Archives: Games

Latest news on Crasher: Destruction Derby meets MMO!

Due to be released on Steam this month, Crasher is the brainchild of French studio Punchers Impact.

The latest screenshots show rather a pretty looking vehicular deathmatch that will remind older gamers of Destruction Derby; an arena filled with cars that aim to crash into each other. Just like how a deathmatch game takes the concept of ten people trapped in a maze trying to kill each other and makes it fun, Crasher takes the idea of a ten car pileup and makes it satisfyingly crunchy. Yet they say games are a bad influence!

Crasher is presented as a hybrid of MMO, MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) and team play deathmatch games. Players are split into two teams and aim to protect or invade the appropriate bases, from 2 cars versus 2, up to 5 cars versus 5. The category of each vehicle chosen determines the special abilities and weapons available, creating an RPG-like tactical choice dynamic. When playing you earn experience to customize your vehicles. There are even some quite random sounding mystical abilities; special moves as it were that heal vehicles, shoot fireballs or even modify the terrain (this dynamic is certainly the one I look forward to seeing, after playing Excite Truck and falling in love with the ability to put a hill in the path of a fellow driver).

Skills will be split into two categories; passive skills picked before the match and those used during the match. The pre-match skills are known as Control skills; Jump which will open up certain raised areas during play, or Boost which will enable access to anything on the other side of a large gap. The tactical considerations are evident. During matches there are Regular skills and Situation skills. The former are special attacks of the kind mentioned above, regulated by a cooldown and ‘mana’ system. The latter are launched when certain situations arise, requiring a player to carefully achieve the right conditions.

The video below showcases the Firestorm vehicle, which I am reliably informed belongs in the Melee Destructor class, one of the 6 classes. One can imagine what it does; close combat destruction. Naturally the classes of vehicles determine player’s role in each battle, from a head on fighter to an engineer-like character setting traps on the periphery. Some examples are; two wheeled vehicles that are fast and aerial, good for recon and fast attack, ‘Saboteurs’ which are three wheeled speedy vehicles that set traps and such and ‘Tankers’ which are your typical four wheeled armoured death cars.

All of this points to a potentially very enjoyable game, occupying a space between the vehicle maps of Unreal Tournament and a Borderlandsesque rolling RPG upgrade system (that title sprung to mind due to a shared cartoonish graphical style). Of course potential is not always fulfilled; this could easy be a one-crash pony. The proof, no doubt, will be in the gleeful destruction.

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More from the Bigpoint Interview; The Future of Gaming!

Hi sports fans.

A long while ago I did an interview with two guys from Bigpoint; you may recall the peice about Battlestar Galactica.

Well, there was more to the interview, about their take on the future shape of gaming. I held it back as it is intended  for noaddedsugar.ie, but thought it best to get it published. Happy New Year everyone!

We now have browsers that fit in the palm of the hand. We have PC games accessible from any internet capable machine with no installation or download. We have social networking sites that allow you to play a variety of games with friends and strangers alike with minimal hardware. Is it possible that simplistic browser games such as Farmerama are actually a stepping stone towards the future shape of gaming?

At the London Games Conference on the 5^th of November, Heiko Hubertz, the CEO of online gaming portal Bigpoint.com, spoke about his vision of the future of gaming. Heiko spoke of the advent of multi format gaming and the dangerous reliance of many social gaming companies on the F word (no, Facebook). I got in touch with two of Bigpoint’s key representatives- chief communications officer Nils Henning and chief gaming officer Philip Reisberger- to get to grips with how a company that specialises in online gaming envisioned the shape of things to come.

Bret: At the London Games Conference, Heiko Hubertz said that users don’t want their games trapped onto one format, and that the future of gaming would not be strictly tied to PC, console, browser and so on but rather online games that work across a range of technologies. How exactly does Bigpoint envision online gaming across several formats to work?

Bigpoint: Absolutely, it’s very important to us and we do think, in the future, in the long term as well as short term, that there will be a ubiquitous gaming experience; so, over all medias. Say if you have a game that you start in the morning before work, perhaps playing on your iPad, then on the bus you can continue playing on your iPhone. Then, later you can pick up again with the same account on the PC. We understand that a user does not want to be bound down to a computer. A long time ago we decided that we are not going retail, nor going with client download, nor going with upfront fees or subscriptions or so forth, but developing a threshold for people to come into the game in their own way.

Bret: He also mentioned users will want to play the same character in the same game but on different formats. Does this suggest a future where, for example, the Xbox and PC versions of a game will be compatible with each other?

Bigpoint: There will always be a console market, there will always be a retail and PC market, but I think that the future of the industry will not come from consoles; even though there will always be Black Ops or whatever- there is no question- but the main growth will come from a combination of web-based and free to play.

Bret: Heiko also outlined two reasons why online games are so successful at the moment. The first is that online games lend themselves to easily be distributed internationally through localised versions of the individual games; would you agree with him?

Bigpoint: Absolutely. Many of our games are out in twenty or thirsty plus different languages. If you have a look at Bigpoint we do have a big media partner network that can distribute games language-wise through the local media and have it out there in a matter of minutes. We had the launch of Farmerama in March which went to 16 million registrations in a matter of 6 months.

Bret: He also mentioned that the cost of developing online games is typically much lower than a traditional retail game. Is this the case?

Bigpoint: Definitely. If you look at a game like Black Ops, or AvP or whatever, they are talking about millions of development dollars. For us it is a fraction of that. The cost of development for online games is lower and the good part about that is there is constant development in there instead. With games like Battlestar Galactica in the future, everything in there- such as the mechanics- is not the same while releasing it compared to a few years later. There is more room for development later and there will be a bigger team working on it after release than before.

Bret: Another point mentioned was that the current trend for tying online games into Facebook, particularly in the case of some social games which rely solely on Facebook, is a risky business. Do you think that relying on one platform, however popular it might be at the moment, is mistake?

Bigpoint: Absolutely; let’s take Facebook and have a look at Lolapps for example. Because they did not comply with the rules of Facebook, they’ve just been (temporarily) shut down. Bigpoint has not wanted to be reliant on a single format and that’s why, as I mentioned, we have many media partners so that even Facebook is just one of many. For us if you were to compare the total users and combine the number of people who look at our games and are on the various media partners we have, it’s a far bigger number than all of the Facebook users combined.

Bret: So, online gaming is clearly a strong model for the future; easier to distribute, cheaper to make and with more potential to cross between formats that regular retail games. Do you think that it is possible for mainstream games as they stand now to make a transition to an online or free to play model?

Bigpoint: Games have shown an evolution over time, moving to online games such as Ultima online and World of Warcraft. So the next step is to move to things like the free to play market. I think the biggest thing for them is to embrace a new model of free to play that people have been wanting for years now and get rid of subscriptions. I think the online experience itself is a very important experience for the user, because he or she may not want single player. It will exist, never the question, but I think most of the games in the future will be free to play and online.

Bret: Is there any potential in the future for a hybrid between online gaming and mainstream single player experience and online model?

Bigpoint: Absolutely, I think all different forms of business model and style will be out there in the future, so I’m not saying that they will be just free to play, more of a combination of having part subscription, part free to play and part advertising money in there. So say it was a soccer game, you could play and see some advertisement on the side for maybe a drink. You could buy a better player, but in order to have the best boots which are getting old every 10 games, you might have a subscription that will automatically renew them.  It could be combination or hybrid model of many types.

Bret: Do you think that portable browsing and gaming such as the iPhone and similar devices will help online games to grow?

Bigpoint: Absolutely. The iPhone and iPad, Android and other formats out there are possibilities we like very much. More and more people are being educated to use phone, or whatever they want for games. For us it’s very important to provide them with a gaming experience, however they want to get it. I do personally think that in the future people won’t just log onto computer at home but all over the world; that is something that we are actively pushing forward because that is the future. The future of gaming for us is the browser experience, not just the console as the limits of bandwidth and graphics are catching up to other games that are out there.

Big thanks to Nils and Philip who neatly expanded on Heiko’s points from the London Games Conference. Naturally an online browser game company will see the future in an online shape, but their thoughts make a lot of sense. Firstly, the cross format argument is mighty tempting- simple browser games will be the obvious first step for games capable of passing save data between PC, mobile and maybe console formats, because such games require the minimum of hardware to run. Secondly the distribution of browser games is a cinch in terms of localisation and delivery; this is mirrored somewhat in the mainstream by the success of Steam. If single player AAA titles can be distributed online, then the future could well see them being made uniform enough for them to cross formats and business models. Graphics may have to suffer unless technology rapidly improves, but looking at id Software’s new RAGE HD promo on the iPhone, the future looks promising.

Philip and Nils’ comments on a potential hybrid system between subscription and free to play open up many possibilities, not least of which being a potential reduction in cost to the consumer and the concept of concentrating finances on continuous development of a game years after release, not just before. Social networking is bound to play a role as far as browser games are concerned, but reliance on one is certainly a danger. I feel that for the future of gaming to adopt an online form, there needs to be a broad spread of potential distribution vehicles- not just the F word- and a sporting amount of cross compatibility between them. Bigpoint have seen a great amount of success recently, announcing 150 million registered users on October 25^th, which backs up research from market analysts NPD Group who found that traditional boxed PC and console games are losing market share to digital games and content. According to them, physical copies of games now account for only 59% of total videogames sales as consumers increasingly opt for digital content.

Bigpoint clearly see the future of gaming online: utilising both social networks and local media, available across the globe in minimal time and graphically strong thanks to technological improvements. If the single player experience could translate, perhaps via platforms like Steam, to encompass some kind of free to play, open development model then it could certainly work. There’s only one problem with this possible future… getting any work done!

Bret Allen

Further information about Bigpoint can be found at http://us.bigpoint.com/

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Interview with Bigpoint bigwigs on upcoming Battlestar Galactica Online!

On November 8^th, browser based MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) company Bigpoint announced the successful launch of their Battlestar Galactica Online closed beta. I caught up with two of Bigpoint’s key representatives; chief communications officer Nils Henning and chief gaming officer Philip Reisberger to find out more about the shape that BGO is taking.

Thousands of hand-picked players from Europe and the United States are testing this massive browser game which has been hotly anticipated by fans of the franchise since it first appeared at the E3 expo. The free roaming game will be a blend of tactical space combat, exploration, and mission-based gameplay, set against a backdrop of the cult science fiction series Battlestar Galactica.

Me: Bigpoint has a huge MMOG on the horizon- Battlestar Galactica. The buzz for Battlestar is big because after running for four seasons on the SyFy channel, this is a very popular franchise in terms of cult following.

Bigpoint: That’s why we chose it!

Me: One of the reasons for such popularity is that Battlestar has been critically acclaimed for its gritty, ugly depiction of space warfare; not like the approach of softer series such as Star Trek. How well do you see that feel translating into an MMO?

Bigpoint: Well you mention Star Trek; I love all of them, I’m a big fan, but one thing you get in Star Trek is a lot of talk and not so much action. When you have 3D technology like Unity you really want to fully explore it and make use of it to provide a great gaming experience. So why should you put a lot of talking- RPG stuff- in there, which is absolutely fine, if you have the technology on hand to put some action in there? That’s why we set off with Battlestar Galactica, because compared to Star Trek, EVE online or whatever, we had an intellectual property that provides action. That’s what we really want to do: Battlestar Galactica will be an online action game.

Me: So an MMOAG! The game has been shown so far to revolve around exploration, but will there be an over arcing storyline?

Bigpoint: We are developing the game into the storyline. If you compare the storyline at release to the story that the game will have a few years down the line it will be different. There will be an action experience now and a lot more story to come; we will always be developing it. It is a loose story setting, not an RPG.

Me: I believe players can play as a human or Cylon, certainly a concept that will excite the fans, and visit the famous Galactica itself. How true to the original setting will the game be keeping?

Bigpoint: Well we had to provide a quality gaming experience. We are doing an MMO- massively multiplayer online game- but, we are not doing an RPG with a very thick storyline. We want everybody to be able to play a Starbuck, or a Cylon fighter. Suffice to say it is important to have the universe there, which is the universe that everybody knows and will recognise the minute or second that they hit play.

Me: So what kind of elements from the TV show can we expect?

Bigpoint: We have the original music, we have Adama in there and other people from the cast, we have the original ship models in there so you will be able to recognise the Vipers and the Cylons and obviously the Battlestar. We placed it between the second and third seasons so there’s still a lot of action in there. It’s important that players can build up their own characters and play in their own world, but within the loosely based storyline of Battlestar.

Me: Will there be any voice acting or just text?

Bigpoint: Whatever there is demand for in the future we will put in there. For now there is no voice as we will have it out in twenty-five to thirty different languages. However, it is something we could easily do, but we are concentrating for the time being on the release and so we have to concentrate on the mechanics and things like that.

Me: How is the feedback so far from the testing?

Bigpoint: Right now we have some die-hard fans in the closed beta having a look at the game. Feedback has been great so far, especially on the quality of the graphics for an online game with no download.

Me: Is there any potential for Battlestar Online to move to a console format?

Bigpoint: Practically speaking we are not a console company, browser is the focus of our games and it’s important to have our games online. We do have all the rights to publish Xbox, Playstation or whatever but is not the focus of our development… if you look at a game like Black Ops, or AvP or whatever, they are talking about millions of development dollars. For us it is a fraction of that. The cost of development for online games is lower and the good part about that is there is constant development in there instead. With games like Battlestar Galactica in the future, everything in there- such as the mechanics- is not the same while releasing it compared to a few years later. There is more room for development later and there will be a bigger team working on it after release than before.

Me: Thank you for your time. Are you going to continue in the same area with browser gaming in the future?

Bigpoint: Bigpoint is conquering the world! Battlestar Galactica is just one of many new games to come. The Mummy is another and even more unannounced projects are coming, staying free to play and browser based.

Big thanks to Philip and Nils who have certainly whetted my Battlestar appetite. It seems that RPG and story elements are taking a back seat, which may be a disappointment to fans who like Battlestar for its drama and grit, but the action focus is also something of great anticipation. The use of the Unity engine allows for impressive 3D graphics considering the limitation of being browser based with no download, so that should justify the bias towards combat while the overall setting grows organically in the time after release. The continual development approach is interesting and makes the most of the online format which enjoys easy global distribution.

Bigpoint will continue to increase the number of closed beta participants on a daily basis in advance of the official open beta launch, planned this December. Further information as well as beta registration can be found at the game’s website, http://battlestar-galactica.bigpoint.com/

Bret Allen