Geek and Fandom Events in BC and Washington State
Megan Lara has drawn up Starbuck, Laura Roslin, Six, and Boomer in the style of Modern Painters such as Klimt and Lichtenstein. If Ferris Bueller’s Day Off taught us anything, is that you can only understand paintings like these through intense, neurotic staring contests. That’s why they are available for sale as a series from Quantum Mechanix. Unfortunately, the Lichtenstein Six is only available as a San Diego Comic-con exclusive!
Source: io9
In a move expected by absolutely no one, Paul McCartney has started making music for the former Halo developer Bungie. Sir Paul probably isn’t there because of his love of video games. He is a Beatle, after all. He still explains the situation to the German gaming site Zeit online in handy google translated english:
A new computer game is selling these days so much better than a new CD. And you reach a different audience. Probably in this way many young people for the first time my music will be heard in a video game.
As for the project Paul will be working on, signs point to Destiny, a series of Massively Multiplayer Sci-fi Fantasy shooters. Details are scant, but we all know if Paul McCartney and Bungie are involved, only good can come ot it.
Source: Examiner.com
After years of speculation and frustration, Valvetime.net uncovered a cache of concept art from Half-life 2: ep. 3 and posted the whole shebang on their facebook page! The images feature Alyx Vance’s winter wardrobe, new Combine buildings, and a possible HD return to the border world of Xen from the first Half-life. The images are around four years old, and it’s probably no accident that they’ve surfaced only now. What could Valve be up to?
Source: Gamespot
UBC will be hosting the second annual MiniComi Festival at the Student Union Building (SUB) this Saturday from 10am to 7pm. The festival bills itself as a spiritual successor to Comiket, featuring work from local artists, doujinshi, and Cosplay. Of course, if you send us your pictures from the event, we’ll be sure to post them here!
Source: MiniComi 2.
Over the past little while, Valve Software has been releasing very charming and disturbing series of “Meet the Team” videos from the hit free-to-play shooter Team Fortress 2. They’ve produced the shorts using a super secret form of middleware called the Source Film Maker, and now they’re releasing Beta Keys to see what the community can come up with. So far, they’ve turned this:
Into this:
and this:
You can sign up for a beta key of your very own at the Source Filmmaker website.
As many of you know, Radical Entertainment, one of Vancouver’s oldest video game companies, laid off 89 staff at the behest of their publisher, Activision Blizzard. Being laid off sucks in the first place, it only gets worse when you’re in a large game company. All the intellectual property involved makes the affair a SNAFU of lawyers, exit interviews, and paperwork. 20 years in the industry apparently doesn’t mean much when you’re trying to pretty up your numbers for the next quarterly shareholder’s report.
The end of Radical is not a comment on the company itself. The staff is hard working, and their games have garnered a loyal fan following. This is a symptom of a greater trend in the Video Games industry: The death of the AAA-video game business model.
Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are all bleeding money. It’s not just because of the economy. Video games are ubiquitous now, and innovations in digital distribution and Free-to-play are just multiplying consumer options. This is not to say that there won’t be a market for AAA games, but many larger publishers won’t survive. They’ve coasted for too long on the notion that video games are a novelty, and many of these games hold to the leadership style of “shut the hell up, you’re working in video games, now give me another 70-hour week”.
The only video game I hear 12-year-olds playing these days is Minecraft. Mojang is an example of a company doing it right. They have a great relationship with their customers and employees, they love the art of making video games, and they aren’t beholden to retailers or Wall Street. Video games are going to become a lower percentage industry. The variety of free tools and middleware out there are just going to explode the competition. Thankfully, the companies left standing are going to be part of gamer culture, and not just looking to profit off it.
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