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Novalogic releases a playable demo of its upcoming helicopter combat simulation.

Novalogic has released a new playable demo for Comanche 4, its upcoming helicopter combat simulation. The 43MB demo, which includes one mission from the upcoming game, expires on November 16. Comanche 4 features the Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66, the US Army's advanced armed reconnaissance helicopter. The game contains a variety of missions, including reconnaissance, ground attack, and air-to-air combat scenarios, and it focuses on action rather than technical flying so players can concentrate on combat.
Comanche 4 is scheduled for release in November.

News source: gamespot.com
Download: here

Compared to EA, WildTangent has a low-cost approach. The company’s 3D authoring tools allow their programmers to develop games on a shoestring budget in a matter of months, while still creating high-quality graphics; this gives the company a fighting chance in spite of the challenges of the online gaming business. It uses small programming teams and shorter development times than the two years it usually takes to make computer games like Majestic. By keeping the cost of creating a game low, WildTangent lowers the point of profitability for that game.

Betty Bad, a shooting game based on the classic Tempest arcade game, was the work of Paul Steed, an artist who worked for Id Software; he created the game in a matter of months with just a couple of other programmers. Phil Shenk, a former member of the Diablo II art team, put together sci-fi game Dark Orbit with a small group in a few months. Sabre Wing II, another sci-fi title, was developed by one programmer in four months. WildTangent this month launched nine Web-based games for the holiday season, including Dark Orbit and Sabre Wing II.

WildTangent is basing its revenue model on paid downloads. The company is releasing the games through its Digital Distribution Channel — a kind of commercialized Napster for games — and they will be available at Shockwave.com, GamePro, and GameSpy, as well as on new consumer computers from Hewlett-Packard. Players can get free game demos from the sites and upgrade to play the full games for a fee.

To measure royalty payments from member sites, WildTangent’s proprietary Web driver software individually tracks which game files each user visits from which URLs. No personal information is captured or transmitted.

Besides the problem of getting users to pay, downloadable games suffer from quality concerns (compared to offline games bought at retail) and from complaints that they take too long to transmit over narrowband connections. “The competition is end-user apathy,” says Roger Chandler, director of consumer marketing for 3D at Intel Labs.

RealNetworks says it has had a successful trial stage for its RealArcade business, which allows game players to download games that they can try before they buy. Since May, more than 2 million people have downloaded the RealArcade software, which offers a selection of 120 free ad-based games, 75 pay-per-download games, 11 broadband games, and 1 multiplayer game with thousands of simultaneous players.

The wide selection has helped generate considerable increases in quarterly traffic, said Andrew Rice, general manager of RealArcade. From the downloadable game demos, roughly 2 or 3 percent of players chose to purchase the full versions of the games for $9 to $19.99.

Since any developer can post games on RealArcade, it’s a boon for startups who can’t afford to get games on store shelves. René-Gilles Deberdt created a game called Kyodai Mahjongg in France. The title generates more than 4,000 downloads per day, and roughly 4 percent of the players pay $19.99 for the full game.

The numbers for 3D on the Web are mixed, with the best still ahead. Last week, at its Web 3D Conference in Santa Clara, Calif., market research firm Jon Peddie Associates estimated there are 11.8 million active Web sites, but only 16,000 use 3D. By 2007, the firm estimates, 3D Web sites will grow to 1 million sites out of a total of 48 million. By then, an estimated 56.5 percent of computers will have 3D-enabled Web browsers, compared to less than 5 percent today.

Alex St. John, CEO of WildTangent, said that advergames weren’t as profitable for his company as digital downloads. Still, WildTangent has created free games that double as advertisements, such as a Toyota Adrenaline game on Microsoft’s MSN Gaming Zone that Toyota sponsored to show off its trucks.

But Chris Kantrowitz, CEO of The Groove Alliance, says that major advertisers have finished their exploratory phase and are about to up the ante with higher-budget games. The Groove Alliance is lean, with 17 employees to WildTangent’s 130. Much of Groove’s revenue comes from licensing its tools to other companies that make games that serve as advertisements, such as the Real Pool game on Shockwave.com that advertises Jack Daniel’s whiskey.

“As far as a business model goes, advergaming is getting bigger and bigger,” Mr. Kantrowitz says.