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=581235Graphic Remedy is proud to announce the release of gDEBugger Version 5.7 for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, iPhone and iPad.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=581234The second alpha release of the Java game library jMonkeyEngine 3 is now official. See the jmonkeyengine.com blog for the complete news article, and download the SDK install (jMonkeyPlatform) from the open repository. Highlights include a new input system, PSSM & SSAO, many physics improvements and intuitive material editing.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=581233GLBasic V8 is now available. Dream Design Entertainment is proud to announce the release of version 8 of GLBasic, it's popular BASIC programming language. Following feedback and suggestions from its users, GLBasic has been vastly updated to include many new features.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=581232iAuxSoft has just announced a next major release of the advanced programming engines dedicated to audio, networking and sql db interaction. This release introduces new interesting features along with bug-fixing.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=581136If you're having a slow day, I recommend you read this post in the form of a rock ballad, or possibly as Bohemian Rhapsody. That'll solve the problem. Otherwise, this isn't set to music but it is a Perfect-Pitch GameDev.Net Daily! It's been several years since chipmaker AMD acquired graphics hardware company ATI, but they've finally decided to kill the ATI brand. Personally I'm concerned for the future of ATI's mascot Ruby, but that's another story. And if you want Eyefinity but did something silly like buying a DVI/HDMI monitor, they're rolling out a converter for you. My monitor's already DisplayPort...now if only I could afford two more. Or had desk space for them. The Xbox 360's directional pad, "d-pad" for short, sucks. If that's news to you, well you have been living in some kind of cave. They're now introducing a a transformers-style d-pad. I like how Major Nelson shows it off, non chalantly mentioning the community are "not big fans of the d-pad". Gotta love PR's clueless spin. Only five years and three refreshes late, but hey. They've also drained the color out of the face buttons, and if you've ever introduced someone to the 360 who isn't familiar with it, you'll understand why I think this is an incredibly stupid move. In any case, it's done so there you go. Continuing on the subject of stupid Xbox decisions, Microsoft is raising the price of Xbox Live Gold. I'm not even sure what to make of this decision, but apparently the way to survive in an increasingly long and competitive generation where your competitors are dramatically undercutting you, is to let them undercut you more. Interesting plan. And when it comes to competitors, Sony is intent on selling you on Move. I know I'm being negative today, but the demos seem awfully half baked for something that is rolling out in a few months. Sure Microsoft's Kinect games are somewhat painful to watch, but they are real games that exist and can be played. Sony is still showing tech demos. And just to round things off, here are some Kinect videos. Also, Sony does not like jailbreak devices. It's like I always say, those people who think they should own the devices they bought? Let them eat LAWSUIT. As for Nintendo? Keep on buying, because the DSi just got a price drop. Student ownership of code developed for classes is a tricky problem. DigiPen is an institution that assigns all of the student created intellectual property to the school. Luckily GamaSutra published an absolutely fantastic article to help clarify things. And it just happens to be written by one of our moderators, Mona Ibrahim. What a lucky coincidence!http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=581003The Daily GDNet started in 1959 as a secret government project to deliver fresh gaming news to people worldwide. Eventually, it was co-opted by a man named Bob Arpa and his friend Freddie Inter. What we know of today as the Internet grew from Arpa and Inter's net, which itself was from GDNet. Scientists expect that the GDNet Daily will eventually expand to contain the whole of human knowledge every weekday. Famed weird-ass-videogame developer Atlus' parent company has merged it with a mobile development company. Atlus responded by emitting a sharp static scream, grabbing Japanese teenagers and throwing them into a bizarre pit of despair that melds the biggest terrors of Western and Eastern mythology. Hey, someone made a Baby Segway with a Wii balance board. I'm kind of surprised how well it works. Perhaps this Chinese Kinect knockoff will also help babies in some as-yet-undetermined fashion. Gabe Newell says that the Team Fortress 2 videos are Valve exploring moviemaking in case they want to do a Half-Life movie. I've not seen too many movies with silent protagonists - even the later Mr. Bean movies had him saying one or two lines before continuing to fight aliens bumble. If you're like me and still cling lovingly to computer RPGs, you probably enjoyed the Witcher in a way that is not appropriate to share in public. Well, it's back, of course, and there's an interview on Gamasutra about the sequel's development. In indie game news, you're going to want to check out this extremely disturbing (but fanatically well simulated) serial killer Roguelike which is really a mean hoax to make me write bad news posts. I bet when you woke up this morning, you didn't think about how much you wanted to learn about the history of Indian disco. Get over it.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=580750I am interested in most phases of data processing. A neato single-player DLC pack, Minerva's Den, is coming out for Bioshock 2. I'm a huge fan of developers releasing single-player DLC, so this is great. And while Bioshock 2 wasn't quite the game its predecessor was, it had an absolutely amazing final quarter of gameplay. So good. The Third Birthday is hitting PSPs some time next year. A character designer for the game is also hopeful that the other Parasite Eve games will be released a PS1 Classics before The Third Birthday is released. This is a thing I am wholly in favor of. Best Buy is going to start accepting used games. The company has been testing the service for a while, but is now rolling out the service to over 600 stores nationwide. Ubisoft's Red Storm Studio laid off 38 employees yesterday. Red Storm has been helming the Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon franchise since 1996, but recently Ubisoft has apparently been spreading the development of those games across numerous studios worldwide. All of the unaffected employees at Red Storm will, according to an Ubisoft statement, continue to work on the multiplayer component of Tom Clancey's Ghost Recon Future Soldier in anticipation for the game's release early next year. Here's hoping anyone affected by the lay-offs lands on their feet. And, uh, I guess Playboy is forming a game label. The "adult entertainment company" will initially be partnering with Bigpoint for the release of their free-to-play MMO Poisonville. According to a company statement, Playboy considers the video game industry a "a growing, mainstream area" and although they haven't unveiled much of their forthcoming business plan, the company is slated to target 18-35 year old males. Great. What an under-serviced demographic. That's the week! I actually haven't done much video gaming lately, so I feel mighty ashamed about that. I do want to see Piranha 3D, though. I like [some of] Alexandre Aja's movies and was absolutely astonished to discover he directed the movie. I also like piranhas. In three-dee. I guess?http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=580720It's time for another Late Night Daily with yours truly. Let's all get caught up together on what's been going on this past week shall we? Studio News: Krome, Cohort, Realtime Worlds, Eutechnyx, Gamer-Party. I'm sorry to see that Krome Studios has once again announced it will have to be trimming staff, and this time it looks like an entire studio branch may be shutting down completely. You can discuss this more where there's already a thread in the forums about it. There are several Krome GDNet members here - best wishes to them all. The cutbacks continue, I'm afraid, as Dundee-based Cohort Studios lost 27 staff members, chopping the studio population by half. Not all is lost for Dundee though, as indie studio Eutechnyx is considering a new Dundee studio that would be able to snap up those recently set adrift. Additionally, UK TV company Channel 4 is pledging $1.5M to the Dundee game development community to be put towards funding games based on its various shows and properties. All this is in the wake of Realtime Worlds, which is working very hard to pull out of administration and show some value for APB. Finally, to end on a light note, a new UK casual games developer has been founded in Gamer-Party. EA sticks to its guns in MoH controversy sparked by UK Secretary of State. Bravo for EA, not bowing to outside pressure on its latest Medal of Honor game, which lets players choose to be Taliban during multiplayer and once again places players in realistic wartime settings. Unlike games depicting older wars and atrocities (like the Nazis), it seems the raw open wounds of many military families and those closely involved in the various conflicts are calling out "too soon". UK Secretary of State Liam Fox spurred things on by imploring UK game stores not to stock the title at all: "I am disgusted and angry. It's hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game," he stated. In response, EA pointed out that "we give gamers the opportunity to play both sides. Most of us have been doing this since we were seven: someone plays the cop, someone must be robber." Ultimately, EA hopes the fact that they developed the game closely with the US Military and the Congressional Medal of Honor Society will show people they aren't simply using the conflict as story fodder. Steam sale saves the day at Introversion. UK's well-known indie studio Introversion has been weathering the tough times just like everyone else, with their own ups and downs. Lately however they've been mostly down, forced to revert back to their original 4-person team of developers. Then came a breath of fresh air in the form of a Steam sale for DEFCON: "...the Valve sale -- it was just phenomenal...The sale did in the ball park of $250,000 -- so when you're back to being a team of four people, that's a lot of revenue." Introversion now has the funds to continue work in its two projects under development. Choose your own price sale stats for Gish. Chronic Logic recently held a sale for Gish that let buyers choose the price of the game before purchase, a sale technique pioneered by developer 2D Boy with World of Goo and later expanded upon with charitable contributions by a gathering of indie developers. Anyways, here are their stats for the sale, which brought in a net of $1,059.18. Daily Remainders - more cool stories that didn't make the cut along with game dev articles/features. Wanna get thrown back in time? Check out this Activision corporate commercial from 1981. That was a year before I was even born. Still, I couldn't help but chuckle right at the beginning when the voice over said "amazing graphics". Ever wonder what the Playstation controller's button symbols really mean? Well, wonder no longer! I like game soundtracks. I've said this here before. I especially like free game soundtracks, which is why I'm listening to Shank right now. (It's also a pretty rad game). Maybe when I scrounge up some more extra cash, I'll hunt down and rustle me up the Red Dead Redemption soundtrack. They're even coming out with a limited vinyl release. What a perfect thing to play on your Denon 100 turntable. Hey, good luck to my buddy Mark DeLoura on his next project after departing from Google! Read this post in Chinesehttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=580510It's Tuesday evening, what else can I say? Let's move forwards together on a Newsilicious GameDev.Net Daily! A lawsuit against the developers of Lineage II is being allowed. The lawsuit claims that a player from Hawaii is so addicted that he's unable to function in daily life, and that NCSoft should pay damages because of the game's addictiveness. I'd like to suggest that Lineage II isn't nearly good enough for that to be plausible and maybe the guy's just suffering from run of the mill depression. Speaking of which, psychiatrists in South Korea are prescribing drugs for Starcraft addiction. It sounds silly at first, but it makes sense to me. The "addiction" is incidental, I imagine, and merely symptomatic of deeper problems. Of course, the MRI scan of patients shown pictures of Zerglings might be taking it a little far. Remember all those idiotic borderline illegal marketing campaigns? I fondly remember the Hitman one where they had a guy brandish a fake gun at a crowd. Good times. In any case, you can add Zynga to the list, which a stunt using fake $25,000 bills glued to sidewalks in San Francisco. Remember people, US currency denominations end at $100. I'll also admit, I'm not sure what makes this stunt illegal. Want to speak at GDC 2011? If you haven't submitted your proposal yet, hurry up -- the deadline's tomorrow the 25th of August! And for everyone who thinks indie games and Xbox Live Indie Games never go anywhere, feel free to shut up. James Silva's XNA-based creation hit 300K units sold, and the theme song is being released for Rock Band. Not only that, they're producing a T shirt to be sold by Hot Topic online, and probably brought back 20 years from now for kids who can't remember what on earth it was about. We've all been awaiting the availability of an integrated CPU/GPU unit for a couple years, and it's finally here. No, it's not AMD/ATI, nor Intel. Microsoft is the first on the market to pull it off. Granted it's not a desktop processor, and integration in consoles is hardly a new story. Still, lots of cool tech details. Am I above posting a video of booth babes from a game conference? It turns out that no, I am not.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=580372GDNet Daily is not authorized for internal use. Please discontinue usage if you experience rashes, allergic reactions or persistent illusions that the videogame industry is moving inevitably towards solely making yoga simulators for the elderly. Shooty remake Goldeneye has some crazy details available, including new plot and some new focus on covert action. Valve's hardware survey results are in, with the newly-added software survey. What software do people who use Steam have installed? Steam, obviously. Why did you even ask? Beloved face-puncher Castle Crashers is coming to the PS3 this month. It's worth it - go pick it up. It won't come with a backpack, like the Crysis 2 special edition. If you're like me, you've never started a game company. What you and I probably didn't think about is where all that furniture will come from. The answer? Ikea. While Finland provides us with the demoscene graphics programmers and musicians that we need to make amazing games, Sweden provides us with the boxy turbocharged station wagons and hand-assembled MDF furnishings we need to bang our fists into when we scream at our middle managers to tighten up those graphics. Of course, it's entirely possible that they didn't buy their furniture at Ikea, but with such storied ties to the game industry, between the groundbreaking RPG Ikea Shopping Fantasy VI and the tactical strategy game Flatpack Warriors, it's really their only choice. Apparently tax breaks for game developers are important enough to become an opposition issue. I just saw this post about Warlock Bentspine, and I gotta admit it looks pretty cool. Looking forward to getting a chance to try it out. If you're someone who is stuck in the world's longest traffic jam, you have my sympathy. It might be faster to get out and walk at this point, although traffic is going so slow that a strip mall has literally been erected to service the needs of your fellow traffic jam denizens. http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=580080Hey! I hear tell that there's a Daily on this here video game development web site. HOLY CRAP IT'S JAGGED ALLIANCE 2. HOW GREAT IS THAT. EA wants everyone to know that they predicted APB's mediocre scores. Head of EA Partners (the distributor for Realtime World's APB), David DeMartini, had this to say: "We did suggest that where it landed from a review score standpoint was where we thought it was going to land from a review score standpoint." This is a professional and courteous way of saying "we told them so." The whole RTW thing is incredibly sad, though, and it sounds like a complete mess. I'm really hoping for the best for all of those effected by the lay-offs, and I really hope that RTW can find an arrangement which allows them to continue operating in some capacity. Apparently there has been interest in Project: MyWorld and, as such, some of the team has been hired back on. Castlevania: Lord of Shadows is coming out on October 5th; the game looks quite impressive. Double Fine's Costume Quest looks really neat. Atlus' new game, Catherine, (probably not safe for work) looks both completely amazing and completely incomprehensible. I have no idea what kind of game it's actually supposed to be, but I'm actually okay with that and am incredibly curious to see where it goes from here. Have a good weekend, kids! I've got a long couple of days ahead of me, but there's a lot of good contained therein. Not least of which is a girl, and Kane & Lynch 2, and Lara Croft & The Guardian of Light, and and and Ys Seven. Video. Games.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=580036Hello readers! While I thank Trent for his Olympian description of my activities last week, I was really on top of a mountain watching the Perseid meteor shower. It was pretty spectacular, hopefully some of you got to see it as well. I was then kinda supposed to do his Friday Daily but returned home that night rather beat from hiking that same mountain and honestly just plain forgot. So. Apologies. Now - DAILY TIME!! Studio News: Socialspiel, N-Space, Sparkplay, Aeira. A new Vienna-based studio built by former employees of Rockstar, Socialspiel has just announced its first game Push, a turn-based browser-based online board game. Some more unfortunate studio cutbacks were announced from both n-Space and Sparkplay, with the latter being the hardest hit and having put up its FTP MMORPG Earth Eternal up for auction. However, just as there are always some people going out, there are also some coming in, and I'm sure the new Brazilian studio opened up by US-based MMO publisher Aeira Games is hiring right now. Activision clarifies IP ownership in Indie Contest. It seems people are still confused about whether or not submitting their games/concepts to Activision's Indie Contest will result in the publisher immediately owning all rights to it, so Gamasutra, in an interview with SVP of development Laird Malamed asked him about it and he clarified the stance Activision has for the contest: "Regarding the ownership of the ideas, everything that is submitted is owned by the person who submitted it, and we take no final ownership of the ideas, the concept, even if they win," said Malamed. "The only time ownership comes into question is if we decide to publish the game, and there's no requirement that anyone make a game that we would publish." Still a bit unsure? Take another look (or a first look) at Game Attorney Tom Buscaglia's take on the very fine legal print. 'Moral Kombat', 'Game Theory' documentaries available online. Created by Spencer Halpin, Moral Kombat "studies the controversial, polarizing subject of the video game controversy through a series of interviews with experts on both sides of the matter some believing that violent games should be banned, others supporting their protection under the First Amendment." It was released back in 2007, so if you haven't seen it yet and are into this type of thing, check it out for free on Hulu (with some commercial interruption). The other documentary, Game Theory, was created by Scott Steinberg, and looks at why big game companies are refusing to change their strategies to match the change in the industry, such as limiting risk and sticking to big franchises. It's available to watch on YouTube or through Scott's blog. Be sure to check out the Daily Remainders below for lots of GDC Europe coverage from Gamasutra. Daily Remainders - more cool stories that didn't make the cut along with game dev articles/features. So David Perry was the first I saw to post yesterday about Microsoft's announcement for Flight, their latest installment in the Flight Simulator franchise. Many people thought it was dead with the closing of ACES Studio, the last developers to work on the franchise, but MS never said with finality that the series was canceled. Now, my first reaction was of course to scream and shout with joy - until I noticed the purposeful lack of "simulator" from the title. While it's obvious (and not very surprising) that MS plans to create more of a flight game than a simulator, I only hope it doesn't leave us hardcore simmers out in the cold too much. Then again, FSX is still a pretty awesome platform, all things considered. And dammit, I still want my X-Wing game from LucasArts. Or Somebody Read this post in Chinesehttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=579943After announcing its expansion to Android last month, Aurora Feint is today unveiling a viral game distribution system for its leading social gaming network, OpenFeint. With OpenFeint 2.6, players will be able to send SMS and e-mail game invites to any contact on their phone, helping accelerate social distribution for game developers. Available first on iOS devices, OpenFeint will launch this viral game distribution system cross platform following its expansion to Android. The new system is immediately available to OpenFeint's 35 million players and their friends. It will work primarily through SMS and e-mail and let players send personal messages to contacts on their phones, inviting them to play the games they love. The inclusion of Android's rapidly growing device base, with over 200,000 devices added daily, will only amplify the invitation system's viral reach. Safeguards have been installed to prevent spamming.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=579870The great thing about Tuesday evening is that an Oddly News Heavy GameDev.Net Daily fits right in with everything else. It's like that wonderful day when your yoyo finally gets a string and the whole thing finally makes sense. It's also a great time to practice raising one eyebrow. Let's get the unfortunate news out of the way -- Realtime Worlds is in serious trouble. The company behind APB and Crackdown entered administration, apparently similar to bankruptcy in the US. Hopefully most of the developers will get to keep their jobs, and maybe things will look up for the studio with the release of Crackdown 2. There were also layoffs at Visual Concepts, the developer behind NBA 2K11. I hear LucasArts is a bit of a mess. Let's be honest here -- Force Unleashed was a terrible game, FU2's debut at E3 was embarrassing, and now the studio's being gutted. A shake up might be a good thing, but it sure looks like rough times ahead for the Star Wars franchise. On the bright side, BioWare's upcoming Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic, will surely be fantastic. I'm actually considering joining this whole MMO craze. THQ made a pen-and-tablet peripheral for the Wii. It seems a little niche to me, but there you have it. Incidentally, an actual Wacom tablet can be had for less money and is a fabulous tool if you enjoy drawing. Remember how people keep saying PC gaming is dying? Starcraft 2 doesn't care. Wired published an opinion piece suggesting exercise ratings for video games. Apparently it would be a very effective way to deal with child obesity. The suggested rating scale is idiotic and vague, not to mention pretty much only interesting to people who are worried about child obesity. Why not add ratings for how 3D a game is, how much thinking a game requires, the net artistic worth of a game, and how effective the game is at educating players about human rights? Whether or not videogame related degrees are worth anything is still an open discussion, but an ever increasing number of schools are offering them. Personally I find the whole thing a little odd, but nobody thinks twice about art schools, law schools, film schools, music schools, or cooking schools so I guess it's to be expected. I realized we don't talk about exercise much. Maybe it's not surprising. In any case, I've been getting back in shape and I started by replacing the junky old sneakers with a pair of Nike Free 7.0 trainers. The whole barefoot running craze really interests me, and these shoes are an incredibly comfortable start down that path. Any of you wearing similar, barefoot-emulating shoes? What do you think about the whole idea?http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=579759Matali Physics is advanced, cross-platform, fully managed 3D physics engine, intended for the .NET platform. The latest build of the engine introduces support for Windows Phone 7. Available demo also shows the full physical 3D UI on Windows Phone 7.