Posted by: Mike Stedman at February 2, 2009 11:12:06 AM
While GDNet Daily has not yet been fired as a side effect of the recession, it has been noted in its personnel file that it has trouble with teamwork and frequently interrupts each week with rambling about the games industry.
Promit told me to talk about the Super Bowl; I honestly don't even know which teams were playing, let alone who won. I was under the initial impression that the Super Bowl is the name of the trophy, which your players then drink beer out of, similar to our beloved Stanley Cup. This is not the case. Regardless, congratulations to those people who bet on the Steelers and won.
Independent controversy generator Harpooned has updated for 2009, featuring online leaderboards, protestor capture and a Mac version.
The Global Game Jam is underway, and the dude who made World of Goo has given a keynote speech which I hope you'll find interesting. If you're not in on the GGJ, maybe you should be. Catholics, head right to confession.
The Los Angeles division of Electronic Arts has released a neato keen open source 2D game engine, called Angel. It's intended for rapid prototyping, and the current unstable release supports my favourite platforms. I haven't yet given it a try, since my workflow tends to support prototyping fairly easily, but I look forward to testing it out for something like the LD48.
I thought I was done with covering this guy, but Robert Pelloni (of Bob's Game "fame") has decided to make me even more jealous of his ability to generate reams of exposure by means of littering. Perhaps we should all take a lesson from this brave soul in how independent game development really works. Indeed, we should worship at his feet for having the initiative to make a game all by himself, which obviously none of us could ever do.
The sad story of Hellgate London continues as well, with the North American servers finally being shut down. Hopefully Hanbitsoft will eventually resurrect the game in the US market and live up to its promise, but right now, unlike how I (and Gamasutra) reported last week, it looks dicey for a North American release. Here's hoping; the environment does have promise and I had a few fun runs in the beta alongside my pals.
Before you go today, if you like Batman and you like beating people up as Batman, you're going to be all over the new Arkham Asylum screenshots like a bad rash. There's also a few hands-on previews floating around.
A little humility would go a long way for Bob, but I do admire what he's doing in a sense. I don't think that haranguing Nintendo is going to get him what he wants, in fact its likely to get him blacklisted altogether, but it certainly takes balls, and if nothing else his video at the Nintendo World Store was fun to watch.
He claims to have played along, and taken all the steps necessary to become a liscenced developer and be able to purchase an SDK, save the fact that Nintendo refuses to accept his application. I don't think its because they're scared of Bob's Game, or that it will expose something about the industry, but I do think its likely that they don't want to set a precedent of adopting a homebrew title, for fear of encouraging others.
Unfortunately he's taken the stance of "terrorizing" Nintendo publicly -- and keep in mind that Nintendo is ultimately a Japanese company, coming from a place with much stricter codes of behavior and tenaciousness on the verge of audacity has little chance of being seen as a virtue the way it might be in the states. Everyone knows that you don't negotiate with "terrorists", because you'll ultimately encourage more of the same -- make one problem go away, only to have two more crop up in its place.
His actions have likely turned off some publishers or other potential partners as well, I would imagine. Clearly he is talented, though not as special as he seems to think himself, and its sad that things are going down the way they are.
If he wants to make in impact in the right way, he should enter Bob's Game into all the important game festivals. Doing well there will garner the right kind of attention and apply the right kind of pressure.
CodekaMember since: 10/19/2008 From: Sydney, New South Wales
Posted - 2/2/2009 5:17:51 PM
Quote:
Original post by Ravyne
Unfortunately he's taken the stance of "terrorizing" Nintendo publicly -- and keep in mind that Nintendo is ultimately a Japanese company, coming from a place with much stricter codes of behavior and tenaciousness on the verge of audacity has little chance of being seen as a virtue the way it might be in the states. Everyone knows that you don't negotiate with "terrorists", because you'll ultimately encourage more of the same -- make one problem go away, only to have two more crop up in its place.
I think that's a good point. The most likely thing that'll happen is Nintendo will politely ignore him and hope he goes away. The Japanese can ignore an inconvenience much longer than you probably think...
yea I'm not to enthused with the way Pelloni is going about things at the moment. I agree with Joystiq: "Given this latest desperate attention grab, and the fact that his once-humble development blog currently shows Pelloni consorting with aliens, we're guessing he's exchanged his game development ambitions for fleeting e-lebrity status. What a shame."
I just found out about his game, and from what little videos I've seen it does seem pretty cool. It's hard to say how fun it'll be for 20 hours, but it has some potential.
The points you guys raise are all very good and I agree there.
I got to participate in the Global Game Jam over at UNCC in Charlotte, I must say, it was pretty intense, but incredibly rewarding. I would most certainly recommend it for anyone next year when it comes around ;)
previous story
next story 
Tiffany_Smith Staff
Member since: 4/22/2002 From: United Kingdom
Posted - 2/2/2009 3:48:23 PM
Posted - 2/2/2009 4:46:53 PM
Posted - 2/2/2009 5:17:51 PM
Posted - 2/2/2009 8:10:32 PM
