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=561679Promit and I are swapping this week - he'll be dropping by to say hello on Thursday. Art History of Games Conference a success; closes in Atlanta. A new conference went down this past weekend, aimed to "start the process of looking at the question of art and games more closely," according to co-organizer John Sharp. Gamasutra has additional coverage of the event here and here (they don't link stories together at all that I can see) and Kotaku also had a reporter in attendance for the event. You can also pick up more AHoG tidbits via the twitter hashtag #AHoG. No official word has been posted regarding next year's event, but attendees and organizers alike have said it was well-received, so we could be seeing it again next year if you missed it this time around. Game Developer Magazine calls for salaries - indies too. GDM has put out the call to all game developers this year for their annual salary survey. In past years they've only looked at full-time employees in development studios, but this time around they are creating separate data sets for contractors and indie developers bringing in their own coin. So if you're making games, making money and want to contribute to statistics and see yourself in a colorful chart a few months from now, head on over and fill out the survey, which they say takes 7 minutes to complete. The Aussie 2010 industry outlook. GameSpot talked to several Australian developers and studios to get an idea of what the game industry in Australia will be like in 2010, after it suffered greatly throughout 2009 (as did many countries). In other AUS news, it seems that Michael Atkinson (the R18+ detractor) has landed himself in yet more hot water after declaring a member of the Australian public to not exist, prompting cries for his removal from office. How I Made It: Naughty Dog's Amy Hennig. The LA Times paper ran a story on Naughty Dog's Creative Director Amy Hennig for their "How I Made It" feature. It's not a huge feature, but gets the job done providing insight on what led Amy to the success she's seen both personally and professionally through Naughty Dog and the Uncharted franchise she's led. Daily Remainders - more cool stories that didn't make the cut along with game dev articles/features. Read this post in Chinesehttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561586The Stichting Nederlandse Gamedagen (NLGD) today announced that industry icon David Perry will deliver a keynote speech during the 2010 Festival of Games. Perry is the founder of GAIKAI, a company that will launch a new form of gaming this year. He also founded Shiny Entertainment, and designed such classics games as Earthworm Jim, MDK and The Matrix. At the conference, Perry will not only demonstrate the streaming game technology, which will launch in 2010, and share his vision on the future of gaming. GAIKAI's technology allows games to be streamed from a server via the internet into peoples' homes. This does away with installing software locally, and even makes upgrades to user hardware a thing of the past. Even graphical intensive titles such as Grand Theft Auto IV are playable on any system with an internet browser.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561566The Cafu Engine (formerly Ca3D-Engine) is now available to everyone as free software under the GNU General Public License! The source code as well as precompiled binaries are available at our Downloads page, and the new Developers page explains how to get started with the source code quickly. In addition to the compressed archives, the source code is also available directly from the Subversion repository. Learn more at www.cafu.de/news!http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561562Welcome to another week of the GDNet Daily. I'm your host for this fantastic Monday morning, and it's critically important that I have your utmost attention. We will be reciting legally necessary safety instructions before we embark on our flight, so please retrieve the information card from the seat pocket in front of you and follow along. Before we go any further, you need to know that I really like Peter Molyneux. He's got a mouth on him, though, and that mouth is saying that Fable 3's reveal will make you "super pissed off." As other people have said, original Xbox Live is going away for some reason or another. To celebrate its departure from this mortal coil, Bungie plans to hang out with you in Halo 2 to celebrate the Ragnarok of homophobic 13-year-olds too poor to afford a 360. I'm also kind of curious how this is going to turn out, considering Microsoft is still selling Xbox Originals games through their 360 dashboard that use this Xbox Live service and will lose part of (or all of) their functionality after the switchover. If you liked Rise of the Triad like I liked Rise of the Triad, you'll be excited to know that someone finally put two and two together and is porting ROTT to the iPhone. Apparently the United Arab Emirates has been banning games that have an excess of religiousity for quite some time. I'm not sure if this is more or less defensible than the many nations worldwide that ban games for violence or mean words. Sega is actually making money. How did that happen? You might think it's because of Bayonetta or Phantasy Star Portable, but you're wrong. It's because of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, which outsold both games together and then some. In indie game news, the Assemblee competition results are in. Congratulations to everyone who entered, especially those who provided much-needed artistic content. I haven't played any of these games yet but are looking forward to doing so, especially BirdyWorld, which seems really unique. Natural Selection 2 is indie game of the year according to ModDB, and check out the crazy Hanna Barbera colour scheme of GunFu Deadlands. Before you go today, you might want to check in with Dr. Every Violent Act in the 2010 Superbowl Ads. He's not really a doctor, though, so don't take off your clothes. http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561558Ambiera just released the first version of their new 3D engine CopperLicht. CopperLicht is implemented completely in &#106avascript and runs entirely in the browser, using WebGL (a new technology which is supposed to be supported in the next generation of web browsers) to render hardware accelerated 3d graphics. There is a demo available which renders a full Quake 3 level at playable speed directly in the browser.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561492Scrolling Game Development Kit has been running on OpenGL (using the OpenTK wrapper library for .NET) for a couple releases now, and performing well. The latest update provides some minor enhancements and fixes. Details at http://sourceforge.net/projects/sgdk2/ Discussion at http://gamedev.enigmadream.com/http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561339Entries from 1/29 - 2/5 Journal Land Pick of the Week Not dead... - This weeks post highlight was a no-brainer, as phantom's tome of a response to the DirectX vs. OpenGL debate is worth a read for anyone taking part in the ever-ongoing debate. Like, seriously - if you have an opinion one way or another then you must read this. It not only covers the DX vs. OGL debate, but also goes into why OpenGL is beneficial to developers in the long run over DirectX Wow we have quite the crowd this week! A warm greeting to new Journal Land citizens zarfius, Wavesonics, soulos, ozak, and Buttacup!http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561309Gamasutra sister service Game Developer Research has debuted its latest report, the 2009/2010 State of Game Development Survey, revealing among other things a surge of iPhone developers and a lull in those making games for the Wii. The 100 page report is a result of a survey of more than 800 video game professionals from North America and beyond who read Gamasutra, subscribe to Game Developer magazine, or attend Game Developers Conference. Those complete results are available as a 100-page report from Game Developer Research (www.gamedevresesarch.com), and more information from the survey is also available in the February 2010 issue of Game Developer magazine (www.gdmag.com).http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561265I want to warn all of you out there in readerland: the combination of David Lynch, Werner Herzog, and Willem Dafoe is not nearly as great as you might think. Not bad. Just not great. Which, really, is about the biggest disappointment imaginable considering it's DAVID LYNCH AND WERNER HERZOG. Anyway hi video games! THQ is undergoing a bit of a reorganization with the re-branding of Rainbow Studios and Juice Games as THQ Digital Studios Phoenix and THQ Digital Studios Warrington (respectively). THQ is planning to create a "portfolio-wide community platform to connect consumers to all of THQ's core games." Approximately sixty people were laid off between the two studios as a result of the reorganization. May any of those impacted by this reorganization land on their feet and hit the ground running. These phrases may be redundant, but I'm pretty sure feet are a necessary part of the running process. Speaking of THQ, the company has also published an updated release schedule of their video game portfolio. Of particular note in this list for the next year or so is: Homefront, de Blob 2, and Red Faction 4 (with "robust online gameplay," so, you know, whatever that means). In the following year we have: Darksiders 2, Saints Row 3, and Warhammer 40K: Space Marine. There are some good games in that grouping. I wonder if these games will experience a shockwave of, say, a portfolio-wide community platform which could be usde to connect consumers to all of THQ's core games. It seems possible. Oh! Oh! Oh! SEGA is officially realizing that Sonic is probably an okay game when it's designed for 2D gameplay. The game was known as "Project Needlemouse" up until its official unveiling yesterday. It's not in the official statement, but I'm pretty sure a SEGA representative somewhere said "We can never repeat the genius of Sonic Adventure 1 for the Dreamcast." What's actually true is that Sonic 4, as it's being called, will be an episodic, downloadable game. Here's hoping it reminds us why we love the spiky little fella. I don't know normally cover this kind of stuff, but there is a The Who music pack coming to Rock Band in 'honor' of the group's imminent performance at the Super Bowl halftime show this weekend. The Who is playing the halftime show at the Super Bowl. Remember the good ol' days when the great bands of the 60s all faded away or broke up or something? Yeah. That was great. It prevented bands from doing things like this. I beat Mass Effect 2 last weekend; you guys best believe, even I liked playing a story-heavy game. It was good. Not without oodles of problems which I had no problem writing about, but well worth your time. This week I ordered a bunch of really cheap games like Pure, Fracture, Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, and Jericho, so that's my playlist until Bioshock 2. Which is just a few days away. Crap.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561238More studio closures/layoffs. This hasn't been a great week for industry jobs, I can tell you that much. I had thought previous Daily editors had covered all my bookmarked job loss stories but, sadly, this is not the case. Studio Deep Silver Vienna has closed, due to "the overall economic situation", although the 20 employees let go will receive pay through March. THQ has also cut some staff at studios Juice Games and Rainbow Studios, giving the two studios a new development direction that is targeted towards downloadable games. Best of luck to all the developers affected, and here's hoping that Trent does not have to continue this trend into tomorrow. iPad opinions round-up. It's been a week since the Big Reveal of Apple's iPad. Here are just a few takes on the new gadget from various industry sources around the 'net - Ngmoco's Neil Young is on Gamasutra saying "I think that Apple just found a way to get into the living rooms without having to build a dedicated game console." Epic Games VP Mark Rein is even more optimistic about the iPad, saying ""I really like the device and I think it's going to be great for gaming." Over at Nintendo, on the other hand, President Satoru Iwata remains largely unimpressed, saying "It was a bigger iPod touch." Then again, Nintendo by and large fails to be impressed by just about anything, so no real surprise there. Both Kotaku and Joystiq have also gone to numerous mobile developers for comment on the iPad. Finally, Gizmodo points out the that large amount of grumbling over the iPad is very similar to what was heard when the iPod was released in 2001. Something to think about.What are your thoughts on the iPad? Join the discussion in The Lounge. EB Games joins in fight for R18+ in Australia. No doubt eager for increased sales of adult titles in the Land Down Under (or just out of the blessed goodness of their souls - take your pick), retailer EB Games has started a petition it will use to lobby the government in support of the new 18+ ratings classification. You can sign either in-store at one of their 350 locations, or fill out the petition online. Conference registration: GDC early-bird over, PAX East sells out. This is your reminder to get over to the GDC website and register now if you want to take advantage of the early bird discount and save yourself a few hundred bucks. Also, PAX East has announced they've sold out... of 3-day badges. If you even want to be able to attend for a single day you best click on over to the registration page and snap up some single-day passes. Flame on! Wolfire revisits DirectX vs. OpenGL debate. The un-ending battle continues between the camps of DX and OGL - seriously there should be epic tales wrought from this stuff. Anyways, sharpen your weapons and head on over to the Wolfire blog to read the response to their original post that addresses some of the comments made by the D3D coalition. Or, if you're just a spectator, head on over to witness the carnage. Daily Remainders - more cool stories that didn't make the cut along with game dev articles/features. Holy crap, it's been 10 years since the Sims first came out, today, in 2000. This epic beast of a franchise continues to roll on strong, and EA Play label head Rod Humble is happy to say "the future of The Sims is going to be a lot of fun." Indeed, I have to buy the latest expansion pack and get back to my Sim persona. Happy birthday Sims! So, remember when I covered stories concerning Courtney Love's anger over the use of her deceased husband Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5? No? Here you go. So anyways turns out that now she's thinking Kurt would have kinda liked it. But she still hates it. Read this post in Chinesehttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561232Investors seeking to sort out the direction of the game industry over the next couple of years and developers looking to raise capital for their projects and studios should attend Game Path's Game Investment Conference East (GIC East) Wednesday, April 28 at the Hudson Hotel in New York. Top industry speakers will provide insight on the future of digital distribution, social games and the viability of new platforms. Analysts will also recommend funding strategies for the new decade.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561197Karvonite 4.0 Beta 1 has been released. Karvonite is a free persistence framework for the .NET Framework (including XNA) that lets you easily serialize/deserialize objects. http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/karvonitehttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561127Codemasters have been subject to rumours regarding their poor performance for a while now - and yesterday IGN reported that as a result their US office would be shut, causing layoffs. Today Codemasters have denied the rumour, but have confirmed that 6 people have been laid off in the US office. UK-based Kuju Entertainment (operators of Zoe Mode and doublesix) will shut down their Philippines-based studio within the first 3 months of 2010. The studio has been open for little over a year - shortly before Kuju announced staff layoffs back in January. As Promit mentioned yesterday Namco Bandai are laying off 10% of its workforce. Take-Two, owners of Rockstar and 2K Games, have today confirmed plans to restructure their operations but have denied the rumours of a 20% layoff, saying that "there were no reductions made at studio level". Some good news, at least, for an increasingly battered game industry jobs market. After that depressing news on the jobs front, Sony are claiming that the sales of the PS3 are set to overtake the XBox 360; the PS3 has sold 31m units and the XBox 360 has sold 39m. Sony are claiming that they're playing the 10-year game and in that time they "don't think [XBox] will be around in 10 years". Really, Sony? Oh, and Social-game developer Zynga are opening up an LA studio.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561118Public voting is underway for the Gamer's Choice Award in the Indie Game ChallengeSM sponsored by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME), and The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University. The Gamer's Choice Award is one of more than $350,000 in prizes available to the 12 finalist teams announced today in the Indie Game Challenge. Visit www.indiegamechallenge.com between now and midnight CT, Feb. 18, to learn more about the 12 finalists and to vote.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=561113As part of Oracle's acquisition of Sun, Project Darkstar, Sun's open-source MMORPG server technology, is being dropped. The entire project has been moved to github and will now live on as a community-updated project. Details are in this forum post.