249051
submission
simoniker writes:
Discussing PR and the media, former Rockstar Games PR rep Todd Zuniga discusses how the company tried to manipulate the game press as part of an in-depth article on how the two forces interact: "In part, it's a numbers game... Otherwise, it's history. Who wrote negatively about the games, and who hasn't? We never worked with [gaming website] GameSpot while I was there because 'they just didn't get it.'... Hilariously, we even had a list of journalist preferences: 'Likes cake, married, went to school at Indiana U'."
237689
submission
simoniker writes:
Nowadays, Activision is a massive worldwide publisher, responsible for the Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero franchises, among many others. But it all started with just four game developers leaving Atari in 1979, and there's a new history of the first ever third-party publisher, with insight from company co-founder David Crane, up on Gamasutra. From the piece: ""A memo was circulated from the marketing department showing the prior year's cartridge sales, broken down by game as a percentage of sales. The intent of the memo was to alert the game development staff to what types of games were selling well," Crane recalled. "This memo backfired however, as it demonstrated the value of the game designer individually. Video game design in those days was a one-man process with one person doing the creative design, the storyboards, the graphics, the music, the sound effects, every line of programming, and final play testing. So when I saw a memo that the games for which I was 100 percent responsible had generated over $20 million in revenues, I was one of the people wondering why I was working in complete anonymity for a $20,000 salary.""
198363
submission
simoniker writes:
Did you know that games such as Project Gotham Racing and Ridge Racer 6 are paying Midway to include 'ghost mode' cars to race against, thanks to a patent in the company's 1989 arcade racer Hard Drivin'? A new article talks to Midway and licensee Global VR about the deal and examine just how patents like this impact the game biz — Global VR exec Debbie Minardi "...acknowledges that the ghost mode is more original than some of the "you've got to be kidding me" patents she's come across, she says it still probably doesn't deserve full legal protection. "If it was me I'd never have given them a patent on it," she said. Taking that conviction to court, though, is another matter entirely. "Patents like these probably are easy enough to argue against, but it's expensive," she said."
187221
submission
simoniker writes:
How do you make a game that will stand out apart from countless other similar titles? Harmonix designer Chris Canfield (Guitar Hero II) thinks he knows, and is talking about it in a new editorial, 'Establishing A Beachhead In A Crowded Genre'. He comments that one of the key things you can do is to 'Gut key elements of the design': "Examples of this in your genre might include: sniper rifles in an FPS, powerslides in a racing game, minigames in a Wii title, healing crates, bosses, rocket jumps, or any other big or small element. Of course, the really good features shouldn't be the only ones on the chopping block. Not only will this free up time in the schedule that would otherwise be occupied by been-done features, but it creates space for genuinely new solutions and makes producers very, very happy."
184553
submission
simoniker writes:
Gamasutra is partnering with the IGDA's Preservation SIG to present in-depth histories of the first ten games voted into the Digital Game Canon, beginning with a history of the 1961 mainframe-based shooter Spacewar, arguably the first ever video game. From the article: "Spacewar had a life of its own, spreading across the computer world like a benign virus. "It was the program that was run into the PDP-1 before it was shipped. It was the last thing — it was used as actually as a final test," [co-creator J.M.] Graetz said. Because the PDP-1's memory was composed of magnetic cores, small ferrite rings whose polarity indicated whether a bit was 1 or 0, the game stayed in memory even after the power was turned off. "Core memory is non-volatile and once Spacewar was working they just shut the machine down and shipped it. So when the customer set it up and turned it on the first thing they saw was Spacewar,"."
151209
submission
simoniker writes:
The GameCareerGuide educational site has started a series analyzing of the design of major games, and the first discusses the vaguely lofty topic of 'Ambition and Compulsory Design in Animal Crossing'. Author Eric-Jon Waugh has a bit of an unexpected comparison for the DS version of the Nintendo game: "Animal Crossing is sort of an anti-game — if by "game" we're talking about a goal-oriented production where you collect 100% of the allotted trinkets before blowing up the last boss real good. Or if we're thinking of a sandbox, where the player is left unsupervised to conduct middle school science experiments with a game's reality... The best way I can think of to explain Animal Crossing, strictly in modern videogame terms, is Shenmue without the plot."
