ScottishGames.biz

New Management At Realtime

As the development process for the ultra-secret APB project rumbles ever-onwards, Realtime Worlds, now officially Scotland's most secretive company (now we have a new mole within the R* apparatus), today announced the appointment of two new senior managers.  Brian Ullrich becomes the company's director of development and Robert Rice is the new Vice-President of Online Operations.

From the official press release:

Brian Ullrich, who joins Realtime Worlds from Electronic Arts, will report directly to RTW CEO David Jones.  Brian and will take charge of development, ensuring that RTW titles are developed in the most efficient and productive manner whilst continuing to be cutting-edge and of extremely high quality.

Brian has 20 years experience in games, having held senior positions at Nintendo, Software Creations, DMA Design, VR-1, LithTech, Microsoft, and Electronic Arts.

Rob Rice joins RTW from NCsoft where he was Director of Network and Security Operations. Rob’s Operational responsibilities spanned the US and Europe supporting all of NCsoft’s data centres and development studios.  As VP of Online Operations Rob is responsible for leading the Operations team supporting RTW’s data and game operations centres, billing and customer support.

Prior to Rob’s position at NCsoft he was at Broadwing Communications where he held multiple positions on the operations team ranging from senior technical roles to managing the Internet Network Operations Centre supporting all IP customers for Broadwing.

CEO and Creative Director David Jones said of the appointments “We’re delighted to have individuals of such high calibre come on board. Their wealth of experience will be invaluable in continuing the company’s success and of achieving the ambitious goals we have for the next few years.”

There's more and more news and info slipping out about APB as time goes on.  We're already planning to go an press our noses against the front door and report back on the comings and goings, deliveries and dispatches, so whatever happens, you'll find it here first (ish).

APB - BRILLIANT!

Just a quick note to say that we think APB is awesome.  We love the game, we love Realtime Worlds.  We've supported them, like FOREVER - and we plan to write lots and lots and lots of nice things about everything to do with the game.

UPDATE: No, seriously.

 

RTW MMO APB - New Community Manager

In an unprecedented move, Dundee's Realtime Worlds has issued some actual news about an actual game this morning.  The company announced that Chris 'Ulric' Dye has joined the company as APB's official community manager.

(on a separate note, how do you get the an official 'middle' name?  Is it awarded by the Internet people, or can you just pick one?)

No word on Mr Ulric's previous position, but a quick Google indicates he's a former Codemaster, who's worked as community manager for RF Online.

Mario Rizzo, RTW's Business Development Manager (who seems to have no official 'middle'  name) says:

“This appointment signals the start of a new phase for APB where we can interact more fluidly with both gaming sites, and our potential future player base. This is an important milestone for the game now that we are transitioning into Alpha and moving towards the full public beta of APB.”

We're not sure if this means we can expect a flood of information, answers and fascinating media articles in the near future, but we'll be keeping an eye on things and of course, reporting back here as soon as any new information.

In the meantime, we'd like to extend a warm SG.biz welcome to Ulric and we'll be probing him gently about the middle name thing as soon as we get a chance.

RTW Buys Back APB

A full four minutes before the approved releases time (not counting the time it takes to type this), we can reveal that RTW has already started putting it's new funding to good use.

The company has bought back the global distribution rights for APB from Korean publisher WebZen.

Develop and MCV were first off their marks, but we feel that a national exclusive in Scotland is nearly as good.

Details are still to emerge, but we'll be sure to post any further news and information as it appears...

RTW Confirms $50M Investment

It's now official.  The press release is going out even as we speak.  Realtime is now the proud owner of second round funding...

Congratulations to the company and we look forward to them buying us drinks sometime soon.

Capital from Maverick, NEA and WPP Positions Leading Game Developer for Accelerated Growth and Innovation

DUNDEE, Scotland, UK and BOULDER, Colo. – April 14, 2008 – Realtime Worlds, a leading independent video game developer, today announced that it has raised $50 million USD in Series B funding.  Maverick Capital, the renowned investment firm founded by Lee Ainslie, led the new investment round with existing investor New Enterprise Associates and WPP, a world leader in marketing communications services.  The Series B investment will support Realtime Worlds’ continued growth and expansion as the company develops new creative properties and brings innovative online gaming experiences to market.

            “Securing funding of this size from partners that are leading the financial and marketing communications industries further affirms Realtime Worlds’ position as one of the most creative, respected and successful game development companies in the world,” said David Jones, founder and CEO, Realtime Worlds.  “Since our founding, we have been fortunate to have some of the gaming industry’s top creative talent crafting amazing, groundbreaking interactive entertainment products.  With this new infusion of capital, Realtime Worlds is poised to deliver new original experiences to gamers around the globe and to push the boundaries of online gaming.”

Realtime Worlds Secures $50M In New Round Of Funding

There's nothing like a quiet Monday back in the office...  To kick things off with a fairly large BANG, several websites are reporting that Realtime Worlds has completed it's third round of institutional funding.

The amount being reported is a cool $50M.  This time round the money has come from Maverick Capital, with Montgomery & Company acting as advisors.

Realtime World's raised it's first round of funding  back in 2004, with $1.7M coming from CIM.  In late 2006, New Enterprise Associates came up with £31M - which was one of the biggest single investments in a game developer worldwide. 

Both NEA and Maverick are known for investments into online and Internet companies, rather than traditional game developers.  Realtime's focus on online and connected gaming and MMO's may well be the hook for these investors, as RTW straddles the line between the online social networks and communities and massively multiplayer games.

This new investment will allow the company to proceed with development of the hotly-tipped APB game, which Dave Jones unveiled at February's Game Developer Conference.

The company dropped a few more tantalising hints about the title at Saturday's Game In Scotland event (the RTW presentation was packed to the rafters with people wanting to find out more) but is remaining tight-lipped with the press about any previews.

Dave Jones At GDC - My First MMO

One of the most highly anticipated sessions on offer at this year's Game Developer Conference, was undoubtedly Dave Jones' highly rare presentation on 'My First MMO', based around Realtime's forthcoming APB title.

Gamespot and Next Generation have both so far picked up on the session and have run summaries of it.  Gamespot's is more extensive and gives far more detail on the thinking behind the game and the company's plans to avoid the pitfalls and 'grind' of many of the current MMOG's.

While we'd normally content ourselves with the above links, we're going to run the first few para's of the Gamespot piece because it's a fascinating insight into a company we don't hear too much from (try as we might...)

SAN FRANCISCO--"WTF is an MMO anyway?"

That was the question that kicked off Realtime Worlds CEO Dave Jones' session at this year's Game Developers Conference titled "My First MMO." Jones--who is credited as the creator of Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto, the original Lemmings, and 2007's Crackdown--set out to answer this question first when preparing for his company's debut massively multiplayer game APB, which is currently slated to arrive on the PC and Xbox 360 later this year.

For Jones, the industry is facing an identity crisis over the term MMOG, primarily due to its association with role-playing fantasy games such as Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft. "If you say MMO, immediately you think you're going up against WOW." However, he believes the RPG route isn't the way to go anymore. He also believes that the term massively is a bit of a misnomer, since 90 percent of the time in MMOGs these days only 5 to 25 players are playing together due to the prevalence of instancing. To get back to basics, Jones says that his game from now on will simply be called a MOG--"Multiplayer Online Game."

Online play is what Jones calls the "nirvana" of the industry, citing examples of Halo, Command & Conquer, Doom, Call of Duty, or Gears of War as really taking on new life when played with others. These games, Jones continued, don't have the social stigma associated with traditional MMORPGs such as WOW. Eliciting many a concurring response from the crowd, Jones said that people get a far different response soliciting a friend to blast people away in Call of Duty online than inviting someone to go raiding in WOW.

However, MMORPGs aren't without virtue for Jones. The game designer specifically calls out a number of hallmark features of traditional MMOGs, including persistent worlds, passionate communities, social interaction, long-term aspirations, and longevity. For Jones, though, the most exciting part of MMOGs is the dedicated servers, and it is these that really define the MOG genre, even though they present a variety of technological challenges. Concluding his query of the nature of MMOs, Jones says alters his question from "If you as a designer or team were given a blank sheet of paper and tasked with designing an MMO, what would it look like?" to "If you could have dedicated servers behind your game, how would you embrace them?"

You can carry on reading the rest of the piece here.

Crackdown Picks Up 'Best Debut' Award At GDC

Realtime Worlds has another reason to celebrate this morning (apart from just being generally fabulous, having a lovely office and everyone liking them).  The 8th annual Game Developers Choice Awards were dished out in San Francisco last night, as part of the overall GDC event - which you may have noticed is running this week.

The vast majority of the awards were split between Portal and Bioshock, with Portal picking up the coveted Game Of The Year.  However Crackdown swooped in to pick up the Debut Award (from a delighted Tom Selleck) beating off the likes of flOw, The Witcher, Everyday Shooter and Aquaria.

Congratulations to everyone at Realtime for another well deserved gong.  Rumours that the company is moving into new premises soon, just to accommodate their accolades were hotly denied by Scottish Enterprise.

Realtime Bags Big Bang Gong

STOP PRESS!  ANOTHER (POSSIBLE) WORLD EXCLUSIVE...

Realtime Worlds beat the stuffing out of Motorstorm, Halo 3 and Flatout Ultimate Carnage to walk off with the Way Of The Rodent BESTEST EXPLOSIONS Award last night.

More, oh so much more than a delight in blowing the crap out of things, the award is more of a recognition of the deep joy and imaginative power in actually reshaping the world around you and re-examining the player's relationship with the physical - albeit virtual environment which contains and constrains them while simultaneously empowering and actuallising their presence.

Or some such.

Realtime's James Cope took the time to tell us his feelings about kicking sand in Masterchief's face and finally laying to rest the doubts people had when they heard about the Halo 3 Beta signup in the initial run of Crackdown...

It’s great to be nominated in a set of awards that puts so much value in the player experience. That we managed to pull these nominations alongside brilliant and esteemed opposition not only underlines what a great year for games it’s been but is reward for us to be considered in the same league. We had tonnes of confidence in Crackdown’s potential and now, almost one year from launch, we’re really happy to know all the effort was worth the smiles on our fans’ faces.

While we were unable to attend the festivities personally and have been unable to reach the WOTR team for the rest of the winners - here's an artist's rendering of Realtime Worlds supremo Dave Jones picking up the award from new TIGA boss Richard Wilson...

'Nother Nomination - Crackdown Up For Rodent Gong

It's awards season.  All over the country developers and games-related companies are clearing space on board room tables and window sills, hoping that they might be the ones who walk away with the [coveted/closely-fought/prized] trophy.

Tonight in central London Dynamo Games and Denki are both up for awards in the 2008 TIGA ceremony.  (Did YOU remember to vote?)

However this morning we discovered that Realtime Worlds is up for another couple of prestigious gongs, this time courtesy of gaming website Way Of The Rodent.

The game is up for two awards -

The Bestest Explosions - 'For the visceral joy of exploding pretend stuff in videogames'

and

Game Of The Year - Yes, of the year.  Alongside nominees like Super Mario Galaxy, Portal, Bioshock and Halo 3, Crackdown is nominated for "breaking the rules and setting us free".

The actual hardware will be handed out at a glittering 'game-celebra-drink-a-thon', which takes place in a 'top London pub' on the 31st of Jan (i.e. tomorrow).

Unlike previous year's where the idea was to drink as much as possible and then leave before the landlord noticed, this year's bash has a real corporate sponsor.  Yes, WOTR has sold out to the man and will shill for hard cash. 

(This is of course sour grapes, since we've never had anyone offer us money.  Apart from a man outside the Overgate car park.  We ran away.) 

The lads at Deep Silver ('Koch Media's premium publishing outfit') are also the people with Deep Pockets, so the rumours of nibbles and bowls of crisps sound plausible.

Tickets are FREE and available here.

The very best of luck to Realtime.  We'll bring you the results as soon as they're announced (after lunch time on the 1st we'd reckon)