Daily News Spin — March 21, 2001 (Wednesday)

More on EA layoffs

Tally this in the rumor column, but we're hearing that as many as 150 have been laid off at EA. In addition, Kesmai, the online network that EA purchased in 1999, has been gutted, with both Air Warrior 4 and Battletech getting cancelled.

Ultima Online 2 cancelled

Ok, the real name is Ultima Worlds Online: Origin, but you can call it dead now. As part of the restructuring going on at Electronic Arts today, the project has been cancelled and Origin has been turned into a glorified server farm. They'll continue to maintain and enhance Ultima Online, but beyond that it looks like they'll develop no new games. Here's the terse press release from Origin:

Electronic Arts and Origin Systems have announced a plan that will increase their focus on Ultima Online and halt production of OWO: ORIGIN (UO2). The reason is simple, rather than creating OWO: ORIGIN (UO2) as a parallel world competing with UO, we've decided to put those resources into growing and improving the core offering for Ultima Online's 230,000 loyal subscribers. In the near future and with the release next week of Ultima Online: Third Dawn, players will see new lands, new creatures, and a world that is continually evolving within Ultima Online.

To quote Keanu Reeves, "Whoa."

Has the Internet downturn also started to bring down MMORPGs as well? EA.com is said to be bleeding some pretty heavy red ink and as part of the restructuring layoffs have occurred in that division.

What time is it? Doubletime time!

Hola! We have brand spanking new Doubletime interview with Andrew Ewanchyna, the one-man team behind the surpisingly good Starships Unlimited, and Alan Emrich and Quicksilver, the team working on that most hallowed of franchises, Master of Orion 3.

Tom Chick calls it a "study in contrasts." Mark Asher calls it "that interview with the space game guys." You can call it whatever you want, but you have to read it first.

Duke will kick alien ass in space

A little more on the Duke Nukem movie that's apparently going to really happen.

Threshold chairman and CEO Larry Kasanoff will produce the project, which he said is being targeted to start shooting this year. There is no script yet, but an early story line follows Duke as he takes on the dangerous mission of traveling into deep space to intercept an alien ship on a collision course with Earth.

This is from a Hollywood Reporter story posted on Yahoo. We wonder if Bruce Campbell will be asked to play Duke, or if they'll just mine the Evil Dead series for more one-liners?

Hot writer, dumb-sounding story

This Interplay press release says it all:

Interplay...announced today that the original storyline behind the highly anticipated game, Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, comes from one of the world�s most highly regarded and award winning authors, Warren Ellis. Warren�s credits include best-sellers such as Excalibur and DV8, as well as the multiple award-winning series Transmetropolitan; also recently named best graphic story by the international horror guide. He is internationally recognized for his dark inventive visions � Entertainment Weekly recently listed Ellis as one of the hundred most creative people in entertainment and Rolling Stone�s Hot 2000 issue listed him as a �Hot Writer�.

Hey, he's a hot writer! Hot, very hot! You have to read his books with oven mitts, he's so hot! So what's the plot for Antaeus Rising?

The game pits the minds of fallen soldiers, in the form of Soulcatcher chips that control military hardware, against a cabal of old world leaders, arms dealers, despots and presidents whose influence has been lost in a worldwide drive for peace. Attempting to regain control and spread the war that gives them wealth and power, the cabal is hidden away on a series of heavily defended artificial islands.

Man, that's hot! You take the brains from dead soldiers and stick them into tanks or hovercraft or mechanical dolphins or something and make them fight a bunch of grouchy old men in suits who have a lot of money. Oh yeah, these rich codgers live on fake islands -- they're so cheap they won't buy real ones! The islands are probably made of packing styrofoam that the cheapskates saved. We have an advance look at some of the dialog:

Grouchy Old Man: Man, it's boring out here on our styrofoam island, isn't it Fred?

Grouchy Old Fred: Yeah, but we're rich and we only paid $19.95 for the duct tape we used to tape all the packing styrofoam together. Think of the money we saved!

Grouchy Old Man: Hey Fred, look! It's a dolphin. That thing's cute. Let's go down and pet it. [They walk down and Fred reaches out to pet the dolphin's nose and...]

Mechanical Dolphin with Dead Soldier's Brain: CHOMP! All your styrofoam are belong to us! Ha ha ha ha!

Maybe we're being unfair. Then again, maybe not.

Game Boy Advance launched in Japan

It's out, and selling briskly. Nintendo has 25 launch titles. While the industry is fixated on the war brewing between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo for the hearts, minds, and wallets of the next gen console crowd, Game Boy Advance might just be the the Mouse that Roared.

Game fans ranging from children to suit-wearing businessmen queued up from the early hours in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district, and shops reported brisk initial sales of the 9,800 yen ($80) machine, successor to the best-selling Game Boy Color.

``I can't get enough of Nintendo since I was five,'' said Gary Young, a 23-year-old Briton on a business trip to Tokyo. ``It's just fun, it's just pure.''

Kazuhiro Katayama, a 44-year-old father of two, had another reason for his shopping expedition.

`If kids don't have the games, they feel alienated from their friends,'' he said, dutifully handing over a wad of notes for two consoles and accompanying games.

Nintendo has only managed to sell 100 million Game Boys over the years and holds about 95% of the portable game market. Thanks to Michael Murphy for pointing us to this story.

Freeloader.com closes

According to a Reuters story posted on Yahoo, Freeloader.com is shutting down.

Freeloader has been performing fairly well, registering a record number of hits on its website in January and beating all its own projections for traffic and user statistics.

But lack of revenue from its international sites left the company with no alternative but to close up shop, and examine the possibility of selling what it still views as a proven technology and business model.

Freeloader.com gave away older PC games through episodic downloads. For example, they currently highlight Creatures and Grand Theft Auto 2 as giveaways. Like most of the content sites that have been hit hard by the advertising downturn, Freeloader has found difficult to monetize the traffic they received, so we're not sure what kind of "business model" they want to sell.

RealNetworks to try to sell games online

RealNetworks is ready to launch RealArcade, a platform for downloading and playing PC games, according to an AP story.

Analysts see RealArcade as a way for the company to make money off the millions of people who currently visit the company's Web site for free downloads such as RealPlayer.

``Real has a huge customer base, and they have to figure out new ways of making revenue off of that,'' said Heath Terry, an analyst with CS First Boston who follows Real Networks and the video game industry.

Oy vez, we've heard that one before. Like in the story above? The one where they gave away games and couldn't make money? RealNetworks does have a number of developers lined up, including Monolith with their Tex Atomic game. Others as cited in the article include Zombie Entertainment, GameHouse, WEB Corp. and Daydream Software.

3am

That Beatdown guy alerted us to yet another manifestation of All Your Base, this time in the The Onion:

WASHINGTON, DC-- Seeking to increase fiscal accountability among citizens who have no chance to survive make their time, the House of Representatives added an "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" amendment Monday to H.R. 333, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2001. "What you say!!!" shouted the bill's sponsor, Rep. George Gekas (R-PA), following the amendment's approval. "This bill will not only make debt-ridden Americans more accountable, but it has the added benefit of taking off every 'zig' for great justice." Opponents of the amendment protested that it would potentially set up U.S. the bomb.

When will the madness end?

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