By Aleks Krotoski
Last week, a so-called "older" gamer posted to /. about his anticipated decline in gaming skills as his years continue to advance, and requested that the community suggest games that he should play if he were to never play again. While the resulting commentary belied the average (mental?) age of the /. contributor and the original post was a tad morbid, I had considered forwarding the intention on to this blog to see what our well-rounded and well-meaning readers might suggest to this 44-year-old guy who appears to think he's on the brink of incapacity.
However, I was listening to the ever-entertaining Digital Planet podcast from the BBC and this week's instalment raised the point that technology is driven by demand, which seemed a much more interesting frame for his request. Here in the West it seems our needs include escapism, high action and lots of rather unsettling bright flashes and loud noises on the games side, and on the general technology side, machinery which offers all of our needs in one handy packet (e.g., newfangled mobile phones) and software which brings us together (e.g., social networking websites and Web 2.0 apps).
But how will all of this change as we get older?
The example which the podcast's Japanese interviewee used was to describe how different generations in his country use handheld computers. In particular, older folks who "have trouble remembering their PINs" simply touch their Palms to a reader on ATMs, and the locally stored information provides access to their funds.
Arguably, this is exactly why the Wii is so attractive to non-traditional gamers - and why Nintendo had a presence at the AARP last month. Their philosophy appears to be to respond to the demands of people who've never picked up a (confusing) controller in their lives, not to people who have games hard-wired into their brains.
So if, for the sake of continuity, this move on the part of Nintendo and Sony (EyeToy, SingStar etc) is aimed at gratifying the demands of people who are getting older, what else will we see in the future which concedes to the degeneration of the human body as the world's largest demographic in history marches inevitably towards the geriatric ward?
Thursday, November 30, 2006
And what of the older gamer?
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
We are not mainstream, because we are not good enough.
What is the mass market, and what do they want? What actually qualifies as mainstream? Those phrases - "mass market" and "mainstream" - have been tossed about very flippantly by the videogames industry over the last few years, and in retrospect, there's been very little analysis of what those terms actually mean to this medium. Admittedly, my own contributions in this column are probably as much to blame as anyone else in this regard - which is partially why I'm so convinced that now, as Nintendo's Wii launches to a media reception so laden with the words "mass market" that it's astonishing any other words can fit in edgeways, is an absolutely vital moment for videogame creators and publishers alike to step back and consider the real meaning of that term.
Conventional wisdom says that videogames are not mass market, and that they would very much like to be mass market - because as the name suggests, that is a bigger market, and hence more lucrative. Conventional wisdom points to the inroads made by products like The Sims, Singstar, Eye Toy, Nintendogs and Brain Training in bringing gaming to older generations, to women and to "non-gamers", nods sagely and says "more of this, please."
Bowing to this wisdom, we - and the specialist media and videogames publishers and developers themselves are as guilty of this as the mainstream media - make the implicit assumption that all of those things which we have traditionally enjoyed in videogames aren't suitable for the mass market. We look at shoot 'em ups, racing games, action adventures and so on, and describe them as "hardcore"; the implicit subtext behind the coverage and marketing of most core, triple-A titles is that if you were one of the greasy mongrels who queued up for your console of choice on the night of launch, you'll love it to bits, but you probably shouldn't show it to your mum, your dad, your sister or your girlfriend, because they'll never understand.
This is a gross oversimplification, and one which needs to be shot down - because it is responsible for some of the most persistent and poorly conceived product decisions this industry makes. It feeds off the idea that what "mass market" consumers want to do is play the digital equivalent of Desperate Housewives (thus leading to regular moans about how we don't seem to make games that tap into the soap opera market and, god help us all, the Desperate Housewives tie-in game), engage in casual, non-narrative led gaming, and get drunk with their friends and treat the console as a glorified karaoke machine or some other form of party game. It leads to countless projects being funded which aim at creating "a game which appeals to women", normally in the form of some atrocious and borderline insulting shopping, clothes-wearing and gossiping simulation - or better (by which I mean worse) again, the occasional effort at creating games to appeal to some other segment of society, such as gay men.
The very existence of this kind of thinking - and the prominence it is given within the industry - is perfect evidence of how immature much of the "creative business" thinking in this sector actually is. In the headlong rush to abandon the "mass market unfriendly" narratives games currently offer - space marines shoot aliens, cars drive really fast and crash spectacularly, wizards and sword-wielding barbarians battle against dark gods - we have forgotten something blindingly obvious.
These narratives are already mass-market. In fact, they are among the most mass-market stories which the world has to offer.
The industry has become so used to dismissing its own products as hardcore or niche that it has actually thrown a whole nursery school of babies out with the bathwater. Games industry conventional wisdom says that a narrative where space marines shoot aliens can't possibly be mass market - but yet Aliens is one of the most iconic films of the last thirty years. Independence Day was one of the top-grossing films of its decade. Need I mention Star Wars? Our conventional wisdom dismisses wizards and barbarians and their fantasy trappings as being too hardcore to appeal beyond the existing gaming audience, but it's perfectly obvious that franchises like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings have become a core part of global culture, with a universal appeal which far exceeds that of almost any videogame.
The problem is not the themes of videogames. It's an altogether more bitter pill to swallow, but the problem is that with a few unique exceptions, videogames aren't using those themes in an effective, gripping or mature manner. All too often, games fall short because while they do everything required to satisfy certain segments of the core gaming audience, they miss out on key aspects which would vastly expand their appeal - and from the gamer's perspective, it can sometimes be hard to tell why a certain game achieves a level of mass market recognition, when another does not.
Take Halo, for example; a game which, by any standards, is an excellent first person shooter (in which, true to videogaming form, you play a space marine who battles aliens), but which is arguably no better - and in some respects is worse - than many other first person shooter titles on the market. However, Halo has achieved a degree of recognition in popular culture which extends far beyond the core gaming audience; it has been played by vast numbers of people who would normally never give a first person shooter a second glance, and has become so popular that despite the development problems afflicting the Halo movie, it seems likely to be made for the largest budget ever earmarked for a videogame franchise movie.
Why? Not because the moment to moment gameplay experience of Halo was brilliant - although that's clearly important - but because of elements which went far beyond that. Halo had an interesting, involving plot; it had great characters, good dialogue, absolutely fantastic, atmospheric locations, and a wonderful sense of dramatic timing. It had convincing voice acting and utterly fantastic music, with an iconic theme which was equal parts stirring and haunting. These elements elevated Halo beyond the level of most videogames - and certainly, you could argue that the storyline was no better than many Hollywood popcorn blockbusters, but then again, most videogames fail miserably even at reaching those levels. More importantly, it made Halo interesting and accessible to countless people who wouldn't give the majority of FPS games a second glance, and gave the game the momentum it needed to become a major cross-media franchise, not just 10 hours of mindless alien-shooting fun.
Halo is far from the only example of this - and it's worth noting that there are also some games and franchises whose appeal goes far beyond the existing gaming audience, but remains niche in its own right. Silent Hill is a good example; a game whose audience, in my own experience, is primarily female, and which has successfully tapped a whole new group of people but whose own commercial success, while perfectly respectable, is not enormous.
This is another core truth about the mass market which the industry has failed to realise. The "mass market" is a myth; the reality is a huge collection of individual niches, some larger than others, but none of them all-encompassing. There is certainly scope for videogames to expand into new niches, as the example of Silent Hill - and indeed of Nintendogs, or Brain Training - displays. However, more importantly, right now videogames are failing to effectively harness their existing niches. Weak narrative, poor direction and pacing, unsympathetic characters, excessively complex control systems, bad music, graphics glitches and a host of other sins which are often forgiven readily by the hardcore are preventing the bulk of this industry's product from having any impact with the vast majority of consumers - and even our military sci-fi or swords 'n sorcery fantasy titles are utterly overshadowed by Hollywood's most vacuous blockbusters.
The question currently being asked in the games industry is, "what new kinds of games can we create which appeal to the mass market?" This is the wrong question. The right question is, "what is it about our existing games that limits their appeal - and how can we change that?" That's a harder question to ask, because videogame creators - from designers right through to publishing bosses - like to believe that their existing products are absolutely fine for their markets, and that it's now time to conquer new markets. Until that attitude changes, videogames will never achieve the success within our culture that other mediums enjoy.
Rob Fahey
Gamesindustry.biz
Monday, November 27, 2006
Games Conference by Northern dev agencies unveiled
Codeworks GameHorizon and Game Republic, the support agencies for game developers in the North, are joining forces for a new developers' conference taking place in York on May 10th, 2007.
The Northern Games Conference is aimed at the entire UK games industry and seeks to explore the variety of opportunities in the games industry, from casual games to digital distribution, that are opening up to developers thanks to the introduction of new consoles.
GameHorizon is the collaborative network for the games industry in the North East of England and members include Newcastle-based Reflections and Eutechnyx, Venom Games of Gateshead and Atomic Planet, based in Middlesbrough.
Carri Cunliffe, manager of Codeworks, commented: “GameHorizon and Game Republic have been working in close collaboration for a long time now. Our organisations have the mutual goal of bringing the best skills and resources to Northern developers. The Northern Games Conference will mark the collaborative spirit and united front of northern game development.”
Game Republic, meanwhile, is the independent trade alliance designed to support game development in the Yorkshire and Humber region. Members include Sumo Digital, Team 17, Revolution, Rockstar Leeds and Kuju.
Charles Cecil, founder of developer Revolution and co-founder of Game Republic, added: “It’s a very exciting time for the games industry at the moment. Not only with the recent launch of the three new generation consoles but also with the opportunities offered in digital downloads and distribution, casual gaming and converging technologies. This is the ideal subject to launch the inaugural Northern games conference.”
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Second studio for Swordfish
via developmag
EA UK may be closing its NW studio, but Vivendi-owned Birmingham-based Swordfish could help those left in the region without a job as it opens a new office in Manchester, Develop magazine reveals.
The new studio has been devised to support the work done at Swordfish's Birmingham HQ and will be managed by Mike Delves, who reports to MD Trevor Williams.
Swordfish's teams are hard at work on a new project, a currently unannounced next-gen title. The team previously made Cold Winter, which Vivendi published before acquiring the company last year.
Spearheading a new recruitment drive for the studio, the office's opening will help the team add some 50 people to its ranks - a big step for the studio and its publisher owner, which is also hoping to bolster staff across all of its studios around the world.
"There is a wealth of talent around the M62 corridor in the north west of England," said MD Williams. "Our next generation projects require us to build on and expand our existing talent base, so we are looking for people with the right strengths, skills and talent."
The move is also another step in the rising power of UK-based publisher-owned studios following the acquisitions of Sports Interactive, Juice, Lionhead and Climax Racing (by Sega, THQ, Microsoft and BVG respectively) throughout 2006.
Games Edu, Develop Conference and Expo confirmed for July 2007
Brighton event due to take place July 24th - 26th
Brighton will once again play host to The Develop Conference and Expo, due to take place 24th - 26th July 2007, GamesIndustry.biz can reveal.
Following the success of last years' event we have confirmed the date for next years' conference, which once again promises to feature an impressive list of big name speakers and exhibitors.
It's expected that Tandem will release details of the sessions and speakers early next week, which last year included industry luminaries such as Sony's Phil Harrison, Epic's Mark Rein, Sports Interactive's Miles Jacobson and Lionhead's Peter Molyneux.
It's expected the Develop Conference and Expo will once again include sessions, keynotes and speakers from across the globe, with support from industry associations including the IGDA and TIGA.
UK Government must do more to support games - Braben
Via GI.biz
"It's actually getting worse for the way our companies operate"
Frontier Developments founder David Braben has warned that the UK Government is not doing enough to support the games industry - and that the situation is getting worse.
Speaking in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz to be publisher later today, Braben said, "There have been changes that have made being in Britain harder, in a sense. Of the people I knew back in the early 80s, how many of those are now in the States or Canada.
"The problem is we're operating on a world stage. We've got the Canadian Government making it very attractive for developers to relocate or open an office over there. It's not just Canada - Australia and the Far East as well."
According to Braben, the difficulties for British games companies are compounded by the rise of outsourcing and recent changes to tax law "where we're taxed a lot more unfavourably than we were before".
"We're not asking for special treatment like the film industry, but it almost feels like not only do not get special treatment, but actually it's getting worse for the ways our companies operate," he continued.
"Things like having to forward-forecast profits for next year for tax - I'd love to be able to do that, but we're in a very unpredictable business, and therefore it's extra difficult in our sector."
Braben said he believes there's a way to go before the games industry matures and is taken seriously. "To an extent, it's the games industry's fault," he observed.
"We've got a very, very difficult task. Making something that's interactive and yet compelling to everybody is a real Holy Grail... It takes a big change of mindset, and I think that's coming."
EU Investigates French Developer Tax Breaks
French news agency AFP is reporting that European Union (EU) regulators are to open an investigation into whether proposed tax breaks for the French video games industry are illegal, according to EU rules.
The proposal would see French companies benefiting from a tax credit worth up to 20 percent of the cost of producing a video game, providing that it was an adaptation of an existing work of European origin or that it passed a government test of quality, originality and contribution to the expression of “European cultural diversity and creativity”.
The European Commission will try to determine whether the proposed tax credits for the French developers and publishers distorts EU competition or, as the French government claims, promotes cultural projects. EU laws allow individual states to promote culture only as long as they do not harm competition and trade between member states.
"We must be sure that the measure will promote only genuine cultural projects and that it will not have the effect of an industrial policy instrument in favor of the video games sector," Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes is quoted as saying.
The French games industry enjoys a worldwide influence significantly larger than its modestly sized local market, including major publishers Ubisoft and Infogrames (the parent company of Atari). Individual developers have been less prominent in recent years though, after the demise of studios such as Adeline Software International (now No Cliché), Cryo, and Kalisto, as have games with an overtly French theme and artistic style.
In order to combat this decline, the French government initiated a set of measures in 2003 aimed at maintaining and developing its local games development community. Amongst other measures, this involved the formation of developer trade group Association des Producteurs d'Oeuvres Multimedia (APOM).
At this stage several educational and training initiatives were also proposed, along with the tax credit system currently under review. Such direct intervention from central government is unusual in the West, with only isolated U.S. states offering tax incentives for local developers.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Amazon UK sells out of Wiis in 10 minutes
Online retailer Amazon UK opened to preorders for the Nintendo Wii this morning, 21 November -- and sold out in just 10 minutes. When CNET.co.uk checked the site at 9.25am, preorders were not open. When we refreshed at 9.30am, the site was offering the Wii, with the Wii Sports games compilation, and Wiimote and Nunchuk controllers for £179.99, which is the recommended retail price.
By 9.40am, the site said, "We are currently unable to offer this item."
Amazon had stated it would only be offering preorders for the same number of consoles it had been allocated for launch day, 8 December -- meaning if you managed to snag a preorder, you should be guaranteed a Wii. Only one console was allowed per customer so that "as many of our customers as possible can enjoy a Wii console this Christmas," Amazon said in a press release.
For a surcharge on orders to the UK, the console will arrive on the launch date, Amazon said. Games and accessories will be sent separately from the console, and "most launch titles" should also be delivered by 8 December. The company echoes Nintendo's advice to customers by suggesting people "order early, because the Wii console will be in very short supply" -- prophetic indeed.
Nintendo has pledged, however, to have 4 million Wiis in the hands of gamers' across the world by the end of the year. The Wii launched in the US on Sunday.
GameSpot UK
EA, UCL Collaborate On Game Animation Research
The UK branch of Electronic Arts (EA) and graphics researchers at University College London (UCL) are working in collaboration to research visualisation techniques.
The partnership demonstrates how industry and academia can collaborate to develop computer games. Ian Shaw, CTO at EA, and Anthony Steed, a senior lecturer in computer graphics at UCL, have joined up to develop animation techniques that will dramatically improve the visual quality of computer games.
The partnership has also resulted in EA co-funding Simon Pilgrim, a student on UCL's Engineering Doctorate in Virtual Environments, Imaging and Visualisation (VEIV EngD) course, to work as a researcher in the company. Pilgrim is working within EA to research and apply a method known as 'progressive character skinning' to improve the quality of multi character animation in commercial computer games. Pilgrim's research focuses on the quality of animations in games. He aims to increase the number of animated characters that can be seen on screen at any one time, without impacting the speed.
As EA and UCL have had a working relationship for the past six years, both intend to continue to cement the relationship between the theoretical knowledge and practical application for developing computer game animation.
'So you want to be an indie games developer?'
19:30, Nov 20th by Michael French at developmag.com
A gang of indie developers have bandied together for a multi-blog-spanning project that offers advice to aspiring games makers.
Introversion (Uplink, Darwinia, Defcon) and Cliff Harris (Democracy) are just two of those that have taken part in the 'So you want to be an indie games developer?' project, put together by Dan Marshall, the creator of indie game Gibbage
The set of mini-essays takes its queues from a recent run of entries on blogs by UK games journalists (called 'So you want to be a games journalist?'), but rather than wax lyrical and/or preach, the indie devs are hellbent on offering realistic advice and guidance - and in total the pieces offer a unique barometer of what's going on in the indie games development scene.
While educator and previous Team 17 staffer Phil Carlisle points out on his entry that it's not a field to work in should you be out to make money, Introversion's entry says it's "one of the best times in the past few years" to be an indie developer.
The three-man team adds: "The industry is changing and the budding independent is, if not the only flavour of the month, certainly becoming one. Why is this? We have quite a few theories about this at Introversion. Partly we feel that there is a renewed interest, shall we say nostalgia, for those early days of game programming, when everything was unique and innovative."
More from each of the contributors can be found at the following links:
Gibbage.co.uk
Cliffski’s Mumblings
GameProducer.net
Lemmy and Binky
Reality Fakers
Zoombapup
Introversion
They Came From Hollywood
Bonebroke
Monday, November 20, 2006
Second Life hit by self-replicating game-object virus
In fine cyberpunk form the attacker apparently created an object in the form of a spinning gold ring that appeared above the ground. Loaded with a script it self-replicated when touched and, if I understand it correctly, chased players around. The social engineering was simple: all of a sudden parts of the SL world were populated with these tantalisingly shiny objects, who wouldn't want to take a closer look..
Half a million players experienced significant lag on hundreds of servers as a result of the object replicating. This apparently is what they look like.
Thankfully, as one Slashdot reader points out, they've already identified the suspected mastermind . If sighted please notify the appropriate authorities.
Updates on the situation can be found here. We can only hope the marketing department at Linden Labs aren't quite so e
Computer gaming is nothing to be ashamed of, says Charlie Brooker
via the Guardian Guide on Saturday November 11, 2006
"Confession: I worship pixels. Ever since I can remember, I've been fascinated by video games. When I was a child, we'd go swimming each week at a nearby leisure centre, and I looked forward to these visits not because I loved swimming (which involved far too much chlorinated water burning your nostrils out for my liking) but because the pool was overlooked by a small gallery area housing a couple of arcade machines
By today's standards they were absurdly primitive, of course: hulking great boxes farting out atonal beeps while monochrome blobs representing everything from a Wild West shoot-out to a full-scale alien invasion fl ickered across their goldfi sh-bowl screens.
Still, no matter how crude the audio visual representation, my imagination filled in the gaps. Computer games struck me as the most exciting things imaginable. Perhaps it stemmed from some megalomaniacal desire to stare at a TV set and control whatever action it depicted. Or perhaps I just liked blowing stuff up. Either way, I was hooked, and I've stayed hooked ever since.
Early aff airs with Battlezone and Pacman led to a pubescent fi xation with the ZX Spectrum, which in turn begat the Amiga, then on to the Megadrive, the SNES, the PC Engine, the Neo Geo, the 3DO, the Jaguar, the... you get the picture. The moment any new bit of gaming kit launches, my wallet fl aps open. When people ask me which console they should buy, I always answer: "All of them." Why the hell not? After all, speaking in my guise as a so-called TV critic, I can confi dently state that games are markedly better than television. They're more immersive. Consistently more spectacular and surprising. The storylines and scripts are almost always utter rubbish, but that's part of their charm.
Furthermore, as a medium, TV encourages you to switch off your brain and slowly coagulate on thesofa. Video games force you to stay alert. Furthermore, you control them. They start and stop when you like. There's no continuity announcer jabbering over the credits. Your intelligence is rarely insulted, but regularly challenged. There's more invention (and sheer joy) in a single level of any Super Mario platformer you care to mention than most TV series manage in their entire lifespan. PC shooter Half-Life 2 is a sci-fi action thriller; it's 10 times more exciting than the best episode of 24 (which I love). With increased connectivity, games are becoming less isolated, too. Many current titles offer seamless integration with an online world. Test Drive Unlimited, for instance, is an X box 360 driving game that simulates an entire Hawaiian island. It takes over halfan- hour to drive from one side to the other in real time; other players, zipping alongside you in traffic, can challenge you to an instant race just by fl ashing their headlights at you. It's a futuristic communal sandpit, and piddling about on its roads for an hour or so is far more social than slumping in an armchair watching Top Gear on your own.
Still, it's not always fun being a 35- year-old games addict. Sometimes I'll be banging on to some disinterested party about how great, say, Dead Rising is (and it IS great: a George Romero zombie movie realised in hilarious detail) - when I suddenly realise they're regarding me with genuine pity.
Apparently it's OK to be a sports buff , a movie buff , or a food buff ... but being a games buff still somehow offends society. People prepared to conduct tedious 15-hour analytical conversations about football or Kieslowski or the best place to find balsamic vinegar will have the audacity to call you a nerd for mentioning anything more obscure than Grand Theft Auto. Well, fuck your snobbery. Games are brilliant. Still, since I'm pre-programmed to buy almost every new release - I just have to - even I am sometimes embarrassed when approaching the counter. In a recent deeply pathetic incident, I found myself trying to pretend to a shop assistant that the copy of vomitously cute puppysimulator Nintendogs I was buying wasn't for me but for a fi ctional nine-year-old child. I could do without the recent spate of violent bling-'em-ups, too; embarrassing gangsta epics targeted at excitable adolescent boys (it's particularly frustrating when the gameplay itself is appealing; like trying to watch an entire OC box set because you admire the editing).
Overall though, video games, like ridicule, are nothing to be scared of. Anyone who isn't hopelessly addicted should be regarded with suspicion. Don't like pixels? Think games are shallow? Shut up and learn to love the joypad."
Mainstreaming Culture
Computer gaming is nothing to be ashamed of, says Charlie Brooker
via the Guardian Guide on Saturday November 11, 2006
"Confession: I worship pixels. Ever since I can remember, I've been fascinated by video games. When I was a child, we'd go swimming each week at a nearby leisure centre, and I looked forward to these visits not because I loved swimming (which involved far too much chlorinated water burning your nostrils out for my liking) but because the pool was overlooked by a small gallery area housing a couple of arcade machines
By today's standards they were absurdly primitive, of course: hulking great boxes farting out atonal beeps while monochrome blobs representing everything from a Wild West shoot-out to a full-scale alien invasion fl ickered across their goldfi sh-bowl screens.
Still, no matter how crude the audio visual representation, my imagination filled in the gaps. Computer games struck me as the most exciting things imaginable. Perhaps it stemmed from some megalomaniacal desire to stare at a TV set and control whatever action it depicted. Or perhaps I just liked blowing stuff up. Either way, I was hooked, and I've stayed hooked ever since.
Early aff airs with Battlezone and Pacman led to a pubescent fi xation with the ZX Spectrum, which in turn begat the Amiga, then on to the Megadrive, the SNES, the PC Engine, the Neo Geo, the 3DO, the Jaguar, the... you get the picture. The moment any new bit of gaming kit launches, my wallet fl aps open. When people ask me which console they should buy, I always answer: "All of them." Why the hell not? After all, speaking in my guise as a so-called TV critic, I can confi dently state that games are markedly better than television. They're more immersive. Consistently more spectacular and surprising. The storylines and scripts are almost always utter rubbish, but that's part of their charm.
Furthermore, as a medium, TV encourages you to switch off your brain and slowly coagulate on thesofa. Video games force you to stay alert. Furthermore, you control them. They start and stop when you like. There's no continuity announcer jabbering over the credits. Your intelligence is rarely insulted, but regularly challenged. There's more invention (and sheer joy) in a single level of any Super Mario platformer you care to mention than most TV series manage in their entire lifespan. PC shooter Half-Life 2 is a sci-fi action thriller; it's 10 times more exciting than the best episode of 24 (which I love). With increased connectivity, games are becoming less isolated, too. Many current titles offer seamless integration with an online world. Test Drive Unlimited, for instance, is an X box 360 driving game that simulates an entire Hawaiian island. It takes over halfan- hour to drive from one side to the other in real time; other players, zipping alongside you in traffic, can challenge you to an instant race just by fl ashing their headlights at you. It's a futuristic communal sandpit, and piddling about on its roads for an hour or so is far more social than slumping in an armchair watching Top Gear on your own.
Still, it's not always fun being a 35- year-old games addict. Sometimes I'll be banging on to some disinterested party about how great, say, Dead Rising is (and it IS great: a George Romero zombie movie realised in hilarious detail) - when I suddenly realise they're regarding me with genuine pity.
Apparently it's OK to be a sports buff , a movie buff , or a food buff ... but being a games buff still somehow offends society. People prepared to conduct tedious 15-hour analytical conversations about football or Kieslowski or the best place to find balsamic vinegar will have the audacity to call you a nerd for mentioning anything more obscure than Grand Theft Auto. Well, fuck your snobbery. Games are brilliant. Still, since I'm pre-programmed to buy almost every new release - I just have to - even I am sometimes embarrassed when approaching the counter. In a recent deeply pathetic incident, I found myself trying to pretend to a shop assistant that the copy of vomitously cute puppysimulator Nintendogs I was buying wasn't for me but for a fi ctional nine-year-old child. I could do without the recent spate of violent bling-'em-ups, too; embarrassing gangsta epics targeted at excitable adolescent boys (it's particularly frustrating when the gameplay itself is appealing; like trying to watch an entire OC box set because you admire the editing).
Overall though, video games, like ridicule, are nothing to be scared of. Anyone who isn't hopelessly addicted should be regarded with suspicion. Don't like pixels? Think games are shallow? Shut up and learn to love the joypad."
Mainstreaming Culture
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Square Enix looking at Uk Studios
Square Enix's European CEO John Yamamoto has praised European developers' multi-format skills and suggested that the company could follow Sega's lead in acquiring local teams.
Speaking in today's issue of Develop sister magazine MCV, Yamamoto discussed the company's recent successes in the UK and Europe, including the introduction of the latest Dragon Quest game which was released earlier this year - and was the first time a game in the series had been released in the territory.
But as Yamamoto told Develop itself back in March, the next step is to add to the portfolio of Eastern-developed games with a line-up of locally-made ones.
When asked if he was interested in establishing or investing in a studio in Europe, he said: "I am very interested in European development because there are a lot of very good independent studios so we have started having meetings with people right now, and we will keep going.
"Titles I’m looking at are for Europe and also the United States. We have had a few meetings and I think we still need to keep going on that. UK studios handle technology very well – most Japanese companies are making titles for one format, but UK studios have cross format technology and so I’m very interested in those technologies as well."
via Develop Flash
Thursday, November 16, 2006
The Euro Vision: Climax's Karl Jeffrey Bullish On UK
via Gamasutra and Jon Jordan
The Euro Vision: Climax's Karl Jeffrey Bullish On UK
It's something of an irony that as the sharp end of the games industry winds itself into a maelstrom of fourth quarter cut and thrust in terms of releases (although actually for most companies Christmas is accounted in their third quarter figures), the volume of real news seems to dry up.
Still, the sheer weight of numbers when it comes to autumn and winter games releases remains something to be in awe of. It's struck me particularly this year as this is the first year I've been trying to encompasses even one small part of this output as the DS editor of UK consumer website Pocket Gamer. Does it really make sense for there to be nine DS games released on the 24th of November, including four movie tie-ins: Superman Returns, Eragon, Happy Feet and Flushed Away? To put it in context, that's only one less game released on one Friday than in the whole of August and September.
One such is Climax's CEO Karl Jeffrey, who was still in ebullient mood following the sale of Climax's Racing Studio in Brighton to Buena Vista Games in October. At the time, I suggested it was a bizarre deal in terms of Climax losing its most highly regarded studio, while it seemed unlikely BVG would be interested in the sort of realistic racing simulators it developed.
Personally I'm still not sure about BVG's model - CFO Tom Staggs has apparently told Bloomberg the company is looking to invest $350 million annually on games during the next five to seven years - but the fact that Jeffrey didn't want to sell the studio suggests he got a very good price.
"We've had a lot of money in the bank before; although not this much money in the bank. But I'm happy to let it moulder there for a while," Jeffrey says, when asked about the temptation to start splashing around the new found wealth.
A secondary benefit of selling the studio, which accounted for around a third of Climax's workforce, is an overall reduction in headcount and hence Climax's monthly burnrate. "At times in the past, I've felt like an administrator. I'm happier than I've been for a long time following this deal," Jeffrey continues. "It's great. It feels like I'm running a games company again."
Learning From The Past
Indeed, Climax's new structure - one main studio based in Portsmouth, a smaller handheld studio in London, and a tiny team in LA - demonstrates how quickly the philosophy of running independent game studios has changed. Back in the early 2000s, UK developers, in particular, bulked up employing hundreds of staff, as they bought up studios to create multi-location organizations.
Argonaut Games, headquartered in London, had studios in Cambridge, Oxford and Sheffield. Despite being based in Manchester, Warthog had studios in Texas and Sweden, while Kaboom had three facilities in the Midlands and one in Bath. Between 2003 to 2005, all of these companies went bust, as the risk of developing games, especially original titles, went through the roof.
It's a lesson from history that increasingly cephalopodian US outfits such as Pandemic-BioWare and Foundation 9 (now a massive 725 staff spread across 11 studios), would do well to consider.
Death To Heavy Iron
Even Jeffrey wasn't so canny to avoid fallout from that heady atmosphere; something he now calls the 'Heavy Iron' model. At one point, Climax had a studio in Nottingham, which he admits lost millions of pounds in the attempt to develop a MMOG based on the Games Workshop license Warhammer.
Jeffrey also admits to getting carried away when it came to the company's expansion in the US, which at the time it was announced at the end of 2004, was tagged as 'a crucial part of reinforcing the company's global positioning'.
"It was a learning experience," he says. "Whenever I do something, I do it wholeheartedly," which in this case meant relocating himself to LA, and taking his eye off the core UK business.
It soon became clear, however, that the intense competition for staff in the LA region, as well as the required management overheads, made the situation unsustainable. "I tried to be in two places at once. It doesn't work," Jeffrey comments. Climax still maintains a small team in LA - ironically the 16,000 square foot office remains its largest - but the focus of the company is now firmly back in the UK.
Loving The UK
"I'm bullish. I think UK development is resurgent," Jeffrey states. "We use a lot of outsourcing in China and Eastern Europe, but the costs are going up. They're good for art assets but I don't think I'd trust them with a complete game."
Neither is he worried about the rise of publisher-owned studios. "It's just cyclical. I don't think everything will go in house," he says, pointing out that it will always be more efficient to use external developers for some projects. "If a game goes late, and the team is on your payroll, it's not as if you’re not going to pay them or sue them for late delivery."
So the future for Climax, which still relies on a work-for-hire model as its core business, is to invest in the tools, technology and development processes, which will make it a more efficient partner for the likes of current clients such as Take Two, Eidos, Microsoft, Konami and Midway.
It's also working to develop some original intellectual properties, such as The Fixer. "We've been working on it off and on but after Sudeki [the ill-fated Xbox RPG] we realized we blew our own trumpet too early, so it will probably be another year before people get to see it," he says. Other areas being considered include Xbox Live Arcade-style games and handhelds, especially the DS.
But Jeffery’s bottom line when it comes to running a successful business remains as straightforward as ever. "You have to find your niche and control your costs," he warns.
[Jon Jordan is a freelance games journalist and photographer, based out of a single site in Manchester, UK. He’s very niche and doesn't have any expansion plans.]
The Euro Vision: Climax's Karl Jeffrey Bullish On UK
via Gamasutra and Jon Jordan
The Euro Vision: Climax's Karl Jeffrey Bullish On UK
It's something of an irony that as the sharp end of the games industry winds itself into a maelstrom of fourth quarter cut and thrust in terms of releases (although actually for most companies Christmas is accounted in their third quarter figures), the volume of real news seems to dry up.
Still, the sheer weight of numbers when it comes to autumn and winter games releases remains something to be in awe of. It's struck me particularly this year as this is the first year I've been trying to encompasses even one small part of this output as the DS editor of UK consumer website Pocket Gamer. Does it really make sense for there to be nine DS games released on the 24th of November, including four movie tie-ins: Superman Returns, Eragon, Happy Feet and Flushed Away? To put it in context, that's only one less game released on one Friday than in the whole of August and September.
One such is Climax's CEO Karl Jeffrey, who was still in ebullient mood following the sale of Climax's Racing Studio in Brighton to Buena Vista Games in October. At the time, I suggested it was a bizarre deal in terms of Climax losing its most highly regarded studio, while it seemed unlikely BVG would be interested in the sort of realistic racing simulators it developed.
Personally I'm still not sure about BVG's model - CFO Tom Staggs has apparently told Bloomberg the company is looking to invest $350 million annually on games during the next five to seven years - but the fact that Jeffrey didn't want to sell the studio suggests he got a very good price.
"We've had a lot of money in the bank before; although not this much money in the bank. But I'm happy to let it moulder there for a while," Jeffrey says, when asked about the temptation to start splashing around the new found wealth.
A secondary benefit of selling the studio, which accounted for around a third of Climax's workforce, is an overall reduction in headcount and hence Climax's monthly burnrate. "At times in the past, I've felt like an administrator. I'm happier than I've been for a long time following this deal," Jeffrey continues. "It's great. It feels like I'm running a games company again."
Learning From The Past
Indeed, Climax's new structure - one main studio based in Portsmouth, a smaller handheld studio in London, and a tiny team in LA - demonstrates how quickly the philosophy of running independent game studios has changed. Back in the early 2000s, UK developers, in particular, bulked up employing hundreds of staff, as they bought up studios to create multi-location organizations.
Argonaut Games, headquartered in London, had studios in Cambridge, Oxford and Sheffield. Despite being based in Manchester, Warthog had studios in Texas and Sweden, while Kaboom had three facilities in the Midlands and one in Bath. Between 2003 to 2005, all of these companies went bust, as the risk of developing games, especially original titles, went through the roof.
It's a lesson from history that increasingly cephalopodian US outfits such as Pandemic-BioWare and Foundation 9 (now a massive 725 staff spread across 11 studios), would do well to consider.
Death To Heavy Iron
Even Jeffrey wasn't so canny to avoid fallout from that heady atmosphere; something he now calls the 'Heavy Iron' model. At one point, Climax had a studio in Nottingham, which he admits lost millions of pounds in the attempt to develop a MMOG based on the Games Workshop license Warhammer.
Jeffrey also admits to getting carried away when it came to the company's expansion in the US, which at the time it was announced at the end of 2004, was tagged as 'a crucial part of reinforcing the company's global positioning'.
"It was a learning experience," he says. "Whenever I do something, I do it wholeheartedly," which in this case meant relocating himself to LA, and taking his eye off the core UK business.
It soon became clear, however, that the intense competition for staff in the LA region, as well as the required management overheads, made the situation unsustainable. "I tried to be in two places at once. It doesn't work," Jeffrey comments. Climax still maintains a small team in LA - ironically the 16,000 square foot office remains its largest - but the focus of the company is now firmly back in the UK.
Loving The UK
"I'm bullish. I think UK development is resurgent," Jeffrey states. "We use a lot of outsourcing in China and Eastern Europe, but the costs are going up. They're good for art assets but I don't think I'd trust them with a complete game."
Neither is he worried about the rise of publisher-owned studios. "It's just cyclical. I don't think everything will go in house," he says, pointing out that it will always be more efficient to use external developers for some projects. "If a game goes late, and the team is on your payroll, it's not as if you’re not going to pay them or sue them for late delivery."
So the future for Climax, which still relies on a work-for-hire model as its core business, is to invest in the tools, technology and development processes, which will make it a more efficient partner for the likes of current clients such as Take Two, Eidos, Microsoft, Konami and Midway.
It's also working to develop some original intellectual properties, such as The Fixer. "We've been working on it off and on but after Sudeki [the ill-fated Xbox RPG] we realized we blew our own trumpet too early, so it will probably be another year before people get to see it," he says. Other areas being considered include Xbox Live Arcade-style games and handhelds, especially the DS.
But Jeffery’s bottom line when it comes to running a successful business remains as straightforward as ever. "You have to find your niche and control your costs," he warns.
[Jon Jordan is a freelance games journalist and photographer, based out of a single site in Manchester, UK. He’s very niche and doesn't have any expansion plans.]
