StarCraft II Beta: Who is BetaWorks?

I never have seen this happen before in the hundreds of Starcraft games I've played. During a 3v3 match, my own player attacked and killed my base. I did a sneak attack with cannons and then my own ally attacks my base and then leaves the game. What the frick was that? I've never seen such odd behavior. Some player named "Betaworks", which will obviously change now or after the beta period. Maybe I was attacking his frirend? Random act to amuse himself? Just a complete idiot? Who knows.

Major League Baseball 2K10 $1 Million Winner... Already?

I assume the CEO of 2K Sports is not a happy camper. There is already a $1 million winner for their perfect game challenge.  Unless they already experience sky-rocket sales for 'Major League Baseball 2K10', which it seems like they haven't from reading the news wires.

One amusing part of this story is that the winner, Wade McGilberry, took an hour and a half to do it. $1 million for an hour and a half of work. And this was the first time he played this game.

I think the studio head for this game might be in trouble. Or maybe all the employees and game testers at 2K Sports just sucked at their own game, so they couldn't tell if they made it difficult enough to at least

Unity-Authored iPad Games Available in the App Store

So I'm lazy and a puppet of PR groups :)

15+ Unity-Authored iPad Games Available in the App Store

Unity Technologies, provider of the Unity development platform for 3D interactive content on the Web, PC, Mac, Wii™, Xbox 360, and iPhone, today announced the release of Unity iPhone 1.7. With this release, Unity has extended its market-leading iPhone development and deployment platform to include support for the just-released Apple iPad. This is a free upgrade for all existing Unity iPhone customers.

Unity iPhone/iPad 1.7 adds the following new functionality:

· iPad deployment for both Unity iPhone Basic and Unity iPhone Advanced

· iPad Simulator support so developers can create iPad apps, even if they do not yet have iPad hardware

· Universal application support so that apps can be designed to automatically work on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch

Unity Technologies also announced that there are more than 15 Unity-authored iPad-specific games already in the iPad App Store, adding even more high-quality content to the more than 600 Unity-authored games currently populating the App Store. Publishers of these new apps include notable names like Disney, Warner Bros., and Chillingo.



"We're really pleased to see so many Unity developers leap at the chance to bring new gaming experiences to future iPad owners," said David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies. "To have this volume of quality games at launch really underscores our commitment to developers, providing them with the best tools and platform to reach the most exciting devices."

Users of Unity iPhone who have launch titles on the iPad are already praising Unity's time-saving workflow:

"Unity is a phenomenal platform and made moving to the iPad a snap," said Mike Rasmussen, El Presidente of Republic of Fun, creators of iPad launch title Slug Wars: To Shell and Back. "We were able to re-use our old game assets (this is a sequal to an existing game) and get something up and running quickly."



"Getting Monster Ball onto the iPad was literally just a matter of setting up a few player preference parameters in Unity and hitting build. The Unity GUI system already took care of aspect ratio changes, so the iPad port was simple, pain free—it just works. Once again the investment of using Unity has paid off," exclaimed Monster Ball Co-Creator Thomas Hentschel Lund.



Developer Infinite Dreams notably released three iPad launch titles: iQuarium HD, Sailboat Championship PRO HD, and Jelly Invaders HD, all of which were authored in Unity. "We were able to get our games submitted and accepted to the iPad App Store without ever seeing hardware," said Seweryn Panczyniak, Lead Programmer at Infinite Dreams. "Unity is a wonderful piece of software that let us do things fast and with minimum level of frustration and maximum level of creativity."



Current and prospective users of Unity iPhone who want to develop iPhone and iPad apps can download the latest version of Unity iPhone here.


About Unity Technologies
Unity Technologies is revolutionizing the game industry and was named one of the top five game companies of 2009 by Gamasutra after just four years on the market. Today, Unity Technologies has more than 120,000 registered users worldwide – including leading companies like Coca-Cola, Electronic Arts, Disney, LEGO, Mint.com, NASA and UPS, large and small studios, independent professionals, students and hobbyists – using the Unity platform to develop high-quality interactive 3D content for the web, mobile, and console. In addition to Web, PC, Mac, Wii™, Xbox 360, iPhone and iPad deployment, Unity Technologies has announced upcoming support for PS3 and Android. Unity Technologies is one of the fastest growing software companies and is aggressively innovating to expand usability, power and platform reach so that it can deliver on its vision of democratizing interactive 3D technology. Unity Technologies is headquartered in San Francisco and has development offices worldwide. For more information, visit unity3d.com.

THE POWER OF ONE, multiplied Event by LAUNCH, May 7th

HatTip to Jeremy.

InnerCircle1 is hosting their Launch series event this Thursday, May 7th in Oakland. The event is featuring Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and inventor of PONG. Also speaking on the combined subject of gaming and social media platforms will be Ariel Polar, Nicole Lazzaro, and Andrew Mayer.


Spring 2009: THE POWER OF ONE, multiplied

With today's world the power of one individual can become truly transformational and revealing. Serendipitous relationships are created, nurtured and evolve to form greater meaning in our lives and lead to other connections and friendships.

Yet how do we help users truly unleash this power to advance career, social and possibly romantic interests? How can game play and interaction shape and encourage these experiences and results? To help guide our thoughts and ideas in this area LAUNCH, spring 2009 will focus on the power of one, multiplied - to empower users and ourselves in a connected society. Our speakers are uniquely qualified to speak on how the new world of social media and gaming is changing the way we interact.

Lumina iPhone Game

If you love the old Simon game or enjoy memory games, download Lumina to your iPhone. Just go to their iTunes page here.


Some more news on the iPhone App Store from VentureBeat, "iPhone App Store first impression: Sublime beyond belief"

Rock Band Rocks!

This should have been written months ago when it was released, but our household avoids video games like the plague due to Christine's belief that they degrade the mind. Since we're expecting, we've been limited in our activities so she finally gave in and agreed to test out Rock Band. I never got into Guitar Hero, but I gave series a try with Rock Band and was pleasantly surprised this past week. I can see why it's a billion dollar franchise now. It even hooked Christine who is anti-video games, but loves her music.

Small world too since I worked with Doug Glen, who was an early advisor to Harmonix before they were acquired by MTV Networks, on a past project.

Next week we're going to start playing online with some friends that were already Rock Band addicts.

@ Social Gaming Summit

I'm at the Social Gaming Summit today at the UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center. I'll blog about this later.

Why Is Google Getting Whipped in South Korea by NHN?

Notes on Korea's Leading Search Engine and the Global Leader in Online Casual Games

I've been meaning to write about the online casual gaming space along with NHN's coming entry into the U.S. market ever since I read a post at alarm:clock about PlayFirst's $5 million round a few weeks back. Of course, I'm swamped with our product launch, so things get easily pushed back.

Anyway, Mingi sent me an article in this week's BusinessWeek about NHN, so it served as a catalyst for me to try to blog about NHN again. First, here's the article:

NHN: The Little Search Engine That Could
Korea's NHN thumps Google at home, and it's teaching the big dogs a new trick

Quick. What's the hottest Internet search company on earth? If you answered Google, you'd be wrong by at least one metric. While the Silicon Valley sensation doubtless had a great year in 2005, shares of a Korean rival -- NHN Corp. -- have done far better. Google Inc.'s (GOOG ) stock climbed an impressive 103% in 2005, to nearly $415, but that paled beside NHN's 218% gain to $267.
.....
But in its home market, NHN's Naver.com search engine trounced Google's offering. Google's 4-year-old Korean-language search service accounts for less than 2% of search page views and search-related ad revenues in Korea. Under CEO Kim Beom Su's adroit direction, NHN sold about $228 million in online ads last year, nearly 40% of the country's total. "In the vibrant and volatile Korean Internet sector, NHN is clearly the star," says Jay Park, an analyst at Samsung Securities in Seoul. "NHN's user-friendly approach outshined its rivals." Google declined to comment for this story.
.....
"Google has a superb search engine," says Choi Jae Hyeon, NHN's search chief. "We have, however, built up knowhow and a database by extracting knowledge from users' brains."

GODS AND MORTALS
What he's talking about is a three-year-old initiative called "Knowledge-In." The program lets users ask and answer questions on anything from recipes for kimchi to the composition of rocket fuel. Readers judge the responses, and the millions of folks who have answered questions are ranked as "ordinary," "knowledgeable," "highly knowledgeable," "supernatural," or -- for 22 truly prolific answerers -- "gods." "Naver is great because you get all sorts of detailed information in very specific questions and answers," says Song Han Sil, a 25-year-old pianist in Seoul. "Many of my friends don't even know that Google offers Korean-language service." The database now has some 37 million questions and answers that can get returned with search results. The idea is so popular among Koreans that most other search engines in the country, including Yahoo! Korea (YHOO ), now offer their own versions of Knowledge-In services. (full article)


I've posted about NHN Corp before, but in bits and pieces so I'll give you some more information. I know NHN through my friend who has work their since its early days and because they were my client when I was at iRG, a boutique investment bank.

NHN is an interesting story because it was the marriage of two hot Internet properties in Korea back in 2001. One was Naver.com, a leading portal and search technology company, and the other was Hangame, the leading online casual gaming company in the world. Hangame was just starting its paid services and generating some incredible revenue numbers (i.e. $30,000/day from average user payments of 50cents) when Naver.com came in with a merger offer. The two decided to merge with Naver.com in the driver's seat since it was an already a mature Internet company and the expectation that Hangame was still developing. Within the first year of their merger, Hangame exploded and revenue from this side exceeded Naver.com. Over the past couple years, the revenues have been generally split since Naver.com's search technology group has been leading the charge.

As with many innovations in Korea, I believe the ubiquity of broadband and wireless was a catalyst. While recent startups, such as Wink and RawSugar, try to build community-based search services, as described in the BusinessWeek article NHN has been doing this for over three years and built it to such an incredible degree that Google can barely penetrate the fifth largest online advertising market in the world.

What the article misses is that Google was late in establishing any real operations in South Korea for years. While I lived in Korea, some friends and I would discuss once in a while how Google was missing an opportunity to capture the Korea market. If they invested beyond a couple sales people a few years back, this might be a different story.

Another important factor to note in NHN's search success was that the rapid growth and continuous activity of its "Knowledge-In" service was partially fuel by the integration of its casual gaming property, Hangame. One incentive for Naver.com users to build up its community search database was giving "Hancoins" as rewards. This is the currency that people can use to play various online casual games, such as Battle Tetris, poker, and virtual pool. Brilliant move by NHN.

Since I'm a former video gaming addict born from Atari's 2600 through the first Nintendo system and beyond, I had a bit of snobbery towards the Korean gaming market since I thought a vast majority of their games were poorly designed with horrible graphics, such as NCSoft's Lineage. Hangame was an exception. The quality of their graphics, design and gameplay was beyond any U.S. counterpart from 2001 to today, so it will be interesting to see how well NHN's online gaming effort does in the U.S. as they set to launch sometime this year.