Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Angry Birds, Dragon Quest, FIFA Soccer, and Silent Hill are the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- BAFTA Games Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today
- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books to Get a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- We Pitched a Museum a 1993 Game Hint Line (And They Actually Said Yes) – Yarn Spinner (2026)
- The History Of The Word “Metroidvania” And How It Spread – A Critical Hit (2025)
- Creator of Hit Game Shovel Knight Is at a ‘Make or Break’ Moment – Bloomberg (2025)
Most Recent: Articles
Atari’s plan includes catering to “LGBT, social casinos, real-money gambling, and YouTube”
Atari is the company that brought Pong and Asteroids to our living room… and brought countless numbers of cartridges of E.T. to New Mexico. The company currently known as Atari recently underwent some financial problems, but they’ve announced that they’ll be focusing on a new corporate strategy, one that involves “reaching out to new audiences – including LGBT, social casinos, real-money gambling, and YouTube with exclusive video content.”
What does that even mean? Well, Chief Executive Officer of Atari, Fred Chesnais, said, “Atari is more than a game publishing company; it’s an iconic brand that has established a passionate and timeless culture… Known across multiple generations around the world, Atari will continue to embrace all audiences. What the company has accomplished over the years is no small feat, but there is more to come. We’re looking forward to delivering on our new strategy and engaging with our audience in new ways across multiple channels as the next era of Atari unfolds. We are leading a rebuilding exercise in a highly volatile industry, so at the same time we are also aware of the challenges that lay ahead.”
The company plans to move to PC and mobile as well as “other digital mediums.” They also plan to continue with hardware licensing, “gamified hardware, and wearable devices.” Does this mean Atari games coming to Oculus Rift – via Facebook? Do you start with more lives if you have more Facebook friends? This is exciting.
Weekly Warp-Up: 2014 Post-E3 Blues Edition
No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…
During the E3 Expo, publishers showcase their upcoming wares and get gamers the world over excited for titles that might be more than a year away. And as with any major news dump like that, the week after is bound to be a little bare when it comes to exciting announcements.
But your ever present Warp Zoned writers are here to help. On Monday, Editor-In-Chief John Scalzo weighed in on Mario Kart 8 with a full review. On Wednesday, the staff compiled a list of as many upcoming games as we could think of. The result was a 2014/2015 (and Beyond) Release Calendar With 400 Video Games. The staff got together again the next day to post our “Continue Countdown E3 2014 Super Show.” And finally, Dan Hobbs pored over his E3 notes and came up with 7 Games You Missed At E3 2014.
What else happened this week? Not much, but you can find it all after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
Shigeru Miyamoto wants to bring Minecraft to 3DS, Wii U
Minecraft, the blocky Swedish sandbox hit available on pretty much every platform except those bearing the Nintendo brand, is a title the House of N could certainly use to further the booming sales that followed from the launch of Mario Kart 8. Even its creator, Markus “Notch” Persson, thinks that the Wii U is an ideal platform for the game, tweeting in December that “a Wii U version makes sense.”
When Stephen Totilo caught up with Shigeru Miyamoto and Shinya Takahashi at this year’s E3 Expo, the Kotaku writer wanted to ask them about it. Miyamoto revealed he had not played Minecraft, but was aware of the game and likened it to Nintendo’s newly announced Mario Maker. It was Takahashi, General Manager of Nintendo’s Software Planning & Development department, that offered a more positive quote for those hoping the game may still wind its way onto the Wii U:
We’ve always thought internally that using the GamePad would probably make for a Minecraft that’s very easy to play. And, of course, if we were to do something with Minecraft on the 3DS, similarly we would probably do it where it would be easier to play and could probably reach a lot of kids.
However, grounding expectations, Takahasi said that the game is not as popular in Nintendo’s native Japan as it is in the US or Europe. Yet, when pushed on the subject, it was Miyamoto who had the last word: “Maybe we’re meeting with them! Who knows?”
Was Nintendo’s most famous developer joking, or could Nintendo be meeting with Mojang to help bring their seminal title to Wii U and 3DS? Hopefully we will find out soon.
Legendary Pictures will develop a Dead Rising movie for Sony’s Crackle service
Legendary Pictures, the film company behind Man of Steel, Godzilla, and the long-gestating adaptation of BioWare’s Mass Effect, has picked up the rights to develop a film based on Capcom’s zombie smasher Dead Rising. However, rather than aiming for the silver screen, the project is the first to emerge from Legendary’s Digital Media division. The company is working with producers Tomas Harlan and Tim Carter of Contradiction Films, who were previously responsible Mortal Kombat: Legacy. Carter will also write the screenplay, although there is no word on a director just yet.
The film will initially be distributed via Sony’s Crackle streaming service in North America, while Content Media Corp. has snagged the international distribution rights. Content Media also released Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn and is distributing the much-anticipated Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist oh home video formats. Tom Lesinski, President of Content and Distribution at Legendary Digital Media, spoke highly of both companies, as well as the source material:
Dead Rising has a built-in fan base and rich characters and plotlines that are ideal for digital storytelling and on target for Legendary’s brand. Crackle and Content are adept at distributing cutting-edge digital content and we look forward to delivering a highly engaging and cool series for a global audience.
After its run on Crackle, the Dead Rising film will be released on DVD and become available to download through On Demand services.
[Source: Variety]
Posted in Etcetera, News
Tagged Dead Rising: Watchtower
European gamers prefer watching the World Cup to playing TitanFall
Here's a fun look at #Titanfall player count on European servers during World Cup matches today: pic.twitter.com/xnV0FQVIED
— Respawn (@Respawn) June 19, 2014
Respawn Entertainment has effectively proved what everyone on this side of the Atlantic knows to be true: when football [Ed. Note: soccer] is on, everyone’s eyes are focused on the beautiful game, and not playing with others. The company has released a graph showing the number of players on TitanFall‘s European servers during two recent World Cup games. The more interesting observation is that there was only a slight drop during the Colombia vs Ivory Coast match, which started at 5:00 PM GMT, yet over one third of players dropped off to watch Uruguay smash England 2-1 at 8:00 PM GMT. In the latter game, players can also be seen returning to TitanFall for a brief game during the 15-minute halftime break. Clearly the mid-match commentary was not riveting enough.
Publisher EA will be happy either way, seeing as they also produce the FIFA series of games.
New Releases: Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark, Grid: Autosport, Xblaze, More
Believe it or not, a good variety of new games will be available on store shelves this week.
We start things off with Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark, which will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. High Moon Studios originated the War For/Fall of Cybertron series of Transformers game, but they’re out for Rise of the Dark Spark as development duties were given to Edge of Reality by Activision. A handheld companion to Rise of the Dark Spark, developed by WayForward, will also make its way to the 3DS this week. And if you’d prefer your cars to be non-transforming, Codemasters will release Grid: Autosport for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 this week.
Also available this week is Xblaze: Code Embryo, a PS3 and Vita “visual novel” spinoff of Arc System Works’ popular BlazBlue fighting series.
A complete list of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Daily Scoop: June 20, 2014 – Saga
If you like Space Operas even the slightest, you should definitely check out the comic book series Saga. I am finally caught up on it – I bought the third volume and promised myself I’d read it when I was done school – and wow, it is incredible. I wish they would make a video game out of it – the universe is so rich and I would love to explore it on my own. There’s just so much out there!
Speaking of so much being out there, the Steam Summer Sale is still going strong. You can get State of Decay for $4.99, Plague Inc: Evolved for $10.04, and The Walking Dead: Season 2 for $12.49, among many other sales. If that’s not enough, the Humble Store is offering up Thief for $14.99, The Novelist for $7.49, and Papo & Yo for $3.74. Scoop ’em up!
Let’s end this week with a fantastic lineup of t-shirts!
Posted in Daily Scoop, Etcetera, News