Posted by: Promit Roy at September 30, 2008 11:08:29 AM
Welcome to today's Increasingly Panicked GameDev.Net Daily. I'm sure you all find it very reassuring that despite the failures of multiple major banks, you can still rely on this column to show up roughly on time in the same place, instead of asking you for seven hundred billion dollars in a loan. Speaking of which, I'm gonna need like two hundred billion dollars to cover Daily related expenses. Just let me know.
The continued meltdown of the US economy is apparently affecting everybody, including game development companies. Yesterday's 777 point drop marks the biggest in the Dow Jones index's history. Some choice stats: Activision Blizzard slid 13.8%, EA slid 9.16%, Microsoft sank 8.72%, and even Paris based Ubisoft is hurting with a 21.5% loss. Hopefully they'll rebound some across the board as Congress figures out what the hell it's planning to do, but it looks like things will be a little rough in the meantime. You know, I don't need all two hundred billion right now.
As long as we're discussing subjects of epic fail, I may as well point out 3D Realms spilled two new screenshots of Duke Nukem Forever, a game that is apparently really truly still in development, more than eleven years after it was started. And because they've had eleven years, there's no choice except to analyze these screenshots to death. The lack of antialiasing is very visible, so I'm guessing that it's using deferred shading. The hair is surprisingly hideous, and the shading surprisingly plastic. On the other hand, there is a topless stripper chick, and that monster does have tentacles. Hmm.
Penny Arcade has an essay by Daniel James, the CEO of Three Rings, about DRM. It's a short but well written piece, and pretty much says what consumers all know and Big Content are all terrified to admit. That's actually a link to Part Three of a series; it's worth going back and reading the previous two as well, I think.
I think the real cake for today, though, is the discovery that not all NASCAR drivers are terribly intelligent. This one tried to use video game physics in real life, specifically by driving up against the wall int he hopes of bouncing off and going faster. Epic facepalm. They should let me drive instead. I think I'll start a team when I get my two hundred billion.
ouch over those duke nukem screenshots
Lots of projects get canned after a couple of years of development time + lots of cash spent, something 3d realms should of had the guts to do years ago.
Thanks Satan, vampire children of the night and unholy minions of the hell that Jack Thompson is disbarred or else he would have hung us, we filthy bloodthirsty sinborn murderers, by the balls for laying our eyes on this unconsciously-naked innocent child of God.
"DRM takes a big poo on your best customers -- the ones who've given you money -- whilst doing nothing practical to prevent others from 'stealing' your precious content juices. Worse, it makes these renegades feel nice and righteous about sticking it to 'the man'."
Lol I never thought of the whole DRM thing like this. Now that I think about it, so many cracks out there have an almost righteous feel to it :P
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Member since: 2/15/2007
Posted - 9/30/2008 5:04:24 PM
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