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Race changes now allowed in World of Warcraft, cost a pretty penny

by Griffin McElroy { Oct 28th 2009 at 2:00PM }

The virtual lands of World of Warcraft have played host to a number of strange sights these past few days -- and we're not just talking about the Halloween festivities which have turned once proud heroes into foam-mouthed candy addicts. No, we're talking about the new "Race Change" feature, which has basically turned the game's sociological landscape into the ending of the music video for Michael Jackson's "Black or White." Only ... with, like, Trolls and Orcs and stuff.

For a cool $25, players can change the race (provided that race is in the same faction -- changing that costs extra!), gender, appearance and name of their character. We realize there's a number of people who wouldn't mind freshening up their old avatar, but why not just start a new character for free? Seriously, you haven't sunk that much time into your current level 80 Rogue, have you? Oh, you have? 2,800 hours, you say? That's ... that's actually really depressing. We're depressed by that.

Retail roulette: Who has the best DJ Hero pre-order bonus?

by Alexander Sliwinski { Oct 8th 2009 at 11:10PM }

Round and round the DJ Hero pre-order bonuses go. Who has the best one? Nobody kn -- oh wait, we do! Planning on putting down the cash for the Activision turntable simulator at the end of October? Let's see which major retailer has the best deal:

Amazon – $10 video game credit. (Sounds solid.)
Best Buy – Receive a free code that unlocks a Daft Punk level. (A "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" level?)
GameStop – Two free playable song downloads.
Guitar Hero Store – Free two-day shipping (Sooo, pre-order to get the game two days later?)
Hollywood/GameCrazy – Receive an exclusive turntable slipmat. (A turntable doily.)
Walmart.com – $10 electronic gift card. (Bingo!)

Those who are preparing to scratch, what say ye to these offers?

Gallery: DJ Hero

Activision closes 'Web of Shadows' dev Shaba [update]

by Alexander Sliwinski { Oct 8th 2009 at 10:01AM }

Activision's Shaba Games, which most recently developed Spider-man: Web of Shadows, has allegedly been shuttered. Kotaku reports that sources with knowledge claim the studio closed yesterday; attributing the corporate downsizing to sluggish sales of Guitar Hero 5.

Approximately 30 employees were reportedly laid off at Shaba, which is roughly half the workforce Shaba claims to have -- an eerily similar fate that apparently befell Activision's 7 Studios earlier this week. We're currently following up and will update with any new information.

Update: Activision confirmed the studio's closure with this statement: "Activision continually evaluates the resources at our studio properties to ensure that they are properly matched to our product slate and overall strategic goals. As part of this process, we recently made the difficult but necessary decision to close Shaba Studios. We are grateful for the studio's contributions and wish this talented team success in their future endeavors."

Gallery: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Report: Activision reduces 7 Studios by half

by James Ransom-Wiley { Oct 6th 2009 at 6:58PM }

"7" is not an easily divided number. Nevertheless, Kotaku reports that Activision has cut its 7 Studios by half, laying off an estimated 30 staffers from the development outfit. The remainder of the one-time developer of Scratch: The Ultimate DJ (turned defendant-cum-plaintiff) will be put to work on future music games. "As a part of this realignment, the studio is reducing its workforce to better reflect Activision's upcoming slate of music-based games," an Activision representative told Kotaku.

We've contacted 7 Studios for comment on the reported workforce reduction. Stay tuned.

Game Developer Research's 'Top 20 Publishers 2009' stays the same

by Griffin McElroy { Oct 6th 2009 at 12:40PM }

The industry analysts at Game Developer Research could have saved themselves a whole mess of time and money by releasing the following statement in lieu of the latest edition of their annual Top 20 Publishers report: "See previous year." Differentiation from last year's top five ranks -- which, let's be honest, are the only ones you really care about -- is almost non-existent: Nintendo placed first (again), EA came in second (again), Activision Blizzard followed in third (again), Ubisoft retained its fourth place position (again), and Take-Two moved up from sixth to fifth, bumping Sony out of the top five.

The full, totally unsurprising list -- which was calculated based on number of games released, average review scores for said games and estimated revenue for each company -- can be found after the jump. Comments stating why Publisher A is still infinitely better than Publisher B can be found further below.

[Via Gamasutra]

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DJ Hero's full track list revealed

by Alexander Sliwinski { Oct 6th 2009 at 9:45AM }

Activision Blizzard has dropped the list of all DJ Hero's block-rockin' beats that players will be mixin' for mad points. The full catalog on the disc consists of 93 tracks covering several genres of music -- the kids (both young and old) aren't likely to be disappointed.

DJ Hero releases on October 27 and October 30 in North America and Europe, respectively. Expect DLC tracks soon after (and maybe a sequel soon after that). Check out the full scratchable set list after the break and let us know what you think.

Gallery: DJ Hero

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Activision 'Rocktober' trademark conflicts with EA's Brutal Legend marketing

by Ben Gilbert { Sep 28th 2009 at 4:00PM }

When Activision sent out a press release this morning regarding a Guitar Hero DLC discount, we couldn't help but notice a tiny trademark symbol dangling precariously above the term "Rocktober™." That got our mind grapes juicing: Isn't that the term EA has been using to market Brütal Legend's upcoming ~~October~~ Rocktober 13 release? It is!

Lo and behold, we turned up an Activision trademark filing for "Rocktober" dating all the way back to 2007. An EA representative was unable to comment at the time of this posting, but assured us we'll have an official statement from the publisher soon. We've also reached out to Activision for its side of the story. In the meantime, we've dropped the text from Activision's press release -- or as it's no doubt being dubbed by lawyers, Exhibit A -- after the break.

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Guitar Hero 5: October DLC

by Alexander Sliwinski { Sep 28th 2009 at 1:31PM }

Activision has announced all of the forthcoming Guitar Hero 5 DLC tracks for ... Rocktober! Queens of the Stone Age, Billy Squier and Wolfmother are the featured track packs next month, along with some themed collections later in the month. Each pack will cost 440

on Xbox 360, $5.50 on PS3 and 550 Wii Points on Nintendo's console -- each track will also be sold separately for the respective console's $2 equivalent.

Check out the full list of artists, tracks and release dates after the break.

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PalTalk takes patent infringement suit on the road, sues MMO devs

by Griffin McElroy { Sep 16th 2009 at 11:00PM }

PalTalk Holdings is feeling pretty zesty following its legal victory over Microsoft this past March, so it's decided to take its patent infringement suit against a few major players in the MMO market. Turbine, Sony, Activision Blizzard, Jagex and NCSoft are all staring down the barrel of PalTalk's litigation cannon -- which, after forcing Microsoft to come to a settlement earlier this year, now has a substantial amount of precedent supporting it.

PalTalk purchased two patents from a company called HearMe in 2002 for technology which shares data between networked computers, allowing users to see the same virtual space as they interact with one another in real time. One could construe that to mean PalTalk owns the patent on online multiplayer altogether -- but we're sure Activision's beefy legal team will have a few arguments to the contrary up its sleeve.

Kotick: Video games could trump TV and movies within five years

by Randy Nelson { Sep 1st 2009 at 1:00AM }

Profiled on the website of money magazine Barron's, Activision-Blizzard boss Bobby "Guitar-Toting" Kotick reckons that film and television are living on borrowed time as the most prolific forms of entertainment. Speaking on gaming's (near) future, he said, "I view the medium as having the potential to eclipse film and television," going on to tell the article's author that it could happen within five years.

According to the piece, the one element Kotick sees as being crucial to this is rendering believable human characters in real time, something he thinks the next round of consoles will be capable of. (You have to wonder what sort of sneak peeks he's been privy to in his position.)

BTW, it's probably best not to inform David Cage that all the work he's putting into creating characters you can care about in Heavy Rain is for naught, since it's just not possible this gen.

[Via Edge Online]

Round-up: The Cataclysmic changes coming to World of Warcraft

by Griffin McElroy { Aug 23rd 2009 at 6:30PM }

The recent announcement of World of Warcraft's next expansion, Cataclysm, brought with it a whole slew of drastic changes to the game. You're probably familiar with them all by now -- but if you stopped paying attention to BlizzCon 2009 coverage after the welcome ceremony, you may have missed out on a ton of additional changes that will make their way into the almighty MMO around the time Cataclysm launches.

We've done our best to round these changes up into a single post -- as always, however, we have to defer to the experts over at Joystiq's Azeroth-obsessed sister site, WoW.com, for the super in-depth coverage. You'll find a bunch of links to their BlizzCon coverage embedded in our post after the jump -- curious parties are just one click away from total Cataclysmic enlightenment.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm targeted for 2010 release

by Griffin McElroy { Aug 23rd 2009 at 3:30PM }

We know, we know -- 2010 is an entire year, and doesn't provide much information as to when we'll be perusing the ruined landscape of Azeroth when World of Warcraft's next expansion, Cataclysm, is released. Still, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the only piece of information yet to surface about the release schedule of the recently announced expansion, via a WoW.com interview with Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. Thus, here it is: It's targeted for a 2010 release.

Here's the two observations we can cull from that ambiguous launch announcement -- first, it's not coming out this year. Second, it's not coming out in two years. It's coming out somewhere between January 1 and December 31 of next year, it seems. That is, unless it takes Blizzard longer to develop than Morhaime initially thought, in which case, we'll hastily revoke our second observation.

GameStop: Modern Warfare 2 'could be the best selling title of all time'

by Randy Nelson { Aug 21st 2009 at 6:40PM }

Tony Bartel, GameStop's executive vice president of merchandising and marketing, has some high expectations for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. In fact, he told shareholders and media listening in on the company's recent Q2 earnings call that the latest Infinity Ward FPS "could be the best selling title of all time," IndustryGamers reports. Of all time.

That would be quite an impressive feat, given the titles it'd need to trample in order to become king of the hill. In its 21 months on sale, the original Modern Warfare has sold 7.7 million copies across all platforms in the US, according to NPD. For comparison, Wii Play, which has sold more than 11 million copies in the states according to NPD, leads the all-time best sellers list for games that were never bundled with a console or handheld. If you consider pack-ins, it'd have to beat Wii Sports' nearly 24 million units in the States. To do that, every PS3 and Xbox 360 owner in the US would need to buy a copy.

So, yes: It could be the best selling game of all time. Emphasis on "could."

Tony Hawk Ride comes with padding for your hardwood floor

by Alexander Sliwinski { Aug 21st 2009 at 4:15PM }

Activision will ship Tony Hawk Ride's skateboard peripheral with some extra padding in the box for those without carpets to place it on. A company representative told Joystiq at GamesCom today that the board will ship with "two strips, stickers," but couldn't precisely describe the thickness or provide an example. He implied the strips would run along the long flat bottom on both sides, which still makes us nervous for folks with hardwood floors if they -- or a rambunctious group of children -- attempt an ollie with the peripheral. For the record, the rep told us the "recommended surface [to play on] is carpet."

We asked the rep if the company plans to introduce a prophylactic that could cover the bottom of the board, but were told, "[We] haven't decided on that." Assurances were made that the board has gone through lots of durability testing -- even though it's not the board we're worried about. It uses 4 AA batteries and can apparently last 30-40 hours, with a "sleep mode" kicking in after about 30 minutes to an hour.

New Starcraft 2 videos: cinematic trailer and some single player gameplay

by Kevin Kelly { Aug 17th 2009 at 3:14PM }

Consider yourself spoiler-warned: there's a very familiar face at the end of the cutscene above. But, if you played through Starcraft and the Brood War expansion, you had to know this particular person was still around. But the statute of limitations on that expired eons ago, so don't blame us.

Feast your eyes on all of the Protoss kicking Zerg butt in the Starcraft 2 cutscene above (or download the massive 490MB high-def version here), and then head beyond the jump to see more than four minutes from the single-player version of the game. Sadly, it doesn't feature the fully-rendered Jim Raynor that you'll control throughout (read about that in our hands-on), but it does pimp out the unit upgrading and the new video screens. And plus ... it's Starcraft 2. Do we really need to say more?

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