That's right, according to Neil Long from edge-online.com five Pixar animation artists, Sequoia Blankenship, Andrew Dayton, Jonathan Hoffman, Joshua Qualtieri and Jason Topolski have joined together to form Steel Wool Games. These five wonderful artists have worked on movies including Brave, The Incredibles, and Toy Story.
The artists have deemed Steel Wool just a side company for now and they have already begun work on their first game, Flyhunter, which will be released this summer but for unknown platforms says Jeffrey Grubb in his post on Current Pixar employees banding together.
Below is a picture of the Hero of Flyhunter.
Picture taken from Steel Wool Games, cited below.
In my own personal opinion this is pretty cool that a big time movie company such as Pixar is going to be making video games, although they're not related Pixar's artists have a lot of talent and I'm very excited to see what Flyhunter brings to the table. I am also excited to see if I can find any more information on Steel Wool Games and do a follow up post soon. I will definitely keep my eyes on Steel Wool Games for any updates.
Long, Neil. "Pixar artists form Steel Wool Games." www.edge-online.com web. 20 March 2013. <http://www.edge-online.com/news/pixar-artists-form-steel-wool-games/#null>. http://steelwoolgames.com/ web. 20 March 2013. <http://steelwoolgames.com/>. Grubb, Jeffrey. "Current Pixar employees band together to form game studio." www.venturebeat.com web. 20 March 2013. <http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/18/former-pixar-employees-band-together-to-form-game-studio/>.
For those of you who don't know, Minecraft is the game all about blocks. Everything about Minecraft is blocks, but it's not just that. You can build immaculate landscapes,
adventure for days on end, even play with your friends and come up with
other wonderful things to do. Alternatively to those who are not
appealed by Minecraft's blocky nature, there are "texture packs" which
you can install into your game to change how certain objects appear,
luckily there is an endless supply of texture packs to suit everyone's
fancy. However if players are not satisfied with playing by themselves
or with friends there are servers that contain different genres of the
game, now players will still be playing Minecraft but the servers may
have a combat system added into the game so that there will be some
player versus player, or maybe there will be one where a player can own,
run and manage their own town amongst other players.
Minecraft was started by Markus Persson in 2009 only to step down and give the title of lead developer to Jens Bergensten. Mojang, the Swedish company that developed Minecraft has sold over 9 million copies to PC/Mac's alone and then later expanded to the Xbox 360 in May of 2012, selling over 5 million copies. There is even a Minecraft Pocket Edition for iOS and Androids. However as of now Mojang has a console exclusvitiy deal with Microsoft, the creators of the Xbox, meaning that Minecraft is not allowed to expand to Sony or Nintendo consoles until that deal is up. Jens Bergensten said "When it runs out we’ll consider Minecraft for PlayStation, but Wii U is very unlikely"(Edge). Unfortunately Bergensten did not specify if the release would be for the PlayStation 3 or 4. It is also unknown how long the deal between Mojang and Microsoft will last as it has barely been one year now.
This is huge news even though it's still only a rumor. This means that Mojang will expand their game to an even wider amount of players, those who own a PlayStation but not a Xbox or PC/Mac. With the numbers of copies sold to the PC and Xbox versions, I could only imagine how many the PlayStation version could sell. I am personally excited to see how this turns out even though I already own Minecraft for the PC.
Below is one of the buildings I made and one of my favorite pictures I took.
Sources; Long, Neil. "Minecraft on PlayStation being considered, Wii U version "very unlikely."' www.edge-online.com web. 6 March 2013. <http://www.edge-online.com/news/minecraft-on-playstation-being-considered-wii-u-version-very-unlikely/>.
Gaston, Martin. "Mojang will 'consider' Minecraft for PlayStation." www.gamespot.com web. 6 March 2013. <http://www.gamespot.com/news/mojang-will-consider-minecraft-for-playstation-6404897>.
"Minecraft." www.minecraft.com web. 6 March 2012. <http://minecraft.net/game>.
The Fifth edition of the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim, an action role-playing game with an expansive world for players to explore developed by Bethesda Game Studios. Bethesda has teamed up with Zenimax Online Studios and they have recently announced a Beta sign up to try out the long awaited release of Elder Scrolls Online. Skyrim is available for the Xbox 306, PlayStation 3, and PC and like the previous four installments, you play your character but there is no online so you cannot play with your friends or random people, you are all alone in a world of NPC's(Non-Playable Characters). Skyrim is located on the continent of Tamriel, a vast land with dense forests, frozen mountains, lush scenery with a magnitude of animals and even dragons soaring over head.
There will have to be a lot of work put into Skyrim to ensure that everything works properly for the Online release. In an interview between Matthew Reynolds of Digitalspy.com and Matt Firor, a game director for Bethesda, Matt Firor states that "We've also reproportioned some of our NPC (non-playing character) and
player figures, and retextured and tweaked some of our structures and
buildings." The online installment of The Elder Scrolls' story will take 100 years before Oblivion (The fourth edition of The Elder Scrolls) and Skyrim. Matthew Reynolds asks "What does setting The Elder Scrolls Online hundreds of years before Oblivion and Skyrim allow you to do?" Firor responds with "It allows us to be able to tell stories about a time that is not well
documented in lore, but what is known is very useful - mid 2nd era is
known basically as a time of destabilization, lack of central control in
Tamriel and lots of outside influences causing problems (invasions,
pandemics, etc). It's a perfect setting for The Elder Scrolls Online. It has the familiar provinces and races, but a different cast of characters and stories. Also,
it gives the player another era of Tamriel to explore, a time that is a
little more unsettled than the Tamriel that they are used to in the
other Elder Scrolls games."
Taking such an expansive game that is made solely to be played alone; completing quests, fighting monsters, exploring dungeons, and gathering resources and then turning it into a massively played online game will take a tremendous amount of work but in the end I personally believe it will work out for the best. The online portion will add new aspects to the game such as group-questing and Player versus Player or PvP, where people will fight to the death, most of the time in hopes of gaining what items the player they were fighting had. Matt Firor explains that there will be alliances that are in a conflict and the players get to chose from one of three alliances. Players will work together within their alliance to fight for and defend Cyrodiil, a province and even the throne of Tamriel, the whole continent of Skyrim. Firor also talks about how different the 360 degree radius that you as a player can see, such as games like World of Warcraft, as opposed to other first-person PvP games such as the Call of Duty franchise. This gives players a larger screen to find enemies, especially those behind them. (Elder Scrolls Skyrim Online Interview).
Opening the online to beta testing allows both Bethesda and Zenimax Online to gather information about the game such as bugs and glitches, as well as positive and negative feedback from the players allowing for changes before finalizing the game for launch (Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta).
Winda Benedetti from Nbcnews' technology section asks the big question of why. She asks "Why make a massively popular single-player game series into a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game?" Again, game director Matt Firor answers. Firor says that the main reason for the online is a tremendous opportunity to get new players who have never experienced MMOs before to just jump in and play online ('The Elder Scrolls Online' invites gamers). Not only is it attracting people who have never played MMOs but this also has a tremendous opportunity to attract people who are really interested in the player-versus-player aspect, so the community for The Elder Scrolls will grow immensely with the addition of online.
Below is the official Bethesda Trailer for Skyrim Online.
For those of you who play Skyrim and are interested in signing up to play the beta, you can sign up here at the beta signup.
Sources;
Reynolds, Matthew. "'Elder Scrolls Online' interview: The beta, first person and Skyrim." www.digitalspy.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/interviews/a458194/elder-scrolls-online-interview-the-beta-first-person-and-skyrim.html>.
Benedetti, Winda. "'The Elder Scrolls Online' invites games to test the new Tamriel." www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog web. 1 March 2013. < http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/elder-scrolls-online-invites-gamers-test-new-tamriel-1B8057219>.
Mlot, Stephanie. "Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta Test Now." pcmag.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414557,00.asp>.
"The Elder Scrolls Online Beta Sign-Up." www.elderscrollsonline.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://signup.elderscrollsonline.com/>.
BethesdaSoftworks."The Elder Scrolls Online - The Alliance Cinematic Trailer." www.youtube.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0jNT5cMwxw0>.
