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GamelabDevelop Conference and ExpoRosetta Stone Summer Game JamCasual Connect Seattle
 | G A M E I N D U S T R Y Interview with PushButton Labs by Oluseyi Sonaiya, posted 7/1/09 We interview Ben Garney, one of the lead developers behind the new Flash gaming engine being developed by PushButton Labs, many of whom are former employees of Garage Games. |  | R E V I E W SlickEdit 2009 by John Hattan, posted 6/29/09 SlickEdit is one of the most longest-lived and most feature-rich text editors out there. What's new? Check out the review and see. |
 | E V E N T C O V E R A G E Paris Game AI Conference by Stefan Maton, posted 6/23/09 Summaries of talks from the two-day conference | | P R O G R A M M I N G Image Space Lighting by David Maletz, posted 6/11/09 An explanation of the theory behind and implementation of image space lighting, a technique that utilizes deferred lighting and rasterization to efficiently and accurately render hundreds of light sources in real time. This technique allows for complex lighting environments found in scenes with lampposts, lanterns, cities at night, light-emitting particle effects and other scenes with many light sources. |
| Friday, July 3, 2009 | |
| Weekend Reading: Tales from Journal Land | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 3:48:57 PM | |
 Hope everyone celebrating Independence Day enjoys the beach, BBQ and fireworks this weekend. I'm getting my fireworks fix tonight so I'm outta here!Journal Land Pick of the Week Merry Prankster Games - gdunbar has been spending the past week working on a series of Lua scripting articles. He's now up to Part 4 and starts with an overview of Lua, how to link Lua with your game, how to call Lua from your game and how to call a C++ function from Lua script. Welcome to new Journal Land citizen mason! Read More.. | 2 Comments | |
| Video Games Live to Perform 12 Shows in July! | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 5:16:39 AM | |
 The worldwide phenomenon Video Games Live (recently enshrined in the Guinness Book of World Records) is proud to announce 12 performances throughout the month of July. Each show will be unique and many will be highlighted by special performances, conventions and/or special guests. Video Games Live has grown tremendously over the past 5 years of touring and currently has over 60 shows planned around the world for 2009.Some July tour highlights include a special 3 day gaming event in Winnipeg with the Winnipeg Symphony (July 6 - 8). The 3 day event includes 2 unique show performances and a half day festival event with Future Shop including a major Guitar Hero competition, special industry Q&A panel, video game cover bands, prize give-a-ways and more. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Trent Polack at 12:14:12 AM | |
| Ohi. To begin this Daily, I'd like to point out that I am a pretty big fan of the Battlefield series. So it positively harmed me to find out that Battlefield 1943 is coming to Xbox Live Arcade next week. And next week, like the last three weeks and the next two months to come, I will still be rocking the terrible, terrible hotel wireless internet. So no Battlefield 1943 for me. This makes me sad. It makes me super, super happy, though, that the awe-inspiring indie game Fez is coming to Xbox Live Arcade in early 2010. This is a game that has received nothing but positive remarks and critical praise based, on what I can tell, purely on its gameplay videos alone. Fez looks positively charming and spectacular and is being developed by what I'm sure are the equally charming and spectacular folks at Polytron. Dig it. As the result of a four-way studio bidding war, Universal Studios won the rights to an Asteroids movie. According to source Shacknews the movie has "Lorenzo di Bonaventura (G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra) attached as a producer and Jeff Kirschenbaum (Wanted, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) overseeing. The script is to be written by Race to Witch Mountain (2009) scribe Matthew Lopez." And, uh. It's a movie based on Asteroids. So I guess it could be anything from bleep bloop bleep bloop vector graphics to Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis having hilarious disagreements over the marital state of Liv Tyler. Steam has an enormous sale on a pack of some of 2k Games' best games that is well worth your attention. The biggest news of the week is that the IGDA has named Joshua Caulfield as their new Executive Director. And, what's more, Caulfield apparently has no real experience within the games industry -- which seems kind of strange given that he has a very prominent spot on the board of the International Game Developers Association. That said, there very well may be merit to a statement made in the appointment press release: "'The decision to hire someone from outside the games industry was not taken lightly,' said Bob Bates, Chairman of the IGDA. 'But when the board examined the challenges we face, we realized our key volunteers already have a wealth of industry knowledge, and what we needed was an experienced association professional to help us manage the organization to better serve the needs of our SIGs, Chapters, and members worldwide.'" And in Caulfield's defense, he appears to know more about World of Warcraft than I do: "Most recently we've been playing World of Warcraft, where I am a shadow priest and backup healer -- support roles that reflect my real world positions of providing support within associations." Nerd. And, hey, apparently someone in China likes the GameDev.net Daily. Or this is all a very suave trick to attract more people to a site designed to mock us. Which would be kind of amazing. Happy Independence Day to all the yanks in the audience. I'm not sure what kind of plans I can figure out considering I've only been in Salt Lake City for a few weeks, but I'm hoping to stumble onto some fireworks or something. I love explosions. Kaboom. Kerbaaaaaam. Speaking of which I'm going to go play Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. Read More.. | 4 Comments | |
| Thursday, July 2, 2009 | |
| IGDA Names Joshua Caulfield as New Executive Director | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 8:42:20 PM | |
 The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the world’s largest organization serving the individuals who create digital games, today announced that Joshua Caulfield has been named the association’s new executive director. Caulfield brings more than a decade of association leadership experience to the new position. In his new role, Caulfield will work closely with the elected board to further the IGDA’s goals of advancing the careers and enhancing the lives of game developers everywhere.Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Intel Schwag Bag Giveaway Winners Selected | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 8:29:29 PM | |
 This is just to let everyone know that I have picked the 15 winners for the Intel contest. If you are one of the lucky recipients you will be getting an email very shortly! If not, then thank you for entering and good luck next time!Best of luck to all the entrants of the Intel Level Up contest! Read More.. | 1 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 8:28:54 AM | |
| So a community member dropped me an email yesterday to inform me that he has been simulcasting our Dailies in Chinese over on his blog. And not just directly translating, but making sure that the translation made sense to a Chinese audience. Personally I find this totally awesome - thanks yanxiaowen! If anyone else out there is making the Dailies multi-national let me know! Studio News: Midway, Zynga, Epic, Blue Omega. Midway had hoped that turning down WB's offer of $33 million back in May would spark a bidding war for the company. This, however, failed miserably as it turns out Warner Bros. was the only interested buyer after all. As always, the deal has yet to be finalized, so check back in a couple of months - they have quite a few hurdles to overcome. Turning now to new studio news, Epic and Zynga have both opened subsidiary studios Epic Games Korea and Zynga East. Epic Korea is setup to provide localized Unreal Engine support to the region, and Zynga East has managed to attract Big Huge Games co-founder Brian Reynolds with a leading design position. Finally, I'm sorry to report another layoff as the entire Damnation team from Blue Omega has been let go. Once again, legal disputes are on the horizon. I'm seeing a really bad trend here :/ Gaikai revealed, won't do battle with OnLive. Back in March, I had the pleasure of sitting down with David Perry for lunch during the Flash Gaming Summit. One thing we discussed was online play, and David talked at length about removing the barriers that people had to go through to get into the game - downloading a client, installing a client, etc. He didn't directly mention his upcoming streaming game service, but his hand was forced a few days later when OnLive debuted on the Expo floor during GDC. Now Perry has finally been able to give a video demo of the Gaikai service, and he maintains that "we are not in competition with any other streaming company or technology, our business model is entirely different." I look forward to hearing more about his plans for the service as he attends several upcoming conferences. As of right now - MarioKart 64 on my PC? Where do I sign up?? Sony Home slowly clawing its way to success? New numbers have been dished out for Sony's online virtual world Home, and apparently 7 million people are now using the service across the globe. But what are they doing? Mainly downloading custom clothes and chatting with each other. Personally I prefer to, you know, play games. Fortunately it seems more games are supporting the ability to launch from within the Home service - hopefully someday Home will be as enticing as I once imagined. Has anyone tried game launching in Home? I have yet to buy a game that supports it. Really it should be something required by all games, like trophies are, if Sony wants Home to become a more viable environment for gamers. Uncharted movie green-lit. Like all games that become movies, this could be freaking sweet or horribly disastrous. It's still very, very early on, but the details that have surfaced so far are encouraging. It will be an adaptation of the first Uncharted, which is a bit disappointing as I would love to have a third Drake adventure, but at least the first game's story was solid enough as a base to start from - hopefully the producers pick up on the importance of the character interaction that the voice actors managed to portray so well. The writer is also penning the scripts to Kane & Lynch and the Hitman 2 films. Furthermore the producer's combined backgrounds bring some hefty experience to the table. Finally, Joystiq has come up with a dead-ringer for the film's lead character. Make it so, Sony. Notable Headlines of Singular Goodness Jonathan Blow on indies, games as art, storytelling Interview: Kellee Santiago Talks Thatgamecompany's Road Ahead GCG: How to Pick Indie Game Collaborators Sony to talk 'a lot more' about motion controller at Develop Conference Daily Remainders - more cool stories that didn't make the cut With the passing of Michael Jackson, it's worth mentioning that he was involved with video games years ago, putting himself in titles like Moonwalker. He was so curious about games he invited David Perry up to his Neverland ranch several times to learn more about the industry. David shared a story on his blog about an egg fight once, and the side of MJ he said the public never really saw. Read More.. | 6 Comments | |
| Wednesday, July 1, 2009 | |
| 2009 GDC Austin Hosts Inaugural iPhone Games Summit and Indie Games Summit | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 8:26:51 PM | |
 For the first time, the Game Developers Conference® Austin (GDC Austin) hosts the Independent Games Summit and the all-new iPhone Games Summit. The iPhone Games Summit will bring together top game developers from around the world to share ideas, best practices and discuss the future of the bourgeoning iPhone and iPod touch mobile platform. Making its Austin debut, the Independent Games Summit features lectures and postmortems from some of the most notable indie game creators in the country. Presented by Think Services, GDC Austin returns with two day Game Writers, Game Audio, iPhone Games and Independent Games Summits proceeded by three days of main conference content focused on connected games; online games, virtual worlds, and social networking game play. The event takes place at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas September 15-18, 2009.Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Genetica 3.5 Revealed | |
| Posted by: CJO at 2:43:43 PM | |
 Spiral Graphics Inc. has revealed Genetica 3.5, a stunning new version of its flagship seamless texture, animation, and HDRI environment map editor. The new version can be preordered for a 25% discount.Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| The Cuttlefish Engine - cross platform game engine for iPhone, G1, and Blackberry | |
| Posted by: Mason McCuskey, Cuttlefish Ind at 6:02:57 AM | |
 Cuttlefish Industries announces the Cuttlefish Engine (http://www.cuttlefishengine.com), a cross platform game engine for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. Design in a visual editor, concentrate on your game, and code for all platforms is generated automatically!Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.Net | |
| Posted by: Tiffany Leigh Smith at 12:09:51 AM | |
| According to reports by Gamesindustry.biz, 100 million used games are traded each year in the United States. The used game market brings in a total revenue of 2 billion dollars and accounts for one-third of game sales annually. The article says that research point to the fact that new game sales are barely affected and that used games trades could help drive sales of new games. "The vast majority of used games are not traded in until the original new game purchaser has finished playing - more than two months after a new game is released - typically well beyond the window for a full retail priced new game sale," said analyst Michael Pachter. "If trade-ins occur at GameStop, they should position the trade-in customer to buy more new games than he/she would otherwise normally purchase. Because the average used game value is around 20 per cent of the new game price, we think that used game trade-ins fuel incremental sales of over six per cent of total new game sales, suggesting that the cannibalisation from the used game 'push' is more than offset by the benefit from used game currency,". Apparently female gamers are becoming more and more prevalent and we have the Wii to thank for it. According to Gamesindustry.biz, the number of females playing console games rose five percent this year. The rise was recorded in a report by The NPD Group and is said to coincide with a 19 percent rise in the usage of Wii, suggesting that the Wii is partly responsible for the rise. "Even with the increased competition from mobile and social network gaming, the console gamer segment added the most new participants to its ranks in the last year," said industry analyst of The NPD Group, Anita Frazier. the report also went on to say that extreme gamers account for just four percent of total gamers and that only 38 percent of gamers spend time playing online. Is the Playstation slim set for a July release? Well rumor would have it that it is. According to Engadget Sony has signed some manufacturing agreements with Foxconn and Pegatron to build the revised model. Speculatively in time for a July release. The article also suggests that the slim will be the last PS3 model, and that a next-gen console based on Sony's motion controller is due in spring 2010. It was obvious they were going to do something with the motion control eventually especially given their competition from Microsoft, however, another next gen console already? For a video link today, a sneak peek at Worms 2: Armageddon! Read More.. | 4 Comments | |
| Tuesday, June 30, 2009 | |
| Philly Game Jam featured at GameX Industry Summit | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 12:07:12 PM | |
 The GameX Industry Summit today announced it will host the 2nd Annual Philly Game Jam – the Northeast’s premier game-building event. Co-located with GameX (Games & Media Expo) on October 24-25, 2009, GameX Industry Summit is presented by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) chapters in New York, New Jersey, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia. The Philly Game Jam is a 48-hour game building marathon where game professionals, students and amateurs alike compete to build new game concepts based on a theme announced at the start of the contest. The event returns in 2009, this time as part of GameX Industry Summit. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Palestar Inc. releases Medusa Engine SDK source code | |
| Posted by: Robert Kelford at 11:39:09 AM | |
 Richard Lyle, Palestar Inc. CEO, is happy to announce that the full source code for the Medusa Engine is now available for download. He has been wanting to do this for years, and our hope is that the community can step in and help improve the code and help make new features that we can all share.Read More.. | 3 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.Net | |
| Posted by: Promit Roy at 10:05:20 AM | |
| Due to a recent court ruling in Sweden, we may be forced to cancel the GameDev.Net Daily or sell out. I for one welcome our New Corporate OverLords GameDev.Net Daily. GamaSutra published an opinion piece reminding game designers to play games. It's not exactly news that you need to be familiar with games if you're going to be a good designer, but apparently a lot of people don't realize this. Actually though, I'm including this article for a different reason. In the last section, it mentions 60 hour work weeks as if all of us are doing it on a daily basis, and I was somewhat disturbed at how lightly it touches on that and moves on. Are they being realistic, or helping to reinforce dangerous ideas about how this industry functions? I'm not sure. In a rare and shocking development, a UK politician is saying reasonable things, and about the game industry no less. In a world where politicians increasingly see video games as a tool to bring their pathetic failed careers back to life, it's refreshing to see someone discussing it like a normal person for once. He's even played the games he's talking about! I think Australia could take some hints. These days we're all about XNA, which I love even if I'm occasionally harsh on them. Let's not forget though that what really started all this was Sony's Net Yaroze project for homebrew development on the original PlayStation. Sony is finally shutting down the server for it. It's probably a surprise to you that the project was running at all, but the production run for the PlayStation only ended in early 2006. Perhaps people will move to homebrew Dreamcast games; I hear that a certain "ThinkGeek" is selling new ones. They even get new games. Lastly, it seems that Manifesto Games has died. They were working on producing an independent game store, meant to free developers of "the typical publisher/developer bullcrap". This was launched well before StarDock's Impulse service, although I don't know if Impulse suffers any "bullcrap" or not. I'm going to end today by highlighting the Fez gameplay from GDC 09. I've been waiting for this game very eagerly since it was unveiled in late 2007. Supposedly it will be available later this year. I sure hope so! I will definitely be buying it. Read More.. | 2 Comments | |
| Monday, June 29, 2009 | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Mike Stedman at 9:06:06 AM | |
| Before we begin, the GameDev.net legal team (consisting mostly of me and a half-eaten muffin that will be henceforth referred to as Dr. Black) has advised me that today's Daily has more than the US RDA of news intake. For this reason, I suggest consuming this Daily in phases; after reading this paragraph, take a short break to get some actual work done. Microsoft is giving away a free download of the Thriller music video to honour Michael Jackson, Mass Effect 2 won't let you replay the game with a levelled-up character, Battlefield 1943 comes out real soon now, and THQ thinks that canning projects and firing people en masse improves those that are left. Here are some more Starcraft 2 details. The troubled Aliens RPG project has been finally officially shelved. There's some more information about the id Software acquisition by ZeniMax from Carmack himself; John Romero doesn't like it one bit. In political news, Dennis Kucinich doesn't like America's Army, a British MP told us that (shock) a lot of politicians don't play videogames, and, as Promit said last week, GTA4 does not contain a functioning recipe for crystal methamphetamine. Does not. In independent news, the TIGSource Adult/Education Competition is something that I'm definitely thinking of. If you're a perverted psychopath, you too can make educational games for innocent internet denizens. Why not join up? We can make it awesome. Before you go today, find out how to design a game. I've been doing it right all along, it turns out. Read More.. | 2 Comments | |
| Graphite Outdoor Renderer Released | |
| Posted by: Adrian Licu at 8:04:35 AM | |
 Quad Software announced today the public release of Graphite library, the Grome editor reference renderer. Graphite is the outdoor rendering middleware developed by Quad Software to allow easy integration of Grome scenes into any 3rd party engine, game or real-time 3D application.Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Sunday, June 28, 2009 | |
| Quantum Engine 1.0 (Beta 1) Released | |
| Posted by: Quantum Event Games at 7:08:26 PM | |
 Quantum Event™ Games is pleased to announce the release of Quantum Engine 1.0 (Beta 1).Quantum Engine™ is an advanced 2D game application framework for PC's running Microsoft Windows® and Direct3D for hardware accelerated rendering Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Saturday, June 27, 2009 | |
| Weekend Reading: Tales from Journal Land | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 4:05:53 AM | |
| So it's early Friday evening, the thunder rumbles off in the distance and the rain just starts to fall... and the power goes out. What? Like, can't the storm get here first? But that's okay, because my laptop battery is fully charged and can run for as much as 4-6 hours if I really try, so I can still... oh, wait - the internet modem doesn't have a battery. Well, shucks. Hence, the Saturday edition of Weekend Reading. Thankfully the power (after finally returning many hours later) did not cut out during the making of this post, or I would have slung obscenities into the air and gone to bed. Journal Land Pick of the Week mittentacular - mittens has another design essay up that looks at two similar titles: Infamous and Prototype - they both share protagonists with super powers romping around a large city. Mittens is looking to see "how each title attempts to have its game mechanics and atmosphere inform a player's sense of purpose and how the two games treat their protagonist's powers/abilities." Stop by and give greets to new Journal Land citizen Arcan3Artist! Also, welcome back baldurk! Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Friday, June 26, 2009 | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Trent Polack at 12:10:06 AM | |
| So, this was kind of a crazy week. We have a milestone to make at my job -- which, for me, has been completely interesting and enjoyable since I'm being forced to learn a ton of stuff at once while working on actual projects for the milestone. And we have the whole id Software thing. Then Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson both dying yesterday. Crazy week. Let's add to that: As a result of the huge news about Bethesda's parent company, Zenimax, acquiring id Software, the announcement about Bioware and Mythic got kind of swept under the rug. Bioware and Mythic are "combining" to form a new Electronic Arts "RPG/MMO Studio Group". This new group will be led by Bioware co-founder and general manager Ray Muzyka with Bioware's other co-founder, Greg Zeschuk, serving as chief creative officer. This news comes along with the fact that former Mythic co-founder, general manager, and lead designer on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Mark Jacobs, is leaving Mythic. Mythic's new general manager will be the other co-founder of the company Rob Denton, and, going forward, Denton will report to Muzyka. I can't word this sentence any better than Shacknews writer Chris Faylor did: "After helping form independent-oriented publisher Gathering of Developers (g.o.d.), sold to Take-Two in 2000, and then helping create independent-focused publisher Gamecock, sold to SouthPeak in 2008, co-founders Harry Miller and Mike Wilson have returned once again with another new publishing outfit." The duo have formed a new publishing house entitled Devolver Digital and is being described as a "production and publishing company based in Austin, Texas, specializing in delivering top quality entertainment to gamers worldwide at affordable prices by any and all means available." So, basically, this company will publisher games across every medium via every distribution platform up to, but not necessarily including, punching its customers in the face with the games which they publish. Which is a distribution channel, albeit one which is not used all too often, that is completely valid. The release of Battlefield: Heroes is both awesome and worthy of your attention. I can't tell you how sad I am that I'm stuck on the absolutely terrible wireless connection at my extended stay hotel (it's not even free!) for the next two months and, as such, am unable to indulge myself with such a great offering. As is the evolution of Bioshock 2's player-character Big Daddy. Tracking firm OTX analyzed the results of Activision/Infinity Ward dropping the "Call of Duty" brand from their upcoming game "Modern Warfare 2" and found that the name change will result in a significant drop in brand recognition. Source Gamasutra says that: "Consumer awareness levels for the highly-anticipated military mega-sequel dropped 20 percentage points since Activision revealed the official name of the game would ditch the Call of Duty brand, according to Nick Williams, who runs the GamePlan Insights division for OTX." The site goes on to talk about the method by which this statistic was measured, but it was essentially that the tracking firm was following consumer recognition for "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" up until the name change became clear at which point they started monitoring that and found a 20% decrease in consumer recognition -- which is a pretty enormous number. The game is still leading pre-order and consumer purchase intent is still very strong (though "only" the sixth most wanted game with Halo: ODST dominating the chart). I'm still kind of confused as to why Activision would drop the brand name for Modern Warfare 2 following the absolutely mind-bogglingly huge successes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: World at War; I don't really understand what there is to be gained by the change in title. And, boy, am I tired. This weekend I'm looking forward to some major time with Red Faction: Guerrilla and skate 2 (last weekend was mostly the Ghostbusters game), along with a trip to see Transformers 2. Which, I mean, may not be anything resembling good, but it has Megan Fox and robots. So, you know. Read More.. | 4 Comments | |
| Thursday, June 25, 2009 | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 11:10:49 AM | |
| Tiffany apologizes for not being able to get the Daily up in time yesterday. She had it written up but by then it was too late and server time had rolled over into Thursday. We can't back-post news articles so she handed her stories off to me, the major one being the purchase of id Software, which rocked the development world - my tweet feed was abuzz all day from people announcing the news with many exclamation points. Bethesda parent Zenimax aquires id Software. id Software has been acquired by the parent company of developer and publisher Bethesda, ZeniMax media. It looks like Bethesda will be publishing all further unsigned titles from id, the move is the latest in a string of actions that has seen the company step up their game. Bethesda has been publishing its own titles, and has also been partnering with bigger names in development for third-party publishing. The cost of the id acquisition was not made clear, but Gamasutra reports that it is likely to be bigger than Bethesda's recent deals. Many will be glad to hear that in a recent statement, Bethesda did say that id will "continue to operate as a studio under the direction of its founder, John Carmack," and added that "no changes will be made in the operations of id Software in the development of its games." Carmack, himself said, "We will now be able to grow and extend all of our franchises under one roof, leveraging our capabilities across multiple teams while enabling forward looking research to be done in the service of all of them. We will be bigger and stronger, as we recruit the best talent to help us build the landmark games of the future. As trite as it may be for me to say that I am extremely pleased and excited about this deal, I am." Activision threatens to withhold support for Sony platforms. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is upping the ante in the push against Sony (Kotick and other top CEOs have been fighting for PS3 price cuts for some time now) by stating "I'm getting concerned about Sony; the PlayStation 3 is losing a bit of momentum and they don't make it easy for me to support the platform. It's expensive to develop for the console, and the Wii and the Xbox are just selling better." Ruh-roh? While it could indeed be a serious blow to Sony if the threat were carried out, given that Activision holds rights to franchises like Call of Duty and Guitar Hero, it's not like Activision isn't making some serious gains with their PS3 sales either - both Call of Duty 4 and World at War broke a million in sales. Sony remains unfazed, saying "PlayStation has tremendous momentum coming out of E3, and we are seeing positive growth..." What really remains to be seen is, will any other top CEO come forward with similar concerns? Opening, closing and shuffling around in the industry. What else is going on? Well, THQ has been quite busy, opening up a new studio in Austin for their Vigil team as well as reorganizing their entire company into three separate divisions of "Core", "Kids, Family and Casual", and "Online". In acquisition news, EA appears to be in investment mode and hunting for casual gaming partners and there's also a rumor going around that Warner Brothers is interested in Codemasters. In new studio news, a bunch of developers from Sacred 2 (Ascaron Entertainment) opened up Gaming Minds Studios over in Germany. Finally, the bad news: Closures/layoffs. Indie game online publisher Manifest Games, run and founded by Greg Costikyan, was forced to close recently due to changing market conditions. Deadline, the makers of the Watchmen game, declared bankruptcy just after announcing new game projects. Last but not least, another rumor is making the rounds, this time though it says that Rockstar New England has laid off about 10% of its studio. If you're running the Windows 7 beta still, don't forget that it's due to expire next week! Notable Headlines of Singular Goodness Mastertronic Launches 'Great Indie Games' Retail Label With World Of Goo Konami employee sues for sexual discrimination Interview: Introversion & The Tricks of the Trade GameStop: Digital distribution is not a threat Daily Remainders - more cool stories that didn't make the cut Tiffany would like to share with you some Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen video goodness (the movie was awesome) and I was quite pleased to see Rocco Mediate get his feet wet (well, at first) and help EA push Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 in this new and hilarious viral video based off the Tiger Woods "Jesus Shot". The cool thing is Rocco knows he's good but not that good, but he always tries anyway and always has a fun time doing it. I like watching him play just as much as Tiger. Read More.. | 7 Comments | |
| Wednesday, June 24, 2009 | |
| Remedy Entertainment's Matias Myllyrinne to Deliver Keynote Address at GDC Europe | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 12:35:41 PM | |
| Matias Myllyrinne, Managing Director of Remedy Entertainment, and independent developer of the acclaimed Max Payne series, will deliver a keynote at this year's Game Developers Conference® Europe (GDC Europe). In his keynote address entitled, "From Max Payne to Alan Wake: Creating Intellectual Properties the Remedy Way," Myllyrinne will share the key principles that have guided the company over the years in developing its games. He will touch on the company's explicit goal to remain small, independent, and passionate about creating new IP, and will try to answer a very important question: how can boutique European studios create large games, compete and succeed in a quickly changing and ever-growing games industry? Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| DX Studio 3.1 Released by Worldweaver | |
| Posted by: Bob Sterling at 5:31:52 AM | |
| Software developers Worldweaver Ltd, based in Pinewood Studios (UK), have just announced a new release of their 3D platform "DX Studio". The main focus for version 3.1 has been on large environments and the engine now comes with an advanced terrain and shadow mapping system which allows users to create massive seamless outdoor environments. The design moves beyond the traditional height field and, due to the use of a freeform mesh based approach, allows for overhanging cliffs, caves and vertical terrain. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Tuesday, June 23, 2009 | |
| The Daily GameDev.Net | |
| Posted by: Promit Roy at 10:51:40 AM | |
| I bring to you today a Crudely Forged GameDev.Net Daily, from the depths of the volcanos in Mer Duun. Respect its strength and brutal power. I have bad news to start the day. You see, GTA IV contains instructions on how to synthesize crystal meth. The BBFC over in UK did some research, and I'm sorry to report that the formula and instructions are critically flawed. Your dream are crushed, I'm sure. Also, is there some law in the UK against giving detailed instructions on how to make illegal drugs? Sure it's not a great idea, but how big a deal is it? Is it more Duke Nukem news? It's more Duke Nukem news. 3D Realms has responded to Take-Two's lawsuit. I covered the lawsuit last week, which alleged that 3D Realms shut down operations without notice. We learned yesterday that a new game called Duke Begins is in development by 2K Games, and 3D Realms claims that 2K Games is in breach of contract because they ceased development. On behalf of everyone, I'd like to just say one thing: what? I'm very confused. Last week, Obama suggested that video games are a bit of a health concern; I don't remember if we covered it. Peter Moore, being the outspoken executive he is, didn't miss the cheap advertisement opportunity. Good show Peter, you even managed to pull Obama's campaign slogan in. Real clever. Video games have become a powerful force in our culture, and one of the results is that it clashes with other parts of our culture in problematic ways. Ars Technica took some time out last month to look at the complexities and pitfalls of homosexuality and video games. It addresses a lot of difficult questions of how to address the whole topic. It's a tough one. It's actually been a while since I highlighted any games in this space. Mike mentioned Telltale games yesterday, who have been very busy reviving old franchises. I spent the weekend playing the Sam and Max demo on Xbox Live Arcade. Here's a trailer for the Wii version. It's really well done. Read More.. | 5 Comments | |
| Now Accepting Papers for Game Programming Gems 8 | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 12:53:11 AM | |
| Course Technology are now accepting submissions for the next volume of the Game Programming Gems series. Visit www.gameprogramminggems.com to access the guidelines and submit your article today! Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Monday, June 22, 2009 | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Mike Stedman at 9:05:18 AM | |
| Welcome, sports fans, to another fine Monday morning. Out here on the field, it's a beautiful day to play ball. Today we're matching up the week of news against the reigning champion, the GDNet Dailies. Please remove your hats and join us in singing our national anthem. First on the block is Telltale trying to break my heart with rumors of a possible Day of the Tentacle remake/revisit; after the announcement of the new Monkey Island the complete revival of LucasArts-style graphical adventure games is a tantalizing possibility. Developer-hopping Splatterhouse has been kicked back to a 2010 release. Sony wants developers to know stuff about their This deserves its own paragraph: do you likey likey the Starcraft 2? Well, check out this video about fighting alien dudes in space. If you missed it earlier, the America's Army 3 trainwreck continues. Let's say you're the Army, and you have a bunch of pencil-neck geeks working on a videogame that you will give away in order to encourage impressionable megaviolent teenagers to sign up with your outfit. Your method? Ride the developers hard to an arbitrary milestone, then just as the game launches, fire the lot of them and move development to Alabama. Then, once you find out that the game you just launched has bugs (horrors!), hire back the majority of the fired people on a contract basis so they can repair the bugs they made during unpaid crunch. As some of the people involved weigh in, the Byzantine drama of working with an enormous, virtually unaccountable bureaucracy becomes apparent. A warning to all "serious games" developers, I fear. Like others have reported, there will not be a new Xbox 360 due in 2010, instead relying on a Sega-style cluster of addons which gradually reduce the importance of the original device and support one to two games with questionable benefits. This decision seems strange, since Microsoft is continually refreshing their hardware packages and it seems quite easy to just drop the camera attachment into the box. What's more likely is that this is a Jobs-style lie of omission and there will really be a new Xbox 720 that will feature hoverboards. Eat your heart out, Michael Pachter. Today's delicious Duke Nukem legal information comes to us courtesy of 2K Games, who have presumably started development on a game called Duke Begins, which is not the same as Duke Nukem Forever. Apogee is onboard, which should be interesting considering that Apogee used to be part of 3DRealms up until a few months ago. Wheels within wheels. Read More.. | 1 Comments | |
| Ziggyware Summer 2009 XNA Article Contest | |
| Posted by: Michael Morton at 8:23:45 AM | |
| Ziggyware is giving away an XBox 360, 3 Zunes, Sunburn Lighting and Material Engine licenses and tons of other prizes this summer. Write a tutorial related to Microsoft XNA Game Studio and you have a chance to win. Read More.. | 2 Comments | |
| Friday, June 19, 2009 | |
| Luxology Launches modo 401 with New Rendering and Animation Features | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 6:57:46 PM | |
 The rapid evolution of modo took another leap today as Luxology® LLC announced the immediate availability of its latest 3D content creation software, modo® 401. With a focus on rendering and animation enhancements, modo 401 delivers a wealth of new features and innovative workflows, which enable users to easily model on top of existing geometry, see changes in their scene immediately from the radically improved Preview renderer and efficiently re-use assets throughout the content creation process. These new features benefit customers in a broad array of disciplines such as architectural visualization, product design, game development and advertising image production. "modo 401 continues our emphasis on making the 3D creative process as fluid as possible for designers and artists," said Brad Peebler, president of Luxology. "This new version is packed with improvements and is clearly our biggest upgrade of modo to date." Read More.. | 1 Comments | |
| Weekend Reading: Tales from Journal Land | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 6:40:21 PM | |
| Journal Land Pick of the Week Journal of Aardvajk - this week I'm going to showcase Aardvajk's entire journal, because there are too many awesome posts this week for me to just pick one. Plus in general he's done a good job documenting his progress with his 2D physics platformer Squishy. It's almost like a mix of Gish and Tri-Achnid, which considering the pedigree of those games is pretty cool. This week he implemented distance joints to the game and editor and also started playing around with shaders, ultimately becoming addicted to them and the various cool easy effects you can pull off, like blurs and water. A big hello to new Journal Land citizens Arcan3Artist, DudeMiester and AEdmonds! Read More.. | 3 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.Net | |
| Posted by: Trent Polack at 12:00:58 AM | |
| So my new job is awesome. The amount of information I have been cramming into my brain over the last few days is starting to make my brain feel like 'sploding, though. Luckily, my brain is durable. Like a... sponge? In a strange and confusing bit of news, Microsoft is saying that a new Xbox 360 is slated for release in 2010. The language is confusing, but the likely interpretation is that Microsoft is planning for a release of Project Natal as either an add-on for the existing console (this is the most likely option) and/or the release of an upgraded model of Xbox 360 which will include the add-on packaged or added on to the console in some form. In an interview with Eurogamer, Microsoft's director of product management, Aaron Greenberg, said the following: "I think part of the excitement about this announcement is that in many ways we are delivering a next generation experience this generation. With that said, I can confirm that Natal will run on Xbox 360 so no new console investment will be necessary." This information would seem to corroborate a large amount of industry and analyst predictions that the current set of consoles, particularly the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, will have far longer life cycles than most consoles in preceding generations. We're all just leading up to the Year of the PS3. Not that this is a particularly middle-of-the-line example, but the second piece of downloadable content for Call of Duty: World at War took a mere four days to surpass a million purchases. This isn't the greatest example of the viability of downloadable content for games, since Call of Duty is just about this console generation's biggest shooter franchise by a huge margin, but it's great to see post-release support for games selling well. A great, popular game receiving quality content after its initial release is a great trend and I'm glad to see gamers supporting it. There is almost no better feeling in game development than seeing the launch of your game (the only better feeling being the launch of your game along with great reviews and sales). It really kind of stinks, then, that the team behind the recently-released America's Army 3 was laid-off following the release of the game. According to source Shacknews, the United States Army decided to close the Emeryville, California-based studio that served as the main development office for America's Army in an effort to "consolidate development" with its Redstone Arsenal, Alabama office. A representative of the Army said this of the choice: "This consolidation will allow us to gain efficiencies between our public and government applications, [...] We appreciate all the hard work that every member of the America's Army team has contributed to the project, and we look forward to delivering future America's Army game releases in the months ahead." Following the bankruptcy of Sacred 1/2 developer Ascaron Entertainment, it is now known that publisher Kalypso Media has acquired a majority of licenses and assets from Ascaron and formed a new studio with members of Ascaron's former staff. The new studio, entitled Gaming Minds, supposedly contains about fifteen ex-Ascaron employees -- though the fate of the Sacred license is as-of-yet unknown. When Ascaron went bankrupt it was rumored to be working on a Sacred 2 expansion along with development of Sacred 3. Sacred 1 and 2 are two of the best hack-and-slash games to be released (along with Titan Quest) since the release of Diablo 2, so I'd be sad to see the license gone. Also, as it turns out, living out of a hotel room isn't nearly as awesome as it sounds; especially when the wireless internet gets about 5-8KBPS at its very best. But I brought my Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and I'm enjoying the hell out of Red Faction: Guerrilla and my second play-through of Infamous. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Thursday, June 18, 2009 | |
| Tripwire announces $20,000 Killing Floor mapping contest | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 6:34:39 PM | |
 Tripwire Interactive announces the "Killing Floor Grindhouse" Custom Map Making Competition with $20,000-worth of prizes. Tripwire are partnering with Nvidia and Logitech to bring you a truly spectacular mapping contest for the zombie-slaughtering co-op hit that is Killing Floor. We put the game out at a recession-friendly price, there have already been hundreds of custom maps created, so here is the Tripwire economic stimulus package to follow up: the headline prize will be an awesome $10,000 for the Grand Prize winner.Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| GameX Industry Summit Features Jason Della Rocca as Keynote Speaker | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 1:30:22 PM | |
| The GameX Industry Summit today announced its second confirmed keynote speaker, Jason Della Rocca of Perimeter Partners, a firm that develops game industry clusters around the world. Co-located with GameX (Games & Media Expo) on October 24-25, 2009, GameX Industry Summit is presented by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) chapters in New York, New Jersey, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Jason Della Rocca, president of Perimeter Partners and former executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), is the latest keynote speaker to be announced at GameX Industry Summit. Della Rocca is well-known as a featured speaker on global game industry issues at conferences and top universities worldwide. His keynote for GameX Industry Summit will assist members of the game development community in identifying and developing a competitive edge in the current global game marketplace from a local perspective. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
