The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer
Everyone knows what a Guitar Hero advocate I am. I’ve been so much of an advocate of the game here on my blog that… well, that *I* think I should have gotten a copy of their beta.
At any rate, Harmonix’ hard work has paid off – they’ve sold the company for $175 Million dollars to MTV. Congratulations to everyone over there. It’s great to see a little company triumph based on good design, innovative implementation and truth to their core vision.
A writeup from their AGC talk is here, and the takeaway is that it is now official to call the New Game Experience an object lesson on how to piss off an existing player base. Continue reading
All you read and wear or see and hear on tv is a product begging for your fatass dirty dollar so… shut up and buy –Tool
Online Advertising has been in the news again lately. Dave Perry has taken the helm over at Acclaim, a studio that has risen like a Phoenix from the ashes to become… obsessed with advertising. Continue reading
Here’s an SEC filing for Vivendi, who of course owns Blizzard. I’m a tad busy at work today so I can’t give it the dissection I’d like to, but this number popped out at me:
Over 1,300 Game Masters provide 24×7 customer support in 6 languages directly to players while playing the game.
That’s a whole lot of “I cannot help you with that” – 1 GM per every 5000 paying customers, if my math is correct. That’s a serious commitment to providing and maintaining a high level of quality service.
Sony Online Entertainment has announced that it has acquired “key assets” of online trading card game developer Worlds Apart Productions (Star Chamber). Certain employees from Worlds Apart will form the core of the new SOE-Denver, adding to SOE’s worldwide group of studios including San Diego, Seattle, Austin, and Taiwan.
Based in Denver, Colorado, Worlds Apart Productions has been building and operating online games for 10 years, currently including online CCGs like The Lord Of The Rings Online TCG, Star Trek Online CCG, and even an online CCG based on NCSoft’s MMO title Auto Assault, as well as the aforementioned Star Chamber.
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The newly formed SOE-Denver’s core technologies have far-reaching potential, such as the ability to integrate board or card games into existing SOE online games, as well as the creation of new games altogether.
Kotaku reports that this is the day of Madden for the past two years. This year, they’re waiting until the 22nd of August, but it may be that yesterday, August the 8th, ends up being an even more significant day for Madden.
Cut back about a decade. Continue reading
A lot of blogworthy news in a short amount of time, and no time to give them the full writeup they deserve.
The Frag Dolls are protesting the Miss World Series Video Games beauty contest. Next week, I hear David Caruso will be protesting ridiculous overacting. Continue reading
So my new company is in the news… thanks to Hugo Chavez. According to him, Pandemic (which is owned by the same company that owns Bioware) is making a simulator designed to, I dunno, give the US youth practice for an upcoming invasion. Continue reading
So every now and then, I have a few people over to my place for gaming, drinking and various shenanigans. I try to do it every month or so, and lately, Guitar Hero’s been the big hit. The problem is, my guitar controller’s been kinda finicky lately. It occasionally thinks it’s disconnected when it’s not, and the only solution seems to be random jiggling, which while fun when involving hot women on trampolines, is somewhat distracting when one is in the process of appeasing the rock gods. Continue reading
A Shadowrun game has been announced! There’s just one problem:
when we decided to do Shadowrun we realized there was a ton of baggage that came with it. We had been through it with our BattleTech games (MechWarrior, MechCommander, MechAssault) for years and had the battle scars of trying to please hardcore fans and new players at the same time. It’s a rough road to travel and it usually ends in tears. Fans got pissed because we weren’t “following the rules” or “keeping to canon”. New players felt like outsiders because so much had gone on before it was like starting to watch LOST in season three…
So what should we do? Satisfy fans of the paper and pencil game? The novels? The SNES and Genesis games? It wasn’t a long debate, really. We decided to restart the Shadowrun timeline and grow the fiction over a series of games, allowing the world we loved to unfold over time.
And who can blame them? There is a whole bunch of people who have been waiting faithfully for a Shadowrun game to become a reality (I am one of them). I feel somewhat like I did when early reports of the new Superman movie reported that the director didn’t think the Man of Steel should fly. It will be interesting to see if a similar fan revolt will occur, and if so, if it will result in similar results.
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