by Jeff Woleslagle on Mar 18, 2009
Welcome to the 1,038th Edition of Loading...
Loading... is the premier MMORPG news and commentary daily newsletter from Ten Ton Hammer. Play World of Warcraft? Jay "Medeor" Johnson's weekly WoW newsletter "The Overpull" keeps you entertained and informed on all the latest developments in WoW. Sign up!
The Pulse
You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is Pulse?). Ten Ton Hammer says happy birthday to EverQuest in our own way, as the Norrath we all knew and loved makes a rare visit to the top ten.
Here's today's top 5 Pulse results for today:
World of Warcraft EverQuest 2 Warhammer Online EVE Online Age of ConanBiggest Movers in the Top 20 in the past 30 days :
Jumpgate Evolution (UP 19 to #10) EverQuest (UP 15 to #12) City of Heroes (UP 14 to #16)Loading... Daily
Loading... informed like Pravda, but with spuriously fun-loving intentions.
I like to think Ten Ton Hammer is pretty well informed for what we do. We talk to game developers, publishers, and PR houses on the phone each day, travel to events and chat over beers, and in the process we learn lots of things we shouldn't know, or shouldn't know yet. We keep these things under wraps until the appointed time because we can't use the drive-by methods of the mainstream media - it's an intimate (if fairly large) industry, and we don't want to poison the well we'll be returning to drink from. When there are legal or ethical issues involved, that's a completely different story, and we've gotten our fair share of heat for outing below-board schemery when we scope it out. But in a nutshell, that, friends, is how entertainment media works, whether you're small or big.
Nonetheless it was a complete surprise to us that NetDevil, makers of Jumpgate Evolution and Lego Universe, had been bought, and by a publisher that we'd never heard of - Gazillion Entertainment. Ten Ton Hammer's Cody Bye scooped the news yesterday and then tracked down Scott Brown, CEO of NetDevil and one of the most passionate and earnest MMO developers you'd ever meet. You can find his brief interview with Scott here. Obviously, after an acquisition, it's all pictures and smiles, but the real surprise is that this deal has been in place for almost a year. The news really only came to light yesterday because Gazillion announced their work on a new Marvel MMORPG.
In retrospect, it all makes sense. NetDevil, like Turbine and Cryptic, is a proven developer, launching several games that weren't stellar hits but nonetheless proved they had the constant creativity, wherewithal, and long-term focus it takes to be an MMO developer. And like Cryptic (STO) and (probably) Turbine, they found themselves with a major, major license but no obvious source of funding. Cryptic was acquired by Atari, Turbine got a huge infusion of cash mid-way through last year in private investment, and now we find that NetDevil was acquired by Gazillion in what sounds like an idyllic relationship. We like to see our developers concerned with making games, not necessarily financing them, so thanks a gazillion, Gazillion.
Due to the acquisition, NetDevil wasn't able to do the previously scheduled dev chat this week, but fortunately Lord of the Rings Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel was available to come talk about Book 7. Just us tomorrow night at 7pm EDT in room Ten Ton Events on Voon.
Thoughts, comments, suggestions? The Loading... forum is the bidet for your clinging ideas. Or skip the middleman and email me.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
Will return when Shay unbreaks her Tandy II computer tomorrow.
6 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 71 in March! 331 in 2009!
New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today [Thanks Phil Comeau for links and Real World News]
WoW Celebs: An Interview with Olympic Gold Medalist Matt GrieversHot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to:
EverQuest 2: 10th Anniversary Q&A with Game Designer Ed Hardin Warhammer Online: Call to Arms - The Slayer and The Choppa Preview of Bounty Bay Online EVE Online: Sins of a Solar Spymaster - "Bad Crazy in Internet Space" geeked: They Are Everywhere Building on Success: The Growth of Atlantica Online Remembering EverQuest: Ten Years of Memories Loading... Live #8 - EVE Online: Apocrypha Dev Chat Vooncast Goob & Begud: "Dirty Work" The Struggle for Acceptance - Is Faction Grinding Necessary?Real World News
Man shoot brother dead over soda disputeThanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
-Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team