Take-Two Interactive Software, the distributor of Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) and other games, has given word that it is planning to expand into Asia Pacific markets. The company has tapped an experienced senior executive to help them establish a foothold in Asia. For more information, don't hesitate to click on the "read more" link below.

EA Mythic's Mark Jacobs has some pretty big goals for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning's beta testing. He gave word that the MMORPG should be hitting one million beta testers soon. Want to know how they plan on doing this? Check out the full article by clicking on the "read more" link.

Just when you think World of Warcraft has reached its peak, Blizzard comes out and surprises everyone. The company has announced that the game now has over 10 million subscribers. In addition, they also gave word of how the population is split in the international scene.

Want to find out more about this? Head on over to the full article.

 

After Nexon's phenomenal success with online kart racer KartRider in Asia, the company's local American division is hoping to emulate the Korean MMORPG's success in the West as it finally announced the open beta for the game going live.

Anyone who's played any fast-paced multiplayer kart racer will know just how addicting these kind of games can get. Put in the fact that you can also customize your cutesy little kart with a near endless number of possible modifications and you have a racing game that can occupy hardcore gamers attention for a long time.

Once you sign up, you have your choice of enjoying either the single or team race modes. If you're looking of a bit of a challenge you can also try either the item mode or the speed mode races. Through speed mode you can test just how good you are at drifting at the many courses offered in the game.

Item mode, furthermore, gives you a more laid back form of racing in a Mario Kart-esque type of competition. However way you want to enjoy the game, it's all free for download on the KartRider website and registrations are still open (via the Read link below).

 

We were recently able to talk to Nick Beliaeff, the Exec Director of Development for Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), who graciously made time to answer a few questions for us. He let us in on some of the company's plans varied plans - from PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable titles to the advent of MMO 2.0.

Without further ado, here's QJ.NET's interview with Nick Beliaeff.

QJ: How do you approach game development on the different platforms that you make games for? What are the big differences between, say, making a PSN title and making a PSP or PC title? Particularly from a budgetary, gameplay, and target audience perspective?

Beliaeff: For us, I think one of the key tenets we try and follow would be is the title platform appropriate and does it leverage our core competencies? For a PSP title, does it involve short play sessions, does it support WiFi and infrastructure modes, and will it load fast off of an UMD?

For PSN, is it something that is a palatable download with a broadband connection, does it help validate the PS3 purchase, and is it online multiplayer? For PC, we are pretty established and tend to focus on will it be a kick ass, large subscriber base game a few years from now? PSN and PSP title for us are relatively quick. MMOs take a long time to build properly :)

Click the Full Article link for the rest of the interview!

During the first ever Games Convention Asia Conference (GC Asia Conference) held in Singapore, many countries proved how the industry is also strong in Asia outside Japan. Singapore, known as a big market for MMORPGs, even took a step forward to announce that they're ready to become a games industry center of excellence.

Minister for community development, Vivian Balakrishnan, revealed that around US$ 330 million (SG$ 500 million) of government funds went to research and development in the digital interactive sector.

A student exchange program called "GAMBIT" is also under way for Singapore and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to share their expertise.

Other parts of South East Asia expressed interest in the industry. A memorandum that "signifies the recognition of each other as ideal counterparts for future collaboration and co-operation in this region for the benefit of the games industry" was signed by ten Asian game developers associations from various countries like Japan, Korea, Australia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Asia-Pacific is expected to contribute 40% of gaming industry's US$ 39.8 billion annual revenue by the end of 2008, and Singapore wants a piece of the cake. "Singapore intends to be part of the action," said Balakrishnan.

Gaming in Asia is often associated with Japan, South Korea and China, but the region as a whole is catching up to the growing industry as evidenced by more events being organized to forge cooperation and spread new knowledge on the field.

Games Convention Asia Conference (GCAC) is among the first of such large scale events outside the three aforementioned nations. It's the equivalent of Europe's GCDC and this year, Singapore is hosting it.

The event is none-business in nature and more oriented on talks which seek to impart insights on the state of the industry. However, such conferences have been known to be venues where parties interested in starting commercial ties get acquainted and start partnerships in the long run.

Speakers from Europe, North America and Asia are in the roster of those who will be taking the stage as facilitators of discussions. Bob Bates, story writer behind Unreal Tournament II, will be there, as well as Steve Schnur, EA's Worldwide Executive for Music and Audio.

Local stalwart Chris Natsuume will also be among the first to speak in the events. He was largely responsible for the creation of the game Far Cry. Frank Sliwka, GCDC Project Manager, commented on the new event, stating:

We are confident that the GC Asia Conference will establish itself as the leading platform for the game development community in Asia. The program we put forward will provide attendees with the kind of practical knowledge and numerous networking opportunities for which GC development conferences are well known.

The Games Convention Asia Conference will commence September 6 and last for two days, although no particular venue in Singapore has been named as of press time.

 

Aside from Pirates of the Burning Sea, there's another MMO title that allows players to live their wildest fantasies of being pirates. We're talking about Bounty Bay Online. If you are interested, today is your lucky day because the game is currently in need of players who will fill the closed beta slots.

Bounty Bay Online takes place during the 15th century. Much like PotBS, there are several career options to follow in Bounty Bay Online aside from being a pirate. A player may opt to become a merchant and focus on trade. Also, one can just be an adventurer and travel the exotic and then-unexplored regions of Europe, Africa, and Asia.

This MMO is being developed by German-based yusho GmbH. There is still no word when this will be available but the developer mentioned that Bounty Bay will come in two different versions: a normal retail package and a special edition. Of course, the latter has more goodies to offer.

You can register at the game's official site to take part at the closed beta via our Read link below.

According to an industry analysis report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the video game industry will continue to be considered as an above-average growth segment of the global entertainment industries. Additionally, they have claimed that this year's investments made by the game industry is "set to exceed" the current spending for the music industry.

 
The global spending has jumped 14.3% to US$ 31.6 billion back in 2006, and PwC expects that the amount should climb another 18.5% to US$ 37.5 billion in 2007. The report also projects that the game industry will officially overtake the music industry by 2008 in the US, as data from key growth factors in the industry have been gaining performance this year.

Such factors include that of online and wireless games, next generation consoles and the advent of in-game advertising. Although much of the analysis took the US into question, PwC cut back on US-only expectations and spread its views over the global scape.

Click on Full Article to learn more of the gaming industry's performance as a whole and the best performing region for 2007.

Blizzard performed a massive account ban yesterday for behemoth MMO video game World of Warcraft. According to our sources, Blizzard targeted gold farmers but reports claim that regular users were also affected by the purge.

Website NotAddicted.com managed to get hold of one of the gold farmers who got banned yesterday. The farmer claims that he's from Colorado, strengthening previous speculations that gold diggers also abound in first world countries and not only in China and other parts of Asia.

According to the botter, the purge caused him around 100 accounts of characters with levels ranging from 40 to 70. One account, the botter calculated, gives a revenue of US$ 5,000, and that's around US$ 50,000 lost in just one day. The botter lamented that the business isn't quite profitable anymore,

A lot of competition. Add in when you try to make money, takes 3 weeks to lvl an account to 70 and work, it makes an ok amount of gold then you lose the account, paypal reversals, list goes on and on. We don't really get banned for botting very often. I keep it minimal and out of the way of normal traffic where players dont come by very often.

Furthermore, the gold farmer from Colorado shared that aside from profits lost in massive bans, his company needs at least US$ 13,000 just to stay in business. Because of yesterday's incident, he is currently considering to layoff some of his workers. A regular employee earns US$ 10.50 a day plus an hour minimum.