EA Gameshow Shutting Down

After hanging around for nine months EA Gameshow is coming to an end as of July 25th. The live interactive sports trivia game never received much of a push from EA and subsequently never gained any traction with the masses. A small but dedicated group of players remained throughout.

When Gameshow first started up I was hooked. It offered a unique experience with live hosts and their interation with the players added a lot. Once I stopped playing though I just couldn’t find the motivation to start back up again. In a way that addictive nature may have done it in for me as it almost seemed like a time committment would have to be made to play it.

Some random topics and poll for today

Here are some random things I wanted to throw out there but wouldn’t have made for much of a full posting on their own. Feel free to leave your comments in response to any of these. I’ve also added a poll if you continue on asking which of the three football games you are anticipating the most.

• There were more areas of confusion coming out of the media event held by EA last week than just the Fantasy Football which was cleared up through my producer interview. Apparently some media outlets have reported that Madden 09 will have in-game saves. Operation Sports sought out confirmation and found out that it will not.

• EA Gameshow has made a major change by turning off the power-ups. I was never a huge fan of the power-ups from the start although once I understood them it added a fun element to the game. I would probably enjoy rounds more where it was just knowledge and speed that determined the winner rather than taking advantage of power-ups which in some cases could simply come down to luck. Not to mention there was only one that was worth using negating the whole idea behind creating strategies (6X Chicken). It also made for a difficult first time experience. Thinking you are doing well but then seeing you got blown out because you didn’t know about power-ups or didn’t use the right ones would be frustrating and confusing. The plan is to bring power-ups back in the future but in a way that is more balanced and easy to understand.

• Who else is more impressed with the feature set for NCAA Football 09 than the one for Madden 09 at this point? Granted there are many more features to come for Madden and it has received a huge lift in presentation. But the features that are known thus far definitely seem stronger for NCAA. While Madden’s Online Leagues sound as though they’ll turn out well it is nothing compared to the interest behind the Online Dynasty. Add in other significant additions such as Home Field Advantage, roster sharing, and customizable music. Compare that to the BackTrack/Rewind and the Virtual Trainer (of which they should probably be seen in action before judging) that are aimed at making Madden more accessible. The screenshots/videos for EA Sports World being added to Madden is exciting but that was in NCAA last year. I highly suspect though as more becomes known about Madden this feeling may shift. They’re not going to hold back in the anniversary year.

• The transition to the full NCAA Football 09 website (which should launch in the near future) has caused some issues and prevented them from posting up the daily alternate screenshots. If you have missed any over the last few days (Clemson, Colorado) because of that they are included in the screenshot gallery.

• I’ve been more excited in general with gaming over the past days than I have in a long time. First came GTA IV but that was even topped by Boom Blox. Lego Indiana Jones is coming in a few weeks. Now news that Viva Pinata 2 is on the way. The original VP along with Crackdown are my two favorite games of this generation.

EA GameShow now web playable

Yesterday EA GameShow launched a flash version to go along with the downloadable version which has been available since October. That means you’re now able to play GameShow online without having to download the program. It can be launched directly from the official website. I haven’t yet been able to test it out to see if it is as responsive and as fully featured as the downloadable version.

This is another in a string of updates to the very addictive live interactive trivia game and there is a lot more in the works. While they have concentrated mostly on upgrading the functionality and look in previous updates (lighter CPU requirements, adding text chat and 360 controller support, improving avatar options) they will be attempting to address other areas in future ones (such as the 6X Chicken powerup being the only one worth using).

As has been the case all along they continue to actively seek feedback. You can leave your thoughts in the thread on the GameShow forum or here in the comments and I can pass them along. For anyone new to GameShow check out all of my articles on it by visiting the tag page.

GameShow 1.2 update impressions

The new update to GameShow launched today. If you already have it installed on your computer you’ll need to re-download the program from the official website. It’ll install over the previous version. The 1.2 update of GameShow runs much lighter than the previous ones which had PC requirements that many had trouble meeting. The updated requirements are below as well as my quick impressions on some of the new features.

- Windows XP (SP2) or Windows Vista
- DirectX 9.0c or later
- 128MB of available RAM
- A Pentium-class processor with speed of at least 1.4GHz*
- Video card with 32MB VRAM (ATI, NVIDIA, or Intel recommended)
- Broadband Internet connection (Cable, DSL, etc.)

Currently there is a bug dealing with powerups in that they are empty if you enter a room immediately after signing in. That should be fixed for tomorrow however until then you just need to go into the shop area and make sure that the powerups are assigned to your keys after signing into the game. The settings have also are reset so if you like to assign different keys to activate powerups for example you’ll want to go in and save those again.

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GameShow V1.2 coming next week

A new update to EA GameShow is set to be released next week. It looks as though they’ve been taking the comments and suggestions out there under consideration and acting on them. Recently I even had the opportunity to talk to Roy Harvey who is the executive producer. We were on the phone for about an hour talking about my thoughts on GameShow and what could be done to improve the experience.

V1.2 changes known to be included

Text chat: A bubble will appear over your avatar with text chat messages you enter in. You can also send messages to the studio which fits in better than using cell phone text messaging.

Ability to run on lower end PCs: One of the biggest issues with GameShow has been the requirements to run it. There have been many accounts of people who wanted to play but their PCs just weren’t powerful enough to do so. Now the program will be lighter and faster to run.

Sharper and crisper look: Some visual improvements have been made.

There are likely to be other changes and hopefully once the update goes live there will be a complete list available. I will follow up on that with my impressions of the update.

Mini GameShow

I have written a good deal about EA GameShow and how I got hooked on it immediately. You can check out all of the articles on its tag page. After trying out some of the new features of the December update I haven’t been able to play all that much. When you sit down for Gameshow you want to set aside a good chunk of time and I just haven’t had that or the energy lately to do so.

Interestingly enough comes along GameShow “Fun Size”. This is a quick mini-version that is played on the web and is comprised of eight questions over five minutes. It is updated every day with a new topic category and questions along with daily leaderboards.

This is a good opportunity to try it out without downloading the program to get an idea of what to expect. It obviously doesn’t reach the same level of interactivity or options that comes with the real game but it is nice to have as a supplemental aspect.

A new full GameShow update is also expected to arrive in the near future with even more upgrades and features. As soon as details on that are available I’ll be posting them up along with my impressions.

GameShow V1.1 Impressions

The EA GameShow December update was released yesterday. For full details of what is included in the 1.1 version of GameShow check out this posting.

The download is found on the GameShow website and only took about one minute on my connection. It then took a couple more for the install but overall it was faster than the original process which took about 10 minutes from start to finish. This download is significantly smaller coming in at 78.5 MB compared to the first one which was 161.5 MB.

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GameShow December update coming Monday

Thanks to the blog posting on the EA GameShow website we know the full details of the December update. It is set to be released on Monday morning 12/17.

Earlier in the week back I mentioned some of the new features and improvements that were planned along with some of my thoughts on them. Now we have a more extensive list of what will be in the 1.1 version.

I’m excited for the new release and should get a chance to try it out on Tuesday. I’ll post my impressions of the changes soon after that.

6-player VoIP in rooms
3 new power-ups
Streak logic fixed
Streak animations in game room
Poll results screen
Variable question scoring (e.g. questions 10 - 15 count for 2,000 pts per)
Wager screen now shows total number of questions for that round
Mouse wheel support
Intro and exit animations for avatars
Tally animations
Full Screen button moved to Mappings page
Numbering added to leaderboards because idiot designer forgot them
In the shop, power-ups that are assigned but empty are now grayed out
Raffle summary page ordered by expiration date
Must fill out personal info before raffle purchase
360 Controller support
Avatar image added to certain screens
Dynamic game version # on sign-in screen
Added prizing rules to raffle screen
Rotate globe to show more of Canada
Minor changes, tweaks, updates (e.g. pallette icon in shop now animates)

Some details on the next GameShow update

A major upgrade to EA GameShow has been in the works for a while and it sounds as if it could show up as early as the end of this week. As soon as it comes out I’ll post details on the process involved of upgrading along with the noticeable changes and my early impressions of them. There are more additions and improvements included but here is what is known to be on the way and my quick thoughts on them.

New avatars, clothing, and accessories: There has been talk from the hosts since GameShow opened up to the public about all the avatar items that were being created. It’ll be nice to have more variety. I need cool sunglasses!

Revamped power-ups: This was necessary as the only one worth using was the 6x Chicken.

Improved presentation in game room: Didn’t really have a problem with the presentation but they’ve probably got a more slick look prepared.

Better raffle screen: Another minor thing as the raffle setup was clunky but worked alright.

Xbox 360 gamepad support: This could be really nice if I only could recognize the 360 buttons as instinctively as it is easy to answer using the keyboard. It would probably feel more natural using the controller though.

6 player VoIP support in game room: I’ll be interested to see how this works. Will voice only be active during commercial breaks? Can you turn it off so you can just listen to the hosts? I would’ve preferred text chat for during commercials but we’ll see how this works out.

To read up on all previous GameShow related topics head over to the GameShow tag page.

GameShow Night winner and answers

As announced last night on air, the winner of the EA GameShow night trivia contest is headhunter239. He will receive his very own GameShow t-shirt.

Eight straight hours is a long time but it was a lot of fun. Thanks go out to the GameShow hosts who over the past several days have talked about the contest and for making the shows really entertaining to listen to.

You can read the questions and answers with notes on some of them by continuing on.

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