Left Behind Games, which last month announced a pilot release of its Christian-themed games in 100 Texas Wal-Mart stores, reports brisk sales of their offerings in the Lone Star state.

Stating in a bit of PR that the experiment is “progressing beyond the company’s original expectations,” a company representative claimed that about 25% of their inventory has been sold in the two weeks since the pilot started, which is operating in Houston and Dallas area stores.

CEO Try Lyndon said:

At the rate Wal-Mart inventory is moving, they will be out of games before Christmas, unless they reorder. With seven weeks remaining, and accelerated sales expected as we near the holidays, we believe test results will be favorable leading to a broader national market for Christian based PC games.

In an effort to boost sales, Left Behind Games is sending mailers to areas surrounding Wal-Mart stores that stock their games, offering to send a second free game to anyone purchasing a Left Behind title from the world’s largest retailer.

A fan of the upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was so impressed with developer DICE’s efforts to include dedicated server support in the title he sent the company a check for $60.00.

The $60.00 was sent in lieu of Eddie from New Jersey (the letter writer) using the funds to purchase Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which is opting to use a matchmaking service in place of dedicated servers for PC users. Eddie suggested to DICE that they use the funds to aid development on the upcoming game.

DICE posted a copy of the letter and check on their Battlefield website (thanks Joystiq), thanking Eddie and writing, “It's moments like this that make all the late nights and weekends of crunching to make the best game possible all worth it.”

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is due out March 2, 2010 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

In an expletive-laden rant against the music industry, rapper DMX takes time to lob a few grenades at the videogame industry as well.

Beginning by claiming that the highest-paid (music) artists get “like 26 cents off a dollar,” when it comes to CD sales, DMX turned his attention to videogames. The rapper was a character in the 2003 Electronic Arts title Def Jam Vendetta, but failed to appear in the sequels Def Jam: Fight for NY or Def Jam: Icon.

In the interview DMX said that following the success of the initial title, people came to him and said, “Yo, guess what X? We’re gonna do a part two now.” He continued, “Mind you they used my music throughout the whole ------- game and I’m the hardest character to get to, so it’s pretty much like my shit.”

DMX said the offer put forward to him consisted of a $25,000 signing bonus/advance and two cents for every game sold. The offer obviously did not amuse DMX, as he said, “$50 dollar ------- game and you’re giving me two cents? Let me think about that for a minute.”

He added, “The more I think about it, I be like these ------ are straight ------- robbing me.

The interview clip is here. Lots of swearing, so it’s probably NSFW.

The reworking of a House Bill aimed at providing incentives to attract film, television and videogame creators to Texas has resulted in a boon for videogame developers.

HB 1634 was originally passed in 2007, offering a $22.0 million pool to pull from in order to offer grants worth 5% of a project’s budget. Unfortunately, as The Austin Chronicle reports, the bill paled in comparison to the offering of other states because of tight terms and high budgetary requirements.

HB 873 was passed in April of this year, and while it featured the same name—The Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program—it featured loosened terms and leeway for rules to be reworked on the fly, already resulting in an increase in spending in the state.

While film spending within the state in the wake of the shift from HB 634 to HB 873 stagnated, videogame spending increased. The paper reports on the growth in the game sector:

Last year under HB 1634, there were 33 qualifying applicants statewide, spending $58 million and getting $2 million in grants. Under HB 873, there have already been 19 applicants, investing a total of $62 million and receiving nearly $4 million from the state.

Austin’s share of the $62.0 million dollar pie so far? $43.0 million, causing Tony Schum, Director of Economic Development for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce to state:

All the right mixture of elements are here for us to promote gaming, and these incentives are really an accelerator.

Full details of the The Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program can be found here.

As part of yesterday’s London Games Conference, Shadow Culture Minister Ed Vaizey called for sweeping proposals to aid the UK’s videogame development industry.

Vaizey cited research that indicated the UK games market could shrink by 16.5 percent over the next five years, in turn losing some 1,700 jobs. Among the reforms he called for, via MCVUK, were:

• Look at extending the remit of the Film Council to cover the video games sector to give video games the national voice they need and deserve.
• Recognise that high technology companies in the UK face specific challenges when it comes to raising finance and attracting venture capital.
• Give the sector the support it needs to succeed and expand in the global economy.
• Stimulate investment in superfast broadband, vital to the future growth of the sector, through the telecoms regulatory structure.

In a speech at the conference, Vaizey said the UK had lost 44 studios already, and risked losing its current ranking of third in the world (behind America and Japan) in terms of game development. He continued:

Global competition is incredibly fierce, and high development costs in the United Kingdom are slowly killing the industry. Given what is happening, you would expect our Government to be acting urgently. After all, many others are.  Unfortunately, the UK is falling far behind.

Vaizey stopped short of endorsing a tax-break for developers, encouraging studios to “think more widely than that,” noting that, “First things first, we need to get the public finances under control by tackling our spiralling deficit.”

So, is Vaizey a gamer?

I am not a gamer. I have just got myself a Wii. So I am getting involved. It’s been the single greatest pleasure of my job to discover and learn about an industry I knew little about before this job.

MediaCityUK, a sprawling 200-acre development in Greater Manchester, England may be the future home of a videogame development center.

As part of the Digital Britain report, the North West Regional Development Agency (NWDA) commissioned a feasibility study into such a move, proposing “a model of support which combines usability testing, applied research, internship training and public interface components in a single facility to be based at Media City” reports Crain’s Manchester Business.

While the project could begin as early as next summer, there appears to be some opposition to the project, including the “the political furore that such a move could cause in Liverpool,” home to a good number of game developers already.

Eric Hobson, CEO of developer Connect2media Ltd, expressed his feeling about the proposed project:

Having a building, whether it's in Manchester or Liverpool, isn't going to make a damn bit of difference in getting a company to stay in the UK rather than relocate abroad. What would make a difference is getting graduates through the door so they can get real experience of the industry and the industry can get experience of the graduates.

Matmi Managing Director Jeff Coghlan, whose firm makes viral games, agreed with Hobson, “The problem with our business isn't the buildings, it's with things like recruiting graduates, the educational standards and quality of graduates and tax.”

The BBC is scheduled to move five departments to MediaCityUK in 2011.

If you happen to be a thermal engineer with a specialty in low temperature, cryogenic applications and you’re feeling a little out of practice, a new interactive training simulator can get you back up to speed.

Cool-It emerged from The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Information Technology department. Users choose from a selection of jobs for the Navy or NASA—overseeing a variety of minesweepers or space depots—before being tasked with building the object so that it falls within tolerances.

The Flash-based sim is rather polished and the explosions resulting from failed engineering attempts are neat as well… trust us.

Developer 2dboy’s “Pay-What-You-Want” anniversary sale for its World of Goo videogame has been deemed a “huge success.”

Normally sold for $20 on the 2dboy website, and also offered through other services like Steam and WiiWare, the World of Goo sale resulted in some 57,000 people purchasing the game. The ability for consumers to pay what they wanted to for the title also generated an enormous amount of publicity, further benefiting sales.

2dboy’s Ron Carmel took to the company website to share a wealth of data from the special offer. The average price paid for the game was $2.03, while almost 17,000 people chose to pay a single cent and another 21,000 plus paid between 2 cents and $1.99. The next largest category was the $5.00 to $5.99 range, with over 7,300 customers. At the other end of the spectrum, 4 people chose to pay $50.00 for the game.

Sales of World of Goo also rose 40% on Steam, though the increase on the WiiWare side wasn’t as dramatic, with a 9% increase.

Once the sale was underway, 2dboy added a survey (results can be viewed here) to the checkout procedure in order to try and get a handle on why people chose to pay a certain amount. The top answer to that question was "I Like the Pay-What-You-Want Model and Wanted to Support It" with 24%. Runner up, with 21.4%, was "That’s All I Can Afford Right Now."

2dboy has extended the sale to run through Sunday, October 25.

|Via Gamasutra|

Left Behind Games Inc., a publisher of Christian-themed videogames, has secured a pilot release of its titles in 100 Wal-Mart stores in the Houston and Dallas areas.

Three games will be sold as part of a test to determine the viability of selling the titles in additional Wal-Mart locations. Left Behind Games, also known as Inspired Media Entertainment, believes that Texas is ripe for its offerings, noting that there are over 23,000 churches in Texas, with over 5.0 million Evangelical Protestants and more than 1.7 million Mainline Protestants.

CEO Troy Lyndon has high hopes for the Christian game market:

The US market for Christian video games could reach $648 Million within the next five years based upon just 3% of video game sales being in the Christian segment.

Mediacorp Canada’s 10th annual list of the Top 100 Employers in the Great White North includes two game development companies.

It should be no surprise, of course, that BioWare made the list. The Alberta-based developer made the list because of such employee-friendly perks as referral bonuses (up to $1200), free breakfasts, free on site gym (with saltwater pool), top maternity leave benefits, seven days off during the Christmas season and seven-week long paid sabbaticals for veteran employees to help them avoid burnout.

Ontario-based Digital Extremes gained a spot in the Top 100 due to tuition subsidies (up to $2500 per year), liberally granting a new employee vacation time based on past work experience and maternity benefits. The Unreal Tournament co-creator also added over 30 new positions in the past year.

Grades will be assigned to each Top 100 entrant later this month.

Thanks Goose!

A new Electronic Arts videogame testing facility located on the Louisiana State University campus has the state of Florida worried about a full-court press to lure developers to the Bayou State.

While EA was not looking to open a new testing center, reports the Orlando Sentinel, incentives signed into law earlier this year by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) were “too good to pass up.”  The facility at LSU should eventually grow to comprise 200 part-time student workers and 20 full-timers, some of who moved over from Maitland, Florida-based EA Tiburon.

Craig Hagen, EA's director of government affairs for North America, offered:

Florida is at risk of not being competitive with other states relative to these incentives programs. I understand the fiscal pressure that Florida faces, and it is a difficult thing, but they need to realize the economic incentives are what should grow the economy and turn the pressure down."

The article also notes that in order to prepare its students for jobs with developers, LSU is now offering a digital-media-based curriculum.

Backing up previous comments made about the value of including political statements in games, developer Borut Pfeifer is working on a title set amidst the riots of post-election Iran.

Pfeifer, an ex-full time Electronic Arts employee who is now developing his own games, while still working part time for EA, is attempting to fund his game’s development on the Kickstarter website. The 2D puzzle/action game aims to be a downloadable title for the PC or Xbox 360 and will feature around two hours of game play.

Pfeifer, who was one of the few developers to weigh in on the Six Days in Fallujah controversy, explained the impetus for making the game:

I’ve been really passionate about using games to explore more serious topics or themes. Most games are still about fun, diversionary topics. There’s even a lot of professional game designers who don’t think we can treat serious subjects appropriately, which I think is bullshit.

Pfeifer is aiming for $15,000 in seed money to develop the game. So far he has 30 backers and $2,107 pledged towards his goal.

Thanks to GP reader Shane for pointing us towards the story and also to DarkSaber for being another swell GP-er in general.

Our friends over at Gamasutra have developed an Expert Blogs area of their site, whereby they host guest blogs penned by game development executives on an invitation-only basis. While many of the article are, as you might imagine, technical in nature, Eric Hardman's "The Framers Were Gamers" is a very insightful and GP-relevant piece. It explores how the Founding Fathers came to consensus much like game development teams do. There are some thought-provoking parallels and comparisons worth checking out.

After months of controversy, Tim Langdell has resigned from the executive board of the International Game Developers Association, reports Develop.

Langdell, accused by some of being an abuser of the trademark process, explained his reasons for stepping down in a post on the IGDA's forum:

My great fear, then, is that this vocal minority [of critics] -- most of whom are not IGDA members -- will continue their negative attacks on the IGDA... It seems nearly certain they will continue to generate even more negative press for the IGDA... causing substantial drain on IGDA board volunteer and staff resources and time, which is not in the interests of either the IGDA or its membership...

I make this decision not because I have done anything wrong... but because I must make this decision between concluding a process that will show I did no wrong, and having that process irreparably damage the IGDA, I cannot permit the latter to happen...

Government tax breaks would create 1,400 new jobs for the UK video game industry within five years, says game developers group TIGA.

The organization, which has been fighting hard for government incentives in recent times, made its claim in a report sent to the UK's Department of Culture, Media and Sport late last week.

The document, titled Investing in the Future, lamented the loss of skilled British developers to nations in which government incentives for video game studios already exist:

Games would need to pass a cultural test, scoring against criteria of European heritage and game locations, languages, innovation, narrative, and location of development and key development staff. 44% of UK made games profiled in an exercise for the report passed...

 

With 60-80 titles benefitting per year, the tax measure would assist UK game developers without distorting the larger European game development market...

 

The Games Tax Relief is expected over 5 years to create 1,400 new jobs in the studio sector, increasing investment by games studios by 146m, direct and indirect annual tax revenues by 133m and GDP contribution by 323m. By year 5, for every 100 of investment by government in the Games Tax Relief, the industry will invest 176.

In a forward to the TIGA report, Lord Puttnam (left), Vice-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Computer and Video Games Industry, gave his strong support to the notion of a tax break:

For far too long the UK video games industry has been effectively taken for granted. To ensure the continuing success of this pre-eminently creative sector, I can only urge the Government to support TIGAs case for the introduction of a form of Games Tax Relief, as set out in this report.

UGO reports that Playlogic's upcoming Fairytale Fights has an achievement to kill 1,000 kid characters.

Sounds like a public relations nightmare in the making. It's hard to believe that anyone smart enough to design video games could be that dumb.

From the UGO story:

Fairytale Fights may be the first game that not only features the innocent murder of children, but also an achievement to reward it.

After speaking with Playlogic last week, it sounds like the achievement's on the chopping block waiting for the axe to fall, but the children and the you killing them parts, those will definitely be served in the final dish...

Playlogic producer Poria Torkan told UGO that the company does have some concerns about the achievement. The game is scheduled to release on PS3 and Xbox 360. We wonder if Sony and MS will have concerns about licensing it with the dead kids achievement.

Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli seems determined to find a new base of operations if the German Bundestat passes a ban on the production and distribution of violent games next month. Crytek's games, of course, include the first-person shooter franchises Far Cry and Crysis.

Joystiq reports that Yerli made his comments while delivering the keynote address at GDC Europe in Cologne:

[This proposed ban] means that Crytek will be literally forced out of the country... If you move a company, you think of it as: let's move the company strategically, so we get more benefit out of this country. But moving it because a law comes in is too reactive for us. We're not thinking of moving unless the law happens.

As GamePolitics reported, Yerli made similar remarks earlier this month.

The Tim Langdell saga continues...

By now, most readers are familiar with the controversy surrounding IGDA board member Tim Langdell, considered by many to be an abuser of the trademark process.

Perhaps the most frequently-heard complaint against Langdell is that in May of this year he persuaded Apple to remove the best-selling iPhone game EDGE from the App Store by claiming that the MobiGames title violated his trademark on the word "edge."

In the interim a movement to oust him from the IGDA board has taken hold, with more than 2,000 members of the group signing a petition to that effect.

Langdell has now fired back, disputing various allegations in an open letter to MobiGames and posting the text of various e-mails.

Pocket Gamer UK, however, has news of a response from MobiGames. There is a good deal of finger-pointing from both sides and it sounds as if this one will need to be worked out before a judge.

Partially Via: Kotaku

Yesterday, GamePolitics reported on Risen, the latest game to fall victim to Australia's outdated content rating system. The RPG, currently in development by Piranha Bytes, was refused classification for the Australian market, largely because Down Under lacks the equivalent of the ESRB's M (17+) rating.

The situation frustrates Tom Crago, who heads the Game Developers Association of Australia. Crago spoke to itwire about his concerns:

Well it’s a joke isn’t it?  We are once again caught in this awful, ridiculous web of the antiquated classification system...  Here in Australia the sooner that changes, the better; it is obviously a battle to ensure common sense prevails.  We will get there eventually, but in the meantime as gamers in Australia we suffer, and to be honest we are embarrassed at how backward our government is...

The biggest problem we have here in Australia is that we don’t have an R classification for video games...  It’s ridiculous because it assumes that games are fundamentally different to film and outrageous in that it assumes that adults shouldn’t be allowed to access adult content in video games... 

We are the butt of a lot of jokes; I travel, obviously a lot, talking to other developers and publishers and people cannot believe it that we still have this ridiculous system here in Australia, designed twenty or thirty years ago, and hasn’t changed since...

[South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson] is of course the problem... clearly this is a guy that doesn’t get it, and to be honest, I don’t think, ever will get it...

The Federal Communications Commission is holding a series of public workshops this month regarding the development of a National Broadband Plan.

Steve Augustino, a Washington, D.C. attorney who specializes in communications issues relating to video games, believes that the game biz needs to make its voice heard at these events. He offers advice to various game industry segments in his latest column for Gamasutra:

For mobile game developers, Augustino suggests:

I would tell the FCC the explosion of the Apple iPhone shows that quality devices can and will drive adoption and use of mobile broadband services.  I would add that six of the top paid iPhone applications for 2008 were games... I would tell them that mobile games also are popular on "feature phones," although the "walled garden" effect hinders their growth...

 

There is a need to improve the consumer experience in finding, downloading and buying mobile games.  Users should have the right and ability to access mobile games from the provider of their choice...

For PC game developers, Augustino's focus is a bit different:

I would [remind the FCC] that PC gaming has played a significant part in both the advancement of computing capabilities and in adoption of broadband by consumers...  Gaming is the ultimate social experience, whether one plays Texas Hold 'Em, Farmville, Diner Dash or World of Warcraft...

We expect to see more of in-game voice, video and other communications technologies as broadband capabilities increase...

For game industry organizations, venture capital firms or major game publishers, Augustino suggests:

The [FCC] should consider the potential effects of broadband in expanding the market for interactive entertainment, venture backing of content creators and the game development job markets in this country... more broadband is good for the entertainment industry...

I would discuss the rise of "serious" games and describe the many ways in which game technology is used by businesses, hospitals, government and others for these purposes.  I also would discuss the efforts of non-profit groups to increase the use of interactive media to educate children.  Games offer a new frontier of possibilities in these fields...