Nintendo's Patent Woes

Nintendo is facing ongoing troubles over patent violations in its gaming controllers. Having lost a lawsuit brought by Anascape, a judge has now threatened to halt sales of Nintendo controllers unless the company puts money in escrow or buys a bond to pay off the amount awarded to Anascape. The controllers in jeapordy include old controllers (the wavebird and its gamecube controllers) and also included is the Wii controller. For more details about what patents were violated as well as an explanation of the absurdity, see arstechnica's article on it here: [url=http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080723-nintendo-cant-fight-off-patent-metroids-faces-injunction.html]Ars Technica[/url]

Midway combining studios; looking for employees

Midway is combining the Los Angeles and San Diego studio in sunny California. The new combined operations will be in the San Diego facility. All the employees at the LA studio are being offerred an opportunity to transfer to San Diego. But I'm sure it's a difficult decision. Midway expects to be fully moved by September 30,2008. Midway is also looking to hire for it's San Diego studio. You can find a list of all open positions at www.midway.com

Virtual Worlds still making money in Q2 just not as much

In the first six months of 2008 over $345 million has been invested in 39 virtual worlds. I would say that virtual worlds are still pretty hot. In the second quarter of 2008, 16 companies got investments of $161 million. "Interestingly, neither of the companies that were acquired, GirlSense.com by IAC and PixVerse by hi5, have actually produced virtual worlds. The former is a virtual fashion site and social network and the latter produces apps for social networks," notes Joey Seiler, Virtual Worlds Management author. "Both, however, have been discussed, or self-described, as having potential for virtual worlds, showing an eye toward the future. Those, combined with 4 investments in pre-launch companies, highlight the still emerging nature of the industry. We should see some exciting new developments at the Virtual Worlds Expo taking place September 3-4 in Los Angeles." Girlsense.com is an online fashion design website. The market seems to be young girls. Akoha also received some investment money for it's Massively Multiplayer Online Learning game for young gamers. Which could be where many MMOs startin targeting.

DigiPen adds two more degrees

DigiPen Institute of Technology announced that they have added two game design degrees to their Fall 2008 semester program. The four year programs are Bachelor of Arts in Game Design (BAGD) and a Bachelor of Science in Game Design (BSGD). "We worked very closely with current industry designers, discussing the needs of graduates and the hiring requirements they have," added Jen Sward, current Chair of the Game Software Design and Production Department and lead developer of the programs. "We felt strongly that designers need to have additional skills beyond straight game mechanics or story telling. Designers need to be able to code or script events or artificial intelligence, place and tune enemies, tune weapons or other entities within the game. On the other hand, designers can also be more artistically inclined, in which case they need skills in texturing, creating urban, rural, fantastical or science fiction environments. To achieve this, we created the two programs: the BSGD which has a high programming and technology component, and the BAGD which has a high artistic and architecture component." Another important note for those considering attending DigiPen, they will be starting to utilize the Nintendo Wii and DS development systems in their classes starting this September.

LucasArts massive layoffs

According to a report on Kotaku between 50 and 100 employees were just laid off at LucasArts. This included some high level members such as VP of Product Development, Peter Hirschmann. The reports suggests that LucasArts may be changing how they create games. They might start licensing its IP to other developers to create titles rather than continue to make them in-house. One source told Kotaku that 80 percent of the staff laid off were in Production Services (stuff like QA and Compliance) and job cuts were made in the art and programming department. Hopefully there will be some assistance made to help these people find new jobs. No confirmation from LucasArts has been made yet.

THQ financial results

THQ provided their fourth quarter results and for the year, THQ had net sales of $1,030.5 million. Which is a small increase over $1,026.9 million from last year. But THQ believes they didn't reach their goals: "In fiscal 2008, we did not achieve our revenue and profit targets and we are taking aggressive steps to ensure that we significantly improve execution in fiscal 2009 and beyond," said Brian Farrell, THQ president and CEO. "Going forward, we are focused on three key initiatives. We are rolling out a stronger slate of products. We have put in place and are executing against initiatives to improve our product quality and competitiveness. We are also realigning our cost structure to generate significant operating leverage in fiscal 2009. We believe these initiatives will restore profitable growth and improve value for shareholders." THQ reported on their upcoming games which includes Blob, Deadly Creatures, Big Beach Sports, and All Star Cheer all for the Wii. For 2009 they will have Saints Row 2, which recently got delayed, Red Faction Guerrilla, more WWE Smackdown and some Disney/Pixar titles.