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Massively's EVE Online CSM candidate roundup, page 2
Corporation: Galactic-Empire(GAL-E) Alliance: None Useful links: Campaign blog, forum thread, interview
Massively's EVE Online CSM candidate roundup
This week is voting week for EVE Online players as the fifth edition of the democratically elected Council of Stellar Management (CSM) gets underway. 49 approved candidates are in the running for just nine seats on the council, with an extra five alternate candidates agreeing to step in should any members of the council be forced to leave during their term. The council's job is to act as a go-between to help EVE players communicate major gameplay issues to the development team. In the two years the council has operated, they've become an essential part of CCP's development methodology. The CSM plays a vital role in EVE's development and it's important that the right people for the job are elected. For those that don't normally vote in the elections, figuring out what each candidate brings to the table can be a difficult and daunting task. In this absolutely massive three-page feature, we give a run-down of all 49 candidates entered in the current election, from previous CSM members to new active campaigners and the relatively unknown pilots with little to no campaign. When you're ready to vote, follow this link to the voting page and click the vote button to the right of your chosen candidate. Remember to get your vote in before May 19th when polls close! The results will be published on May 28th, when we see who will be representing the EVE player-base to CCP for the coming year.
Massively's EVE Online CSM candidate roundup, page 3
Navy Lady is a relatively unknown pilot with no statement of intent or campaign website.
IO Interactive hit with layoffs
[Michael Heilemann] A Square Enix representative confirmed to Joystiq this morning that Hitman franchise / Kane & Lynch 2 developer IO Interactive has let go of an undisclosed number of staff members (reports claim as many as 35 out of approximately 200). In a statement from IO general manager Niels Jorgensen, the layoffs are explained as necessary to keep the business "operating effectively as projects start up and ramp down." Considering the studio's next game isn't set for release until late August, it's not clear if this decision will impact the game's final stages of development (if at all). Jorgensen goes on to say that he believes the "organizational changes" will help IO "continue to deliver great games," while he also regrets the loss of said personnel. "We would like to thank all employees affected for their contribution and efforts and wish them well in their future careers." We've posted the full response from Jorgensen after the break, and would like to extend our condolences to anyone who lost their job at IO.
Square Enix job listing reveals preparation for 'next generation platforms'
Sony may have a 10 year plan for PS3, and Microsoft may be extending the life of the 360 with Project Natal -- heck, even Nintendo has repeatedly stated it's sticking with the Wii -- but Square Enix is reading between the lines and gearing up for the next generation of gaming regardless. IGN spotted a listing over at the official Square Enix website that seeks a variety of technical positions "in anticipation of the appearance of next generation platforms." From 3D graphics core programmers to technical artists (and pretty much everything in between), the new hires will be charged with development of a "new generation game engine development project" -- presumably the next iteration of the company's Crystal Tools game engine. Square notes the intention of this early development as "for competing beyond the level of the world's powerful developers," though we should note that you kinda sorta have to move to Tokyo if you're interested in applying for such a lofty position. Oh, yeah, and you should probably be able to speak Japanese. [Via IGN]
Molyneux: Motion gaming is making devs 'sweat'
You hear that, developers? You should be shakin' in yer boots -- motion-based gaming is going to force you to throw away everything you've ever learned about game design and start anew. At least that's what Lionhead's Peter Molyneux (not so exaggeratedly) had to say when quizzed on the subject of the "arms race" between the big three for waggle supremacy. "All of this stuff is making all the designers sweat -- I've met lots of designers at GDC, and we're all very bleary-eyed at the moment because every rule we've got, we're having to throw away," Molyneux told Eurogamer. And understandably so. Between WIi's established console dominance (not to mention last year's MotionPlus add-on), this week's unveiling of PlayStation Move, and Microsoft's Project Natal this holiday, there's a lot to work with. It's this problem, though, that Molyneux believes will forge new types of game experiences in the years to come. "I don't think the first wave of these motion-control titles will be what you expect .... just as with every hardware chain, it's the second wave where they usually come up with stuff that's interesting ... so the second wave could be really cool." And as far as Natal in Fable 3 goes, the eccentric developer kept mum on the specifics, only offering, "You can expect us to use Natal to make you laugh and to surprise you and to give you this feeling of power -- there are some very obvious things we could do, like controlling the GUI in Natal, and it doesn't really excite me." Tom Cruise will be so disappointed.
GDC 2010: Call of Duty: World at War Zombies postmortem
Russell Clarke of Ideaworks Game Studio hosted a post-mortem report near the end of the first day of GDC 2010 about Call of Duty: World at War Zombies for the iPhone. The game was one of the first big brand hits on the App Store -- it successfully brought a game mode from one of Activision's Call of Duty console games (originally developed by Treyarch) to Apple's handheld device. After a quick joke about how a "post-mortem" was an appropriate exercise for a game about zombies, Clarke got into the nuts and bolts of how Ideaworks went about adapting the game for the iPhone. The most major feature of the game's development, he said, was the decision last year around this time to sit down and work on prototyping for about six weeks. Nowadays, there are a few successful first person shooters around the App Store, but last year, FPSes were still a new genre for the iPhone, so the team decided to really brainstorm how one would work on a touchscreen.
GDC 2010: Ngmoco explains how Eliminate was built
As they explained during the presentation, they had a heck of a goal with this project: they wanted to put together "the definitive FPS for iPhone," complete with all of the functions of a standard console deathmatch-style FPS, in just five months with just three engineers. And they started with the toughest nut of all: the networking code.
Activision/Infinity Ward court documents detail ex-studio heads' many, many complaints
[bloomsberries] Beyond a statement released by ex-Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella's lawyer yesterday detailing the lawsuit the two are filing against Activision, we've seen little in the way of back history on the various events that lead us to the debacle we're seeing this week. This morning, though, Joystiq obtained the entire 16-page court document (gallery-ized below for you) that details, among many other things, the ex-employees' complaints about Activision in the wake of their untimely departure. The initial claim of unpaid royalties is represented in the documents, even going as far as to claim that the publisher fired West and Zampella just weeks before having to pay out said royalties. "Activision fired them in hope that by doing so, it could avoid paying them what they had rightfully earned, and to seize control of the Infinity Ward studio, to which Activision had previously granted creative control over all Modern Warfare branded games," the document reads. In the history lesson portion of the complaint, it's revealed that Activision allegedly purchased the studio for just $5 million originally (in two different chunks), and the Call of Duty franchise (including Treyarch-developed titles) has earned over $3 billion since 2003. Finally, the complaint claims that, before Infinity Ward agreed to develop Modern Warfare 2, the then-studio heads "were not eager to extend their employment" as Activision had apparently begun demanding a more constant development pace at the studio. "Despite assurances by Activision that West and Zampella would have complete freedom to run Infinity Ward as an independent studio, Activision had begun to intrude upon Infinity Ward's ability to create quality games. For example, Activision forced Infinity Ward's employees to continue producing the games at a breakneck pace under aggressive schedules, and West and Zampella were concerned that Activision was emphasizing quantity over quality." Regardless of the veracity of these allegations, it would certainly appear that the gloves have come all the way off. We'll have a more thorough breakdown of the entire document later today, but for now you can see it in its entirety below. %Gallery-87508%
Nexon iNitiative launching contest for new games
Having a great idea for a video game goes hand-in-hand with playing them, and it goes double for MMOs. (Admit it, you have at least two that you keep locked up tight in your mind on the chance that Blizzard or Turbine or NCsoft come calling. It's okay.) But more often than not, those of us who specialize in playing and talking about making games never get beyond the idea stage. Making these things costs quite a bit of money, after all, and one lone game fan ranting about ideas isn't usually going to attract venture capital. Nexon America wants to make life just a little bit easier for the indie game developers and aspiring developers out there. They've just launched the Nexon iNitiative to bring funding to smaller studios and independent games, with an open contest for submissions. The best idea gets a cool million dollars of invested money, as well as a chance at a Nexon publishing contract. So while it's not quite a private design studio to make your great MMO idea come to fruition, it's a great chance for small developers to get a big leg up. If you think you've got what it takes, check out the submission guidelines and get cracking!
'The Tester' contestants should probably have read this account first
Ever since Sony first announced its game industry reality show for PSN named The Tester back in 2009, we've been a bit wary of the idea. Can you really blame us? The show pits various personalities against each other in a variety of challenges, all with the end goal of becoming an entry-level game tester -- a job often viewed in the game industry as less than pleasant. And ex-tester Matthew Burns seems to agree with us in his lengthy account of the life of a tester, detailing long hours of monotonous game playing paired with "an often grimly bureaucratic process," that can sometimes lead to subpar products. While offering plenty of gripes with the job, we should point out that he prefaces his complaints with the open admission that "entry-level game testing would not be found near the top of a list of the world's most demanding livelihoods," also repeatedly noting its importance in the development of good games. That said, we can't help but wonder how Sony's reality show winner is going to feel when the reality of their "prize" sets in. [Thanks Matthew!]
Evolution as it does and doesn't apply to MMOs
A few days ago, we discussed the lack of innovation in the MMO market at the moment, as well as some of the underlying reasons behind it. The topic prompted We Fly Spitfires to postulate the idea that we needed an MMO that broke most if not all of the established and accepted rules of the genre. In his own parlance, we needed a mutation instead of a steady evolution. Those of you familiar with evolutionary science might be quirking your eyebrow a bit, as did Of Teeth and Claws, where it was pointed out that mutation is a part of evolution. Continuing the analogy, it's a part of the slow improvement we see in our genre of choice, as the source leading to feature implementation and improvement. And as Killed in a Smiling Accident added, evolution is not a straight line, nor does it select features based on inherent quality -- the current "standard features" have evolved because they're best at succeeding in the current environment (that is, the market). Ultimately, aside from fascinating extension of the analogy, the biggest point to be taken away from both this discussion and the previous one is that change in the genre isn't something which will happen overnight. While the powerful influence that World of Warcraft has placed upon the genre is beginning to abate a bit, it'll be quite some time before it's discarded wholesale.
ODROID, the Android gaming handheld, now shipping to Android gaming developers (video)
Did you get your ODROID order in promptly when they went up for pre-sale back in September? Hope so, as the first lucky developers should be getting theirs any day now. Just 300 units of the 833MHz handheld are shipping, including the various cables, additional hardware, and documentation needed to start filling the thing with fun games that look an awful lot like other games, but totally aren't. One of the first is Speed Forge 3D (which totally isn't Wipeout), shown after the break exhibiting some laggy accelerometer-based controls -- but 720p output via HDMI sure is sweet. Orders are still being accepted at $349, said to be shipping in roughly five days, meaning if Santa logs into his PayPal account quickly enough you might still find one of these under your tree. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
TNA seeking 'long-term partner' for future 360/PS3 TNA Impact! games
Yesterday's announcement that TNA Impact!: Cross the Line would be heading to DS and PSP by way of SouthPeak Games (a game left over from the collapse of Midway Games) wasn't exactly a shock to ardent followers of the franchise. The question of whether or not TNA would pursue additional games on current-gen consoles (360/PS3/PC), however, remained up in the air. We spoke with a TNA representative last evening who told Joystiq that the company is "working on a long-term solution" for the development of said games. "We absolutely want a long-term partner for video games, and it's super important to TNA to have a long-term partner for games on the current consoles like 360 and PlayStation," the rep said. And though he admitted (after much prying, in fairness) that development of that next TNA game on 360/PS3 is "kind of open to the market" in terms of a developer/publisher, the company "likes SouthPeak as a partner now" and "would like to continue to work with them." For now though, SouthPeak will only retain the right to publish the TNA back catalog and the upcoming handheld title.
Sony & Microsoft offer software for UK university education program
Keeping in line with recent contributions to President Obama's STEM education initative, both Microsoft and Sony have signed on for development software support to UK school Kingston University. A recent press release from the school boasts a "state-of-the-art laboratory aimed at providing the next generation of game developers with the skills needed to take computer gaming into the future," even employing "Xbox and handheld PSP game consoles" at each workstation. According to Darrel Greenhill, games technology program head at KU, students are "working to industry standards even before they've left the classroom" with the donated software. Currently the university offers games programming and games technology degrees for undergrads, but will also begin offering post-graduate game development degrees in 2010. Unfortunately, no official date has been set for when computer gaming will reach "the future."[Via Develop]
MMOs for gamers or businessmen (part 2)
As you can see, there are many differences between gamers and businessmen. Gamers get games made for/by businessmen because businessmen make games to make money and repay other businessmen. While the obvious solution is to make MMOs for gamers, please the heck out of them, and make a solid ROI in the process, things just don't seem to work out that way all the time.
MMOs for gamers or businessmen?
We ran a column earlier this week by the fantastic Brendan "Nyphur" Drain about the gaming renaissance. One of the key points he made was that there is a new generation of game developers coming out of school who have played MMOs for nearly half their life. This sounds quite promising, doesn't it? I'm here today to play a little devil's advocate and say that while MMO gamers want MMOs made for and by MMO gamers, they get games made for and by businessmen instead. Oh, those businessmen (and women) may have been gamers at one time, but once they formed that studio and sought outside investment, their new priority became making money. There are of course a number of indie developers working on niche titles and their ambitions might not be so great as their multi-million dollar indebted brothers and sisters, but don't kid yourself; they aren't slaving 16 hours a day over their computers for free. They have families to feed, do they not? So, let's start off by defining these two creatures and then analyzing the concept a bit more.
BioWare's Bill Dalton reveals the secrets to making big teams work
These days it's extremely rare for a video game to be made by one person. Groups of people from different disciplines work on a game, hired for their proficiency in their area of specialty. When we're talking about an MMO, the game development team often ends up being pretty big. When we're talking about an MMO as ambitious as Star Wars: The Old Republic, the team is freaking enormous, by necessity. In a recent article on Gamasutra one of the members of the SWTOR team, Bioware Austin technical director Bill Dalton, discussed the challenges that come up when working with such a large group of people.Unsurprisingly, Dalton said that communication is at the core of keeping a big team afloat: "There is nothing you can do to communicate too much. In a situation where things are in crisis and something is broken, and you've told individual people as they come up, it's not a bad idea to overcommunicate and tell the whole team what's going on." Dalton mentioned that another difficult aspect of team development is balancing the differing view-points that each sub-team looks at the game from. Again, communication is the key to solving these puzzles. Check out the full article at Gamasutra to read about an interesting case study involving Star Wars: The Old Republic and its Hero Engine, which allows developers from all disciplines to make live edits to the game simultaneously -- impressive.
Microsoft releases XNA update for Zune HD developers, multitouch drawing app created
A lot of people had differing emotions when reading the Zune HD launch announcement yesterday: joy that the system would indeed sport a selection of apps and games, all free; dismay that those apps would be developed almost exclusively by Microsoft. Today you can turn that frown upside down, sweetheart, as it seems that exclusivity won't last long. An update to the XNA Game Studio development environment has already been released, enabling coders to target the Zune HD. The new version, 3.1, adds libraries for handling the system's accelerometer and multitouch screen, both put to use by developer Elton Muuga to create a simple drawing app, shown in video form after the break. It makes lines on a screen with finger touches and, like a ridiculously expensive Etch A Sketch, erases with a shake. It's not much, but impressive given the thing's only been available for a day now, and while we're still unsure how apps like this will find their way into the Zune's app store, we're sure all will be answered soon enough.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]Read - XNA Game Studio 3.1Read - First Zune HD Multi-Touch Drawing App
Thank the Canadian government for these great games
Ever heard of Fez? How about N+? DeathSpank, maybe? If any of these games are near and dear to you like they are to us (we're looking at you, N+), then you have the Canadian government to thank. Government funding towards game development in Canada helped make each of the aforementioned games come to fruition, according to Gamasutra.Similar initiatives are being proposed or practiced in many US cities, however, the Canadian government has a long history of promoting game development in the country. It even gave DeathSpank developer Hothead Games over a half million dollars -- to develop a game named DeathSpank! Though it'd be nice to say that such quality stuff was being developed in our backyards, we'll take what we can get. Good games are good games, no?
