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Tag: GDC 2012

  • Facebook Made Quite A Splash At GDC

    It would be absurd just a few years ago to think that Facebook would be a major player at GDC, let alone the games industry. It makes it all the more surprising that not only were they at GDC, but they were engaging game developers on multiple fronts to think about developing for Facebook in new ways.

    You may have missed all the announcements that Facebook made at GDC though. All the panels and talks that help developers use Facebook in new and exciting ways. If you were one of those people, Facebook has just recapped its GDC adventures on the developer blog.

    The first event had Matt Wyndowe, product manager for the Facebook games team, talk about Facebook gaming and how they are going to focus more on Open Graph and high quality games in 2012.

    The second talk focused on how developers can make their game successful on Facebook. It’s true that Zynga may strike fear into the small Facebook developer, but these tips should help to get you noticed. You never know, your game could take off like OMGPOP’s Draw Something, then get bought by Zynga for $200 million.

    The third talk spent time on how developers can leverage Open Graph to get the word out about your game. It’s all about using Timeline, scores and achievements to get results.

    So you’ve made a Facebook game and now you want to make some money for your hard work. The fourth talk went through the steps required to begin monetizing your games.

    The fifth panel was on how Facebook drives traffics to mobile apps. It should give developers insight on how to use Facebook effectively to draw up hype for their game.

    The final panel was by far the most interesting. Since Uncharted 2 incorporated Twitter into its campaign, it’s clear that social networking and console games would go hand-in-hand. The talk touched upon how social networking is helping to expand the appeal of games like Uncharted 3 and Kinect Sports 2.

    Facebook is here to stay as far as game development is concerned. It’s great to see the company embracing the industry not just through social games, but implementing their technology into console games as well.

  • Google Talks Porting Games To Chrome

    Google Talks Porting Games To Chrome

    Google had quite the presence at the Game Developers Conference last week from announcing Google Play to helping developers compress high quality textures. Today, the developers have uploaded one of their other talks that focused on porting titles to Chrome.

    It’s no secret that the Chrome Web browser has an app store. The cool thing, however, is that you can download console-quality games onto Chrome and play them in your Web browser. One of the first major games to do this was GDC award winner, Bastion. Other current gen games like Mini Ninjas and From Dust are hitting the Chrome platform as well.

    A question that a developer might have though is how they can port their existing game to the Chrome platform. Well, Google presented a talk at GDC on that very topic. The talk was called, “Get your port on,” and offers tips and tricks for developers who want to port their games to the Chrome native client.

    The video is a bit on the long side clocking in at 36 minutes, but it should provide developers the tools and know how to start getting their games on the world’s most popular Web browser.

    For those who want a bit more instruction on how to build games for Chrome, you can check out Google’s developer page for Web games.

  • Google Talks Texture Compression For Games At GDC

    Gamers might not really appreciate the texture work that goes into video games, but they will instantly notice texture pop-in or low resolution textures. This can be caused by bad texture compression, which can be a difficult task for developers. Google is here to help with this particular problem.

    Colt McAnlis from Google gave a GDC talk last week that spoke on the problem of texture compression and how to compress even more. This would allow games to use more memory for other features with textures taking up less memory.

    The talk, which lasts a little over 30 minutes, gives tips on how to compress textures up to 50 percent. This technology was used in id Software’s release of Rage last year. While some people complained about low res textures, it’s important to realize that Rage was streaming a lot of textures at once which kept the instance of texture pop-in at a lower rate than on other engines like Unreal Engine 3.

    You can check out the entire talk below. If you are a developer, you will want to pay attention. It’s pretty exciting to see Google talking at length about game development. It will also be interesting to see if this is indicative of Google getting serious into game development.

  • GDC 2012: Gears of War Creator Was Inspired By Zelda

    Every game creator is inspired by the games of their youth, which in turn leads them to make the next set of games that inspires the next generation of developers.

    Gamasutra is reporting that a panel today at GDC had four legendary game designers talk about the games that influenced them. The game designers in question were Will Wright, Sid Meier, Cliff Bleszinksi and John Romero.

    For a bit of background, here’s what each designer is most famous for. Will Wright was the co-founder of Maxis who created games such as Sim City and the Sims. The last game he was a part of before departing Maxis was Spore.

    Sid Meier is in the same boat as Will Wright as game designers that perhaps need no introduction as his name graces each game that he produces – Sid Meier’s Civilization. What you may not know is that he is also responsible for Alpha Centauri and Pirates.

    Cliff Bleszinski may be the most contemporary designer on the list, but he shot up in notoriety as the creator of the Gears of War franchise. Before that though, he worked on Epic’s Unreal Tournament series. Cliff Bleszinski will always hold a special place in my heart, however, as part of the team that worked on Jazz Jackrabbit.

    Finally, John Romero was a co-founder of id Software where the first-person shooter was born. He was involved in the creation of Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, but may be forever remembered as the creator of the ill-fated and absolutely trashy game Daikatana.

    Now that introductions are out of the way, let’s get to the games that inspired them to make their most famous games. Will Wright was up first and his inspiration was more of a tool set than a game. He said that Pinball Construction Set for the Apple II was his inspiration for Sim City. The graphical editor was especially of great importance as it paved the way for the simplistic editor tools that were in Sim City.

    Gears Of War Zelda

    Sid Meier said that if it wasn’t for the classic PC game Seven Cities of Gold, he might not have started making historical games like Civilization. The focus on history and real world events led him to realize that topics like this could enter video games and still take hold of the player’s imagination.

    Cliff Bleszinski may have shared the most entertaining story with how his love of Nintendo and The Legend of Zelda led to him being made of fun at school. It may have not inspired any game at the moment for the young game creator to be, but it did put him on the path to becoming a rockstar of the games industry. In his talk, he mentions this ad for Zelda that didn’t really sell the game for him. I wonder why?

    John Romero spoke on how color in video games was his first “wow” moment. He was so used to seeing black and white games and then saw Pac-Man, which was his first game in color.

    While some of these creators went on to make vastly different games from what inspired them, there still is something to be said of the experience that leads us to choose gaming as more than just a hobby.

    What game was your defining moment that led you to realize this was more than just a hobby? Do you have any particular awesome stories? Let us know in the comments.

    [Lead image courtesy of Gamasutra]

  • GDC 2012: Epic Games Shows Off New Unreal Engine 3

    GDC 2012: Epic Games Shows Off New Unreal Engine 3

    Epic Games, maker of the massively popular game development tool Unreal Engine 3, showed off a demo reel at GDC that features the changes being made to one of the industry’s most popular engines.

    First up, the video announces some interesting things in terms of platform support. It says that Unreal Engine 3 now supports Wii U, PlayStation Vita, Android and Flash on top of the other platforms it’s been seen on for a few years now.

    For those wondering about Wii U support, there’s a small clip in the video that shows Aliens: Colonial Marines running on Unreal Engine 3 presumably on the Wii U. I’m not convinced since the Wii U demo clip showed at last year’s E3 was made up of gameplay footage created on the PS3 or Xbox 360.

    PC gamers are going to love the improvements made to UE3 that take advantage of Direct X 11. The changes include hair that’s run through MSAA to provide realistic detail alongside the usual DX11 improvements – tessellation and displacement.

    The demo reel goes into the changes they’re bringing to mobile which is essentially the advanced lighting and shadows that console games have enjoyed for a few years now.

    It’s an impressive look at what is already an impressive engine. I may give UE3 a lot of flack for inspiring a kind of dull creativity in developers, but that’s not the fault of the engine. Looking at this video, it’s obvious that compelling (and colorful) experiences can be made with the engine. Heck, it even gives CryENGINE 3 a run for its money in this state.

    Check out the video and let us know what you think. Whether you’re a gamer, developer or both, there’s something here for you.

  • GDC 2012: Ubisoft Creates Engine Room, Blog For Developers By Developers

    GDC is a great place for developers to share insights and ideas with each other for one week a year. Ubisoft wants to create the GDC experience year round with a new blog directed at developers.

    The new blog is called Engine Room and it was created “as a result of the employees’ desire to spread their knowledge and expertise beyond Ubisoft.” This isn’t like the PlayStation blog where developers talk to gamers about their new products and what not. This is squarely targeted at developers who want to learn from other developers the tools of the trade. That doesn’t mean that regular gamers shouldn’t read it, quite the contrary, as any gamer who is interested in the technical side of making games will find something here.

    Engine Room is really cool in that Ubisoft is making it an “open platform.” What this means is that anybody, even non-Ubisoft employees, can comment or even publish a post if they’re signed up and follow the blog’s guidelines. The hope is that anybody involved in the game industry – programmers, artists and developers – will use this new platform to share ideas and collaborate on new innovations. For any interested developers who wants to submit a blog post, you only need to send them to engineroom@ubisoft.com.

    I wholeheartedly recommend that developers take advantage of this to learn more about the art of making games from their peers. Game creation is a collaborative process that needs more ideas like this to keep it fresh. I commend Ubisoft on taking a proactive approach in helping to cultivate the developer community.

    Ubisoft threw together a quick video that has their employees talking about technology and what it means to them. It’s pretty neat, so check it out.

  • GDC 2012: Mega Man Creator Talks Japanese Games Industry

    At GDC this week, we’ve already seen one indie developer tell a crowded room that Japanese games suck. One of the most famous Japanese developers agrees wholeheartedly.

    Mega Man creator and former Capcom global head of production Keiji Inafune talked at a panel titled “The Future of Japanese Games.” Develop is reporting that Inafune said that “Japanese studios have lost a desire to thrive, and that the country’s games industry is resting on past laurels to a point of self destruction.”

    He said that Japanese developers grew use to making hit after hit back in the 90s and that led to their complacency now to rest on their laurels and not push out new IPs or ideas. He said that Japanese developers need to acknowledge that they are now losing to Western developers.

    Unlike a certain indie developer who offered nothing but criticism, Inafune proposed a solution to the Japanese games industry.

    “There is something you must do to win. You must acknowledge your loss, and start over again. We are humans, and have our own pride, but we cannot win if we keep that pride up. We must believe ‘I will win’.”

    He drew inspiration from Apple pushing their brand into new territory. He said that Japanese developers need “develop our brands, and we must do so now. It will be too late when our brands have no equity left.”

    Inafune has been rightly critical of the Japanese games industry, but it’s sometimes hard to take him seriously when he collaborates with games that are part of the problem. He recently gave permission to use his likeness in Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2, a very Japanese RPG that does nothing to combat the notion that Japanese games are stuck in a rut.

    GDC 2012 Mega Man Japanese Games

    Inafune is currently working a new studio called Intercept and will be releasing his first game soon on the 3DS called KAIO – King of Pirates. Its story is based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Here’s the first trailer:

    Do you think the Japanese games industry is resting on its laurels? Does it need a shake up to become a developer power house again? Let us know in the comments.

  • GDC Gives Special Awards to Gaming Pioneers

    The 12th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA) awarded two Special Awards to living legends in the gaming industry at their ceremony last night. The Pioneer Award was handed out to Dave Thuerer, designer of classic games from the 80’s and founder of core concepts used in the modern era. Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith were the recipients of the Ambassador Award for their work on the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. EMA, which ruled that video games were protected as free speech under the first amendment.

    The Pioneer Award – Dave Theurer
    The Pioneer award was given to Dave Theurer, creator of the classic 80’s titles Missile Command, Tempest and I, Robot. Theurer is widely recognized as a groundbreaking designer that helped create modern game genres.


    Pioneer Award winner, Dave Theurer, began his career in 1980 with tthe release of Missile Command. The trackball based shooter was a milestone in early computer games and is still being emulated and recreated in game apps and web based retro games today.


    Theurer followed up in 1981, with the psychedelic, vector-based tube shooter release Tempest, which inspired a slew of other innovations in arcade video games and was an early title to use 3D perspective in gameplay.

    In 1983, Theurer designed the cult arcade title I, Robot. Though not commercially successful at the time, it is now legendary for being the first commercial video game with filled 3D polygon graphics and the first to feature camera control options.


    You don’t have to look far to see Thuerer’s influence on gaming. Above: I,Robot(1983), followed by Star Fox (1993), released 10 years later.

    The Ambassador Award – Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith
    Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith, the First Amendment lawyers in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, were recognized with the Ambassador Award for their support of game developers rights.

    Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith led the legal team which resulted in the Court ruling that content-based restrictions on games are unconstitutional. The ruling established First Amendment rights for those who create, develop, and publish video games.

    Here is the full award show courtesy of Gamespot:
    Skip to 41:25 to view the Ambassador Award.
    Skip to 53:40 to view the Pioneer Award.

  • GDC 2012: Heavy Rain Creator Makes Bicentennial Man Look Cheap

    Quantic Dream, creator of crime thriller and Jason simulator Heavy Rain, has made a name for themselves by creating life-like characters in games that push the boundaries of interactive entertainment.

    At GDC, Quantic Dream showed off a tech demo for its new technology that will power whatever their next game may be. The tech demo isn’t representative of any game that is in development, but I sure hope something more comes out of this.

    The tech demo in question is called Kara and it features an android becoming self-aware. I’ll let you watch the video for yourself, but be prepared for a wave of emotion to hit you in the face with the force of a truck.

    David Cage, director of Heavy Rain and head of Quantic Dream, explained the technology behind the tech demo at GDC. The PlayStation blog gathered a few choice quotes.

    After Heavy Rain, we wanted to push the envelope in terms of quality, starting with the visuals. We wanted to improve many things — things that were not possible with the Heavy Rain engine. So we had to develop a new engine from scratch.

    We also wanted to improve the quality of the acting. With Heavy Rain, we did what many games do — split performances, recording a voice on one side and a body animation on the other, putting everything together and crossing your fingers that you get a consistent performance. It worked okay for Heavy Rain, but you lose a lot of a performance by splitting into two and rebuilding it artificially.

    We wanted to do what Avatar did by having one full performance where we capture everything at the same time. And we wanted to demonstrate these new performance capture techniques and the new engine before going into production, so we developed a short showcase that would allow us to test these ideas and technologies. This is how “Kara” was created.

    “Kara” is not our next game. It’s not the character, it’s not the world, it’s not the story. …We do things in a very strange way here, things that have nothing to do with the games we make. But I think that’s a part of the DNA of the studio, and hopefully something that people like about us – they never know what they’re going to get!

    As an added bonus, OPM UK is reporting that the actress who played Kara, Valorie Curry, is also playing Charlotte in the upcoming Twilght Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2. If you want to see more of Curry without watching Twilight, she also stars in CSI: New York.

    All I gotta say is that I wish this was a full game. Heavy Rain was one of my favorite experiences from 2010 and Kara has already exceeded what Heavy Rain brought to the table in terms of life like acting in video games.

    What do you think? Is Kara a little too uncanny valley for you? Or are you stoked for whatever Quantic Dream is cooking up next? Let us know in the comments.

  • GDC 2012: Xbox Live Arcade Award Goes To Super T.I.M.E. Force

    One of the last awards given out last night at the IGF awards was the XBLA award. This award has Microsoft pick out one of the many indie games on display to be published on the Xbox 360 and other Microsoft platforms. It’s like American Idol, just far shorter and the winner doesn’t piss you off.

    The winner this year is Super T.I.M.E. Force, a game that’s pretty hard to describe. I’ll let the game’s entry on the IGF Web site explain it:

    THE YEAR: 198X

    LOCATION: OUTER-SPACE

    THE PROBLEM: EVERYTHING’S GONE TO SHIT

    THE MISSION: ERASE HISTORY’S DUMB MISTAKES

    THE GOAL: MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE FOR YOU AND ME

    THE TEAM: T.I.M.E (TEMPORAL INEVITABILITY MANIPULATION EXPERTS), AN ELITE SQUAD OF TIME-TRAVELING BADASSES

    QUALIFICATIONS: MAXIMUM BADASSERY

    ALSO: THEY HOLD PATENTS ON TIME TRAVEL GEAR THAT NO ONE HAS

    THE PLAN: JUMP THROUGH TIME AND KILL STUFF THAT NEVER SHOULD’VE HAPPENED

    FOR INSTANCE: COVERT ALIEN INVASIONS, NAZIS, BOY BANDS, ETC.

    THE CATCH: ALTERING PRE-EXISTING EVENTS IN SPACE-TIME COULD HAVE DIRE CONSEQUENCES

    THE CONSEQUENCES:
    – PISSING OFF GOD
    – TOTAL ANNIHILATION OF ALL MATTER OF EXISTENCE
    – ACCIDENTALLY DATING YOUR MOTHER

    PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS: UNCERTAIN

    THE RISK: WORTH IT

    WHEN DO THEY START: NOW!

    Besides the publishing deal from Microsoft, the game will receive funding if it’s needed to complete the game. It will also receive plenty of marketing from Microsoft on XBLA.

    Super T.I.M.E. Force is being developed by Capy Games. You may know them from the delightful Critter Crunch or this year’s IGF award winner Superbrothers Sword and Sworcery EP.

    Check out the trailer below to see what looks to be an amazing action title:

    Super T.I.M.E Force – First Peek from Capy! on Vimeo.

  • GDC 2012: Fez Takes Home Top Award At IGF

    While the main event of the Game Developers Conference is the Game Developers Choice Awards, the Independent Games Festival Awards are just as important. Indie games are the lifeblood of the industry and recognizing them for the work they accomplish in the gaming industry is super important.

    The IGF awards are always more unexpected than what we see at the regular GDC awards and this year was no different with a lot of winners coming out of left field. The most interesting this year is that no one game took home more than one award. This was really surprising and led to a great show.

    The winner in excellence in visual art went to Dear Esther from thechineseroom. The mod turned retail game turned heads earlier this year with its emphasis on story and exploration over traditional gameplay elements.

    The award for technical excellence went to Antichamber, a game that challenges us to think outside the norms of traditional game design.

    Excellence in design went to Spelunky, the XBLA remake of the classic freeware PC roguelike platformer.

    Excellence in audio went to Botanicula from Amanita Design, the developers behind the excellent Samorost point-and-click adventure game series.

    Best mobile game went to Beat Sneak Bandit, a game that showed quality can shine on mobile platforms like iOS.

    The nuovo award recognizes games that champion “abstract, shortform and unconventional game development.” The award went to Storyteller, which may have been the most unconventional game of the show.

    GDC 2012 Fez IGF

    The Seumas McNally Grand Prize, which is essentially indie game of the year, went to Fez from Polytron Digital. A teary eyed Phil Fish accepted the award last night with humility which was a far cry from Monday night when he told a Japanese developer that their games “just suck.”

    The IGF awards are always my favorite part of GDC. The amount of creativity and passion was on full display last night. We at WebProNews wish to congratulate all the winners and nominees. We can’t wait to see what you do next.

  • GDC 2012: Skyrim Takes Home Game Of The Year

    One of the highlights of the Game Developers Conference is the Game Developer Choice Awards. The awards show has a certain charm and humility to it that you don’t find at televised events like Spike TV’s Video Game Awards. Last night was no different as the industry came together to celebrate the best of the best that gaming had to offer in 2011.

    There was a lot of competition for game of the year in 2011 with great nominees that all deserved to win. The nominees were Batman: Arkham City, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Portal 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dark Souls. Only one game could win, however, and Skyrim took home the prize.

    Portal 2 cleaned up though by nabbing three awards: best game design, best narrative, best audio. The other nominees for best game design were Skyrim, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Batman: Arkham City and Dark Souls. Best narrative nominees went to The Witcher 2, Bastion, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and Saints Row: The Third. The nominees for best audio were Bastion, LittleBigPlanet 2, Skyrim and Dead Space 2.

    The best technology award went to Battlefield 3. The other nominees were L.A. Noire, Crysis 2, Skyrim and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception.

    The best debut award went to the studio that had the best first game. Supergiant Games won the award for Bastion. The other nominees were Team Bondi for L.A. Noire, Re-Logic for Terraria, BioWare Austin for Star Wars: The Old Republic and Eidos Montreal for Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

    Bastion also took home the award for best downloadable game. The other nominees were Stacking, From Dust, Outland and Frozen Synapse.

    The innovation award is always the most interesting as it recognizes the game that pushed the medium forward in new and interesting ways. The winner was Johann Sebastian Joust which you can view a trailer of below to get an idea of how this really abstract game works. The other nominees were Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, Portal 2, Bastion and L.A. Noire.

    Best visual arts goes hand in hand with best technology from time to time, but this year was different. The winner was Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. The nominees were Rayman Origins, Skyrim, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron and Battlefield 3.

    It was a great year for gaming and the awards reflected that. Even though I missed the hosting talent of Tim Schafer, Cliff Bleszinski did an admirable job.

    Do you agree with the winners? Or was the obvious choice snubbed? Let us know in the comments.

  • New iPad And GDC 2012 Collide In San Francisco

    New iPad And GDC 2012 Collide In San Francisco

    For the second year in a row, Apple has held their iPad reveal event in San Francisco across the street from the Game Developers Conference. As Apple becomes more invested in gaming on their devices, it was only a matter of time before the two events merged – if only on Twitter.

    Apple used their new iPad press event today to talk a little bit about gaming on the third generation iPad. Namco and Epic Games both showed off new experiences on the new iPad in the form of an Ace Combat-like game and Infinity Blade Dungeons respectively.

    Of course, Apple used this event to also take a stab at the gaming industry perhaps knowingly of GDC happening right across the street. The company said that iPad users used the iPad to play games more than they used game consoles or dedicated gaming handhelds.

    During the Epic Games presentation, Mike Capps said that the new iPad had more memory and a higher resolution than either the PS3 and Xbox 360. While I would love to point out there’s more to visual fidelity than just memory and resolution, let the developers at GDC speak for themselves about the new iPad and the Apple event in general.

    @crittercism
    Crittercism    so what’s the scoop, devs. are we more psyched about the ipad 3 announcement, craziness at gdc, or something else entirely? #ipad #gdc 8 minutes ago via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @ArturoVM
    Arturo Vergara    For me, GDC news > new iPad news (at least right now). I’m not even excited for the new iPad. #iPad3 #GDC #iPadHD 14 minutes ago via Tweetbot for iOS ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @heycheri
    Sherilynn Macale    Aaargh — why can’t I clone myself and be at the iPad event AND GDC?! Conflicting geeky interests. /Whine. 32 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @SamRosenthal
    Sam Rosenthal    Now to learn everything I can about the new iPad before my next session! #GDC 35 minutes ago via Tweetbot for iOS ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @jeffrubenstein
    Jeff Rubenstein    Been busy with GDC interviews, so just catching up on the ipad 3 stuff. What say you lot, yay or nay? 41 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @lvlstudio
    lvl*studio    we want an iPad 3. do you? discussions on the floor. #official_gdc #ipad3 54 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @jeremysprague
    Jeremy    After #ipad event, people getting free #playbook at #GDC look their grandma just told them “the man at the store said this was just as good” 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPad ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @whizkid72
    Andy James    @jeffcannata You’re in town for GDC. Do you think Apple should have done the iPad event at GDC instead of down the street? 1 hour ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @chikaladka
    Karina Kaplun    Today, it’s all about the iPad 3 and GDC…. Good vibes in San Francisco! 1 hour ago via LinkedIn ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @bruceyeah
    Bruce Collier    Apple is launching the iPad 3 directly opposite GDC. It’s a nerdpocalypse. 1 hour ago via Tweetbot for iOS ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @robhawkes
    Rob Hawkes    Have been busy at #GDC. What have I missed about the iPad event over the street? 1 hour ago via Tweetbot for iOS ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @JesseJoudrey
    Jesse Joudrey    Am I a bad person for sitting in a #gdc session and repeatedly glancing at the #apple live blog in my #iPad? 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @RedPill
    Marina Rossi    I love being in sf and don’t give a rat’s ass about new iPad (for now, at least). Too many things to do at #GDC! 2 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @srepps
    srepps    Lucky Namco–can’t buy better promotion than being featured in iPad launch. Especially during #GDC. 2 hours ago via Twitter for Windows Phone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @derek_ford
    Derek Ford    iPad 3 launch across the street from #GDC. Tough to concentrate! Geekheaven 3 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

  • GDC 2012: TheLoop Seeks To Make Social Media Truly Social

    As the Game Developers Conference expands to more non-traditional platforms and modes of gaming, there will be more announcements that would seem out of place only a few years ago. This is one of those announcements.

    Today at GDC, TheLoop announced the official launch of its social networking site. TheLoop is described as “a new social discovery and broadcast network.” The site is built on the core value of “seeking to partner with users instead of simply gaing from their creativity.”

    “TheLoop is different because of its social philosophy, which sees the users as partners in the network’s success whilst providing them with new forms of social expression,” says Adi Engel, Head of TheLoop launch team.

    TheLoop is an amalgamation of pretty much every other social networking site and provides all the features that one has come to expect out of these dime a dozen social networking projects. That being said, TheLoop does sound interesting if only for the emphasis on having its users shape the site.

    TheLoop Social Media

    It does leave the question of why they chose GDC to announce the launch of the site. The reason is that they are seeking app developers to create content for a growing Web site instead of developing content “into overly-saturated existing platforms.”

    You can check out the open beta now at their Web site. For convenience and a heavy dose of irony, you can also log in with your Facebook account. It will import your profile picture and some other information into your TheLoop account.

    Their YouTube page features six 30 second YouTube videos that do nothing to explain the site’s features. You’re better off just messing around with the Web site as is. Check it out and tell us what you think.

  • GDC 2012: Sim City 5 Announced, Developed By Maxis

    Before Maxis created the best selling PC franchise of all time in The Sims, their first claim to fame was Sim City. EA and Maxis used GDC this week to announce the next entry in the venerated franchise.

    The newest Sim City was announced at Game Changers, an event at GDC that featured talks from director Davis Guggenheim, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and charity: water CEO Scott Harrison. The focus was definitely on Sim City, however, and EA has big plants for the return of the city simulation series.

    EA is claiming that the new Sim City is going to be the best one yet and a “rebirth of the franchise.” It looks like most of the gameplay elements from previous games are still going to be there. There will be a few new additions that Sim City fans will either love or hate. The series will be introducing a consequence system based on player decisions. The choices that players make will determine the fate of the world, or just their city.

    On top of the new gameplay, the game will also be running on a new engine called GlassBox. This new engine will allow everything in the game to be a sim. This means that Sims within your city will have separate lives that are impacted by the choices you make such as losing their jobs or buy homes.

    “We’d like to thank the millions of fans who have helped make SimCity synonymous with the city-building genre. This is a franchise that means the world to us at Maxis and we’re happy to be bringing it back home where we are reimagining it for an entirely new generation of players,” said Lucy Bradshaw, Senior Vice President of EA’s Maxis Label. “Using our proprietary GlassBox Engine, SimCity for PC will equip players with the tools to play the most sophisticated simulation of its kind. We are dedicated to making sure the experience – no matter the platform – has the fun, flavor and playability that has been intrinsic to the franchise since its birth.”

    The game will launch exclusively on the PC sometime in 2013. Right now, gamers can preorder the game through EA’s Origin for some exclusive content. Hopefully EA and Valve can work out their problems so the game will see release on Steam as well.

    Check out the first trailer for the game now and tell us what you think:

  • Nintendo Licenses Autodesk Gameware For Wii U

    GDC has been crazy so far with developers saying it’s alright to piss off gamers to indie developers saying that Japanese games suck. Where’s the real news though? Where’s the mind blowing announcement that nobody saw coming? Oh, Nintendo just licensed Gameware for all Wii U developers? Close enough.

    Autodesk and Nintendo announced today at GDC that they have entered into an unheard of agreement that will see Nintendo offering Autodesk Gameware to any developer who wants to work on Wii U games. Why is this unheard of? This is a major console manufacturer and publisher ponying up the funds for game tools that should encourage game developers to work on their console. To be more direct, any developer who works on a Wii U game is going to get free support from Nintendo in the form of Gameware.

    What’s that? You’ve never heard of Gameware? You might not have heard of it, but you’ve surely played games that use it. The Gameware suite has been seen in games that use Unreal Engine 3 (Gears of War 3), CryENGINE 3 (Crysis 2), Havok’s Vision Engine and Unity.

    Back to the license agreement, any developer working on Wii U games will have access to three of the products in the Gameware suite from Nintendo – Scaleform, Kynapse and HumanIK. I know for a fact that many of you have at least seen the Scaleform logo on a few opening screens for games, but what do these middleware solutions actually do?

    Scaleform is a tool that lets developers create user interface environments using Flash. You know how awesome the HUD was in Batman: Arkham City? Yeah, that was built with Scaleform.

    Kynapse is perhaps the most important of the three as it provides a middleware solution to one of the most challenging concepts in game design – artificial intelligence. What Kynapse, Nintendo is providing third-party developers with the tools to create compelling enemies (and allies) that use the latest in artificial design technologies.

    The third middleware, HumanIK, is a character animation engine. It allows character models to interact seamlessly with the environment and other characters. You know how fluid Ezio moves in Assassin’s Creed II? That’s HumanIK at work.

    “Autodesk Gameware technology is used by the industry’s elite development teams and has been adopted across the industry. Through our relationships with key companies like Nintendo, we can put our solutions into the hands of more game developers,” said Marc Petit, Autodesk senior vice president, Media & Entertainment. “Adopting Autodesk Gameware helps streamline the production process, freeing more resources for innovation in new areas. This shift in development focus will help make the next-generation of titles more compelling than the last.”

    While this may not seem like the biggest news to a lot of gamers, just trust me on this one. This is a brave new step for Nintendo as it shows they’re getting serious about third party support. It seems they really want to buck this trend of their consoles only doing well for their own games while leaving third party developers out to flop in the cruel world of games retail.

    Nintendo will be showing off more of the Wii U console at E3 in June. You can be sure that we’ll have all the details then.

  • GDC 2012: Japanese Developer Openly Mocked During Panel

    The Game Developers Conference is a place where those who work in the games industry can collaborate and work towards a brighter future in the games industry. This usually infers that the event is pretty positive, but things got downright nasty Monday night.

    Develop is reporting that Phil Fish, an indie developer working on the constantly delayed platformer Fez, took part in a panel after the screening of Indie Game: The Movie last night at GDC. Fez was featured heavily in the film and he was there to talk about the movie and indie games in general. The report from Develop says that it started out as “an open and positive discussion about indie games.”

    It’s reported that a Japanese developer took the mic to say a few comments. He expressed happiness that Japanese games had inspired so many independent developers as evidenced by the film. He then asked the panelists what they thought about modern Japanese games. Fish immediately replied with, “Your games just suck.”

    What followed was a tirade of criticism regarding the design flaws of Japanese games. While I would have fled the room crying to only drown myself in a bottle of sake, the developer took the criticism like a boss. He then thanked the panel and sat down.

    Develop reports that many people in the audience were criticizing Fish for his harsh comments. Though some probably agreed with him as Japanese games are usually the first to be brought to task for stagnation in the industry.

    Developers have taken Fish to task on Twitter over his comments. Andrew Dice, one of the founders of Carpe Fulgur, a localization company that has proven there’s enormous value in indie Japanese games with Recettear, Chantelise and Fortune Summoners made his opinion on the matter known:

    Robert Boyd, one of the founders of Zeboyd Games, the indie studio behind throwback JRPGs Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World, also criticized Fish.

    Not everybody thought Fish was in the wrong, however, as many said the man was just expressing his opinion.

    Fish has spent the day on Twitter clarifying what he meant by his comment.

    This is probably going to be THE big scandal at GDC and people are probably not going to let it die. Fish is entitled to his opinion though as harsh as it might be. It will be interesting to see the fallout of this and any response from Japanese developers on the matter.

    What do you think? Is Fish right in that modern Japanese games just suck? Or are there shining examples of Japanese game development that you feel should be praised? Let us know in the comments.

    [Lead image: jeriaska/flickr.com]

  • PopCap Launches Solitaire Blitz On Facebook

    PopCap Games, one of the first developers to get casual gaming right and helped start the revolution that we see today in Facebook games, has just announced the next game that players are going to get stuck in.

    PopCap today announced the launch of Solitaire Blitz. PopCap is one of those developers that takes a simple idea an runs with and Solitaire Blitz is no different. The main goal in Solitaire Blitz is the same in regular Solitaire – clearing the deck. The catch that earns the game the word Blitz in its title is that players only have 60 seconds to clear their deck.

    If that sounds intimidating, there are ways to augment the experience that make the game easier. Players can collect treasure that is converted into silver which allows them to buy in-game powerups.

    “We’ve taken the world’s most well-known card game and created an exciting new social version using PopCap’s incredibly popular time-based Blitz mechanic made famous by Bejeweled Blitz and Zuma Blitz,” said Scott Willoughby, marketing manager for PopCap Games. “We’ve evolved a traditionally solitary pastime into a friendly, shared experience that’s fun for all ages.”

    Knowing PopCap, they probably have another hit on their hands. I don’t think any of their games have done poorly and they even have a solid reputation with the hardcore gaming community after the excellent Plants Vs. Zombies.

    The game is available now to play on Facebook.

  • Intel Unveils Graphics Performance Analyzers 2012

    At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) today in San Francisco, Intel released Intel GPA 2012, the latest suite of tools for game and media app developers to optimize performance. The new software is now available for smartphones, tablets, and ultrabook app developers, and will be able to support Android devices later this year.

    Intel Corporation today introduced Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel GPA) 2012, the latest version of a powerful tool suite to optimize performance of gaming, media and entertainment applications. Expanding upon Intel’s mobile momentum, Intel GPA 2012 will support mobile applications for ultrabook devices and Android based smartphones and tablets for the first time.

    Previously available only on PC platforms, Intel GPA helps developers improve the experience of game and media applications by accessing powerful tools to analyze and optimize performance on Intel Core and Intel Atom processor-based platforms. The tool suite enables developers to enhance application performance on smartphones, tablets, Ultrabooks and PCs. Developers can also optimize Web content for browsers that support hardware-accelerated rich media, including Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

    “Gaming is one of the largest consumer segments for smartphones, but nobody wants a game that drains a smartphone battery,” said Craig Hurst, Intel’s director of Visual Computing Product Management. “There are few choices for developers who want to optimize apps for power, so Intel GPA 2012 introduces power metrics, ensuring that a game not only has great performance, but also runs longer on Ultrabooks, Android tablets and smartphones.”

    The Intel GPA tool suite includes:

    Intel GPA System Analyzer – Analyzes game performance and identifies potential bottlenecks that slow down performance or affect graphics. This tool allows developers to perform optimization experiments to fine-tune performance without changing application code. New in Intel GPA 2012, Intel GPA System Analyzer now supports a standalone mode that enables real-time analysis of application performance on smartphones, tablets and Ultrabooks, including Android devices. Intel GPA System Analyzer can be used to analyze an application’s power usage and how it will affect battery life on mobile devices.

    Intel GPA Frame Analyzer – Offers application developers deep frame analysis of individual application elements such as shaders, textures and pixel history. Intel GPA Frame Analyzer shows the visual and performance impact of each individual element in real time without affecting the application source code.

    Intel GPA Platform Analyzer – Developers can visualize performance of application tasks and the effect on devices by viewing CPU metrics and graphics workloads. PC application developers can also see how their software would perform in a multi-core environment. Intel GPA Platform Analyzer has been rebuilt from the ground up for the release of Intel GPA 2012 to provide more system behavior information. Additionally, the tool is capable of handling large volumes of data to emulate application performance on an extended run.

    Intel GPA Media Analyzer – When used in conjunction with Intel Media SDK, Media Analyzer enables developers to see how effectively an application uses hardware-accelerated video encode and decode in real-time.

    Intel GPA 2012 is available as a free download at www.intel.com/software/gpa. Support for Android devices is expected to be publically released this year.

  • GDC 2012: Realm Of The Mad God Developer Talks Post Release Updates

    Spry Fox Games took a huge undertaking last year by releasing Realm of the Mad God. Not only was it an MMO which is already hard to manage and constantly develop, it was also a bullet hell shooter which requires constant balance updates. How did Spry Fox Games handle this enormous task? They didn’t listen to their players.

    Gamasutra is reporting that Spry Fox Games CEO David Edery delivered a post-mortem on their MMO shmup darling that pissed off players for the changes they made, even those if those changes made the game better.

    Edery references Star Wars Galaxies as the text book example of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy of game design, but he argues that there’s always the exception. in the case of Realm of the Mad God, their changes to the core game saw their player retention rate go from 12.7 percent to 37.6 percent.

    What changes were made to the game? The developer found that players, like myself when I play a shmup, never actually look directly at the boss. Players were firing in the boss’ general direction while avoiding the bullet hell that was heading their way. They even found that some players were just looking at the mini-map and firing at the boss instead of using the actual game screen.

    To fix this, they developed a system that would allow the team to make changes directly to the game. This allowed them to change the behavior of the enemies based on a variety of factors. They then made the players’ projectiles have a shorter range and slowed down the enemies’ projectile attacks. This forced players to get in close and pay attention to the game.

    In regular bullet hell shooters, these changes would break the game. While it may appeal to some players, most fans are advanced players. So why change what has already been established as the mode of play for a game like this?

    Experimentation is key, even in a post-release environment. While most developers and gamers would be shocked to see the amount of tweaking and redacting that happeend to Realm of the Mad God post launch, the developer sees it as a win for them. It allowed to see real player reaction to their changes and if it really did make the game worse, they would change it back.

    Using this method of quickly deploying changes to the game, they were able to design, test and deploy updates in under a month. While the changes and the awkward phase in between testing may have pissed off some players, it helped them gain more players than ever before.

    The moral of the story is that it’s alright to piss off your players if the end result is a better game. Using players to test changes made directly to the game without external testing might not sit well with some developers, but Spry Fox Games have proven that it is possible. MMO developers should especially take note to the lessons learned here.

  • GDC 2012: Magicka Developer Working On New Game

    Now that GDC 2012 is in its second day, we can expect to see the new game announcements begin to flow in. Today’s first announcement is going to make PC gamers very happy.

    Paradox Interactive, the PC game publisher who brought us the cult hit Magicka, have announced three games at GDC today. While details are scarce, the publisher has provided some early details and trailers to get the hype started.

    We must first start with what Arrowhead Game Studios has been up to first since they wowed our collective socks off last year with the amazing Magicka. Their new game is called The Showdown Effect, and it’s quite different from their previous effort. The project is a 2.5D multiplayer action game that has players participating in death-matches.

    The game will focus on the customization of everything from a player’s character to how creative you want the kills to be. Here’s the first trailer:

    The second game announced sounds to be the most interesting. In Dungeonland, three players will take on the roles of the rogue, the warrior and the mage as they make their way through a classic co-op dungeon crawler. There is a catch though? There will be a fourth player playing the role of the dungeon master who will make it his job to see the three heroes are dead before they reach the end.

    RED Frontier is the third game announced and like all good PC game announcements, this one is an RTS. RED Frontier looks to be a bit different though as it hopes to change how competitive RTS games are played by letting commanders respawn immediately after being killed. This on top of massive battles featuring combat droids, vehicles and orbital rocket strikes should provide a much needed shake up to the RTS genre.

    All three games are being shown off at GDC. If you’re at the show, you’re probably not reading this and already playing them. If you’re at home reading this, watch the trailers and hope they come out this year.