The Replacer returns for Activision’s Call of Duty Black Ops 2: Uprising
So many people are playing Call of Duty Black Ops 2 that Activision’s Replacer—the guy who fills in for your life while you’re off playing video games—has been overworked. So ad agency 72andSunny...
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An ode to LucasArts: Star Wars was its biggest asset—and its biggest liability
It was 1982—not long after we learned the true identity of Luke Skywalker’s father—when George Lucas first decided to get into the video game business. LucasArts, then called Lucasfilm Games, began by...
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Ubisoft Toronto is about to get a lot bigger: Peter Nowak
Splinter Cell’s Sam Fisher is going to have lots of company at Ubisoft Toronto soon. Last week, I paid a visit to Ubisoft Toronto to get a look at how the studio’s first big game, Splinter Cell:...
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Ubisoft Montreal’s Watch Dogs gets philosophical—how connected is too connected?
I had the chance last week to see a preview of Ubisoft Montreal’s newest big-budget game franchise, Watch Dogs, and boy is it looking good. The game, scheduled for a November release, appears to mix...
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Toronto’s Blot Interactive eyes the return of video game rock stars
With the Electronic Entertainment Expo running in Los Angeles this week, we’re going to be hearing a lot about the latest alien-shooting, assassin-stabbing, terrorist-fighting mega-blockbuster video...
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Toronto’s Drinkbox Studios: Further proof of Sony’s commitment to indie games
In part one of my week-long series on independent games in Canada, I talked to Justin Kwok, founder of Toronto-based Blot Interactive. Working on his first indie game, Chat Fu, Kwok is understandably...
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Indie video game makers face an uphill battle for funding, says developer:...
In parts one and two of my series on indie games in Canada, I spoke with Blot Interactive and Drinkbox Studios, two small Toronto-based operations that are just starting to make names for themselves....
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As mid-sized video game studios die out, Vancouver needs to get more indie:...
In parts one and two of my week-long look at indie games in Canada, I profiled Blot Interactive and Drinkbox Studios, two small Toronto developers both on their way up. In part three, I spoke with...
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How Canadian indie game makers are taking on the world: Peter Nowak
In parts one and two of my special week-long series on Canadian indie game developers, we visited Blot Interactive and Drinkbox Studios, two Toronto operations where things are looking up. In part...
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Microsoft’s Xbox One philosophy: give them what they don’t want: Peter Nowak
Media crowd around the new Xbox One (Photo: Ron Wurzer/Bloomberg/Getty Images) With the dust starting to settle from last week’s annual Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, all eyes are now on...
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Microsoft’s Xbox U-turn is good news: Peter Nowak
Media crowd around the new Xbox One (Photo: Ron Wurzer/Bloomberg/Getty Images) As a sometimes-contrarian myself, I can appreciate the efforts professional opiners sometimes take with the news of the...
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Activision breaks free of Vivendi with $8 billion buy back: Jeff Beer
Video game giant Activision Blizzard announced Friday that it has bought itself back from parent company Vivendi for US$8.2 billion. The deal will drop the France-based, soon-to-be-former parent...
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Ubisoft Toronto’s first game, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, is a real innovator:...
It’s a big week for Ubisoft Toronto, the French video game company’s newest studio, as it’s releasing its first game, Splinter Cell: Blacklist. The game has been under development for more than three...
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Grand Theft Auto V foreshadows our future in the Matrix: Nowak
I didn’t get much writing done Monday. I was on vacation in San Andreas. That’s not a real place, of course, it’s the fictionalized world of Grand Theft Auto V, which is sure to become the biggest...
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Valve enters living room with big boys Microsoft and Sony
The battle for the living room continues to heat up with the entrance of successful video game retailer, publisher and developer Valve Corporation and its free digital distribution platform, Steam....
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The problem isn’t Call of Duty, but rather a lack of variety in today’s...
It’s Call of Duty day, which would typically be the biggest day of the year in entertainment (technically), given how much money Activision’s annual shooter brings in. This year, the storied franchise...
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Unions aren’t the answer for overworked video game makers: Peter Nowak
Proof that great games don’t require overtime: Drinkbox Studio’s Guacamelee was a hit with fans and critics. Further to yesterday’s post on inequality, there was an interesting screed on labour issues...
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Canada’s indie video game makers are blasting the big boys—and winning
(Will Perkins/flickr) Justin Kwok looks harried. Crammed into a small, fourth-floor office in Toronto’s trendy Queen Street West area, he and his team of seven—collectively known as Blot...
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The 10 best Canadian-made games of 2013: Peter Nowak
< > Photo of The post The 10 best Canadian-made games of 2013: Peter Nowak appeared first on Canadian Business.
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Why 2014 is such an important year for video games: Nowak
The coming year is going to be a big one in video games, with the next-generation console battle kicking into full swing. Both Sony and Microsoft released their respective new machines, the...
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Final Fantasy XIII and the problem with video game reviews: Peter Nowak
I had a video game dilemma this weekend. It wasn’t that I was stuck on a certain part, but rather that I didn’t know how to review the latest Final Fantasy game, Lightning Returns. The problem was...
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Stock pick: GameStop Corp. (GME) could be a daring play
The video game industry is a tricky sector to invest in. It’s quite cyclical and when consoles aren’t selling companies can suffer. Just look at the share price of GameStop (NYSE: GME) a popular...
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Uber can’t be an $18 billion company with marketing this dorky: Bruce Philp
(David Ramos/Getty) Maybe 1999 wasn’t so stupid after all. Although the new economy was about to teach us all an expensive lesson, at least those guys with the sock puppets recognized you can’t sell...
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Winners & Losers: Snapchat hits $10 billion, Nintendo falls into a pit
▲ Snapchat Sexts come and go, but equity is forever You might need to ask a tween to help explain this, but we’ll do our best. Snapchat, the app that allows users to send disappearing photo messages to...
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How video game developer Ubisoft makes play a serious part of work
Few adults get to play video games at the office, but if you’re Jade Raymond, managing director of Ubisoft Entertainment SA’s Toronto office, you can expect a lot of time in front of a screen. One of...
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Winners & Losers: Activision has a date with Destiny, RadioShack drops the...
▲ Activision 500 million tickets to the gun show The publisher of popular video games such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft—two games in which players mow down thousands of virtual enemies using...
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Winners & Losers: Girl Scouts embrace e-commerce, Angry Birds plummets
▲ Girl Scouts of the USA Get your e-commerce badge (Alfred Eisenstadt/LIFE Magazine Archive/Getty) Girl Scouts are unquestionably the greatest sales force in the history of business. It is virtually...
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Winners & Losers: Glu Mobile snags Katy Perry, Typo comes unbuttoned
▲ Glu Mobile No Left Shark, no deal The San Francisco–based company announced it’s partnering with Katy Perry to create a new mobile game featuring the singer, threatening to produce a black hole of...
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Should we really be turning investing into a video game?
(Illustration by Serge Bloch) On the third floor of Fidelity Investments’ Boston-based headquarters is a room that looks more like something you’d see at Apple or Google than at a 70-year-old mutual...
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Nintendo Canada GM Pierre-Paul Trepanier on what makes Canadian gamers different
Nintendo Canada general manager Pierre Paul Trepanier. (Nintendo Canada) In his 12 years at Nintendo, Pierre-Paul Trepanier has seen a lot of ups and downs. From the disappointing years of the Gamecube...
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Nintendo Canada GM Pierre-Paul Trepanier on 30 years of Mario
Screenshot of Super Mario Maker. (Nintendo) Super Mario—or just Mario to his friends—this week celebrated his 30th birthday in style, with the release of a new game for the Wii U. Super Mario Maker is...
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How Hinterland manages a workforce spread around North America
A scene from The Long Dark, by Hinterland Studios. (Hinterland Studios) A couple years ago, I wrote a story about how Raphael van Lierop, an industrious video game designer, was starting his own...
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Virtual Reality will make more headlines than sales in 2016
A gamer using a prototype Oculus Rift in 2014. (Chesnot/Getty) Oculus Rift, the San Francisco-based VR startup that Facebook bought in 2014 for $2 billion, is finally set to launch its consumer headset...
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Ubisoft’s global workforce now develops games around the clock
Ubisoft’s “Far Cry Primal” was developed using a global, workforce that handed off tasks on a 24/7 schedule. (Ubisoft) It’s amazing how making big blockbuster video games has changed over the years....
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Investing in creative tools helps video game companies churn out hits
Screenshot from Ubisoft’s “Rainbow Six Siege.” (Ubisoft) Video game companies put considerable effort into making sure players can use and navigate their games efficiently and easy. Like any piece of...
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Sony is betting that the VR wars will be fought on price, not specs
(Sony) Sony may very well have kicked off the modern age of virtual reality with the announcement Tuesday that its upcoming PlayStation VR system will go on sale in October for $399 (U.S.), or $549...
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Cheap, lousy VR knockoffs risk harming the whole market
A visitor using the HTC Vive VR headset at the 2016 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. (Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty) HTC, maker of the Vive virtual reality headset, is worried about the...
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Playstation VR proves the appeal of virtual reality—with some growing pains
The Playstation VR headset. (Sony) Virtual reality is one of those technologies that polarizes people into one of two camps. There are those who have tried it, and are wowed by it, and there are those...
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Change Agents 2016: Jade Raymond, Electronic Arts
Jade Raymond (Portrait by Neil Mota/Rodeo Production) Jade Raymond Group General Manager, Motive Studios, Visceral Studios and Star Wars, Electronic Arts Follow: @ibjade Follow: @EA Why she matters:...
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Nintendo’s new Switch console looks cool, but it has one big problem
(Nintendo) Nintendo has revealed its new game console in typical Nintendo fashion: on its own terms and with little fanfare. The Japanese company on Thursday released a three-minute video showing off...
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