The Ellen DeGeneres Show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmuXJTuudyE

Bobby Moynihan and Sacha Baron Cohen would make a great Mario and Luigi.

Stephen Totilo, The New York Times:

This is where Nintendo toys with convention. You’re supposed to haggle with Rusty, who, remember, is a virtual dog, not a living person. You’re supposed to get him to lower his price for the rest of Bat and Switch and for his other nine games. According to the plot, Rusty is stressed. His wife has left him. He’s overwhelmed by his 10 kids. He’ll bend to make a sale. One of his kids even coaches you about how to haggle with his dad, how to flatter, cajole or hardball your way to a lower price. Press Rusty well enough, and each game can be had for less than $2.

After playing along with Nintendo for a moment, I saw myself buying up every mini-game in this entry. Every hook seems perfect. This game will be a hit.

Susan Senator, writing for Cognoscenti, on “Webster Goomez” the stuffed Goomba:

A day or so later, Ben remarked that Webster was ‘kind of adorable.’

Adorable? Did I hear that right? Never had such a word come out of Ben before. I quickly recovered my cool and tried not to make too big a deal out of it, so as not to embarrass him. But inside, I cradled that word, longed to hear it again, hoping I hadn’t imagined it. But no, this was for real. A few days later, I heard Ben describing a different character as ‘cute.’

Cute :)

Howard Tsao of Muse Games on publishing Guns of Icarus Online, blogging on Gamasutra:

Part of our embodiment of steampunk was to infuse it with influences from cultures of the world. In their attempt to exploit this, the publisher then asked for “stereotypes” of different cultures. Reason? They claimed that stereotypes are more easily distinguishable. We thought this was flirting with racism, but once again, the publisher claimed to know better. The art style that we settled on was more in the spirit of Miyasaki or early Final Fantasy games. That is not inherently a bad thing; it’s just not what we wanted or agreed to. We decided to make a compromise to keep the relationship going.

With the project hanging in the balance, teetering on collapse, I made the trip to Taiwan. After a day of sitting in a claustrophobic meeting room, it came down to either accept an extended prototype with the lower pay or be terminated. We decided to terminate and get out of the contract and the relationship. Then, I got a phone call from the publisher’s CTO. On the phone, he posed this question: ‘If you wanted to go through with termination, what do you think about us copying the game?’

Hooked after part 1. Looking forward to parts 2 thru 5.

Comments from Darrell Rodriguez, CEO of Trendy Entertainment, as they appear on GamesIndustry International:

Currently, we are not profitable, but we have products in the pipeline to get us there. We are in between launches, so our cash flow is a concern. We are taking the necessary steps to fix this to ensure Dungeon Defenders II gets out the door at the great quality people have come to expect. We’re at a critical time where execution and performance is essential to our ongoing success.

…

We are doing this very unpleasant action with respect, empathy and compassion in consideration of the great work that these people have contributed to Trendy.

…

As discussed last time, a lot of the culture had already shifted upon my arrival. I’m working closely with devs and leads to create more openness and better communication at all levels of the company. Cultural change does not happen overnight, but we have ongoing efforts to work on better cross-departmental communication, getting the leads directly involved in product planning and holding consistent company wide meetings to ensure we are all on the same page. There’s a long way to go, but we’re on our way

Rodriguez’s statements on culture change are well met. Healthy company culture is key and appears to be a hot topic in light of the layoff crisis plaguing development studios as of late. My thoughts to those affected. Layoff list updated.