Hello folks, it is Sunday over here and a new week (urgh) is about to start. In the gaming world, the past week saw 2 major conventions held in North America, Game Developers Conference (GDC) and this week, Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). From my knowledge, these 2 conventions were seldom the stage where big MMO titles were displayed. It seems like Guild Wars 2 has been creating major waves there this year. Before I forget, visit my YouTube channel often! I upload videos regularly and it is not possible for me to post a new topic for each all the time 🙂
Talking about waves, unless you have been living under the rock, you would have read about the devastating earthquake and tsunami which hit the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan. Measuring 8.9, it is one of the worst earthquakes in written history to take place. Companies including Sony have shut down their factories, while I heard Sony lost a large number of Playstation 3 sets in the flood. Even Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 11 and 14 servers have been stopped temporarily as a result.
I have just donated a small amount to the Red Cross despite having difficulties to making ends meet this month after some heavy spending and saving. Being an Asian as well, and Japan is a wonderful country, I hope everything will be cleared up soon. Well, I do have a small complain. Apparently the earthquake damaged 2 undersea cables, that is why I am having extremely slow connection speed since the day before…
Moving on to some Korean gaming news, I am sure the majority of Free to Play gamers have heard of Netgame, the English MMO portal which once hosted Holic Online. Its Korean parent company, Mgame, announced a rather disappointing result for Q4 2010, suffering a major loss in the account books. While reasons given include game titles being delayed, I personally feel that the game they are publishing have not been up to par. ARGO is one of their games which will hopefully earn them revenue this year, with the European server currently in Closed Beta and the South East Asia server scheduled later this year. Yulgang 2, or Scions of Fate 2, is also one of the major titles to be released this year.
If you missed my short preview on the recent horse riding casual MMO, Alicia, you should really check it out. The game has garnered an average number of 250,000 players last weekend, with 40% of them as registered female players and half of them in the age range of 15 to 25. There aren’t really MMOs which will cater so much for the female gender I believe, with mostly being the dancing games. Alicia can be catered for both male and female, and I see it as a really good game to bring to the English market. Grand Mer is another casual MMO based on the fishing theme which will hit the English market soon, but I don’t think female players will have the hots for it.
Well, I think I have typed too much. Before I end this week, a little rant. It seems like the dream job I wanted to get, as an assistant producer of sorts, went up in flames. Well, the company is not hiring at the moment I believe, but hey, I guess there is always another time. A good acquittance of mine from Taiwan invited me to send my resume to his office (a major MMO company there), but I am only graduating at the end of this year. Taiwan will be a good place, since I can speak the language and even main dialect… But well, for now I will be at the same spot for now. If you have a LinkedIn profile and will like to add connections, send me a mail here. Please be informed that only those in the gaming industry will be added, as my job now requires my information to be rather discrete. I will like to apologize as I missed this detail out earlier. Have a good week ahead all!
