February 2012
20 posts
WatchLook a PS VITA and I’m playing with it!!! Also GAMES
EA's Chief Financial Officer Resigns
Eric Brown, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer of Electronic Arts, steps down from the company this month to take a position at Polycom.
Brown’s last day at EA will be Feb. 17, his first day at Polycom, the communications company, will be Feb 21. He will be the chief financial officer and chief operating officer.
The Academy Awards That (Almost) No One Cares...
Video games have a problem.
It’s not that some people say they cause aggression in their players, or addiction, or death (if you do it too long), it’s that no one seems to get behind celebrating them.
Why have I spent what feels like the entire year so far watching actors give awards to other actors on television, but I’d be hard-pressed to see anything celebration for the...
Hawken Hits Dec For Free, Beta Live Now
Indie mech first-person shooter Hawken, and one of my most anticipated games of the year, hits computers Dec. 12 as a free-to-play game, according to VentureBeat and the game’s official site.
Hawken generated a lot of buzz with its complex imagery and faithful adaptation of giant walking war machines tearing into each other in intricately detailed settings. The interest has only...
UDraw is No ET
Yesterday THQ told analysts that they still have 1.4 million of their UDraw tablets sitting around unsold. I joked on Twitter at the time that the unpopular peripheral could be this generations ET.
For those of you who weren’t alive in the 80s, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was a surprisingly unpopular Atari 2600 game. It was so unpopular that some say it contributed to the crash of the...
EA's Origin Service Rakes in $100M
More than 9.3 million people have installed Electronic Arts’ digital store and gaming platform Origin, helping the service rake in more than $100 million in revenue since it’s June launch, the publisher said today.
The numbers hit as seven new publishers agree to sell their games on the service. Remedy Entertainment will be bringing Alan Wake to Origin, EA says. Other publishers...
Massive Layoffs, Leadership Pay Cuts Hit THQ
Facing a Wall Street delisting and flagging sales, publisher THQ today outlined plans for a massive restructuring that eliminates up to 240 jobs and cuts the pay of execs by as much as fifty percent.
“On January 26, 2012, Company’s management initiated a plan of restructuring in connection with the updated business strategy in order to appropriately adjust the Company’s...
Poor Volition
In 2000 THQ purchased Volition, makers of Saint’s Row and Red Faction, for about 1 million shares of common stock. (They also assumed about half a million in net liabilities.)
At the time that stock was worth about $12.8 million. As of today it’s worth about $660,000. Even if you factor in the 2005 three-for-two stock split, the value is only $990,000.
THQ Lets VP Go, 170 Layoffs Rumored
Rumored massive layoffs are hitting Saints Row and Warhammer game developer THQ this week as the company fights to stave off a Wall Street delisting spurred by rock-bottom stock prices.
THQ’s vice president of technology Mark DeLoura is no longer with the company, according to an automatic response sent back from DeLoura’s email address this morning.
Rumblings of layoffs hit earlier...