Gothic 3 - The Beginning Announced for Mobiles

Dhruin

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Hello. It didn't take JoWood long to use their Gothic 3 rights. Here is press release:
Gothic 3 - The Beginning Officially Announced

Liezen, Austria, July 23rd 2007: JoWooD Productions Software AG and digital infrastructure provider, VeriSign, are happy to announce „Gothic 3 – The Beginning“ for mobile systems. The popular role playing game will be ready for mobile gamers at the beginning of 2008. HandyGames™, with their extensive experience in programming mobile phone games, have been chosen to develop Gothic – The Beginning. We are looking forward to delivering another great Gothic Story to gamers around the world. Have a look at the first known features:

Features:

- Visit various locations in Khorinis and Tirith

- Chat with NPCs to find clues in your adventure and trade with merchants to gain the best equipment for your journey

- Fight against hundreds of monsters and develop your skills to be able to use stronger arm our and weapons

- Learn how to use long banned magic to gain enough power to accomplish your tasks

- Find valuable treasures and pieces of equipment or take them from your conquered enemies

- Pry locks and chests open to find rare treasures

- Auto-save feature at checkpoints throughout the game allows players to continue their adventure at any time

Developer: HandyGames
Release: Q1 2008

About JoWooD Productions Software AG

JoWooD Productions Software AG (ATXPrime: JWD) is listed in the Prime Market segment of the Vienna stock exchange. JoWooD is a leading publisher of computer- and videogames, releasing international acclaimed, high-quality titles for all existing and future gaming systems. JoWooD games are distributed worldwide by an efficient net of distribution partners.

Visit http://corporate.jowood.com for more information.

About HandyGames™:

HandyGames™ is one of the leadin g independent developers of games for mobile phones. The company has offices in Giebelstadt, Germany and in Bucharest, Romania and has its very own international distribution network. The company was founded in 2000 by Markus Kassulke, Christopher Kassulke and Udo Bausewein, has more than 35 employees and plans to expand further.

The huge and diverse variety of products, which all excel by high quality, consists of downloadable and pre-installed games, as well as applications and games for the mobile Internet. HandyGames™ has developed top sellers such as Townsmen or Flitzer.

The company’s longtime success is reflected in close co-operations with producers of mobile phones and network operators, as well as in the many international prizes it has won.

More information at: www.handy-games.com.
More information.
 
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i hope this diminishes the people who still favour jowood over pirahna bytes.
 
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What do you mean by "favor over"? I haven't seen anyone like that around here. I have only seen people (like myself) who won't give PB a free pass for unprofessional conduct, even more unprofessional product support and for spreading lies as they please.

Regarding this announcement, it comes as exactly zero of a surprise because JoWooD have announced a long time ago already (in 2005 IIRC) that they were going to expand Gothic to mobile devices. So what? Who cares?
 
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Oh noes - not another game for mobile phones :rolleyes: There is already The Elderscrolls Travels games which don't seem to very popular with people. The general opinion is that these game are not that great. And why, oh why, would Jowood make a game for mobile phones ?? when they can make a nice Gothic game for the Nintendo DS (lite) and other simílar systems??

People playing mobile phone games are a totally different breed than the people playing Gothic games, I think??
 
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Yup, I tend to agree. Mobile phones are probably more suited to puzzle and casual games...if a "full" RPG is going to find a good audience on a handheld/mobile platform, the DS seems the best choice.

But I'm also guessing that Nintendo's control and licensing is harder than for a mobile and JoWood wants a cheap option.

Is the German market different for mobile phone games?
 
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Is the German market different for mobile phone games?

I do not care much or at all for mobile games so I'll just talk about my very subjective impression (vs objective hard evidence, numbers and facts) of the market here. My impression is that the market is very niche. Germans are very pragmatic people. We buy mobile phones to, well, you know, make phone calls :biggrin: and to write some SMS. I know a lot of people who do not need or even want phones that have cameras, that can surf the net or that let you play games. A lot of people would prefer if the phone would be limited to its core functionality of phoning and messaging.
The market for mobile games is certainly very small still. I think JoWooD knows this as well and that they aren't expecting a mega seller. They just want to get a foot in the door and enhance the Gothic brand awareness (or whatever the marketing peeps call it these days).
 
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It's hard to believe that jowood is even worth covering anymore, in the media.or even deserve to be given press on such an important site as RPGWatch, rather heart breaking. :(

Persoanlly I wouldn't regret if RPGWatch never covered another story of jowood again, except maybe if they went out of business.

Moriendor
"What do you mean by "favor over"? I haven't seen anyone ................"

I would call that support over, in addtion to baseless, exergerated and selfserving, but maybe that's just me. :)
 
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There are several seemingly Java-based adventures - I mean real role-playing games - for the "Das Schwarze Auge" (The Dark Eye, TDE) system out there - a few even translated.

What made the fans of this system quite angry was that at the height of the "Year of the Fire" campaign some of these adventures were ONLY available for mobile phones ! Nothing else ! Not even P&P !

So ... things can be different.

What disturbs me is the overal philosophy of shattering a brand acroiss several platforms. LucasArts for example is I'd say infamous for shattrering the Star Wars brand across the PS/P2/PSP/XBOX/PC/Gamecude/Dreamcast/Gameboy/Gameboy Advanced etc. with exclusives.

Of course you can always say "you don'tr need to buy them all", but a real fan might really feel forced to buy another system/platform just to be able to play everything that has the label "Star Wars" on it ... And LucasArts just don't care. They do so as if this highly special exclusive game will still be available in 10 years and if not who cares ? It's just money ...

They just don't realize that trying to keep fans of a brand connected to that brand might mean that this brand shouldn't be shattered across too many platforms.

If they would realize this, they just wouldn't do it.

Or on the other hand they just do shatter the brand across several platforms especially having this "brand-connection" in mind, who knows ?

I once played Drakan : Order of the Flame. I was quite surprised as I found out that there had been a precessor of which I never knew.
First, they erect a strong brand pon the PC, then they try to transport it entirely to the PS or PS2 by developing exclusively for this system ... To me it is as if I was developing Micromachines, get a huge success, and then I decide to develop it exclusively for the Dreamcast, to put things rather extremely.

RTS and FPS games are not so much shattered, by the way. Most of them stick to ONE console or the PC.
 
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I'm Old Skule, I want my phone to be.........a phone and nothing but a phone!! I already have a good digital camera, why do I need a mediocre one in my phone!!!!
 
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I'm Old Skule, I want my phone to be.........a phone and nothing but a phone!! I already have a good digital camera, why do I need a mediocre one in my phone!!!!

Once again... your opinion is quite like mine :)

I'm so sick of phones that do everything... I don't need a phone that washes my hair and picks my kids up after school... I just want to use it as a phone...

and no... it's not a walkie talkie, or a camera, or a morse code machine, or a planner, or a ... ad infinitum.

And when I see people playing games on their phone it blows me away... I've seen and tried some of them and they are terrible. The Oblivion game was a complete joke. I'd rather pass my time watching my nose hair grow.

Sorry... the whole cell phone thing is a very sore spot with me... even more so now that everyone is drooling over the iPhone.... when is that company gonna just die!

okay narpet... breathe... breathe...

Sorry... I'm sure that Gothic on the mobile platform will be an amazing game *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*
 
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the only thing that interest me is the lore, ie where is this Tirith and did it come from ideas that pirahna bytes created. maybe we can get Mike to do a review for it since handhelds are somewhat similar. and if he writes it in the vein of his stalker review...well i'm sure the review would be highly enjoyable for the 99% of us who aren't going to play it.
 
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I actually thought this was a joke whan I first read about it. I'm not sure what to think about this news.
 
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I wonder what would happen if Bethesda makes or licenses a FO3 conversion for mobiles - isometric and turn-based? It's not even that unlikely, considering Oblivion for wireless.
 
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"- Visit various locations in Khorinis and Tirith"

Tirith? Has anyone ever this area mentioned in any of the Gothic games?
 
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Never heared of that area either. First when I start reading it sounded as interesting untill it hit me that they really meant a game on a phone. A gotthic game nevertheless :S
I join corwin and narpet. I dont need al those flashy stuff on my phone, as long as it can make a call and send sms it is fine by me
 
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It may be my own prejudicism, but I think that most of the people who play games on cell phones (or mobile phones or handys, as they are called in Germany ; ) are women. And I don't know why most women would play a mobile phone game, targeted especiallu for boys & men, it seems?

And yes, most mobile phone games seems to be casual and puzzle games...
 
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Ive heard that mobile games give good profits with low risk. Its a good market apparently.

Yep, that is quite true - they tend to have 'try it for a few dollars a month' or 'buy it forever' modes - and they get to charge you data transfer rates as well!

I bought Orcs and Elves, but have only played a bit ...
 
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