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Best Of GDC: BioWare's French On Building Mass Community [02.29.08]
Continuing Gamasutra's best of GDC 2008 series, BioWare Live team producer Derek French discusses the nuts and bolts of community building from forums to online patching to mod support, starting with its initial efforts on Neverwinter Nights.
GDC 2008 Announces Record Attendance, 2009 Dates [02.28.08]
The organizers of the 2008 Game Developers Conference announced that a record 18,000 game industry professionals attended the event, and revealed that GDC will return to the Moscone Center in San Francisco on March 23-27, 2009.
Best Of GDC: Paul Steed On 'The Trip' From Artist to Entrepreneur [02.28.08]
Continuing Gamasutra's best of GDC 2008 series, here's a look at the loopiest lecture you missed - Paul Steed's gossip-filled Game Career Seminar keynote, spanning Wing Commander to Quake in technicolor dirt-dishing.
Best Of GDC: The Secrets Of Portal's Huge Success [02.27.08]
Continuing Gamasutra's 'best of GDC' show follow-up, we go in-depth with Valve's Kim Swift and Erik Wolpaw at the Portal postmorterm, examining the “iterative process” behind integrating story and gameplay in the 2007 Game Developers Choice Game Of The Year.
Best Of GDC: Lego On Building Its Universe Brick By Brick [02.27.08]
Continuing Gamasutra's 'best of GDC' set of previously unposted write-ups, The Lego Group's director of business development Mark Hansen discussed the Lego Universe MMO and a host of other issues in his GDC 2008 lecture last week.
Gas Powered's Taylor: 'PC Gaming As We Know It Is Dead' [02.26.08]
Is the PC gaming model dead? Or just shifting course to be the dominant medium of the future? At Dave Perry's "Lunch With the Luminaries" Phil Harrison, Chris Taylor, Raph Koster and Neil Young discussed what path PC gaming will take in the coming years.
Best Of GDC: Peter Molyneux's Top 10 GDC Proclamations [02.26.08]
Continuing the Best Of GDC series - highlighting the best unreported elements from last week's San Francisco-based conference - Gamasutra takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the quote-based highlights of Peter Molyneux's Fable 2 lecture.
Best Of GDC: In-Depth With Square Enix's Crystal Tools [02.26.08]
The Japanese game biz's use of game tools has been much-analyzed - which is why Taku Murata's GDC talk on Square Enix's in-house, multi-platform Crystal Tools engine is so intriguing, and Gamasutra has the most in-depth write-up for its 'Best Of GDC' special.
Best Of GDC: Developing Super Smash Bros. Brawl [02.25.08]
Gamasutra is continuing to showcase previously unposted write-ups of the best lectures from its canonical GDC coverage all week - and this one covers Masahiro Sakurai presenting a 'premortem' of hotly awaited Nintendo Wii title Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Best Of GDC: The Future of Animation is Games (No, Really!) [02.25.08]
In another unaired 'best of GDC' write-up from our canonical GDC coverage, Blockade Entertainment is using the Brothers In Arms game engine to create a machinima series for the Gameplay HD TV channel - we sit in on their intriguing GDC lecture.
Microsoft Drops HD-DVD Support For Xbox 360 [02.25.08]
Following the news that Toshiba had officially admitted defeat in the next-gen video format wars, Microsoft has announced it is officially discontinuing its HD-DVD addon for the Xbox 360, promising to still offer standard product and warranty support.
GDC: Creating Spielberg's Boom Blox [02.22.08]
At the 2008 Game Developers Conference, Louis Castle, VP of Creative Development at EA Los Angeles talked about Spielberg's first video game design project - Boom Blox - and the milestones that dot the development history of this anticipated game.
GDC: Game Designers Rant On Making Games That Matter [02.22.08]
In a special designer-focused rant that showed a surprising amount of thematic overlap, Clint Hocking, Jenova Chen, Jane McGonigal, Jon Mak, and Daniel James 'expressed opinions forcefully' on the state of games, all seeming to agree that the industry is too scared to say anything with real meaning.
GDC: Dave Jones Talks APB, Emergent Behavior [02.22.08]
Realtime Worlds CEO and original GTA creator Dave Jones wanted to throw out the rulebook for his first MMO, APB, and discusses ways to buck the traditional MMORPG trend, encourage emergent player behavior, and do away with the grind - he explains how in his GDC lecture.
GDC: Nintendo Reveals Wii Pay-For-Online Play, WiiWare Compression [02.22.08]
In a key Nintendo session at Game Developers Conference 2008, Takashi Aoyama revealed that some forthcoming Wii games will charge for network access, and that WiiWare games will use a new compression scheme - to be expanded at runtime - to help alleviate size concerns.
RealNetworks Buys Macrovision's Trymedia Division [02.22.08]
Casual game company RealNetworks has announced that it has acquired substantially all of the assets of Macrovision's Trymedia division, which works with several major sites in syndicating online distribution of video games.
GDC Keynote: Kurzweil Predicts Full Intelligence Sim By 2029 [02.22.08]
At his wide ranging inspirational keynote at the 2008 Game Developers conference, futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted a near future with nano-technology enhanced fully immersive virtual realities and full simulations of human intelligence by 2029.
WildTangent Announces Console-Like PC Game Service Orb [02.22.08]
Game network WildTangent has announced WildTangent Orb, an application it hope will bring a console experience to PCs with a unified interface and major publisher support already in place.
GDC: Grasshopper Composer Takada's Musical Mission [02.22.08]
Masafumi Takada introduced himself to his GDC audience as “sound designer, composer, and fire prevention supervisor” for Grasshopper Manufacture (Killer7, No More Heroes) and discussed the ways in which he translates game graphics, design ideas, and even game creators into music -- a pursuit he called his mission in life.
GDC: Harrison - Game Controller Ease Key To Industry Growth [02.22.08]
As part of the GDC Luminaries Lunch attended by Gamasutra, Phil Harrison has been colorfully explaining the over-complexity of current game controllers to the average non-gamer, suggesting: "You hand someone a game controller and it's like you've handed someone a grenade with the pin taken out."
GDC: Emotiv Knows What You're Thinking [02.22.08]
At a GDC 2008 lecture attended by Gamasutra, Emotiv's Julian Wixson revealed the full SDK for the company's 'mind sensing' headset, from detection of blinking and facial movements to sensing of 'active intent' directly from the brain.
GDC: Spore Producer Shaw Details Cross-Pollination [02.22.08]
At her GDC session, producer Caryl Shaw went into great detail revealing the breadth and depth of the user-generated content options in the highly anticipated Will Wright designed Spore, including direct YouTube integration and 'Sporecasts' -- in-game feeds of a particular user's creations.
Worldweaver Releases DX Studio 2.3 [02.22.08]
Software developer Worldweaver has unveiled the latest version of its games and simulation platform DX studio, with new features including PhysX support and more performance enhancements.
Sponsored Feature: Microsoft Discusses XNA Community Game Beta [02.22.08]
Excited about the revelation of XNA's new peer-reviewed community game distribution service for Xbox Live? Following the GDC keynote, Microsoft's Dax Hawkins goes in-depth on exactly how game submission, review, and posting will work for the Spring beta of the service.
Audiokinetic Announces Wwise Motion [02.22.08]
Audio solution provider Audiokinetic has announced Wwise Motion, a new toolset modeled after the company's Wwise software and targeted at developers looking to create, customize, and manage motion in their video games.
GDC: Standing The Test Of Time With Sid Meier [02.22.08]
In his GDC 2008 Q&A session, Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, and Pirates designer Sid Meier talked about his past decades of games, the ones coming in the future, and the industry practices that have continued since his early history as a developer.
Sony's Harrison: You Can't Get Wii's Whole Audience [02.22.08]
At the "Lunch with the Luminaries" luncheon at GDC attended by Gamasutra, Sony's president of worldwide studios Phil Harrison told EA Blueprint's Neil Young that making Wii games may not be as viable as third-party publishers think.
GDC Gallery: Game Developers Choice Awards 2008 [02.22.08]
Gamasutra contributor Vincent Diamante has been documenting this year's Game Developers Conference in visual form - here are key images from Wednesday night's Game Developers Choice Awards, in which Portal came away with Game Of The Year.
GDC: The Inter-Species Game Design Challenge [02.21.08]
One of the final sessions of GDC on Thursday, this year the Game Design Challenge 2008 asked Brenda Brathwaite (Wizardry), Steve Meretzky (The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy) to take on reigning 2007 champion Alexey Pajitnov (Tetris) in designing an “inter-species game” - we have the winners!
GDC: Radical Talks 'More Is Better' For Prototype [02.21.08]
Well known for developing open world games such as the well received The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and Scarface, Radical Entertainment’s Tim Bennison and Eric Holmes explained new IP Prototype in a GDC lecture on Thursday.
GDC: Tsuchida, Shiraishi Talk Square Enix's New WiiWare Choices [02.21.08]
Square Enix is reputed for its giant development teams, budgets and final products laden with elaborate, expensive CG -- so how did the developer need to adjust its philosophy to create Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King for WiiWare?
GDC: Feelplus' Nakazato Details Lost Odyssey's Collaborative Process [02.21.08]
Microsoft Games Studio, Mistwalker Studios and Japanese developer Feelplus each played a role in the development of recent Xbox 360 title Lost Odyssey, and Feelplus' Ray Nakazato detailed the often complex and challenging working relationships between the different groups as he described what went right -- and what could have gone better.
GDC: Industry Luminaries Discuss The Meaning of Next Gen Gaming [02.21.08]
At GDC, David Perry organized an illuminating and exclusive "Lunch With the Luminaries" which brought together Peter Molyneux, Phil Harrison, Chris Taylor, Raph Koster and Neil Young to discuss issues at the core of the games industry's future. First up: the true meaning of next generation gaming.
An Outsider's View: The Jonathan Coultons Of Gaming [02.21.08]
Guest correspondent Andy Baio is a technologist and writer from the Web 2.0 side of the tech industry. What trends does he see in this year's Game Developers Conference? In the latest of a series of posts, he discusses the indie angle and the 'Jonathan Coultons' of gaming.
GDC: Insomniac Announces Tech-Sharing 'Nocturnal Initiative' [02.21.08]
Resistance and Ratchet & Clank developer Insomniac Games has announced the 'Nocturnal Initiative,' a tech-sharing program in which it plans to share elements of its source code and presentations to worldwide developers free of charge.
GDC: SingStar Sings Praise For In-Game Commerce [02.21.08]
Why build a separate integrated in-game store for a PlayStation game, when the PlayStation Store already allows users to search, view and purchase downloadable content? SCEE London lead programmer Richard Bates explains that it was the best option for SingStar, and details the benefits of this approach.
GDC: Cryptic’s Emmert: ‘You Are What You Are At Launch’ [02.21.08]
At the 2008 Game Developers Conference, Cryptic Studios chief creative officer Jack Emmert outlined the stumbling blocks that frustrated City of Heroes/Villains, suggesting several key mistakes to avoid for any MMO to be able to complete with WoW, which he says stole two thirds of his game’s player base.
GDC Gallery: The Independent Games Festival Awards [02.21.08]
Gamasutra contributor Vincent Diamante has been documenting this year's Game Developers Conference in visual form - here's his look at the 2007 Independent Games Festival Awards, held last night at the Moscone Center.
GDC: The Future of Story In Game Design [02.21.08]
In a conflict-filled panel on the future place of stories within game design and (therefore) the place of writers in development teams, Deborah Todd tried to keep the verbal sparring of a group of developers including Denis Dyack and Matthew Karch from elevating their verbal sparring into physical.
GDC: The Blizzard Approach to Multiplayer Design [02.21.08]
Blizzard's Rob Pardo spoke to packed room on some of the obvious and non-obvious ways to make multiplayer designs more engaging, while referencing some of the developer's own successes and failures, using examples from the Warcraft and Starcraft series.
SOE Partners With Vivox For In-Game Voice Chat [02.21.08]
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is working with online voice services provider Vivox to offer high-quality voice chat solutions to players of its library of online games.
2008 IGF Awards Topped By Crayon Physics Deluxe [02.21.08]
Kloonigames' 2D physics puzzle game Crayon Physics Deluxe scooped the $20,000 Grand Prize at the 10th Annual IGF in San Francisco this evening, with World Of Goo and Audiosurf also coming away with two awards each - full winner rundown inside.
Portal Takes Game Of The Year At 2008 Choice Awards [02.21.08]
Valve's Portal has picked up three awards at the 8th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, including Innovation, Game Design and Game of the Year, as 2K Boston/2K Australia's BioShock made off with another three, and Crackdown, Crysis and Fl0w took their own top honors.
GDC: Baer, Alcorn Talk 'Brown Box' Beginnings, Industry Birth [02.21.08]
In their joint GDC session, Odyssey creator Ralph Baer and Atari VCS designer Al Alcorn split an hour to sit and reminisce about their roots – how their lives and social contexts conspired for them to design and build the two seminal video game consoles.
GDC: 'Junk Science' Still Dogging Games Industry, Says Lawyer [02.21.08]
At the 2008 Game Developers Conference, attorney Lawrence G. Walters, who represents developers and publishers on issues of censorship, evaluated the legal landscape around game content, highlighting the threats to games as free speech and laying out what benchmarks detractors would need to achieve to get their way.
Havok Offers Havok Complete For Free To Developers [02.21.08]
Middleware developer Havok has announced that it will make Havok Complete, its physics and animation software toolset, available for download free of charge to game developers for non-commercial use.
GDC: Cryptic Announces Champions Online PC MMO [02.21.08]
Cryptic Studios has announced Champions Online, its first ever self-developed and self-published MMORPG, based on the popular pen-and-paper Champions RPG, and due for release in Spring 2009.
CGS: The Media Myth Of The Casual Gamer [02.21.08]
Is the meme of the old, retired, middle-to-low-income female casual gamer a media myth? rmbr.com's Gabe Zichermann said the idea is little more than a marketing technique, and that by focusing efforts solely to the group casual gaming is doing itself an enormous disservice.
CGS: Filling the Void Between Casual And Mainstream Games [02.21.08]
In his GDC 2008 Casual Game Summit session, Last Day of Work’s Arthur K Humphrey spoke extensively on what he sees as the false and destructive conceptual divide between casual and mainstream games, positing an "in-between" solution encapsulating complexity and giving it a casual learning curve.
GDC: Deconstructing The Best Interactive Storytelling [02.20.08]
At their GDC session, Midway's Richard Rouse joined with Marc Laidlaw, Steve Meretzky, and Ken Rolston to nominate and play a selection of eight games including Loom and Thief that they considered the best at storytelling, arguing that the best games can offer can stand up to the storytelling of any other medium.
GDC: Blow's Ten New Challenges For Game Design [02.20.08]
At his GDC session, independent designer Jonathan Blow (Braid) suggested that game design might be too ambitious in aiming to add meaning to games by richening characters and developing less linear stories. Instead, he offered ten easier problems with which to begin in order to build a foundation for deeper meaning and engagement.
WIM: Striking Gold -- How Kids’ Worlds Took The Crown [02.20.08]
For the final discussion at the Worlds in Motions summit at GDC, a panel talk was held with the people behind some of the most successful virtual worlds running -- Disney, Club Penguin, Nick.com, and Neopets -- who elaborated on how their kid focused content helped with that success.
GDC Keynote: Microsoft Reveals Community Features, XNA For Zune [02.20.08]
At its GDC 2008 keynote, Microsoft announced the full range of peer-reviewed community features coming for amateur-made XNA games, a new XNA game player for its media player Zune, and, in a surprise finish, that Gears of War 2 would be coming to the Xbox 360 this November -- full keynote coverage inside.
GDC: Ken Levine Speaks: Empowering Players to Care About Your Stupid Story [02.20.08]
Ken Levine, president and creative director of 2K Boston and creator of the renowned story of BioShock, started his packed talk at GDC with a somewhat snarky revelation -- "I'm not really a fan of game story." He moved forward to explain the narrative techniques the developer used to make the game.
GDC 2008: The Crysis Of Audio [02.20.08]
Although mostly famed for its near-photorealistic graphics, Tomas Neumann and Christian Schilling of Crytek, along with composer Inon Zur opened GDC 2008’s Audio track with a discussion of the decision to deliver the highest quality of audio to match the graphics of their recent release Crysis.
WIM Summit: Thinking Outside the Virtual World [02.20.08]
Mind Candy CEO Michael Acton Smith says that toy companies have embraced virtual worlds with what he calls "great gusto," and at his Worlds in Motion Summit session discussed the ways physical products can interact with virtual worlds.
CCP Licenses Morpheme for EVE Online, Future MMO Titles [02.20.08]
MMOG developer and publisher CCP announced today that it has licensed NaturalMotion's morpheme animation middleware software and plans to integrate it into EVE Online and other upcoming unannounced projects.
GDC: Havok Unveils Havok 5.5 Toolset [02.20.08]
Middleware developer Havok introduced Havok 5.5 at the Game Developers Conference today, touting new improvements and features for its modular suite of run-time technology and artist tools.
GDC Mobile: The Quest For Games In The Mobile Universe [02.20.08]
At the 2008 GDC Mobile summit, Nellymoser's John Puterbaugh delved into issues surrounding gamers actually finding games when no established navigation paradigm has emerged, a problem he says is driving stagnation in the mobile game market.
GDC Mobile: Connecting Mobile Games and MMOs [02.20.08]
In the final talk of this year’s GDC Mobile summit, mobile game designer Dan Roy focused on what motivates players to invest significant time and attention to MMOs and how a mobile/PC cross-platform game might help drive that enthusiasm.
GDC Q&A: Frontier's Braben On WiiWare Launch Title LostWinds [02.20.08]
As The Outsider and Thrillville studio Frontier Developments announces LostWinds, its 3D platformer WiiWare launch title, Gamasutra talks to studio founder David Braben about the game's collaborative genesis and his thoughts on the WiiWare service and downloadable landscape as a whole.
An Outsider's View Of GDC: Opening Remarks [02.20.08]
Guest correspondent Andy Baio is a technologist and writer from the Web 2.0 side of the tech industry. What trends does he see in this year's Game Developers Conference? In the first of a series of posts, he discussed his initial impressions of the show.
IGS: The State Of Indie Games [02.20.08]
A gigantic panel of independent developers - including Jacob Van Wingen (Small Arms), Ryan Clark (Professor Fizzwizzle) and Jon Mak (Everyday Shooter) rounded off the Independent Games Summit with their thoughts on the future of indie gaming.
SGS: Djordjevich Talks Disaster Recover With GroundTruth [02.20.08]
At her 2008 GDC Serious Games Summit session, Sandia National Laboratories' Donna Djordjevich gave the audience a look into the development of her GroundTruth, a homeland security training platform made in conjunction with University of Southern California's GamePipe Labs.
GDC Mobile: A Crazy Time To Start A Mobile Studio? [02.20.08]
With continued content provider consolidation, increasing development costs and more and more hardware fragmentation, what possible sense could it make to consider starting a new mobile studio? At the GDC Mobile Summit, Finblade’s John Chasey and Fergus McNeill discussed the issues of being a mobile startup.
Multiverse Talks Tech At WIM 2008 [02.20.08]
Multiverse has built its own technology to allow anyone, as the founders say, to build a virtual world, an initiative, said founder Cory Bridges at the 2008 Worlds in Motion Summit, meant to move virtual worlds beyond their "walled gardens" phase and into much broader adoption.
CGS: GameLab's Zimmerman Says Casual Games are Dead (Sort Of) [02.20.08]
You can’t make money making casual games, said GameLab's Eric Zimmerman at GDC -- low royalties, tons of middlemen, a hugely saturated market, ever-increasing production values, and now big publisher competition -- imploring his audience to take more design risks and be smarter about its market.
WIM Summit: Cross-Cultural Success [02.20.08]
On the second day of the Worlds in Motion conference at GDC, Nexon America’s director Min Kim gave a talk concerning the many obstacles to overcome in bringing a game into different markets.
CGS Keynote: The Changing Face of Casual Games [02.20.08]
The prime message for the Casual Games Summit this year, delivered by Microsoft Casual Games’ Chris Early, is that the casual game market is expanding so much, trickling over into so many demographics, that the old, rather lazy ways of thinking about the format and its audience have begun to stifle the potential of casual games.
SGS: Microsoft ESP: Taking Flight Simulator From Game To Serious Game [02.20.08]
Shawn Firminger, studio manager of Microsoft's ACES Studio, began the second day of the Serious Games Summit with a look at Flight Simulator's transition to a serious games platform.
IGS: Totilo, Croal Talk Indie Ethos [02.19.08]
In an afternoon session at the Independent Games Summit on Tuesday, Newsweek's N'Gai Croal and MTV News' Stephen Totilo discussed the state of independent games in the media, and their personal opinions on how to get noticed in the indie game business.
2008 IGF Mobile Award Winners Announced [02.19.08]
CMP Game Group has announced the winners of the inaugural Independent Games Festival (IGF) Mobile awards, held at the 2008 Game Developers Conference, taking place February 18-22 at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center. Winners included Capybara Games' Critter Crunch, which took home the $10,000 IGF Mobile Best Game Award.
Game Writing Tutorial: Learn Better Game Writing [02.19.08]
Evan Skolnick, producer and editorial director for Vicarious Visions, clearly believes that game developers need a good grounding in the fundamentals of fiction before they're ready to challenge Hollywood. For the first hour of his day-long tutorial, he offered up an effective but basic introduction to writing, including pulling examples from well-known films and games.
Outsourcing Summit: Localization And Global Outsourcing [02.19.08]
Ben Wibberly, VP North America, Babel Media delivered a brief but forceful talk on the topic of localization and QA outsourcing. The talk opened with a plea for the necessity of great localization and QA. "We know we can design great games and program great games. What we need is to be excellent in everything we do. Sales, marketing, IT... if you're not excellent in every facet of your business you will not make hit titles."
Havok Announces Havok Cloth, Havok Destruction [02.19.08]
Physics middleware company Havok unveiled two new tools for artists, Havok Cloth and Havok Destruction, at the 2008 Game Developers Conference.
WIM Summit: Adrian Crook Talks Free To Play [02.19.08]
At the 2008 Worlds in Motion Summit, Adrian Crook opened his talk on free-to-play with a look at the larger trends surrounding the business model in the real world, including ad-supported toilets, Radiohead's name-your-cost release, and more.
WIM Summit: Fast Food Jobs And Reindeer Poop: Habbo's Surprise Success [02.19.08]
Habbo lead designer Sulka Haro was at the 2008 Worlds in Motion Summit to discuss the surprise success of his online world targeted primarily at kids and teens. Haro admits that he never planned for Habbo to grow so large - so what perspectives has the Finnish designer gleaned on his way, and what's his secret?
WIM Summit: Turbine's Steefel Talks MMO And Virtual World Convergence [02.19.08]
Turbine executive producer Jeffrey Steefel was at the 2008 Worlds in Motion Summit to discuss the ways the spheres of traditional online games -- like his Lord of the Rings Online and virtual worlds are alike, and how they can benefit and evolve from one another's differences.
Autodesk To Acquire AI Developer Kynogon [02.19.08]
3ds Max and Maya developer Autodesk has announced a new agreement to acquire Kynapse artificial intelligence middleware developer Kynogon for an undisclosed amount in a deal expected to be closed within the next three months.
Outsourcing Summit: What Are The Business Gotchas? [02.19.08]
As part of the day long Game Outsourcing Summit at GDC, a panel of representatives from Vivendi, Game Creation, Augmentum, and ACS discussed avoiding the potential pitfalls of outsourcing, speaking from both sides of the business relationship.
DAZ 3D And Mogware Announce MOGBox [02.19.08]
3D modeler and software developer DAZ 3D has collaborated with middleware developer Mogware to produce MOGBox, a time-saving and cost-effective solution for 3D content creation and reformatting.
IGS: N+ for Xbox Live Arcade - The Postmortem [02.19.08]
In an Independent Games Summit talk on Tuesday, Metanet's Mare Sheppard and Slick Entertainment's Nick Waanders discussed the making of N+ for Xbox Live Arcade, debuting on XBLA tomorrow, taking a great in-depth nuts and bolts view of making a downloadable console game, and estimating a $125,000 minimum cost to make an Xbox Live Arcade game.
IGDA Education Summit: Bogost Delivers 'Lovely' Keynote [02.19.08]
Ian Bogost of Persuasive Games and Georgia Tech opened day two of the IGDA Education Summit at GDC with a keynote speech on games, academia, and 'love' in the truest (and who are we kidding -- sometimes terrifying) sense of the word.
Allegorithmic Unveils Substance Texturing Middleware [02.19.08]
France's Allegorithmic has revealed Substance, its texturing middleware for authoring, generating, and streaming dynamic textures in real time, due for release in Spring of 2008.
GDC Mobile Keynote: Nokia's Vanjoki On The New Paradigm Of Gameplay [02.19.08]
In the morning keynote of the second day of GDC Mobile, Nokia's Anssi Vanjoki took the stage after an introduction from GDC Chairman Robert Tercek which called Vanjoki "a champion of open and honest thinking," to deliver a speech presenting Nokia's vision of a future where the mobile phone is the "fourth screen."
GameSpy Launches Direct2Game In-Game Commerce Engine [02.19.08]
IGN Entertainment's GameSpy Technology division has announced Direct2Game, a new in-game commerce service for developers and publishers looking to set up in-game storefronts with subscriptions, microtransactions, item trading, and auctioning.
IGS: The Kyles - From EA's DS 'Indie Side' To WiiWare Praise [02.19.08]
Kicking off day two of the Independent Games Summit, Kyle Gabler - co-founder of World Of Goo creator 2D Boy, and Kyle Gray - working at EA Tiburon on a "quasi-indie title" helmed a hilarious session which showed first footage of a new EA Casual DS game and discussed the advantages of WiiWare.
GDC 2008: The Highlights From Monday [02.19.08]
With a host of simultaneous subsummits, Game Developers Conference 2008 has got off to a dynamic start - and Gamasutra has been covering all the major keynotes from the casual, independent, serious, online world and mobile summits at the show on our dedicated GDC 2008 page. Here's some of Monday's highlights...
SGS: The News Game: Using Neverwinter Nights To Teach Journalism [02.19.08]
At the 2008 GDC Serious Games Summit, University of Minnesota's Nora Paul and Kotaku's Brian Crecente detailed efforts by the University to develop an Neverwinter Nights-modded RPG to teach would-be journalists the tricks of the news trade.
IGA, Id Partner For Ad-Supported Free Quake Live Game [02.19.08]
In-game advertising network IGA has announced a partnership with id Software to manage ads, sponsorships and creative branding within ids forthcoming free-to-play Quake Live game, based on its previously released multiplayer-focused Quake Arena.
NaturalMotion Releases Morpheme 1.3 [02.19.08]
Developer NaturalMotion has announced the release of its latest version of animation middleware morpheme, adding features including animation sets for the creation of multiple characters or LODs and IK nodes.
Softkinetic Unveils 3D Gesture Tech Iisu, Virtools Integration [02.19.08]
Developer Softkinetic has announced iisu, its 3D gesture recognition solution it says can capture full body movements as well as isolated arm and hand movements, along with a new partnership with Virtools to integrate the solution into the latter's suite of 3D products.
THQ, Blue Fang Creating New IP For Wii, DS, PC [02.19.08]
Publisher THQ and Zoo Tycoon developer Blue Fang have announced a new partnership to create a new yet-unannounced property expected to be released at some point in 2009 on the Nintendo Wii, DS, and Windows PCs. [UPDATE: Blue Fang's Hank Howie comments to Gamasutra on this apparently "emotionally engaging game focused on the animal kingdom".]
SGS: Video Games To Build And Retain A TV Audience [02.19.08]
At the Serious Games Summit, Virtual Heroes' Randy Brown discussed his work creating a "community fostering" game for Discovery Channel Canada's Race to Mars TV serial, Sven Vinke of Larian studio discussed a game inspired by a 2003 call from Belgian network VRT and Kuma's Dante Anderson generally discussed episodic advertising-based content.
GDC Mobile: VC Panel Talks Mobile Game Funding Trends [02.19.08]
In a panel moderated by Mofactor’s John Szeder, a group of investors which included Richard Moran from Venrock, Richard Wong of Accel Partners, Mitch Lasky from Benchmark Capital, and Brad Farkas from i-Hatch Ventures discussed the unique environment that mobile gaming presents for venture capital firms.
GDC Mobile: Disruptive Forces in Gaming [02.19.08]
In a GDC Mobile session sponsored by Zeemote, Beth Marcus showed off her company’s Bluetooth enabled controller for mobile phones.
IGDA Summit: Carnegie Mellon's Schnell On Making The Most Of Internships [02.19.08]
At the 2008 GDC IGDA Education Summit, Carnegie Mellon's Jesse Schell gave his audience tips about how to make the most of an internship program for the school, the students and the game companies who hire them.
GDC Mobile: The Rise and Fall of the Carrier Deck? [02.19.08]
As part of his presentation at GDC Mobile, Kristian Segerstrale, CEO of Playfish discussed the future evolution of the retail environment, and how it would effect the kind of mobile games that will be developed and the future growth of the mobile games industry.
WIM: RMBR's Zichermann On Gaming The Web With 'Funware' [02.19.08]
At today’s Worlds in Motion Summit at GDC, rmbr.com’s CEO Gabe Zichermann gave a talk concerning game-centric approaches to making web content more fun, or as he defined it, “the use of gaming design in non-gaming contexts.”
WIM: Entertainment Content Convergence In Online Worlds [02.19.08]
At the Worlds In Motion Summit at the 2008 Game Developers Conference Millions Of Us CEO Reuben Steiger, lectured on the marriage of entertainment brands and online worlds, predicting virtual worlds will become more like social networks, and television tie-ins will increase for virtual worlds.
GDC Mobile: Creativity Techniques in Game Design [02.19.08]
At the 2008 GDC Mobile Summit, University of Tampere’s Annakaisa Kultima provided a lecture introducing the game specific creativity techniques developed at Finnish game research project GameSpace, a study of design and evaluation methods for casual multiplayer mobile games.
GDC Mobile: Tetris - Best Or Worst Mobile Game Ever? [02.18.08]
Tetris is the ur-text of casual games, exerting a deep influence on game design over the twenty-three years since its creation - but is it the worst, or best cellphone game ever? At GDC Mobile, Rick Marazzani investigates...
IGS: Q Games' Cuthbert Reveals PixelJunk Eden, Postmortems Series [02.18.08]
In the final Independent Games Summit lecture of Monday, Kyoto, Japan-based Q Games' Dylan Cuthbert discussed the PixelJunk series for the PS3's PlayStation Network, revealing the first-ever video of psychedelic PSN title PixelJunk Eden.
GDC: Game Design Workshop: Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics [02.18.08]
During the intensive full-day Game Design Workshop at GDC, Marc LeBlanc, chief technology officer at Mind Control Games, delivered a presentation on the MDA -- Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics -- approach to game design, which seeks to offer formal tools to examine, test, and devise basic but ambiguous concepts as "challenge" and "fun".
IGS: The State Of Flash Games [02.18.08]
The Flash games panel at the Independent Games Summit on GDC at Monday showed an interesting dichotomy of different approaches to making money from Web browser-based games - though it's clear that the monetization angle is still being explored.
Casual Summit Keynote: PlayFirst’s Welch On A More Innovative Casual Future [02.18.08]
At his keynote for the 2008 Game Developers Conference Casual Game Summit, PlayFirst CEO John Welch said that even with an overwhelming and diverse userbase, the casual front is still just emerging with innovation, urging publishers to take bigger risks.
IGS: N+ Creator On Game Creation's 'Unique Knobs' [02.18.08]
In an afternoon Independent Games Summit talk, Metanet's Raigan Burns (N+) discussed creativity and the making of unique technology to make unique gameplay, referencing games from Portal to Braid in his quest to discover how simple tech concepts can grow into great games.
WOTC Announces Two Magic: The Gathering Titles [02.18.08]
Wizards of the Coast revealed its plans today to publish two new games based on its popular collectible card game, Magic: The Gathering.
WIM Summit: GoPets' Bethke On MMO Goal Structures As A Panacea [02.18.08]
At the GDC 2008 Worlds In Motion Summit, GoPets.com CEO Erik Bethke discussed similarities between MMORPGs and virtual worlds, outlining the important design aspects MMOs use to draw in and hold users, and imploring his audience to measure what's working in their worlds.
WiM Keynote: Koster Talks Potential Of Metaverse [02.18.08]
At his 2008 Worlds in Motion Summit keynote, Areae co-founder Raph Koster decided to be a little cynical, showing photos of Club Penguin, and glamorous Second Life characters with torn jeans -- and then followed them with unsettling slides of Darfur and Haiti - suggesting that "we're kinda irrelevant" as an industry.
GDC Mobile 2008: Embracing Mobile Constraints [02.18.08]
"Most conversations about mobile game development happen in a bar," began Jeferson Valadares, Creative Director at EA Mobile in his GDC Mobile lecture - not because mobile developers are alcoholics, but because bars are the ideal place to lament the low motivation you may have by working in such a frustrating industry. But Valadares says he's found solutions...
IGS: Inside The Making Of Aquaria [02.18.08]
In a well-received Independent Games Summit lecture, Derek Yu and Alec Holowka from Bit-Blot discussed Aquaria, the IGF Grand Prize winner from last year, presenting a postmortem of their critically acclaimed 2D underwater action title.
IGDA Education Keynote: Ernest Adams' 10 Commandments Of Game Education [02.18.08]
Ernest Adams opened the IGDA Education Summit at the 2008 Game Developers Conference with a keynote entitled 'Ten Commandments for Game Development Education,' naming the most important things for education programs, including not emphasizing story over interaction, and reinforcing teamwork and project management skills.
SGS Keynote: Sawyer, Smith On Serious Gaming For Life [02.18.08]
Kicking off GDC 2008's Serious Games Summit, Digitalmill's Ben Sawyer and University of Central Florida's Peter Smith took the opportunity to reflect on the progress made in the movement's past five years, and to define its future as game technology as applications for life.
IGS Keynote: Flow, Everyday Shooter Creators Talk Gaming Ethos [02.18.08]
In an intriguing and wide-ranging Independent Games Summit keynote, ThatGameCompany's Kellee Santiago (Flow), Queasy Games' Jon Mak (Everyday Shooter), and cult mod maker/previous IGF finalist Pekko Koskinen took three short presentations to showcase in-depth concepts on independent game design.
GDC Casual Summit: Blue Fang's Meretzky Defines Casual Games [02.18.08]
Kicking off GDC 2008's Casual Games Summit, Blue Fang senior designer Steve Meretzky (Zoo Tycoon) broke down major characteristics of the ever-increasing subset of casual games, outlining its history from Pong to Solitaire to Bejeweled, and its audience-mixing future with games like Peggle.
GDC Mobile 2008: Gameloft’s Guillemot On 'Fast Life, Fast Media' [02.18.08]
In his opening keynote for GDC Mobile 2008, Michel Guillemot, president and CEO of Gameloft, took the stage to present his take on the way consumers consume media in the 21st century, arguing that they no longer need to be educated that games are available on their phones, but now "rule the market."
Scaleform Brings UI Production Tool To Unreal Engine 3 [02.18.08]
Scaleform Corporation, a provider of graphical user interface and scalable vector graphics engines, has announced that its Scaleform GFx UI production tool has been integrated with Epic's Unreal Engine 3 as part of the developer's Integrated Partners Program.
Microsoft Adding N+ To Xbox Live Arcade [02.18.08]
Microsoft has announced that its regular Wednesday Xbox Live Arcade update will see the release of Metanet's N+, the conversion of its Independent Games Festival Audience Award-winning freeware platformer, including both single and multiplayer modes and a fully featured level editor.
GDC 2008: The Conference Director's Picks [02.18.08]
In advance of Gamasutra's canonical Game Developers Conference coverage from more than ten correspondents, starting Monday, GDC executive director Jamil Moledina has provided us with some of his top lecture picks - don't miss out on these.
GDC: A Guide To The 2008 GDC Summits [02.18.08]
So, the main GDC doesn't start until Wednesday, right? What's all this 'summit' stuff on Monday and Tuesday, then? Game Developer's Brandon Sheffield outlines some of the notable Monday-Tuesday mini-summits, ahead of the start of our coverage.
GDC: It's Not Just Lectures, You Know [02.18.08]
Attending GDC, but want to know what's fun beyond just the lectures? Game Developer and Game Career Guide's Jill Duffy runs down some of the best parties, booth crawls, awards, and even musical concerts available this week.
Microsoft Preparing For Xbox Live GDC 2008 Coverage [02.14.08]
Microsoft has announced plans to 'bring GDC home' to its Xbox Live members with Xbox 360 related video coverage, screenshots, and demos from the 2008 Game Developers Conference, including the keynote from its Live corporate VP John Schappert, 'A Future Wide Open: Unleashing the Creative Community.'
G4's X-Play To Broadcast GDC Choice Awards, IGF [02.14.08]
Comcast's G4 has announced it will present 5 days of exclusive coverage of the 2008 Game Developers Conference, including the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Choice Awards via its video game program X-Play.
Game Developer February GDC Issue Exposes Ratchet & Clank Future [02.14.08]
The February 2008 GDC issue of Game Developer magazine, the sister U.S. print publication to Gamasutra, has now shipped to subscribers and is available for digital download - with an exclusive postmortem of Insomniac's Ratchet & Clank Future for PlayStation 3 and a host of other in-depth articles.
VCs, GDC Announce Entrepreneur-Focused 'Startup Launchpad' Lectures [02.13.08]
Venture capital firm Charles River Ventures and GDC organizers have announced a new set of Startup Launchpad sessions, to be run at both next week's GDC and September's Austin GDC, and geared to inform and support industry startups.
Trinigy's Vision Engine 6.4 To Debut At GDC [02.08.08]
Game engine company Trinigy has revealed that version 6.4 of its Vision Game Engine will debut at the 2008 Game Developers Conference, adding various new features including support for dynamic resource streaming and added optimizations for the engine's PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions.
Feature: 'Maximizing Your Job Hunt At GDC' [02.07.08]
Looking for a job (or a new job) in the industry at Game Developers Conference? In the latest Gamasutra feature, game HR veteran T.J. Summers pinpoints the key things you can do to maximize your efficiency and accomplish your objectives at this year's show.
Educational Feature: ‘The GDC Survival Guide’ [02.05.08]
In the latest feature for Gamasutra’s sister web site for game students and other industry newcomers, GameCareerGuide.com presents ‘The GDC Survival Guide’, to help prep first-time GDC attendees for their induction to the show.
David Jaffe To Keynote GDC 2008 Game Career Seminar [02.04.08]
Game Developers Conference organizers have announced that God of War designer David Jaffe will keynote the Game Career Seminar at GDC 2008, sharing "lessons learned on the journey from grunt to 'God' to startup" - sessions also added from from Microsoft, Sony, EA and Pandemic execs.
Emotiv To Unveil Consumer Neurosystem Headset At GDC [02.04.08]
Stealth-mode technology firm Emotiv Systems has revealed, via a new invitation, its plans to unveil the Emotiv consumer headset, a "high fidelity neuro-system" controller for gaming, at an event during Game Developers Conference later this month.
Game Connection Reveals GDC08 Exhibitors [01.24.08]
Game Connection has announced that more than 160 exhibitors representing more than 36 countries will present at its Game Connection America event at the 2008 Game Developers Conference, including newcomers Running With Scissors (Postal) and Acquire (Tenchu).
2008 GDC Reveals Killer 7, Folklore, Final Fantasy Sessions [01.22.08]
As part of his latest Director's Cut post, GDC 2008 executive director Jamil Moledina has revealed Japanese luminaries joining the GDC lineup, including Killer7 composer Masafumi Takada, FeelPlus (Lost Odyssey) president Ray Nakazato, and Game Republic (Genji, Folklore) boss Yoshiki Okamoto.
Microsoft To Award Xbox Live Developers [01.21.08]
Microsoft has announced it will recognize Xbox Live Arcade developers with awards for the top XBLA games of 2007, in categories including Best Overall Arcade Game, Best Classic Game, Best Original Game and more, with several category winners to be decided by community vote.
Worlds in Motion Summit Reveals New Panels, Speakers [01.15.08]
The organizers of the inaugural Worlds in Motion Summit at the 2008 Game Developers Conference have revealed three new panels for the event, including an Asia-focused panel with Outspark's Susan Choe, and a brand extension panel featuring the partnership between Makena, Trilogy, Metaversatility and Toyota Scion.
2008 GDC Reveals Sid Meier Q&A, Dille on Transmedia [01.09.08]
As part of his latest Director's Cut post, GDC 2008 executive director Jamil Moledina has revealed a special Q&A featuring Choice Lifetime Achievement winner Sid Meier, a Sims Studio session focusing on emerging gamer types, and game and television writer Flint Dille discussing the transmedia experience -- more within.
2008 Worlds In Motion Summit Adds Kids' Worlds Panel [01.04.08]
As the January 16th deadline for early registration approaches, the organizers of CMP's 2008 Worlds in Motion Summit at GDC 2008 have revealed a panel on the phenomenon of virtual worlds for kids, with representatives from Club Penguin, Disney Online, and more -- full details within.
GDC 2008 News
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