Category: Game Developers
After losing out on “Game of the Year” crown, Activision doesn’t renew domains: gameoftheyear.com [More]
What happens when you don’t win Game of the Year at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards?
Well, in the case of Activision, which saw its best selling game in U.S. history, Call of Duty: Black Ops, lose to Red Dead Redemption— the company has decided not to renew several of its domain names surrounding “Game of the Year”.
The list of names includes: gameoftheyear.com, thegameoftheyear.com, computergameoftheyear.com, pcgameoftheyear.com, and game-of-the-year.com.
Gameoftheyear.com, which was originally registered in 1999, expired on February 2, 2011. Now the domain name appears over on the Pending Deletes List provided by Pool.com, an online service that offers its’ customers access to a list of thousands of daily deleting domains. If a person is lucky enough to find a name they want in the Pending Deletes List, the person can obtain the domain before it becomes available for public registration.
Thegameoftheyear.com, according to Whois records, expired on February 18, 2011 and is still registered to Activision, but the status of the domain is set to ”Redemption Period”. According to GoDaddy, RedemptionPeriod means the domain name expired, and the registry is waiting for 30 days as a precautionary measure before releasing it.
Computergameoftheyear.com, pcgameoftheyear.com, and game-of-the-year.com are all in a Redemption Period status.
No love at the Spike Video Game Awards for Activision
Though Activision didn’t win “Game of the Year” in 2010 announced this past December, it did win in the “Best Shooter” category. And the company has won the distinction of “Game of the Year” by other blogs, magazines, and gaming sites — just not necessarily by Spike, which holds one of the biggest events each year.
However, the company just hasn’t had much luck winning a coveted Spike Video Game Award.
In 2009, Activision’s, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 lost out to Sony’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. In 2008, Activision wasn’t even a contender for Game of the Year. Grand Theft Auto IV, another game published by Rockstar Games took the crown. 2007 went to Bioshock and 2006′s title went to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Going all the way back to 2003, Activision has won in a number of different sub-categories, just not for “Game of the Year”.
UPDATE: Activision’s social media guy, Dan Amrich, who tweets using @oneofswords, has posted an insightful follow-up to this story.
Dan writes, “Truth is, there is no link between the expiration of these URLs and the Spike VGAs. What’s more, there’s barely a connection between these URLs and Activision. These URLs were registered by Vivendi/Sierra, and were used to promote the Game Of The Year editions of Half-Life in 1999 and Half-Life 2 in 2005.”
As I mentioned yesterday on this site’s sister domain blog, “…while one has nothing to do with the other necessarily, had Activision won “Game of the Year”, renewing the domain probably wouldn’t have been overlooked.” Either way, it was good to see an Activision rep do some outreach and respond to clear things up.
And for the record, Call of Duty: Black Ops should’ve totally taken the “Game of the Year” title in my opinion.
F.E.A.R. 3 release date pushed back to May 24 in the U.S.
Earlier this week, Gamasutra reported that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment confirmed that F.E.A.R. 3 will be released on the PlayStation3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC in the UK on 27th May 2011.
The game is scheduled to be released in the US on May 24th 2011.
What is F.E.A.R 3?
F.E.A.R. 3, is a first person-shooter developed by Day 1 Studios. The sequel to F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.
As described by GameBandits: “F.E.A.R. tracks the history of Point Man as he battles evil and occult forces beginning with a confrontation with Paxton Fettel’s telepathic controls of supersoldiers out to wreak havoc. F.E.A.R. 3 reveals that Point Man and Fettel are brothers and a thread of treachery, betrayal, and horror is promised to be in store for this latest installment.”
Watch the GamesCom 2010 trailer below.
Publisher: Warner Bros. (http://www.warnerbros.com/)
Developer: Day 1 Studios (http://day1studios.com/)
Official website: http://www.whatisfear.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/fear3videogame
Are you a Designer – Builder? Wanna work with Raven Software on a Call of Duty game?
If you’ve been looking for a job contributing to the blockbuster Call of Duty series and have proven ability as an FPS designer, then Raven Software has a job for you.
According to a job posting on the game development company’s official website, the company has, as rumored, confirmed its involvement in developing Call of Duty games and is hiring a Designer – Builder, for what could possibly be the next CoD title in 2011 that has yet to be announced.
Demonstrate FPS skills through a Design Sample that creates an immersive, engaging player experience.
- Working playable single-player encounter or multi-player map in Radiant or equivalent 3d level editor.
- Proven ability to follow direction and setting your personal quality bar extremely high through personal creative spark, initiative and going the extra mile for best results.
- Work well in a highly driven small team setting.
- Partner with Game Scripters if needed to implement complex scenarios that alternately overwhelm and immerse the player while keeping the player on the hook for just one more encounter.
Homefront Launch Trailer [HD]
Here is the launch trailer for Homefront which hits stores on March 15 in the United States. Stay updated on Homefront news by following @Homefrontgame on Twitter.
Official Homefront website goes live
Kaos studios has officially announched the new Homefront Website.
The website can be viewed at http://www.homefront-game.com/.
The Homefront site is chock full of videos, images, news, game info and much more.
Battle: Los Angeles video game trailer released
Konami has released a trailer for Battle: Los Angeles, a new first person shooter game based on the film hitting theaters this Friday, March 11.
“Developed by Saber Interactive and powered by the Saber 3D Engine, Battle: Los Angeles is a high-end fast and frantic first-person shooter game that will take players through a single player campaign that mirrors the upcoming feature film”, writes Konami in a recent press release.
You can watch the trailer below.
The Crysis 2 Multiplayer Progression Part 2: The Weapons video
Electronic Arts rewarded its Crysis 2 Facebook fans last week after users “Liked” a certain post 1,000 times within 30 minutes.
The reward: The Crysis 2 Multiplayer Progression Part 2: The Weapons video.
This looks to be one of the best first person shooters to be released in 2011 by Crytek and the game will take full advantage of true stereoscopic 3D.
To stay updated on what’s happening with Crysis 2, visit the official blog.
Developer: Crytek
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: First person shooter
Official site: http://www.ea.com/crysis-2
Official blog: http://www.ea.com/crysis-2/blog
Twitter: @crysis
Release Date: March 2011
Here’s a look at the video.
Battlefield 3: Official Fault Line Gameplay Trailer and review
It’s been rumored that Battlefield 3, which is being developed by the Swedish game development studio EA’s Digital Illusions CE (DICE), could be a Call of Duty-killer.
Now, Marc Saltzman of Game Hunters has revealed a sit down with Patrick Bach, executive producer on the game, at a New York media event.
“Battlefield 3 takes place in the year 2014, and the mission we saw takes place on the Iran-Iraq border. You’re part of a U.S. Marine-led coalition to restore stability to the region — a difficult task given the rise in terrorist activity from the PLR insurgency group. The demo starts with you hopping out of the truck with your fellow soldiers and walking through narrow streets to a briefing area to get instructions on your first mission: investigate an alleged chemical weapons site.”, writes Marc.
To stay updated on what’s happening with Battlefield 3, visit the official blog.
Developer: DICE
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: First person shooter
Official site: http://www.ea.com/battlefield3
Official blog: http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/
Twitter: @battlefield
Release Date: Fourth quarter of 2011
Here’s a look at the Official Fault Line Trailer.
Black Ops Zombies, Call of Duty franchise helped by ‘walking dead’ supporting cast
Creepy and addicting, Call of Duty has featured a strong supporting cast of zombies that begun with the 2008 release of Call of Duty: World at War.
Games like Call of Duty have become hugely popular, not just because of the realistic gameplay set in different war periods, but because of the zombie mode that players have come to love.
The fact is, the data doesn’t lie as provided by search popularity of zombies in Google’s search engine.
To give you an idea of just how popular zombies are in Black Ops, the exact phrase “black ops zombies” was searched globally over half a million times last month, according to Google Adwords, a search-based keyword tool that shows the number of actual queries made by people from around the globe. The phrase “black ops zombie” had nearly a quarter of a million exact searches, at 246,000 queries.
This week saw more excitement in the zombie-hunter community.
Zombie mode for Call of Duty Black Ops by Treyarch, got a healthy dose of fixes in Title Update 7 as reported by MTV’s gaming blog.
• Addressed an issue where the most recent match played in Zombies could overwrite the best match played on the leaderboard.
• Improved Zombies lobbies to prevent players from erroneously receiving the error “Unable to join game session” under certain circumstances.
• Addressed a number of community-discovered Zombies gameplay exploits.
Also, Treyarch, the developers behind Call of Duty: Black Ops, released a short trailer providing a different look at Ascension, one of five new maps in First Strike. As written on the Treyarch blog, “And, for those dying to begin the next chapter in the suspenseful co-op Zombies saga, Ascension offers the largest map yet, introducing new weapons, transports, perks, and enemies.”
You can watch the trailer below.
Readers, have a tip on Call of Duty Black Ops zombies? Let us know.
Bulletstorm Review: 3.5 out of 4 stars from “Game Hunters”
The Game Hunters crew over at USA Today has posted a review of Bullestorm calling it “an audacious action game that gives the shooter genre a needed shot in the arm” and gave the first-person shooter 3.5 out of 4 stars.
“Don’t expect too much from the story. It’s a simple tale of revenge, featuring some lowbrow humor that gets old pretty quick. But players aren’t likely here for an enriching plot but to fulfill the premise of Bulletstorm: killing with skill. It’s not enough to just take down enemies, but to do so in the most imaginative ways possible.”, writes Brett Molina for USA Today.
Here are some newly added images of Bulletstorm by Electronic Arts that were posted to the web by Michael Klappenbach over at About.com.
