Arcade County, developers of “Shining Force Online”, reached their Kickstarter goal for “Shining Empire” in less than 48 hours. Lead developer R. Mulvany is hoping the success continues so that he can finish the true vision for the game he designed 25 years ago.

“It’s great to see that the game is going to be finished, but we’re hoping to reach some of our overfunding goals in order to see the  game’s true potential”, Mulvany says, while popping the cap off a bottle of ginger ale to celebrate. “Kickstarter can be a nightmare. I see so many great projects get no funding because it’s so difficult to get any attention. You see so many projects get tens of thousands of dollars simply because it’s a brand you recognize.”

It was just a few weeks ago that Mulvany had written off Shining Empire as dead, feeling as though there just wasn’t enough media support to get gamers to notice the project.

“You can’t just put something out there and expect people are going to find it. There’s too much competition. Look at iPhone developers. There’s a million apps. If you were the first then you made a killing, but you can’t be the last and expect to profit. The little attention we got was from Shining Force Online, but that’s a brand people recognize. If I had never worked on that game we’d probably be sitting at $0 backed right now.”

With Shining Empire’s funding inevitable, Mulvany ponders the future of the Kickstarter and where Shining Empire is heading.

“We should end up around 200% funded, which doesn’t get in all the features. I don’t think there’s much of a chance that we get in online co-op, which is a shame since I spent the first 16 years of my career creating MMO’s. I think co-operative city building could be a lot of fun. We’ve seen it in Minecraft, but that’s kind of like Legos. We’re more like co-operative Sim City or Harvest Moon.

The big picture is creating a massive game for $15 that people play for years. I’ve bought $60 games that I played for 5 hours and never touched again. That’s essentially $12/hour.  I want Shining Empire to cost around a penny an hour. The key is creating a set of tools which allows me to build the world quickly, without just having hundreds of miles of open space. The engine is actually called the ‘Empire Anvil’ and it allows me to really propagate the world with a natural physical ambience with nothing more than a brush stroke.”

For more info, visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1009226258/shining-empire

OGPlanet is extremely excited to announce that they are bringing Dizzel, an intense action shooter to North America this summer. Dizzel’s first beta test is set to for June 9, 2014 and players can sign up now to be among the first to play at http://www.Dizzel-Online.com. Dizzel will feature fatality style executions, multiple exciting game modes and hardcore shooter action.

OGPlanet boasts that Dizzel is the most exciting third-person shooter they have ever played with the highest amount of intensity in a game that they have published to-date.

One of Dizzel’s biggest draws is its visceral, hardcore action, featuring ‘Executions’ where players have the ability to do a variety of unique fatalities on nearly dead foes depending on the character and weapon they are using. The creators of Mortal Kombat would truly be proud of the brutal and sadistic nature of the fatalities that Dizzel unleashes to its players. From unloading your assault rifle in the face of your enemy to hacking them into bits with a giant axe, Dizzel’s bloodlust knows no bounds.

Dizzel’s Key Features:

• Fatalities!: Only shooting your enemies to death is for newbies. Pull off brutal executions to finish off your enemies before their teammates can revive them.
• Take Cover: Pop in and out from cover with guns blazing like you are in an old school John Woo movie.
• Blind Fire: Unleash a barrage of bullets at your enemies from the safety of being behind cover. Aiming is overrated anyway.

For more info on the upcoming beta, visit http://www.Dizzel-Online.com

Snail Games announced today its free-to-play steampunk MMORPG, Black Gold Online will be releasing a newer, smoother, updated version for Closed Beta testing soon to come. Invited players can expect the following improvements within the Beta version:

• Graphics – The new looks included in the game will aim to reinforce the core art concept of Black Gold Online: the mixing of industrial expansionism in a harsh, forbidding environment with the tribal and transcultural diversity of naturalism and magical fantasy.
• User Interface – The new UI is cleaner, more customizable and less obtrusive than in earlier versions, allowing players a freer view of the world around them while creating easy and convenient access to the various game windows.
• Game Features – Major changes are already underway including combat system, quest line, open world PvE, dungeons and instances. With these updates the core game play features of Black Gold Online will become broader, deeper and generally more enjoyable.
• Battlefields and Vehicles – The Battle Vehicle and War Beasts system will be receiving some important adjustments to offer greater personalization and customization, while improving the nature of the mounted PvP and reinforcing the core teamwork concept of the Military Battlefields and Energy Well battles.
• Classes – The latest version will get 4 new playable classes, two for Steam and Fantasy alignments each.

“With the completion of the Alpha Test from March 20th-31st, we received a considerable volume of feedback: some lauding, some critical, but most importantly a lot of useful ideas and suggestions for upgrades to the game,” said Kee Zhang, producer of Black Gold Online, “We wanted to thank our community of fans by offering a little peek at what they can expect in the Closed Beta test coming soon.”

For more information on Black Gold Online, please visit the official site: http://bg.snailgame.com/home/

Aeria Games & Entertainment, Inc. is rebranding itself as PlayNext, Inc., a global publisher and developer of free-to-play mobile games focused on delivering hit new titles to iOS and Android devices. Composed of a team of over 300 employees worldwide in four global offices, PlayNext enters the industry with over seven years of experience in publishing and developing popular free-to-play games in Western markets.

PlayNext features as its flagship title Marvel’s X-Men: Battle of the Atom, a card battle game featuring the world-famous mutants that launched in January 2014. The company will continue to focus on in-house development as well as building on strong publishing relationships with other proven developers. PlayNext is already hard at work on launching several new titles from successful game franchises from around the world, including role-playing and sports management games, in the coming months. The company will also be announcing new partnerships and development projects in the near future.

“Mobile gaming is an incredibly exciting and fast-growing industry, one which requires a highly adaptable and forward-thinking approach. We see PlayNext as the perfect fit for this environment,” said Lan Hoang, CEO of PlayNext and former CEO of Aeria Games. “With our team’s experience developing and running highly successful and well-received games, PlayNext is poised to be a major presence in the mobile marketplace.”

Stay tuned for news and announcements regarding PlayNext’s current and upcoming projects at http://www.playnext.com.

WEBZEN has announced their 5^th anniversary event celebrating 5 years since the launch of its global game portal site WEBZEN.com.

Since 2009, WEBZEN.com has published multiple free-to-play online game genres including the games Mu Online, C9 to worldwide gamers with multi-language service support. The upcoming dynamic PvP MMO, Archlord 2 will be available for download and play through WEBZEN.com in summer 2014.

To celebrate their 5^th anniversary, WEBZEN has teamed up with C9’s media partners for a special item giveaway for the dungeon-based MMORPG, C9. To level up faster, C9 will be offering a Level 20 Character Boost to all gamers. Create a new character and you will be able to use your Level 20 Character Boost to race through the ranks. This sets players up with a high level character from the very beginning. When your character reaches level 20, you will be able to instantly “jump” your character to Level 50 as part of this promotion.

From now until April 21, 2014 (Global Server Time), users can visit any of C9’s media partners (including OnRPG and MMOHuts) to obtain a special item key. Players can then redeem this code for their Level 20 Character Boost, which includes 10 Resurrection Scrolls, 5 Extreme Training Potions (100%), 1 Wing, 1 Extreme Potion Package and 5 Leona’s Potions.

Additionally, WEBZEN has just launched new in-game events that will reward players with prizes for participating in Attendance Events and Easter Egg Events.

From now through to May 13, daily quests will be given to receive an Event Coin Chest that contains a random amount of Attendance Event Coins. Players can exchange these coins for a variety of items.

Along with the Easter celebrations, there will be event monsters on every continent that will drop Event Coins. Players can gather these Event Coins to exchange for Event Chests that contain random rewards from now through to April 29.

Meanwhile, all three of WEBZEN’s game portals, WEBZEN.com, gPotato.eu and gPotato.com, are coming together to bring you the ultimate free MMO experience, and a chance for all our players across the world to meet new people and make new friends in spring 2014.

More information on C9 events can be found at http://c9.webzen.com/ and on the gPotato portals (http://c9.gPotato.com and http://c9.gpotato.eu).

Aeria Games is excited to unveil a new mode for its hugely popular First Person Shooter Alliance of Valiant Arms (A.V.A). The new Infection-Z mode comes with the Awaken map, a huge combat space which is filled with new features to help propel your troops into battle.

Deep in the woods of Slovakia, the Neo-Russian Federation (NRF) set up an industrial compound in order to test biochemical weapons. However, their plans backfired when something went wrong and a number of the staff became infected with a virus, turning them into zombies and making them a danger to themselves and others.

A.V.A players can enter the Awaken map and make it their mission to destroy the virus. The large map has a number of points of strategic value for players to make use of in battle, such as ramps, jump pads and cranes. Players can also spawn from the air and drop down onto the map, as in the popular Airborne mode, and can take the form of the Reaper, a new character with a huge scythe as his weapon of choice.

Players also have the chance to benefit from a new round of the Mega Capsule 4, the perfect chance to win up to 21 brand new, permanent weapons. Every spin of the wheel is a guaranteed win for the player.

The new Awaken map is now available to A.V.A players and is free to play. For more info, visit http://ava.aeriagames.com/

The eighth official clan championship of the 3D-MMO-browser game Tanki Online is drawing close to its conclusion and On Saturday, 12th April, the long-awaited final match will take place! At 18.00 BST, fans can tune in to watch the two finalist clans “Noobest“ and “SCORPIONS” match up for the championship title live.

In preparation for the event, AlterativaPlatform will release two exclusive tank paint jobs on 10th April. The paint jobs will be named after the finalists and used by each clan during the match, they will also be available for purchase by the Tanki community for a limited time so that fans can show their allegiance. Whichever clan wins will bring rewards to those who supported the winning team in the form of an in-game currency bonus. The final score of the match will determine how much each successful fan will win.

The Grand Final of the eighth Tanki Online Clan Championships will be streamed live on 12th April at 18.00 BST at http://tankionline.com/en/tv