.
Eriksson first attempted the technique in 2006 with Bifrost 1.1, a piece of free hackware released publicly in 2005. Like many so-called remote administration tools, or RATs, the package includes a server component that turns a compromised machine into a marionette, and a convenient GUI client that the hacker runs on his own computer to pull the hacked PC's strings.
Using traditional software attack tools, Eriksson first figured out how to make the GUI software crash by sending it random commands, and then found a heap overflow bug that allowed him to install his own software on the hacker's machine.
The Bifrost hack was particularly simple since the client software trusted that any communication to it from a host was a response to a request the client had made. When version 1.2 came out in 2007, the hole seemed to be patched, but Eriksson soon discovered it was just slightly hidden.
Eriksson later turned the same techniques on a Chinese RAT known as PCShare (or PCClient), which hackers can buy for about 200 yuan (about $27).
PCClient is slightly better engineered than Bifrost, since it won't accept a file uploaded to it, unless the hacker is using the file explorer tool.
But, Eriksson found, the software's authors left a bug in the file explorer tool in the module that checks how long a download will take. That hole allowed him to upload an attack file the hacker hadn't asked for, and even write it into the server's autostart directory.
The software's design also inadvertently included a way for the reverse attacker to find the hacker's real IP address, Eriksson said. He said its unlikely that the malware authors know of these vulnerabilities, though its unlikely that PCClient is still in use.
But he says his techniques should also work for botnets as well, even as malware authors start using better encryption, and learn to obfuscate their communication paths using peer to peer software.
"If there is a vulnerability, it is still game over for the hacker," Eriksson said.
We can still fondly recall those afternoons during our formative years when, while returning from school, we would notice a rolled-up, plastic sheathed bundle of gaming journalism joy poking out of our mailbox. We're sure it's an occasion that most of you can warm-heartedly remember as well, whether your poison was Nintendo Power or Electronic Gaming Monthly. Unfortunately, in a recent interview with the mighty Ombudsman, 1UP's Simon Cox spoke about the closing of Games For Windows magazine, and how EGM (as well as print gaming journalism as a whole) may have an expiration date.
Cox explained that "dollars and eyes," particularly the beady, sunken eyes of PC gamers, are continually moving away from print media and towards internet publications, stripping the ink-and-papers of their subscribers, advertisers and, eventually, life. Cox remarked that while EGM still has a great deal of spunk, and is supported by a body of loyal readers, it too will eventually be crushed by the incipient, grim claw of new media. The fact that you're reading this right now may support his claim -- have your gaming news consuming habits changed over the past few years?
The Daily Mail reported today that Helen McCrory will reprise her role as Narcissa Malfoy in the final two-part installment of the Harry Potter series.
It was mentioned that after giving up her original role of Bellatrix Lestrange to Helena Bonham Carter due to pregnancy, she will make her debut as Narcissa in Half-Blood Prince and return for Deathly Hallows.
McCrory was quoted as saying, "Just wait for me to be wicked and witchy."
Clearly proving that some Nintendo fans have more time than sense, a man has been recorded playing the theme to Mario by using a remote control car to run a wire against the sides of a line of bottles filled with different amounts of water.
Imagine, if you will, being well bored in a pub with a table full of half-empties. You might have the urge to try and play the music from Close Encounters by smacking the bottles with a fork. After a few tries, you crack it and feel happy for a moment. Then grow bored again.
That's essentially what we're seeing here, except on a minute long, note-perfect level.
By our estimations, there's got to be at least a hundred bottles there. We imagine he spend days working out precisely how much liquid was required in each bottle to achieve every note on the scale, then worked out the notes required by the tune and replicated enough bottles to achieve his minute of fame on YouTube.
Because of all that, we think you owe it to him to at least watch it. Whether you mock him mercilessly afterwards for wasting so much time is something we'll leave for you to decide.
Dave Jones, the architect behind Grand Theft Auto (not the crime but the game) and current CEO of Realtime Worlds, spoke with developmag.com where he said APB could succeed in the face of WoW's MMO stranglehold. Realtime Worlds recently acquired $50 million in funding and Jones has very ambitious plans for the companies first MMO.
While others have called it dangerous to compete with Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which holds an impressive ten million user install base, Jones asserted WoW focuses too much on grinding against mindless AI and PvE aspects of game play. APB aims to highlight player vs. player interactions.
"What I wanted to do with APB was use the players against the players, but in a unique way. It's not just PvP where you're trying to kill each other; it's trying to think of ways to pit people against each other, but create more of a mission structure around it. That's exciting because that way you can play a mission over and over again, but depending on who you are playing against it will be different, it means personality becomes involved, and introduces real human element into missions," said Jones.
In addition, Jones believes there is still a lot of room for growth in the young MMO market as he cites half of WoW's success depends on the Chinese market. This divides the other 5 million WoW subscibers amongst the US and European markets, which he equivocates to a standard good selling console game.
Jones recently announced that APB is on target for a 2009 release. APB is a urban style MMO that comes from the studio that brought us action shooter Crackdown on the Xbox 360, look for more information on APB as it develops.
A new report claims Codemasters could be about to acquire recently shuttered developer Sega Racing Studio.
According to Develop sources, Codemasters, itself a big player in the racing genre, may be close to signing a deal that would allow it to offer former Sega employees roles at its HQ in Southam, UK. A number of the team who worked at Sega Racing Studio, which was closed two weeks ago, previously held positions at Codemasters, including founder Guy Wilday who served as a producer on the Colin McRae series.
UK-based Sega Racing Studio developed just one title, 2007's Sega Rally Revo for PS3, 360 and PC (pictured), which was built using proprietary tech.
We’ve all heard by now what goes into making in-game ad placement successful: contextual content, relevance to gamers, seamless integration and added value. In-game ad firms commonly cite case studies in which gamers embrace in-game ads as long as their placement “makes sense.” But what happens when those ads just don’t fit?
Back in 2006, I worked with the former Disney executive director of Internet marketing to attempt to gauge player perceptions of advertising in a popular MMORPG. We conducted an experiment with 100 participants aged 18-24, with the test group playing the game with real in-game advertising and the control group playing a version of the game with fake ads. Participants in each group played for 30 minutes and responded to a questionnaire following the game session.
The game in question, which is set several thousand years in the future, featured virtual billboards and video ads for several real brands, including a fast-food company, an athletic apparel brand, and a hairstyling product line. Interestingly, none of the advertisers made an effort to update their brands to match the game’s futuristic tone… so how did the players take it all in?
Playing the Numbers Game
We looked for statistically significant differences between the test group and control group, as well as distinctions between subsets of participants, such as avid gamers vs. non-gamers and males vs. females. After the game session, those in the group who saw in-game ads agreed more with ad-negative statements, such as “advertising should never be present in games,” and less with ad-positive statements, such as “advertising in videogames makes the games seem more realistic and immersive.”
Looking at differences between genders, more females disagreed with the statement that "advertising in games is annoying or obtrusive" than males. In fact, more females believed that in-game advertising makes games seem more realistic and immersive than did male participants.
Analysis also revealed key differences in reactions between non-gamers (those who reported playing videogames zero hours per week) and avid gamers (those who reported playing games 10+ hours per week). Non-gamers agreed less with the statement "ads should never be present in videogames," and more with the statement "advertising in videogames makes the games seem realistic."
Avid gamers agreed more that in-game advertising is acceptable when the products advertised are fictional. On the contrary, non-gamers agreed more that in-game advertising is acceptable when the products advertised actually exist. Could it be that (gasp!) hardcore gamers are truly more jaded when encountering any kind of advertising in their digital entertainment? Our signs pointed to “yes.”
ComingSoon.net received a hot tip early Friday morning, revealing that Part 1 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be released November 19th, 2010.
The news comes just a little over a month since Warner Brothers announced the final book will be split into two films. No word yet on the exact date for Part 2, but Heyman has previously stated in an interview with the LA Times to look for a May 2011 release.
This morning, Warner Brothers Consumer Products and Becker Group announced Harry Potter: The Exhibition, "a state-of-the-art exhibition highlighting artifacts from the Warner Bros. films based on J.K. Rowling's beloved book series."
According to the press release, the exhibition will span 10,000 square feet and host "elaborate displays of authentic costumes, props and artifacts from popular environments featured in the films."
The tour will begin in Spring of 2009. Exact dates and locations will be forthcoming, but they recommend keeping an eye on the official exhibition site. We'll update you with more as we know it!
“Hi, here’s Uwe Boll and you see my outfit so you know what’s coming up now basically. Michael Bay responded to my note about him in a very insulting way for me. He said that he doesn’t care about me and this was very insulting because I care about him and I think that with the money he has for his movies, he sucks big time. I think it’s time to meet in the ring actually.
So it’s my message to Michael Bay, Michael, in between your pool parties in LA or your casting sessions with the strippers you should start training now. And I’m sure you look good, you look thin. I saw you at the Hollywood Film Festival, I think you’re a fit guy and you do like private karate Asia bullshit crap fighting stuff in LA where you think you’re super cool that you do that with your 500 bucks per hour trainer.
So let’s meet in the ring in September or October. Pay-per-view. Mandalay Bay. Las Vegas. Twelve rounds of boxing. Boll against Bay.
It’s also independent against the studio system and I think that this day in Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas we will clear it up who is not only the better director who is also able to fight more for that what he wants.
OK Michael, if you see that message I expect that your people contacting me, it will be all arranged. We even make money with it, and so let’s go for it. Boll against Bay. It’s on.”
Harry Potter has taken his place alongside such greats of English literature as Shakespeare's Hamlet and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and is required reading for A-level English students.
J.K. Rowling's boy-wizard has been added to the syllabus in a move that has prompted fresh claims of "dumbing down" in education standards.
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone is being offered as a 'set text' by the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), the UK's largest exam board, which is responsible for nearly half of the country's exams.
But horrified education experts fear Harry will rob the A-level of credibility.
Professor Alan Smithers, a special adviser to the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, said:
"The point of English literature is to provide works that have stood the test of time and that allow people to understand their place in the world as others have understood it.
"I don't think Harry Potter is appropriate as a set text; I don't see how it fits in with that. It may be an enjoyable read but I don't think we are just trying to keep people occupied."
Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, added: "This is all done in the name of relevance and popular culture, but it is not why children go to school.
"They should be encouraged to read and understand the great works of English literature. Harry Potter may be what children want to read, but that doesn't mean it should be part of an A-level."
Pupils taking the English language and literature A-level next year will study Rowling's first Potter volume – the 12th best-selling book of all time and the basis for a Hollywood film – along with one other book for the module Themes in Language and Literature.
They will have to write a 1,200 to 1,500-word piece of coursework comparing the "approaches" of J.K. Rowling and the other writer.
Examiners will mark students on how they relate story lines and the activities of Harry Potter and his friends to the context of the times.
And students will have to show an understanding of J.K. Rowling's use of language, described recently as gibberish by a High Court judge. They will also have to write their own 500 to 800-word story inspired by the book.
The AQA claims it will develop "reading and writing skills through the in-depth study of writers' crafting". It adds that students will have to "describe and discuss features of genre, language and style".
In the wake of persistently higher grades and the decision by Oxford and Cambridge universities to set their own entrance exams, experts have already called for the A-level to be replaced by the International Baccalaureate.
The Government watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, has pledged to boost A-levels with a major overhaul for the next academic year.
But fears that the curriculum is being dumbed down have been bolstered by plans announced earlier this month for 'flexible' GCSEs which will allow students who fail sections to retake them.
Critics said it would give them a false sense of their abilities and make the exams "almost impossible to fail".
Last night the AQA said: "Harry Potter is a genuine example of literature of our time and therefore entirely deserves its place in this unit. We believe that it will prove a popular and engaging inclusion."
Austrian police on Sunday arrested a 73-year-old man accused accused of locking up his daughter in a basement for 24 years and fathering seven children with her.
A prosecution spokesman said that Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, had accused her father of "massive crimes". It is the third stunning case to be revealed in Austria in recent years of children being locked away by their parents.
Investigators said the woman gave birth to seven children in the sealed cellar of her father's house near Amstetten in Lower Austria state, in the east of the country.
Gerhard Sedlacek, spokesman for the Sankt-Polkten prosecutor's office, told a press conference that Fritzl's accusations of kidnapping and incest are "credible".
Police said they are still trying to get the man, silent since his arrest, to talk, although the head of Lower Austria's criminal detective division, Franz Polzer, added that they are hopeful of a breakthrough.
Police said DNA samples would be taken as part of their investigation.
They said the woman had three boys and three girls aged from five to 20 and that a seventh child died three days after its birth.
According to ORF national television, the mother and her children are now in the hands of a team of psychologists.
The six surviving children were never registered with the authorities. And the extraordinary case only came to light after one of the girls, a 19-year-old named Kerstin, was admitted to hospital in Amstetten in a serious condition in mid-April.
Doctors trying to establish the nature of her infection sought to contact the mother for background medical information and Fritzl's incarceration came to light.
Fritzl had been reported missing for several years and Interpol had opened a file on her disappearance.
Local Austrian authorities, who had no social security information on her, believed she had fallen into the grip of a religious sect.
High Street retailer GAME has reported record sales growth of 86 per cent for the year ended January 31 2008, with like-for-like sales up 41.2 per cent.
Profits before tax were GBP 75.5 million, a massive increase of 156 per cent on the previous year. The retailer opened 116 new stores in overseas territories and saw international profits more than double to GBP 13.2 million.
The company's online business also saw strong growth, with profits reaching GBP 2.9 million, up 61 per cent.
"This is a record set of results and clearly demonstrates that we've taken the right steps to expand the scale and geographic reach of our specialist offer to benefit from the broadening appeal of PC and videogames products," commented Peter Lewis, chairman of GAME.
"This performance marks a transformational year with a significant improvement in a number of core business operations, further enhanced by the acquisition of Gamestation in the UK. In addition we more than doubled international operating profits and increased eCommerce operating profits by over 60 per cent, both of which continue to be a focus for growth," he added.
The company has completed the acquisition of rival Gamestation's 217 stores, bringing the total number of shops in the UK to 649, and across all territories to 1,161.
It’s 30 years ago this week that spam, as we know it, began but no one will be singing Happy Birthday considering it’s become the bane of everyone’s online life.
The first Spam email is attributed to Gary Thuerk, a marketing exec at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) who sent an email on May 3, 1978 to 393 users on Arpanet, a US government computer network that evolved into the Internet.
Even then, people were pissed off and he received direct complaints from recipients and DEC got a wrist-slapping from the network administrators. Did it do any good?
No. Right now, according to New Scientist, 80-90% of all emails are spam – that’s roughly 120 billion messages a day and it’s worth billions of pounds.
Something tells me this 3,800 HP jet-powered bike isn't the safest or most efficient way to get around town, but then again, you aren't going to fry a crosswalk's worth of schoolchildren to a crisp driving around a Plymouth Voyager. Oh, and the name of the guy who built this monster? Mad Ron Laycock.
It was a spectacular own goal from the man once considered the best striker in the world. Ronaldo, the AC Milan forward, was questioned by police yesterday after an altercation with transvestites in a Rio de Janeiro motel.
Footballers in sex scandals are nothing new but this one has a twist. In an episode that seems more like a plot-line from the infamous TV show Footballers’ Wives, the striker left a nightclub in the Barra de Tijuca district early on Monday morning with three prostitutes, only to make an unexpected discovery at the motel.
Police said that the incident began when Ronaldo discovered he was dealing with transvestites instead of women and was reportedly infuriated. Carlos Augusto Nogueira, a police inspector, said that Ronaldo admitted he knew they were prostitutes when they met but did not realise they were transvestites until they reached the motel.
“He admitted to everything, he wanted to have fun,” Nogueira said. “But he committed no crime at all, it was immoral at best.” Prostitution is not illegal in Brazil. “Ronaldo said he is not good in the head and that he is going through psychological problems because of his recent [knee] surgery,” Nogueira added.
The player and the prostitutes voluntarily went to a police station for questioning. The 31-year-old told police he offered to pay the transvestites anyway, but before he left one of them allegedly asked for 50,000 reais (about £15,000) to hide the story from the media. Nogueira said he believed Ronaldo because the transvestite left the police station before being questioned fully.
The transvestite also accused Ronaldo of asking him to buy drugs. In a statement to TV Globo, Ronaldo reiterated that he was a victim of extortion and denied he has ever used drugs.
The three-time world player of the year is in Rio recovering from a career-threatening knee injury. He also played for PSV Eindhoven, Barcelona, Inter Milan and Real Madrid and scored both goals for Brazil in the final of the 2002 World Cup. However, his career has suffered a down-turn in recent years and he appeared to be overweight in the 2006 World Cup finals.
Ronaldo was married for four years to Milene Domingues, who holds the world record for keepie-uppies. They have a son named Ronald. They divorced in 2003 and then he was briefly engaged to a Brazilian model and MTV presenter, Daniela Cicarelli.
