Jetsetter: FIFA players vie for Scottish soccer team manager’s job

In Jetsetter for the week ending Oct. 27, FIFA players jockey to become replace the Dunbarton Sons football team manager spot in Scotland, Italy's first video game museum opens in Rome, and Indiagames loses its chief after Disney acquisition.

One would think that thanks to the Internet, memes, trends, and brands would be global experiences all the time. We assume that because “Gangam Style” got huge in Korea, then huge in the United States, that it’s also huge in Estonia. The World Wide Web may extend its tendrils into every inch of the world, but culture is still regional. Video games demonstrate it nicely. Sailor Moon hasn’t been big in Japan or the US since the 1990s, but Italy’s so enamored with the evil fighting schoolgirls that it released a Sailor Moon DS game just last year. That’s why there’s Jetsetter.

Welcome back to Jetsetter, Digital Trends’ weekly column looking at the international world of video games. People in the US like their Madden NFL and Call of Duty. You already know that. But do you know about the German development house still making Neo-Geo games? We’ve got your back.

* 75% of applications for Scottish soccer team manager job are from FIFA players.

It’s kind of like The Last Starfighter, but with hooliganism and football instead of aliens! The Dumbarton Sons, a Scottish soccer team, recently fired its manager Alan Adamson. Sons chief exectuive Gilbert Lawrie told The Daily Mail that many people have already applied for the job, but the majority of them only have management experience in EA’s hugely popular FIFA games. “I can tell you I’ve had dozens and dozens of applications and it takes a while to sift through the CVs of people who have won the Champions League on FIFA 12. Probably 75 percent of the applications so far are from people who taken a team from a low ebb to great heights on a computer screen, which is a great achievement for them but perhaps not what we are looking for at this time.” Back to Xbox Live with the lot of you!

* Video game museum opens in Italy.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do and celebrate video game history by visiting Vigamus, Italy’s newest gaming museum. The museum opened for business just one week ago on Oct. 20. “We have problems here recognizing the cultural and artistic value of games,” Vigamus director Marco Accordi Rackards told Edge, “In Italy we don’t have a very solid industry, as developers; we have a strong market, but that doesn’t help very much because people think of video games just as toys—something you buy, sell, promote, not a cultural industry where you create. We want to push the cultural value of video games, to educate those familiar with games and those who aren’t.”

 

* Managing Director of Disney India’s interactive division resigns.

Disney’s been bulking up its video game development in India, acquiring Indiagames and its shareholder UTV back in March. While Disney brought many of the developers and executives at those companies into the newly formed Disney UTV Digital, an exodus of employees are is starting within the company. Medianama reported this week that Disney UTV managing director Samir Bangara, one of the chief architects of Indiagames, has resigned. More are expected to follow his lead. For anyone in the west unfamiliar, Indiagames is that nation’s equivalent of Ubisoft subsidiary Gameloft, pumping out a number of popular iPhone and iPad titles like its series Cricket Fever.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Jetsetter: Chronicles of Riddick studio Starbreeze debuts its first original game

In Jetsetter this week, Starbreeze unveils its first original, Dragon Quest X disappoints, and Jump Games moves beyond India's borders.

Welcome back again to Jetsetter, Digital Trends’ weekly look at the international world of video games. 

It was a busy week in the video game world abroad. Reports out of Korea suggested that that country’s big publishers Nexon and NCSoft were looking to purchase Valve; in Japan, it looked like Konami was going to stop farming Silent Hill out to European developers and give it to its premiere Japanese creator Hideo Kojima instead; and in Britain, Revolution Games greenlighted development on Beneath a Steal Sky 2. That’s not all that’s been going on beyond our borders though, as Jetsetter can attest.

* Starbreeze announces Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. 

At the beginning of September, Jetsetter reported that Swedish developer Starbreeze had signed a two-game deal with publisher 505 Games. The first title would be Payday 2, a sequel to Overkill Software’s multiplayer shooter. The other game though was more mysterious. All Starbreeze announced was a codename for the game, “P13,” and it said the game would be a collaboration with filmmaker Josef Fares. P13 debuted on Thursday as Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, a lush looking downloadable for PC, Xbox Live Arcade, and PlayStation Network. The story follows the titular boys as the try to find a cure for their dying father. As you can see from the image above, Starbreeze’s very first original game is quite a looker.

* Dragon Quest X nets 300,000 subscribers.

Japanese MMO culture is peculiar. While online role-playing games like Final Fantasy XI are played in the country, they’re far less popular than multiplayer RPGs like Monster Hunter played on portable devices but over local wireless connections rather than online. How popular are local multiplayer RPGs? Square-Enix sold 4.3 million copies of the multiplayer Dragon Quest IX for Nintendo DS within six months of its release. The company released the first fully online entry in the series, Dragon Quest X, this summer on Nintendo Wii. Not great, comparatively. According to Nihon Securities Journal (via Siliconera), there are only 300,000 Dragon Quest X subscribers paying the $13 per month fee to play. If Dragon Quest can’t get Japanese citizens playing MMORPGs in the millions, nothing can.

* Jump Games expanding to either Canada and Singapore.

Indian mobile game developer Jump Games—a purveyor of numerous movie tie-in games for iOS like Total Recall and Real Steel—is opening new studios in Singapore and Canada. “We’re clear that we need to have a studio outside India,” Manish Agarwal told MCV. Agarwal is the CEO of Reliance Entertainment, the parent company of Jump Games. “We’re looking at exploring the talent pool in either Singapore or Canada by opening a studio there because it’s going to take time for the local talent to develop.”

This is Jetsetter’s second week at its new Saturday slot. Any suggestions for the column? Drop us a note in the comments. You can also follow me on Twitter at @ajohnagnello.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Jetsetter: More Kingdom Hearts for Japan, less ArmA III for Iran

In Jetsetter for the week ending Sept. 22, Japan gets another exclusive Kingdom Hearts series and ArmA III gets smacked down in Iran,

It’s time to make like Boutros Boutros Ghali with a Game Boy, because Jetsetter is coming at you! That’s right, it’s Digital Trends weekly look at the wide world of video games beyond the borders of the United States. North America may represent the biggest video game market and development community there is, but there are untold riches in the other 193 countries beyond Canada, Mexico, and the US. We write about those neighbors too, though. Come on; BioWare’s in Canada, so we’ve got to!

If you’ve got a hot tip from your nick of the woods, let us know about it in the comments. Particularly if you’re in Estonia, because that place has got to have some sweet games. You can also follow yours truly on Twitter at @ajohnagnello.

* Square-Enix announces Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD ReMIX at Tokyo Game Show.

Square is re-releasing the original Kingdom Hearts from 2002 yet again. The publisher announced at the Tokyo Game Show a brand new compilation for PlayStation 3 that includes HD remasters of Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories from the PlayStation 2, as well as all of the cutscenes from Nintendo DS game Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. Why aren’t Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Final Mix and Kingdom Hearts: Re:Coded included? Because what else will Square sell in the next package? This one is only announced for Japan and it may well stay there, as the aforementioned Final Mix releases have never left that country.

* ArmA 3 banned in Iran.

There aren’t many games that you can play legally in Iran at the moment. Trade sanctions on the country are keeping Iranian players locked out of MMOs like World of Warcraft, and that’s in addition to games banned by that country’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Want to play Assassin’s Creed III or Call of Duty: Black Ops II? Too bad because they engage in the “promotion of superstition and mythology.” You can add Bohemia Interactive’s ArmA III to that list as well. Since the military simulator depicts NATO forces repelling an invasion of Greek islands by the Iranian Armed Forces, the National Foundation of Computer Games in Iran has banned the game before it’s even out in stores.

* India gets new 12GB flash drive and 500GB PS3 models.

While Sony hasn’t announced prices for its new console models in India, it did confirm that the country is on the shortlist of those that will receive its new budget flash drive model. When Sony announced the details of the new PS3 at the Tokyo Game Show, only Australia, Europe, and Hong Kong were confirmed as markets for the 12GB flash drive PS3. MCV India reported on Thursday that India would also get access to the model. The 500GB console will also be available as part of a bundle. The 250GB model available elsewhere is getting the cold shoulder though.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com