Today's round-up includes news of Walt Disney increasing game development spending,
Half-Life 2: Episode Two delayed until summer 2007, and the release of Kuma's
Battle of the Bulge, as well as the latest Game Career Guide updates, Serious Games Source posts, GameSetWatch posts and Gamasutra job postings.
- According to
a report from financial website Bloomberg, officials from Walt Disney have confirmed plans to increase spending on video games after the company's positive financial earnings for the fiscal year. For the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended September 30, 2006, Disney reported profit of $782 million, compared to $379 million reported a year ago. In addition, the company also reported $8.78 in total revenue for the period, as compared to last year's $7.73 billion. According to the report, Walt Disney expects to spend approximately $350 million on video game development annually over the next five to seven years.
- A new report from consumer website CVG claims that Valve has decided to delay the release of
Half-Life 2: Episode Two from its previous release date of Q1 2007 until summer 2007. The second part in the
Half-Life 2 extension trilogy was originally scheduled to ship at the end of 2006 before it was pushed out initially to the first quarter of the coming year. No specific reason for the delay was cited in the report, though it was noted that this obviously affects the release of
Team Fortress 2 and
Portal, which are to come bundled with
Episode Two.
- Episodic war game publisher and developer Kuma Reality Games has announced the release of
Battle of the Bulge, an all-new multiplayer game based on the November 10 episode of ‘Shootout!’ on The History Channel. The game is the latest to come out of its recent partnership with the cable channel to develop gaming and television content that relate to each other. The first episode of
Battle of the Bulge takes players back to December 16, 1944, re-creating the opening of one of famous World War II battle. Subsequent episodes –
Foxhole and
Scout – will be released Friday, November 17th and Friday, November 24th respectively.
- The latest updates on Gamasutra sister alt.gaming weblog
GameSetWatch include
a review of cellphone game Porn Manager, the
release of indie game FizzBall, and
a reality TV version of Activision's Call Of Duty 3.
- The latest updates from Gamasutra sister website
Game Career Guide include
the release of a new book called Writing for Video Games.
- The latest updates from Gamasutra sister website
Serious Games Source include
Virtual Heroes founder and CEO Jerry Heneghan speaking at Raleigh, NC-based Wake Technical Community College, and a feature
covering a panel titled "Corporate Games Audit" from the recent Serious Games Summit DC 2006.
- Also updated today: the
latest Gamasutra job postings, including openings from Capcom Interactive Canada, Google, Incinerator Studios, Irrational Games, NaturalMotion, Pandemic Studios, Relic Entertainment, Splash Damage, and Sucker Punch Productions.
