Independent online game developer and and publisher Artix Entertainment announced that its browser-based titles have brought in 110,136,863 registered accounts.

The small developer is based in Land O' Lakes, Florida and was founded in 2002. Its catalog includes three single-player online RPGs -- DragonFable, MechQuest, and AdventureQuest -- and two free-to-play MMOs, AdventureQuest Worlds and EpicDuel, the latter of which it acquired last December.

Artix reached this milestone just five months after its library hit the 100 million accounts mark, with more than 13 million of those registered for its Flash-based MMORPG AdventureQuest Worlds. The company did not mention if it counts users who have registered for multiple games in its tally.

The studio has previously claimed that its titles receive an average of 35,000 new players each day, and has attributed that success to its release of weekly updates for all of its games and player-inspired content/modifications.

“We really need to release more interesting news than our user count," mused Artix Entertainment CEO Adam Bohn. "Maybe something about our new games we are creating, the bizarre store we are about to open, or maybe the movie project…"

Finnish social game developer Rocket Pack (Cats Vs. Dogs) has created a new development platform specifically designed for creating persistent browser games that don't require plugins.

The company describes its Rocket Engine as a "fully integrated toolkit for plugin-free browser game development." The company will bundle a components library and editing tools with the kit, which it also says includes live previews and support for multiple users, and will launch in Q4 2010.

Rocket Engine supports development for major browsers and social gaming platforms, including the iPhone, iPad and Android devices. It's described as a component-based toolkit, aimed to enable game developers to prototype quickly and develop their online games. It includes an online editor, which the company hopes will ease on-the-go editing, as it doesn't require coding.

"Our [studio] was used to professional tools such as the Unreal Engine or Unity3D," said Jiri Kupiainen, one of the founders of Rocket Pack. "But nothing existed for professional plugin-free browser game development, so we built it ourselves."

The company is developing its own social MMO called Cats vs. Dogs, which will be released later this year, and recently secured funding from the Nordic Game organization.

The development platform is integrated with the company's Rocket Network, which provides cloud services for MMO development including identity handling, virtual currencies and full tracking and reporting for custom metrics.

GDC Online organizers are reminding potential attendees that today is the last day to save up to 40% on passes to the October 5th-8th event in Austin, TX, fully detailing the comprehensive exhibit floor, Summits, keynotes, a PlayStation Home developer day and more.

The Austin, Texas based GDC Online conference -- formerly known as GDC Austin -- is mainly focused on the development of online games, including free-to-play titles, social network games, and traditional MMOs, with a veteran online game industry advisory board evaluating and selecting the lectures.

There are now more than 120 panels, lectures and tutorials currently scheduled for the event -- including the recently announced keynote from Civilization II designer and now Zynga chief game designer Brian Reynolds (FrontierVille), and just-debuted track keynotes from Blizzard on Battle.net, Raph Koster on social design trends, and European browser game giant BigPoint on its rise to success.

These lectures join a full set of highlighted lectures including Main Conference talks on October 6th-8th from Relic, Sony Online, Carbine, KingsIsle, IMVU, Disney, Playdom, BioWare Austin, Hangout Industries, Broken Bulb Studios, CCP, Gaia Online, Playfish, InstantAction, Ubisoft and a host of other notable companies at the leading worldwide online game-specific conference.

One of the other major advantages of attending GDC Online is the comprehensive list of nearly 90 exhibitors with whom attendees are able to get product demonstrations, meet, and interact on the vibrant GDC Online Expo Floor. These include major firms like Epic, Rackspace, Gaikai, Offerpal, Vindicia, Trinigy, ARIN, Versant, Rixty, Softlayer, and many other notable companies in the space.

Continue reading "Reminder: Last Day To Early Register For GDC Online" »

South Korean online game publisher NCsoft revealed that Guild Wars has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide since the episodic action MMORPG launched five year ago (When the firm last shared sales figures for the title in April 2009, Guild Wars had sold 6 million units).

Around half of those sales took place in Europe, the company told consumer site Joystiq. NCsoft noted that Guild Wars' largest regional audience is in Germany, where it allowed the public to play the PC MMO's upcoming sequel for the first time at Gamescom last month.

Developed by NCsoft subsidiary ArenaNet, the first Guild Wars episode released in April 2005, followed by two episodes, Factions and Nightfall, and the Eye of the North expansion. The company is currently working on Guild Wars 2 and says it intends to release the game "when it's done".

While gamers must first buy a Guild Wars episode to play the game, the MMO does not require monthly subscriptions to play (users cannot access some content without buying all of the episodes). Guild Wars 2 will feature a similar subscription-less model.

Retailer Target announced that it will be the first brick-and-mortar chain to sell gift cards for Facebook Credits, the social network's universal virtual currency system.

The gift cards, which are available in increments of $15, $25, and $50 (the $15 card will be exclusively available at Target) will begin rolling out to the retailer's more than 1,700 locations across the country on September 5th.

With the cards, Facebook users will be able to buy virtual currency and goods in over 150 social games and apps that support Credits, without needing to use a credit card or provide personal details. Many popular titles offer Credits as a payment option, including FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and Bejeweled Blitz.

Prepaid cards for Facebook games are typically limited to a particular title or publisher -- Target also sells cards for individual titles and companies, like YoVille and Playdom -- but Credits are designed to provide a more portable alternative to those game/app- or publisher-specific virtual currencies.

Though the Credits system is still in beta, many major developers have already pledged to use the social network's universal virtual currency exclusively in their titles. Playdom, RockYou, and CrowdStar have gone so far as to sign five-year agreements with Facebook to only use Credits.

"At Target we strive to delight our guests with exciting, new products every day, so we're thrilled to be the first retailer to sell Facebook Credits gift cards," says Target's Merchandising SVP Mark Schindele.

Schindele adds, "With social gaming becoming increasingly popular, Facebook Credits gift cards provide an easy and convenient option for Target guests to purchase virtual goods."

Paris-based media and telecommunications giant Vivendi SA has today increased its profit expectations for 2010, despite reporting a drop in second-quarter net profit.

The company, which owns a 52 percent majority shareholding in video game publisher, Activision Blizzard Inc., said its profits for the second quarter ended June 30 slipped 3.7 percent to 669 million euros ($856.4 million) from 695 million euros ($889.7 million) last year.

But Vivendi said it still expects growth in earnings before income and taxes, and a higher adjusted profit than the one recorded in 2009, an increase it specifically puts down to growth in its video game division, aided by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and other titles at its Activision Blizzard unit.

Sales during the quarter were 7.06 billion euros ($9 billion), up 6.2 percent from 6.65 billion euros ($8.85 billion) for the same quarter a year prior.

Jean-Bernard Levy, chief executive of Vivendi said: "Our most recent strategic acquisitions, GVT, Activision Blizzard and SFR broadband and fixed, achieved excellent operating performances."

The publisher, created in 2008 when Vivendi bought a controlling stake in Activision Inc. and merged it with its Blizzard Entertainment business, grew faster than analysts had expected. Last month, it said it would buy back $1 billion in shares and pay its first dividend.

"Activision Blizzard had a much stronger performance than the year before,” Levy said. “The contribution of Activision Blizzard [to Vivendi] has become very significant.” The publisher, whose titles include Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, and StarCraft II, had revenue of 3 billion euros ($3.8 billion) in 2009, accounting for 11 percent of total Vivendi sales.

Activision Blizzard has recently reaffirmed its calendar year 2010 outlook saying that it expects net revenues of $4.4 billion and $0.72 earnings per share.

Despite these positive projections, Vivendi remains locked in a U.S. legal battle with investors who say the company lied to them about its performance under former CEO Jean-Marie Messier. In January, a jury ruled investors were misled 57 times between 2000 and 2002. Vivendi is appealing the ruling, which the plantiffs’ law firm has reported could lead to $9.3 billion in damages.

In April of this year, mobile social network operator and game creator DeNA announced a partnership with Yahoo! Japan to launch a PC web-based gaming platform called Yahoo! Mobage. While developers have been allowed access since January, the Yahoo! Mobage service is now aiming for its public launch of the 1st of October.

Yahoo! Mobage provides services such as translation, hosting and monetization resources. DeNA is currently inviting American PC and mobile game developers to use a universal Mobage platform API to distribute their games to the Japanese market.

The platform offers the advantage of two user bases of significant size: Yahoo's 52 million monthly active web-based users and DeNA's 20 million active mobile users. Including other sources, it's believed that the Mobage platform will reach an average of 90 million Japanese internet users.

DeNA will also offer several forms of aid for interested developers, including partnerships with four companies to assist in game testing and translation, money transfers through international banks, and hosting through the leading Japanese service provider, IDC Frontier.

DeNA's CEO, Tomoko Namba, claims that the amount of money to be made in Japanese social gaming as "astronomical... by offering this platform and providing tools to help ease the transition, DeNA hopes to be American game developers' portal to the East," Namba says. Some Japanese developers on Mobage are already making an average of $1 million a month in their top games.

DeNA has seen significant gains in the social gaming market this year, with an 81 percent year-over-year increase to $205 million reported in its fourth quarter, partly due to the success of its self-created social game titles.

The Tokyo-based company launched in 1999 as an e-commerce business and later became a web service provider for PC and cell phone users. Its core social networking/virtual world platform Mobage-town currently has over 20 million members in Japan.

SPIL Games, one of the largest online webgames companies, has announced that all 47 of its online portals are now based in HTML5, with the firm saying that the web language is set to replace Adobe's Flash as the standard for games on the web within three years, according to a report on Develop.

The Netherlands-based company put the decision to move toward HTML5 down to the number of mobile users it found were trying to access its sites. A company spokesperson stated that mobile users account for close to a million visitors each month, with 52 percent of this number coming from Apple devices that are unable to view or play Flash content.

SPIL Games CEO Peter Driessen said that Apple CEO Steve Jobs "was right when he said Flash isn’t working on mobile systems -- that’s what I hear from developers as well."

While SPIL is advocating the move to HTML5, it has only converted its portals to the format -- most of its games are still in Flash. But the company is clearly making the move away from Adobe's solution.

To incentivize developers to switch from developing webgames in Flash to HTML5, SPIL is offering prizes totaling $50,000 (£41,000) for the best HTML5 game, encouraging the potential it says is "hampered by different protocols, operating systems, and platform-approval processes within the mobile world".

"I believe HTML5 will rise above Flash on mobile," Driessen told Develop. "In fact I think in three years the majority of web games will be in HTML5. It’s inevitable that it will become the programming standard of the future.”

When asked whether SPIL was concerned that Apple could abandon HTML5 in the future, just as they did Flash, Driessen said: “I don’t think Apple will back off from using HTML5; it really is the next big thing, and I think Apple will continue to support until it becomes the standard."

“It will become the big game changer, and our move to HTML5 will be the beginning of a revolution where more developers will move away from Flash and produce great content.”

Publisher Electronic Arts has announced that its major retail title Madden NFL 11, which launched earlier this month for PlayStation 2 & 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and PSP, is currently the number one selling game for August in the North American market, according to its internal tracking.

Sales are projected to be up approximately 5 percent year-over-year across all platforms for the month, according to a statement released by the company this afternoon.

In analyst note following the statement, Lazard Capital Markets' Colin Sebastian commented on the gains, suggesting that the franchise appears to be benefiting from improved gameplay, citing EA's press release -- which notes that 85 percent of users have used the new streamlined "GameFlow" play calling feature.

EA says that GameFlow "streamlines play calling and shortens overall game length for a more accessible experience. "

Simultaneously, EA Sports president Peter Moore announced via his EA Sports blog that card-and-management game Madden NFL Superstars has launched on Facebook.

The game, which is accessible here, borrows the concept of card-based teams from the Madden Ultimate Team DLC pack for Madden NFL 10.

It was created by the team at EA-owned social gaming company Playfish, who is also behind the Facebook-based EA Sports licensed title FIFA Superstars.