BlueStacks, the startup known for bringing Android apps to PCs and Macs, has been growing like a weed. Last week, the company announced that it had passed the 10 million user milestone, nearly half of which were added in the first quarter of this year. Today, hot on the heels of the news that OUYA has landed $15 million from Kleiner Perkins to bring its affordable, $99 Android-friendly gaming… → Read More
It may be the case that real-money gambling is inching its way to reality in the U.S., much as it has in the rest of the world, but if so it’s a phenomenally boring story. It’s hard to get excited about a sector that only ever sells the same few game types over and over, and it leads me to wonder when will real innovation ever really make its mark in this space. There’s more to life than slots. → Read More
Glitch, the online, multiplayer gaming world created by Tiny Speck, is closing down December 9 after failing to get enough user traction, and then failing to find a buyer for the product. But… he is also cooking up something else. → Read More
Canada’s Amaya Gaming is to buy bwin.party’s B2B poker network Ongame in a deal worth up to €25 million ($32.2 million). An initial payment of €15 million ($19.3 million) is payable in cash on completion — expected during the fourth quarter of 2012 but subject to standard conditions including regulatory approval. Additional payments of up to €10 million ($12.9 million) become payable if… → Read More
Electronic Arts continues to beef up its cloud-based gaming offerings. Today it was announced that it is buying ESN, developers of the Planet web-based games framework, for an undisclosed sum. The two companies had already been working together, namely on Battlelog, an online social-web component for EA’s Battlefield 3. The news was announced on ESN’s blog. → Read More
Well, we’ve said it before: Technology is changing education. It’s flipping the classroom, bringing instructional videos to the masses, and dragging online higher education into legitimacy. Investors have begun to hear the call, as was evidenced today when Benchmark Capital made its largest seed investment to date — $25 million — in a startup/university called The Minerva Project.
Sure, it’s… → Read More
The magic of mobile games is that they can be played anywhere, but it turns out that quite a lot of us are more than happy to play them when not on the move, according to a new survey from mobile entertainment portal MocoSpace.
Taking in responses from some 15,000 U.S. consumers, the company found that 96 percent of them said that they play mobile games at home at least once a day, and among… → Read More
When I was growing up, games were played offline — whether it was Number Munchers on an Apple2GS, or Super Mario Bros. on Nintendo’s NES console. But, needless to say, that 8-bit world is miles behind us.
Like it has done to every other industry, the Web completely altered the course of gaming. It brought connectivity and scale to video games, allowing huge groups of people to play each other in… → Read More
If you groaned a groaning groan at the announcement that the PC version of Tiger Woods would be online-only, cheer up. I played around with the beta for a while yesterday and came away impressed. → Read More
I, along with 30 Helens, agree with Don Reisinger on the subject of Xbox Live. Xbox Live Gold memberships should be free. I actually can’t speak for the aforementioned Helens, so let’s just say that Don and I are in complete concurrence. → Read More
http://www.g4tv.com/lv3/26397 Do you guys know Adam Sessler, the host of G4′s X-Play? He has a problem with all the swearing, racism and general malfeasance found on Xbox Live and other forms of online gaming. And with good reason: a lot of the “trash talk” on XBL is non-sensical bunk. But, is telling 10-year-olds to lay off the swearing really going to work? They’re a… → Read More
I thought Darkon was going to be cool, but this looks even more interesting. It’s a documentary film about the ways, positive and negative, in which MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, Everquest and others have affected people’s lives. You’ve got the addict, the shut-in, the bloomer, the romantic, it looks like every popular kind of story associated with the genre is represented… → Read More
Skype has announced that it will be offering a software developer’s kit (SDK) for its new GameXN framework. The plan is for Skype users to be able to invite one another into online games. No word yet on if Skype plans on allowing users to communicate via VoIP during the game, but I’d imagine it’s in the works. Windows Live Messenger already has some similar features, but a lot of… → Read More
Long before there was that strange island on LOST, there was the strange island in the game MYST. Now after several sequels, a few more mysteries might just be solved as Myst Online: Uru Live transitions to an episodic model. Beginning May 19th all of the future episodes’ content and story – including objects, new Ages and even story revelations – will be released within a single week each… → Read More
The NPD Group tracks all sorts of data related to video games and a report due out later today breaks down just exactly the online gaming world looks like. There’s two big shockers right off the bat: a majority of online gamers are console owners (whaaa?) and that girl gamers—excuse me, grrrl gamers—account for 42 percent of all online gamers. I call bravo sierra. → Read More
Research firm Parks Associates has announced that it will be releasing research details at the Austin Game Conference suggesting that the online game market in North America will grow from $1.1 billion in 2004 to $4.4 billion in 2010. Research shows that PC gamers in North America currently spend an average of 18.5 hours playing games each week, 4.9 hours more than console gamers, and 9.6 more… → Read More
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