495026
submission
simoniker writes:
Some commentators are now vociferously claiming that the selection of Wii game titles contains a large number of underwhelming, if not downright lackluster titles, especially those from third-party publishers. Should Nintendo institute more stringent checks on what games can be made for its consoles, as Sony does in the U.S. right now? A new article talking to game biz analysts sees Jesse Divnich of The Simexchange disagreeing: "People have forgotten why Nintendo introduced [its 1980s 'Seal Of Quality', now no longer called that] in the first place: to stop piracy and to inform consumers of any extremely low-quality titles. Once piracy wasn't an issue and game quality began to evolve, more and more titles were receiving the seal, diluting its significance... we now have numerous media outlets (magazines, gaming community web sites) that have taken the place of needing a "Seal of Quality." It is unlikely any poorly developed title will fool consumers — shame on Manhunt 2 for thinking otherwise!"
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,"."