Business

Will Wright has cofounded Syntertainment, a new startup that has raised $5 million from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and former Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello.

Will Wright raises $5M for Syntertainment startup to blend reality and entertainment (exclusive)Tech veteran Avi Bar-Zeev joins Wright as cofounder at startup that plans to blend entertainment and reality.VentureBeatDean Takahashi [https://venturebeat.com/2013/09/18/will-wright-raises-5m-for-syntertainme

Andre Wilson:

I also believe EA’s strategy is sound. Our focus on our talent, our brands and our platform together with our investment in next-generation consoles, mobile and PC free-to-play, as part of our ongoing transition to digital, is right. But we have plenty of work ahead to ensure our collective success.

The words of former executive vice president of EA Sports and Origin. Notice how PC is lumped together with ‘free-to-play’. Even though Wilson has been with EA for 13 years, I’m sti

Sci-fi author and former writer and story consultant for Microsoft Game Studios, Eric Nylund, has joined up with Amazon Game Studios as its new director of narrative design.

After playing around with the Amazon games marketplace on Android, it seems pretty clear the want to really get into the video games market, they just don’t know how.

Halo and Gears of War writer joins Amazon Games StudiosEurogamer.netJeffrey Matulef [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-16-halo-and-gears-of-war-wr

Using Mario Kart to demonstrate your startup’s new product is a neat idea. The website with all their results can be found here [http://kartlytics.com/].

http://www.joyent.com/blog/introducing-kartlytics-mario-kart-64-analytics

Carmack has been a huge backer of the Oculus Rift since it’s inception, so this comes as no surprise. Shortly after the announcement, id tweeted [https://twitter.com/idsoftware/status/365124044405739521] to confirm Carmack will still be involved there as well.

John Carmack Joins Oculus as CTOWe have incredible news to share with the community: legendary game programmer John Carmack will be officially joining the Oculus team as...Oculus VR [http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/john-carmack-joins-oculus-

Former Monolith developers behind F.E.A.R have announced their new studo, Blackpowder Games and their first title, Betrayer [http://www.blackpowdergames.com/betrayer/]. The high contrast black and white look is an interesting and unique style to go with.

Ex-Monolith devs form BlackpowderKey devs behind F.E.A.R., No One Lives Forever re-team with colleagues for PC action adventure BetrayerGamesIndustry.bizChris Buckley [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-08-05-ex-monolith-devs-form-black

After owning the little cube for more than a month now, I can attest to this. The marketplace and UI are horrible. I’ve since sideloaded the thing with XBMC and Netflix, and has become a nice media device, however.

73 percent of Ouya owners haven’t paid for a single gameCEO Uhrman projects confidence even as majority aren’t spending money.Ars TechnicaKyle Orland [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/07/73-percent-of-ouya-owners-havent-paid-for-a-single-game/]

Hidden away in the press release, World of Warcraft dropped to 7.7 million subscriptions, losing roughly 600k since the last quarter.

Activision Blizzard breaks off from Vivendi in $8.2 billion deal<b>UPDATE</b> The house of <i>Call of Duty</i>, <i>World of Warcraft</i> and <i>Skylanders</i> will spin off of Vivendi to become an independent, publicly traded publisher. Game DeveloperKris Graft [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/197030/Activision_Blizzard_breaks_off_from_Vivendi_in_82_billion_de

Formed by executives hailing from Blizzard, Sony Online and Relic Entertainment, and backed by NCSoft in their first round of funding. Their first order of business should be a better web site.

Molten Games – New game studio, Molten Games, opens in San DiegoMolten Games [https://web.archive.org/web/20140219130134/http://www.moltengames.com/2013/06/hello-world/]

Update 04/14/2022:

Former employees have reported th

In Wake of Atari’s bankruptcy auction, Master of Orion and Total Annihilation managed to get snapped up by Wargaming, with Rebellion Interactive grabbing Moonbase Commander and Battlezone, and Stardock bought Star Control. Interesting to note that Chris Taylor, designer behind Total Annihilation works at Gas Powered Games, which was acquired by Wargaming earlier this year.

ScribdScribd [https://www.scribd.com/embeds/154934708/content]

Creative Directer Ocean Quigley, Gameplay Lead Dan Moskowitz, and Lead Architect Andrew Willmott have left EA/Maxis to form an indie studio, Jellygrade. An interesting move, but Im going to remain skeptical for the time being. Forming a studio to develop an iPad game just seems like a bad move with the shape of the current market.

jellygradejellygradeTumblr [http://jellygrade.tumblr.com/]

Nintendo’s in trouble right now. Nintendo, I think, waited two years too long to launch a competitive, high definition console…I think by the time they did launch a console which stacks up really well, the other two guys [Sony and Microsoft] passed them by, and I think they’re in a world of trouble right now.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say Nintendo is in trouble, but they have definitely waited too long. Between the poor marketing of the Wii U, and the lack of real third party support, its h