Ghost Razor

As previously mentioned, I went on vacation last week, and apparently the world does not stop while I’m laying on the beach.

Big news of the last week.  Apparently it was GDC or something.  I wasn’t there, so if you want juicy GDC goodness, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

Microsoft

• Microsoft, in a new initiative called Dreamspark is making much of its developer software free to students.  This software includes Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server, XNA Game Studio, XNA Creator’s Club Subscription, and Expression Studio.  That should be plenty of tools for would be game developers to muck about in.  Details are here.
• Microsoft is dropping support for HD-DVD with the discontinuation of the add-on for the Xbox 360.  All remaining units are being cleared at firesale for $50.  I would not be surprised if there was a Blu-ray add-on in the future.
• Microsoft announced during the GDC 2008 Keynote a new service, the so-called Xbox Live Community Games.  Under this service, users can build a game using XNA Game Studio, and then upload it directly to a community portal where the game is democratically reviewed.  The reviewing process is intended to look for infringing or objectionable material.  The best of these games get automatically uploaded to Xbox Live for the masses to enjoy.  No specifics on pricing, or if the developer is getting kickbacks (as one would assume they would if Microsoft is collecting on their work).

Sony
On the Sony side of things, Phil Harrison, one of the founding members of Sony Computer Entertainment, and the president of SCE Worldwide Studios, has submitted his resignation.  Changes in leadership often come with widespread changes across the board, but it depends on the size and momentum of the company in question, and Sony is rather largeish, so I would not anticipate a massive change in the direction of their games.

Australia

Australia is talking about finally getting a new rating that will allow more mature titles to be sold there.  Unfortunately, I doubt this will alleviate the massive delays they usually incur before North American/Japanese release, and release to the land down under.

Electronic Arts

EA is offering to buy Take Two!  I would suggest in reaction to the recent Activision/Vivendi merger, EA is looking to add some more meat to its already colossal frame.  EA’s new CEO John Riccitiello has mentioned that he’s extremely unhappy with the scores EA’s games have been getting of late, so there might be some incentive to own some games that are critically acclaimed (which might have fueled the recent acquisition of Bioware as well).  Take Two is brimming with talent, including the developers of the Grand Theft Auto series (Rockstar), Bioshock (2K Games), and Civilization (Firaxis).  While EA’s initial bid is a bit lower than Take Two is looking for, most analysts are expecting this deal to go through eventually at some price point.

On a side note, Take Two is the current owner of one of my favorite IPs of all time, the Tex Murphy series.  This series was created by Access Software (later renamed to Indie Built) in the 90s.  Microsoft acquired them for the Links Golf series, and then sold the company to Take-Two who then shut it down.  While a revival is not likely at EA, it’s marginally more likely than at the parent who shut them down in the first place.

EA has a habit of killing great teams by using simple business math.  If you have everyone using the same tools and processes, costs are lower.  Unfortunately, this slows down and breaks the dynamic that produced the great team in the first place.  This is something you can do with teams that are having trouble realizing their full potential, perhaps due to infrastructural problems, but when you acquire a really solid team, it’s important that you just leave them alone to do their thing.  Riccitiello seems to be aware of this, so perhaps Take Two’s properties are not going to join the legacies of Westwood, Bullfrog, and Origin.

Havok

Havok is free, to which I say, OMGWTFBBQ.  Well, okay, it’s only free on the PC, but as of May 2008, you at home will be able to download your very own copy of Havok Complete (which includes the Physics and Animation packages).  This is a non-commercial license, but it allows hobbyists to get their hands dirty with the most widely used physics engine in the PC gaming space, which is good for companies looking to hire people who know Havok already.  This theoretically lays some groundwork for Havok’s more specialized products for behavioral animation, deformable solids, and cloth rendering.

And that’s all that happened this week, I’ll be posting on a more semi-regular basis now.

Tags: Conferences, Design, Developers, Industry, Platform, Publishing, Releases by Morphix
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A few days ago, Gamasutra put out the eight edition of the annual classic, Bad Designer, No Twinkie.

There is much that is good in that article, and a quick perusal will have you nodding your head at half the games you’ve played.  I particularly like the segment on Failure to provide short-term goals.  This particular problem is one which has caused much frustration in and about my person, and has been the single cause of my inability to complete several games.  Part of a game is guiding the player through an experience - Not spoon feeding it to her - but some direction is expected.  There are games (mostly orbiting the celestial entity that is Will Wright) which set out specifically to allow the player as much freedom and to deny specific goals at all.  This is a somewhat different matter, as the gripes entailed by the above refer specifically to scenarios under which a specific goal exists, but the goal is not adequately presented to the player.  Nevertheless, it’s a dangerous game to play (although one Will plays very well), because there is a difference between allowing the player to define their own goals, and providing no direction on goals whatsoever.   This is something I’ve wondered about with Spore (Remember Spore?).  I’ve just watched the video from the 2007 Leipzig Game Conference, and the game certainly looks more visually polished than it did a year ago, but there’s no new magical reveals on content or gameplay.  Spore is an interesting beast because it’s less a game and more a toy.  The difference between the two really are that toys are something you play with, to explore the possibility space of your imagination.  Even so, this possibility space is limited by the structure of the software, and if no hints or direction are given as to the ways in which you can explore that space, one can get frustrated easily (not that I anticipate that will happen in this case).

I’m not sure I entirely agree with the argument for Amnesia though.  This can, if done properly and occasionally be a powerful technique (a film example would be in Memento, a game example would be Bioforge), but it needs to be the focus of the work, and it’s difficult to pull off.  This is at odds with the number of games which employ the technique.

Eight years of Twinkie Denial can be found at Ernest Adams’ No Twinkie Database.

Tags: Conferences, Design, Game Ideas by Morphix
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Chris Hecker has apologized for calling the Wii a piece of shit! If you missed out, Chris Hecker, one of the developers for Spore, attacked Nintendo during a session at GDC 2007 this week. Calling the Wii “…Two Gamecubes haphazardly stuck together with duct tape”, and saying that “Nintendo for not taking games as a serious art form”.

Chris has done a complete 180 today, apologizing and saying that he “was trying to be thought provoking and entertaining and fun, and a lot of the stuff went too far over the top”.

You think?

Chris won an award at last year’s GDC for his very thought-provoking speech on how we, as a people, are privileged to be living at a time when the medium of video games is emerging, and how we need to be careful how we craft it. He’s not a stupid guy. I really do believe he was speaking out of personal frustration with the processing limitations of the Wii from the perspective of someone who’s trying to implement a very processor heavy game. That said, there’s a time and place to vent those frustrations, and blasting Nintendo up and down during a public talk is not exactly what we would refer to as Politico.

The Wii was never supposed to be a power-house. Nintendo decided to move in a risky and wildly different direction as one would expect they would, because that’s how Nintendo avoids playing in a three way tug of war for quality content. Criticize that if you like for being the wrong move, but don’t just upend them as if they have, in some way, completely taken a face-plant just because the platform isn’t appropriate for YOUR game.

I suspect that a lot of his friends and co-workers ripped him a new one after that talk. Lesson learned I hope. Go back to making Spore as good as it should be and leave Nintendo to do their thing.

Tags: Conferences, Platform by Morphix
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