gdc-2013
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PS4 'Elemental' demo of Unreal Engine 4 gets an extension
In addition to the new 'Infiltrator' video, Epic Games brought to GDC an extended version of the PS4 'Elemental' demo highlighting its Unreal Engine 4 engine, the demo first shown at the console's reveal event. You can now see two more minutes of Epic's next-gen engine running in real-time on Sony's next-gen console.
Where Retro City Rampage made its money
During his GDC panel, "One Man, 17 SKUs: Shipping on Every Platform at Once," Retro City Rampage creator Brian Provinciano provided a clear breakdown of the game's fiscal performance across various platforms.PSN was where Provinciano saw most of his profit come in: over $600,000 earned across over 35,000 units sold on PSN. These numbers do not account for PlayStation Plus downloads and the period of time during which RCR was offered for free with membership.The PC platform yielded the second-highest revenue for Retro City Rampage, earning over $400,000 from over 40,000 copies sold – the majority sold on Steam. Xbox Live Arcade came third with around $200,000 earned across 15,000 units sold, and WiiWare earned under $10,000 with fewer than 2,000 units sold. After the panel, Provinciano told me sales currently sit around 97,000 total, and that he anticipates total sales will exceed 100,000 next week.Provinciano said he spent the most development time on the Xbox Live Arcade port, on a platform he called the most expensive. "Knowing what I know now, I would've skipped it," he said. Though he considered the WiiWare version a $20,000 gift to fans, the XBLA port ended up costing more.Update: Brian got in touch to tell us some of the numbers in his panel were a bit off thanks to an Excel issue. "Looks like Excel didn't line up the bars up correctly." The WiiWare version sold under 2,000 units, he tells us. "It's also sold significantly more than 35K on PSN, 40K on PC and 15K units on each of the other platforms."
Rome 2 looks to continue building Total War's empire
Showing off a strategy game like Total War: Rome 2 at a convention can't be easy. With only so much time to show off to the awaiting journalists, games have to rely on spectacle. Yet the greatness of Total War derives from longer play sessions. There, the series' two halves – tactical battlefields and grand strategic decisions – work in harmony. Those moments are impossible to achieve in a single gameplay demonstration, but developer Creative Assembly still has to make that attempt, which it did, with the historical Battle of Teutoburg Forest. The most notable part of the demonstration was that the game's graphics are fantastic, but that's also the least surprising aspect of a new Total War game. After all, the Total War series has taken major leaps forward in graphics ever since its inception over a decade ago. 2011's Shogun 2 may still look great, but Rome 2 appears to surpass it. The background geography, like the trees, cliffs, and marshes look particularly detailed, while the soldiers had a slightly grittier, less cartoonish look than their samurai counterparts. It was left to a question and answer session after the demo with three of Rome 2's developers to understand what might make this installment particularly interesting. Much of what they said indicated that they understood the series' flaws and were actively working to fix them. Although not directly stated, many of their statements implied a move away from micromanagement, the bane of Total War and many other strategy games.%Gallery-167504%
What went wrong with Halo 4's Prometheans
"We had a number of concerns about the Forerunners that we thought went not completely according to plan and could be improved upon," 343 Industries design director Scott Warner told the audience at his GDC 2013 panel, "The Design of New Enemies for Halo 4," which discussed the design philosophies behind the game's new breed of bad guys.First and foremost, communication issues between the design and artwork departments exacerbated problems early in the studio's existence – growing pains associated with starting a new company. "We were a brand new team at 343," Warner said. "You have to consider the challenge that we had was starting from zero people and going to about 340 before we shipped."In a similar vein, the "absence of high level vision" on the various creatures' gameplay mechanics caused 343 to spend time developing ideas that would eventually prove fruitless: "It would have been easier for us to understand if we'd had more definition around these characters early on, as far as who they were." An early prototype build was shown as an example, in which two Promethean Knights balled themselves up like Samus and attacked Master Chief.
GDC 2013: Dean Hall on the pillars of DayZ's design
Dean Hall talks about DayZ as a scientist would a Petri dish gone grotesque. He knows perhaps what the game's strengths and appeal might be, knows why it hosts over 1.7 million players. Still, he meets the success with some bemusement, especially considering how notoriously difficult the mod is to install. Now Hall is working with Bohemia Interactive on a standalone DayZ title (to be released, he apologizes, "when it's ready"). In Hall's "Designing DayZ" lecture at GDC this week, the focus was on his philosophy in shaping the game.
MechWarrior Online to fully launch by end of summer
Free-to-play mega-machine simulator MechWarrior Online will exit beta and launch by late summer. The game is currently playable in open beta. Asked to narrow down that launch window a little more, Russ Bullock, president of developer Piranha Games, noted it'll be "no later than" September 21 (the official close of summer).Since the game is wholly player-versus-player, we asked if the company plans on implementing a player versus AI model. We were told at GDC that it's not in the plan and Piranha hasn't explored the option.There are currently three major features the studio is planning to add before launch as they maintain their updates for the game every two weeks. The first is upping the number of mechs on the battlefield from eight versus eight to 12 versus 12, this will happen in "the next 60 days." They are also doing another complete revamp of the user interface. Finally, the "granddaddy feature," is community warfare that incorporates the lore from the BattleTech universe and allows players to pledge allegiance to houses.
Daily iPhone App: Nimble Quest arrives on the App Store
You may already know that the great NimbleBit has released a new game this week, given that I spoke with them earlier here at GDC. Nimble Quest (free) is unlike the company's previous hits, Tiny Tower and Pocket Planes, but it's just as fun and well-implemented. The core mechanic is borrowed from Snake, the old mobile game where you send a long snake around in four directions while eating bits of food and growing longer. In Nimble Quest, you guide around a train of fantasy-based adventurers by swiping on the screen, earning XP and gems as you go. The gameplay is simple, but it can be tough. Running into a wall kills your whole party in one hit, and the adventurers you pick up during play (which are unlocked at a rate of about one per stage) are relatively fragile. You'll probably lose just about as many as you gain over the course of a level or game. Just like in Pocket Planes and Tiny Tower, NimbleBit keeps the rewards flowing. Powerups boost your strength or give you a gem magnet, and clearing out an entire level is a very rewarding feat by itself. The game is freemium, but NimbleBit knows how to keep a freemium game fun even for those who don't want to spend money, so the in-app purchases are always there and ready if you'd like a hand, but never required or annoying. The one misstep is that NimbleBit has borrowed the idea of "boosts." It's a concept that's ascribed to Bejeweled Blitz and has been showing up in several games lately. I don't like boosts at all. The idea is that you can spend some money on unlocking an extra ability or some extra power for a certain stage, essentially gambling that you'll earn just as much or more back with that extra power. In my experience, buying the boosts is never worth it, so I just don't use them at all, and that seems like a less-than-ideal mechanic in a game that's otherwise so polished. That quibble aside, Nimble Quest is another gem in NimbleBit's crown. It'll be interesting to see what kind of audience it finds, as it's a very different game from the others the Marsh brothers are known for. But it's definitely a must-play, and if you're anything like me, this game will snake its way right into your free time for quite a while.
Jason Rohrer buries a board game, wins Game Design Challenge
Game designer Jason Rohrer designed a board game, built it out of 30 pounds of titanium, then buried it in the Nevada desert. A Game for Someone was his entry in the last GDC Game Design Challenge, which carried a theme of "Humanity's Last Game," and it won.Rohrer has never played his game, and he doesn't expect anyone else to for 2,000 years, when future humans discover the mysterious artifact in the desert. Instead, he designed it first as a computer game, using repeated AI playthroughs to automatically refine its rules.Rohrer then handed out sheets of paper loaded with GPS coordinates. One coordinate, on one of the papers, leads to the game; Rohrer estimates that if one person tried one coordinate per day, it would take 2,700 years to find the game. Imagine hundreds of game designers, programmers, artists, academics, students, and journalists dragging metal detectors through the desert. Now that's a game idea.
Metanet working on N++, 'the final iteration of N'
Metanet Software is returning to its platforming classic N, one last time. Studio president Mare Sheppard announced a game called N++ during a GDC panel, intended to be "the final iteration of N." The impetus behind this reexamination of side-view minimalist ninja jumping isn't entirely happy, as Sheppard said Metanet has had difficulty working with non-N games since N+. "We were clinging to the idea that N might be the only proof we had that we weren't completely idiotic or utter failures," she said. Despite worries that it would be a "step back" for Metanet, "at this point in our lives, this feels like the right thing to do... We can work on N again after all that emotional trauma." The good news out of this, which Sheppard's statements may not get across, is that Metanet really is quite good at making N games.
GDC 2013: PlanetSide 2's new app and the future of Forgelight
On Tuesday, SOE shared a trailer highlighting its Forgelight engine. The proprietary engine not only runs PlanetSide 2 but will also be the foundation for all the studio's future games, including EverQuest Next. The same press release also introduced the upcoming PS2 app. Although it won't be available to the public for a a bit, I had a chance to sit with senior art director Tramell Issac to see the app in action as well as discuss the Forgelight engine and what's coming up for PS2. The app provides easy access to a ton of gameplay info, from personal stats to weapon information to real-time in-game map updates, and consequently there could be a marked decrease in workplace productivity in store for PS2 fans!
GDC 2013: James Ohlen on how F2P saved SWTOR
If you've been following BioWare for any length of time, then you know James Ohlen. When I interviewed him a couple of years back at PAX East and again last year at the Star Wars: The Old Republic guild summit, I could feel his sincere passion for the game. Ohlen joined the SWTOR project at its inception and held the creative director position for well over half a decade. SWTOR is as much his game as anyone's. As is common at the Game Developers Conference, developers speak candidly to other future game-creators about the inner workings of their studios' biggest projects. Sometimes those tales are cautionary; some are inspiring. This time, Ohlen's told the story of SWTOR, the game that currently holds the record as the second largest subscription MMO ever, and how free-to-play turned what could have been a tale of utter failure into a story of success.
GDC 2013: Bungie shows off Destiny character concepts and animation
Want a look at some of the characters in Bungie's new Destiny IP? You're in luck, because the company showed off a two-minute video crammed with creature concepts and animation at this week's GDC in San Francisco. Joystiq has the scoop, and you can check out the Hive, the Fallen, the Vex, and the Cabal in the clip after the cut. Massively sent its ace reporters to San Francisco to bring you back the biggest MMO news from this year's GDC, the largest pro-only gaming industry con in the world! Whether it's EVE Online or Star Wars: The Old Republic or that shiny new toy you've got your eye on, we're on the case, so stay tuned for all the highlights from the show!
Ouya: Joystiq goes hands-on
For being such a little thing, the Ouya is surprisingly heavy. The Kickstarter unit I tested was etched with the names of $10,000 backers, Minecraft creator Notch at the top of the list. Ouya's development kit (the ODK) is in the hands of 8,000 developers, Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman told me. "New games are getting loaded every single day, all different types of genres."The hardware is finalized, she said, having been improved over the original development kits based on developer suggestions. With units now shipping to Kickstarter backers, the next two months will be spent improving the software prior to the official public launch in June. "Like every other sort of typical software platform, it's always going to continue to evolve, and we'll add more features and functionality."%Gallery-184315%
IGDA party features dancers, prompts controversy, resignations
The International Game Developers Association's GDC party resulted, rather than merriment for all, in the resignations of several IGDA leaders, after the appearance of underdressed dancers on stage at the event, reportedly hired by party sponsor YetiZen.Student Alicia Avril first brought the appropriateness of the dancers into question in a Forbes report, noting that it doesn't square with the professionalism or advocacy the group espouses. "Knowing there are such concerned women as members of this group," she told Forbes, "you'd think that the IGDA would be more thoughtful in their own party and how they're portraying themselves."Some members' concern led to the end of their membership, including game designer Brenda Romero, who publicly resigned from her position of co-chair of the IGDA Women in Games SIG, and developer Darius Kazemi, who "formally resigned" following the party.The IGDA issued a statement in response to the controversy. "We recognize that some of the performers' costumes at the party were inappropriate, and also some of the activities they peformed were not what we expected or approved," the statement reads. "We regret that the IGDA was involved in this situation. We do not condone activities that objectify or demean women or any other group of people." The group pledged increased vigilance toward "encouraging inclusion and diversity."During the IGDA meeting today at GDC, executive director Kate Edwards elaborated on the organization's position, Gamasutra reports. "We realize that we make mistakes sometimes, and we want to make sure that all of our programs and activities are considered inclusive and professional." She called for participation from all members, including those who left, in order to know "what we can do to do a better job in the future."
Destiny GDC 2013 'character development' video lands online
During Bungie's GDC panel Brave New World: New Bungie IP, a teaser video full of character development renders highlighting Destiny's races played for attendees. Thankfully, GDC attendance is no longer a requirement.Outside of a look at the three player classes, some of the other aliens of our solar system conjured up by Bungie are on display: the zombie-like Hive, multi-armed Fallen, metallic Vex and bulky Cabal are all here. There's also some preliminary animation work to check out. %Gallery-184342%
Seen@GDC: 'Imagine Dante in a Western movie'
When Capcom tasked Ninja Theory with rebooting Dante, the main character of its classic Japanese franchise Devil May Cry, it wanted to draw a clear distinction. This was a new Dante, a new Devil May Cry, and the series told through a westernized lens."Imagine Dante in a western movie," Capcom told Ninja Theory's art team. And so it did. There's Dante above, shooped into a scene from Brokeback Mountain – a very western movie, after all – and below Dante takes a breather with Brad Pitt in Fight Club.
PS4 project from Paradox won't attempt 'cheap PC port'
Speaking to Joystiq at GDC, Paradox Senior Producer Gordon Van Dyke offered a few hints as to what shape the company's PlayStation 4 project may take. "There's something in the works – I can't say yet, but we are looking into it."Van Dyke pointed to a recent addition in War of the Roses, an online medieval battle game that he oversees. "Obviously we've added controller support [to War of the Roses], there's a proof-of-concept that definitely works." Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean War of the Roses is coming to PS4 – in fact, Van Dyke said Paradox still isn't sure what exactly it wants to do on PS4 yet."We first need to make sure we can get the game running on the hardware, but the hardware is much more easier to work with than it was previously when I was at DICE on Battlefield, where there were struggles with Sony's hardware – especially the way they allocated memory. They've eliminated a lot of these hurdles [on PS4] and x86 makes it much more plausible that we can do it."For now, "it's definitely a realistic possibility and something we'd like to happen, but we're not entirely sure we can deliver on that." He said it's a bit of an inverse scenario for Paradox, where the developer wants to ensure its PS4 game isn't interpreted as "a cheap PC port on console."
Ubisoft Toronto working with Ubi Montreal on another Assassin's Creed
Ubisoft Toronto is collaborating with Ubisoft Montreal on an Assassin's Creed game coming after AC4: Black Flag. and has plans to be involved with the development of four other unannounced games. Speaking with Polygon, managing director Jade Raymond said the studio, involved with Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Rainbow Six: Patriots, has plans set for five further games in total."We have two big collaborations coming that we're not talking about, on two of the biggest franchises at Ubisoft. We also have two new IP," Raymond told Polygon, noting that the fifth project is a Splinter Cell game.Raymond's comments follow on from the intentions she laid out in 2010 to eventually have five triple-A projects going on at Ubisoft Toronto at the same time, with a staff of some 800 people involved. In other words, Ubi Toronto's plans for world domination are beginning to surface, and we should call the authorities immediately.
Seen@GDC: The 'camp' poster that led a Pomeranian to PlayStation
During a GDC panel covering the early formation of Tokyo Jungle, Yohei Kataoka, president of developer Crispy's Inc, shared a poster that caught his eye and – eventually – put a Pomeranian on PlayStation.Sony's Creator Audition Mashup Project – or C.A.M.P – called on new Japanese talent to submit innovative game ideas in need of funding. In the absence of longterm financial support, and with no desire to work for someone else, Kataoka and his newly formed studio submitted several game ideas for PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3. "I only created what I wanted to create from the bottom of my heart," he said. (Those ideas are worth their own story, which we'll have for you later.)Kataoka didn't settle on his "action survival" game of Tokyo Jungle at first. In 2008 his seven-person team released MyStylist, a clothing database and style advice game for PSP. It would presumably frown upon a C.A.M.P. Elvis impersonator.
IGF grand prize winner gives his booth away to 'Howling Dogs'
IGF Seumas McNally grand prize winner Richard Hofmeier, the man behind Cart Life, vandalized his own booth on the GDC show floor and handed it over to Porpentine, the developer behind text adventure Howling Dogs.Hofmeier hit up Porpentine on Twitter on Thursday morning, to kindly request he show Howling Dogs at his "booth thing." Oh, you know, just that booth for the awards that Cart Life totally swept last night. No big deal. Porpentine responded in the affirmative, and Hofmeier got to work tagging his own sign."IM REALLY EXCITED ABOUT HOWLING DOGS WINNING THE IGF," Porpentine later tweeted. For those at GDC, check out Howling Dogs in the IGF booth roundup in Moscone South. You can't miss it. Everyone else, play it here.
