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Industry Veterans Found Wii-Focused Studio Judobaby
by Chris Remo [PC, Console/PC]
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February 25, 2010
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Several experience game makers with experience at companies including Sony, Crystal Dynamics, Sega, and Capcom have formally announced a new studio, Judobaby, which has spent a year in "stealth development" on a family-friendly Wii game.
The company is based in Redwood City, California, and officially opened last February, although employment information on the business networking site LinkedIn suggests the company dates back to 2006 in some form.
Judobaby is headed up by president and CEO Dan Mueller. From 1997 to 2002, Mueller served in design roles at Sony Computer Entertainment before becoming a founding member of now-defunct BottleRocket Entertainment in 2002.
"Judobaby is committed to creating a line of fun, humorous, 'pick-up & play' products to entertain the entire family," Mueller said in a statement. "Our focus is on providing top quality entertainment that brings the whole family together through gaming experiences that have yet to be offered."
The company's art director is Ben Harrison, a longtime Crystal Dynamics senior artist and animator who served at that company from 1999 until last year. Prior to that he was an artist and animator at Sony Computer Entertainment for five years.
CTO Richard Anderson is another 15-year industry veteran, whose past work includes Sony Computer Entertainment and Sega.
Lead designer David Ralston, one of the company's more recent hires, has more than three decades of game industry experience, dating back to more than a decade at Atari starting in 1980, where his credits included classics like Paperboy and Rampart. He has also done design work at EA, Blue Shift Inc., Capcom Studio 8 (Maximo series), and most recently Locomotive Games.
The company plans to release its first Wii game this year, and says it is undergoing "discussions of a live-action motion picture tie-in."
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But having said that, I respect their history.
There's room for stupid games, and sometimes stupid can be very profitable.
That being said, Carnival Games and Just Dance *are* quite stupid and that hasn't precluded commercial success.
Just Dance is simple stupid fun. And while other developers are psychologically deconstructing the Wii player here's a game that appeals to one of our most basic need to have fun and be stupid. I don't think the average Just Dance player takes themselves or the game seriously.
Once again, i'll argue that Tetris is "stupid fun". I'm rotating abstract shapes to clear lines in a game environment with images of stereotypical russian architecture with an 8 bit version of russian music playing in the background. Someone can psychoanalyze the symbolism behind this but to an average player this is stupid...stupid enough to be intriguing. Next thing you know they're hooked and the rest is history.
Sorry, that's not true. Just Dance has been at the top of the UK Wii chart recently, and Midway's Game Party series (all terrible games, by all accounts) have sold millions.
There's still plenty of space for Teh Wii Family Party Gamez.
Now, if you're talking about quality, mature titles like Dead Space, HotD, MadWorld, etc then sure, I agree. As would all Wii fanboys.
Now I know you are just a troll. When 54 3rd party titles sell over a Million copies, it shows you to be a complete moron on the subject.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27398/Nintendo_Reveals_76_MillionUnit_Sellers
_On_Wii.php
@Sergio,
I would take a better look at that list of 76 titles selling more than a million copies.