World of Warcraft has helped scientists prepare for real-world epidemics
As part of the Serious Games Summit, Rutgers University epedemiologist Nina H. Fefferman has explained how the Corrupted Blood plague that savaged World of WarCraft in 2005 helped scientists study and plan for real-word epidemic situations. Read on for the details.
Farmville launched as a “minimum viable product”. Took 32.5 million users in one day
Zynga have revealed that they launched Farmville as the most ‘minimum viable product’ possible.
Mark Skaggs, Vice President of Product Development at Zynga, explained that at the game’s inception at GDC today. The philosophy for its development was “Fast, light and right”. Skaggs commented that at the beginning his idea was “Lets just go for it, get it done as fast as possible. Pedal to the metal.” Read on for some astonishing figures on FarmVille’s rapid growth and domination of the Facebook game scene.
Valve want to share their microtransaction success with other devs
Valve have been experiencing some pretty notable success recently with the new microtransaction system in Team Fortress 2. We recently discovered that the TF2 store sells plenty of its most expensive items, and has been welcomed pretty much whole-heartedly by the community. Now, Valve hope to teach others what they’ve learnt through TF2 experimentation and help their partners implement microtransactions into their own Steamworks games. Read on for the details.
Humble Indie Bundle banks three million dollars, gives one million to charity
So far the best deal this correspondent has been offered in San Francisco was a nice tramp who wanted to sell an electrical heater he was dragging behind him for ten dollars. It was amazing deal, a humble offer and (technically) would benefit charity – but was unlikely to come with immaculate customer support, or indeed a copy of Braid.
Opening this year’s fist-in-the-air indie movement at GDC was a detailed breakdown of the success of the Humble Indie Bundle – with the concept’s progenitors John Graham and Jeffrey Rosen of Wolfire games providing the masses with hot statistics amidst jpegs of Sad Keanu and a video of a man (labelled Ubisoft) falling into a pond while his dog (labelled Pirates) looked on disdainfully.
For the uninitiated last May’s Humble Indie Bundle was a downloadable game collection featuring World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Penumbra: Overture and Lugaru. It’s follow-up came in December, featuring Braid, Cortex Command, Machninarium, Osmos and Revenge of the Titans. All the above were made available over PC, Mac and Linux for a limited time, for whatever price you wanted to pay, with a charity donation and the (fulfilled) promise of some of the games being released open source if a million bucks in sales was hit.
Read on for the details…
DOTA is “needlessly inaccessible” says League of Legends developer at GDC
Speaking at GDC, League of Legends developer Riot Games have said that Warcraft III custom scenario Defence of the Ancients is ‘needlessly inaccessible’, and that League of Legends is a kind of spiritual successor that brings the DOTA experience to a wider audience.
Developers Tom Cadwell and Steve Snow explained how League of Legends took inspiration from DOTA, realising that the concept was “needlessly inaccessible” and unavailable to anyone outside its niche. With no large-scale promotion, DOTA still reached a vast audience, with over 10 million downloads of the Warcraft 3 custom map per release, without a commercial model. Riot Games took on the task of bringing DOTA to a wider audience with League of Legends and made changes to make the DOTA-style experience more streamlined. Read on for the details.
Google push Chrome Web Store as new front for PC gaming
Google have just finished a talk at GDC where they highlight the potential of the Chrome Web Store and what it can do to help app developers monetise their ideas successfully.
The Chrome Web Store launched back in December, and since it’s release has been gathering momentum. The system has been compared to Apple’s iTunes App Store and Google’s own Android Market, but rather than for portable devices the Web Store is – like it’s name suggests – within your browser. From here in your Chrome window you can access a plethora of apps – including games such as RuneScape – which can then be run within your browser. Read on for all the details.
Google demo PC gaming in a browser
During a talk at GDC 2011, Vincent Scheib, a software engineer at Google, has shown off the future of web-based gaming with impressive browser-based demos which don’t require plugins or web players to work.
Speaking to PC Gamer live at the show he says: “A lot of the tech is available today but in a beta or test form. You don’t have to use flash. As we move forward, the browsers are dedicated to supplying new technology to support higher quality applications.”
Hit more for a video, and to try out the demos.
Epic battles in Feudal Japan coming in Sengoku
In an early announcement at GDC, Paradox have revealed their newest title to the word: Sengoku. A grand strategy title set in 15th century Feudal Japan, Sengoku promises to be historically accurate and offer a deep political game experience. You can see the serene first reveal trailer above, and get all the details after the jump.
Valve announces “Big Picture Mode” for Steam
Valve has just announced plans for a “big picture mode” for Steam that “will enable gamers to enjoy Steam and their library of Steam games on more screens throughout the house.”
“With big picture mode, gaming opportunities for Steam partners and customers become possible via PCs and Macs on any TV or computer display in the house,” says Valve spokesman Doug Lombardi in a press release.
What that means isn’t clear yet – whether Valve wants us to buy new network-capable TVs and stream our games to them from our PCs, or simply plug our PCs directly into our TVs via HDMI and play games that way. The former would indicate some kind of hardware or partnership with a hardware maker is in the works; the latter would be something along the lines of YouTube’s TV mode interface that’s designed to be navigated with a remote.
Thoughts? Wild speculation? Let us know if this sounds like something you’d use in your home.
Serious Sam 3: BFE coming out this summer with 16 player co-op, new screenshots out
Earlier we mentioned the appearance of the first screenshot for Serious Sam 3: BFE. Croteam have since added four more screenshots to the mix, and announced that the game will be coming out this summer. It’s a prequel that will be set in the ruined cities of 22nd century Egypt. It will also feature a co-op mode that will support a whopping 16 players at a time.
And in other PC gaming news…
The PC Gamer office has been spookily deserted today. Most of us have been out and about, looking at the many exciting games heading our way. Things have been relatively quiet on the news front too, though the new Serious Sam game sounds as though it’s going to be mental.
This is the calm before the storm. The Games Developer Conference is about to kick off in San Francisco, which means everything’s about to get very exciting indeed. Owen’s warming up on the sidelines right now, ready to take over and bring you all the latest from the conference as it happens. Tim will also be liveblogging his way through today’s announcements and revelations.
But here’s something to tide you over ’til all that begins, a list of everything that’s been going on in PC gaming in the run up to the start of GDC, and a clue as to what Tim Edwards got up to last night.
GDC is about to kick off, we’re live on the show floor
The 2011 Game Developer Conference starts in San Francisco today, and we’re there to bring you every story as it happens or, more realistically, shortly after we’ve typed a post about it.
GDC started as a chance for developers to discuss ideas. But like any big gaming event, it’s become a milestone in the calendar for publishers to release major new info and let people try their games. We can’t complain – it tends to be really exciting stuff, and every year there are still fascinating and candid talks and panels from the industry’s sharpest minds.
Stay tuned to PCGamer.com and check our GDC 2011 tag to follow all our updates from the conference.
Battlefield Play4Free unlocks system detailed
Battlefield Play4Free will be a free-to-play Battlefield game with Battlefield 2′s maps and Battlefield: Bad Company 2′s weapons. Easy Studios have been talking more about how character customisation and levelling up will work in the game. Instead of Bad Company 2′s linear unlocks, players will gain points that can be spent on a choice of skills to improve their character, unlocking different roles within each class. Read on for more information, and some hot skill trees.
Civilization 5 Polynesia pack and free maps out this week
2K Games have announced that they will be releasing new Civilization 5 DLC this Thursday. The Polynesia pack will add the Polynesian civilisation and new research trees that can be used to unlock new cultural wonders like the Moai stone heads of Easter Island, and military units like the Maori Warriors. There will also be a new scenario called Paradise Found in which you must take charge of one of four tribes and fight for supremacy in Polynesia.
A map pack will also be released for free alongside the new DLC, adding the Skirmish, Ring and Ancient Lake maps to everyone’s game. The new maps will arrive automatically through a Steam update.
Play Mass Effect 2 and Dead Space 2 in your browser right now, no special plugin needed
If you fancy having your mind somewhat blown, try playing the Mass Effect 2 demo in your browser. Unlike most graphically impressive browser games, this isn’t a huge download running via a special plugin: all you need is Flash and Java, which you likely already do, and you’ll be playing in a few seconds. The only catch is you need a good connection – about 10Mb/s – and the demo won’t appear if you don’t.
The service is called Gaikai, and it’s live in 12 countries right now. The focus is on letting you into the game with no fuss or sign-up process, so it’s perfect for demos. At the end of the Mass Effect 2 or Dead Space 2 demos available now, you get a link to buy the full game.
If the Mass Effect 2 demo link doesn’t pop up when you visit the Gaikai site, try the Spore one – it has the same requirements but it’ll tell you what’s wrong if it doesn’t work.
