Author Archives: Chris Morris

Analysis: What A Looming NFL Lockout Might Mean For Electronic Arts

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[Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris talks to analysts at M2 and Wedbush Morgan to examine the possible effects on Electronic Arts — and its signature Madden game franchise — of an American football strike.]

Football stadiums across the country might be silent next September – as the prospect of an NFL lockout grows larger by the day – but on the virtual field, the game will still be played.

Electronic Arts will release its 2012 installment of the Madden franchise this year as it has each year since 1988 – but it might be doing so without the marketing force of the league behind it for the first time in the game’s history.

Read more at Gamasutra

App review: Traveler’s Quest

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Traveler’s Quest is an oddity in the iOS world — a massively multiplayer single-player game. You compete mainly against yourself (although there is Game Center ranking) to find buried “treasure” (and bury it yourself) in your neighborhood and wherever you might roam. The game makes finding hidden items easy, but if you’re the one burying the treasure, you’ll get gold the longer it remains hidden. While the goods are virtual, the locations are real — and tie in with Google maps in a very innovative fashion. It’s a wonderfully addictive game, but suffers greatly if there aren’t many people in your area playing, since you rely on them to bury items in the first place. (Bots bury treasure occasionally, but it’s much more fun when real people do so.) If you’re fortunate enough to live somewhere that the playing population is thick, though, you can lose hours searching for the virtual goods.

Read more at Common Sense Media

iTunes tops online movie market in 2010

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The competition is getting fiercer, but when it comes to online video sales, Apple is still king of the hill.

New data from IHS Screen Digest shows that iTunes was the leader in movie electronic sell through and internet video on demand last year, besting pushes from Amazon, Wal-Mart and others with a commanding 2/3 market share.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

What an NFL Lockout Could Mean for ‘Madden’ Maker EA

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As the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers clean out their lockers and the nation debates which Super Bowl commercial was the best, there’s a big cloud hanging over the 2011-2012 NFL season.

A work stoppage is looking increasingly likely — and the effects of that could reach far beyond the gridiron. One company that’s undoubtedly monitoring the situation closely is Electronic Arts.

Read more at CNBC.com

Behind The Scenes: Microsoft’s Attempt To Woo Conan O’Brien For Xbox Live

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[In exclusive comments made to Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris, the executive producer of Conan O’Brien’s talk show discusses how Microsoft tried to woo the comedian to take his show onto Xbox Live – and why it was ultimately too much of “a leap of faith” for the Conan team.]

U.S. talk show host Conan O’Brien has been a familiar face on late-night TV for the past 18 years, and even when he had his nasty falling-out with NBC in early 2010, most people expected he would wind up at another network – which, of course, he did.

But before TBS came calling, Microsoft did its best to entice the comedian to bring his show to Xbox Live to help launch an original content channel on the console. The company and the performer have never addressed the reports of the conversation.

Read more at Gamasutra

App review: Family Guy Time Warped

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Devoted fans of the show may enjoy Family Guy Time Warped, but casual watchers aren’t likely to have as much fun. The game is a mediocre platform jumper without a lot of diversity. While you pummel enemies and jump from heights, the pacing is slow and the game feels sluggish. Its best moments come from watching short clips from the show — but there’s no reason to suffer through a so-so game to watch those when the program is in constant reruns on cable.

Read more at Common Sense Media


App review: DoodlePhrases

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DoodlePhrases, as a concept, seems like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the game is tripped up by a couple of factors. First and foremost is the inconsistency with how precise you need to be with your answer. If you see a pony wearing sneakers and type “horseshoe,” you’re wrong — but type “horse shoe” and you get the points. It has subjective judging that penalizes you for being slightly imprecise. Also, if you’re a slow typer (or have big fingers and are prone to typos on the iPhone or iPod Touch, you’ll chew up a lot of time inputting your answers, which is never fun in a timed game. If you love thinking creatively with words, it might be worth the risk; otherwise DoodlePhrases is one you can pass.

Read more at Common Sense Media

Casualty of the NBC merger: A sense of humor

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There’s a fun clip that has been running around the Internet this week – a time capsule of sorts, back to a more innocent time when the online world was a mystery to people.

Included among those who didn’t quite understand it were Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric, who discussed it during an airing of the Today show. It was a funny clip that had a lot of people laughing with – not at – the anchors. Today, word came that the person who had leaked the clip had lost their job at NBC.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Video game review: Plants vs. Zombies (DS)

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There’s a reason Plants vs. Zombies is such a popular tower-defense game. It’s goofy, genuinely funny, and the gameplay is rock solid. Whether you play for minutes or hours, you’ll walk away happy. What the Nintendo DS version adds is a collection of new achievements (such as blow up 10 zombies with a single cherry bomb and beat a night level without picking up any sun) and four exclusive mini-games. They’re all enjoyable diversions, but ultimately, it’s the main game that’s the most fun. The DS does, however, add a terrifically entertaining two-player versus mode for players in the same room.

The DS version suffers on two levels, though. Because there’s so much going on onscreen with Plants vs. Zombies, the DS screen size is often overcrowded, which can make it hard to see everything happening at once. Also, with the iPhone version costing just $3.99, the $20 price tag on the DS version seems excessive. That said, the game is just as addictive now as it was when it was first released for the PC in 2009.

Read more at Common Sense Media

For EA and THQ, Is a Turnaround in Their Future?

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The last couple of years have been rough ones for Electronic Arts and THQ. Rapid changes in the video game landscape and an unlucky string of underperforming titles has taken its toll on both companies’ stock prices.

This week, though, both companies showed some signs of life as they reported earnings, giving investors hope that the long awaited turnaround for each company might be about to begin.

Read more at CNBC.com