Game Insight is getting ready to take the endless runner genre to the next shadowy level with The Running Shadow: a game about quick and fluid running, and gorgeously spooky Gothic environments. Hey, the "Shadow" in the game's title isn't for nothing, after all!What's unique about this one is that The Running Shadow is said to combine the now-traditional fast-paced action of an endless runner game with the deep and engrossing upgrade system of a classic RPG; not to mention an invigorating 3D combat system! In the game, players will get to explore the dark fantasy world of Adrion, as they interact with more than 20 different characters, and help to rid the realm from all kinds of cruelty and injustice."Featuring a deep and expansive storyline (especially for an endless runner game!), players will take control of various members of the "Brotherhood of Shadows," a secret organization that has its own incentives for taking to the rooftops and shallow pits of Adrion: namely, for looting valuable treasure!The Running Shadow will be debuting first exclusively on Android in the near future, with other mobile platform support to follow shortly after, which I think is pretty safe to assume will include iPhone and iPad.
We cover plenty of new games here at Gamezebo every week, but the number of games we've already covered that show up on new platforms? It's staggering. This Wednesday and every Wednesday, Gamezebo is rounding up the games that aren't quite new, but might be new to you depending on your platform of choice. And who doesn't love new(ish) games?This week's highlights include defending your Solstice Arena crown on Mac, getting greedy with some hungry grubs on Android, and spending some quality time with your pet Incredipede on iPhone and iPad."
For all the anxious Android owners out there who have been patiently waiting all summer to get their hands on the highly anticipated release of PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time, we might finally have an answer as to what's been taking so long. Allegedly, Apple has been paying PopCap to intentionally delay the Android release of the game, in order to extend the window of iOS exclusivity for PvZ 2 that Apple has been enjoying ever since the game's official worldwide launch this past August.Giant Bomb broke the news of this interesting piece of information earlier this morning, after watching an "internal town hall meeting" for Electronic Arts. During the presentation, head of EA Labels Frank Gibeau was reported as saying "Apple gave us a truckload of money to delay the Android version [of Plants vs. Zombies 2]." The game in question has only been released on Android devices in China so far, where it is said to currently be outselling the iOS version by "six-to-one" in that specific market."It should also be noted that paid exclusivity deals are not all that uncommon in the competitive games industry, with most big releases on home gaming consoles getting some form of extra content that is exclusive to a single company for a predetermined amount of time. What is intriguing is that Apple now seems to be taking a much more aggressive approach in its own gaming deals against the competing Google platform, and that this same kind of industry competition has now seeped its way into the mobile games space.
It's a tale everyone has heard before: woman plays a lot of MMOs, joins a gaming start-up with some of the members of her guild, and eventually leaves to head up her own multinational mobile/social gaming company.Actually, maybe the story of Alisa Chumachenko isn't a very common one. But while the CEO and founder of Game Insight may not have taken the usual route to the executive level of the industry, that doesn't mean she has any less insight (no pun intended) into where mobile and social games are headed.In fact she might have more than most people because of the way Game Insight has had to shift focus in its three years of existence. Though its original aim was to create casual titles like city builders and hidden object games online, the state of social gaming during the company's infancy forced it to switch gears quickly to tackle the mobile market.
It's no secret that developing a successful mobile game isn't easy in today's increasingly digital age, but I don't think that any of us gamers truly realized just how hard some of those challenges may be until now. The new App Developers Conference (ADC) has conducted an extensive survey that serves to show just how difficult it is to turn a profit with your latest mobile game, let alone to get mobile gamers to actually play it legitimately.The ADC surveyed over 250 solo- and small team-developers who primarily make games and other apps for iOS and Android platforms (other operating systems like Windows and Mac, in addition to web-based games also had a strong showing in the survey, although iOS and Android were in the majority by a clear margin, representing over 80% and over 60%, respectively).As some might have expected, the survey results show that app-based game development is not all that lucrative as it might initially have been cracked out to be. A staggering 40% of all developers surveyed made zero revenue at all from their latest applications, while an equally poor 49% made a disheartening profit of zero. And while most of the developers who participated in the survey work out of very small-scale studios and have only been in the development game for a handful of years, it's still a pretty tough pill to swallow.
Since the highly anticipated Angry Birds Star Wars II from Rovio was finally released earlier this week, all of us here at Gamezebo have been plenty busy flinging our Rebel Birds at the legions of evil Imperial Piggies as we keep making our push towards the ominous Pig Star. But just because we've been having a blast from here to the stars, that doesn't mean we also haven't been racking our brains to think of some other beloved movie franchises that might make an awesome fit for the Angry Birds treatment!So get ready to see your favorite irritated avians adopting some new fan-favorite roles, from wizards, to superheroes, to toys in a toy box: let's just hope the kind folks at Rovio will be listening! And as much as I love a good horror movie every now and then, I ultimately refrained from including my all-time favorite Saw series on the list, because, well, I don't think anyone would really want to see that. But keep scrolling down to see all of the fan-favorite movie franchises that did make our cut, and be sure to let us know where you'd like to see the Angry Birds series fly off to next down in the replies!"
Being the online news source that we are, I'd like to think that most of us here at Gamezebo stay pretty privy to the current events that go on in the world. And if there's one current event in the world of gaming that everyone seems to be talking about today, it's the unheard-of milestone that Rockstar Games has managed to achieve this week with their highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto V: making $1 billion in only three days.Now while most people are looking at this in the light of what it means for gaming, and what kinds of things could be possible for AAA franchises in the future, I've been busy thinking about all of the great video games I could score with that cool $1 billion! And given all of the great new sales going on this weekend, not only would I be able to buy everything on this list without blinking an eye, but then I'd still have enough left over to buy every other video game in existence, and maybe an ice cream cone or two."So as always, if my mind has wandered too much in thinking about how I would spend my theoretical billion, be sure to let me know of any other free games and sales that I may have missed down in the replies!
While most gamers out there this week are still trying to catch up on all of the lost sleep from Grand Theft Auto V's big midnight release, I've been drinking obscene amounts of caffeine in preparation for another big midnight release: all of tonight's new iOS games!So don't mind me if I seem a little tired tomorrow (or ifI make somecarelesss mistackes in mye diting), because I'm going to be up all night flinging birds past the boundaries of space, slashing my way through the next generation of mobile gaming, and rolling my robot pal down all sorts of winding tracks in the name of science and technology. And the best news of all is that I don't even have to go out in the cold and stand in some long line; all you need for the midnight release of a new mobile game is a nice comfy couch and a warm pair of pajamas!