GameSetNetwork: Best Of The Mid-Week Madness
how did it get to be wednesday already? fortunately, we’re gamesetwatch-highlighting a bunch of natty features, interviews and transcribe-ups from colossal sister site gamasutra and elsewhere - headed by our ‘20 breakthrough developers’ feature, which we spent some time compiling and commenting upon, and is hopefully fun/educative.
Also hanging out in here - reports from the Edinburgh Interactive Festival (that’s Scotland!), the Sandbox Symposium preceding SIGGRAPH (that’s Los Angeles!), and neat features on casual games and the state of Sega - plus Richard Garriott discussing in-game languages on GCG and more besides.
Go go link zola:
Gamasutra Features
The Gamasutra 20: 2008’s Breakthrough Developers “In a special feature, the Gamasutra 20 for 2008’s Breakthrough Developers honors those special game creators our editors think are making big professional leaps this year, from 2D Boy to Media Molecule [LittleBigPlanet pictured!]”
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The State of the Casual Games Industry in 2008 “As the casual game biz gets more complex, and the mainstream game biz examines complexity - where to now? Notables from PopCap, PlayFirst and Reflexive explain the state of the downloadable PC casual game space.”
The Evolution Of Sega: A Conversation With Simon Jeffery “In an in-depth conversation, Gamasutra quizzes Sega’s U.S. CEO Simon Jeffery on developer acquisitions, developing for a global market, the future of Sonic - and that inevitable hardware question.”
Other News, Interviews, Highlights
SCEA’s Steinberg On ‘Future-Proofing’ A Ten-Year PS3 “SCEA marketing VP Scott Steinberg has been talking to Gamasutra about keeping Sony’s consoles relevant for ten-year life cycles — a steep directive, but possible? He explains how Sony is “future-proofing” the PS3 with a little help from Blu-ray and the PS2 as Trojan horse.”
Koster: ‘The Sandbox Is Exploding’ “Raph Koster points enthusiastically to all the ways that the “future” has shown itself to defy the futurists, and at SIGGRAPH’s Sandbox Symposium, he advises devs to take advantage of the thinning barrier between Web and real life –lest “that crazy Japanese genius” beat everyone else to the next Wii Fit.”
EIF: Deering Says Only 3 Of 10 Games Recoup Costs “At the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, former Sony Europe boss Chris Deering said current development costs mean only 3 out of 10 games recoup their expense, exacerbated by the decline he sees coming for software sales — even while worldwide console userbases are set to jump with the PS3 ultimately in the lead.”
GCG: Richard Garriott On In-Game Languages “Gamasutra sister site GameCareerGuide has debuted a piece on Richard Garriott’s thoughts on in-game languages, with the Ultima/Tabula Rasa creator setting out rules on familiar sounds (don’t go Klingon!), grammar, and ideas behind alternate languages in games.”
EIF: Codemasters’ Cousens On Why Britannia Rules “At the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, Codemasters managing director Rod Cousens defended the virtues of the UK development community in the face of high labor costs, a supposed talent scarcity and competitive subsidies from overseas, pointing to a creativity forged in the fires of early computing’s limitations.”
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