Posts tagged mmo-industry 
RIFT in China: 'Biggest game deal ever' for a Western MMO
How big is RIFT? Big enough to attract one of China's heavyweight MMO houses, apparently. Trion has announced a partnership with publishing giant Shanda that will bring RIFT to the Chinese gaming market, and CEO Lars Buttler tells Gamasutra that expanding the game's global reach is only the ...
Lineage II boasts increased revenue and playerbase following free-to-play transition
It's been a little over two months now since NCsoft's Lineage II adopted a free-to-play business model that the studio has taken to calling "Truly Free." It would appear the transition went over well for the long-running title, as a new press release boasts that since the change, "[the game] ...
Bill Roper named Disney Interactive head of game development
Bill Roper's been flying under the radar since leaving Cryptic Studios in 2010. He briefly surfaced as VP of the Marvel Franchise division of Disney Interactive Media Group last summer, and he's now stepping into the role of head of game development. Roper replaces Alex Seropian, who helped ...
ChangYou reports record profits for the year
If you live in China and play online, you know the name ChangYou. The company is a bit less well-known over in the US, but it's still made a name for itself with quirky titles like Zentia and Duke of Mount Deer. It's also apparently making a massive amount of money. According to the company's ...
EVE Evolved: The benefits of a subscription
In last week's EVE Evolved opinion piece, I tackled the question of whether it would be possible to make EVE Online free-to-play and then devised a viable hybrid freemium business model based on other apparently successful free-to-play conversions. While this was largely a thought experiment ...
TERA's EU sneak peek weekend canceled due to unknown technical fault
Upcoming fantasy MMO TERA has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons, from controversial IP blocking to NCSoft's ongoing lawsuit against developers En Masse Entertainment. Today we add another story to the growing list of problems plaguing TERA as its European sneak peek weekend has ...
Study links MMOs to 'problem' game-playing
Despite the fact that video game addiction lacks both a definition and a diagnosis, "researchers around the world continue to investigate methods of determining, treating, and preventing" it, according to Gamespot. The American Psychiatric Association recently rejected a movement to ...
Ask Massively: Thieving on the fast track edition
One of our readers was kind enough to point us to two sites that, once again, were stealing our posts without crediting our authors or anything like that. (I don't mean "this post looks suspiciously similar"; I mean abusing copy and paste.) Unfortunately, while we're aware of these things, ...
Subscriber numbers lead to a new hope for Electronic Arts stock
It's official: As of yesterday, Star Wars: The Old Republic has 1.7 million active subscribers and has sold 2 million copies. That's good news for fans of the game, but it's also good news for both BioWare and Electronic Arts. Apparently, it's seen as very good news for Electronic Arts, as the ...
The Daily Grind: Could you make your own MMO for $30 million?
Massively gets a certain amount of grief for writing news stories about Richard Garriott. While it's true that he hasn't made a major contribution to the MMO industry since the 1990s, it's also true that he's something of a touchstone when it comes to geekery and ambition. If a guy can go from ...
