gdc-07
Latest
Despite 3.4 million downloads, PlayStation Home announced too early
The new virtual world we've written about at Massively, PlayStation Home, seems to have garnered itself a large user base despite getting off to a rocky start. Kaz Hirai of Sony Computer Entertainment mentioned in his Consumer Electronics Show speech that 3.4 million PlayStation 3 users have downloaded Home. It was, however, announced too early according to key members of the Home team in an interview with Develop.Announcing Home back at the 2007 Game Developer's Conference had the effect of stoking the interest of third parties (not to mention gamers and virtual world residents), but there was no where to run with their projects, given the early stage of Home's development at that time. Indeed, Home's Game Director Peter Edward feels that initially some developers were reluctant to get involved, but that situation is beginning to change. Edward says, "The feedback we've been getting is that, in the early days, it was a bit thin on the ground in terms of support and tools, but now it's mature and everybody's starting to produce some really interesting stuff."
A look back at GDC 07: interviews and sessions
Beyond the keynotes and news stories, the 2007 Game Developers Conference packed an incredible amount of content within the walls of San Francisco's Moscone Center. A number of memorable sessions leave us teary-eyed with nostalgia, as we wonder if GDC 08 can possibly top the frenetic schedule of last year's event.Before GDC proper even began, the Mobile Game Innovation Hunt passed out free beer and noisemakers to its filled-to-capacity crowd for the most professional form of game criticism. And speaking of professional criticism, Maxis developer Chris Hecker certainly made waves at the Game Publisher's Rant session, when he infamously referred to the Wii as "two Gamecubes duct-taped together," generating enough fanboy fuel to power a small star. The small but oh-so-significant comment unfortunately became the focus of the session's media coverage, but we were still able to talk to Vivendi's Nichol Bradford about her own impassioned presentation.Elsewhere, music was most certainly in the air, as iNiS VP Keiichi Yano discussed the success of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan on DS, and the difficulties of bringing the quirky rhythm title to the US as Elite Beat Agents. Musical inspiration could most definitely be found in Nintendo composer Koji Kondo, who made his first public appearance in America at GDC, and discussed the secrets of designing good game audio.
A look back at GDC 07: all the news thats fit to post
GDC is always a hotbed for game-related news, and 2007 was no different as a flurry of announcements made during the annual event gave attendees plenty to talk about while waiting in line for sessions or sipping unspecified beverages in a haze of drunken exhaustion. Let's take a look back at which announcements came to pass, which were left unceremoniously forgotten, and which ones still have us scratching each other's heads like a pack of spider monkeys. It was at GDC 07 where EA finally broke the silence and confirmed that it had slipped into bed with rhythm game virtuoso Harmonix with plans to publish the studio's next game. That game, of course, was Rock Band, though at the time the future of that announcement was the subject of much debate. After all, it's still popular to look at EA as an evil megacorp, and the partnership between it and indie fave Harmonix was not met with universal acclaim. Not that it matters now, as we're far too busy belting out lyrics to Roxanne.
Readers pick best webcomic: Hecker the Traitor
It may have required some background knowledge of 300 and Chris Hecker to understand, but the Joystiq webcomic lovers chose via parliamentary procedure 2P Start's entry as the best webcomic of last week.Second place went to Penny Arcade and third from Scott Johnson's Extra Life. Thanks to everyone who voted and be sure to let us know of any gaming comics you stumble upon this week!
Spore's power struggle: freedom vs. beauty
What is a magic crayon? If you're envisioning Harold and his purple outlet of creativity, you wouldn't be far off from the intended metaphor. Chaim Gingold, design lead for Spore's editors and cell game, described the magic crayon as a toy that is simple to use and yet gives the user enough power to create something they'll appreciate. Gingold kicked off his presentation, one of the last after a marathon of lectures and roundtables at this year's Game Developers Conference, by defining a magic crayon through example. Photoshop is not a good magic crayon, for example, because it is very hard for most people to use. Neither is Super Mario Bros., since you are not changing anything in the world. Kid Pix fits the schema for a magic crayon, as does the Mii creator, which is an "absolutely beautiful, wonderful magic crayon," he said.
Mega 64's "ruined" Mario skit
A skit that went great until some guy... Mega64 contributed a few new skits to the Game Developers Choice Awards last week to much applause and laughter, including a pretty poignant piece on Feel the Magic XX / XY (we're still waiting for that one to pop up on the internet). One in particular made the crowd scream more than anything else that night. The YouTube description reads thusly: "A skit that went great until some guy made it all awkward." We won't spoil the rest, so check out the video after the break.
Another side to Chris Hecker's duct tape rant
If you've followed the Game Developers Conference at all, you probably heard about Maxis programmer Chris Hecker comments that the Wii is nothing more than two GameCubes duct tape together (though, to be fair, that's a 0.5 upgrade from comments that the Wii is "GameCube 1.5"). We're willing to wager that "Product X is just two Product Ys duct tape together" is on track to becoming a popular phrase in gaming circles.Kim Pallister of Microsoft Casual Games has risen to Hecker's defense, which ultimately led to an apology we feel was somewhat coerced by his overlords at EA and Maxis. The major point in Hecker's argument is that having an innovative control system "should not give them a 'get out of jail free card' on the fact that they have delivered an underpowered machine," according to Pallister's interpretation. And by underpowered, Hecker is referring to computations and not the graphics system, which puts his rant in line with what he said last year that the PS3 and Xbox 360 also underperform in terms of computational power while focusing on a graphics-heavy system.We're not going to take sides on his point that Nintendo needs to "recognize and push games as a serious art form," though the statement does make for a great discussion. We will say all three companies have pushed for more involvement with independent developers. (Microsoft has Castle Crashers and Roboblitz, Sony has flOw and LittleBigPlanet and Nintendo has Line Rider and possibly Telltale's Sam & Max.)Don't forget about the heap of praise that the IGDA community gave Hecker just last year after winning the Community Contribution Award. Though, to be fair, that award is just two IGF awards duct taped together.
A numerical history, and future, of flOw dev That Game Company
On the first floor of Moscone's North hall last Friday, flOw developer That Game Company presented their storied origins. Co-founders Jenova Chen, who took a brief recess from the company to help on the DS version of Will Wright's Spore, and Kellee Santiago, met at the University of Southern California. "I don't see [video games] as being any different [than other interactive media], it's all story telling," Santiago said. Chen, who affirms that his proudest work is flOw and Cloud, explained their place in gaming with an ever-popular culinary allegory. Think of Gears of War as steak and World of Warcraft as chicken. Let's give lettuce a relation to Nintendogs and fish can be Brain Age. "Let's say you focus on chicken, but somehow you find a way to make it accessible and customizable," said Chen. The according Power Point slide shows the chicken transition into a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. "That also expands the audience or customers. How can you make existing games more accessible to wider audiences?" Does that mean flOw is a bowl of cereal? All we know now is that we're quite famished.
Games from XNA challenge ready for download
Those four day XNA games are finished and ready for your downloading pleasure. If you remember, Microsoft's held a four day XNA Challenge at this year's GDC, pushing four development teams to the edge by requiring them to complete a XNA Studio Express game in four days. Sounds hard doesn't it? But all the teams did indeed finish as Microsoft is pleased to announce that all four games are free and available for download to play on your PC right now, if you have XNA Studio Express (it is also free). Be sure to read the game descriptions after the break, check out some screenshots, and download these four day masterpieces.
GameTrailer's GDC video wrap-up
Our 2007 Game Developers Conference has come to an end, we've had a fun ride, but there is still more to see. And the nice folks over at GameTrailers have their GDC section quarantined off and ready to showcase some of the best Xbox 360 media. You can sit back and watch a new Portal video, maybe some Mercenaries 2, a Fable 2 dog demo, or The Darkness. It's every video they have to offer from GDC that is Xbox 360 related. And we definitely recommend watching the Fable 2 dog demo, because it just might make you think differently about this new "revolutionary" feature. GDC may be over, but your video watching has just begun.
id Software CEO: piracy pushed us multiplatform
At an early session Friday, id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead gave a lecture on the problems of piracy on the internet. During his speech, Hollenshead revealed that, although they are still primarily a PC developer, id Software had begun to look at console game releases as a way to financially combat piracy. "Piracy has pushed id as being multiplatform," Hollenshead said, noting that the current project Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is being scheduled for release on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Hollenshead's rationale is that console piracy is, by a large factor, minimal relative to the rampant PC piracy. In Hollenshead's lecture, entitled "The Videogame Piracy Problem: Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest," was a discussion on the problems of piracy, his company's experiences with the issues, and suggestions to help the diffuse the issue.
FlOw almost was a Wii title
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/flOw_could_have_been_on_Wii'; Speaking about the history of upstart developer That Game Company at GDC, President Kellee Santiago revealed an extremely interesting tidbit as to where flOw was heading on consoles. Two companies were interested in the title: Sony, as we all are now aware of, and Nintendo. "That was the hardest decision we ever had to make, choosing between Sony and Nintendo," admitted Santiago. Speaking during the Q & A, Santiago clarified that "they weren't right for us at the time. Sony kind of came to us with the process of incubation ... They helped us get our studio started." Nintendo did not approach them; the team actually cornered them about Cloud at a prior Game Developers Conference. FlOw creator Jenova Chen chimed in, saying "in the end, we are game makers and not console makers," expressing his satisfaction working with Nintendo on other projects. That Game Company did not rule out working on the Wii in the future. From our current impressions, we think Nintendo missed a golden opportunity here. We'll have more on That Game Company's presentation later in the day.
Castle Crashers gets bumped into 2008
Joystiq cornered The Behemoth's Dan Paladin after the GDC awards ceremony and asked about a release time-frame for Castle Crashers. To their (and our) dismay, Mr. Paladin stated that there was still "about a year of development left" on the XBLA title. Shocked, Joystiq then inquired to whether The Behemoth was going to take advantage of the 100MB bump in the XBLA size limit and were pleased to learn that Castle Crashers would benefit by adding additional features and content. So, we'll be seeing more Castle Crashers content, but will also have to suffer a longer wait. With a year or more of development nobody will be having any Castle Crashers fun until 2008 ... so you better make one hell of a game Mr. Paladin, because this hurts. This hurts a bunch.
GDC 07: Nintendo may grab headlines, but Sony still has sales
Sony's Phil Harrison was quick to remind his audience yesterday that Sony is still the number one brand, and that he personally doesn't feel like Sony is losing. The combined sales of the PlayStation brand show that gamers want PlayStation products: the PlayStation 2 is still the greatest-selling console on the market; and the PLAYSTATION 3 has sold faster than the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 in the same time frame."While certain systems grab headlines," Harrison commented about the recent love of Nintendo by the gaming press, "sales are what matter."When faced with the issue of the launch library drought, Harrison noted that the PS2 and PS1 didn't have the greatest launches ever: "Fantavision, bless its cotton soul, was NOT going to establish a 100 million system ... The Bouncer [Square launch game] was NOT a good game."
Pajitnov, with needle and thread, wins Game Design Challenge
The game design challenge is an honored tradition four years in the running at the Game Developers Conference, pushing creativity in a competitive, humorous environment. This year's winner was Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov who managed to create a viable action-puzzler using needle, thread and cloth. He bested both David Jaffe (Calling All Cars, God of War) and last year's winner Harvey Smith. The following is a pseudo-live blog of the event from earlier this afternoon. Read on for a full description of each game proposed.
Audio input innovation jumpstarts Experimental Gameplay sessions [update 1]
Other than the obvious Karaoke titles and the later Mario Party games, audio is an untapped resource in gameplay input. Kicking off the Experimental Gameplay Session at this year's Game Developers Conference, a dozen or so quick-and-dirty games set out to change that.Here are some of the highlights from those initial games. The selected music will create falling enemies from the top of the screen (Though it was written with pop in mind, classical music was used to a rather disappointing effect). As a ball tethered to both sides of the screen, you move it with the mouse to capture the enemies. Capture radius too small? Talk (or yell) into the microphone and the radius increases accordingly). We rank this one impressive. Designer Sean Barret created a Tempest style game, where the player has two shooters representing the bass and treble. As enemies come down the field, your shoots created the notes according to the row you were at (the bass blaster had five or so lines reserved, while treble had eight or nine). In this scenario, the game was forcing you to play the song. To prove this point, we witness the horrible sounds made when shots are fired randomly or targets missed. In another game, blips appeared on the screen and you had to avoid them with your mouse cursor. Each near-hit would register a sound, starting with a simple bass beat. As the game progressed, more obstacles and lighting effects would appear. Eventually, we lost track of what the point of the game was, though the flashing lights, reminiscent of a rave, enjoyed us enough not to care. The audience agreed, cheering wildly at the demo's conclusion.
Valve's Kim Swift talks about designing Portal
At the Experimental Game Design lecture (where, among others, we heard from Crush's Alex Butterfield), Valve's Kim Swift, one of the designers of Portal, talked about the challenges of creating a first-person mind-screw puzzler, which is packaged with the oft-delayed Half-Life: :Episode 2, Black, and Orange sets, and concluded with a video demonstration solving one of Portal's crazy door-opening puzzles."Doing something new can be a really big risk and adding something innovative to something already exists can often disrupt and create new games," she said. Swift told the crowd that she and the team approached Portal problems as small gamelets in isolated environments. To her, trying to innovate too much at one time can lead to failure. Jurassic Park: Tresspasser, she quipped, is an example of a title that "tries a lot, and fails at all." Swift's mantra is to try one thing and polish it to the best of your ability.Following her talk, Swift started a video of one level of portal to explain the depth of the puzzle. In Portal, you can make a blue and orange-rimmed portal that interact with one another. You can attach a portal to most surfaces, although reflective and glass surfaces will not take a portal, "just to make your life more difficult," Swift notes.
A very early look at Schizoid
Among the news from GDC we learned that the first ever XNA created game Schizoid will be coming to the XBLA sometime later this year. 1UP posted some screenshots from the game and talked with a few people from Torpex's dev team to learn a little bit more about the gameplay. Per Microsoft, Schizoid is "a co-op action game in which teamwork matters like never before, as gamers and their friend or AI ally protect each other from barrages of glowing enemies". Presumably, the game is heavy on the co-op gameplay, where each player can only kill their corresponding color's enemies and protect their partner from the evil that they cannot kill. Think top down space shooter, with color coded gameplay, and a little bit of fl0w thrown in for good measure. Make the jump for a few more screenshots and some speculation goodness.[Via Game Stooge]
GDC Awards: Gears takes home the hardware
The GDC's Game Developer's Choice Awards were announced last night and our very own Gears of War came away with a handful of metal statuettes. Gears walked off stage with a few trophies for best in technology, visual arts, and of course game of the year. Gamespot reports that when Cliffy B went on stage to accept the game of the year trophy for Gears he, in all his Cliffy B glory, exclaimed "holy sh**!". We congratulate you Epic Games (again) for the numerous awards you've received for Gears of War. Though, you'll probably have to invest in a new trophy case pretty soon.
GDC 07: Miyamoto keynote reveals design inspiration
Shigeru "The Man" Miyamoto has just finished speaking at the GDC in San Francisco. A massive crowd waited for the famed Nintendo designer to discuss the inspirations behind his game designs. See how Mii evolved from early NES concept, and read about a brand new Wii channel that Miyamoto is working on. The full Nintendo Wii/DS Fanboy liveblogging transcript is available after the break.
