gdce-2011
Latest
Amnesia dev discusses success; next project won't lose the 'scary atmosphere'
Thomas Grip, project manager at Amnesia: The Dark Descent developer Frictional Games, spoke on "Evoking Emotions" earlier this week at GDC Europe, and explained the intricacies of the game that absolutely terrified those who played it. We wanted to discuss his emotions on the success of the game, which has sold over 400,000 copies --- an impressive feat for an indie dev. "While we were quite confident that we had a game that was better than any of our previous, we had never expected the response we got," Grip told us when we asked if he was surprised by the success. "The press response was very nice -- both in terms of coverage and grading -- but even more fun and surprising was the player response that continues almost a year after. The amount of videos, images, etc. that players have created in response to the game is just amazing, and several orders of magnitude larger than anything we have had. Sales-wise it's, of course, also overwhelming, and I think especially how good it is still selling even a year after."
Seen@GDC Europe: Epic Games president Mike Capps' adorable laptop wallpaper
Hello Gears of War! As seen above, Epic Games prez Mike Capps has a taste for the ironic in his desktop wallpapers. So, what do we call this adorable little symbol ... COGKitty? Perhaps Hello Kitty of War? She'll chainsaw right through you with a lollipop!
Microsoft looking into Gears of War 1 and 2 in Germany
Epic Games president Mike Capps spoke at GDC Europe today, reiterating his surprise that Gears of War 3 received an "18" rating from the German USK, making it the first Gears not to be indexed in the region. "We were so surprised that Gears of War 3 was rated here that we really didn't have an action plan," said Capps. "I'm very happy that the marketing team at Microsoft was able to put together a booth presence for us at Gamescom with a couple weeks notice. I've never even met them, cause we've never sold anything [Gears of War] in Germany before." Capps said he thinks Microsoft is looking into getting the first two installments of the franchise released. He'd "love" to see that, especially if the company does a trilogy compilation and that passes the board. Microsoft's response during its Gamescom event when we asked for comment: "We're looking into it."
Why Epic Games hasn't made Shadow Complex 2 (but 'never say never')
When Shadow Complex was released in 2009, it received critical praise and became a commercial hit. After Epic Games announced that Chair's next game would instead be an iOS title named Infinity Blade, many were curious as to what had happened to the obligatory, post-success sequel. "The reviews were great, it was a record seller for a single-player game on the platform, but at the same time we've got this mobile gaming push that's coming in strong," Epic Games president Mike Capps explained this morning during his GDC Europe keynote. "And the big thing for me was that we were looking what the iPhone could do, and the games that were on iPhone, and we thought there was a huge gap, so we put our engine team on the problem, and that's where we came up with Infinity Blade," Capps said. "We were thinking about the sequel [to Shadow Complex], we were ready and 'Maybe we should start working on this,' and instead stopped everything and went and made Infinity Blade." Capps expanded on the possibility of a Shadow Complex sequel when I followed up with him after his presentation. "Never say never," he offered. Of course, when Chair head Donald Mustard answered the same question earlier this year, he said that such a sequel is "a question of when, not if."
Five games in development at Epic Games, none from the Gears of War franchise
During an Epic Games culture-heavy talk this morning at GDC Europe, company president Mike Capps briefly noted several projects that are currently in some form of development at his company. According to a slide entitled "So what's our next story," there are currently "five new games at various stages of prototyping and development" at Epic Games. "We didn't multiply our team size by five, so you can assume they're smaller games," Capps said. While he's "not ready to announce anything" just yet in terms of consoles or what studios are working on said prototypes (People Can Fly? Chair? Internal?), he said that the PC is now the company's target platform, rather than a recipient of ported console games. I followed up with Capps after his talk, where he added that both People Can Fly and Chair are part of Epic's "big happy family," though wouldn't put any of the projects to one particular label. He also confirmed that the recent job listing on Epic's website is relevant to these five unannounced projects in development at the studio. The "Samaritan" tech demo, however, is not one of them.
IGF chair continues campaign against game cloning
Independent Games Festival chairman Brandon Boyer is quite unhappy with Gamenaut's iOS title Ninja Fishing, a game that's more than "inspired" by indie studio Vlambeer's Flash game Radical Fishing. Vlambeer was secretly in the process of porting the game to iOS when the studio was blindsided by the clone. "I have a chart I'm almost done with. This is not inspiration," Boyer told us at GDC Europe today when he brought up the dilemma. "The things [Radical Fishing] doesn't have is ... Fruit Ninja. Radical Fishing didn't have Fruit Ninja. [Ninja Fishing] has everything else, except they added Fruit Ninja to one of the parts." Boyer continued, "The progress, the structure, the power-ups. The mechanics, the three-part design. It's just Radical Fishing. I think most people in the indie circle haven't played Ninja Fishing, which is good, but I think because of that they don't quite understand how blatant it was. Once you lay it out side by side [a project that Boyer will publish soon on an excel sheet he showed us], it's like 'Oh yeah, they just 100 percent ripped that off.'" When asked what the difference is between "inspiration" and theft, Boyer said, "It's like the thing about pornography, you know it when you see it." If this type of blatant cloning sounds familiar, it's because it is. In February, the story of The Blocks Cometh theft made the rounds. Indies being ripped off by indies isn't the only type of iOS cloning going on, either. It can also happen with major publishers, as was the case with Capcom's MaXplosion, a blatant clone of Twisted Pixel's high-profile 'Splosion Man. [Image credit: Official GDC]
Amnesia: The Dark Descent scares up 400,000 in sales
We're still not sure what drives players to submit themselves to the psychological assault of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Whatever it is, it seems to affect quite a few gamers, as Frictional Games' Thomas Grip revealed at GDC Europe that the survival horror title has sold 400,000 copies. It's a significantly higher number than last January, when Frictional reported sales were nearing 200,000, which already handily surpassed the company's "dream estimates" of 100,000 copies. In short, that's a lot of dudes screaming like little babies.
Silent Hill: Downpour 'not missing out' without Yamaoka, says Vatra dev
Vatra Games design director Brian Gomez doesn't feel that his studio's upcoming survival-horror title, Silent Hill: Downpour, is being too adversely affected by the absence of longtime series composer Akira Yamaoka. "I was worried when we lost him, we lost him really early on in Downpour. But I was a big fan of Dexter already, so I'm happy we got Daniel Licht," Gomez told me this morning after a GDC Europe panel on the SH franchise. "It was the closest to Akira but also brought something new to it," he added. Back in 2009, Downpour producer (at Konami) Tomm Hulett told us, "If Akira's music isn't there, it just doesn't sound quite right. And I'm sure that there are people out there who could emulate the sound and try to get it close, but there would be something missing." But time heals all wounds, and Gomez thinks the game will still fall in line with the franchise's established standard of audio. "As much as I would've loved the honor of working with Akira, I don't feel that we're missing out by not having him." That said, it's clear that Gomez wants Yamaoka back at Konami, and back on the Silent Hill franchise. Speaking to the ongoing friction between Yamaoka and his formeremployer, Gomez added, "I think this whole feud between he and Konami is just fucking stupid. Everyone needs to calm down, and bring him back in, and do something." Gomez had yet to play Yamaoka's latest work, the critically acclaimed (but commercially ignored) Shadows of the Damned from Grasshopper Manufacture and EA. "I've just been too busy with Downpour, unfortunately."
Brink dev says launch was rough, game found success on PC
Neil Alphonso, lead designer at Splash Damage, readily admits that Brink could have undergone a better launch. "A lot of the game's complaints were entirely valid," he said. "It was rough, but in the end the game's done alright," Alphonso told Joystiq, shortly after his GDC Europe presentation on the ambitious shooter's development. "Key is to keep supporting the game and keep tuning it more and more." Asked if the company was going to try a "Welcome Back" weekend after months of patching, he expressed that the recent Brink DLC, which was free for the first two weeks, along with the game's weekend discount on Steam, shot "the [sales] numbers way, way up." Alphonso said it's too early to discuss if the game will retain a significant portion of the new players. "We still have a lot of work to do, honestly," he said, noting improvements to the overall game and its supporting tech. "We have to support those people."
Magicka sales near 800K, Vietnam expansion a financial success
Last we heard, Paradox Interactive's publishing deal for Magicka with Arrowhead Games was working out pretty well. This morning, just after a GDC Europe presentation by the niche Swedish publishing house, Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester further added to the game's history of financial success, when he told me that the title has now sold nearly 800,000 units. "It's gonna pass that [sales milestone] in the next week, week after or so," Wester said. "We're still doing between five and seven thousand a week, so it's a great sales number." He also added that Paradox hopes to pass the one million sales mark by the end of 2011 -- a major achievement for a small team like Arrowhead. As for the much-loved Vietnam expansion, I wondered if it had achieved the same success that both Paradox and Arrowhead had hoped for. "It's done a few hundred thousand, so the attachment rate is really high," Wester explained. With those kinds of numbers, it's clear why Paradox is interested in fostering and furthering the relationship with Arrowhead. Back in May, Wester told me that sequels for Magicka are a lock.
