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Wired announced the 2005 winners of it’s annual Vaporware Awards today and it’s a great list. The Vaporware awards are a longtime favorite award of mine (probably because I always agree with the nominations unlike the damn Oscars). Anyway, it’s funny stuff. Be sure to check out earlier years for some extra laughs and retrospective.

Super Mario sound effects synthesizer. Awesome. (Via Kottke.org.)

Oh man, they have Crystal Quest on the Xbox 360 Live Arcade. Way cool; I loved playing that game back in the day.

So I’m not sure why this wasn’t picked up by more media outlet’s today (I only saw it on Spymac) but here’s the scoop (quoted from the the press release):

The private equity firm Elevation Partners has announced the formation of a creative and management partnership with Pandemic Studios, LLC and BioWare Corp., two leading independent video game developers.

There’s a bunch more information about the deal and the two companies on the press release page so I won’t regurgitate it here, but here’s a few points I found interesting.

• Thankfully it seems, at least from the press release, that Elevation Partners is interested in allowing both companies to retain their independence as developers. The companies won’t be merged to create some bastardized version of their former selves, and the funding will allow games to be created without the focus on artificially imposed build targets, deadlines, and rushed releases often associated with traditional game development. Greg Zeschuck, joint CEO of BioWare explains this best: “Great video games… are an art form, as lovingly crafted as a film, musical score, or novel. That means taking the time work [the] magic. Fans are the real winners in this deal, because we will now have the resources and creative discretion to make the right decisions for our products.” As some may know, I’m a huge BioWare aficionado, so news like this is music to my ears. Here’s the deal BioWare: whatever you need for Dragon Age is yours: My eternal soul? Where do I sign?, Dead babies? Cute, cuter or cutest ones? You get the idea (would you please update the Dragon Age website now though?).
• Original intellectual property (IP) is really played up in this deal (the press release notes each company has several in house IPs). I think it’s exciting that original IP is being supported in this way as it would be nice if the industry could cut itself off of the licensed property “crutch,” not that all licenses are bad (see BioWare’s Knights of the Old Republic) but they’re often used instead of focusing on making a good game. Additionally, if you look at some of the stuff that Blizzard is able to do by having control over their own IP with games like World of Warcraft, you can start to understand the power of original IP over the licensed kind: Blizzard doesn’t have to get approval from say, Tolkien’s estate, to make changes and add features to the game and instead gets to focus their time on creating an exciting, original, and addictive alternate world. The other reason original IP excites me is that I know there are lots of exciting stories and original ideas out there that will never get get out if the gaming industry continues to rely on sequels and movie licenses.
• The last thing I found notable about the deal was a list of some of the Elevation Partners team members, which includes such notables as John Riccitiello, former President and COO of Electronic Arts (I imagine he knows something about game development), Fred “Fists of Fiscal Rage” Anderson, former CFO of Apple, and Bono, the singer for a little band known as U2 among others. It’s quite a powerhouse.

Overall, it looks like an exciting time and I’m hoping for the best for both development houses. Just continue putting out the goods guys (and BioWare, seriously, call me about Dragon Age okay?).

Dudes! BioWare just dropped the info on their new game called Mass Effect. It’s an Sci-Fi based Action/RPG for the Xbox 360.

As some of you know, I have a little place in my heart for BioWare and now I’m considering getting a 360… [Okay, so it's a rather large place.]