Category Archives: gaming

Lady Gaga + Rock Band = Eric Cartman

Lady Gaga is signing on with Rock Band, a somewhat atypical pairing given the lack of a traditional rock band set up in GG’s music.  Rock Band designers MTV Games and Harmonix will have to stretch the instrumentation a bit.  … Continue reading

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Digital Distribution Boosts PC Gaming Revenue

from GameSpy According to a new report by the PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA), worldwide PC gaming software revenue rose 3% in 2009 to $13.1 billion, fueled by growth in the Asia Pacific region and the growing popularity of digital distribution … Continue reading

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Steam: Digital distribution now 25M accounts

According to an annual press release by Valve Corporation, their Steam digital content distribution service surpassed 25 million active accounts, growing 25% over previous year numbers. Other stats: those 25 million accounts experienced/played an average of 3,000,000,000  minutes  per month … Continue reading

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More Networking for Xbox

Last.fm announced that it quickly gained one million users from its recent Xbox integration. Now owned by CBS, Last.fm agreed to sync itself into Xbox Live alongside Facebook and Twitter last week. The increase in user base (covering the US … Continue reading

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No Doubt sues Activision for Avatar use

Gwen Stefani is no Courtney Love — and that’s a good thing — but the No Doubt lead singer and her bandmates seem to have a similar axe to grind with video game giant Activision, creator of the popular Guitar … Continue reading

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Micro-Billing, Byte by Byte, Suits the World of Cellphones

By MATT RICHTEL and BOB TEDESCHI, New York Times Published: April 5, 2009 LAS VEGAS — As the music, film, television, newspaper, book and video-game industries strain to find a way to thrive in the new digital marketplace, one seems … Continue reading

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Developers push limits of games and distribution

Edited article from Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO — Not every video game creator was musing about how to sell more hardware or craft more realistic virtual weaponry at the Game Developers Conference, the annual convention of game designers, programmers and … Continue reading

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Grand Theft Auto IV Update: More Action, More Music

After rocking and hiphopping on consoles last year, the GTA4 buzz has died a bit, even with a PC release in December.  Most GTA gamers had already purchased copies for their game consoles and most have finished the game’s levels. … Continue reading

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World of Goo – Success in Indie Video Game development

Digital distribution platforms, a boon for indie music artists, is also impacting indie game developers, allowing innovative and quirky games to be developed and released at low cost. The Steam platform, Wiiware and other download variants are allowing games like … Continue reading

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Heavy Metal Gamers to get fix in 2009

Guitar Hero and Rock Band are now institutions, and the use of gamer guitars is creating opportunities for cross-breeding game genres. Brutal Legend is a metal-inspired “rock adventure” from Rock Band distributor Electronic Arts (EA). Jack Black is the game … Continue reading

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Rock Band, Guitar Hero going for niches?

In a market expansion effort (even in recessionary times) the interactive music game creators are looking to genre-specific offerings to attract both new and existing users. Rock Band creators MTV Games and Activision released a country five-pack with songs from … Continue reading

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Guitar Hero’s latest release? Filthy lucre

What began as a quirky novelty game has evolved into a revenue engine for the video game and music industries MATT HARTLEY Globe and Mail Update October 28, 2008 at 9:39 AM EDT It wasn’t until Tim Riley was standing … Continue reading

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Google gets into video games

BARBARA ORTUTAY The Associated Press October 8, 2008 at 4:58 PM EDT NEW YORK — Google Inc., the leader in online search and advertising, is muscling in on video game territory — though it won’t exactly be in the form … Continue reading

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Rock Band rocking with 500 Songs by Year End

Continuing the resurgence of “blasts from the past” through an expanding video games universe, Game developer Harmonix has indicated that Rock Band will offer more than 500 songs by the end of the year.  While big names were not announced, … Continue reading

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New Gen Games rock with Old Gen Music

The target teen market for Harmonix Systems’ Rock Band and Activision’s Guitar Hero III has created a new music download opportunity for the likes of the Who, Rush, Iron Maiden and other heavily guitar-flavoured bands from yesteryear. Hits like the … Continue reading

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