More people have played FrontierVille than all of Brian Reynolds‘ previous games combined. The man known for his work on Civilization II, Alpha Centauri, and Rise of Nations, has been with social-game publisher Zynga for a year-and-a-half, which is a long time in social games, he jokes.
Speaking at a keynote for GDC Online, Reynolds told mused that “Probably more people have played FarmVille than any other game, at least on a computer. And that’s kind of cool.”
Layoffs are expected at NaturalMotion, the studio behind Star Wars: Hunters, as Zynga reviews operations and focuses on optimizing its mobile game portfolio.
Vince Zyle writes "Star Wars Hunters is a really fun game! It’s not as good as other Star Wars games like Star Wars Battlefront 2 but coming from a developer like Zynga who worked on very underwhelming and low-quality titles before, this is a major upgrade.
There’s not much objectively wrong with the game aside from the work needed to make visuals smoother during animations. That’s one of the biggest issues at present alongside frame drops that occur from time to time when there’s too much going on which isn’t too bad but certainly noticeable.
In conclusion, Star Wars Hunters is a game for arena shooter fans who are looking for an action-filled game. Some of the other issues will hopefully be ironed out with future updates."
The acquisition of Zynga by Take-Two Interactive might become the video game industry's version of the AOL Time Warner merger.
I have to give props for the use of Electric Boogaloo reference. I don't think many young folk will even know what that is.
On topic... wasn't that where Don Mattrick went after leaving XB?
I know sooooooo many people who have played FarmVille.
I haven't touched it and I'm keeping it that way.
Wow, this way you really see the power of social games, and how many people there are still out there to be targeted by the games industry that aren't being specifically taken into account in the usual big game productions.