GDC 2010
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Recently laid-off devs rant about being recently laid off
I think we can all agree that, aside from being hit by a speeding train or dropping a hot meal you've been cooking for hours, being fired from your job is like, the worst thing that can happen to you. As such, we expected the speakers on last week's GDC rant panel, titled "Fired and Fired-up: Jobless Developer's Rant," to be especially inflammatory. We were not disappointed. Just past the jump, we've highlighted three of our favorite presentations from the panel. Some of them get awfully, explicitly blue, so if you happen to find yourself reading this video game news site while at work, you might want to think twice about going beyond the break. (You should also get back to work, you lazy so-and-so!)
GDC 2010: The Parrot AR.Drone's augmented reality
We actually got to play with the iPhone-controlled Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter back at Macworld a little while ago, but we didn't get a chance to see the "AR" part of it (augmented reality, of course) until GDC last week. Parrot pulled out the AR targets for us, and while the games they had running were very rudimentary, we did get a good feel for the action. The verdict? It works, but it's not that fun yet. Sure enough, when the Drone's cameras picked up the weird pattern of black and white dots and/or the striped tube that the company attached to the top of a second Drone, the iPhone displayed a lock-on target or the weird robot that you can see above (that's the iPhone's video running out to a television, something that's technically a no-no under the current SDK). And when the drone moved around it, the display faithfully showed the 3D model -- it didn't look actually real, but you could fly around and interact with it. And after you blasted it with enough missiles, it exploded.
Alan Wake: several DLC episodes this year, second 'season' dependent on audience
As revealed during this year's Consumer Electronics Show, tormented writer Alan Wake will continue his dimly lit journey in the form of post-launch downloadable episodes. After the internally episodic thriller hits shelves on May 18, Remedy Entertainment will expand it with at least two episodes in 2010. The scope of subsequent episodes and the duration of DLC support will hinge on the audience, of course, but Remedy managing director Matias Myllyrinne envisions a substantial engagement. "I think it'll depend a lot on the audience, but certainly we want to -- if we're successful -- we want to do a large 'Season 2,' if you will, at some point," he said in an interview with Joystiq. "Right now, I'm not allowed to say what we're doing exactly this year. But we're going to have more than one episode come out this year." Once the full game is complete and the team has a chance to gauge acceptance and feedback, Remedy Entertainment will shed some more light on its plans. We'll share ours with you right now: Expect to see the full Matias Myllyrinne interview on Joystiq later this week.
GDC Impressions: APB
Last week, Realtime Worlds MMO APB featured prominently during an in-booth press conference held at GDC. The game was playable (though, sadly, not by me), and the audience was treated to a live demo lead by the developer's founder, ex-DMA and Grand Theft Auto co-creator, David Jones. Using two separate PCs hooked up to their own projection setups, Jones and another Realtime Worlds staffer hopped onto one of the game's servers and began by giving a tour of one of three main areas, the Social District. As its name implies, this area -- which reminded me more than a little of PlayStation Home -- is where players can meet up, trade or sell their items, build custom music in the game's built-in sequencer and buy a new set of wheels (or upgrade their current rides). When talking about the latter, Jones showed the vehicle customization tool, which featured not only cosmetic mods (custom designs can be sold to other players) but performance and aerodynamic tinkering, as well. Before heading out onto the mean streets, Jones pointed out a couple other unique features of the Social District: Statues and display points. The former are generated by the game as effigies of its top players on an ongoing basis, while the latter are spots that can be "rented" in order to publicly display players' cars that are up for sale or auction. %Gallery-65497%
Bungie & BioWare discuss franchise maintenance at GDC
As part of the GamesBeat "fireside chat" series during GDC 2010, Bungie's Joseph Staten and BioWare's Ray Muzyka discussed some of the challenges with maintaining big, huge franchises with Spike TV's Geoff Keighley. Staten noted that Bungie originally "had absolutely no 10-year plan" for the Halo franchise. Now, for Bungie's next project -- the one that isn't part of the Halo franchise -- Staten said that "the responsible thing to do" is to "create something with legs," adding that it's easier to secure funding with a project that has long term potential for investors. Muzyka added that it's important to create a product that keeps players emotionally engaged, so that they anticipate the next installment. When asked about how consumer feedback affects the development of a franchise, Muzyka pointed to the many changes that BioWare made to the various game mechanics and systems of Mass Effect when creating Mass Effect 2. "You've got to listen to fans," said Muzyka, "really, the changes you saw in the second game came from the feedback" from the first Mass Effect.
GDC 2010: Interview with Keith Lee of Booyah
Booyah is an App Store company with quite a few lessons in its past already. The founders are former developers at Blizzard (they worked on both Diablo and World of Warcraft before setting off on their own), and after their first app, Booyah Society, didn't exactly strike gold on the App Store, they went back to the drawing board on their idea of "real life achievements," and have done much better with their latest app, MyTown -- it's one of the top grossing apps around, with more users and higher engagement than the popular Foursquare. We got to sit down with CEO Keith Lee for an interview at GDC, and he told us about what they learned from Booyah Society, why Booyah is convinced that real-life social gaming is where it's at, and what they think of the iPad (and what Blizzard thinks of the iPhone). Read on for more.
GDC10: Hands-on with Star Wars: The Old Republic
I could easily spend this article telling you about the amazing LucasArts Presidio compound, its history and the incredible relics of the Star Wars universe adorning the walls and hallways. But I won't. I could also easily go on and on about how George Lucas and Star Wars inspired my childhood, and how even setting foot in the presence of such greatness was a bit overwhelming. But I won't. Instead, I will focus on the only reason you're reading this: my first impressions of Star Wars: The Old Republic and the Trooper class. Once we arrived at LucasArts HQ, we were introduced to a few members of the LucasArts and BioWare crew, then we each sat down to our very own computer with our very own Trooper class character set up to run through our very own test mission. Although we weren't playing together in the game, we were all set up in the same location to run the same mission. Interestingly enough, we weren't really given an overview of the game or an intro to the gameplay. They sat us down and told us to have fun. There was a print-out of a small cheat-sheet for help with the mission if needed, but I was honestly stuck to the monitor from the second I sat down.
Sid Meier talks player psychology and the year of Civilization
The "father of computer gaming" gave the keynote at GDC 2010 this past week, and while we really hoped he would tell us a lot about the upcoming Facebook version of Civilization, it got only the barest of mentions during the hour-plus talk. Instead, Meier shared wisdom with the gathered crowd, talking about the lessons he'd learned in player psychology over his long and storied career in game design. First, he talked about what he called the "Winner's Paradox" -- "if you've played Civilization," he said, "you're an egomaniac," since anyone crazy enough to think that they can actually "build a civ to stand the test of time," as it says on the game box, must be pretty full of themselves. And because of that, Meier says his players always believe that if they don't win for whatever reason, fate or the random number generator or the crappy AI must be out to get them. As a result, his policy has become to let the player win -- the threat of punishment is enough to keep it interesting, but in the end, the player should win the game. He also talked about the "unholy alliance" between players and developers -- not only is the relationship beneficial for both parties (players offer their money, developers offer their time and talent), but it's also one of "mutually-assured destruction," as players can break contact with (or even just belief in) the game anytime they feel it's not fun any more, and developers can "really mess up the game, too." Everything in the game, said Meier, should be designed with an eye towards this alliance -- the AI should live to serve the player, the graphics and gameplay should engage imagination, and even options screens and load/save settings should be developed with an eye towards preserving the relationship. Civilization Network was mentioned under a section Meier called "my bad" -- along with the original ideas to make Civ real-time (whoops) and make the tech path random, he said that the CN team had considered letting players give gold to each other on Facebook, but during playtesting, found that players never actually did. He did say that the game is deep into testing currently, and that it will allow co-op, singleplayer, and competitive gameplay, and that it will be interesting whether players play for just "a little time a day" or more than that. At the end of the talk, in reply to a question about where he saw gaming going, Meier declared that "this is the year of Civilization!" With CN coming soon and Civ V due out this fall, we can't wait to send our Settlers out into the world.
GDC10: First look at Divine Souls
What, you've never heard of Divine Souls? You Philistine! Actually, it's not the public school system that has failed you here -- Divine Souls is only now crossing the waters of the Pacific (and Atlantic) in its worldwide debut. Created by Korean development studio Game Prix under the title of St. Soul, the renamed Divine Souls is being brought over to North America and Europe through an agreement with publisher Outspark. Divine Souls's makeup is part steampunk, part brawler, part co-op, and part traditional MMORPG, so don't expect the normal routine in this one -- it actually feels more of a hybrid of several MMOs. Massively sat down with the game at last week's GDC to put this title through its paces. Channel your inner Karate Kid, and hit the jump for the full scoop!
OnLive's Perlman would rather stay out of the hardware business
In an interview with Joystiq during the 2010 Game Developers Conference, OnLive president and CEO Steve Perlman said he'd prefer not to sell any kind of hardware for his company's upcoming streaming game service. "The fact that we have to sell a piece of hardware for the TV, if you will, takes us out of our core business." While OnLive will launch as a computer application on PC and Mac this summer, the company is also currently beta testing the OnLive Micro-console for use on televisions. "We think the Micro-console is a cool thing, but we'd rather not have any hardware at all," Perlman said. Ideally, Perlman would like the OnLive service to be added to set top boxes -- including adding the service to existing boxes via software update. "If it has a USB port [for the controller] and we have adequate performance in there, then it's conceivable we can do it," Perlman told Joystiq. "A lot of them just have built-in latency because they assume they're using a conventional compression algorithm [for video]. In that case there's nothing we can do." Perlman echoed previous statements, saying that he expects OnLive to be "scrutinized" for any latency issues that may arise, especially considering OnLive is unique in that it "demands the connection to be exactly what it's spec'd to be." We'll certainly find out when it arrives this June.
GDC: Toriyama explains the themes of the Fabula Nova Crystallis trilogy
The creators of Final Fantasy XIII have been notoriously tight-lipped about the Fabula Nova Crystallis trilogy, a series comprised of FFXIII, Final Fantasy Versus XIII and the PSP-exclusive Final Fantasy Agito XIII. During a GDC panel titled "The Crystal Mythos," director Motomu Toriyama gave a few scant details about the other two branches of the trilogy, and the few similarities connecting the entries in the franchise's 13th series. Toriyama's main point during his presentation is that Agito and Versus won't be sequels to the recently released Final Fantasy XIII -- they'll both have their own unique set of characters, gameplay systems and overarching stories. The only thing connecting them is the "Crystal Mythos" motif -- a theme where the fates of ordinary humans are controlled by omnipotent gods. Players of Final Fantasy XIII should already be acquainted with this storytelling device. The other detail about the series Toriyama mentioned was that, like XIII, the rest of the series will continue to focus on story-driven gameplay rather than allowing the player to explore an open world. For better or worse, it sounds like Versus and Agito will possess the same linearity for which XIII was frequently criticized.
GDC: The UI of The Beatles Rock Band
Most UI panels at the Game Developers' Conference tend to be full of dry technical information, all about how the team developed their own font kerning tool and organized menu elements in a data-driven fashion. The Harmonix UI panel this morning hosted by Senior Artist Kevin McGinnis did have that stuff (McGinnis is a self-diagnosed font geek, and did sound overly excited about formatting bitmaps), but it was also full of art -- beautiful The Beatles: Rock Band inspired art. McGinnis talked about the different concepts the team had tried -- they first attempted to do a very clean, serene respectful version of the menus, but then decided to go much more colorful. They hired a few artists to build the menus up into actual 3D spaces (after accidentally telling Apple Corps that yes, the menus would all be animated), and McGinnis even showed off the 3D model that the camera zooms around in to guide the player into the game. You can see all of the art in the gallery below, from the various pieces of flair to the menu designs and concept work. %Gallery-88131%
GDC 2010: EEDAR on Achievements, user behavior
EEDAR hosted a two part panel at GDC this year. In the second half of the panel -- you can read about the first half here -- Jesse Divnich presented the results of an Xbox Live Achievement study the firm recently conducted. The info was pulled from a pool of 32 million data points -- provided by MyGamerCard.net -- and centered on a random sampling of 100 different Xbox 360 games. Probably the most interesting statistic that Divnich dropped: An average of only 4 percent of Xbox gamers actually managed to earn all of the achievements in any given game. When focusing only on major, "AAA" titles, that number drops to 2 percent. Meanwhile, less than 10 percent of consumers get more than 80 percent of Achievements. Furthermore, Divnich noted that only 27 percent of users manage to unlock more than 50 percent of Achievements. Divnich concluded his talk by saying that developers should learn as much as possible from Achievements. He advised studios to use them as motivational tool for users noting that the number of unlocked Achievements tends to drop off at around 30 percent. He added that gamers who manage to unlock at least 80 percent of Achievements are typically motivated to unlock the remaining 20 percent. Finally, Divnich stated that developers can use Achievements as a form of direct user feedback. By observing which Achievements are unlocked, developers can see the parts of a game that players enjoy. This, in turn, can help developers decide what to focus on in the sequel. Beyond that, Achievement monitoring could even help them decide whether to make a sequel at all.
GDC 2010: From student game to success
Believe it or not, many of the best games start out as student development projects. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, flOw and even Portal all began life as student projects. Speaking at a GDC panel, the developers of the games listed above gave their advice on how budding student game designers can see their own projects become a success. The panel included Kim Swift, designer of Portal and currently of Airtight Games, Matt Korba and Paul Bellezza of The Odd Gentlemen (P.B. Winterbottom), and Kellee Santiago of thatgamecompany (flOw). The advice was wide-ranging, though all the panelists agreed that the best way to get a game noticed is to submit it to as many competitions and festivals as possible. Swift specifically noted that it's a good idea to literally drag people to come and play your game at festivals and shows like GDC. The game itself should "grab" players as well, with Korba saying that a festival showing of a game should be get players involved within five minutes.
GDC10: Torfi Frans Olafsson gives details on Tyrannis, Incarna and more
For the last few weeks, EVE Online players have been getting excited about the up-coming Tyrannis expansion with its Planetary Interaction feature. We received our first taste of what Tyrannis will hold last month when the expansion was announced and since then we've speculated on how its planetary interaction feature might work. Although CCP haven't answered our interview questions on Tyrannis yet, we caught up with EVE Senior Producer Torfi Frans Olafsson at GDC 2010 to get the inside scoop. Torfi was keen to point out that a lot of what CCP are doing in Tyrannis is laying the foundation for future updates and expansions. He calls Tyrannis "a stepping stone toward something even bigger." In addition to providing some inside info on the upcoming Tyrannis and Incarna expansions, Torfi revealed that there are more people working on EVE today than ever before. In contrast to MMOs that cut down their development team sizes once the game is out, CCP's ranks have been increasing at a huge rate in recent years. The ever-increasing revenue generated by EVE subscribers allows them to fund a large development team dedicated to making the game better for EVE players. "We've never had as many subscribers as we have today", says Torfi, "330,000 subscribers, like actual paying subscribers, not counting trials." It's thanks to all those subscribers that CCP are beginning to realise dreams they were never able to achieve when the game was less popular. Skip past the cut to see what Torfi Frans Olafsson had to say about Tyrannis, Incarna and more.
Joystiq vs. GDC 2010
GDC generally isn't packed with the "oohs" and "ahs" that are typically exuded during E3 or the Tokyo Game Show. The name says it all, really, what with it being the Game Developers Conference. That doesn't mean their aren't hot scoops to be found though. This year we got our first taste of the PlayStation Move, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and, of course, the hamster ball-inspired future of video games. Now, with GDC over and done, it's time for us to say goodbye. You'll see a few more GDC stories popping up over the next few days but, for now, watch the video above and see how the Joystiq team spent the week in San Francisco.
Will Wright predicts social games will grow to 25 percent of market
One of the big trends at this year's Game Developer's Conference is social gaming, thanks to wild success stories like Facebook-powered Farmville. While many see social gaming as the next big thing, Will Wright -- famed creator of SimCity, The Sims and Spore -- warned GDC attendees that expectations for the genre are unrealistic. "What people tend to do is apply a power curve to this," Wright explained using the above diagram. "And so when you make an extrapolation based upon that, you're really way off, when in fact, what we were really looking at was an S-curve." "It gets a lot of attention, of course, because investors, when they're looking to invest in something, they're looking to invest in the steep part of this curve. And so that's why there's so much business interest in this sort of platform," Wright hypothesized. But don't think your mom is going to suddenly lose interest in raising animals on her virtual farm any time soon. In fact, while the genre may not explode, it will ultimately represent a large percentage of the overall games business. "It's not that I don't think social games are going to be big ... I can imagine them doing about the quarter of the market, really." That's good news for Facebook, which is still looking for its Mario, its "iconic" game.
GDC 2010: EEDAR talks new IP strategy
Game industry analysis firm EEDAR dropped some interesting statistics during its GDC panel this year. The first half of the presentation -- hosted by EEDAR president Geoffrey Zatkin -- concerned new intellectual property in the games industry. According to Zatkin, the amount of new IP released has increased slightly over the last three years. Specifically, it was up to 22 percent in 2009, up from 17 percent in 2006. However, breaking it down by console, Zatkin stated that new IP currently comprises 27 percent of Wii software, while that number drops to 17 percent on the PS3 and 360. He added that certain genres see very few original properties, particularly fighting games. Furthermore, the relationship between new IP and ESRB ratings is different on various platforms. Most new IP on the Wii tends to be rated E, while new properties on 360 and PS3 tend to be rated T or M. Using data like this, Zatkin said, publishers can decide what sort of games to release on which platforms. The question, according to Zatkin, is whether publishers decide to follow the trends or fill the "holes" in their portfolios by releasing titles in underrepresented areas (any pubs up for a mature Wii fighting game?). Zatkin also discussed the best time for publishers to release new properties. A bar graph illustrated a slight trend away from the industry crowding all its releases into the holiday shopping season, though it still accounted for 37 percent of releases in 2009. Zatkin also pointed out that many publishers release their major titles at the end of their fiscal quarters. The lesson for publishers looking to release new (and risky) properties? Keep your games out of the fourth quarter and try to release them in the second month of any given fiscal quarter.
Impressions: Mass Effect 2 DLC - Kasumi's Stolen Memory
click to kazoomi Like some of the best loyalty quests in Mass Effect 2, "Kasumi's Stolen Memory" is an inventive sub-story that steps away from all the galactic peril just long enough to explore the motives and traits of a newly recruited squad mate. The downloadable add-on introduces Kasumi, a cocky human thief in search of data relating to a former partner (in crime?), and sees Shepard accompanying her on an important and incredibly dangerous two-person mission. You know, a date. Donning a sleek bit of evening wear and a false identity, Shepard accompanies Kasumi to an exclusive party -- the kind that requires either a shiny invitation or a shady conscience. While the commander mingles, a cloaked Kasumi keeps an eye out for the hidden art vault that she believes holds her partner's grey box. What they eventually find encroaches upon spoiler territory (that's especially sensitive given the 90-minute length of the mission), but unsurprisingly triggers one of Mass Effect 2's intense combat sequences. %Gallery-88127%
GDC10: gPotato talks PvP and open beta for Aika
Aika, the upcoming free-to-play game from gPotato, is one that's been attracting quite a bit of attention lately at Massively. The free-to-play MMO arena is rapidly losing the stigma of shallow, uninteresting games, and Aika is shaping up to be a perfect example of that. Innovative features such as the Pran -- the fairy familiar that is proving to be one of the most popular parts of the game -- and an intricate PvP system have given Aika a solid seat in the "one to watch" category. We recently took a look at Aika in First Impressions, and enjoyed a talk with Community Manager Christina Kelly during Aika's second round of closed beta testing. Now the game is on the verge of open beta (which will bring some fun new features to the game), and the Aika team was very busy at GDC this week, but Christina found some time to sit down and chat with us again. Follow along after the jump as we delve into the PvP and politics of Aika, as well as what we have to look forward to in open beta and launch.
