With its recent acquisition of Big Huge Games, Curt Schilling-founded MMO developer 38 Studios gained both skills in the RPG arena and console development technology it can use to build out its portfolio of products based on the Copernicus IP.

"They will continue on development of some of their other products as well," 38 Studios president Brett Close tells WorldsInMotion.biz sister site Gamasutra as part of an interview following last week's acquisition.

"That won't stop, but the skillset, ability and talent and technology that they bring allow us to broaden and deepen what we're doing with Copernicus across the board."

At 38 Studios' Maynard studio, Close says the "core focus" is its in-development MMO and that will continue to be the case. "But part of our product vision and our business vision... was extending that across a variety of products and a variety of touchpoints that customers can access the world through," he says.

On the technology side, part of that is Big Huge's proprietary Mercury Engine -- a console engine and toolset "really specific," according to close, to RPG gameplay -- "but it can also be used for other things," he says.

"It's actually cross-platform, so we acquired that -- as well as their back catalog of IP for things like Rise of Nations, Rise of Legends and the license for Catan -- and we are able to utilize that technology in a variety of ways that will support the world of Copernicus."

In the acquisition, all of the Big Huge staff remaining after THQ's heavy layoffs now have new homes. "We retain the staff as it stands now," says Close. "We will not be having more layoffs."

Big Huge's core talent including Brian Reynolds, Jason Coleman, Dave Inscore, Jason Coleman, and Tim Train are all on board, too. "Frankly, the complementary talent there is a perfect fit for 38 Studios and what we do."

"Brian [Reynolds] is obviously incredible and very well known, but people like Ken Rolston and Mark Nelson who have an extensive RPG background with things like Oblivion and Fallout... Those guys, they're all rockstars," concludes Close in comments to Gamasutra.

Electronic Arts' EA Partners division has announced a deal with Scottish developer Realtime Worlds to distribute and market GTA-like PC MMO All Points Bulletin (APB) in North America and Europe in "early 2010".

Crackdown developer Realtime Worlds was founded in 2002 by industry veteran David Jones, late of DMA Design (now Rockstar North) and creator of Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto 1&2.

This new, much-awaited project, which has been in development for a number of years, "takes the universal theme of Criminals and Enforcement and brings it to a persistent, open world multiplayer setting in a modern, crime-ridden city."

The announcement continues a string of high-profile titles that have signed with EA Partners for help with distribution and marketing, but not necessarily full funding for creating the game.

Realtime Worlds has a total of $81 million in funding to date, including a $50 million second round in early 2008, and joins other recent EA Partners signings including Double Fine's Brutal Legend and Crytek's Crysis 2.

“Throughout his career David Jones has continually forged new creative paths in interactive entertainment,” said David DeMartini, Senior Vice President and General Manager, EA Partners. “David and the team at Realtime Worlds are set to do it once again with APB. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with them in introducing online persistence to 3rd person, open-world action games and defining a new category within the genre.”

Square Enix is bringing Final Fantasy XIV Online exclusively to PlayStation 3 in 2010, Sony Computer Entertainment America boss Jack Tretton said at E3 in a surprise reveal. [UPDATE: Game is console-exclusive to PS3, also launching on PC - see below for more details.]

The announcement came during Sony's E3 press conference at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles after showing extended footage of the single-player Final Fantasy XIII, which will debut in North America Spring 2010.

After the reception elicited by a shocked audience, Tretton joked, "There's one that didn't leak out," a reference to the multiple Sony-related press leaks in the days leading up to E3.

Tretton revealed virtually no details about Final Fantasy XIV Online, or if the 2010 release date was a worldwide launch target.

The last Final Fantasy online game Final Fantasy XI was originally released in the U.S. in 2004 originally for PC and PS2 originally, following its 2002 release in Japan. It migrated to Xbox 360 in 2006. Square Enix still operates the title, which is one of the most successful Japanese MMOs.

Square Enix vice president Hiromichi Tanaka and president Yoichi Wada have both commented in the past on the surprising success of its original MMO title, though other flirtations with the genre -- Front Mission Online and Fantasy Earth have made no waves and remain unreleased outside of Japan.

Given the popularity of the game at Japan's internet cafes and the rest of Asia's fondness for the platform -- as well as the existing PC Final Fantasy XI audience, it's surprising that the company will release the game exclusively on Sony's platform.

[UPDATE: According to a press release from Square Enix debuting after the Sony press conference, FFXIV Online is in fact console-exclusive to the PS3, not an overall exclusive, showing the kind of confusing remarks often given over exclusivity in press conferences.

The release notes that the game will have "a simultaneous global release" and will be localized into English, French, German, and Japanese. The tagline is "Adventure begins anew in the vast realm of Eorzea!"

In addition, the development staff is led by producer Hiromichi Tanaka (Final Fantasy XI), with art direction by Akihiro Yoshida (Vagrant Story) and music from FF series mainstay Nobuo Uematsu.]

On E3’s pre-show press event day, it was announced that EA Partners would be handling the retail distribution and publishing for Crackdown creator Realtime Worlds’ new action/shooting MMO, All Points Bulletin, or APB.

Dave Jones, creative director of Realtime Worlds and original GTA 1 and 2 creator, doesn’t typically do interviews, but was on-hand at EA’s press conference to answer a few of our questions.

We quizzed him, as well as CEO Gary Dale, on the newly-announced partnership, Realtime Worlds’ evolution as a company, and details about the game itself, from matchmaking, to instancing, to the choice of genre.

How did this deal come about?

Dave Jones: As you know, we’re about to release APB, it’s an online game, and we took the responsibility of things like the hosting, serving the game, customer service, and things like that. That’s something that we’re comfortable with, and that’s a goal of ours for developing the company. But of course, we still need at the end of the day, a tremendous distribution and marketing part.

And we talked to a few companies, but really you know, for the same reason it ticks the box with companies like Valve, and Harmonix in those days, it ticked the box for us as well. EA’s one of the best publishing and distribution partners out there. And they love the game, and I’ve never had a chance to work with EA as well, so it’s just for all those reasons.

Korean MMO publisher Nexon has signed a multi-title licensing deal with Scaleform that will see the company's Scaleform GFx UI solution integrated into four of the publisher's upcoming games, including Mabinogi: Heroes.

"To deliver our next generation of MMOGs, only a best-of-class user interface solution would suffice: we chose Scaleform GFx," says Mabinogi: Heroes project manager Eun-Seok Yi.

Scaleform GFx combines hardware-accelerated Flash rendering with Adobe Creative Suite's image, vector and video motion graphics software tool chain. It's designed to allow teams to implement hardware-accelerated content and user interfaces including intro logo and cut scene videos, menu UIs and HUDs, animated textures, minigames and full casual games.

The company says it's fully cross-platform and comes integrated with many game engines for UI and casual game development on PC and major consoles.

Brendan Iribe, president and CEO of Scaleform Corporation, says "As a global leader, Nexon's selection of Scaleform signals our solution's increasingly pervasive adoption for PC-based titles that span from casual gaming with mainstream audiences to hardcore AAA titles, particularly as publishers look for innovation opportunities that deliver on a cost-conscious bottom line."

Analyst Colin Sebastian is estimating that online game revenue has now reached $11 billion as part of a $44 billion worldwide video game market, with 2009 as the "year the pace of change accelerated."

With titles such as World Of Warcraft now bringing around $1 billion in revenue yearly to Activision Blizzard, it's easy to see why one of Sebastian's takeaways from E3, in a new analyst note, was: "Internet moving from sideshow to part of the main event."

The Lazard Capital Markets analyst particularly commented of this shift:

"With roughly one billion Internet users worldwide, the gravitational pull of the Internet is driving publishers to integrate online content and services more explicitly within and on top of traditional games.

In addition, 2009 may be remembered as the year in which the pace of change in media consumption accelerated, while 2010 and 2011 may bring improved monetization and mass market adoption of web-based applications and digital content, in particularinteractive entertainment."

Elsewhere in his E3 analysis, financial analyst Sebastian also looks at what increased Internet-based operation could mean for the major publicly traded video game companies, explaining:

"For video game publishers, the Internet platform not only provides room for additional revenue streams and higher ARPU, but also greater operating leverage and economies of scale.

Over time, we believe that better “Internet economics” should provide software publishers with higher growth multiples."