VGTribune

Activision have made a worrying prediction about there prize pig World of Warcraft, according to a risk assessment the MMO giant could be toppled by the social gaming scene.

Speaking in its 10k annual report Activision said  ”We also compete with other forms of interactive entertainment, Such as casual games like iPhone applications and other mobile phone games, and games developed for use by consumers on social networking sites.”

“Future increased consumer acceptance and increases in the availability of such games or other online games, or technological advances in online game software or the Internet, could result in a decline in platform-based software and negatively impact sales of our console and hand-held products.

“Newer technological advances in online game software may also render products such as World of Warcraft obsolete.”

In 2009 Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and World of Warcraft made up 68 per cent of Activision’s net revenues this makes worrying reading for Activision as losing one of these could seriously effect them.

“A substantial portion of our revenue and profitability will depend on the subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game category. If we do not maintain our leadership position in this category, our financial results could suffer,” Activision added.

Worrying times at Activision.

CCP the developer of popular Online MMO EVE Online has opened a new studio in Newcastle in the UK.

The Icelandic company is currently advertising a number of job positions in nearby Gateshead with some of these roles asking for console specific experience. The Newcastle based studio will work on “Current and future” console projects, according to CCP.

CCP is known to be currently working on it’s first console project, the project which is an EVE spin-off is called DUST 514, which is a first-person multiplayer shooter which according to CCP will plug in to EVE’s online universe. Players will be able to interact with players of the PC game. As far as we know most DUST 514 development is currently being undertaken by CCP’s Shanghai office.

CCP is currently targetting a team of 10 – 20 staff to work at it’s Gateshead studio who will work closely with the Icelandic and Chinese arms of the company. The studio is also being formed around a handful of staff from Midway’s Newcastle team, which worked on The Wheelman and binned project Necessary Force.

Blizzard president and CEO Mike Morhaime revealed that the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion will play a major role in converting trial players into fully paying subscribers of the game.

Morhaime explained that around 30 percent of WoW’s trial players make it past  level 10, meaning that the majority of players never get to see what he describes as the “games best content and design” found later in the game. This is something that the Cataclysm expansion hopes to fix.

” With Cataclysm we will be overhauling the early gaming experience for players, bringing all of the content in World of Warcraft up to our current design standards and ensuring that even new players to the game will experience the best work of our development team,” explained Morhaime.

“This will also provide additional replayability for our veteran players as well. In the long run, we hope that this effort will capture more players and drive continued growth.”

Morhaime has also confirmed that development on the expansion is going smoothly and that the game is on track for release in the second half of 2010

Creepy atmosphere? Check! While the trailer is in black and white, the game is in color.

Need to take a break from life by escaping into real life? Wait. What?

The minds behind Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures have just unveiled new footage from their next MMO, The Secret World, to explore real world locations in an alternate reality. Okay, it isn’t exactly like real life, but imagine seeing familiar settings in an alternate reality where every myth, conspiracy theory and urban legend were true.

Werewolves, undead, martial arts, black magic, voodoo, katanas, gold-plated pistols, automatic rifles, the Illuminati, the Templars and much more in one game? That sound you just heard was your mind being blown.

Press Release:

Funcom reveals first in-game footage from `The Secret World’– Mysterious in-game footage reveals a glimpse into horrific fate of Kingsmouth – Read the rest of this entry »

Receiving an award for “Most Improved Game of 2009″ from MMORPG.com isn’t exactly something you’d want to run home and put up on your refrigerator. It’s not a very prestigious title, but we guess it’s . . . something. Age of Conan, you might not be as big as World of Warcraft, but you’re trying. Hell, you’ve even “launched over five massive free updates” since you launched in 2008! Okay, maybe that is something to brag about. Any Age of Connan players out there that are proud of what Funcom has done to try and bring Age of Conan up to snuff? If so, let us know in the comments!

Press Release:

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Rotface

Dateline Azeroth:

For almost a month now Goblin siege engineers and Gnomish engineers have been tirelessly working on bringing down the gate at Death-bringers rise. Any day now they will break through allowing the combined forces of the Horde ,the Alliance and the Ashen Verdict to move further into Icecrown Citadel. The next wing on the list is the Plagueworks, a laboratory for creation of potions, vials and containers of the Plague of Undeath and blight slimes. It is also the factory where several Abominations and horrific scourge creations are made. Professor Putricide along with his flesh abominations Festergut and Rotface await. Are you brave enough to wounder these halls and destroy the blight, or will you be turned into a slave of the Lich King?

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In June of 2008 VGTribune became infatuated with Mythos, a free-to-play Diablo inspired MMO that was days away from reaching a public beta stage before its developer closed up shop thanks to financial difficulties. After folding, Mythos and Hellgate: London developer Flagship Studios handed the intellectual property (IP) rights to Mythos to Korean developer Hanbitsoft as offered collateral for loans earlier in the year.

Now with the rights to Mythos, HanbitSoft and its parent company T3 Entertainment resumed development and have a closed beta in South Korea and have announced to do the same in the US. Redbana, T3 Entertainment’s US publishing arm, will oversee the launch and operations for the title in North America and are currently allowing gamers to sign up for the closed beta.

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We’ve all heard that in game micro-transactions with real money would be the  next big thing for games with online components, but up until now implementation of that strategy has been sparse with major titles. Blizzard has taken the first big step in this direction by opening a pet store in WoW that uses real currency rather than in game gold.

What pets are for sale and how much are they? The first pets available for purchase are the Pandaren Monk and Lil’ K.T., the Littlest Lich. Now, before you go running off to buy either, you might want to know that they

will cost players $10 each. The price may be high, but if you buy the Kung-Fu-Panda-looking Monk pet you can find comfort in the fact that you’ll be sticking it to cancer as $5 of each purchase will go to the Make-a-Wish Foundation until the end of the year.

We think $10 for a virtual pet is a high price to pay, but keep in mind WoW players are used to paying exorbitant fees ($15+ for character realm changes, account changes, etc.). Five dollars for a panda? We’ll bite. But $10? No thanks.

[Source]

Good morning VGTribune readers, Grizzly Dave here with your daily dose of video game news. Players of Atlantica online “will come face-to-face with monsters ripped from history and lore, such as the ruthless Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu and Dracula.” Egyptian Pharaohs and Dracula?! Count us in! Gamers in Korea into North America, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, China and now Thailand can enter the MMO world with Dracula and Egyptian Pharaohs as well.

LOS ANGELES – September 28, 2009

Ndoors Interactive today announced that Atlantica Online, their premier free-to-play, strategic turn-based MMORPG, has successfully entered into closed beta in Thailand. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been playing world of warcraft for about a year now and have gone from a hardcore player/near on addict to a now casual WoW player. I’ve seen the dark side of WoW and I think I’m the best suited on VGTribune to give an overview of what you can expect in World of Warcraft Cataclysm. You can find my recap of the recent World of Warcraft: Cataclysm news after the jump!

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