Zen Of Design

The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

Category: Business Models (Page 10 of 10)

The Rising Cost of Content

December 3, 2004 /

More about those EA screenshots that I pointed out earlier – how much harder is it going to become to create content on the next generation of boxes? Can our industry survive going to the next level?

I remember at a game conference 4 years ago listening to someone from 3D Realms (it may have been Scott Miller) mention that it took a day to make a Wolf 3D level, a week to make a Duke Nukem 3D or Doom level, and at the time it took a month to make a Next Gen title like Duke Nukem Forever (which may explain why its not still out). This may also explain why many games went from being 40 hours long 5 years ago to being about 10 hours long nowadays. Continue reading

The Uncanny Valley Revisited

December 3, 2004 /

Suspiciously on the same day that an EA memo about allegedly crappy working conditions was released, Idle Thumbs has dug up some screenshots released by EA, showing how amazing EA titles will look in the future. Look up here! Look at the sock monkey!

Looking at the screenshots, two thoughts come to mind. 1) These look freakin’ amazing, and 2) We still can’t get skin to look right.

On the heels of our discussion here about the Uncanny Valley, it seems that Terranova has discovered that WoW looks amazing, even while its technology lags behind. A lot of that is because of the amazing consistency of their art, but again, don’t discount the fact that they chose stylized over realistic for their looks. Or put it another way: NFL Blitz 2005 will age a hell of a lot better than Madden 2005.

Console vs. PC

December 3, 2004 /

For those of you wondering why all your favorite developers are abandoning PC for console development:

Press announcement #1 (1 Dec 04)

IRVINE, Calif. – December 1, 2004 – Blizzard Entertainment® today confirmed that World of Warcraft® has broken day-one sales records in North America, making it the most successful PC game launch ever. World of Warcraft, the company’s subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), sold through to over 240,000 customers at retailers in North America on Tuesday, November 23, selling more in its first 24 hours than any other PC game in history.

Press announcement #2 (10 Nov 04):

Microsoft beat even its own heady expectations for the hotly anticipated Xbox game “Halo 2,” selling more than $125 million of the product its first day in stores. The software giant on Wednesday reported sales of 2.38 million units for the game in the 24 hours since it went on sale in the United States and Canada at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

Press announcement #2.5 (3 Dec 04):

Microsoft has released a swathe of new figures related to Bungie’s Xbox opus, Halo 2, revealing that the title has now sold over five million units worldwide and become the most popular game in the history of Xbox Live.

Original comments thread is here.

NWN Tries Selling Player Content

November 17, 2004 /

For all those people who like to talk about alternative billing solutions, it’s remarkable how little people are talking about the Neverwinter Nights Online Store. Pretty much, only the guys at CorpNews are talking about it, and it took another game’s dev to point it out. That’s somewhat shocking, given that just two years ago NWN was the golden child of the fans and academia. Continue reading

MindArk Battles The Man

June 27, 2002 /

More webmasters with too much time on their hands.

How do you spin being busted for using unlicensed software? If you’re Mindark, you say that Microsoft is afraid of the impending cash juggernaut that is Project Entropia. If your response to this is ‘project whaaaa?’, don’t freak, you’re not alone. It gets better. As Waterthread points out, MindArk has threatened to countersue, and put all of the winnings from the case inside of the game, where players will be able to earn a piece of the pie by mining, killing monsters, whatever. You just can’t make up this level of crack.

In other news, all is back to normal in the fishtank. My puffer has not only survived the ordeal, but apparently won’t even have a scar. Right after the fight with the powerhead, it was unclear as to whether or not he would ever see out of his right eye again. However, he’s back to normal now – he’s even beating up on the littler fish again!

A parting question. How do people with piercings in unusual places go through airport security?

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