There’s a very good chance that you’ve played — or are, at least, aware of — The Settlers of Catan, a German-born board game which has sold over 11 million copies worldwide. If you’ve played it, you know how clever and fun it is, and if you haven’t, you may remember how excited everybody was when they heard it was being released for Xbox Live Arcade. The bottom line is, Settlers of Catan is an extremely good game and is frequently cited when discussing the modern board game industry. It’s popular enough to have gone digital in a number of forms, from XBLA to N-Gage to blatant rip-offs in Second Life. Did you know, however, that there’s an entire free-to-play MMORPG based on Catan? Probably not, given the extremely low population of the game world, and the complete lack of press for the game. It’s called Catan Online World, and has actually been around since late 2002, though the North American (i.e. English) version only launched earlier this year. Just imagine it — an entire game world full of players who have already made every conceivable variant of the “wood for sheep” joke. Continue Reading

Unless you’ve been living under a rock — a rock enchanted with Resist Gaming News, Level 10 — you probably know that Blizzard announced Diablo III this past weekend. The news was practically plastered all over the internet. But how? The company didn’t conduct a massive PR campaign. To inform the general audience that the fire n’ brimstone, hack n’ slash sequel was incoming, Blizzard didn’t do so much as lift a finger. Instead, with a simple viral marketing ploy and a clever picture, they relied on multiple existing audiences to do all the work for them. Continue Reading

Your daily smörgåsbord of the very best gaming has to offer.

Enthusiast:

• Guitar Hero: World Tour details revealed at (IGN)

• LittleBigPlanet will have some semblance of story, feature user-policing for adult content (PS3 Fanboy)

• “On September 2nd, shovel talks. You dig. Monsters die,” and Atlus sets you to work building dungeons in Master of the Monster Lair for Nintendo DS (VerticalWire)

• Bandai Namco’s Ace Combat team developing Wii dogfighter based on upcoming Japanese animation The Sky Crawlers (Game|Life)

• The Witcher: Enhanced Edition free update (and premium package) dated September (Official Website via Eurogamer)

• Workaround discovered for Wii’s Twilight Princess homebrew hack (HackMii via Kotaku)

• BioShock PC install limit neutralized, though DRM and disk check remain (2K Forums via Shacknews)

Industry:

• Sony Corp. CEO says top priority is “to restore profitability in our television and game businesses” (Bloomberg via GameSpot)

• UK games lobby says college graduates don’t have the skills for development (BBC via GameDaily)

• SouthPeak Interactive raises 12.9 million (VentureBeat)

• MGS4 propels PS3 to top of Japanese weekly charts while PSP maintains healthy lead over DS (Media Create via Kotaku)

Trendwatch:

• ESRB plugs game leaks after publisher complaints (Next-Gen)

• AARP provides retirees with free online flash games (Business & Games)

Politics: London mayor (partially) blames violent games for rise in knife crime; forgets to condemn games that teach ancient curses (MCVUK)

Virtually Compelling: To celebrate 5th anniversary, Second Life hosts two-week-long Virtual World Fair (BusinessWire)

Hardware: First three benches show NVIDIA’s GeForce 9800 GTX+ edging out the AMD Radeon HD 4850, for a $30 premium (FiringSquad, LegitReviews, PC Perspective)

Interviewed: BioWare’s Sonic Chronicles project lead Mark Darrah on adapting Sonic, DS development difficulty. Hints at future Wii/PSP projects (Gamasutra)

Rumoriffic: BioWare’s (KOTOR?) MMO due fiscal 2010 (TVG via Eurogamer)

Try This: Turn your Wii Wheel and Wii Balance Board into a wireless PC racing controller. Look out, Logitech (Nintendo Wii Fanboy)

Your daily smörgåsbord of the very best gaming has to offer.

Consumer Report: Nintendo Wii Menu version 3.3 update destroys homebrew, Freeloader support (Nintendo Wii Fanboy; Nintendo Everything via videogaming247)

Enthusiast:

• PlayStation 3 “trophies,” in-game XMB finally inbound for firmware v2.40; release date unspecified (PlayStation.Blog)

• Nintendo’s Laurent “geeks and otaku” Fischer promises some sort of Wii storage solution; all is forgiven (GamesIndustry.biz)

• Free trial version of Spore Creature Creator now available at www.spore.com, nature prepares to be mocked and revolted (BusinessWire)

• Sims-themed game creation site goes into open beta, game-makers offered cash prize for top creations (The Sims Carnival via BusinessWire)

• Nolan Bushnell’s uWink surface-gaming, order-by-touchscreenrestaurant chain opens Hollywood location (BusinessWire)

Industry:

• EA extends Take-Two bid for the FOURTH GODDAMN TIME, Take-Two rejects it AGAIN, WHAT WERE YOU EXPECTING, JESUS CHRIST MAKE IT STOP (New York Times)

• Tecmo class-action lawsuit revealed, all 300 employees sue for unpaid overtime, Ninjagate conspiracy unfolds (Game Watch Impress via Kotaku)

Research:

• Study funded by in-game ad dollars finds 82% of consumers [that is to say, 82% of 1300 PC gamers surveyed] don’t mind in-game ads (Kotaku)

• Gamasutra notes trends but fails to show irrefutable evidence for XBLA, PSN, Wii Shop Channel slowdown (Gamasutra)

Film: Die Hard director to helm Gears of War movie, CliffyB to exec. produce; Epic’s Mark Rein approves (Variety)

Perspective: N’Gai Croal and Stephen Totilo’s “Vs. Mode” takes on Grand Theft Auto IV (Level Up)

System Update: PSP System Update v4.00 adds Google Search to XMB, allows users to adjust video playback speed (Playstation.Blog)

Watch: Meet the Sniper (Steam)

Try This: Play Audiosurf with the Wii Balance Board, while you bemoan the loss of console homebrew (BodySurf via Slashdot)

Localize/Import: Fire Emblem remake goes dual-screen in Japan this August 7th; features online battles (IGN)

On Wednesday, we hypothesized how today’s massively multiplayer games might reshape your resume and your workplace in the not-too-distant future, given the results of a recent study in the Harvard Business Review. But Computerworld did us one better — they asked author and Stanford professor Byron Reeves to provide some juicy insight into the slightly dry material. Continue Reading

Following its success in EverQuest II, Sony Online Entertainment and Live Gamer have announced that they are extending their real money trading partnership to upcoming MMOs Free Realms and The Agency. Continue Reading

Although gamers hardly needed another reason to log long hours left-clicking, this month’s Harvard Business Review has a compelling justification regardless: they point out that MMO gaming teaches the same skills and includes valuable systems that tomorrow’s business leaders need to succeed. Continue Reading

While plenty of gamers seem to enjoy drinking to the death of PC gaming, I won’t be the first to point out that their kool-aid typically consists only of lackluster retail sales figures, with little or no thought towards digital distribution or the all-important subscription revenues of blockbusters like World of Warcraft. But starting this year, the NPD is tracking subscriptions as well; and today they estimated that combining MMO, casual and console services, U.S. game subscriptions contribute $1 billion annually. Does this give us a definitive answer regarding the health of PC gaming? Continue Reading

With comments closed on the official EA-Land blog and the Stratic forums down until further notice, there seems no good way to reach the 1100+ dissatisfied subscribers of the former Sims Online MMO, and follow up on our promise to investigate claims of fraud. But there may be no further need to do so. Yesterday, EA announced that they will start issuing certain refunds automatically. Continue Reading

Gameforge Productions, the company behind the engrossing web-based Civilization clone Ikariam, has just opened an office in San Francisco to better enable the company to market its games in the U.S. market. In addition to marketing its own games, which also includes OGame, a space trading game, the German-based company is trying to position itself as a European localizer for American MMO developers. Gamasutra had the chance to speak with Lars Koschin, president of Gameforge, about the company’s plans.

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