The stories for this week:
- Activision Blizzard Coming to E3…Well, the Activision Part Is
- Warner Bros. Interactive Picks Up Snowblind Studios
- Gamefly Purchases Shacknews and All Affiliates
- Crytek Buys Remains of Free Radical, Saves Jobs and Renames it Crytek UK
- Electronic Arts Pushes Back Some Games, Announces New Ones Amid Disappointing Quarter
Activision Blizzard Coming to E3…Well, the Activision Part Is
For those that thought Blizzard doesn’t run its own ship even after the merger, this should solidify that fact. When the list of E3 attendees were given out by the ESA, Activision Blizzard was on the list after they had dropped out of the ESA last year and ran their own press conference in Los Angeles outside of E3 last year. This is fantastic news, except that Blizzard is not going to join the Activision part of the company. This means no possible new World of Warcraft expansion, Diablo 3 or StarCraft 2 shown off. Bummer! Guess there’ll be a lot of Guitar Hero though, right?
Source: Joystiq (Being at E3), Giant Bomb (Blizzard not attending)
Warner Bros. Interactive Picks Up Snowblind Studios
Warner Bros. Interactive continues to pick up developers. They purchased Traveller’s Tales a bit ago and now they’ve picked up Snowblind Studios, known best for Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance and the Champions of Norrath games. Those games were similar to the Diablo games and were actually quite popular. Also remember that Warner is still rumored to be the secret paramour to pick up Eidos, although no new news has come out since I reported it a while ago in Beyond Co-Op
Source: Joystiq
Gamefly Purchases Shacknews and All Affiliates
Arguably the biggest surprise of the week, online game rental service Gamefly purchased Shacknews and all its Affiliates including FileShack. Many people think this is a good move, making an analogy with Gamestop and Game Informer. Shacknews is considered one of the top gaming journalism sites out there and it is sounding like the main people will be leaving a while after the changeover. I’m sure the pot of gold dropped in their bank accounts will probably keep them warm at night. Gamefly, you looking for any other sites…maybe the Colony of Gamers family?
Source: Colony of Gamers
Crytek Buys Remains of Free Radical, Saves Jobs and Renames it Crytek UK
On the brink of total elimination, German developer Crytek came by and purchased the remains of Free Radical, which includes 40+ jobs being saved after over 140 workers were let go. Crytek then went to rename Free Radical to Crytek UK. No word yet on what Free Radical games could have been purchased along with the company, but one could guess that Timesplitters 4 is still in Crytek UK’s hands. The Star Wars Battlefront ship has probably sailed though. It is also quite interesting that T4 may come full circle and be published by Electronic Arts again, much like Future Perfect was.
Source: Shacknews (Crytek purchasing Free Radical) and Videogames 24/7 (Renaming to Crytek UK)
Electronic Arts Pushes Back Some Games, Announces New Ones Amid Disappointing Quarter
A weird week for Electronic Arts. They had a disappointing quarter that will create more cuts in staff. They announced that they have pushed back the releases of Sims 3 to June 2nd from February 20th, Godfather II from its February 24th release to an unknown time and the PC version of Dragon Age: Origins to late 2009 possibly alongside the console versions. And then they announced some new games like Battlefield Bad Company 2 (360, PS3…and PC), Battlefield 1943 (XBLA, PSN and PC) and even a Dead Space for the Wii. Some good news and some bad news for the company, but then again after the quarter loss the stock did go up 14%, so who knows.
Source: Joystiq