Turborilla has announced that its strategy revival Planet M.U.L.E. has been released via the game's website and is now available for download. Even better the title is totally free.
The game is based on Dan Bunten's M.U.L.E. by Ozark Softscape, released 26 years ago and considered one of the first multiplayer games ever to exist.
Celia Lewis writes: "M.U.L.E. was a formative game for its time. Unlike most, it was a game that dealt heavily in economics, specifically those involving supply and demand. Not only that, but it was one of gaming’s first truly multiplayer games."
In this interview we talk with the founder of EA, 3DO and Digital Chocolate about the console industry's continuing decline, the tablet computing explosion, Kickstarter projects and much more.
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@DragonAirFight I completely hear you with the 'sour grapes' comments. There have been a lot of crappy people in the industry that have bashed the business that gave them a name in the first place. I can see these publishers/developers bashing the games media, but to say the "industry is garbage" because the industry outgrew the needs of the publisher/developer is, to your point, childish name calling.
Now, after interviewing Trip, he didn't say that the console industry is crap but he did say that console gaming has gone from a $50B industry to a $15B in just three years. That could be due to the age of the consoles, but he's saying that the console model has changed entirely and that he doesn't believe "the big three" have what it takes financially to re-engineer themselves.
He's definitely opinionated, but he can also back everything he says with a metric-ton of experience. Take a listen to the episode (if you want to fast forward past our banter at the beginning, he starts talking at the 15 minute mark) and let us know what you think after listening to the show.
Replies(1)@DragonAirFight Definitely listen to the show and hear him out. It's only 20 minutes, but he reveals a great deal about where his thoughts, and that statement, comes from.
@Niveous Thank you so much for listening to the show and for hearing him out. I think what is funny is that he's often chastised for his opinions by the gaming press but he did graduate Harvard (Magna Cum Laude) and then started up EA and 3DO.
No matter what people will say about the 3DO, that system was WAAAAAAAY ahead of its time from a business perspective. Sure the system launched at a prohibitive price point ($599) but the reason that was so high was that 3DO collected royalties on each console sold and on each game manufactured. To game publishers, that low $3 royalty rate per game was a better deal than the higher royalties paid to Nintendo and Sega (which could be up to, and over, $20 per cart) when making games for their consoles. It wasn't a success, but it certainly had the developers' costs in mind. A very similar strategy to what Microsoft chose to promote with their Xbox launch in 2001.
Is the man arrogant? Maybe. Is he right most of the time? AbsoLUTELY! No matter what people say, it was great to have him on the show and he ranks up there with Eric Patterson and Tim Schafer as one of our favorite interviews we've ever done.
Thanks so much for listening and for commenting here on N4G @Niveous!
The staff of The Reverse Enginears - considered the "Masters of the Remix" - decided to tell the story of the evolution of PC games into a fun video of two and a half minutes. The sequence goes from nostalgic Zork, and MULE Lode Runner up Sim City and Prince of Persia (the original) to finally culminate in modern Portal, Diablo III and Crysis 2.
while not on the same level as diablo 2, give them a damn break. Diablo 3 was still awesome.
For the same reason "Seconds" is capitalized and the rest of the title isn't.
Why'd it keep jumping back and forth the whole time?
Would have been a lot better if it started with early games and kept moving forward.
Also needs more classics like the original sim city, or even magic carpet.
C+
