Tag: Electronic arts »

Real Racing 3, known as that racing game from EA with breathtaking graphics, has received an update featuring a massive number of new car customization features. After you've used these new features to tweak your ride's height, its rims, and you've given your car one of a multitude of new vinyls, the update also lets you share your creation with friends using a new "Photo Mode" - allowing you to stop the action mid-race and capture a beautiful shot of your car.

Other new features in this version 2.1.0 update include new cars - Aston Martin’s DB9, Vanquish and V12 Vantage S - to add to your Real Racing experience, support for your favorite MFi iOS 7 controller, "Gold Achievements," and a "New All Star Vendetta Series."

You can get Real Racing 3 - and all the beautiful car tweaking features available in this update - on the App Store for free.

Ah, the Great App Store Pricing Debate. For years people have been arguing over the cost of mobile games. What constitutes “too much?” Where’s the line when it comes to free-to-play monetization techniques? Should developers have deep discounts and temporary giveaways? Should consumers simply expect everything to go on sale and wait accordingly?

The recent Dungeon Keeper debacle is a good example of this. Gamers and critics alike have railed against it for using various monetization techniques and associating itself with the classic PC strategy series, and many point to it as an unpleasant indication of where the video game industry (especially mobile) is headed. It’s an issue that’s almost as complicated as the initial Freemium vs. Premium debate; so let’s take a closer look at everything and try to make sense of it all.

Attention all Dragonborn-no, wait, wrong game. Attention all Chosen-nope, not that one either... Attention all Wardens! Yeah, that's the one!

Heroes of Dragon Age has recently been updated to include a new player-versus-player mode, allowing players from across the globe to fight it out with opposing teams for rare banners, even rarer rewards, and the ability to rub their success in everyone else's face. In addition to the more permanent PvP update, you can also get your hands on Slave Fenris, who is apparently a rare warrior that can induce stun on opponents, for free until February 18 as a sort of Valentine's Day show of appreciation. It's kind of twisted when you stop and think about it, actually.

Anyway the update for Heroes of Dragon Age is up now. And don't forget to grab your elf while you're at it!

Real Racing 3 makes all Ferrari fans happy once again as it receives new vehicles from the popular car manufacturer. The update adds the Enzo, 458 Spider, and 599 GTO Ferraris along with weekly time trial tournaments and 4 New event series that hold over 100 new events within. The update also adds race replays that let users view the entire race with a full cinematic camera. Talk about a great time to add that feature with the three new Ferraris in town!

Get ready to play some real football!

EA Sports is bringing FIFA 14 to iOS for free this fall. It's going to be packed, too. Over 600 teams from 30 leagues, online multiplayer, and an all new set of touch controls. It'll also feature the popular "FIFA Ultimate Team" (FUT) mode, which will let players pick their own play style, manage their own team, and compete to earn coins in order to improve everything. And if that isn't enough, EA SPORTS Football Club Match Day will add an extra layer of realism to your games by adding in-game stories pulled straight from the real world such as injuries and suspensions.

Three premium game modes (Manager Mode, Tournament Mode, and Kickoff Mode) are also available for any players looking to "upgrade their game." Sounds cool, right? Well FIFA 14 will be coming to the App Store for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch this fall. Presumably around the time its console big brother releases in late September, but it's just a guess so don't quote me on that!

Real Racing 3 has received a new update that adds even more cars to the game, including muscle cars from Dodge and Shelby. The update also includes a new series of events to go along with the theme of classic muscle cars.

There are a few enhancements to note as well, such as faster and more accurate skill adjustment for better competition and improved cameras that provide an even better sense of speed.

Check out these classic beauts in the trailer below!

EA is one of the most prolific first party publishers on the App Store with hundreds of games for iOS available. While it has seen its share of problems and growing pains, it has successfully launched everything on iOS, including high-priced premium franchise games and top grossing free to play games. Let's talk with Nick Rish, VP of Mobile Publishing, about how the App Store changed EA.

148Apps: How has the App Store changed the way EA does business?

Nick Rish, VP of Mobile Publishing, EA: Developing for the App Store was not as big of a transition as one would think, since EA was an early adopter of mobile gaming development.  In 2004, before most were considering the mobile app revolution, EA established a mobile team to develop games with access to EA veterans and IP.  Then we made a very smart acquisition of JAMDAT mobile which solidified us in the #1 position on mobile and multiplied our mobile development experience in house.   When the iPhone launched in June of ‘07, we were making games for feature phones and Apple’s click wheel iPod.  When we first saw the iPhone, we immediately saw it as a game changer and as an incredible challenge.  Although we knew how to build for shorter development cycles, the interruptible gameplay sessions, quick load times and limited screen space posed a lot of new challenges that we needed to prepare for.  Discoverability for instance.  On the carrier feature phone decks, you sat alongside a thousand unbranded games and let your brands do their work.   On the App Store, the number of games quickly became tens of thousands of games, so we had to adapt marketing practices to become more similar to the online world where the market is crowded.  We needed effective keywords, as well as icons and titles that told a story in a small amount of space. We also were presented with new development challenges such as touchscreen, accelerometer, landscape & portrait view, etc.  This meant sharing best practices with multiple teams became critical.   

148Apps: If you have one single success within EA you'd like to highlight from the past five years on the App Store, what would it be?

Nick Rish: If I’m picking one success, I think it would be the limits we pushed with Real Racing 3 for the iPhone 5.  We work closely with Apple to create the most innovative experiences for their devices, and no other company has the mobile scale that EA does to release quality content on such a short timeline for new devices.  We could have followed the market and made a freemium  drag race game or an arcade-like experience, but the Firemonkeys really wanted to push the limits of the a true racing experience with Apple’s new device.  The authenticity of the cars, the lighting effects, the detail of the tracks and the stunning racing environments make me incredibly proud to work at EA. This is the type of game that when done right, sits itself above the competition. 

148Apps: In the five years since launch, the App Store has gone through considerable changes. The number of users has skyrocketed along with downloads, prices for paid apps has stabilized way lower than many expected, free to play has dominated the top grossing charts. If, knowing what you know about the App Store now, you could go back and influence EA five years ago, what would you say?

Nick Rish: I would say to embrace free, live services as they are our future. Build expertise internally for those models within Studio and Publishing. We were running a premium house five years ago focused on shipping a game and moving on to the next one.  Now a game needs consistent updating to keep users engaged.  The shift is evident when you look at games like The Simpsons: Tapped Out which has been on the App Store leaderboards since its launch 40 weeks ago has had 20 updates since then. It’s like we were in the music business releasing individual tracks and now we’re putting out television shows that may go on for many seasons. It’s really important to create new stories, characters and episodes that our players will enjoy.  When I looked at the App Store Sunday morning, 9 of the top 10 grossing games were all updated within the last 30 days. 

148Apps: What have you seen on the App Store, outside of EA, that has surprised you most?

Nick Rish: The technology of these devices has improved greatly, yet most games have not felt the need to press the limits of these innovations.   Five years ago if you showed me the tech specs of the current Apple devices, I would have predicted big, one time download games dominating the charts.  Franchises like Need for Speed or Battlefield.   It’s been quite the opposite where well-polished, lighter strategy games are dominating the charts.  Gamers on this platform are willing to forgive a lack of deep storylines, realistic characters and epic battles in place of great text, cute characters and engaging mini-battles.  Think Clash of Clans or Plants vs. Zombies.  In fact, we’ve yet to see an FPS emerge that can stay in the Top 25 Grossing for any significant period of time.  It will get interesting when we start to see billion dollar franchises engage their years of experience and resources towards making lighter strategy games that are optimized for richer graphics, deeper stories and epic battles.   

148Apps: Any predictions for what the App Store will be like five years from now?

Nick Rish: Yes and I’d like to also give you Wednesday’s Powerball numbers...  I believe the environment will be still be full of rich content.  Probably less Publishers, but still a lot of games.  It will support different types of devices, because Apple never stops innovating and EA will continue to be there in full force. We are committed to Apple and its users and will rise to any challenge that’s placed in front of us. 

To celebrate 5 Years of the App Store, we’re giving away 5 of EA’s most popular paid games (Ed: See the full list on our sale round-up page.) The giveaway starts today and runs for a limited time.

Many thanks to Nick Rish for his time.

Summertime is upon us and so is a hot new update for The Simpsons: Tapped Out. New buildings, characters, quests, and waterfront properties are now available in this summery update.

Players will also notice that the land has been expanded, with over 30 new plots of land, including areas that are next to the water for great waterfront properties. As for the characters, seaside entertainers have made their way to Springfield, including Sea Captain and Handsome Pete. Players can check out Sea Captain's quest to find his place on dry land or out at sea.

Now go enjoy your summer in Springfield!

The Simpsons: Tapped Out has been updated with new locations and a familiar face, says Pocket Gamer. Agnes Skinner is now available in the game with a quest that revolves around her and her son, Seymour. She is also tasked with winning at bingo and taunting the elderly. Also, with the update, is an increased level cap of 29, new buildings, and more.

Electronic Arts and The Walt Disney Company announces an exclusive multi-year licensing agreement that allows EA to develop and publish Star Wars video games. EA will develop and publish Star Wars titles for core gamers on all interactive platforms while Disney keeps the right to develop new titles on mobile, social, and online games.

“Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,” said EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. “Three of our top studios will fulfill that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop for the Star Wars franchise. The new experiences we create may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories and gameplay.”

The Simpsons Tapped Out has added new items to help with your rebuilding process of Springfield. The new items that are available in the latest update include buildings, decorations, quests and a new character, making things just a bit more fun and providing some staying power for current players.

Features from the App Store

• New Buildings – Finally Chief Wiggum can stop loitering in the streets and get settled at the Wiggum House. If you’re hungry after the move, enjoy some chemically complicated cuisine at El Chemistri. After dinner, spend time viewing your city from a higher vantage point than you ever thought possible on the Escalator to Nowhere - just watch out for that last step. Once that’s done, build the Popsicle Stick Skyscraper.
• New Character – Have Ralph eat crayon sandwiches or play wiggle puppy.
• New Decorations – Patrol your town with a new police car or spruce up your backyard with a swing set and tetherball.
• New Quests – Springfield is in the middle of a health crisis; join Lisa as she tries to fight the fat. Will she succeed or will Springfield be crowned America’s Fattest City?

The only thing more daunting than reviewing a game from a significant iOS series is doing so when it’s surrounded by both hype and controversy. It’s probably fairly common knowledge at this point that Real Racing 3 has gone free-to-play, which is where the bulk of the controversy comes from as lots of fans are understandably worried about what such a change could mean for their beloved franchise. It’s also been widely publicized that Firemonkeys has incorporated what they call “Time Shifted Multiplayer” into their new baby, which is something that they feel could change multiplayer mobile games forever. These are both complex issues that warrant some discussion but the important thing to note is that Real Racing 3 is very, very awesome no matter how people might feel about it going free to play.

As the name (and the two previous releases) implies, this is a game about racing. Many of the features found in earlier releases are still around and will feel instantly familiar to veterans and fans: Tilt steering, tapping the screen to brake, automatic driving, tons (46 to start) of licensed vehicles, and showpiece visuals are all present and accounted for. However, even if someone doesn’t like the simplified auto-drive control system there is a wealth of customization options to suit their needs. Steering can be set to a virtual wheel rather than tilting, acceleration can be set to tap-and-hold, and every single assist (steering, braking, etc) can be turned on or off. There are also a wealth of race types available in the 961 included events ranging from cups to eliminations to drag racing to speed records and more. So there’s essentially something for everybody.

Real Racing 3’s spectacular visuals are without a doubt some of the (if not the) most impressive I’ve ever seen in an iOS game. Heck, they rival some console games I’ve played. Cars display damage, paint jobs actually reflect the environment around them including other cars, real world tracks have been painstakingly recreated, and each vehicle's interior has been lovingly reproduced with impressive detail. It’s a shame that the replay feature from the second game hasn’t made its way into this release since everything is so pretty and warrants showing off. However, more than the graphics it’s the sheer volume of content that really impresses me. That initial circuit I mentioned is massive. There are four different cars available to use for most of the events and a myriad of race types to keep things interesting. I’ve unlocked 24 individual events and I’m only 50% done. And it’s only one circuit out of over 25 that are available right now. All told there are 961 races included in this initial release. Running out of stuff to do will be incredibly difficult to say the least.

And that’s without factoring in the Time Shifted Multiplayer (or TSM) that allows players to compete with their friends whenever/wherever by racing against their AI-controlled time shifted double. Sadly the feature isn’t quite as robust as I’d hoped. After some experimentation and discussion both Jeff Scott and I came to the realization that Real Racing 3 uses race times to generate AI controlled doubles that follow almost perfect paths for each race rather than mirroring their human creators’ abilities, race lines, and skill. This means it’s not really like racing against friends at all as the cars don’t do anything other than follow a path at an algorithmically determined speed based on the recorded time and cars used by friends.

The system for notifications and match ups itself is also a little underwhelming at the moment. Knowing my time was beaten in a drag race is nice, but I should be able to jump right to said drag race without digging through menus trying to find it in the first place. I also feel like there should be an option to tap on a friend’s name on the main screen and see what races they’re currently leading in, rather than sifting through menu after menu looking for microscopic avatars. Not having such a feature seems like a huge oversight. With all that said it’s still a lot of fun to jump into a game and beat someone’s time knowing that they’re about to receive a notification that they’ve just been “served.”

Another hot button issue, as I’ve previously mentioned, is the freemium model. Rather than create a paywall or punish frugal iOS gamers, Firemonkeys has created a much friendlier model in theory that ties all real time waiting and premium currency to maintenance and repairs. Well, with the exception of custom paint jobs, final part upgrades, and two cars, anyway. The way it all works is that cars suffer wear and tear as they race, along with occasional body damage when things get rough. Replacing a bumper or windshield costs a little in app currency (referred to as “R$”), but it’s never so much as to offset anything earned from the race that caused the damage in the first place.

Maintenance, on the other hand, takes time. Replacing the oil - which is probably the most common task - takes five minutes, working on the engine takes about 30, and so on. Gold coins (premium currency) can be spent to speed up the process but it’s best to simply wait it out and save those coins for upgrades or new cars. Of course once players have two or more vehicles in their garage the wait for repairs is practically negligible since they can simply hop in the Challenger while the Shelby is in the shop. Once 4 or so are in the garage there will likely always be a race to run as one car should always be repaired and ready. Just be careful when starting an event because cars currently undergoing repairs will still appear in their respective challenges with the "Race" button replaced with a "Repair" button that will automatically use gold coins to instantly finish the work. I've wasted a good many gold coins this way and really wish there was at least a secondary confirmation screen (like there is for everything else) that popped up before I inadvertently wasted my precious premium currency.

In a strange way, both of Real Racing 3’s major talking points didn’t quite pan out as expected or feared. The Time Shifted Multiplayer isn’t quite as ground-breaking as I was hoping it would be and still needs some work when it comes to the social elements, but it’s still decent fun and a good way to fan the flames of competition. Conversely the free-to-play model I’d been fearing would completely ruin the experience or even stonewall my enjoyment after a certain point turned out to be surprisingly unobtrusive and easy to work around. But ultimately neither of those things is important. What is important is that Real Racing 3 is just really darn fun to play and spectacularly gorgeous. Which is all I ever really wanted from it in the first place.