2010.01.08 17:34:19

Maverick_admin

Happy New Year and new decade from all of us here at Maverick!

While we are all disappointed that technology in reality has not caught up with Hollywood’s vision of the future, we can still get excited about the possibilities 2010 has to offer. Unfortunately, Roy Schneider is no longer with us to help make contact with extra-terrestrial life, as he did in the 1984 film 2010. Although, if 2012 is to be the year of Armageddon we will have to make the most of the next two years and the technical advances possible in that time.

So how is 2010 looking for Maverick? We have some exciting projects in the pipeline that we look forward to sharing with you throughout the year. Keep checking our website and YouTube channel for updates.

In the meantime, why not forget your January blues and the freezing weather, congratulate yourselves for getting through the first week of the new year, and check out some previews of a few amazing things heading your way in 2010 (and Hot Tub Time Machine).

Microsoft’s Project Natal

Sony’s PS3 Motion Controller

Nintendo’s DSi XL

FIFA World Cup in South Africa

Winter Olympics in Vancouver

Hot Tub Time Machine

2009.11.29 12:36:43

Andy

Then change your Avatar…

Apparently the type of Avatar we use can affect our mood and general outlook…

Full story

2009.11.29 12:23:40

Andy

Something we all work hard to do but always worth reiterating with the ever-growing amount of content online.

For information to stand out online it needs to communicate visually!

Information goes out to play

2009.11.23 09:36:02

Lee

Sony is expanding the PlayStation Network to incorporate other media, including video, music, comics and ebooks. The service is also going to offer a ‘facebook’ like service allowing users to upload and share videos and photos directly from their PS3.

2009.11.23 09:24:53

Lee

Square Enix announces Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days developed by IO Interactive with two rather brutal teaser videos. As of yet nobody knows what the BBFC rating will be . . . .

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

2009.11.13 13:16:36

Rachel

With the rapid decline in Nintendo Wii sales, does this mark a halt in popularity for casual gaming? With only 3 out of 20 Wii games in the pre-order chart, it’s looking like Nintendo are going to have to pull something major out the bag to turn this one around.

EA’s CEO John Riccitiello has discussed his frustrations in an interview with MCV magazine, stating that "very few multiplatform titles are succeeding on the Wii so far and collectively, Electronic Arts and Nintendo need to tackle that."

Riccitiello told MCV that although he believes EA has underperformed on the platform, they are now slowly beginning to meet his expectations, particularly as recently released EA Sports Active was their most successful launch on the Wii so far, selling 600,000 units. Are things starting to look up and could the newly released Black Wii further boost John’s spirits?  It’s clear that casual gaming is not managing to reach the breadth of audience which core games do although hopes are still high with Super Mario Bros on Wii, some expecting it to outsell Modern Warfare 2. We are sure to find out soon…

2009.11.09 09:40:04

Joel

Ubisoft have released the first in a trilogy of short films to accompany the release of Assassin's Creed 2, which they hope will be one of the biggest games of the coming months. Their studios are based in Montreal, and they aim to use this facility to produce more visual content based on their IP, such as the Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy game series.

The first film, Assassin's Creed: Lineage, can be seen below:

video | Joel Crookes | Ubisoft | games

2009.11.05 10:11:09

Martin

A rather well implemented augmented reality concept putting the technology to the test in a public space..

martin wawrzyczek | buzz marketing | experiential marketing | augmented reality

2009.10.26 09:38:42

Maverick_admin

On Friday evening the meeting room was emptied to make way for The Beatles Rock Band. Talents soon came to shine with Will AKA Ringo, Seamus AKA George, Jess AKA Paul and Lucie AKA John showing the office, including the original members, how it’s done.

We are currently taking bookings for weddings and birthdays, please contact the front desk for more information.

Social | Rock Band

2009.10.16 16:56:07

AlMav

OnLive, an online video gaming company, will begin streaming games over the internet within a few months after it secured substantial funding from AT&T Media Holdings and Lauder Partners,Time Warner unit Warner Bros, Autodesk and Maverick Capital.

Analysts said that if OnLive’s technology worked as promised, the service could pose a challenge to console makers Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony.

OnLive, which plans to launch its service in the United States this winter, aims to stream online games which are hosted and run on remote servers and is known in the industry as a “cloud-based” service. The company says its technology will provide on-demand, lag-free access to games — even high definition, graphic-rich titles — that can be played on any TV using a microconsole or nearly any PC.

OnLive would not reveal the sum raised but Steve Perlman, its founder and chief executive, said it was a “large investment at a large valuation,” especially for a company that is still to take a dollar of revenue.

Analysts said the inclusion of AT&T with its networking and telecommunications expertise gave OnLive a significant partner. It has also signed nine video game publishers, including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Take-Two Interactive Software.

The company started testing the new service last month. Mr Perlman, a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur who helped launch WebTV, which Microsoft bought in 1997, said “hundreds of thousands” of people had signed up to participate in “beta” tests of the service. He said: “Our projections have changed. Our projections originally for the first year were less than the number of people that have so far signed up for beta. So I guess we underestimated.”

Sceptics have said that streaming online games will not work for most people as the broadband connections would be too slow to make the experience comparable to playing games on consoles.

OnLive has said would anyone with a 1.5Mbps connection should be able to run the service at standard definition and that 5Mbps would be required for high definition content.

The company has declined to say how much OnLive will charge users, who will pay on a subscription basis.

Other companies are also looking at streaming video games: Intel recently invested in a new high definition games-on-demand service called GameTree.tv developed by TransGaming, which is due to launch in spring 2010.

2009.10.09 08:26:08

chrismaverick

Halo is one of the biggest franchises around.

The Halo promo videos are some of the biggest budget trailers around.  South African wonderkid Neil Blomkamp (Distric 9) made some amazing films 2 years ago for the release of Halo 3.

To drive the Halo fanboys wild, it takes a large amount of production work.  Just how much you can see for yourself in this behind-the-scenes look at "The Life".  This short film was made  in Hungary, and this video shows just how much work it takes to make a great-looking production like this.

Will we see more "behind the scenes of the trailers" in our industry in the future?  I hope so!

Behind-the-scenes | Production | Chris Cartwright | Halo 3 ODST

2009.10.05 09:33:02

Martin

Last week, Shelby Bonnie, former CEO of CNET wrote a great guest piece for TechCrunch, where he suggested killing off CPM as a measurement for online advertising. I'd go even further, and suggest that the obsession with CPM has seriously harmed online advertising. The key point is the one that Bonnie makes first: if you pay for impressions, you create incentives to get impressions. But impressions, by themselves, are not particularly useful, especially when everyone making those impressions ignores the advertisement itself.

Source: Tech Church

martin wawrzyczek | wastage | ROI | measurement | CPM | online advertising

2009.09.28 08:04:27

Lee

Gameswipe with Charlie Brooker is part of the BBC’s Electric Revolution season, poking fun at the world of video games and its relationship to the media. Charlie Brooker is a keen gamer and like many others is appalled that games are still looked down upon by other media even though the games industry is increasingly growing. This program aims to confront negative stereotypes associated with games as well as showing that games can be just as good or even as bad as TV.

The show airs at 10pm on Tuesday the 29th September.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n1j8q

Gameswipe | Charlie Brooker | TV

2009.09.25 08:03:15

chrismaverick

The past 2 years have seen the rise of the independant developer.  They are appearing on more platforms, and reaching a wider audience than ever before.  Johnathan Blow published his stunning game "Braid" on XBOXLive, and he made it all himself over a period of a few years.

However; "Braid" was a single-player offline-only game.  What Eskel Steinberg is trying to do is a much bigger, more complex, and potentially game-changing idea.

His game "Love" is an MMO.  Yes, 1 man is making an MMO!  The game is procedurally generated, which, on a very simple level, means that the game writes itself as you play it.  The advantage of this is that the game creates its own content.  The amazing thing is, that this will be a game that you can play online, co-op with your friends.  No two instances of the game will be the same!

The graphical style is simple, yet beautiful as you can see from the image above and the trailer below.

The big publishers like Blizzard will still of course rule the MMO space, but it is interesting to see independants moving into this space as well.

MMO | Chris Cartwright | Independant Developers | Love

2009.09.18 09:52:25

valentine_maverick

If you’ve never heard of it, “Flower” is a game released on the PSN earlier this year. It has no bosses and no end goals but instead guides the player through a dreamy, zen-like experience of colour and movement. It received massive interest and rave reviews. Why? Well, it gives players “juicy feedback.”

Robin Hunicke from thatgamecompany (developers of Flower) talked about what juicy feedback means at Brighton’s dConstruct Conference earlier this month. Essentially, this is what happens when games are developed to give an emotional experience to the user. Highs and lows are carefully mapped out and can offer a positive and rich interactive experience, leaving the player feeling happy and relaxed.

This is incredibly exciting because it can in theory change how we think about games and even why we buy them – will they be for art, relaxation or old-school entertainment? There’s a real buzz around emotion + technology at the moment and another theme at dConstruct was emotional engagement in interface design. Or: how and why people invest in products because of the way they feel about them. Think about the success of the iPhone, there’s real love around the product because it looks cool and is so tactile.

This might be one of the most important factors to drive technology design in the near future and we can expect lots more new and ‘unconventional’ experiences to come. Things are looking juicy.

flower | dConstruct 2009 | flow | robin hunicke | august de los reyes | microsoft surface | juicy feedback | games

2009.09.15 21:14:48

willmaverick

It's a well know discussion in "audio geek" circles that speaker technology has not really developed in decades - well this TED lecture is a fascinating insight into some radical technology that can create focused sound - only certain people can hear it in certain set places etc.  Bear with Woody Norris the "inventor", this is worth a look - there's bound to be some novelty brand applications for this around really soon - heck Woody tells us the military are using it to implant voices inside terrorists heads  and it only costs a few hundred $'s.

hyper sonic sound

2009.09.14 08:30:47

Katiemaverick

Targeted in-game advertising has taken a responsible leap forward as the Transport Accident Commission of Victoria, Australia has signed a deal with Microsoft to show their road safety videos and billboard posters within Forza Motorsport 3. By aiming their messages directly at the game’s audience demographic (males in the age range 18-39) they hope to change driver behaviour in the real-world environment and reduce accidents. The effect could be seen as both conscious and subliminal, as the player will be immersed in the game experience while also taking in these messages, hopefully altering their habits accordingly and saving lives in the process.

Source: news.com.au

2009.09.11 09:55:58

Martin

STOCKHOLM, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News:

The Volvo Group (STO:VOLVA) (STO:VOLVB) has developed a computer game to teach the principles of lean production, a concept designed to increase the efficiency of working processes. In this game, the players can see how different changes impact efficiency and profitability. The results indicate that what is known as serious gaming is an excellent complement to training at work.

Offering information and training at a low cost, with minimal carbon emissions by reducing the need to travel, is a challenge the Volvo Group shares with other global companies.

“This is an excellent example of the way companies can go greener using IT and how we are extending the concept that is normally defined as ‘Green IT’,” says Tommy Hansson, prototype manager at Volvo IT. The game is a prototype that is based on a traditional game which has been used by the Volvo Group for many years to teach the concepts of lean production in manufacturing and assembly. Lean principles can also be applied to other areas in which there is a real need for future training, such as leadership, administration, product development and sales.

“The Volvo Group has more than 90,000 employees and nearly all of them need to understand what we mean by ‘lean’. One of the advantages of a computer-based game is that it’s possible to train significantly more people at low cost,” says Dawn Yoshimura, training manager at the Volvo Production System Academy at Volvo Technology.

The project invited a number of employees from various Volvo Group companies around the world to evaluate the game. Players could switch from scheduled production to customer order-steered production, test different layouts, invest in new equipment and immediately see how this affected efficiency and profitability. One of the individuals who excelled at the game was Tracy Liu, Planning Supervisor at Volvo Construction Equipment in Linyi in China.

“I was really captivated by the game and was quickly able to see how various actions affected efficiency. The game taught me to think in new ways and it was a real challenge trying different ways to improve production. When everything worked, I managed to deliver to customers on time and with the right quality.” Digitally based games provide an opportunity to log what the players do and the effect this has, which then provides feedback for the instructors.

“If you store the information from each round of the game, you can then look at what the players managed to change most effectively, which can provide ideas that hadn’t been thought of earlier,” says Tommy Hansson at Volvo IT. The results of the project were followed up in a master’s thesis on the subject of serious games training at the University of Skövde. The analysis indicated that the game had a positive impact on participants and revealed that they acted in the way the game taught them.

The project was a joint venture between the public and private sectors. The development group included Volvo IT, Volvo Technology, Gothia Science Park Projektarena and Ludosity. The reference group comprised the University of Skövde, Skaraborg Hospital, IDC (Industrial Development Centre), Innovatum, Grönlunds Plåt, Skaraborgs kommunalförbund (local federation), the Västra Götaland Region and the Municipality of Skövde. Press images can be downloaded at http://imagegallery.volvogroup.volvo.se/.

September 10 2009

Visit http://www.thenewsmarket.com/volvogroup to access broadcast-standard video from the Volvo Group. You can preview and request video and choose to receive it as a MPEG2 file or by Beta SP tape. Registration and video is free to the media.

Volvo Information Technology AB is a wholly owned subsidiary of AB Volvo. The company delivers IT solutions and services for the whole of the industrial process, from product development and production to sales, aftersales and administration, including IT operations and infrastructure. Its customers include AB Volvo, Ford Motor Company, Volvo Car Corporation and other large operations within industry and the public sector. In 2008, Volvo IT's global operations generated a turnover of SEK 8.7 billion and the company had more than 5,300 employees in Europe, North America, South America and Asia. Please visit www.volvoit.com for more information.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://www.cisionwire.com

volvo | games

2009.09.11 09:54:37

Martin

Yesterday marked the 10-year anniversary of the U.S. launch of the Sega Dreamcast, and how better to commemorate the occasion than announcing a new game for the long-deceased console? Developer Senile Team and publisher redspotgames are partnering to deliver Rush Rush Rally Racing to the Dreamcast later this October.

Judging by the game's trailer, Rush Rush Rally Racing seems to be a throwback to 16-bit era racers like Micro Machines. It sports a 2D, top-down view, and the footage above brags that the game features "no realistic backgrounds" and "no sponsored cars" -- just "fun, retro gameplay."

Though the publisher appears to be rooted in Europe, Rush Rush Rally Racing will be region free -- meaning it should run on just about any Dreamcast console you have lying around, regardless of where it came from. It also supports a number of the peripherals that helped define the Dreamcast before its premature demise, including rumble packs, VMUs, arcade sticks, and other third party controllers. There's even an online scoreboard, assuming you can still get your console to connect to the internet.

They're currently accepting preorders for Rush Rush Rally Racing over at redspotgames' online store. It'll set you back $22.00 when it arrives sometime next month.

sega | dreamcast | rush rush rally | martin wawrzyczek

2009.09.11 09:48:37

Martin

Angel Senki is a free-to-play item-based role player from Q Entertainment, and will hit the Japanese PS3 Store next week.  The PS3 port (there’s already a PC version) will allow players to log in using their PSN account details, which then gets linked up to Q Entertainment’s online website.  Angel Senki on the PS3 sports a new controller-friendly interface with much better item select, with the company aiming to make money via online purchases.

Q’s previous venture into the world of item-based RPGs was AngelLoveOnline, which took over 120,000 downloads.

Sony clearly sees the free MMO market as a vitally important one, with the company’s Senior Vice President Kirita Tomiwa attending the announcement of Angel Senki personally. AndriaSang reports that Tomiwa gave thanks to Q Entertainment for increases the PlayStation Network user count with their previous game and said that he’s looking forward to the start of Angel Senki’s service.  We’ll get some screens once it goes live.

Source: 4Gamer, Via AndriaSang.

free MMO | ps3 | sony | playstation | martin wawrzyczek