PLUS MORE GAMING SECRETS AND RUMORS: Microsoft loving bees again | Plants vs. Zombies meets Skylanders? | A Godzilla gaming return
Last week, Harmonixâs corporate domain registrar privately registered a handful of domains including harmonixchroma.com, harmonixchromagame.com, chroma-game.com, chromaalpha.com and chromabeta.com. These domains follow an August 2012 trademark application for âChroma.â
While most of those domains are fairly standard for any game from a major company, one of themââchromaalphaââis particularly unusual, and I wonder if might be a hint Harmonix is hopping on the Early Access bandwagon. From Minecraft to DayZ, alpha releases have steadily gained traction in the past several years, affording developers an opportunity to use a communityâs feedback to readily modify and evolve a game still in the throes of development. Given the philosophical contrast between potentially unstable early versions and closed console platforms, the alpha release scene is unsurprisingly PC-centric, which could perhaps be a bit of a deviation for Harmonix, a company that has never released a game for PC.
Harmonix, which is also currently working on Fantasia: Music Evolved for Kinect, arguably had a bit of a tumultuous 2013. The company had two rounds of layoffs in April and December, citing âshifting staffing prioritiesâ for future projects in both instances. To accommodate the needs of those future projects, the company ended DLC updates for both Dance Central and Rock Band. Additionally, an âunannounced Xbox One Kinect titleâ Harmonix was working on was cancelled, according to a designerâs CV
The identity of the Harmonix cancelled next-gen Kinect game is unknown, and it may very well be the another next Dance Central (thatâs art for the series pictured up top, by the way), but I would personally guess it was the next-gen new IP featuring combat. As some may recall, Harmonix, a developer not known for games with combat, was hiring for a combat designer in summer 2012. The job listing said the combat designer was âto create real-time, single-player combat experiencesâ on âa project that is unlike anything Harmonix has ever done before.â That job listing came several months after a Harmonix senior level designer opening for an âinnovative new motion-gaming IPâ that featured âcombat encounters.â Of all of Harmonixâs projects, this sounded like the riskiest, as Harmonixâs ability to make an action game is not yet proven.
In a March 2013 blog post about joining Harmonixâs board of directors, venture capitalist Brad Feld mentioned that the studio was working on three new major projects at the time, each of which dealt with a different manner of human-computer interaction. Feld also told Fortune Harmonix was developing some âreally interesting [mobile] projectsâ in addition to more traditional releases.
Earlier this month, Sean Stewartâwriter behind early Microsoft-related ARGs âThe Beastâ and âI Love Beesââquietly confirmed on Twitter he had joined Microsoftâs new Xbox Entertainment Studios in Los Angeles as a creative director. Stewartâs LinkedIn page says he has served in the role in September, and his job is to help âcreate new, compelling experiences that use the power of the Xbox digital ecosystem to enhance great original television.â
Stewart is the second creative principle from âThe Beastâ and âI Love Beesâ to join Microsoftâs burgeoning entertainment effort. Last June, Microsoft announced it had appointed Elan Leeâwho served as lead designer on âThe Beastâ and âI Love Beesâ and cofounded the now-defunct multiplatform entertainment firm Fourth Wall Studios with Stewart â as chief design officer at Xbox Entertainment Studios. Jim Stewartson, the third cofounder and former CEO of Fourth Wall Studios, writes on resume that he âAdvised Microsoft/XBOX Studios on next-generation TVâ during his time at Fourth Wall.
Stewart joining Microsoft would perhaps also explain Major Nelsonâs recent playfully coy tweet about his fascination with bees.
On his resume, a former PopCap executive says he âStarted up a new project within PopCap to explore opportunities in the toy-meets-game spaceâ in the first half of 2013. Itâs unclear whether this project is still ongoing, but the colorful characters of Peggle or Plants vs. Zombies seem like pretty decent choices for potential toy-game convergence. Maybe this will bring us closer to a Skylanders-esque platformer exploring the Peggleverse in full.
Finally, a former executive at independent gaming conglomerate Foundation 9âwho owns the likes of Double Helix and Sumo Digitalâreveals on his resume that a newly established mobile division of the company called Rogue Play is working on a âAAA mobileâ tie-in for the forthcoming reboot of Godzilla. Rogue Playâs site says they specialize in âmidcore freemium games,â so presumably that is the form this mobile Godzilla game will take.
superannuation is a self-described âinternet extraordinaireâ residing somewhere in the Pacific Time Zone. Follow him on Twitter.
