By Nicole Hamlett
In a very casual atmosphere, I sat down with Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment’s
Kevin Ballentine to chat about what’s going on down in Mesa, Arizona. As hard as
I pushed, he wouldn’t tell me what the two other studios are up to. However, I
did get some great shots of their not so super secret project Stargate Worlds.
As you can see, we have quite a few concept art shots. Kevin tells me that the
great thing about showing off the concept work is that it looks nearly exactly
the same in the game. The screenshots that you see are not rendered. They are
actually in game shots showing off the unreal engine front end. Right on
schedule for a Winter ’08 release, the game is trucking along quite nicely on
its Big World backend engine.
SG-1 fans, disappointed in the cancellation of their favorite show will be happy
to see familiar concepts in this game. However, the Goa’uld characters are no
longer interested in being Gods. The team has decided to go about world dominion
for this race differently. Sure, they still want to be worshipped and adored,
but they’re going to be more devious about it. As you can see with this female
Goa’uld character, this is their in battle armor. It’s more about looking good
than looking protected. Obviously, with their advanced technology they can
create armored force-fields to protect them from the onslaught of lead. The
wings are for looks only. You won’t see this gal flying about, merely teetering
about in her three inch heels. It’s all about fashion here.
Kevin was closed mouth about the good dirt but I did get that Stargate Worlds
will be shipped to retail locations such as Best Buy, and Wal-mart and will have
a monthly subscription business model. I asked Kevin what he thought about the
micro-transaction business model compared to the traditional monthly sub model.
This is what he had to say.
“The Asian market is definitely a different market. They don’t have a console
market there with the exception of Japan so it’s entirely based on PC titles.
Micro-transactions is a dedicated system there. You can pay for something
through your cell phone and when you get home, download it to your PC. It’s very
advanced. We just don’t have that here right now, but I do think that the
infrastructure is coming. There is definitely more potential for revenue in M.T.
but that’s not to say that CME is going to go that route for now.”
Stargate Worlds is definitely aiming to be a triple A title and with the talent
backing this game, it’s not hard to imagine. Look for some big announcements
coming in January as well as some great new information on their other business
endeavors. For more information on SGW head to http://www.stargateworlds.com.
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