Yearly Archive for 2007

Rising Production Costs Threaten Independent Developers

Published
on December 29, 2007
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Video games are getting astonishingly more expensive, the BBC reported this week. 1982’s blockbuster Pacman cost $100,000 to produce. Today’s average Playstation 3 game costs $15 million.

While costs of production go up, retail prices and revenue remains the same, a trend that hurts smaller companies and stifles creativity with non-risky sequels and franchises.

Philip Oliver heads Blitz Games, a small producer of movie, television and commercial tie-ins.

“These costs have risen so sharply because of the complexity of the devices which we are writing the games for,” Mr Oliver says.

“The costs have risen most sharply on the graphics side. We have entered a new era of high-definition video gaming.

“This has led to team sizes having to increase in this area, for new tools to be created for this and generally the costs are rocketing. This is actually having a severe hit on the industry.”

Company bosses such as Mr Oliver have needed to find novel ways of funding games development. Increasingly, this means outsourcing some of the work abroad.

“Obviously at the moment, it’s high-risk, because there aren’t so many consoles being sold. In the long term, there’s the opportunity to get the money back. That’s why we are in the business,” said independent games consultant Nick Parker to the BBC.

Halo 3 cost $30 million to develop and made $170 million its first day, the article points out. Not every game has Halo’s brand recognition, corporate backing, tremendous marketing support and Mountain Dew-infused addiction.

The risk involved in producing such big budget titles has led to a reliance on franchises like Halo and Mario, which are much more likely to be rewarding. 2007 has been a great year for new intellectual property, with BioShock and Assassin’s Creed doing very well.

Five Presidential Candidates Explain Stance on Game Legislation

Published
on December 23, 2007
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For all those interested in politics, five potential U.S. presidents gave their opinions on legislation limiting the sale of video games in response to a Common Sense Media questionnaire. Preeminent Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson as well as Republican candidate Mitt Romney answered the questionnaire.

Clinton has a history with the issue, having introduced the failed Family Entertainment Protection Act two years ago, which would have banned games rated M by the ESRB from sale to minors. “I felt that video game content was getting increasingly violent and sexually explicit, yet young people were able to purchase these games with relative ease while their parents were struggling to keep up with being informed about the content,” said Clinton in her response, adding that she would continue working to limit game sales if elected.

Edwards lauded the ESRB and manufacturers implementation of content locks in consoles, but suggested that may not be enough. “If the industry does not continue to make progress in keeping video games with intense violence and adult content away from children, we will need to consider further steps to ensure that parents’ decisions about their children’s exposure to these games are not being undermined by retailers, advertisers and manufacturers,” he said.

Obama laid responsibility on parents to inform themselves and on the industry to make information available to parents. “Broadcasters and video game producers should take it upon themselves to improve this system to include easier to find and easier to understand descriptions of exactly what kind of content is included,” he said. “But if the industry fails to act, then my administration would.”

Richardson also stressed parental rather than federal involvement and brought in the context of education. If elected, he said he plans to provide federal workers with eight hours annually of paid time to spend with their children.

Romney said he wants to target retailers who sell games with mature content to minors, a position similar to Clintons. “I want to restore values so children are protected from a societal cesspool of filth, pornography, violence, sex, and perversion,” said Romney.

Happy holidays, and don’t forget to vote next year.

Final Fantasy XIII Extended Trailer Released

Published
on December 15, 2007
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Gametrailers has extended versions of the trailers for Final Fantasy XIII and the tie-in Final Fantasy XIII Versus.

The trailers come from a promotional DVD included with “CLOUD,” Square Enix’s book of concept artwork.

The Final Fantasy XIII trailer includes some more CGI action, a better look at the game’s world and a clearer shot of a second main character in addition to “Lightning” from the first trailer.

I still haven’t played Final Fantasy XII, but this looks really good. The art decoration is incredible, as can be expected from Square. And it’s nice seeing a feminine protagonist who is actually a woman.

Thanks Joystiq.

Game Award Shows Get It Wrong

Published
on December 11, 2007
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Both Spike TV and Time named their top games of the year this past week, and both demonstrated that most game awards shows are not fully representative of the gaming industry.

Spike TV named BioShock Game of the Year and Halo 3 Most Addictive Game Fueled by Dew. Despite the “X-treme” pomp and circumstance and GameCock’s ridiculous outburst, I thought the recipients were all very deserving. A panel of U.S. journalists chose the awards and included Dan Hsu, Jeff Gerstmann, Dean Takahashi and Chris Kohler.

It is a step in the right direction for Spike, who’s past awards shows have been irreverent to say the least, but they still have a way to go. As long as they pack their shows with explosions, tits, Samuel L. Jackson and bad rock music to appeal to the 15- to 30-year-old male demographic, it’s impossible to take their choices seriously.

The “Top 10 Video Games” section of Time’s 50 top 10 lists was written by their book critic, Lev Grossman. Grossman listed Halo 3 as the best game this year, with The Orange Box and Rock Band holding the second and third spots.

“Halo 3 has become the perfect hardcore first-person combat simulator,” Grossman said. The game has been refined to a degree where “every combat is even-sided and complex and can be waged in multiple ways, using an arsenal of long- and short-range weapons, plus grenades and hand-to-hand moves.” I enjoyed Halo 3, but there are games that do all this and do it better.

“Every level is perfectly paced and balanced and graced with soaring architectural compositions,” said Grossman. Maybe he didn’t make it to the Cortana rescue mission at the end.

Continue reading ‘Game Award Shows Get It Wrong’

Romeo & Juliet, 2553 A.D. (A ‘Halo 3′ Machinima)

Published
on December 8, 2007
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This stupid video is why I haven’t posted (or slept) in the last few weeks. It’s a machinima of Act I, scene i, from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, acted out in Halo 3, that I put together for a class. Enjoy.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Deus Ex 3 Trailer Slip-Up Suggests Prequel

Published
on December 5, 2007
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I’m normally not a rumor-mongerer, but what the hey: CVG revealed that the trailer for the recently announced Deus Ex 3 reveals a date that would set the game before the first two in the series. The date, 2027, was since removed from the trailer.

If 2027 were the date that Deus Ex 3 is meant to occur, it would take place over twenty years before the original Deus Ex and forty years before the sequel. The game is still early in development and the evidence is tenuous, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

In other Deus Ex 3 news, a 1up interview with Stephane D’Astous, the manager of developing studio Eidos Montreal, confirmed that none of the staff from Ion Storm, the developer of the first two Deus Ex games, will be working on the new game.  GOOD.

D’Astous also commented on his goals in production.

“We’re going to be working hard to have a solid and in-depth storyline that will give players the chance to replay. The replayability is also very important,” said D’Astous. “At Eidos we’d like to think that our games are very character-driven. We need strong characters and strong stories. So one of the factors that’s very important to us is the game’s stamina, its replayability.”

D’Astous added that the studio would not be releasing any plot details until next year.

REVIEW: ‘Mass Effect’ Experiments In Sci-Fi Storytelling

Published
on December 3, 2007
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[More updates soon -- the video project that consumed two weeks of my life is now complete.]

I probably should be commenting on Actiblizzard, the Gerstmann-gate or similar overshadowing news items, but I’m still so smitten with Mass Effect, the newest offering from my one fanboy passion, BioWare. Despite my awe, I have some criticisms.

Set in an original futuristic universe, Mass Effect combines aspects from nearly every science fiction franchise and icon into one daunting game. Interstellar exploration, automatons gone bad, hive-minded bugs, a struggling humanity, etcetera ad nauseum.

What impressed me most about the game is the degree of cinematic immersion it achieves through gorgeous graphics, a breakneck pace and a fantastic conversation system, which allows fluid conversation between Shepard and NPCs (if you haven’t played the game, you should really check out a video of the conversation system in motion). I felt like I was watching and participating in a thirty hour space opera instead of playing a game.

Now for the criticism.

The conversation system makes for a cinematic experience, but can be unintuitive at times. It uses a radial menu of heavily abridged topics that do not always represent the actual dialog. A few times I found myself choosing one option only to hear something I definitely did not intend come out of Shepard’s mouth.

Continue reading ‘REVIEW: ‘Mass Effect’ Experiments In Sci-Fi Storytelling’

Eidos’ New Montreal Studio to Develop ‘Deus Ex 3′

Published
on November 27, 2007
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Eidos announced the third game in the Deus Ex series, which began with a stunning story-driven game and was followed up with a not-so-good one, will be developed in their newly inaugurated Montreal studio, Gamasutra reports.

It’s not clear how much experience the team working on the new Deus Ex game has, but Eidos Montreal’s general manager, Stéphane D’Astous, says the team will do well.

“We will want to limit our dev teams to a human-sized team of 80 people at the very highest of the peak in the production cycle,” said D’Astous. “We don’t want to become a huge studio where there’s over 100 people on a title. We want a smaller, multi-discipline group that are tightly knit together. But by doing so, we will give them at least 18 to 24 months for the production cycle.”

With a small, talented group and a lengthy production, here’s hoping Deus Ex 3 will turn out better than the sophomore effort.

Educational Games Show ‘Why Games Matter’

Published
on November 21, 2007
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Feeling unproductive after a Thanksgiving break spent gaming? Well eat this (after your turkey). In the “gee wiz” story of the week, the three winners of the “Why Games Matter” contest were announced yesterday, as reported by 1UP.

These three games raise awareness and recommend solutions to issues of gender relations and domestic abuse, teen depression and anger and the AIDS epidemic. Each will be recognized with a $5,000 prize and will be invited to the 2008 Games for Health conference.

Games are made to entertain, but this contest demonstrates one possible secondary function: to educate. This is nothing new. Whoever went to grade school in the early ’90s (and is reading a blog about video games) remembers all those classic computer lab games about doing math, building space ships, stopping bleeding and getting to Oregon.

But will we ever see a game that combines these two functions fully? One that is as fully immersive as BioShock, but also imparts some wisdom about the world outside of Rapture?

Books and movies are already doing this. They flirt around the topic without addressing it full-bore. What better way to learn about the royal politics of Elizabethan England than by reading Macbeth? And Shogun and Gates of Fire are kickass novels, but they also deliver historical and cultural lessons and interpretations. Sure, there are the PBS specials about dealing with racism that we saw in school, but there’s also 2004’s “Crash,” an average film made Oscar-worthy by its relevance.

What lesson does BioShock or Mass Effect teach? What purpose do they serve beyond providing compelling and stimulating entertainment? Interesting questions, which none can answer.

BioWare Austin Hiring Writers For New MMO

Published
on November 13, 2007
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BioWare’s upcoming MMO is their largest project to date, and they need your help. With one of the greatest reputations for video game writing in the industry, the creators of Baldur’s Gate II and Jade Empire are now hiring writers for their Austin, TX, branch.

Applicants should have some degree of experience, professional or in school, and must include a 15 to 30 minute module made with the Neverwinter Nights toolset that demonstrates your game writing abilities. Writing for games requires a unique brand of skill not found among all mortals.

“Just trying to explain the concept behind writing without a protagonist to someone who has never even been a dungeon master can be like showing card tricks to a dog,” said Daniel Erickson, principal lead writer with BioWare Austin, in an email to Penny Arcade.

Think a writer for the epitome of literary game developers could never come from your humble origins? Think again!

“In the history of the company, we’ve had published fantasy authors, screenwriters and editors all wash out of BioWare’s training program,” said Erickson in the same email. “On the flip side, we’ve had fantastic kids right of college, an ex CNN producer and a former gift wrapping clerk from Singapore all succeed in the BioWare writer family.”

So what the hell, give it a chance. I know I will.

See BioWare’s jobs page for more information on how to apply and on other jobs with the company.