Tagged News: acclaim

Recently, WarCry had the chance to talk to Acclaim CEO Howard Marks. We received an update on his company's quest to bring the Eastern MMO business model to Western shores and got a peek at how 2Moons, 9Dragons, BOTS!! and Dance! Online have fared on the open market.

9Dragons

What "free-to-play" really means is that all Acclaim's games are free to download and can be played without the player ever laying down a dime. In 2Moons, for example, the company makes money through in-game advertising that appears in the user interface. In 9Dragons, players can play for free, but also can buy upgrades and customization items securely through Acclaim.

Marks emphasized through that the company is committed to actual free-to-play. One common consumer complaint with the model is that while some games advertise their games as such, many build in an artificial gameplay wall where a player basically is forced to buy items or coin to progress in the game. He says that none of Acclaim's games do this, nor will there ever be any artificial walls.

Read more after the leap.

AGDC gave us the chance to talk to David Perry of Acclaim about his community designed and now developed MMO project Top Secret. Perry - who is also bringing 2Moons to North America - announced at the conference that they would hold a $1,000,000 contest for indie groups to develop the game his community designs.[blockquote]
Acclaim has opened the doors to hobbyist and independent developers worldwide and challenged them to create the Top Secret project. Teams are allowed to use whatever engine they like and try to create the best, most faithful version of the game possible. The winning studio gets up to $1,000,000 in prizes, primarily to pay the bill of whatever engine they selected, but also a $100,000 advance and a standard contract. They will also receive royalties on the project itself.

Ultimately, Acclaim views the winner as their first "studio". To date, they've been adapting foreign games, but down the line, whoever pulls out the victory will hopefully work on original Acclaim projects.[blockquote]Read more after the click.

Today's Q&A; focuses in on 2Moons, the second major MMORPG from resurrected Acclaim and the first adaptation from the brain of famed designer David Perry. The game promises adult, violent content and is North American adaptation of a Korean MMO.

WarCry: During closed beta, how pleased were you with the feedback you got from your testers?

Rusel DeMaria: One of Acclaim's major philosophies is to involve the game community fully in the process, through surveys, feedback on forums, beta testing and any suggestions they want to make. During our closed beta period, our testers gave us great feedback, directly in the game, in the forums and through our survey. We're working to implement improvements to the game and have already completely rewritten the story based on their feedback. Meanwhile, all-new features are going in that our players are going to love. We are particularly excited about the Dead Front events, which will involve up to four full parties in a mad-crazy series of battles and tasks, culminating in a huge boss battle, followed by a PvP free-for-all. It's a wild event, and open to players in various level ranges.

Read more after the click.

Acclaim's 2Moons has entered Open Beta, according to today's press release. The David Perry driven MMORPG promises violent, adult content in a free-to-play, advertising driven business model. It is the second major MMORPG from upstart publisher Acclaim.

Read more after the click.

If you head over to the official 2Moons site, you can get into the Open Beta for the game. Which is basically saying the game has launched, since I think they are letting you keep your characters when they do officially go live. Also, I think the game will be free to play anyway, and they will use in-game advertising and micro-transactions to fund it all.

The thing to note is that 2Moons is recommended for ages 17 and over. Making it a R-rated, Mature game. I'll have to check it out.

Acclaim Games' relaunch business model has been about the virtual market and digital download. But a new partnership with SwiftCD.com will allow those who hate lengthy download processes or who just want to have a CD or DVD to get involved.

At the main site, when you click the download option, you will also have the opportunity to to grab the CD/DVD for the cost of shipping. What's nice about this deal, is that the CD/DVDs are made on demand, so it's the latest build available. No patching FTW!

Do you guys think more free to play/digital download games should offer this option? Discuss in the forums!

David Perry's Top Secret project has been going for a few months now and today an email flew to update the community of developers who are at work on this community driven racing MMORPG.

The Top Secret Community Game Design Project keeps rolling along. At the beginning we said we were designing a racing game. Well, we were right. and we were wrong. Because we are designing RACING like you've never seen.

We're designing Beasts to Ride. Riders to ride them. Cards to collect and enhance our game play. PvP and PvE tracks and modes. Weapons, Skills, Obstacles. Crazy tracks to challenge our players. Yes, it all started with a racing game, but it's something else again now. A game like no other we've ever seen. If you haven't seen it lately, come to the forums and see what's happening.

Read more after the click.

Looks like 9Dragons has gone offical! And along with the launch of the Kung Fu MMOG by Acclaim, they introduce their Item Mall where players can purchase items for in-game use with Acclaim's proprietary money. Seems like more and more developers are looking at this form of in-house virtual property as a viable financial model.

Click below for more deets!

"BOTS!", a casual social and combat MMO has reached 1,000,000 registered players since its launch in November 2006. It's free to play, as are all Acclaim products, which obviously helps the numbers grow. Players fight in small arena-based games.

For the press release, click read more.

David Perry has penned a new Director's Letter for Acclaim's "Top Secret" project. The project is not a secret, this is just the name of the community driven development that the company is trying. It's like American Idol for game development. Perry directs and hundreds of thousands of people use the boards to define the game. Most the heavy lifting is done by an internal Acclaim studio.

Recently, it was announced that the game would be an MMO racing game.

Click below for the most recent update.