Yesterday 1UP reported, via information from GameSpot, that Dragon Age and The Old Republic developer BioWare was involved in the development of the Electronic Arts game DarkSpore.
We’d like to make a correction to that report — BioWare is not involved in the game. According to a statement from Electronic Arts (as reported by GamePro), Malcom Azania, a writer who has worked with BioWare in the past, is working on the game, but officially, BioWare is not involved.
Spotted by Comics Alliance, during a session at San Diego Comic Con DC Comics’ chief creative officer (and Green Lantern writer) Geoff Johns let slip that a “hardcore violent” Suicide Squad video game is being developed.
If you’re unfamiliar with the comic franchise, it originally concerned non-super-powered heroes fighting against supervillians, but has gone through a number of revisions, such as a World War II-era suicide squad and a black ops strike team composed of supervillians against their will. Comics Alliance posits that the game could coincide with the upcoming Suicide Squad film, which is likely to concern the most current incarnation of the Suicide Squad as a squad of imprisoned supervillians.
Sony Computer Entertainment has announced the “PlayStation Logo Licensing Program,” a new initiative which is targeted towards allowing manufacturers to use the logo on “lifestyle products from apparel to everyday items.”
Licensees who enter into an agreement with Sony though the program will be able to use the logos from the PS3, PSP, PSPgo, PS2 and PlayStation, as well as using the “iconic marks” of the cross, triangle, square and circle. Sony provided a conceptual design as an example of possible usage.
Publisher SouthPeak Games once again finds itself in a legal quagmire, this time because of a dispute over the publishing rights for the My Baby franchise.
Developed by Nobilis, the My Baby series has sold millions of copies since it debuted on the DS in 2008. Though SouthPeak handled the publishing duties for all the previous releases, Majesco recently announced that it has acquired publishing rights for My Baby 3 — a revelation that sent SouthPeak on a quest for justice.
Gamesindustry.biz reports (via Joystiq) that the publisher is currently suing Majesco for the My Baby 3 distribution rights, but that’s not the only lawsuit with SouthPeak’s name on it: The developers at Nobilis are seeking legal action against SouthPeak, alleging that the publisher failed to pay them for their work on earlier My Baby projects. This non-payment of funds, they suggest, renders all contracts with SouthPeak null and void — meaning Nobilis can take the My Baby IP wherever they please, basically.
Next time you boot up Plants vs. Zombies for iPhone, you may notice something is a little different. That’s because Popcap has opted to change the character Dancing Zombie, who bears a strong resemblance to deceased pop star Michael Jackson.
The zombie is a callback to the seminal musical video for “Thriller,” in which Jackson appears as a zombie. The game was released before Jackson’s death in June 2009, but the King of Pop’s estate still isn’t happy.
A PopCap representative told MTV Multiplayer, “The Estate of Michael Jackson objected to our use of the ‘dancing zombie’ in Plants vs. Zombies based on its view that the zombie too closely resembled Michael Jackson.”
Like a number of other RPGs, Sony Online Entertainment’s EverQuest II is going free-to-play. But the subscription service won’t be going anywhere (via Gamasutra).
Instead, the newly-announced EverQuest II Extended will be a different version of the game that’s powered by microtransactions. The original version will continue on as before.
EverQuest II producer David Georgeson said that the decision was made to spur growth in a stable but “stagnant” fanbase without alienating existing fans.
Large publishers continue to snap up social game developers, with Disney being the latest. The media conglomerate has reportedly purchased Social City developer Playdom for at least 563 million (via Reuters).
Disney sees social gaming as a “high-growth business,” and CEO Bob Iger believes that the genre from benefit from “our many characters, stories and brands.”
Playdom is the fourth-largest competitor on Facebook, boasting an estimated 42 million active players each month. They are known for games such as Mobsters.
Following up last week’s announcement of Rush’s 20-minute-long “2112″ suite being included in Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, Activision just revealed 22 more tracks for their upcoming rhythm game.
Of particular note are the tracks by Alice Cooper and The Runaways, which were rerecorded by their respective artists specifically for Warriors of Rock. Other standouts include songs from supergroup Them Crooked Vultures, Blue Öyster Cult, and Styx, as well as The Ramones’ take on the Spider-Man theme song from the 1960s.
Read up on the full list of newly announced Guitar Hero tracks below:
Last we heard of New Line Cinema’s Gears of War movie, the project was reportedly being scaled back and its director, Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard), may have jumped ship to work on a different movie. Now it sounds like the studio’s decided to hit the reset button on the Gears film.
Speaking with Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski at Comic-Con last weekend, Cinema Blend discovered the latest round of setbacks for the troubled Gears of War adaptation (via Eurogamer). According to Bleszinski, the movie’s budget ballooned to an estimated $100 million under Wiseman — a number the game designer said New Line couldn’t justify for a rated-R production with zero love story.
Bleszinski likened the original script for Gears to last year’s special-effects blowout 2012, but claimed the studio’s new goal is to make it “more like District 9.” Peter Jackson and director Neill Blomkamp reportedly made their science-fiction flick for around $30 million.