DICE-2012
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Lego-ized animation of 2011's biggest games
Created by Alex Kobbs for the 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, this three-minute bit of Lego stop-motion opened the show. The montage covers 15 games and took about three months to complete. For more on the conference, check out our coverage.
Blizzard has 4,700 employees across 11 cities
Blizzard Entertainment is kind of a big deal -- you already knew that. But did you know that the studio is such a big deal that it spans "4,700 employees across 11 cities?" That's a lot of people! And while many of said employees are saddled with customer support roles, a whopping 750 are assigned to product development, which spans WoW, StarCraft, Diablo, and the still-unannounced "Project Titan" MMO (not to mention anything else Blizzard has cooking behind-the-scenes).Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce discussed the astounding statistic during a panel at DICE last week, using the numbers to put context behind his company's lack of preparedness when launching World of Warcraft way back in aught four. "I don't think we had any idea what we were getting ourselves into," Pearce admitted, as reported by industry trade site Gamasutra. "We had to stop shipping boxes to stores." Resultantly, the company now makes "more aggressive" predictions for its various launches, and has its many hundreds of support employees at the ready for said launches.
Blizzard admits to 'grossly underestimating demand' for World of Warcraft in 2004
If World of Warcraft is credited with a smooth initial launch, that's only because time tends to smooth over the growing pains that come with every MMO. Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce was quite up-front with the studio's stumbles in 2004 as WoW launched to unprecedented demand; he's admitted that Blizzard execs "grossly underestimated" how many people wanted to play the game, forcing the company to cease shipping boxes to stores while tech was improved to deal with the influx. "I don't think we had any idea what we were getting ourselves into," Pearce said at the recent DICE executive summit. The studio quickly ramped up from its 500-employee taskforce to 4,700 people in 11 cities across the world. Pearce also addressed the issue of addiction in MMOs, saying that Blizzard "think[s] about it all of the time. If there's something that you're really passionate about, whether it's video games, a book, a TV series [or something else]... we have to consume it in moderation."
Closure wins 2012 Indie Game Challenge at DICE
Closure won the third annual Indie Game Challenge at this year's DICE show in Las Vegas. The clever puzzle platformer, which works off the premise that only illuminated objects exist in the game world, has players manipulating lights to solve challenge rooms. The team will receive $100,000 for taking the top prize, sponsored by The Guildhall at SMU, GameStop and the AIAS. The game will be available soon on PSN.Other category winners included Symphony for technical achievement, The Bridge for achievements in art direction and gameplay, and Nitronic Rush received the "Gamer's Choice Award." The teams receive $2,500 for each category.Check out all ten of this year's talented nominees by heading over to the Indie Game Challenge site.
GameStop sees majority of digital sales from cash; won't pursue used PC game sales
GameStop is building its digital distribution business, having seen a 158 percent growth year-over-year in the third quarter, with strong returns thanks to customers who don't use credit cards."70 percent of our sales for DLC is non credit card. So that's a customer either paying with cash, GameStop gift card or trade credit," Steve Nix, manager of PC digital distribution for GameStop told us at DICE 2012. "Think about all those Call of Duty Elite subscriptions and all those customers who aren't using a credit card to purchase them.""We're actually growing [the downloadable content] market, because about half our DLC customers never purchased DLC previously. So, for game developers that want to sell more DLC, we're introducing gamers to DLC for the first time in our stores."Nix recognized that it may seem odd the retail chain's brick and mortar stores are so successful selling digital content. It's clearly servicing customers who don't have credit cards or don't want to use credit cards, but still wish to extend their favorite games. He "absolutely" feels this same situation is what's pushing their in-store PC full game sales, despite PC gamers having so many online purchasing options.Since Gamestop purchased Stardock's Impulse digital distribution store, we wanted to know if it would continue to pursue Goo, which would have essentially created a "used PC games market."Nixing the idea, he said "We don't see a lot of interest in that model from our publishing partners." He recognizes customers would be interested, but is not really seeing publisher support for such a model.
Yoshida: The Last Guardian still happening, but progress 'slow'
We've had assurances of The Last Guardian's continued existence, but in the absence of empirical proof we could always use one more. 1UP received a rather authoritative one from Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida at DICE, who said he's "been seeing it."Yoshida reports that, after leaving Sony and becoming a contractor, producer Fumito Ueda continues working on the game as normal. His departure was "an arrangement so he could focus on the creative side," Yoshida said. "But his work and his presence on that team never changed, so it was just more a contractual rearrangement, and that was taken [by many] as 'he left.'"Ueda is still in the office, "probably one of the people who works the longest hours," Yoshida said. Progress is still taking place on The Last Guardian, "but slow progress."
Skyrim snags another best of show gong at 15th annual AIAS awards
Like the sun rising in the East or our daily tribute to the almighty caffeine deity, we've come to expect writing a post at least once a week announcing yet another award for Skyrim. This week is no different, with Skyrim taking top honors at the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in Las Vegas last evening.The studio took home five awards in total for the dragon-infested, open-world RPG, alongside fellow multiple award winners Uncharted 3 and Portal 2. We've dropped a full list of winners after the break, but before you head there allow us to be outraged for you that Skyward Sword didn't win any awards. Outrage! How could they? Etc.
Itagaki's depression-fueled Armageddon/Aerosmith bender
Did you think it was weird that Dead or Alive games often featured totally out-of-place Aerosmith songs? We always did, but that music choice was fully, definitively justified by Tomonobu Itagaki in a speech at DICE 2012.Itagaki explained that the first PS2 release of Dead or Alive 2 (which only came out in Japan; the one at the US PS2 launch, DOA2 Hardcore, was a remake) was unfinished, and sent to manufacturing under false pretenses. A manager approached him and asked to borrow a copy of the in-progress game to play it. "Instead," he said, "it was taken into a factory for production on that day without me knowing it." The team only had two and a half months to work on it. "To be sure, the company made a huge profit."The game had relatively low-quality, jagged graphics and a lack of extra content. Itagaki became depressed about the unfinished game. "I thought I would quit making games," he said. "Some of the staff, including me, were so depressed by this fact." In this state, he stayed home for "three or four months," drinking and repeatedly watching ... Armageddon, singing along to the sappy "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" with his daughter, which he admitted was a "stupid life." "If I close my eyes now and recall Armageddon, tears still come out," he said.So the secret to the Aerosmith songs in those DOA games is that Itagaki seriously, unironically loves Aerosmith. The real surprise is that Bruce Willis never made it into any of the games.
Jaffe outlines plans post-Eat Sleep Play; no Twisted Metal DLC or sequel planned
As we learned earlier this week, Twisted Metal creator David Jaffe will be leaving Eat Sleep Play sometime after the series relaunch of Twisted Metal hits store shelves. Jaffe sat down with our own Alexander Sliwinski during this week's DICE summit for a segment on The Joystiq Show, during which he elaborated on his waning presence at Eat Sleep Play and his plans for creating a new studio based out of San Diego."I will be with Eat Sleep Play until we finish what's called the 'maintenance contract' we have and have been working on with Sony. That will allow us, post-launch, to stay and address issues that there's no way we can know of. Cleaning things up in terms of balance, bugs, tuning, tweaks." This maintenance contract expires at the end of March, at which point Jaffe plans on cultivating new ideas, as well as a new team, for his fledgling studio."There's no corporate filings, there's no official company name yet; 99 percent of my day is Twisted Metal right now. There's four games I would love to do, the one I do really depends on the team I can put together and the money that I can find to make it." His ideas for new titles include both console and browser-based offerings, with a "guerilla-style" survival-horror thrown in for good measure: "There's a survival-horror genre in there, a real low-budget survival horror, kinda guerilla film making style. Not in terms of the look, but in terms of that kind of financing and that kind of production."Jaffe recently told Game Informer that there are no sequel or DLC plans for Twisted Metal, although that doesn't mean he's left the series for good. "You never know what the future holds, I'd love to make another Twisted down the road with these guys one day, if that opportunity presents itself." For now, though, Jaffe's focus is on building new experiences with new IPs.
Remedy not done with Alan Wake
Remedy believes in a future for Wake.Matias Myllyrinne, CEO of Remedy, told us at DICE 2012 that the studio isn't done with its literary protagonist after launching Alan Wake on PC and Alan Wake's American Nightmare on XBLA later this month."We're crowd pleasers, we'll do what the audience wants, 'cause usually that's the good business move as well," Myllyrinne responded when we asked what's next for Wake. He also reconfirmed the studio owns the IP, so the future of Wake is theirs to write."Hopefully, we'll have one or two surprises. I don't know, I'm loving the digital [distribution] side and we'll see how that evolves, but just being able to give people quick access to bite-size chunks of gaming is maybe more fun than working for years and years -- taking the phone offline and closing the shutters-- at least, this way, you're able to react much more quickly to people's desires and wishes."With Remedy directly publishing Alan Wake on Steam, we wanted to know if the studio had an internal figure for sales that would dictate resources being put into a full-blown sequel."I don't know. I don't know if that would dictate it. If it bombs [laughs], then that's certainly a signal, but we're fairly confident that it'll do well. We'll certainly continue with Wake. Right now we're focusing on getting the PC out next week, then getting American Nightmare out. And it's too early to talk about what our next move is, but we've obviously put things into motion."
The Joystiq Show - DICE 2012: David Jaffe and Kevin Dent
The annual industry-focused trade show. DICE, kicked off last night with a keynote from Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard, but he's not the only industry veteran at the conference with insight into the inner workings of game development and publishing.In this special DICE edition of The Joystiq Show, Alexander Sliwinski talks with Eat Sleep Play's David Jaffe about the imminent launch of Twisted Metal, his current status with the company, and his plans to move into next-gen and browser game development.The second interview features IGDA Mobile SIG's Kevin Dent, the man responsible for shining the spotlight on THQ's business practices and potentially disastrous financial predicament several weeks ago. Dent joins Alexander to delve into the details of his public statements and motivations for why he spoke out.Part 1 (0:13) - Interview: David JaffePart 2 (13:31) - Interview: Kevin DentGet the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the Joystiq Podcast in iTunes[Zune] Subscribe to the Joystiq Podcast directly in the Zune Marketplace[RSS] Add the Joystiq Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator[MP3] Download the MP3 directlyHost: Alexander Sliwinski (@XanderSliwinski)Guests: David Jaffe (@davidscottjaffe) and Kevin Dent (@TheKevinDent)Producer: Jonathan Downin (@jonathandownin - Game Thing Daily)Music: "Bust This Bust That" by Professor KliqView the full guest list, related stories, and stream the show after the break.
Watch Bethesda's 'Skyrim Game Jam' sizzle reel right here
Skeleton butlers? Seasonal foliage? Skyrim knows not these things, but it maybe perhaps we sure hope could according to a seriously noncommittal Todd Howard speaking at the beginning of the video above, shot at his DICE 2012 keynote last evening in Las Vegas.
Internal Bethesda 'Skyrim Game Jam' sizzle reel features dragon mounts, giant mudcrabs
Let's pretend you work at Bethesda Game Studios. Congratulations! You've just shipped The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, a game that would go on to win multiple 'Game of the Year' awards. You're tired, probably haven't seen your family in months, and you have a week off. What do you do? Work on Skyrim, of course!During his DICE 2012 keynote, Bethesda Games Studios game director and executive producer Todd Howard discussed an annual tradition at the company: a game jam, where staff are allowed to create anything they want on company time for one week. This year, the only stipulation was creating something within the recently released Skyrim.In a sizzle reel presented to attendees, the public was shown what the minds at Bethesda could create. On the list? Mountable dragons, epic mounts (like flaming horses), giant mudcrab bosses that rival any other games, a new skill tree focused on lycanthropy, Kinect-enabled shouts (like this!), the ability to build homes, adopt children, use spears, and much more.Howard was quick to note that the features shown in the video -- which were all running within the game -- were experiments. "How much of this stuff sees the light of day? To be determined. Could it be in a future DLC? We don't know. Could various parts of it just be released for free? We don't know."And what was id Software's John Carmack doing that week? "[He] shot a rocket into f***ing space!" Howard said, showing actual footage of a rocket Carmack sent out of the earth's orbit. We'd still rather have dragon mounts. Check out the list of 'Game Jam' features after the break.
Todd Howard: Over 10 million Skyrim players, average PC playtime 75 hours
During his DICE 2012 keynote speech, Bethesda Games Studios game director and executive producer Todd Howard revealed that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been played by "over ten million people." In December, Bethesda revealed it had shipped ten million units worldwide.Of the "over ten million" players, Howard says that "many million" are playing the game on PC. Based on Steam statistics Bethesda has seen, "the average playtime is 75 hours," something Howard called "amazing." Our assumption is that there are a number of players worldwide who have yet to power down their machines since the game's November 11, 2011 launch.The PC version of Skyrim continues to evolve, with the recent release of the Skyrim Creation Kit and its partnership with Valve to become the second featured title -- behind Team Fortress 2 -- in the Steam Workshop, which highlights user-generated content and streams it into games."It's something we'd like to see come to consoles one day," Howard said, adding that giving players the ability to "take and change" the game helps to make the experience unique. To Howard, games are the "ultimate combination of art [and] technology" and allowing the players to become their own "director."
Bethesda's Todd Howard on how games can make players 'proud'
Set aside your favorite movie, music, or traditional piece of art, because there's only one medium that has the ability to make the one experiencing it proud: video games. This was the message Bethesda Games Studios game director and executive producer Todd Howard had for attendees during his DICE 2012 keynote.Using the level end music from Peggle and the level-up sound from Modern Warfare, Howard explained that video games have the ability to reach people in ways others are unable because they can convey a sense of accomplishment. Helping to give players that feeling with intelligent game design "makes it the greatest," he said. Howard noted jokingly that he used the Modern Warfare sound for his email, to give him a sense of pride when he sends something off.Much of Howard's introduction focused on Bethesda's three rules of development, which he discussed during his 2009 DICE keynote. Howard said the difficult balance of design is finding a harmony in creating a challenge for players that isn't so easy that it leaves them bored and isn't so difficult that they give up.The gameplay loop (Learn, Play, Challenge, Surprise), as he explains, is presenting a game mechanic to the player in steps that entice them to continue. Howard discussed how Half-Life 2's introduction to the Gravity Gun is a perfect example of using the loop effectively -- players learn how to use the gun by playing with it, they are challenged to use it in new ways, and are surprised by what they can accomplish. This accomplishment helps to build the level of pride the players experience throughout the adventure. Howard urged game makers in the audience to be proud of their work and to make gamers proud in the process."Do something great. Make yourself proud," he said. "Make the player proud they played it. Make them proud they bought it."
Fruit Ninja Kinect sells a half-million copies; Jetpack Joyride reaches 14 million downloads
Australian developer Halfbrick is flying high on the success of its Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride franchises. Chief Marketing Officer Phil Larsen told us at the DICE conference in Las Vegas today that Fruit Ninja Kinect has reached a half-million sales and has been a very successful console experiment for the company. The company also plans to continue supporting Fruit Ninja on iOS with more updates rather than cannibalize its momentum with a sequel.As for Jetpack Joyride, which went free to play in mid-December, Larsen notes the game has seen significant growth since the change."There's an update coming in the next month," Larsen said about Jetpack Joyride. "It's the biggest one we've done so far."He told us the previously $1 app reached about 1 million paid sales before going free and has since seen 13 million downloads as a free product. He estimates about 5-10 percent of customers will spend at least a dollar on the app through its in-game store, so revenue has been higher since the game went "free."
