The worldwide economic crisis has hit the island nation of Iceland particularly hard. The banking system and Iceland’s own currency, have collapsed. One victim of this could be the otherwise successful game developer CCP, the creators of the popular space based MMO EVE Online.
The UK based web site The Guardian has an overall look at Iceland’s issues with a mention of CCP’s problems as well. According to CCP team member Eyjolfur Gudmundsson states, “he present currency restrictions are putting us in a straitjacket. We are in talks with the government, but if we can’t let capital in, we might be compelled to leave Iceland, even though this would be against our wishes.” CCP does have offices in Atlanta and China as well so a move out of Iceland, while painful, could be done.
GMAC – and ergo General Motors – just got another Christmas present: the Federal Reserve has granted GMAC bank holding status. GMAC has billions of dollars of bonds coming due over the next 12 months, but doesn’t have the liquidity to cover the obligations. As of last week, the financing company was in the midst of a bond buyback effort in order to raise enough money to qualify for bank holding status. Now that it’s been granted, GMAC can tap the Troubled Asset Relief Fund intended for financial institutions, pay its debts and (probably) avoid bankruptcy.
It isn’t clear, however, whether or not GMAC actually raised enough money through the bond buyback. The Fed said “emergency conditions” justified its actions, which makes us think the Fed just said “Here, take it.” Looked at from a dealer perspective, it makes sense: if GMAC had gone under, one dealer estimated that it would have taken 30-40% of GM dealers down with it, and that could imperil GM itself. It wouldn’t make much sense to let that happen when the government just loaned GM a bunch of money to stay in business.
And while GM is still a long, long way from getting the kind of money that any number of banks have, it’s still beginning to add up. As a result of the new status, both GM and Cerberus are required to lower their stakes in GMAC. Cerberus has been told to lower its share to 33%, down from 51%; GM has said it will go below 10%. As for Cerberus’ other headache, Chrysler Financial, it has said that if dealers don’t stop making a run on its funds, it will cease financing for dealer inventories.
On March 13, 2009, Resident Evil 5 runs into stores with modern zombie swiftness. Being that the latest installment is the first time the franchise has ever hit the Xbox platform, X-heads are more than a little excited. Need a primer for some of the Resident Evil story? GameTrailers has released the Survivor Retrospective, a spoiler-rich look back at the adventures of fan-favorite characters Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield.
Well, we know of a certain gaming blog whose readers are inundated with pure, unfiltered holiday cheer — by an overwhelming margin, Brawl in the Family’s How the King Stole Christmas (Part Deux) took top honors in the latest webcomic wrapup. Inspired by the newcomer’s success, we’ve received numerous tips that other webcomics are getting in on the Seuss action. We can’t wait for Penny-Arcade’s upcoming irreverant adaptation, “The Fruit-Violating Robot in the Hat”.
Second and third place went to Dueling Analogs’ Acquired Talents and Monday Night Crew’s Wii Fat, respectively. Thanks to everyone who voted — make sure you let us know what comics should go in the next time-honored webcomic revue (yes, we were joking about all the Marmaduke). Also, voice your opinion on our gallery of logos! Being sans insignia makes us feel so exposed.
It’s no secret that the game we are most looking forward to playing someday (maybe in 2009?) is Blizzard’s sci-fi RTS sequel StarCraft II. Gamespy has now posted up a new Q&A with the game’s lead designer Dustin Browder. In the chat, Browder reveals, among other things, that StarCraft II will have some units in the single player game that won’t appear in the multiplayer modes because of balance issues.
Browder also talks a little about the single player game missions, saying that one of them “…will have you doing a series of train robberies. How that exactly plays out, you’ll have to wait and see, but we’re having a lot of fun putting these ideas into practice.” He also said mod makers can expect lots of support in that area with more powerful editors planned for the game’s release. Now if we can just get a solid ship date from Blizzard….
Whenever we drive from Los Angeles to Phoenix, we always stop at the Flying J in Blythe, California to refuel – and that might mean “refueling” on coffee, trail mix and a rented audiobook instead of gasoline.
As it turns out, though, our favorite truck stop chain’s production, refining, and pipeline business has been KO’ed by the recent drop in oil prices and the credit crunch. As a result, the Flying J has nosedived into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. According to company president J. Phillip Adams, the filing is the result of a liquidity shortage. Says Adams, “With this sudden and unanticipated inability to meet our liquidity needs, we regret that we had no other choice than a Chapter 11 filing to enable us to stabilize our financial base.” The company’s liabilities are estimated to be anywhere between $100 million and $500 million, but according to court documents, FJ has assets worth upwards of $1 billion.
The bankruptcy proceedings are not expected to affect supplies on the West Coast, and no layoffs are as a result of the filing.
Flying J, we pray for your speedy return to health.
Penny Arcade is known for creating promotional art for upcoming games they are excited about. Having worked with Ubisoft in the past, it was no surprise when we heard Penny Arcade was working on a Prince of Persia themed story. Taking things in a slightly new direction, Penny Arcade’s Prince of Persia tale has been captured into a storybook video for you to watch. Sit back with a warm cup of hot chocolate (or whatever you kids drink these days) and check out this short story the recounts a familiar legend from the new Prince of Persia.
Let’s get this out of the way right now. Even Left 4K Dead’s own author, Markus Perrson, admits that his new free Java web browser game doesn’t really have much resemblance to Valve‘s zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead. He states, “It’s a game about zombies, with some elements taken from the AWESOME game Left 4 Dead, and the name is pretty darn punny if you ask me.”
That said, this game, made for the 2009 Java 4K Competition, is still a lot of fun as your dot takes on a ton of zombie dots with just a flashlight and weapon. There’s a random element to where the zombies are placed in the levels but aside from that this could be easily be a Resident Evil or House of the Dead Java based zombie game. Still, kudos to Perrson for making a bloody entertaining title with not a lot of programming.
This year, all I really wanted for the holidays was the perfect smartphone. Not too much to ask for, right? You’d think, but all I ended up with was constant swapping between 3 (or more) devices, hoping to find some balance of features that worked for me. Instead of one “go to” phone, I juggled the iPhone 3G, T-Mobile G1, and BlackBerry Bold for the last few months, desperately wishing I could merge them into one perfect device. I shall now break down my hopes for the upcoming year, with a prayer in my little old heart that manufacturers are listening.
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