gdc-europe-2012
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James Bond meets Virtua Cop: The development of Rare's GoldenEye 007
During GDC Europe 2012, former Rare developer Martin Hollis recounted his experience directing GoldenEye 007, one of the most fondly remembered games of its time and a landmark title in the history of console first-person shooters. Hollis had only worked on one game for Rare at the time, the arcade version of Killer Instinct. When the opportunity arose to pursue a James Bond game in early 1995, Hollis jumped at the chance; as the video above demonstrates, he was a pretty big fan.The rest is gaming history. Hollis went over far too much for us to condense into a single piece (in fact, we've already written two others), but we've compiled some of the highlights after the break. Read on to discover how one of GoldenEye's primary influences was actually Sega's Virtua Cop. In the gallery below, you'll find images of some of GoldenEye's original design documents and some behind the scenes stories from the original team. %Gallery-164095%
CD Projekt Red on killing your favorite features
Adding a feature to a game might seem like a fairly straightforward process, but even a simple one can have much bigger ramifications than you might think at first glance. During GDC Europe 2012, CD Projekt Red gameplay producer Marek Ziemak and lead gameplay designer Maciej Szczesnik detailed the process that the developer uses to evaluate any features that could make their way into a project.CD Projekt Red uses a set of internal documents that the studio's employees all have access to. Using these documents, developers can describe their features and the rest of the staff evaluates them. In some cases, staffers even apply numerical values to a proposed feature, with the final "score" affecting the likelihood that a feature will make it into the game. The overarching idea is to fully analyze the risk of a feature and the consequences of implementing it.%Gallery-163035%
GDC Europe breaks record in 2012 with 2,100 attendees
It may sound adorable and small next to Gamescom's record attendee count of 275,000 people, but the concurrent GDC Europe also celebrated its own attendance record in 2012. The much less public, much more intimate GDC Europe counted "over 2100 game professionals" as attendees in 2012.The breakdown of that group includes "100+ European and international speakers, 65+ exhibitors and sponsors, and more than 290 media representatives." To see what happened during the event, we invite you to follow our GDC Europe coverage (don't miss the cute video that led to GoldenEye 007).
Gamescom, GDC EU dates announced for 2013
The more than 275,000 attendees of this year's Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, were the first to see the planned date for the 2013 convention -- if they noticed the large banner hanging overhead, that is. Folks wanting to get a headstart on planning for the event can mark their calendars: The fifth annual Gamescom will be held August 21st through the 25th, 2013. To get in on GDC Europe, plan to get to Cologne a few days earlier as this convention will run August 19th through the 21st, 2013. The 2012 Gamescom saw the introduction of mobile and social titles to the usual line-up of console and PC gaming. Organizers noted that 83 different countries were represented between the exhibitors and trade visitors of the con. GDC EU 2012 broke previous attendance records with over 2,100 game industry professionals attending the event. For more about this year's conventions that just wrapped up, check out Massively's 2012 Gamescom and 2012 GDC Europe coverage.
How to pitch your indie game to Sony
"I'm sick of sitting through crap development pitches," Pete Smith, Sony XDev director of product development, told an audience of developers at GDC Europe last week. Smith handles all of the European studios looking to snag a publishing deal on Sony systems, and he helped games such as Heavy Rain and the Motorstorm series race into the public eye.Smith knows what he wants in a pitch, but just as importantly, he knows precisely what he doesn't want. He gave an overview of his approach to independent pitches, and then broke down a quick and dirty list of "do's" and "do not's." Read through Smith's pet peeves and praises below.
Konami is No. 2 social games publisher behind Zynga
Konami has recently received a massive bump to its financial report from its social gaming division: In the first nine months of fiscal 2012, Konami reported its year-on-year gain was driven by social gaming, which generated $348 million in revenue, up $127 million from 2011. Without context, these numbers can seem impressive, but meaningless.Fortunately, Careen Yapp provided a background for Konami's finances during an "ask these publishers anything" panel at Gamescom: Last year estimates put Konami as the second-most-prolific social games publisher behind Zynga.Zynga, the market giant, posted $1.14 billion in revenue for 2011 from social gaming, with $1.07 billion of that in microtransactions alone. This actually translated to a net loss of $404.3 million for Zynga, and its stock continues to remain far below original estimates, along with public perception of the company.Being No. 2 to Zynga and being in a position to create products other than social games isn't such a bad spot for Konami to be in.
GDC Europe 2012: Funcom's Morrison says focus on the why, not the what
MMOs as a rule tend to have a focus on providing content for us, the players. It makes sense; they want us to play their games, so they give us as much stuff to do as possible so that we'll keep playing. But why do we want to do that stuff in the first place? Craig Morrison, creative director at Funcom Montreal, posed that question at his GDC Europe talk, saying that MMO design needs to shift to consider that option. Gamasutra covered what he has to say: "Everytime a player logs in, they need a 'why'," noted Morrison. "What we really need to be thinking about is the why -- it's the bit that we don't really consider enough. Players need a reason to be playing it. What is motivating them?" Referencing both Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Simon Simek's work on motivation, Morrison's talk ranged from discussing how games go wrong by focusing on only one kind of player to encouraging the development and fostering of community. "Unless you expose the players to the community and encourage community interactions, there's not that much difference between your game and a single-player game," he opined.
Liveblogging the Ubisoft Gamescom 2012 press conference [update: it's over!]
What's German for "Tobuscus?" Find out today as Joystiq presents live coverage of Ubisoft's Gamescom 2012 press conference. The event is due to start at 9am EDT, and will very likely be full of mostly armless heroes, shooting maniacs, Zombis, and, of course, anachronistic hoodies. Follow along with our liveblog after the break!Update: And we're out! Head past the break to see all the thrilling news from Ubi's Gamescom presser. And some pictures of people with blue light, obviously.
GDC Europe 2012: Designer says American gamers can't handle failure
Game designer Don Daglow turned a few heads while participating in a GDC Europe panel this week. The industry veteran and co-designer of AOL's 1991 Neverwinter Nights MMORPG said that Americans don't deal well with failure, particularly in gaming. "The idea of failure has been dramatically reduced," Daglow said, before going on to opine that this stems from an educational system where failure has been removed from the curriculum. He also said that many gamers blame their failures on the game itself instead of analyzing their mistakes and trying again.
Indie dev PerBlue makes millions, sees Android dominating iOS
Justin Beck launched PerBlue while finishing college in 2008. He got to work on the company's first title, Parallel Kingdom, with his co-founder and a staff of seven in Madison, Wisconsin, surviving on $20,000 of savings from a stint at Microsoft. Today, PerBlue generates $3 million a year, supports 35 employees and has successfully launched three free-to-play MMOs in the Parallel universe on Android and iOS.PerBlue's Parallel Mafia and Parallel Zombies both hit mobile devices in 2012, but during his talk at GDC Europe, Beck discussed the specific finances of Parallel Kingdom, which has been live since 2008.Parallel Kingdom doesn't have a massive number of players, hype or notoriety in the wider gaming world, but it proves that when managed efficiently, a mobile game can provide huge profit for a small developer. Parallel Kingdom has 1.5 million registered accounts, but only 15,000 daily active users, which Beck admits is "not that big." These users, however, represent $0.40 - $0.50 per user, per day for PerBlue. Extrapolated to 50,000 monthly active users, that's more than $200,000 each month in microtransactions from one title alone.
Dead Island's lifeblood was co-op, 4 million units shipped
Dead Island's success was all due to that stunning trailer, right? Well, according to Guido Eickmeyer, development director and executive producer of games at publisher Deep Silver, the resort-vacation zombie simulator sold 4 million units because of its cooperative gameplay."This is why we got all the good reviews from users. This is why we got high user ratings, because it is the most exciting co-op experience that is on the market," Eickmeyer said.Despite investing less than $25 million dollars in the project – low for a major triple-A video game – Dead Island has been played for 56,907,547 hours in co-op, which is approximately 6,500 years total.After the success of the trailer, there were talks of forming the game around that, but there simply weren't the resources. Dead Island showed strong potential in its co-op, so the focus shifted to that and that game was a huge hit. Dead Island: Riptide is another "huge co-op experience" being revealed this week at Gamescom.
GoldenEye 007's multiplayer was added last minute, unknown to Rare and Nintendo management
You might know that the multiplayer mode for GoldenEye 007, the seminal N64 shooter, was only added to the game late in development. What you probably don't know is that the mode was also added unbeknownst to the management at developer Rare and publisher Nintendo. The revelation comes by way of GoldenEye 007's director Martin Hollis, who delivered a postmortem presentation on the game at GDC Europe.Hollis' presentation included stories from many of GoldenEye 007's developers, including Steve Ellis, who was responsible for programming the multiplayer mode, a feat he accomplished in a month. Wrote Ellis: One of the things that always strikes me as crazy in retrospect is that until something like March or April of 1997, there wasn't a multiplayer mode at all. It hadn't even been started. It really was put in at the last minute – something you wouldn't dream of doing these days – and it was done without the knowledge or permission of the management at Rare and Nintendo. The first they knew about it was when we showed it to them working. However – since the game was already late by that time, if we hadn't done it that way, it probably never would have happened.Hollis said that "quite a few features" were "snuck in" throughout development, which he chalked up to management trusting the team. "I'm sure there were six-month stretches where no member of Rare or Nintendo management came into the team offices," he said. "Which is really quite extraordinary, and all credit to them that they felt able to take that much of a leaned-back approach and place that much trust in the team."So there you have it, GoldenEye 007's multiplayer mode – a vital, fondly-remembered component of a landmark game – was unplanned, coded in a month and might never have existed at all if it weren't for some serendipitous managerial oversight.
GDC Europe 2012: F2P developers should expect 70 percent initial user drop
Batting .300 is the gold standard for free-to-play games, according to former Empire: Total War designer Jan van der Crabben. He told listeners at a GDC Europe keynote that free-to-play developers should expect to lose 70 percent of their initial registered users. He said that player retention is the key issue facing the new business model, and despite the fact that most players leave F2P titles shortly after registering, those who stick around for a few days will usually keep playing. Van der Crabben, who is currently designing browser-based F2P games at Travian, pointed to World of Warcraft as a model, noting its mechanical effectiveness at retaining users by presenting them with cyclical gameplay. This amounts to "kill[ing] stuff to get better to get more abilities to kill more stuff," he said.
Get your sea legs on with Assassin's Creed 3's Naval trailer from Gamescom
Who's that dashing sea captain with the ragged hair? Ah, of course – it's the half-Native / half-British protagonist of Assassin's Creed 3, Connor. And wouldn't you know it, he's got his trusty tomahawk aboard that colonial era ship. Take a peek at the leaked footage above before Ubi pulls it!Update: Ubisoft has officially released the trailer, after pulling it earlier today with a convenient copyright claim. Celebrate your freedom to watch it now.%Gallery-162449%
Industry vet Don Daglow on how failure is a tough sell for American gamers
Americans, according to Don Daglow, have trouble with failure, especially when it comes to their games. He should know, he has an impressive resumé, dating all the way back to the Intellivision and the early days of Electronic Arts and extending through the likes of the original Neverwinter Nights. Daglow directed his comments to developers during a panel at GDC Europe, exposing just one of the facts about American culture that baffle European game designers.While traditional education systems teach students to try to succeed and learn from their failures, he said, the American education system has evolved to the point that failure has largely been removed from the equation entirely. "The idea of failure has been dramatically reduced," he said, noting that American students don't "fail." Rather, they are "challenged," a concept that Daglow believes European developers should keep in mind when trying to design games that will succeed in the American market.The concept of failure as an inducement to try again and succeed is difficult for many Americans to accept. Many will blame their failure on the game itself, instead of recognizing their mistake and trying again. The key to breaking through to an American audience, he said, is encouragement, individuality and grabbing the player's interest as quickly as possible. "If you think of the best James Bond movies, the first ten minutes is an experience all unto itself. You're on this joy ride," he said, "don't wait to entertain people."On the bright side, once you do grab a player's interest, the habits of Americans and Europeans are practically identical. Once a player enjoys a game, said Daglow, they will stick with it despite their cultural leanings – and their abject failures.
'Half-Life 3' pops up on Gamescom product listing
Is Valve showing Half-Life 3 at Gamescom 2012? One product list from the event's official page certainly thinks so, but ... well, come on now. We've been hearing about (or, rather, not hearing about) Half-Life 3 in some form or another for a few years now, all the while Valve Software stayed silent. As it stands, we're not sure what to make of this, but its place on an official product list from the gigantic gaming convention we're at makes it pretty hard to ignore.Has the official Gamescom site been hacked, and a fake PDF uploaded? We sure hope not, but boy are we wary of anything Half-Life 3.Also of note, Dragon Age 3 appears on the list, as do lots of other (known) titles. We've reached out to both Valve and the Gamescom folks to see what's up, and we'll let you know as soon as we hear more.Update: Valve's VP of marketing Doug Lombardi told Lambda Generation in July, "We will have the Steam team there to meet with developers and publishers. No game showing planned." Sorry, folks! We'll be sure to take a look around Valve's booth as soon as Gamescom opens officially tomorrow.Update 2: Gamescom organizers characterized the listings for both Half-Life 3 and Dragon Age 3 as "a mistake," but wouldn't explain to Eurogamer why the listings appeared. The plot thickens!Update 3: Valve rep Doug Lombardi reconfirmed with us that, "We are not showing any games in Cologne this year." Welp, that's that, folks. Unless it's not, of course.Update 4: Gamescom's organizers tell us, "We can not officially announce it. Please check our list for further changes. Please see the legend for information about the sources."[Thanks Roelosaurus]
Seen@GDC Europe: The adorable video that led to GoldenEye 007
When Martin Hollis first pitched GoldenEye 007 to Rare boss Tim Stamper in 1995, he had worked as a programmer on the arcade version of Killer Instinct. That wasn't, however, his greatest credential to direct the project, he told an audience at GDC Europe. No, his greatest credential was a video he created with his brothers when he was 18.We managed to record the video during the GoldenEye 007 postmortem and, as you'll see, Hollis has been a Bond fan for quite some time. We'll have more from the postmortem soon.
Majority of profit from Dragon Age: Origins DLC was from launch DLC
"Having something post-ship is absolutely essential," BioWare director of online development Fernando Melo told an audience at GDC Europe today, during his discussion of day-one DLC, online passes and long-term monetization. Shipping DLC on the day of launch is essential from a business standpoint – Dragon Age: Origins, for example, saw 53 percent of all of its paid DLC transactions solely from sales of its day-one DLC packs, The Stone Prisoner and Warden's Keep.This figure accounts for those who bought Stone Prisoner for $15 in a used copy of Origins, and those who purchased Warden's Keep for $7 outside of its inclusion in the Digital Deluxe Edition. Since these two DLC packs, Dragon Age: Origins has had seven additional iterations of downloadable content, which account for less than half of the total DLC revenue from Origins.Melo stressed the importance of day-one DLC from a business standpoint for any developer. Launch day sees the highest number of players and offers the widest possibility for catching long-term, continuously paying players, he said.
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs will take lessons from Dear Esther
One of the keys to creating Dear Esther, said thechineseroom's Dan Pinchbeck, was allowing the player as much control over the narrative as possible. Speaking at a panel during GDC Europe, Pinchbeck addressed the intentional ambiguity of Dear Esther, saying that it gave players more freedom, thus making their time with the game more enjoyable. Rather than presenting the player with predetermined series of events, Dear Esther's story is filled with ambiguity and revealed randomly, leaving it to the player to interpret it. In a very real sense, they actually participate in the story's creation.While most games lay out their stories in a clear, linear fashion – think big budget FPS and action games – Pinchbeck likens Dear Esther's story to a toy box. Instead of giving players a cohesive, linear story, thechineseroom created story blocks and lets players put them together. It's a bit like "story Minecraft," he said. "The story of Dear Esther doesn't actually particularly tell you anything. It just suggests things that could have happened, but you can do the work."People are driven to think of events in terms of story, he said. "If something looks and feels enough like a story, people are likely to interpret the action in a storied way." As such, when creating Dear Esther, thechineseroom wasn't concerned with creating a complete, fully rounded story. "What we can try and do in games, is not tell a story, but to provide the player with the toolbox – the tools, the bricks that they need to tell the stories themselves," said Pinchbeck. "In exactly the same way that we consider things like physics sandboxes," he adds, "if you provide those units of useful, interesting stuff that players can play with, they will create an experience from it."During the Q&A session, we asked Pinchbeck if Thechineseroom's next project, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs will follow the same model of abstract storytelling. Unlike Dear Esther, said Pinchbeck, A Machine for Pigs exists within the constraints of a "classic horror story," so it won't follow the same model entirely. "What we're going to try and do is we're going to try and keep the lessons that we've learned in terms of not funneling the plot down, not being really explicit with the player about what's going on, using inference, using suggestion," he said. "We're trying to have any opportunities we can to keep that open" for players to do the work of piecing together the ambiguous bits, which he says are especially important in a horror game. "You pretty much can't represent anything in a horror game that's going to be more scary than what the player thinks you're going to represent, and the moment you actually show it, you've lost an awful lot of the power you've got to scare them."
World of Tanks was rejected by publishers as 'cheap Asian stuff'
Since its release at the end of 2010, Russian tank MMO World of Tanks has grown to become a global sensation with over 35 million users worldwide. The incredible success of this free-to-play giant has gone on to spawn upcoming offshoots World of Warplanes and World of Warships, but you might be surprised to hear that western publishers initially rejected the game. At GDC Europe today, Wargaming.net CEO Victor Kislyi revealed that Western publishers originally didn't accept the game because of its free-to-play business model. "They were very arrogant," Victor explained, adding that the game "was described as cheap, Asian stuff." The rampant success of World of Tanks and the free-to-play business model has since grown Wargaming.net from a studio with 120 employees into a global business with over 1,000.
