http://www.gamedev.net/Maximum game development!en-ushttp://www.gamedev.net/pics/gdnet-88x31.gifhttp://www.gamedev.net/Maximum Game Development!http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=540022Hope 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!http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539979The 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.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539962Ohi. 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.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539952The 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.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539950This 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!http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539883So 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.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539833For 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.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539809Spiral 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.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539755Cuttlefish 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!http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539732According 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!http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539662The 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.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539659Richard 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.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539649Due 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.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539534Before 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.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=539525Quad 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.