Develop - Issue 83 - May 2008

BRIGHT YOUNG THINGSEA’s new UK casual team targets games for kids

G A M E D E S I G N | C O D I N G | A R T | S O U N D | B U S I N E S S

MAY 2008 | #83 | £4 / e7 / $13

inside ip profile: runescape • dare to be digital • networking • tools news & more

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ALPHA05 – 09 > dev news from around the globeRealtime Worlds talks about investor interest while GarageGames pimpsInstantAction, plus all the big game development stories from across the globe

10 > develop onlineA round up of the best content from the past month on developmag.com

13 > eventsThe latest on this year’s Develop Awards, plus our event calendar

14 – 20 > opinion & analysisOwain Bennallack on how game content arguments won’t matter in years tocome, Rick Gibson looks at global games studios, our design expert looks at theevolution of design and law firm Sheridans offers advice on licensing music

22 > casualgaming.bizSPECIAL FOCUS: Introducing you to our new sister site and trade resource

24 – 25 > ip profile: runescapeCharting the story of a money-making UK hit that shies away from the spotlight

28 – 29 > stats & studio sales chartThe past month’s deals and details, plus an exclusive sales chart listed by studio

BETA32 > guiding lightCOVER STORY: We visit EA Bright Light to discuss its new kids game Zubo

38 > new horizonsGameHorizon members contribute to the latest Develop Roundtable

43 > this is not hardcoreCaspar Field examines at the rise of social and casual gaming

44 > truth of dareWe look at the rise of Abertay University’s Dare to be Digital competition

46 > the recruitment frontlineEA’s Matt Jeffery offers advice for studios and those looking to move job

BUILD64 > networking opportunitiesHow middleware firms are bridging the gaps in studios’ online knowledge

GOLD82 > byronicman & features listSimon Byron reckons PlayStation Network should be more user friendly

ContentsDEVELOP ISSUE 83 MAY 2008

69-80studios, tools, services and courses

32

05

64 22

38 14

MAY 2008 | 03

Develop Magazine. Saxon House, 6a St. Andrew Street.Hertford, Hertfordshire. SG14 1JAISSN: 1365-7240 Copyright 2008Printed by Pensord Press, NP12 2YA

Tel: 01992 535646 Fax: 01992 535648www.developmag.com

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EditorMichael [email protected]

Staff WriterEd [email protected]

Technology EditorJon [email protected]

DesignerDan [email protected]

Executive EditorOwain [email protected]

Advertising ManagerKatie [email protected]

Advertising ExecutiveJaspreet [email protected]

Production ManagerSuzanne [email protected]

PublisherStuart [email protected]

Managing EditorLisa [email protected]

Contributors John Broomhall, Tahir Basheer,Simon Byron, Caspar Field,Nick Gibson, Rick Gibson,David Jefferies, MatthewJeffery, Graham McKenna,Alex Potier, Mark Rein, DaveRobertson and The Alpenwolf

Enquiries, please email: [email protected]: 01580 883 848Charges cover 11 issues and 1st class postageor airmail dispatch for overseas subscribers.

Develop is published 11 times a year,reaching 8,000 readers throughout the UKand international market.

the international monthly forgames programmers, artists,musicians and producers

DEVELOPMAG.COM MAY 2008 | 05

‘Investors prefer independents’Publisher-free developers can get further up the value chain astide turns toward online games, says Realtime Worlds’ Dave Jones

Dave Jones, CEO ofScottish studioRealtime Worlds, has

said that investors’ attitudestowards the games space arequickly changing – and thatthey value developers overpublishers.

Speaking to Developafter the studio he

founded confirmed ahuge $50m series Bfunding round, thecreator of GTA said

that the increasingcloseness

betweendevelopers andtheir audience is

helping draw ininvestmentsupport.

“The onlinespace is really

starting to heat up –investors love that space,

and love the onlinesustainability of onlinegames,” said Jones (picturedabove). “And that’s good fordevelopers because it’s not justabout the publisher in terms ofinvestment. As a developer wecan get a lot closer to acustomer and actually do a fairbit of the servicing and hostingourselves.”

Realtime Worlds is currentlydeveloping its first MMO, acops and robbers game calledAll Points Bulletin (aka APB –see artwork, left) that hosts a

raft of customisation andcommunity features. As thesekind of titles create moreopen, direct dialogues withgamers, Jones said that it wasnecessary for developers tostart “thinking outside of thebox a little bit” and havemore diverse ideas ready forpotential investors to fundbecause “the traditionalmarket – especially for a

developer – is going to betough in terms of findinginvestment support”.

In fact, Jones added, what’sattracting investors is thatdevelopers can go solo andmake a game from cradle tograve, with their financialbacking, without a publisher.

Realtime has used some ofthe money from its investmentround to buy back the globaldistribution rights to APB frompublisher Korean publisherWebzen so it can handle thegame’s release itself. And theultimate plan is to build upthe studio so it canindependently decide the fateof its MMO, selectingpublishing partners whererelevant and building up itsinternal resource when itcomes to the customer serviceand hardware demands madeby connected titles.

“We’re not doingeverything ourselves off thebat. We’ve done some workwith Webzen and will havepartners going forward,especially with APB,” addedJones.

“But investors like the factthat we can actually getfurther and further up thevalue chain which, in terms ofretail stuff, is usuallyimpossible for a developer. SoI think the interest frominvestors is good news fordevelopers. We all have moreoptions available to us now.”www.realtimeworlds.com

WORLDVIEW GLOBAL NEWS > p08

ADVENTURES IN GAMES DEVELOPMENT: NEWS, VIEWS & MORE

“There’s no sign the East/Westcultural divide will beconquered soon…”

Rick Gibson goes global, p17

Call to Actionfor smallteams

News, p06

IP Profile:Jagex’s

RunescapeAnalysis, p24

Power List: Our exclusivestudio ranking

Chart, p28

“The traditionalmarket –

especially for adeveloper – isgoing to be

tough in termsof investment

support…”Dave Jones,

Realtime Worlds

by Michael French

MOBILE.DEVELOPMAG.COM06 | MAY 2008

ALPHA | NEWS

April seemed to be a particularly cruel month for

studios in North America. Independents Pseudo,

Castaway and Stormfront, plus Activision's

Underground Developments all confirmed that they

were set for closure.

Unfortunate times – you can probably pinpoint the

exact moment in the financial year when all these

teams found themselves at the brink, with publisher

projects cancelled or coming to an end, and no other

company prepared to sign a deal with them.

Like many journalists I can trot out the cliche that the

hardest times when you report on a commercial

industry is covering topics that involve jobs and

businesses being lost. However – and this may well

prove to be an unpopular comment – maybe this time

it was a wake up call for some independents that was

long overdue?

We all know of the industry’s new attitude towards

development talent. From EA to Gamecock,

championing the studio is in favour, and rightly so.

Such attitude changes will have been spurred by the

activities of a number of independents – the Valves,

Harmonixs, Epics and Bungies of the world – those

who haven't just settled for a traditional publishing

relationship, had good ideas and shown growth when

publishers have seen revenues remain flat. Other

studios, meanwhile, are left to their narrow-

mindedness. They, frankly, have spent too long getting

used to being told what to do by publishers.

This situation would go some way to explain why

when even the UK is faced with a studio closure, such

as the shuttering of Sega Racing Studio, it’s no surprise

to see Codemasters swoop in to save the team from

redundnacy, because its smaller team and proprietary

technology strategy was worth something more than a

work for hire outfit.

Two teams on the opposite ends of that geographical

spectrum, Scotland’s Realtime Worlds and Oregon’s

GarageGames, feature in our news section this month

and prove this. They show that the success stories of

this industry come from those who dare to be different

in some way, and not follow the crowd.

Editorial

Michael [email protected]

As one studio closes…

It might seem like justanother online portal, butGarageGames' new

browser-based game siteInstantAction is aiming toopen a whole new world ofopportunity for smaller gamedevelopers – and usher in abrand new gamedevelopment methodology.

GarageGames, best knownfor its range of indie-developer focused tools suchas the Torque engine,unveiled InstantAction as partof a multi-million dollarinvestment from US mediamogul Barry Diller’s IACoperation late last year.

The site aims to divorcebrowser-based games fromthe casual gaming stereotypeand target the core gamerdemographic, by marryinghigh-end technology with theplay-anywhere mentality ofbrowser gaming and thecomprehensive communityand back-end of somethinglike Steam or Xbox Live.

And this GarageGames sayswill offer huge potential forsmall teams to developinnovative, low-risk gamesthat can attract a largenumbers of active fans. Byonly requiring a browser and afree, easy-to-install plug-in,“you're leveraging basicallythe largest game digitaldistribution platform in theworld – PCs connected to theweb,” GarageGames CEOJosh Williams told us during avisit to London last month.

“So the potential numbersare orders of magnitudebigger than any console.”

InstantAction allows gamesof any technical backgroundto run within the browser,freeing developers from thelimitations of something likeFlash. “We’ve got gamesrunning on Torque, but alsoon Java, Python, and even acouple running on UnrealEngine,” addedGarageGames’ Andy Yang.

A number of the newstudios which GarageGamesis working with tend to consist

GarageGames’ Browser games don’t need to be developed with just casual players

“The potentialnumbers [of

consumers] areorders of

magnitudebigger than any

console…”Josh Williams,GarageGames

by Ed Fear


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of a handful of ex-industrypersonnel, dissatisfied withworking as a small cog in alarge machine.

“They're sick of it, theythink making games isn't funanymore – or at least not asmuch as it used to be,”explained Williams. “We'vegot a few teams like this thatcan still make really core stuff,things they dreamed aboutmaking when they were kids,but with smaller teams andless time.”

Although a managedplatform like XBLA, the firmsays small teams will be ableleverage the platform toproduce innovative, low-riskgames much quicker. Plus, thesite’s community featuresmean participating developerscan build a reputation byechoing how the biggestInternet phenomena havestarted small and steadilyexpanded based on consumerfeedback.

“Think about the biggestsuccesses on the web, likeYahoo or Google – they really

let their users tell them whatwas and what wasn't working,and shaped the product likethat,” said Andy Yang.

“Being online is just asmarter way to make games,”said Williams. “You can startout with something that'squite low-risk, a fairly smalltight experience, and launch itand find your audience.

“But then you can grow itwith your community, with yourplayers, which just lowers therisk all the way along. Plus,when you're actually selling thegame there's all sorts of waysof making money – you can befree-to-play and then sell addon content, or sell services orwhatever. You can be reallycreative in terms of businessmodels, which is a really coollittle creative challenge that Ithink developers will findinteresting.”

GarageGames is alsobanking on attractingdevelopers with a royalty rate‘significantly above’ traditionalpublishing and the chance tokeep their IP alongside the

ability to directly communicatewith their audience. InstantAction will be keepingextensive metrics and analysisof play habits, to show detailssuch as how many people playa certain level, the percentageof those that complete it andeven how many people arerecommending it to friendsbased on particular level.

While a casual portal mighthave seemed a tangentialventure for a lo-fi technologycompany like GarageGames,the company says its slogan –‘changing the way games aremade and played’ – remainsthe key goal. But bysimultaneously providing a newfrontier for online games andopening a new channel fordevelopers to focus on shorteryet technologically unrestrainedgames – all while still benefitingfrom the fairer online royaltyrates – before long the teammight have to change themission statement to the pasttense ‘we changed the waygames are made and played’.www.instantaction.com

call to Action in mind, says American independent as it touts new portal to studios

GamesGames’InstantActionbrowsertechnologycan run gamesof varyingcomplexity,says CEO JoshWilliams


The Times’remarkablylevel-headeddefence ofgames inspiresa treat: TheRichardHammondCrash Simulator

WorldViewOur regular round up of development stories from across the globe…

“Games arejourneys of theimagination, in thesame broad genreof escapism ascomic books, filmsand watching JamesMay reach 250mphin a Bugatti Veyronon Top Gear…”

MASSACHUSETTS, USARockstar Games has grown its stable ofstudios further with the acquisition of MadDoc Software.

The studio, which made Bully:Scholarship Edition, has a particular focuson AI and networking tech, and previouslylicensed its Mad3D Game Engine and MadAI middleware to other developers.

“Bringing them within the RockstarGames family will enhance our coretechnology and further support ourcommitment to creating progressivegaming experiences,” said Sam Houser,founder of Rockstar Games.www.rockstargames.com

NORTH AMERICAApril wasn’t a good month for North Americandevelopers, be they independent or publisher-owned, with four studios shutting their doors acrossthe US.

Stormfront, headed by industry conference circuitfaithful Don Daglow, had to let its 33 staff go afterhaving problems securing future projects and seeing‘no revenue’ from its most recent project.

Several days later Pseudo Interactive, developerof the Full Auto series, closed its Toronto basefollowing the cancellation of a project it was makingfor Eidos – heavily rumoured to be a newCarmageddon title that was caught in the crossfireof new SCi CEO Phil Rogers’ culling of 15 in-development titles.

That same day it was also reported that CastawayEntertainment, a studio founded in 2003 by ex-Blizzard staff, would also close. In its few years ofbusiness the studio had only released one title, theXbox Live Arcade advergame Yaris, due to a numberof its other titles being cancelled.

Finally, Activision closed Underground, one of itsinternal studios, towards the end of the month. Ithad been working on a PS3 port of Splash Damage’sEnemy Territory: Quake Wars, and was allegedlymaking an action entry into the Call of Duty series.www.developmag.com

CodemastersStudios VPGavin Cheshirelets slip thefirm’s secretplans for worlddomination. Allhail the NewBritish Empire...

“Taking over theSega Racing Studiocould take ourdevelopmentheadcount to over the 350 mark,creating a massive force inBritish gamedevelopment…”

Nintendolegend ShigeruMiyamotorealises mid-sentence that,actually, he’smeant to bepromoting WiiFit

“Spending too long,staying in andplaying any videogame is not good...I always tell mychildren to get outon a sunny day. ButI do my stretchingon Wii Fit. Theywork together…”

//comments

ALPHA | WORLDVIEW


GLOBALREPORTS

SCOTLAND: SCHOOL DAZELucky Scottish children will betaught the basics of videogame design, according to anew scheme – dubbed the‘Curriculum of Excellence’ –that’ll also teach children howto use software to createanimations.

“There is huge confidencethat Scotland will play animportant part in the future ofvideo games,” said schoolsminister Maureen Watt.www.scotland.gov.uk

UK: CODIES VICTORIOUSCodemasters has beennamed best UK developmentteam in sister magazine MCV’s2008 Industry ExcellenceAwards, beating outcompetition from Criterion,Rebellion, Bizarre Creationsand Sports Interactive. It wasnominated for its work onColin McRae DiRT and its newproprietary engine EGO.

The awards were voted forby senior figures of thepublishing and retailindustries.www.codemasters.com

US: CAPCOMPANIESCapcom’s US vice president,Christian Svensson, has saidthat it’s “sort of a given” thatCapcom will acquire aWestern studio in the nexttwo years. “We’re not goingto acquire anyone that wehaven’t done a game with. Chemistry is so critical,” he said.www.capcom.com

SWEDEN: PARADOXSwedish studio Paradox, thestudio behind strategy gamesHearts of Iron and EuropaUniversalis II, is to release itsEuropa engine for free viadownload portal GamersGate.

Independent developerswill be able to use the engineto make games that can besold via GamersGate with thesame financial deal given topublishers who use theservice.www.paradoxplaza.com

US: RETRO DEPARTURESThree key members of theMetroid Prime team have leftAustin, Texas-based RetroStudios, Shacknews reportedthis month.

Design director MarkPacini, art director ToddKeller, and principaltechnology engineer JackMathews were allegedlyescorted off the premises ofthe studio, which is entirelyowned by Nintendo. Rumoursthat the studio was to closehave, however, proven false.www.retrostudios.com

For global games development newsas it breaks head to

WWW.DEVELOPMAG.COM

SHANGHAI, CHINADisney Interactive Studios has bought itssixth studio, Chinese firm Gamestar.

Founded in 2002, the firm employs 90staff across studios in Shanghai andWuhan. The company was originallyfounded as an outsourcing firm but lastyear moved into full games development,targeting console game production.

“Gamestar will play an important role inour global growth plans, providing a highquality talent pool for our expandingproduct portfolio,” said Graham Hopper,executive vice president and generalmanager of Disney Interactive Studios.www.disneyinteractive.com

MUMBAI, INDIASCEE has kick-started a new strategy aimed atdriving the games industry in India, saying it will givefree development kits to projects that it deems tohave potential, including full technical support – andhas signed a deal for a game based on the HinduHanuman monkey god.

Sony recently held a DevStation event in India tohelp drive awareness of development practices, inwhich 50 developers from some 13 companiesattended to learn about formats including the PS2.

The format launched in India in 2003, and inindustry terms the territory has in recent years founditself the primary target for outsourcing. Now, SCEEsaid, it wants to help those firms go beyond servicework to full development and serve the local market.

“There is a lot of talent in India and their work canbe exported worldwide,” Zeno Colaco, SCEE’s vice-president of publisher and developer relations, toldIndian site Sify Business. www.scee.net

WORLDVIEW | ALPHA

UK & AUSTRALIAThe UK and Australian gamesdevelopment trade associations haveannounced they are working together to further push their respective tax break lobbying.

Greg Bondar, CEO of the GameDevelopers Association of Australia, andDr Richard Wilson, CEO of UK tradeassociation Tiga, announced the move,saying they would be “working moreclosely together to ensure that theirrespective governments gave their gamedeveloper members a ‘leg up’ by way oftax breaks.”www.tiga.org

10 | MAY 2008

ALPHA | DEVELOP ONLINE

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Codemasters swoops for Sega Racing Studio

We charted a curious time for UK developers inthe Midlands last month.

Things began in early April, when we brokethe news that Sega was planning to close itsRacing Studio, which it had opened in 2005.

Sources informed Develop of the matter,which was later publicly confirmed by Sega.

“The decision is part of a review of Sega’sWestern Development Studios to ensure thateach studio is a profitable entity in its own right,and unfortunately the Sega Racing Studio’s fveyear plan would not result in a successful returnfor the Sega business moving forward,” thecompany said in a statement.

“Sega would like to stress that there will beno changes within their other internaldevelopment studios.”

Sega Racing Studio had released just onegame in its lifecycle – a remake of Sega Rally –and was founded by former Colin McRaeproducer Guy Wilday, who moved to Sega fromCodemasters. And speaking of which – it wasCodemasters that then swooped in to buy thestudio, offering over 40 of the Racing Studiostaff new jobs as Codies employees.

“In seizing this opportunity, we have createdadditional resources to escalate our plans in theracing segment,” said Rod Cousens, CEO ofCodemasters.

“We have enjoyed the full co-operation of ourfriends at Sega in making this happen. It is goodbusiness for Codemasters, an exciting prospectand there will be more to come as we are notcontent to stand still.”

feature highlights

Q&A: Insomniac’s Mike ActonFollowing on from last month’snews piece looking at theRatchet & Clank studio’stechnology sharing initiative,we speak to engine director

Mike Acton in a two-part Q&A discussing third-generation PS3 games, how education islacking when it comes to teaching studentsabout game design, and why the studio thinksstudios need to start sharing technoloy.

Keeping up with Jones Another in-depth two-partQ&A with Realtime Worlds’Dave Jones. We discuss thecompany’s recently announced$50m investment and his plans

for the studios’ new MMO, All Points Bulletin,which boasts a raft of customisable contentand innovative music features including apartnership with last.fm.

Steam WorksWe also spoke to JasonHoltman, head of businessdevelopment at Valve and incharge of the firm’s digitaldistribution platform Steam.

We discuss the services journey from launch toits current status as the ubiquitous downloadplatform – and hear how he thinks the servicehas strengthened the PC games market.

Re: Sega Racing Studio closed

“It's always a shame when a studio closes down,but given the location and the specialism they'llhave no problem finding more work.

“Got to admit, though, that it looked to melike that studio would always live and die on itsfirst title, given how much money Sega ploughedinto it…”Posted by mangacarta, on April 8th

“A great oppourtunity missed, really, and ashame that such talent and money was clearly

wasted by an ill thought out venture. A packedracing genre needed a very special addition tocompete with Dirt/Burnout etc.”Posted by sonicfan, on April 8th

Re: Acton: 'The education system hasn't keptup with the real world'

“This is totally true for ‘computer games’courses, which should be ahead of the curve andpredict the near future trends in the gamesindustry and teach appropriately. However,

Computer Science is a much broader topic, notaimed at a very specific industry. The only placeslow-level programming is really relevant anymoreis games console tech programming andoperating systems and driver coding.

“Another solution is for the platform providers to provide a better software platformon top of their complicated architectures. Theirengineers understand the brain-bendinglycomplicated architecture: why make hundreds ofother developers around the world try tounderstand it too?”Posted by rikki, on April 22nd

Highlights of the past monthfrom www.developmag.com

comments

www.developmag.com/interviews

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Codemasters’ ColinMcRae (left) and SegaRacing Studio’s SegaRally (right) – so the

two are a perfect match

#1

Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux, BizarreCreations’ Sarah Chudley, MediaMolecule’s Alex Evans andrepresentatives from the likes ofEvolution, Rare, Jagex and NinjaTheory are just a handful of the latestnames confirmed to be taking part asspeakers at this year’s Developconference and expo.

The conference, which runs from July29th to 31st at the Hilton MetropoleHotel in Brighton, promises to examineand dissect a variety of trends andissues across its coding, game design,business, production, art and worldview tracks. Develop Mobile andeducation event Games:Edu take placeon the first day, with the full conferenceand expo taking place on July 30thand 31st.

Although individual keynotes foreach track in the main conference arestill to be revealed, a number of must-attend sessions are already bookedonto the schedule. These include:

■ New Gameplay Dimensions inRole-playing Games Speaker: PeterMolyneux (Lionhead)

■ Why we sold our studio – and whywe didn’t: A candid discussion aboutselling up or staying free (Businesstrack). A Develop-chaired paneldiscussion with Sarah Chudley (BizarreCreations), Paul Wedgwood (SplashDamage), Ian Baverstock (Kuju)

■ Sticking Atmospheric ScatteringWhere the Sun don’t Shine. Speaker:Damiano Iannetta, Rare

■ Creatives and How to get the Bestout of them. Speaker: Paul Barnett,Electronic Arts

■ Snakes!: Implementing Python InYour Game Engine. Speaker: DougWolff, Eutechnyx

For those wishing to attend thisyear’s conference, a number ofdifferent pass types are available, withearly bird discounts available until July1st. More information can be foundhere: www.developconference.com


EVENTS | ALPHA

Develop conference looks at latest trends…

NORDIC GAME CONFERENCEMay 14th and 15thMalmo, Swedenwww.nordicgame.com

DEVSTATION 08June 10th and 11thLondon, UKwww.devstation.scee.com

GAMEHORIZON CONFERENCEJune 18th and 19thNewcastle, UKwww.gamehorizon.net

PARIS GDCJune 23rd to 24thParis, Francewww.parisgdc.com

E3 SUMMIT 2008July 15th to 17thLos Angeles, USAwww.e3expo.com

DEVELOP CONFERENCEJuly 29th to 31stBrighton, UKwww.developconference.com

DEVELOP INDUSTRY EXCELLENCEAWARDSJuly 30thBrighton, UKwww.developmag.com/develop-awards

XNA GAMEFESTJuly 22nd and 23rdSeattle, USAwww.xnagamefest.com

CASUAL CONNECT AMERICAJuly 23rd to 25thSeattle, USAseattle.casualconnect.org

SIGGRAPH 2008August 11th to 15thLos Angeles, USAwww.siggraph.org

GCDC 2008August 18th to 20thLeipzig, Germanywww.gcdc.eu

GAMES CONVENTIONAugust 20th to 24thLeipzig, Germanywww.gc-germany.com

AUSTIN GDCSeptember 15th to 18thTexas, USAwww.gdconf.com

CHINA GDC 08September 24th to 26thBeijing, Chinawww.gdcchina.cn

MONTREAL GAMES SUMMITNovember 6th and 7thMontreal, Canadawww.sijm.ca/2008/

GAME CONNECTIONNovember 5th to 7thLyon, Francewww.game-connection.com

GDC 09March 23rd to 27th, 2009San Francisco, USAwww.gdconf.com

september 2008may 2008

july 2008

august 2008

june 2008

november 2008DEVSTATION 08

June 10th and 11thLondon, UKwww.devstation.scee.com

DevStation 08 is a two-dayconference dedicated to providinginformation on getting the mostout of PlayStation 3. Presentationsfocus around the coretechnologies and features of PS3and, for the first time, organiserSCEE is providing content for alldisciplines (design, production, art,audio and programming), withfocus on physics, SPU optimizationand audio tricks through to thelatest PlayStation Networkdevelopments.

DEVELOP DIARY YOUR COMPLETE GAMES DEVELOPMENTEVENT CALENDAR FOR THE MONTHS AHEAD…

february 2009

The clock is ticking forthose who want to lobbyfor a 2008 DevelopIndustry ExcellenceAward nomination, withthe deadline just daysaway on May 15th.

Taking place onWednesday, July 30th,the Develop Awards arethe only peer-votedprizes which reward thecreative and businesssuccesses of Europeangames developers.

17 prizes are up forgrabs this year, from Best New IP andBest Use of a Licence, through toVisual Arts, Audio Accomplishment,Business Development, TechnicalInnovation and the venerable GrandPrix prize.

To nominate your game, team orcompany – or someone else’s – for anaward, send a short written pitch [email protected] don’t forget to give the reasonsfor your suggestion.

Last year, over 500 industry execsattended the popular event, whichruns alongside the Developconference and expo in Brighton, UK.Big winners included Realtime Worlds,Sony, Havok, Sega and Zoe Mode.

To book your place at the 2008ceremony or find out about oursponsorship opportunities, [email protected] or call heron +44 (0)1462 456780.developmag.com/develop-awards

…And hurry! Award lobbying deadline nears

14 | MAY 2008

ALPHA | OPINION

by Owain Bennallack

Censorship from a 2020 perspective

VARIABLE DECLARATIONS

Owain Bennallack is executive editor of Develop. He edited the magazine from its launch until its February 2006 issue. He has also worked at MCV and Edge, and has providedconsultancy and evaluation services to several leading developers and publishers. He is also chairman of the Develop conference advisory board.

One day – probably not toomany years away – thecurrently infamous Byron

Review will seem as applicable togaming as ‘Here be dragons!’scrawled on the edges of ancientmaps, and the interactiveentertainment of the future will findour agonising over age ratingslaughable.

I’m not saying it’s been an entirelypointless exercise to reconsider ageratings. Society, via its electedpoliticians, needs to engage withdifficult subjects through reviews,trade bodies and quangos, ratherlike a vet studying haemorrhoids inhippos reaches first for the rubbergloves and a snorkel mask.

Who knows, post-Byron, people in positions of power might actuallygrasp that some games existbetween the twin negativestereotypes of passive brain drainerand DIY murder manual. I won’tsuggest any older MPs have actually tried playing a game (theywouldn’t stick their arm up anelephant, would they?), only thatthere seems to be a more measuredattitude emerging.

WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?But the idea that the Skinsgeneration will not play Grand TheftAuto because of a sticker is purefantasy (especially the semi-feral,improperly parented ones we’re intruth wringing our hands about).

This is the first generation inhistory where young males haveseen everything you can do to aperson being done to a person – atleast outside of the royal compoundsof particularly degraded ancientcivilisations. With the Web stilleffectively a frontier land, a NoUnder-15s Allowed notice on a boxseems about as realistic as the samemessage scrawled on a teenager’sbedroom door.

Putting more logos on a box or100 more games in front of a boardmight satisfy politicians and helpconscientious mums, but it won’taddress the only substantive currentproblem: that some parents make noeffort to engage with games on evena cursory level, and others aren’tparenting at all. (One could evenargue a logo absolves good parentsfrom the chore of ‘getting’ games.)

GAMES WITHOUT FRONTIERSYet this is all tittle-tattle compared tothe really hard – and moreinteresting – questions. Namely, howshould we police adults playinggames, as the games become morerealistic and freeform? And shouldwe police the games themselves, asMMOs have started doing?

Games are the first step in amedium we still barely understand,which is why worries about whetherthey affect the brain cannot beswept away by comparisons withmovies or music.

Games don’t get inside your head,your head gets inside a game. Agame doesn’t tell a story – you co-author an experience. And you can’tplay a game once and understand itsscope – I might choose to run overpedestrians, where you just drove a taxi.

Games like Elite and World ofWarcraft best reveal gaming’s almostdrug-like ability to create atemporary new reality. That’s whatmakes games amazing, anddangerous. ‘Evil game’ poster childGrand Theft Auto is much moreimportant for its free-roaminginnovations than its cartoon murders.That freedom is what makes gamesamazing, and dangerous. In Fableyou choose whether to be evil orgood – in a way Jean Paul Satre

would have approved of, throughyour actions rather than a menu,through murder or mercy. That’swhat makes games amazing, anddangerous.

That games were different didn’tmatter when we were jumping onmushrooms or jostling for PolePosition. But sooner or later you’regoing to be able to torture a photo-realistic adult, whether a designer

put it in or because of someemergent behaviour arising from thephysics, animation, and AI.

And what then?If I get a kick out of virtual torture

but pay my taxes and am nice to myneighbours, should I be allowed to?Society doesn’t have consistentanswers.

Objections relating to an actor’swelfare hardly matter when it’s acomputer program being degraded. The issue seems moreakin to laws about drugs andalcohol, where we judge personaldeprivation to be a price paid bysociety as a whole, as well as thoserecurring fears about the long-termeffect of ‘negative’ media on themind – and of the monsters wemight create.

Society has been grappling withLSD and nasty movies for 50 years; Moore’s Law will run far fasterthan any investigations into the more complicated issue of virtualreality.

For three decades we’ve beensafe enough behind crude gamegraphics to ignore such issues. Butthe curtain is falling. The mostintense games of today will look likeclumsy cave paintings by the mid-21st century. A future Dr. TanyaByron may reflect her predecessorgot off rather lightly.

“Putting morelogos on a boxmight satisfy

politicians, but notaddress that someparents make noeffort to engagewith games oneven a cursory

level…”

The way GTA treats freedom and playerexperience is what will make it valid inyears to come – not its cartoon violence

cre ateIn Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft used Autodesk® 3ds Max® software to create a hero character so real you can almost feel the coarseness of his tunic.

i n t eg r at e Using Autodesk® HumanIK® middle-ware, Ubisoft grounded the assassin in his 12th century boots and his run-time environment.

a n i m ateAutodesk® MotionBuilder™ software enabled the assassin to fl uidly jump from rooftops to cobblestone streets with ease.

Autodesk, MotionBuilder, HumanIK and 3ds Max are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. © 2007 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

HOW UBISOFT GAVE AN ASSASSIN HIS SOUL.

autodesk.co.uk/Games


OPINION | ALPHA

by Rick Gibson

Growing pains for global studios

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS

Ubisoft’s recent move to buyand rapidly expand aGameloft studio in India to

over 200 staff by 2009 is the latestexample of international expansioninto lower cost markets by boldcompanies unafraid to exploitglobalisation. UK companies likeEutechnyx, SCi/Eidos and Babel havealso adopted this strategy to maintaincompetitiveness. Ubisoft differs in thatit intends to move some of thesestudios beyond in-sourcing lowervalue development towards entiregame development. That critical stepup the value chain is starting to createvibrant games development marketsaround the world.

Ubisoft is the pioneer ofinternationalisation, beginning itsexpansion in the mid-90s and nowboasting studios in 18 territoriesworldwide, including Canada, EasternEurope, Morocco and two sites inChina. 80 per cent of its new hiresderive from Canada, Romania andChina, the largest site being inMontreal, where it plans a 3,000-strong studio within five years.

One of Ubisoft’s oldest but mostchallenging ventures is its 500-strongShanghai studio. Launched in 1996, itwas planned as an internal art andanimation resource. The companychose its location because of localgovernment support, such assubsidised office space, and lowsalaries. Shanghai was China’s newestbroadcast and interactive hub,benefitting from a healthy flow ofgraduates from good local universities.

Ubisoft adopted a dual approach tostaffing, bringing in Westernspecialists while recruiting graduates.A group of veterans acted as the newteam’s core and mentored rawrecruits. Critically, it also needed localmanagers to oversee day-to-dayoperations. It headed the studio withsenior Ubisoft staffers willing to spendseveral years in-country increasingcapacity, capability and quality toservice its internal clients. Early in itsinternational expansion, Ubisoft wascautious about quality levels butaggressive on timing, investing infairly high numbers of Westernexperts as a proportion of totalShanghai headcount with the goal ofgetting the studio up to speed rapidly.

Shanghai’s graduates were recruitedin volume by Ubisoft, whose studio

quickly came to be seen as the bestplace for aspiring Chinese developersto gain hands-on experience, betterthan relocating to Japan or Korea towork on quality titles. The studio cameto be known locally as ‘Ubisoft U’.

The problem with being thegraduate school for China’s gamesindustry was that the students wantedto graduate all too quickly. Thiscombined with the rapid growth ofthe indigenous Chinese developmentsector and booming demand forexperienced games developers led toa high rate of turnover of staff who leftfor better paid, more senior roles innew companies. The problem wasessentially cultural, a deep-rooted lackof company loyalty primarily driven bythe mentality of former state-ownedenterprise employees who prioritisedfast salary growth over commitment tothe company training them. The resultwas a continuous flow of ex-Ubisoft

producers, programmers, designers,marketing and sales people into localcompanies, whose rates asoutsourced studios can today exceedSan Francisco’s. It is now hard to findChinese games companies which arenot run by ex-Ubisoft staff.

Despite the high costs and staffturnover, there have been undoubtedbenefits for Ubisoft’s Shanghai studio.It offers cheaper development from alarge, experienced team producinghigh quality art and animation involume. It has developed successfulports of western-made games,including PS3/360 versions from theflagship Ghost Recon and SplinterCell series. Crucially, the studio is nowjudged to have enough experience tobe entrusted with developing its owngames. That’s a significant step for aglobal company with brands worthhundreds of millions of dollars.Ubisoft Shanghai is creating TomClancy’s EndWar, a well-previewedreal-time strategy game andpotentially a major new series.

Arguably, the biggest benefit forUbisoft has been that Shanghai hasacted as a training ground for how toexpand internationally. Ubisoft put thisexperience to work in multiplecountries, especially Montreal, whereit has invested in its own campus,which ties graduates into thecompany by subsidising training feesif hired students outlast theirprobationary periods. The ratio of

foreign experts to local staff has alsobeen reduced. In Montreal, 85 percent of the staff are local. Its expertiseand cultural proximity to majorwestern games markets has seenMontreal produce some of the bestselling games globally.

Ubisoft’s new Chengdu studio waslaunched earlier this year with the aimof growing more slowly by working on‘in-sourced’ projects in the short termbut working towards MMOproduction in the long run. Ubisoft’sbelief in its overseas studios istestament to its growing confidence inemerging development markets’ability to handle new IP development.

How pivotal is this decision, andare these new studios really a viableand far cheaper alternative to Westernstudios? As we’ve written in the past,outsourced art or porting companiescan get up and running fairly quicklybut it takes much longer to incubate aviable creative talent pool originatingglobal hit games. Ubisoft took overten years to build enough confidencethat Shanghai could create originaldesigns, but other non-Westernterritories may not mature as slowly.Globalisation is slow but inexorable,and emerging territories’ technicalabilities are improving. The real testfor China, India and others is whetherthey can overcome cultural barriers tocreate global hits, and there’s no signthat this East/West cultural divide willbe conquered soon.

“Ubisoft’s plan togo from in-sourcingto full productionwill create vibrant

developmentmarkets around the

world…”

Rick Gibson is a director at Games Investor Consulting, providing research, strategy consulting and corporate finance services to the to the games, media and finance industries www.gamesinvestor.com

Ubisoft knows all too well the perksand pitfalls of global expantion –although we don’t know how muchits Shanghai-developed Tom Clancy’sEndWar has been inspired by them

18 | MAY 2008

by The Alpenwolf

Tail-chasing is Not Design

DESIGN DOC

The Alpenwolf is a professional game designer who has been active in the industry for 17 years and designed games for some of the largest American and Japanese publishers. He has been known to visit Ironforge in the company of a large white wolf. [email protected]

Last week, I was seatedcomfortably overlooking theMediterranean, well supplied

with alcohol and having a look atGarageGames’s intriguingInstantAction technology.

While I was very impressed withthe services’ ability to run console-style 3D games in an Internetbrowser, I wasn’t quite as blownaway by the games themselves. Notthat they weren’t fun, it’s just that Iknew they were fun because I’dplayed them before. For all that itmakes a better dimensionaltransition than Ms Pac-Man, MarbleMadness in 3D is still MarbleMadness. And I was astonished tosee a game that appeared to be acompletely unexpected blend ofAsteroids with Intellivision AutoRacing, of all things. Good fun, butnot exactly new.

The curse of an encyclopedicknowledge of electronic gaminghistory is the ability to retroactivelyascertain a game’s conceptual pitch.“It’s like Grand Theft Auto, but set inTokyo!”, “It’s like Doom, but you canjump!”, “It’s like World of Warcraft,but with an amazing license!”

While these X-but-Y pitches areoften a perfectly reasonable way todescribe a game, and may evenserve as an accurate means ofestimating its eventual sales, theybear absolutely no relation to actualgame design. Indeed, one can make

a very serious argument that manygames produced today are not somuch designed as they take shapefrom an amorphous fog of mindlessimitation, minor alteration, and amyopic focus on the bottom line.

Consider the automotive industry,

for example. When an American carmaker produces a car and decides tosell it painted red in France, this isnot considered automotive design.Producing a right-hand drive modelfor the British market is also notconsidered design, nor is giving amodel a different name for theSpanish market. And yet, in thegame industry, that is about the

amount of so-called design thatmany so-called game designers arepresently doing. Think about howmany imitations of Grand Theft Autohave been produced, with all variousspins on the Mafia, the Yakuza, theTriads and whatever the organizedcrime gangs are called inMadagascar. The level of creativityexhibited is so low that no one haseven gotten around to producing‘Big Steal Chariot’, complete withdwarf hookers and magic elven hitmen… and yet even this relativelyradical facelift wouldn’t amount to agenuinely new game design, itwould be nothing more than acolorful paint job.

There are two ways to go aboutactually designing new games, theevolutionary approach and therevolutionary approach.

There isn’t a hard and fast linehere, as what at first appears to becompletely revolutionary oftenbetrays its evolutionary origins if onelooks hard enough with anexperienced eye, but for practicalpurposes the distinction is a usefulone. The evolutionary approachinvolves making distinctimprovements to existing modes ofgameplay, while the revolutionaryapproach involves creating newmodes of gameplay. Needless to say,it’s a lot harder to do the latter thanthe former, but the revolutionaryapproach offers more personal,

critical, and financial reward if you canmanage to pull it off.

Actual game design is hard. It’salways going to be a lot easier tothrow an X-but-Y pitch together thandesign something truly new anddifferent because doing so doesn’trequire any creative thinking. Not onlythat, but it’s always going to be a loteasier to convince the financialindividuals whose approval is requiredto sign off on an X-but-Y pitchbecause they wrongly perceive me-too products to be safer investments.While historically there has been areliable market for generic imitations,the appearance of the MMO andweb-based Flash games has drasticallyaltered the market dynamic. BecauseWorld of Warcraft and Diner Dash cannow easily add new content and beincrementally improved, there’s notmuch incentive for an online gamer tobother moving to an imitation whenthe updated original may well offermore interesting new gameplay.

There is no easy solution to thechallenge. The rising cost ofdevelopment will continue to putpressure on designers to chase tails,but history has shown that this isultimately a dead-end strategy forthe entire industry. In the end, it will fall on the best designers oftoday and tomorrow to come upwith new and better ways to play,and give everyone else some newtails to chase.

“Producing a right-hand drive car for

Britain is notconsidered design.

But in the gameindustry that is

about the amountof design so-called

designers aredoing…”

The best games aren’t those withevolutionary designs, but ones withmore revolutionary concepts, likeThe Sims


ALPHA | LEGAL

Get the rights before getting creative with musicDevelopers who play loose with copyright law risk the destruction of their game warns Tahir Basheer…

Music is at the forefront of gamesdevelopment as never before – and forall the right reasons, thanks to standout

titles like GTA, SingStar, and, Guitar Hero.The latter is expected – within only two yearsfrom initial release – to be the first franchise tobreak through the US$1 billion barrier, aheadof such familiar games franchises as FIFA,Madden, Grand Theft Auto and The Sims.

So it’s critical that developers understand fullythe legal issues of sourcing and acquiring allmusic rights – of knowing what rights arise incommissioned or recorded music, who ownsthem, and how these can be cleared to enablethe developer to exploit the game in all its forms,platforms and variations. The consequences ofnot doing so can be disastrous, if not criminal.

COPYRIGHT 101 Copyright law draws a clear distinctionbetween the copyright in the original musicalcomposition – what is generally termed the‘underlying work’ – and its subsequentrecording. The underlying work may containboth music and lyrics, and both elements areseparately protected by copyright.

The first owner of each of these copyrights is

their respective author(s), but you should notethat the lyrics and the music might have beenwritten by different people, or by more thanone person. In other words, a number ofpeople may have composed the song in itsrecorded form, which, if used in a game, willmean each of these individuals’ consents willbe required. A fresh copyright arises when thecomposition is subsequently recorded, thistime in the sound recording itself. Again,typically, the first owner of this copyright willnot be the composer(s) of the underlying workbut the party who makes the arrangements forthe recording to take place, usually a third-party record company.

You must obtain the consents of all theseparties, and not just for the inclusion of themusic in the game. The consents given shouldbe sufficiently wide to enable you to exploitthe game as extensively as possible.

WHEN COPYRIGHT GOES WRONG Not obtaining proper consent from copyrightowners can be an expensive mistake to make.Unauthorised use in a game of a compositionor a recording of a composition is aninfringement of copyright law. An aggrieved

copyright owner might initiate an action againstyou, which, if successful, can lead to a claim forsubstantial damages or a share of the game’sprofits. Worse, the rights’ holder may obtain aninjunction preventing exploitation of the gamealtogether, and the destruction or delivery upof all existing copies. The unauthorised use ofmusic in a title could even give rise to criminalproceedings against a game’s developer.

It is clearly sensible then for a gamesdeveloper or publisher to obtain (or at leastbegin the process of obtaining) all necessaryrights before substantial work is done on thegame and, in particular, before a piece ofmusic becomes essential to gameplay.

Be clear what rights are required, andwhether the music will need to be adapted foruse. Future proof the rights where possible,and think about ancillary rights, too.

These costs may seem prohibitive given all thecompeting demands on the budget of a top-flight modern game, but if your title is a hit andyou want to reuse the soundtrack in otherversions, it could be more cost effective to obtainthe rights now, than to try and bargain for themlater with a money-spinner on your hands.www.sheridans.co.uk

Tahir Basheeris a partner atthe leadingentertainmentlaw firm,Sheridans.

22 | MAY 2008

WhyIntent Media’s first games launch in eight years is here to serve one of the most criminally under-representedsectors in the modern industry. If you develop, sell, publish or host casual games, this is the site you’ll needto read, day-in, day-out…

HOMETo keep things ‘casual’, the site’shomepage handily presents all ofthe latest news, interviews andfeatures in the casual games marketin one place. You’ll also find thelatest jobs, opinion ‘blog’ pieces andmore to keep you abreast of thelatest happenings in the sector. Andfor those working in a specific areaof casual games, our news categorytabs – online, retail, PC, console,mobile and TV – will sort the mostrelevant recent news just for you.

ARE YOU A developer taskedwith making your studio’s newcasual games strategy a success?

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CasualGaming.biz has theanswers you need.

As the casual gaming industrycasts its net ever wider, pressattention – from the largestnational newspaper to the tiniestgames site – is still largelyignoring this burgeoning market.

There is no single outlet forcasual games developers,publishers, retailers, portals and

platform holders to discover thelatest news and significant trendsin the sector; and nowhere for thebusiness’s creative minds to sharetheir thoughts and opinion.

At CasualGaming.biz, our crackteam of experienced gamesindustry journalists are here toright that wrong. Not only do weoffer a wealth of the latest storiesaffecting the sector, but user-generated content participation is

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On this page, we explore someof the most important areas of asite we’re very proud to launch.

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ALPHA | CASUALGAMING.BIZ


JOBSAll of the latest jobs in development andpublishing, pooled from our vast databasevia MCV, Develop and CasualGaming.bizitself – giving even better value to thosewho want to advertise jobs on an IntentMedia games site.

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24 | MAY 2008

ALPHA | IP PROFILE: RUNESCAPE

GREATBRITISHGAMES

ESTIMATED USAGE AND SALES:120m accounts registered to date, including 8.5m active accounts/month (5m everyfortnight) and around 1m premium subscriptions (paying roughly £3.20/$5 a month)

TIMELINE:2001: RuneScape open beta launched in January, reaching 1m active players by the endof the year

2002: RuneScape subscription service launched

2003/4: RuneScape 2 launched as a more advanced alternative to the originalRuneScape which is renamed RuneScape Classic

2005: Paying subscribers reach 500,000

2006: Paying subscribers reach 850,000

2007: Paying subscribers exceed 1m, German version launched

2008: RuneScape reaches 120m total account registrations. Jagex launches casualgames portal FunOrb

RUNESCAPE The story of RuneScape’s inceptionappears highly anachronistic, one moreoften heard about the UK games

industry in the 1980s than in 2001. The original version of the game was

created by Andrew Gower (with the help of hisbrother and Jagex co-founder, Paul) whilst hewas an undergraduate at CambridgeUniversity. It was written in Java, usuallyconsidered unsuitable for hardcore gamesbecause of its performance constraints andinefficiency. The game was even launchedfrom and initially hosted at Andrew Gower’shouse, such were the budget constraints theoriginal team were operating under.

RuneScape is a massively multiplayer onlinerole-playing game set in the fantasy world ofGielinor. As is typical of MMO fare, playerscreate and nurture characters which are takenon quests and adventures and can opt toundertake these quests alone or in conjunctionwith other players or enter PvP zones. Soonafter launch, it soon became clear that the keyto RuneScape’s appeal is the community-based gameplay. In fact, it appears that asignificant proportion of many players’ gametime is spent socialising rather than questingand levelling.

Unlike the vast majority of MMORPGs,RuneScape is played in a Java-capable webbrowser and therefore playable on almost anycomputer with an internet connection. It wasdesigned from the outset to be a game withappeal in all demographic categories and its

RuneScapeNick Gibson looks at the making of a highly-commercial but under-exposed British super-hit…

NUMBER OF ITERATIONS:Two major versions (launched 2001, 2004)

OWNERSHIP HISTORY 2001: Earliest public version of RuneScapelaunched. Jagex founded at the end of theyear by Andrew Gower, Paul Gower andConstant Tedder to take over the operationof the game which had experiencedexplosive growth

2005: Jagex secures unknown quantity ofinvestment from VC firm InsightVenture Partners

2007: Jagex co-founder and CEO ConstantTedder leaves the company and isreplaced by former PayPal EuropeCEO, Geoff Iddison


IP PROFILE: RUNESCAPE | ALPHA

low technological barrier to entry is deliberate.Because of this low common denominator, thegame is simplistic-looking. The RuneScapeweb site, the central hub from which all newgames are launched, looks equally low-tech,despite the vastness of its user base andrevenue currently being created. The originalgame was rendered in a highly simplistic formof 3D viewed from an isometric perspective. Ahigher quality 3D renderer was launched aspart of RuneScape 2, an overhaul of the gameengine launched in 2003 which also addressednumerous security issues deriving from thesimpler original version. The gameplay andgame engine has been maintained since thenalthough it still looks fairly simplistic comparedto most hardcore RPGs and MMOs.

Like all MMOs, RuneScape is more of aservice than a product. The retention andexpansion of RuneScape’s paying user base isheavily dependent on Jagex’s ability tomaintain the game’s ongoing appeal.RuneScape’s content needs to be updated ona regular basis to keep the experience fresh forlonger-term players and the game world needsto be carefully monitored to prevent cheating,hacking and any other activities that imbalancethe gameplay. This necessitates a sizeabledevelopment team permanently at workmaintaining and evolving the game as well asa large, dedicated customer support resourcehandling players’ technical, gameplay andbilling enquiries. The need to provideadequate support for MMOs and to keep thegameplay evenly balanced is both exactingand extremely complex. The failure to do sohas proven the undoing of numerous otherMMOs in the past.

In between the end of 2007 and the start of2008, Jagex implemented some majorchanges to RuneScape’s gameplay primarilyaimed at curtailing the trade in RuneScape(virtual) assets outside of the game world. Thechanges resulted in 60,000 infringing accountsbeing closed by Jagex and a wave of usercriticism, although growth is understood tohave resumed since.

COMPANY INCEPTION AND GROWTHJagex was incorporated in late 2001 byAndrew and Paul Gower and Constant Tedderafter it had become apparent that theRuneScape project, begun at CambridgeUniversity, had accumulated a million (non-paying) registrants in less than 12 months andcould no longer be operated out of the Gowerhouse as an amateur concern.

With hosting costs mounting as well as thegrowing need for constant maintenance andimprovement of the RuneScape game world,Jagex began to seek ways of monetising thevast, rapidly growing traffic the game wasgenerating. Advertising was an obvious andeasily implemented first step. This wasfollowed by the more important developmentof an optional premium subscription version ofRuneScape that for between £2.50-£4 permonth (depending on payment method andsubscription duration) gave players access toexclusive game areas, features, contentupdates and support. The free play versionwas retained and remains a crucial draw fornew players to whom subscriptions can laterbe up-sold. Critically, RuneScape’s subscriptionprice was, and continues to be, a fraction ofthat charged by most other MMORPG providersand, partly as a result, RuneScape remainssecond only to World of Warcraft in terms ofpremium subscriber numbers in the West.

With some 150 servers located in eightcountries servicing around a million payingsubscribers, and some 7.5m non-paying activeplayers per month, Jagex has become a majorplayer in the Western online games market (amarket that remains, due to cultural reasons,largely segregated from the even larger Asianonline games market). Some 55 per cent of itsuser base is said to be based in North Americawith the majority of the rest in the UK andother parts of Europe. Although Jagex hasRuneScape servers in Holland, Sweden andFinland, the game remains almost entirelyEnglish-language based. However, Jagexlaunched a localised German language versionof RuneScape in 2007 and is working on aFrench language version.

Part of Jagex’s success can be attributed toa carefully controlled affiliate marketingscheme which sees RuneScape promoted on alimited number of high-traffic third party sites.The most important of these has been UK-based miniclip.com, one of the largest casualgames portals and community sites on theinternet (receiving in excess of 30m uniquevisitors per month and featuring a high degreeof demographic cross-over with RuneScape).

In 2005, Jagex announced that it had sold35 per cent of the company to Insight VenturePartners, a US Venture Capital firm, for anundisclosed sum. The purpose of theinvestment was stated as being to allow thecompany to ensure its “explosive” level ofgrowth was properly supported and help takethe company into more international markets.Since then, the company has expandedrapidly, growing its headcount to around 380.RuneScape’s average revenue per payingsubscriber, at $5 to $6 per month, suggests

annualised sales of some $60m to $66m. In itslast available accounts (2006) Jagex reported apre-tax profit margin of some 61 per cent(£10.2m) making it one of the most profitableindependent games companies in the UK.

As an online games business, Jagex’sbusiness model is very dissimilar to traditionalcomputer and video games developers. Itsprincipal business partners are not gamespublishers but hosting and bandwidthcompanies, payment service providers,advertisers and distribution companies. Jagexoperates with the sort of creative andcommercial autonomy that most otherdevelopers could only dream of. It remainsone of the quietest and least publiciseddevelopers in the UK (a stance takendeliberately by its management team). In

addition to being one of the most profitable,Jagex is also the UK’s largest independentdeveloper by staff level, and one of thebiggest employers. Its commercial modelshould make it a poster boy for thedisintermediation of publishers and the ‘directto consumer’ distribution channel in which somany developers place their hopes.

ANALYSISAt a time when the concept of ‘bedroom’ hitgames development was thought to have longsince passed into history, RuneScape arrived toshatter this misconception and turn Jagex, itscreators, into the largest indigenousindependent games developer in the UK. Ofcourse, much of Jagex’s financial success canbe attributed to the fact that most onlinegames such as RuneScape tend to bepublished by the companies that developedthem and thus, unlike traditional gamesdevelopers who derive a percentage of a thirdparty’s net percentage of sale proceeds, Jagexbooks 100 per cent of the sale proceeds itself.As a result, RuneScape should be counted asone of the most valuable IPs to have originatedfrom the UK whilst having its sales, profits andownership retained by a UK company.

RuneScape’s mass-market appeal lies in itssimplicity and accessibility (both financial andtechnical). It has tapped into the vast market ofgames players unwilling or unable to spendpremium prices on PCs capable of playing thelatest, expensive, processor-intensive games.Its core gameplay concepts are very similar toits retail-distributed RPG and MMORPGanalogues. The (re-)popularisation of fantasymilieus by The Lord of the Rings films hasundoubtedly helped games such as RuneScapeand World of Warcraft by making such universesacceptable to teen and even pre-teen players.These age groups are responsible for a globalexplosion in the popularity of avatar-basedonline community games and services in whichcommunication and social interaction are key.RuneScape has been able to tap into this trendby appealing, in particular, to 13 to 18 year-olds(who comprise at least 60 per cent ofRuneScape’s users).

CONCLUSIONSn The game maximises its addressable market

by being web browser based and thuscapable of being run on most computers

n The free-play mode, relatively low (andentirely optional) premium subscription priceand multitude of payment mechanisms isattractive to younger and less affluent players

n Strong community features encourage broadand open socialisation between players

n The game exhibited a strong growthmomentum that, to a degree, is self-sustainingas the addition of more players increases thesocialisation opportunities and enhances someaspects of the gameplay

n Strong role-playing gameplay features (e.g.character building, virtual asset accumulation)encourages loyalty and reduces churn

n The affiliate deal with miniclip.com allowedRuneScape to tap into one of the largestcasual games communities on the internet

“Its last availableaccounts suggest

Runescape has helpedmake Jagex one of the

most profitableindependent games

companies in the UK…”

Games Investor Consulting is a specialist games industry consultancy founded in 2003 toprovide independent games research and corporate finance consulting to the gamesindustry and financial community. Headed by Rick Gibson and Nick Gibson, GIC is one ofthe industry’s most trusted sources for market intelligence, has generated a number ofindustry-standard reports, and has consulted on games strategy and research for numerousgames and media companies as well as trade and governmental bodies.

© Disney

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28 | MAY 2008

ALPHA | CHART

THEDEALS

BLUE OCEAN GAMINGCroatian casual games studioOcean Media has become anapproved DS developer inresponse to continuingenquiries from potentialpartners regarding DSdevelopment. It plans to portits advanced Xtrema Physics2D technology to the formatand ‘prototype severalinnovative games’.www.oceanmedia.hr

GAMEBRYO’S SADNESSNibris has revealed that itsmonochrome Wii horrorgame, Sadness, is beingdeveloped with Emergent’sGamebryo engine.

“We will have quite a fewgraphical effects in our gamewhich some believe areimpossible to attain on theWii. Gamebryo helped make itpossible. We are firmlyconvinced we made the rightchoice,” said project managerTomasz Wisniowski.www.nibris.net

AMBX-RATED DARESamBX has signed up as asponsor for this year’s Dare tobe Digital competition, withstudent teams provided withamBX development kitsshould they wish to implement the ambienttechnology in their games.Philips will also provide amBXequipment for the DareProtoPlay events, so that thegames can be experienced intheir intended state.www.ambx.com

DC LOOKING FOR EPICSComic house DC Comics hassigned a deal to make a comic book based on Epic’sGears of War series for itsWildStorm imprint.

“Epic sets the bar very high,in graphics, story, andgameplay – and expect no lessfrom our series, starting withour lead-in arc that fills in thegaps between the first gameand the upcoming sequel,”said Hank Kanalz, VP generalmanager at WildStorm.www.dccomics.com

TIMEGATE TEACHES ABCTimeGate Studios has forcedABC to rename its upcomingTV show Section 8, becauseit’s been developing a gameof the same name since 2005.The studio filed a dispute inMarch, but now ABC hassettled and announced that itwill not be using the name.TimeGate’s Section 8 isplanned for release this year.www.timegate.com

DEVELOPER CHARTMAY 2008

56LAST

MONTH

FIFA 08BEST SELLING GAME:

PS2, PS3, PSP, XB360, WII, PC

England may be out of Euro 2008 (or so Develop’sco-workers lament), but our national team’s lack oftalent is EA’s gain as hours of televised football giveway to hours of fantasy knockabouts. Which sounds a lot like a footballer’s typical extra-curricularactivities, now we come to think of it.

EA CANADA

18LAST

MONTH

TOM CLANCY’S RAINBOW SIX:VEGAS 2

BEST SELLING GAME:

XB360/PS3

Possibly the most convoluted number-based gametitle since the camp classic Final Fantasy X-2,Ubisoft Montreal’s latest exploitation of the TomClancy name seems to have gone down well withthe public, helping the studio jump seven positions.

UBISOFT (MONTREAL)

22LAST

MONTH

MARIO & SONICAT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

BEST SELLING GAME:

WII, DS

A new DS version of Mario & Sonic has helped thegame maintain Sega’s choke-hold over our charts,beating Nintendo for the first time in ages (orpossibly ever). Also this month: Hell now “quitechilly,” apparently.

SEGA

31LAST

MONTH

DR KAWASHIMA’S BRAIN TRAININGBEST SELLING GAME:

DS

Another month, another paragraph about BrainTraining. The only light at the end of our never-ending tunnel is that next month, hopefully, Wii Fitwill be Nintendo’s most popular title, and we canmake some tasteless jokes about fat people.

NINTENDO

4120LAST

MONTH

ARMY OF TWOBEST SELLING GAME:

XB360, PS3

EA MONTREAL

When John Riccitiello tries to sleep at night,pondering whether or not he’s done the right thing,last Christmas’ smash hit skate. and Army of Twoshould go to prove that his focus on new IP is onethat the general public seems to approve of.

MAY 2008 | 29

CHART | ALPHA

Ed [email protected]

ChartTrackcharttrack.co.uk

ELSPAelspa.com

CHART DATA EXCLUSIVELY SUPPLIED BY

ChartComment

OUR MONTHLY RANKING OF THE WORLD’SSTUDIOS BASED ON UK GAMES SALES

INFINITY WARD

Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

XB360,PS3, PC

5LASTMONTH

7 KONAMI

Pro Evolution Soccer 2008

PS2, PS3,XB360, DS,PC, Wii13LAST

MONTH

8 MAXIS

The Sims 2: Freetime

PC

9LASTMONTH

9 POLYPHONY DIGITAL

Gran Turismo 5: Prologue

PS3

-LASTMONTH

10 ROCKSTAR NEW ENGLAND

Bully: Scholarship Edition

XB360, Wii

-LASTMONTH

11 KAOS STUDIOS

Frontlines: Fuel Of War

XB360, PC

-LASTMONTH

12 CAPCOM

Devil May Cry 4

XB360/PS3

3LASTMONTH

13 MISTWALKER / FEELPLUS

Lost Odyssey

XB360

-LASTMONTH

14 MIDWAY

Game Party

Wii

22LASTMONTH

15 CRITERION GAMES

Burnout Paradise

XB360/PS3

4LASTMONTH

16 NEVERSOFT

Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock

XB360/PS3/Wii

27LASTMONTH

17 SONIC TEAM

Sonic And The Secret Rings

Wii

16LASTMONTH

18 COOKING MAMA LIMITED

Cooking Mama 2

DS

44LASTMONTH

19 EA BLACK BOX

Need For Speed: Prostreet

XB360/PS3/PS2/PSP/PC/Wii11LAST

MONTH

20 TRAVELLER’S TALES

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga

XB360/PS3/Wii/DS

10LASTMONTH

While Nintendo may have reigned for almost all of 2007, theirtop spot on our chart has finally fallen to another studio –Ubisoft Montreal which, buoyed by the success of Tom Clancy’sRainbow Six: Vegas 2, has shot seven places up the chart.

Nintendo instead drops to third place, with Brain Training stillit’s most popular title on the shelves, pipped to second placeby Sega, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games getting asecond lease of life now that the DS version has been tardilyreleased.

The irony that Sega has beaten Nintendo with a game basedon Nintendo’s IP and released solely on Nintendo’s platformsdoesn’t need to be pointed out – although come to think of it,that’s exactly what I’ve just done.

But the real trend this month is new entries, with four studiosjoining the chart for the first time in a while. Polyphony leadsthe pack in ninth place riding on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue’scoat-tails, and Bully: Scholarship Edition helps Rockstar NewEngland into tenth place. Kaos follows in at 11th, while theMistwalker and Feelplus tag-team brings up the rear at 14ththanks to the remarkable Lost Odyssey.

“The real trend this month isnew entries, with four studios

joining the chart…”

CHART KEYNEW ENTRY

INDEPENDENT

UP

DOWN

NO MOVE

6


The DevelopRoundtable:

GameHorizon p38

The rise ofDare to be

Digitalp44

Advice fromthe frontline

of recruitment p46

DEVELOPMENT FEATURES, INTERVIEWS, ESSAYS & MORE

“This is not hardcore…” Caspar Field, Relentless, p43

Developmentgoes punk

How EA Bright Light fought against theestablishment for new game Zubo, p32

Change is in the air at Guildford, thesouth-of-London city which has alwaysbeen a key spot for games

development in the UK but has seen aresurgence of late. From the recent spate ofnewly-opened outfits – such as Kuju’sDoublesix and Codemasters’ new studio –through to hotly-watched independents likeMedia Molecule and its Microsoft-owned almamater Lionhead, the area is booming.

Things are no different at EA’s Bright Lightstudio, the recently-rebranded and now casual-focused group in EA UK which towers over itsGuildford contemporaries both literally (thanksto its lofty spot in the newer Electronic ArtsGuildford high-rise offices) and historically (theteam proudly toasts a heritage that includesthe likes Theme Park, Syndicate, Populous andDungeon Keeper by way of EA’s 1995 Bullfrogacquisition).

In mid-2008 Bright Light finds itself at aninteresting time in EA’s overall history. With CEOJohn Riccitiello returning to the lead the companylast year, the ‘Change Agenda’ he has since put inplace famously restructured the firm into four

labels – one of which is the Casual Entertainmentimprint Bright Light now reports to.

At the same time, EA has been on widely-reported hunt for new ideas and fresh IP. Skatelast year helped usher in this new era,outselling rival Tony Hawk by almost two toone. But EA being EA it doesn’t want just onefresh new franchise, it wants a stable of them,ready to set the company up for future success.And a few years ago, the team at Bright Light

(back when it had just been organised into itsprevious incarnation EA UK), was charged withtackling this same challenge.

You won’t be surprised to hear that BrightLight’s developers say their answer – a newNintendo DS children’s rhythm-action gamecalled Zubo set for release later this year –proves that lightning can strike twice incorporate confines, creating and fostering anew idea from nothing. But what might surpriseyou is how the team’s rule-breaking insistenceand focus, and a willingness to argue back withtheir bosses, helped contribute to EA’s newcorporate culture – which is being watched bymany in the industry.

BRIGHT LIGHTNINGZubo’s rule-breaking nature was inherent at thestart of its inception – back before it even had aname, explains executive producer RobO’Farrell. Early on it was decided that theteam, which originally cut its teeth as thehandheld-focused Fusion unit creating the likesof Burnout Legends, would be flexing itsmuscles toned making the portable HarryPotter titles to build a new kids IP. O’Farrell andconcept artist Jacques Gauthier took a cuefrom that licence and chose to focus from the

32 | MAY 200832 | APRIL 2008

BETA | ZUBO

“What might surpriseyou is how the team’s

insistence on rule-breaking has helped

contribute to EA’s newcorporate culture…”

Guiding LightMichael French visits EA’s Guildford-based Bright Light studio tolearn out about its journey to create a new casual kids franchise,and why the team has torn up the rulebook on the way…

start on something that would be just ascharacter driven and distinct.

“We wanted to be able to build a worldthrough characters, and something which couldhave strength and longevity,” O’Farrell explainsto Develop in a room at EA’s UK studio base(Criterion are on the next floor) that is filledwith Zubo concept artwork. “I didn’t wantanything where you could say ‘I’ve seen thisbefore’,” he explains, pointing regularly to aZubo poster which features the games 55individual ‘Zubo’ characters, which youngplayers meet in the gameworld.

But games for children – “good games forchildren,” O’Farrell stresses – are hard to getright. “In kids’ character games you’ve got to seethe characters and go ‘wow’ straight away andsee the life in the characters,” he says, pointingout that the biggest kids game hits of recenttimes, Lego Star Wars and Pokémon, worked theircharms via animation and style. And while‘make the next Pokémon’ is easy to write onpaper, it’s not something you can magic out ofthin air, even after years building digitalrecreations of Hogwarts.

So the team shut itself off from the rest of EAand rejected a timetable for production,instead kicking about ideas and characterconcepts for a number of months – a starkdifference to many other games, whetherproduced at EA or not, which can have asomewhat rushed concept art phase.

“It was very different, being allowed to leteverything go. It means we were asking more

questions, but it was much more liberating in acreative sense,” says Gauthier, who adds thatthe months spent refining the concept workmeant that the style of the game was verydefinite before a single line of code was written.

Indeed, Develop’s first encounter with Zubo,back when it went under another name, wasduring a previous visit to the EA Guildfordoffice over a year ago and a chance wanderpast the Zubo team with its walls covered incharacter artwork. The watchful eyes andushering hands of a PR quickly dragged usaway – but even then the artistic vision was asclear as it is on our cover artwork and acrossthese pages today.

But the secretive nature meant that the teamwas under the radar for quite a long time at EA– for both good and ill. Explains O’Farell: “Westarted becoming referred to as this secret-typeproject that people heard about, but didn’treally know anything concrete on. We didn’thave a SKU plan at that point – somethingunusual for EA because that means no ship date.

“It caused arguments – because it was anunusual thing, that not every one knew about,and it had no revenue against it but wasspending money on pre-production,” headmits, but the team took a chance and choseto ignore the accountants. “We just wanted toget a feel for the characters. And because we


ZUBO | BETA

“Being allowed to leteverything go was much

more liberating in acreative sense…”

Jacques Gauthier, Concept Artist

Above: ArtistJacques Gautherspent almost sixmonths workingon concept workwhich laid thefoundations ofthe Zubocharacterdesigns andmuch of thetitle’s overallstyle

34 | MAY 2008

BETA | ZUBO

kept quiet, there was ultimately nointerference.”

And, in time, the people signing the chequeseventually saw the upside as the artwork andconcept designs continued to impress andcapture imaginations. “This was very much outof EA’s comfort zone. We are used to sportsgames, used to FPS games – but not used tothings like this, so we were allowed the extratime to find out what makes these things work.Because we kept quiet – and never at any pointsaid ‘oh, we’ve got this great game herealready, let’s announce it to the press’ – therewas no pressure, and no one telling us what todo or trying to meddle.”

DESIGNATED DRIVINGAs the team refined its ideas, they foundthemselves continuing to push against the ‘EAregime’ (our words, not theirs). And when thetime came to actually designing a gameplaymechanic that featured the characters, theteam let the art drive the direction, rather thanfollow any corporate mandate.

Having created a cast of 55 characters, oneart prototype featured each Zubo on its owncollectible playing card, which proved acompulsive part of the pitching process. Theteam would often just take the cards to execmeetings instead of code or artwork; at asenior level, EA chief creative officer BingGordon was a big fan of the cards because oftheir tactile nature.

“Because the cards had been so popular, welooked at how that would work if the charactersexisted in a card game,” says game designerDom Oldrey. “But it soon became apparentthat while we were having a lot of fun, otherplayers weren’t enjoying the game. It wasbecoming very strategy focused, almost like

chess.” So, in another instance of the teamrejecting what execs liked in favour of gutinstinct, Oldrey revamped the card game ideainto a battle system that crossed scissor-paper-stone with collectible card games. He explainsthat the result is a blend of Top Trumps mixedwith resource management elements – and theninvites Develop to play a physical version of itbecause the team, of course, had made a newmock-up of the card game, complete withcards, rules and battle board. The result is veryplayable, and boasts the makings of a solidcore gameplay mechanic, or the ‘five minutesof replayable fun’ which any designer will admitis crucial to both core games experiences, such

as Halo and Pokemon, and casual ones likeMinesweeper and Bejewelled.

But even when turned into software, theteam felt the idea still wasn’t perfect. “At thatpoint, we had something that was probablyokay to work from – we could have finished itand shipped it, but it wouldn’t have been thegame it is now,” says Oldrey.

A software prototype of the card game soonprovided more feedback – although thebattling card prototype was fun, people testingthe game had more fun with a last minutebattle mechanic that had been put in to make

players press a button at a certain time duringbattle to obtain more powerful attacks. Itprovided a brainwave moment that Oldreysays wouldn’t have come about if the gamehadn’t been continually prototyped.

“It became fairly clear incredibly quickly thatwe should be doing rhythm action,” he says,adding that “the characters make that kind ofexperience a lot more enjoyable thansomething like the beat-matching games whichare all rhythm, no action.” (We’ve pulled out aspecial look at the audio elements in Zubo –see ‘Sounds Good’, above.)

It’s at this point you might think that Zubo’sstory ends, with a SKU-plan finally rolled out,and the game rushed into production foranything that could host it; PSP, Wii, PC, 360…but not so for the Bright Light team. The near-stubborn, singular vision driving the team’sbehaviour extended itself to the game’s targetformat – Zubo, at least at first, is only arrivingon one system: the DS.

“We want to make a console-quality gamefor the DS,” says O’Farrell, acknowledging thatthe single-format approach goes against theconventional wisdom that says a new IP needsto hit as many formats at once to make money.“But there’s no reason why the DS should beseen as the second cousin for games content.Especially when the market is so big.”

Producer Michael Heywood adds: “I hopewe’ve proven already that we’re reallycommitted to innovation, and we wanted touse that push the platform’s boundaries further.It’s a new IP – we shouldn’t have to just do triedand tested methods with the artwork and do adisservice to the characters we’ve created.”

O’Farrell agrees. “And sticking to DS keepsus focused on quality. We’ve really had to focuson quality because we’re ultimately looking at

Of course music is of paramount importancein a rhythm action game – and is even morecrucial to get right on a format like the DS,which head of audio Lydia Andrew says canpose a problem from the off.

“One the things that is most important in agame where half the experience is driven bymusic is to understand how players interactand treat music on that platform. And on theDS it turns out that people, on the whole, turnthe sound off, so we’ve had to make musicthat convinces them not to,” she explains.

The game has 13 music tracks thataccompany in-game battles and which playersmust tap the DS touchscreen in time with atkey moments.

“From a technical point of view that musichas been incredibly complex to write. Everypiece of music has to have exactly the sameBPM, tempo and key construction to fit withinthe rhythm of the battle’s rhythm actionmechanic.”

And while the art team on Zubo wasallowed to gestate and form their ideas, like-wise the audio team has been encouraged tofind new ways to fulfill its creative vision.

The first of these was to do a lot of researchin the spectrum of playback on the DS’speakers, and work out how you couldprogram audio to sound the best it can inthose response ranges, explains Andrew.

“It’s something we know a lot of games getwrong on handheld – I loved Loco Roco’ssound, for instance, but the minute you tookthe headphones out it just folded in on itselfand it was full of hiss. So we can’t just hopepeople listen on headphones – we want tomake sure that if kids play it with the speakers

on it grabs them and isn’t…” She shudders atthe thought of low-quality audio – in the wayonly a game audio programmer could.

Another change has been embracing MIDIfiles for audio playback on the DS – anecessity as WAV files of each track wouldtake up too much room on the cartridge. “Atthe very start of the project I was concernedabout having to use MIDI – in my head itsounds like ‘plinky plonky’ music – and I keptasking if could have the biggest DS cart everand just put lots of music files in there.”

What turned the situation around was arevamp of the studio’s audio pipeline,producing what Andrew calls another ‘first forEA’. The studio now has a batch processingsystem built into its pipeline which is set tooptimise, via a series of plugins, audio files tobe played back on a DS.

Explains Andrew: “It maximises everyaspect of a sound to its best – and has workedwonders for us. We’ve got some sparklysounds which you’d think would sounddreadful on a DS, but have run through thepipeline and have been boosted to work inthat spectrum of sound.”

SOUNDS GOOD

“The industry as a wholeacknowledges that itneeds to start makingnew IPs and find theright ways to do it…”

Rob O’Farrell, Executive Producer

an audience that EA doesn’t necessarily hit,”he says.

CORPORATE MAGICAll through the extended production (the gameis now into an alpha stage, with lots of bugtesting already under way early in production– another attempt to buck the trends ofdevelopment), O’Farrell and his team took acue from their work with, of all people, J. K.Rowling to work out how they would continueto secure exec buy-in. And, they say, it turnsout that the bosses at EA actually appreciatedesigners and developers who stick to theirguns to maintain their vision.

“Working with Jo Rowling and learning fromher process really helped us understand how tocontrol, decide and adapt our fiction,” saysO’Farrell. “Often on the Harry Potter games Jowould be very accommodating to us, butsometimes she would just say no to our ideas,and explain why suggesting something wouldn’twork in the context of the fiction. That was agreat learning process. Likewise we have had tobe really firm – and here we’ve learnt that they[motions skyward as if to point to senior EAexecs] really respect it when you argue back.”

O’Farrell adds that in time it becameincreasingly clear to all involved that for acompany like EA to learn about fostering anenvironment which encouraged new IP it wouldhave to allow for creative push and pull – andmore flexible deadlines – than it had previously.

“It was hard sometimes, because execmembers – on previous projects – sometimeswant a game they are overseeing to be thegame they want to make, and not the gameeveryone else wants, or should be making. I feltthat changed with Zubo – and the execs herereally learnt, and we end up coming out of

meetings having won our side on a certainpoint. Sometimes it’s not the case, and we geta bollocking – but you know they still supportus and believe in our ability to deliver.

“It’s been a learning curve for us, and hasbeen revolutionary for everyone. I think otherteams at EA are now going to know that ‘ifZubo can do it, so can we’. It’s alreadyhappening at EA and elsewhere in othercompanies – the same kind of thing ishappening with Dead Space at EA LA forinstance, and I think the industry as a wholeacknowledges that it needs to start generatingnew IPs, but find the right ways to do it.”

But the fact that Zubo survived the change to

this process, and many of the problemsinherent at the ‘old EA’ (for a time the firm wasnotorious for having produced numerousprojects that were canned just before they hitalpha), is all the more remarkable. In Zubo’sbehind-the-scenes lifespan, it has been under thestewardship of three different general managersas the EA UK operation shifted and changed untilsettling down into two separate studios – BrightLight and neighbour Criterion Games.

In chatting with the latest of those GMs,Bright Light head Harvey Elliott, Develop getsthe sense that Zubo isn’t just a special project

given time to breathe, but also emblematic ofthe mood at the studio. Clearly, the studio andits teams feel they are just as worthy ofattention as Criterion and its popular Burnoutfranchise (and given that Bright Light is workingon Zubo, a new Potter title and games basedon Hasbro properties – all part of EA’s newCasual Entertainment label – it’s hard not toagree). And as the story of Zubo’s creationshows, the team wants to prove that gamesdon’t always have to be made under the sameconstraints as those that went before them.

“We always wanted to have, alongsidePotter, something that was original, a bit morerisky and unproven like Zubo. And then furtheralong something that united both of that andwas a bit more family oriented, like our newHasbro games,” explains Elliott on his overallplan for Bright Light.

“In making Zubo, we never really wanted it todraw on anything else – it has very much had tobe its own thing, and have its own identity. And Ithink the fact that, while the game has been inthe works for three and a bit years, it still feelsfresh to many of us – there is something in it thatreally draws people in – which speaks a greatdeal to how that process has worked.

“And we’ve been very careful internally notto throw up our hands and go ‘Hey everybody,this is a franchise!’, because at some pointsomeone has to step up and say ‘Well, this isthe product’. That’s why we thought it was rightto focus as much on DS as we can. Once it’sreleased – that’s when we we’ll figure out whatmight happen next. That’s been one of thegreat challenges, exciting and frustrating forvarious people, about the game. We’relearning to make these new games for newcasual audiences in a totally new way.” www.ea.com

ZUBO | BETA


“In making Zubo wenever wanted to drawon anything else. It had

to have its ownidentity…”

Harvey Elliott, General Manager

A unique relationship with Nintendo has helped Bright Lightberak more ground for EA.

Multiple trips to the see the format-holder’s in Japanand regular build updates have helped gain invaluablefeedback, making Zubo is one of the first EA projects

where the company has shown another its work inprogress at crucial points in a project’s

development.“It’s been really useful for us – they’ve beenclear about what they like about the gameand don’t like. It’s helped drive the buildand show where we are now,” says O’Farrell.

Since the dialogue between the two firstopened, a team at Kyoto has been playing

through levels and giving advice on a regular basis. It’s aprocess that goes beyond the evaluation done by the firm’s in-house testing team Mario Club. “The problem with thatprocess was that you’d get feedback, and sometimes youwouldn’t agree with it, but it was too late in the day to take iton board anyway,” says O’Farrell. Involving Nintendo earlier onhas provided an invaluable way to improve the game’s quality.

“The great thing now is that they are involved in theprocess, and we have time to take on their feedback. Theyhave given us lots of constructive criticism. It was all valid andwe’ve taken it all on. And these are the guys who havehelped make Pokémon – people we really respect, so whenpeople like that give you feedback you make sure you listen.”

EYE OF THE FORMAT HOLDER

Bright Light’s efforts have been soinvestigative the team has even built aworking (and, we reckon, very marketablepost-launch) card game used to hammerout the Zubo battle mechanics

CREATIVITYBest New IPBest Use of a LicenceVisual ArtsAudio AccomplishmentPublishing Hero

CategoriesTECHNOLOGY & SERVICESTools ProviderTechnical InnovationServices and OutsourcingRecruitment CompanyGames:Edu New Talent Award

STUDIOSBest New UK/European StudioBusiness DevelopmentBest Independent DeveloperBest In-house Developer

INDUSTRYDevelopment LegendGrand Prix

Wednesday July 30th, 2008Hilton Metropole Hotel, Brighton, UKFor tickets, table sales and sponsorship opportunitiescontact Jodie Holdway Tel: +44 (0)1462 [email protected]

38 | MAY 2008

BETA | GAMEHORIZON ROUNDTABLE

The UK has reportedly become one of themost expensive places on the planet todevelop a game. How can UK independentsremain competitive in that climate?

Darren Jobling, Eutechnyx: When it comesto making great games, I think money is notthe deciding or limiting factor. There tends tobe two tiers of developers – the bread andbutter work-for-hire developer and then ahigher realm of companies altogether. If apublisher wants Eutechnyx to develop theirgame, they just want them. It doesn’t matterwithin reason how much it is, as long as thequality is there. I think we’ve gone past thestage where development expense is thedeciding factor. Return on that developmentinvestment is the key.

Simon Prytherch, DevelopTrak: I think alsothat UK studios tend to be good at deliveringon time, design and creative gameplay,programming and so on. If you’re working withpartners in Europe and the Far East you’reactually able to keep the costs down.

Darren Falcus, Atomic Planet: I thinkthrough collaboration and working togetherlocally – that’s another way you can do thingsmore cost-effectively.

DJ: The UK independents historically havebeen through some bad times so they knowhow to make the most of the good times – theyhave become very cost effective at what theydo. Like us, some have got subsidiaries in lowercost base areas of the world or employ sub-contractors in those regions. Although salary

costs might be high in the UK, I thinkindependent developers are still competitiveand offer great value for your money.

Carri Cunliffe, GameHorizon: UK networkslike GameHorizon are helping smallerindependents work with larger companies in their regions to gain a track record andindustry contacts. On the other hand, the larger companies can benefit from smallerregional companies who can offer reliableoutsource services.

Nick Rooke, Microsoft: As a whole, the UKas a place to work and live retains its talent verywell. I know there’s migration to Canada andFar East, but looking at the talent pool I’d saywe’re well placed.

DJ Personally, I don’t see any sort of crisis. Inreality, most independent developers they feellike they’ve been working all of their careers toget to this point. You feel like you’re on thecrest of a wave.

Much attention been put on what the gamesindustry may learn from the Web 2.0 world;but that industry is arguably morespontaneous - it invests small and targetsgrowth after a product or service islaunched. Does the games industry, with its big budgets and dominatingcorporations, have it in its blood to creategames in that way?

DF: I don’t think that the Web 2.0 industry isnecessarily spontaneous. This industry candevelop downloadable games in a short period

NEW HORIZONSLast month some members from the advisory board for June’s Codeworks GameHorizon convened to talk shop.Develop took the chance to grill the assembled execs on the games market. Here’s what they had to say…

■ Darren JoblingChairman of theGameHorizon advisoryboard, Director of BusinessDevelopment at Eutechnyx

■ Darren FalcusManaging Director ofAtomic Planet

■ Simon PrytherchManaging Director ofDevelopTrak

■ Nick RookeAccount Manager, Xboxand Games for Windows3rd Party Publishing atMicrosoft

■ Carri CunliffeHead of SectorDevelopment atCodeworks GameHorizon

■ Nina CliffBusiness DevelopmentManager at CodeworksGameHorizon

THE ADVISORS


GAMEHORIZON ROUNDTABLE | BETA

of time enabling us to react to the latest trendsand interests.

DJ: One of the real opportunities goingforward is using the skills we’ve learnt in gamesand applying them to the Web 2.0 world. Ithink that’s where indies can really shine. I thinkwe can learn a great deal from a lot of thecommunity stuff. Web 2.0 isn’t relying on thetechnology – it’s ingenuity that creates thereally good sites and the games industry canlearn a lot from that.

CC: I think you could argue the gamesindustry is actually more creative and they aredeveloping real community products withsocial and entertainment capabilities.

DJ: Someone is going to create a casualgame that has 100 million subscribers and it’sjust as likely to come from downtownNewcastle as it is from downtown New York.Some studio somewhere is going to use theskills they’ve learnt in the games industry, applythem to Web 2.0 and make a lot of money.That is the opportunity.

SP: The small independents are still wherethe real creativity and innovation comes frombecause they can afford to take more risk.

CC: The big global players such as WarnerBros, Disney, Viacom also have their part toplay in the games industry, but it will beinteresting to see if they merely buy the smallercreative companies or they can actuallyrecreate this creativity internally.

DJ: I think we’ll always have big players, butwe see them pile into the industry and pileback out again shortly afterwards. For me it’sone of the cycles we go through. I think thistime it’s a little different. I think the indies withthe stomach for the challenge will succeed asthey now have access to the delivery systems. Ifyou’re a content provider your value will gothrough the roof over the next five years, so Ithink it’s a great time to be an indie. The dealsyou can do and the big budgets are a greatopportunity.

NR: One of the great things about Web 2.0is the fact that products can launch and thenreceive added content. We’ve seen that worksuccessfully in the games industry with GuitarHero and Rock Band, which are constantlyadded to during their lifetime. But, evolvingfrom that, we have games like Halo 3, for

example, which has a full online mode in therefor creating levels, sharing this world, and tome that’s what Web 2.0 represents. I don’t thinkthat being a big budget company precludesyou from doing that kind of stuff.

DF: In the past you just didn’t think aboutserving that community once your game wasout there. An online scoreboard was about asmuch as you did to serve the community whowere playing your games.

DJ: Historically you used to just put thegame out and that was that. We are now in anera where a new mindset has taken over…thinking about serving an online communitywith ongoing content.

NR: In the future, we’ll see much more ofthings such as blending social networks withgaming. Spore, for example, will have YouTubedirectly integrated into it. That sort of thing isgoing to be huge in the future.

How are emergent sectors like the casualgames market and the rise of mass marketgaming impacting the business for gamesdevelopers?

NR: The biggest thing for me is validating‘approachability’ in gaming – people paid lipservice to casual gaming before, but theyweren’t focusing on user interface and physicalperipherals to bring people into games. Nowthat’s been validated through the motion-sensing controllers and Guitar Hero andsuchlike, so I think it’s made people open tothe fact that technology is not the only thingthat’s going to drive things forward – it’s theaccessibility. It’s about bringing things down toallow more people in, reducing complexity but

retaining depth, and I think that will be a goodthing for games generally.

DJ: I think the casual games market hasrevolutionised how traditional consoledevelopers are working. Eutechnyx haseffectively split in half – one half working onnext gen console games and the other workingon an MMO targeted at the casual gamesmarket. I don’t think developers will dropeverything they’re doing and jump headlonginto the casual games market – but I do thinkyou’re going to get this split that takes offwithin the casual games market. Being acontent provider is generally a much better wayof getting rewarded for what you’re doing.

DF: Even having broadband in every housenow has made games more accessible toeveryone.

Nina Cliff, GameHorizon: The target marketis 25 to 40-year-olds but a lot of these peoplewouldn’t know where casual games portals are.Do they know that PopCap’s out there, forexample? It’s how to reach that audience thatneeds to be addressed.

DF: It is difficult. I think, as Darren said earlier,until there’s an online game that reaches 100million people, I don’t think we’ll have a gamethat’s truly mass market. I think at the momentwe’re only ten percent of the way there.

DJ: What we should be thinking about is thepossibilities behind simple games. Just look atwhat happened with online poker – £50mstaked every day up until recently – that’s thepossibility. It’s a question of thinking creativelyabout what you’re doing so that your gamesare not intimidating to the average person onthe street. A good example is a driving game –just thinking of ways that you can easily controla car for a mass market customer.

NC: So how do you see the Wii and the DSaffecting the market for developers?

DJ: I think Wii and DS are a bit of red herring– your average indie developer doesn’t make alot of money from making Wii and DS games.Research has shown that once the averageconsumer has bought their initial Wii pack ittakes them a long time to buy more gamesafterwards. I think casual games have a muchgreater scope for development.

DF: It’s worth noting, though, that the Wiiand DS have whetted people’s appetite.

“A casual game with100 million subscribersis just as likely to comefrom Newcastle as it is

New York…” Darren Jobling, Eutechnyx

40 | MAY 2008

BETA | GAMEHORIZON ROUNDTABLE

They’ve opened the door for people who mightnot otherwise have been interested in games.

SP: Yes… the average 30-year-old womanwould probably not have played games twoyears ago before the Wii and DS. But today, alot more of them are – as well as others whowould’ve been ‘non-gamers’ a short while ago.Free to play with micro transactions is alsogoing to be huge.

DJ: Nexon, the Korean developer, were thesize of most UK independents before the microtransaction game Kart Rider exploded, getting60 million microtransations per month. Thisshows that an indie can come up withsomething unique and it explodes. MTV havebought Kart Rider for America so it will beinteresting to see what happens there.

What needs to be done by studios tomaintain a good quality level of staff comingin to the UK games industry?

DJ: If you look at what your averagegraduate is capable of doing when they walkthrough the door, and at what they’re doingnine months later, the difference isphenomenal. University is valuable, but gettingthem to apply it to commercial environment isa totally different skill set. Eutechnyx is forgingstronger links with universities, getting to knowthe grads and taking a long term view. Runningthings like placements don’t give you a shortterm benefit, but they do give you a long termbenefit. Historically there wasn’t a lot ofcommunication between studios anduniversities, but I think it’s been transformedover the past three years. We’re nowcontributing to syllabuses, external examiningand inviting universities on to studio tours.Grads think studios are these ivory towers andwe are doing a lot of this activity to break downmyths and barriers through Eutechnyx’ LevelUp Development Programme.

DF: It’s just educating and communicatingwith universities. One on our doorstep – we gotseven interviews arranged. It’s just somethingyou’ve got to do to communicate.

CC: I think it’s important for gamescompanies to actually market themselves withintheir region to universities so that studentsknow where the games industry is in theirregion. Companies need to start formingrelationships with key academics to ensure theyknow who are the good candidates as well asexploring opportunities to do project basedwork with students or placements.GameHorizon has been running a placementscheme for three years and it has enabled theindustry to place more students as well asretain some of the better ones. The North Eastis a great place to develop a career in games.

DJ: In the past, the bigger companies werein there with their professional recruitmentpeople grabbing people from under your nose.What the indies are doing now is being thatlittle bit savvier to make sure they get as gooda shot of it as the bigger players.

DF: When we exhibit at recruitment fairswe’re competing with Sony, Codemasters andEA straight off so you’ve got to be a bit more savvy. It’s necessary to constantly evolvethe way you communicate with graduatescoming into the business, and also with theuniversities.

DJ: I passionately believe that in terms of acareer for talented people, independentdevelopment is streets ahead of its corporatecounterpart. I see these big corporatedevelopment factories as like working forMcDonalds. I see indies as being more likeworking at Gordon Ramsay’s.

SP: You can be a very small cog in a bigwheel. At a small company you’ll get to work ina lot more areas.

DJ: If you are good, you stand a much betterchance of being recognised and rewardedquicker at an independent studio.

CC: The UK is a bit of creative hotbed interms of games development. A lot ofgraduates we talk to aren’t looking to moveaway, to the US, for example. People do seethe UK as the place to start their career.

SP: The UK is streets ahead in creativity. Youlook at every creative industry – film, fashion,car design, they are all headed up by UKpeople. Over here we take it for granted thatwe’re creative. But when you go elsewhere it’sreally appreciated.

DJ: There’s still a lot of work to be done.Every studio seems to have their own schemethat they’re starting up, so we are heading inthe right direction in terms of getting bettercourses and better grads that are makingbetter employees. Things are just gettingbetter. There’s too much proprietary code inyour average development company forgraduates to be able to step out of universityand hit the ground running. They’ll always facea steep learning curve. We’ll be sharing a lot ofthese recruitment ideas at the conference.www.gamehorizonconference.com

Of course, the advisory board also discussedplans for its two-day exec-focused conferencewhich takes place next month.

A single-track event, it is “aimed towardsthe real industry decision makers whether theybe format holders, publisher, developers orVCs,” says Codeworks' Carri Cunliffe. “Theconference will give the delegate the chanceto meet leading industry thinkers as well asinfluential business people.”

Eutechnyx’ Darren Jobling adds that theteam is aiming to make it “the only executiveevent in the European calendar. And it willprovide a lot of thought provoking material forthose ready to take on the challenges of thenext couple of years.”

WHEN: June 18th & 18thWHERE: BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Artin Newcastle-GatesheadKEYNOTE SPEAKERS:Day One: Chris Satchell, General Managerand Chief XNA Architect, MicrosoftDay Two: Seamus Blackley, Head of Games,Creative Artists Agency

STANDOUT SESSIONS: The 'Long Tail' in Game Development (PanelDiscussion)Speakers: Mario Rizzo (business developmentmanager, Realtime Worlds), Chris Lee(commercial director, FreeStyleGames), JulienMerceron (CTO, Eidos), Mark Rein (EpicGames)The Business of GamesSpeakers: Rick Gibson (director, GamesInvestor Consulting), Rod Cousens (CEO,Codemasters)Games in the MediaSpeakers: Robert Bond (lawyer, SpeechleyBircham), Iain Simons (director, GameCity)

GAMEHORIZON CONFERENCE

“When we exhibit atrecruitment fairs we’recompeting with Sony,

Codemasters and EA straight off so

you’ve got to be a bitmore savvy…”

Darren Falcus, Atomic Planet


SOCIAL GAMING | BETA

This is not hardcoreInspired by his transition from gunplay to pie fights, Caspar Field examines how the industry’s newfuture in social and casual games was sparked by the very origins of games development…

Ithink we need to talk seriously about thecustard pie shader.” Week one, day one,meeting one at Relentless Software, and I

can’t help crack a grin at the things people sayin development meetings. Hold the page, flickback a few chapters, and I’m in anothermeeting at another company, discussing theway flecks of fresh blood can be viewed using acharacter’s thermal imaging goggles. It feelsstrange to tell my parents that this is modernentertainment; but it is, I often enjoy it, and Ihelped create it.

Back in today, I’m a senior producer atRelentless in Brighton, developer of the Buzz!series of titles. Shipping with a pack of fourcolourful buzzer controllers, Buzz! has played akey role in the explosion of ‘casual’ and ‘social’games over the past few years (or at least in theindustry’s understanding of what those thingscan be). But in my shift from discussing bloodletting to pie fights, I’ve naturally found myselfpondering ‘what is this casual thing all about?’

I’ve come to the conclusion that today’s socialgames are a collision of two main influences,clamped around our creative thinking like theclaw of some particularly persistent lobster. Onepincer comes in the form of the peripheral-based exhibitionist games that bubbled up outof Japan in the late ‘90s. The other is Web 2.0,which continues to excite and entertain with newways of communicating and informing.

Those peripheral-based games, whichcounted Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution andSega’s Samba De Amigo among their number,changed the industry’s perception of what thepublic wanted – and what it was willing to payfor. Gamers (and I believe it was gamers whoevangelised these titles to their ‘casual’ friends)

threw down their pads and got funky with adancing monkey. Nearly a decade on, we havethousands of non-gamer punters happilyshelling out over £100 to enjoy two-playersessions of Guitar Hero III.

The stars of Web 2.0 – Facebook, MySpace,YouTube, Digg and others you’ll know well –have broken new ground in defining bothentertainment and social interaction. But

slipstreaming those frontrunners are casualgaming sites such as Miniclip, Neopets andEA’s Pogo.com, all hugely successful (the firsttwo are global top-200 websites) yet largelyunheeded by the ‘traditional’ videogamesindustry. These sites often offer a return tosimple, well-honed, undemanding gamemechanics (check out Raph Koster’s notes onthe three line instructions of the original Pongarcade machine), and a similar reincarnation ofthe three minute gameplay ‘burst’ that servedAtari’s world-changing coin-op so well. Can wecall Pong the original social game?

Koster specifically is betting big that the nextgeneration of websites and web games mightseriously affect bottom lines across the traditional

videogame industry. And this is developer asagent for revolutionary change. But in the shortterm, what Miniclip et al have done is to helpremind game developers – and the public – thatHalf-Life and Halo are clearly not for everyone. Inshort, the modern ‘interactive experience’ astypified by Assassin’s Creed is revealed to bemerely one answer, not the answer. Publishers’accountants everywhere, take note.

Which brings me back to Buzz!, Relentless’casual party quiz game that’s tickled millions ofhappy players – and also back to that lobster’spincers. Peripheral-based; well, that’s prettyobvious. Web 2.0? Look to the variety ofgameplay, aesthetically-friendly visuals, quickfireduration and, in its upcoming PS3 incarnation, aliteral as well as metaphorical internet link.Players will be able to create their own quizzeson a website and share them with others, bothon their own consoles and across the web, whilein-game pages offer information about theonline community – the social community thatforms around any game.

For me, this is the beginning of a golden road– a pathway into a rich field of entertainmentdelights that are ripe for the picking. User-created content is a proven success; in truth italways was (starting with EA’s PinballConstruction Set). We, as an industry, would bemissing a very large trick not to put creativetools in the hands of our customers – not mapeditors but simple, massmarket-friendly doorsinto our virtual worlds. Having recently listenedto a group of four 20-something women create,discuss and amend their Mii avatars for well overan hour, I can say with some confidence that thisis not hardcore. And it is the future.www.relentless.co.uk

“Websites and webgames may seriously

affect the bottom linesacross the industry. Thisis developer as agent

for revolutionarychange…”

Caspar Field issenior producerat Relentless. Hewas previouslyproducer atEidos andArgonaut andworked as ajournalist forEdge and DC-UK


BETA | DARE TO BE DIGITAL

Truth of DareDare to be Digital is probably the most highly-regarded event in the games and education part of the industry’syearly – and busy – calendar. Michael French speaks to Paul Durrant of organiser Abertay University to look backat how the competition has united the industry and talk about what lies in its future…

If someone had told you a decade ago thatby 2008 British games software companieswould have united to contribute to an

educational initiative that promotes gettingnew talent into the games industry, you maywell have believed them. But perhaps not theextent of such a scheme’s effect. Because in thepast ten years Dare to be Digital has arguablybecome one of the de facto events thatunderlines where education and games overlap,and positively contributes back to the industry.

Organised by Abertay University, the eventtasks small groups of students to, in just twomonths, produce a game from initial concept toworking prototype. During the competition, theentrants get feedback and mentoring fromparticipating studios. Since its first iteration as aninternal Abertay event in 1999 through to itsstatus today, as a UK-wide challenge that alsoinvites teams from India and China to take part –as well as boasting a big cash investment fromChannel 4 – the goal had always been to helpfacilitate progress in the games education field,but the groundswell of support for the programhas surprised even the organisers, who havemanaged its steady growth.

“The response has been tremendous – therearen’t many developers we knock on the doorsof who aren’t prepared to put some time to it,and their time is precious as it is,” says Abertay’sdirector of business development Paul Durrant,who has worked on Dare to be Digital since itsinception. “It’s unique in terms of the way theindustry has come together – obviously theycome together in trade associations, but this isdifferent in that it is hands-on and they have toroll up their sleeves and muck in.”

TALENT SHOWOf course, much interest comes from the fact itgets studios close to prospective employees.

Explains Durrant: “A high proportion of it isinterest in talent development – that’s a keyfactor. Of course, while a lot of the studios havevery sophisticated recruitment practices, thegraduate recruitment rate isn’t actually thathigh. Working with Dare means that they getthe chance to test the graduate before hiringthem – almost without employing them – whichis appealing, especially for those who want arounded graduate to sit well in their team.”

But the quality of entrants means Dare has areal watermark standard amongst recruiters aswell. “There’s a classic quote from people wespeak to, which is ‘When a CV has Dare on itthey go to the top of the pile’,” adds Durrant.

In recent years the competition has advancedgreatly, including plenty of support from publicagencies and broadcast firms, regional hostcentres alongside the one run at Abertay andinternational students – the latter of which hashelped promote Dare’s status as an incubator oftalent out to the rest of the world.

“The international element speaks a greatdeal to the quality of talent we bring in. Lastyear’s Chinese team were BAFTA nominees, andnow all of that team are now working forMicrosoft China,” explains Durrant. “The

international dimension helped bring in peoplewho wouldn’t normally get seen in the usualrecruitment cycle.”

And although last year Abertay hosted theinternational teams, “many host centres haveindicated they would take on an internationalteam each as well,” adds Durrant.

Dare is further poised for future growth aswell after 2008’s event for 2009 and onwards.The first step in this is Dare to Grow, aninternship project funded by NESTA and puttogether with Tiga and Skillset which will providecertain Dare entrants a post-event placement atparticipating studios to work on an innovationproject. “We’ll be matchmaking a select numberof companies with a select number of entrants toDare so they can get work in a games company– and that will be doing an innovation project,not just coming in as a grunt, such a tools andpipeline initiative,” explains Durrant.

At the same time, Durrant and the Dare teamhave two other projects this year. One of theseis the Dare Serious Games strand, which is apilot round of the competition looking soleyserious games, hosted at the University of theWest of Scotland. There other is Dare 360,which pushes the boundary further by seeinghow Dare can be applied to non-games formatsin the converged content sector.

Plus, for 2009, Durant is looking at furtherimproving Dare, telling us he’s working on amodel that will “really open up the opportunityto any team anywhere to participate”,incorporating a major sponsor and multipleregional stakeholder groups.

DARED TO BE DIFFERENTBut whatever grander aspirations the contestorganisers may have, Durrant makes it clear thatthe core of the event, to promote and encouragepeople to learn more about the making of gamesand get students closer to studios, remains key.

As we explain opposite, this year’s Dare shows the competitiongo from strength to strength. Around 100 teams of five areexpected to apply to participate, 20 of which will go throughthe full competition, which runs from June 4th to August 9th.

There are five host centres across the UK, in Brighton(University of Brighton), London (Goldsmiths University ofLondon), Midlands (Birmingham City University), Scotland(Abertay University) and Ireland (Trinity College Dublin).International teams from China and India also participating.

A host of games firms from across the country are also onboard, including Activision/DemonWare, Black Rock Studios,Blitz, Codemasters, Cohort, Denki, Eidos, Genuine Games,Microsoft, NCR, NCSoft, Proper Games, Rare, Realtime Worlds,Relentless, Sega, Sports Interactive, TPLD, and Zoe Mode. Allof them are supporting the teams in some capacity through thelikes of judging or team mentoring/visits.

ABOUT DARE ‘08

Along with last month’s announced substantial investment inDare to be Digital from Channel 4, other broadcasters are keysponsors, including the BBC and Turner Broadcasting.Dare has attracted lots of public agency support as well, withkey supporters including: London Development Agency,Screen West Midlands/Advantage West Midlands, ScottishEnterprise Tayside, Scottish Government, Belfast City Council,The Digital Hub, Intertrade Ireland, Department of Educationand Science Ireland, IDA Ireland and Dundee City Council.

DARE OUT THERE

Abertay University’s Dare to beDigital contest has united thegames industry towards the issueof finding quality talent, saysPaul Durrant (pictured)

DARE TO BE DIGITAL | BETA

Although the competition finishes on August9th, that isn’t the end of the Dare story.

From August 10th to 12th the organisersare hosting Dare ProtoPlay alongside theEdinburgh Interactive Festival which willshowcase the games prototyped during the10 weeks. Consumers in Birmingham andLondon will also get to see the games duringOctober thanks to a BAFTA showcase – plus,the thee winning teams from Dare 2008 willbecome the nominees for the 2009 BAFTAOnes to Watch Award. “Wherever we takethese games we get a fantastic reaction from

people, even when they are put alongsideproprietary games,” explains Durrant.

Abertay similarly showcased 2007’s winnerslast year – and even took them to theconsumer event Play.com in London earlierthis year. “The games have been mobbed atall these events and we’ve had greatfeedback. There is an interest out there fromthose who want to see games that have beencreated by a bunch of talented students yethaven’t gone through the commercial mill.That says a lot about the games and culturalthemes that we tie well with.”

ProtoPromotionLast year’s competition saw the first ProtoPlayexhibition following the event, running alongsidethe Edinburgh Interactive Festival and then later inthe year at London. The event, which showcasesthe entrants’ games, has since been taken on tour.It’s proven to be an invaluable way to give thepublic – of all ages – a glimpse of what the industryis capable of.

“Imagine if in two or three years we areshowcasing fifty or sixty prototypes of new gamesmade by young teams, put together under specificcriteria and deadlines. There’s nothing like that inthe game industry which can help demonstrate allthat talent,” says Durrant. The fact that all the ideasare essentially new IPs isn’t lost on him, either – it’scertainly not lost on spectators within the industry.

“People are still interested in it, and there are talksand discussions going on about those properties andwhat might become of them,” says Durrant.

Obviously, they are just prototypes: although oftenbeloved by the competition’s judges and those whosample them, there is still a jump needed to makethem commercially ready, which Durrant makes clear.But the spark of creativity and quality they representis important, not just for those with an eye onemerging talent sources, but the wider industry. AddsDurrant: “I think there is a significant interest in thosegames to, in time, create a chance for some greatBritish games to come out of Dare.” www.daretobedigital.co.uk

46 | MAY 2008

BETA | RECRUITMENT

Advice From The Rec EA’s head of global talent brand, Matthew Jeffery, offers a guide for recruiters and those looking to move job…

Recruitment is a challenge. Attracting andretaining the best talent affects thebottom line and makes or breaks a

business. And hiring staff is now a vital part ofany studio’s business strategy. And it has to be:The next 12 months will provide a host ofchallenges and opportunities for video gamescompanies looking to attract and retain thebest talent.

It is true that the experienced talent pool ofgames industry developers is shrinking – so asgames companies increase in size and needtalent to meet growth plans we often findoursevles competing with the film, music, ITand mobile sectors. With the following insights,trends and suggestions from the recruitmentfront line I hope to provide a guide for bothdeveloper recruitment teams as well ascandidates to navigate the market in search oftalent and jobs in this exciting industry.

RECRUITMENT CHESSTaking the easy route and recruiting fromcompetitors does not fulfil growth demands. Itresults in stalemate. The industry has becomeoverly reliant on playing recruitment chess,taking employees from one competitor andthen losing their own in return. While thisapproach may work in the short term, it won’tbenefit us in the long run as the industry’sneeds for fresh talent aren’t met.

But weaning away from a habit is hard – sowhat are the solutions? To continue expanding,games companies need to start looking outsideof the quick wins of gaming. There’s a sea ofgreat talent, many blissfully unaware of thegreat careers available in gaming. Talentedprogrammers work in the IT sector, in thepublic sector, film, mobile… that’s justscratching the surface of millions of talentedindividuals. Recently we hired a great AIprogrammer from a missile defence companyworking with the MOD. Project managers cancome from a host of industries, from FMCG toFinancial Services, bringing new ideas andscheduling skills. Candidates may need a littleretraining but gain their loyalty and that is but asmall part to play for their induction.

GLOBETROTTING CANDIDATESMore and more candidates are happy torelocate nationally and internationally for theright job. I see this a lot – both from peopleapplying to EA but also from existing staff wholook for a new ‘life changing’ experience byworking abroad.

Complex decisions are being taken bycandidates on a daily basis not only involving

working, but quality of life. ‘Where can I workon great games, develop my career and bringmy family up with a decent quality of life?’

Europe is blessed with some greatprogramming talent in the former EasternEuropean communist states, which are becomingpart of the EU. A lack of visa issues make this aneasy and rich recruiting ground. How many UKcompanies are recruiting from there? Too few.

Mobility of candidates has a big effect on anindustry and the well-known ‘Brain Drain’ isincreasingly becoming a reality in the UK. It’s atwo-way street as talent in the UK and abroadrecognise this change and see gamesdevelopers investing in other countries withmore attractive investment propositions. Thiscould be Montreal or even one of the rapidlyexpanding countries in Asia.

UNIVERSITIES HOLD THE KEYWith the decrease in the availability of anexperienced talent pool, building andmaintaining solid graduate recruitment strategiesis critical. In many ways graduates are thesalvation to recruitment talent pool challenges.

While it may seem obvious, this has not beenrecognised by enough games companies.

But there is more to graduate recruitment thanattracting graduates via a jobs site web posting orreceiving a CV from an agency. Graduates bring ahuge desire for change and to prove theirabilities. While experienced hires are schooled inparticular eras or methodologies and can bringbaggage which is difficult to retrain, graduates areused to learning. Training is like food for theirbrains. Their hunger also helps drive the internalpromotion culture as others in the career chainfeel the hunger of the grads chomping at theirheels and hence raise their own game.

And setting up a graduate programme is notthe preserve of the big publishers. It is not amatter of cost, but scale. An effective graduatescheme could involve selecting two or threeuniversities to partner with, then providingadvice, guest lecturers and then partnering withprofessors and getting to know the beststudents. It really does reap rewards for bothparties – yet few do it.

INDUSTRY REPUTATIONAs we look to diversify the talent pool we needto consider how we position ourselves as anindustry. Video games are now mainstreamentertainment and we need to ensure that thepeople who play our games today are morerepresented in our workforce. This appliesparticularly to the number of women and ethnicminorities. But when you look at any recentrecruitment ads, most if not all still reflect thetraditional geeky/nerdy image of the industrythat is no longer representative.

MatthewJeffery is thehead ofglobal talentat ElectronicArts

“Taking the easy routeand recruiting from

competitors does notfulfil growthdemands…”

The industry needs to start takinga more proactive stance towardsfinding talent from outside theindustry, says Jeffery (Image: EADICE’s Battlefield Bad Company)


RECRUITMENT | BETA

ruitment Front Line60 per cent of gamers playing The Sims are

female and this is the biggest selling game of alltime. But look at a games team and 60 per centare not female. There are many reasons that thereare not enough women working in games todaybut key is what we do moving forward. Pipelinesshow that, to make a real difference real changehas to be engineered at both school anduniversity level, to ensure that women feelencouraged about gaming as a career choice,they can progress in the industry and hold majorpositions. EA can point to a host of successful keyleaders, including two label presents: KathyVrabeck, president of the Casual Entertainmentlabel and Nancy Smith, president of The Simslabel. Again working with bodies like Skillset, canhopefully start to educate at a younger age howgood our industry is to work in.

A MORE FLEXIBLE WAY OF WORKING A flexible workforce is also essential for futuredevelopment and contractors hold the key.Game development scheduling is defined bypeaks and troughs for different areas and thereare times when not all of the team is acutelyworking on the game. How that part of the teamcan be kept motivated and financially utilisedhas always been a key question. Can certainareas of the team be best served by hiring incontractors for short periods of time than addingto the numbers of permanent recruits?

Outsourcing provides another alternative andwhile this topic is often met with fear, it isproven not to lead to job losses. In fact, in areasthat have been outsourced, team members whowould previously have completed the lower endwork have been liberated to work on morecreative areas and add more value to a game,which is a win all round. The key is thatoutsourcing can allow game teams to remainsmaller and more cohesive.

NEW WAYS OF SPOTTING TALENTRecruiters in 2008 have many ways to search fortalent. Social Networking sites like Facebook,MySpace, LinkedIn give recruiters powerful toolsto search for candidates and allow for a shopwindow into that person’s life. Candidates shouldtherefore be aware of what they share on thosesites, as inappropriate material is likely to be seenand may not benefit their job applications.

Other trends such as user created content oradvancements in technology such as MicrosoftXNA will also help make aspiring gamedesigner’s work more visible and I wouldn’t besurprised to see more recruiters pouring overcontent created by gamers to spot the nextgeneration of talent.

IN-HOUSE RECRUITMENT When I started in EA’s UK studio, recruitmentagencies were critical for pipeline, with over 70per cent of positions filled through agencycandidates. I always advise that proactiverecruitment is the best way of recruiting staff.Recruiting by agencies and recruitmentadvertising is equivalent to a lottery. You justhope the best candidates are on the books at thatmoment in time or see the recruitment ad. Thatleaves a lot to chance.

The best recruiters for your company are stillyour staff. An effective internal referrals schemecoupled with a great working environment shouldmean your pipeline is never dry. In an age of web2.0 with great social networking recruitmentagencies in the games sector should no longermake placements with games professionals butby bringing to us talent from other industries thatwe cannot naturally find or attract. Now there’s awinning business proposition.

If you are looking for a job, the clearest adviceI can give is to go direct. If you want to work forEA, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo etc., all havegreat jobs sites and recruiters to contact. Get toknow them, meet them at Conferences such asthe Develop Conference in Brighton – in short,control and influence your own career. It takesmore time but is far more rewarding than hopingan agency wins through for you. Incidentally,agency recruitment at the EA UK Studio nowmakes up a very small percentage.

My advice to games companies, on any metric,be it cost, candidate experience, brand exposure,is ensure that you have an in-house recruitmentteam, loyally providing candidates with a greatexperience. Part of their focus needs to be on re-recruiting your own staff each day. Ensuring staffare happy and loved prevents recruiting forreplacements.

SALARY MATURITY With the decline in the size of the experiencedtalent pool and the growth in demand for staffing,candidates are increasingly in a position wherethey can negotiate stronger compensationpackages. However, I would warn that as anindustry we have to maintain a sensible positionon this and avoid wages reaching unsustainableheights, while still appropriately honouring acandidate’s level of experience, talent and skill.

HEADHUNTERS ARE YOUR FRIENDI’ve read in Develop or on Developmag.com acompany head or HR leader decrying the practiceof headhunting. One head of studio eventrecently told me he was proud that no one hadattempted to headhunt his staff. I had to point

out that this should be a real danger sign to himabout the quality of his staff.

If you are being targeted by head-hunterstake pride in the fact it shows you have recruitedthe best talent. Headhunting is a common andaccepted practice in the traditional blue chipindustries; let’s take pride in the fact that gaminghas reached that maturity.

So are you a natural prey for head-hunters?If you answer ‘no’ to any of the following

then you are:■ Are your staff challenged?■ Are they well remunerated?■ Do they have a good work/life balance?■ Are they working on world class games?■ Do they have an opportunity for promotion?■ Are they receiving training & development?■ Are their ideas listened to?

If the answer is ‘no’, then start recruiting nowfor replacements.

TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT Key to retaining staff is not necessarily money –that may be a short term motivator, but whatmakes people stick is being empowered andhaving real responsibility in a dynamic but friendlyculture, backed by training and development.

A key exercise has recently been completedat EA whereby all the key job families havebeen mapped out (e.g. art, programming,audio, game design, production, projectmanagement etc.) and within that mapping, allroles and levels have been detailed so staff cantransparently see what level of experience andresponsibilities are needed to be promoted tothe next level. That makes a key difference tostaff forging their careers.

Also key has been recognising that a goodmanager makes all the difference to a person’sday to day career and enjoyment at work. Aswe all know, just because a person is great attheir craft does not necessarily make them agreat manager of people. So, at EA we madethe project managers, (or development directorsas we call them), responsible for people andcareer development as well as scheduling. Thatwas a huge step forward for us and enrichescareer development and performance feedback.

LOTS OF IDEAS……so little time to implement them. I hope thisadvice will help you either recruiting new talentor find a job in this amazing industry. Being agreat recruiter may not be rocket science, but itis a fine art. There is no better industry in theworld to work in; together we can helpcontinue grow it.www.ea.com

18-19 JUNE 2008Newcastle, UK

Book your place now at www.gamehorizonconference.com

Other speakers include senior figures from Epic Games, Codemasters,Eidos, Realtime Worlds, NaturalMotion, OneBigGame and many moreto be announced.

• Hear talks from those driving the industry forward.

• Make new contacts and catch up with old ones.

• Learn about future opportunities within the industry.

Join some of the most inspirational, entertaining andcreative figures from the worldwide games industry atthe GameHorizon Conference - a two day event thatcould change the way you think about your business.

Chris SatchellGeneralManager andChief XNAArchitect,Microsoft

Seamus BlackleyHead of Games,Creative ArtistsAgency

Keynotes announced

Sponsors and partners


TOOLS: The latesttech news

p50

GUIDE: Game

enginesp54

SPECIALFOCUS:

Networkingp64

THE LATEST TOOLS NEWS, TECH UPDATES & TUTORIALS

KEY RELEASE: Perforce v2007.3, p52

TUTORIAL: CHARACTER DESIGN, p66

TUTORIAL: DISTRIBUTED DEVELOPMENT > P59

50 | MAY 2008

BUILD | TOOLS

Flexibility and tools are the ongoing focus for GarageGames

IF YOU WANTED TO see an example of howbroadly-based the market for gamedevelopment tools has become over the pastfive years, you only need to considerGarageGames. Formed from the ashes ofTribes-creator Dynamix, its Torque gameengine is now available in a range of flavoursfrom 2D drag-and-drop Torque Game Builderoptions for Microsoft’s XNA, and PC and Mac,through versions for commercial developmentof Wii and Xbox 360 titles. And, of course,there’s the InstantAction plug-in which enablesTorque content to be piped over to thecompany’s growing online web portal.

As its name suggests however Torque GameEngine Advanced is the company’s flagshipproduct. The v1.7 release follows the longtermtrend to improve project portability whileadding new components and tools. Indeed, somuch code has been refactored that projectlead Matt Fairfax claims the performance ofsome benchmarks has more than doubled. Thenew release introduces the MegaTerrainssystem which can handle 64 square. km plusareas and comes with real-time editor support.There’s a new abstracted sound system too.

But veep of business development BrettSeyler says GarageGames’ attitude isn’t thesame as some of the other engine companies.“We take a very different approach I think thanEpic, Emergent, Crytek and the ‘big guys’ inthe industry. With Torque, we're aiming toprovide the best game developmenttechnology for the kind of games we like tomake. Those games are usually smaller, tighterin scope with a fun, action play mechanic and

impressive visuals,” he comments. Still, GarageGames’ developers aren’t so

aloof that they won’t ignore inspiration fromothers. “We were inspired by some of the nicertools CryEngine provides,” Seyler says.

The other main area of work will see theTorque engine being complete restructured tomake it more flexible. “The consensus of thegame industry is that components are betterthan class heirarchies. It’s a big change to makein an engine, but we're doing it,” Selyerreveals. “Native Torque will be fullycomponentised in short time. Torque X [theXNA technology] already is. Moving tocomponents will also allow us to createdifferent tools in different ways.”www.garagegames.com

MegaTerrain v1.1

Price: Available on requestCompany: Zulus&FlyContact: [email protected]

Real-time DirectX landscape rendering technologyMegaTerrain has received its first point release, with thenew version including DX 9 support and libraries, DLLsand project files for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. Theengine, which supports 65536 x 65536 pixel clipmapsoperates with its terrain data streaming anddecompression handled in separate threads. Terrains canbe deformed in real-time and the subsequent collisionmeshes passed to your physics engine. And there’s plentymore to come with grass rendering due in v1.2, and alighting system and water rendering due in v1.3. Supportfor Xbox 360 and OpenGL is also expected.

TORQUE GET TIGHTER

SwiftShader v2

Price: Available on requestCompany: TransGaming Contact: +01 416 979 9900www.transgaming.com

An interesting product from a company previously bestknown for its Windows, Linux, Mac emulation technology,TransGaming has released SwiftShader v2, an updatedversion of its software 3D rendering system. It’s beendesigned with two goals in mind; to provide a fall-backoption without any source code changes for high-endgames on platforms without 3D hardware; andexperimentation in terms of the new multicore CPUs nowavailable. New features in this release see improvedsupport for DirectX 9, including Shader Model 2.0 andfloating point rendering, and a significant increase inmulticore performance.

YOU KNOW AGILE PROGRAMMING hasmade it big in the game’s industry when thehead of a studio making casual games gets allenthusiastic about the technique. Clearlyappropriate when discussed in the terms ofhuge console titles and cutting edge shooters,somehow it seems less so in the case of EABright Light’s quirky kids creature rhythm gameZubo. Of course, if anything, the likes of Scrumet al are much more useful in the context of anopen ended development process compared tomaking A.N.Other shooter in a specifictime/place setting. With casual games, evenonce you pinned down mechanics, characters,sub-missions etc, susceptibility to focus groupfeedback is always going to mean nimbleiteration is the order of the day.

Still, it does make you think about thedifference between how games should be madeand the way the technology we use forces us tomake them. As an example, the first industrialcomputers in the UK were the LEO machinesproduced by a spin-out from Lyons and Co ofhighstreet tea and cakes fame. Its early successoccurred because it took the time to analysehow its customers worked, modifying thecomputer to suit and even ‘shipping’ its ownexperts along with the hardware. The dominanceof IBM and Wintel since however has been dueto their ability to create the corporate landscapethat matches the cookiecutters they sell.

Indeed, one middleware company recentlytold me its biggest problem was overcoming itspotential customers’ entrenched views on thetechnology’s novel workflow because it ‘wasn’tthe way games should be made’. Maybe thereare still some opportunities for agile thinkingafter all.

Ain’t what youuse but theway you use it

Jon [email protected]

Price: $295 indie seat, $1,495 commercial seatCompany: GarageGamesContact: +01 541 345 3040

Torque Game EngineAdvanced v1.7

< coding >


TOOLS | BUILD

< art >

DESPITE BEING CALLED AN ‘artist-drivenupgrade that’s focused on workflow notfeatures’, the fact president Brad Peeblerproudly calls modo 302 the company’s biggestever service release underlines that it containsa lot of new things. One significant example isthe simultaneous release of the modo File I/Osoftware development kit, which allows you toimport or export data directly from modo viathe plug-in API. It’s all part of what Peeblersays is modo’s ‘platform status’ within best-of-breed pipelines.

There’s plenty on offer for artists too though,with Peebler happy to highlight modo’sanimation features. “We played it downinitially,” he says. “But the new Track Vieweditor provides an intuitive interface thatenables you to manage all your animationwithin modo.”

As well as animation, modo also handlesmodelling, sculpting, painting and renderingand each has been enhanced. The Flexmodelling tools provide an efficient way toselect and pose meshes, while a new softsculpting brush improves stroke interpolation.Time of day rendering has been made more

realistic thanks to the Physical Sun and PhysicalSky rendering simulation. This can be used interms of baking textures, while, in addition,Photoshop file support mean you can uselayered PSD files to automatically createtexture layers in modo’s Shader Tree.www.luxology.com

Face Robot v1.9

Price: Available on requestCompany: SoftimageContact: +01 514 845 1636www.softimage.com

Despite a rather bumpy launch, whichwas overshadow by the $100,000 pricetag, Softimage’s Face Robot facialrepresentation software has slowlybeen finding its place in the world. Ofcourse, pricing has been one area fullyoverhauled with more scalable optionsnow in place, but the technology ischanging too. New in this point release

is an export system which enables youto move completed facial rigs andanimation data directly into Maya. Suchpipelineability is crucial in termsallowing outsourcers who are usingFace Robot to quickly provide clientswith high quality and stable assets.

DAZ Studio 2.1

Price: freeCompany: DAZ 3DContact: +01 801 495 1777www.daz3d.com

The free stuff just got better as DAZ 3Dhas brushed up its 3D art creationpackage DAZ Studio. New in the pointrelease are support for the 3DelightRender Engine, which is compliant withRenderman, as well as fast rendering,which takes advantage of your graphicscard to speed the display of shadedgeometry. Other graphical tweaks

include level of detail and subdivisional geometry features to controlthe density and resolution of charactermeshes. Also improving the quality ofcharacter is Auto Magnetize, whichstops body parts poking throughclothes. Finally, there’s a QuickStartInterface to get you working faster.

SurCode forDolby E

Everything’s gone very Dolby E atMinnetonka Audio, which has addedsupport for the studio technology cumstandard exchange format, whichenables you to compress 8 channels ofaudio into a digital stream that can bestored on standard stereo tracks.Support for Dolby E has been added tothe company’s SurCode, and is

available for both Pro Tools andMinnetonka AudioTools AWE. A DolbyMedia Meter plug-in has also beenadded for AudioTools AWE to improvethe consistency of audio. It includes theDialogue Intelligence algorithm formeasuring the subjective loudness ofspeech

Peak LE 6

Price: $129Company: BIASContact: +1 707 782 1866www.bias-inc.com

Following on from the release lastmonth of its Mac-based editing andprocessing package Peak Pro, comesthe prosumer version, Peak LE 6.Missing some of the series’ moreadvanced mastering, restoration andsound design features, enhancementsin Peal LE 6 have been made to areassuch as podcasting and iTunesintegration. These include an automatic

voiceover ducking feature, mono-stereo conversion and more flexibleplaylists. Audio documents or playlistscan also now be exported directly intoiTunes, while the new user interfaceoffers magnetic, snap-togetherwindows. Peak LE 6 ships with acollection of audio plug-ins andutilities.

MODO’S IN THE MOOD

Make sweet music with your Wiimote and the LoopMachine

WE ALL KNOW THE Wii has revolutionisedthe way people expect to interact with games,and it seems its infectious charms are workingin other areas of human-machine interface too.Welcome to LoopMachine v2.0. The creationof The Amazing Rolo (aka Yann Seznec), via hisproject in the University of Edinburgh EPISbusiness incubation scheme, it’s a piece ofsoftware that enables you to make music usingthe movements of a Wiimote controller.

A complete rewrite compared to version 1.0of the software, Seznec compares it to a simpleversion of the professional Ableton Live musicsequencer as LoopMachine is a loop-based,performance-oriented package. Also like Live,at present it only runs on Mac OS X (10.4 or10.5 suggested), although a Windows versionof the software is planned for a summerrelease.

It works using a Bluetooth connection withthe Wiimote, enabling you to simultaneouslyloop, mix, sample, manipulate and composewith up to four audio channels. Three effects(multi-tap delay, granulation and modulation),plus a filter can be applied to each track usingthe movements of the controller and buttonpresses to cycle through the different effects

and tracks. Other related packages include theManiipulator, which enables you to manipulatelive sound, and Siimple Synth, both of whichyou can use in conjunction with theLoopMachine by using two Wiimotes at thesame time.www.theamazingrolo.net/wii/?page_id=15

Price: $20Company: Yann Seznec (The Amazing Rolo)Contact: [email protected]

LOOPY ABOUT WII

LoopMachine v2.0

Price: free from 301, $895 newCompany: LuxologyContact: +01 650 378 8506

modo 302

< audio >

The biggest ever free upgrade means there’s plenty in modo 302

Price: $3,195Company: Minnetonka AudioContact: [email protected]

DEVELOPMAG.COM52 | MAY 2008

BUILD | SOFTWARE

A simple planPart of Perforce’s success, according to ChristopherSeiwald, is the company’s approach to licensing.

The evaluation licence is fully functional and supportstwo users and five client workspaces, while educationaland open source licenses are available. Commerciallicensing is transparent, too, with the first 20 users beingcharged at a rate of $800, dropping to $750 for the next30 and so on to a flat rate of $500 per user for deals ofmore than 1,000 seats. After some years of stability, pricesare set to rise on July 1st with a $900 opening price,dropping to $430 for more than 10,000 users however.Annual maintenance remains £160 per user.

“We occupy a unique niche in that we have a productthat is used across some very large companies but is soldlike individual software,” Seiwald says. “Generally, if you’rebuying something for thousands of users, the price isheavily negotiated. Equally though, there’s the saying thatif you spend $25 on a piece of software and it doesn’twork, you take it back. But if you buy a million dollar pieceof software, you know you’ll be spending a million inconsulting to get it working. Our price reflects the fact thatif you buy Perforce, it will work.”

Sure, we eat our own dog food.We’ve been using Perforce tomake Perforce ever since the

system could check itself in. One ofour servers has been in constantoperation for over 10 years now, ”says a proud Christopher Seiwald,founder, president and CTO ofPerforce.

Granted, version control software,or a Software ConfigurationManagement (SCM) system aslabelled by Perforce, doesn’t oftengenerate headlines but fewprogrammers would disagree it canhave a big impact on their day-to-day work.

“It’s a specialised tool that sits ina specialised place in thedevelopment process. You haveyour compiler, your editor and yourSCM,” Seiwald agrees. Perforce’srole in that ecosystem over the pastdozen years has been cemented bysimple yet highly effective features;it’s stable, doesn’t get in the way,offers a flexible API, supports plentyof client operating systems and issensibly priced.

At the core sits the PerforceServer that manages access to acentral file repository and tracks

activity as users access the databasethrough a variety of visual, web-based and command line clients. Areporting system, defect trackingand merge tool are also available,although Perforce’s business model means you buy the serverand pay for the number of seatsaccessing it, so all related softwareis effectively free.

Seiwald says that despite theseeming temptation of branchingout into other areas, he’s happy tokeep his focus on ensuring thethings Perforce currently does well,it does even better in future.

“We’ve always been wary ofcashing our success in one area forfailure in another,” he jokes. “We’repretty solid on what we know wecan do, so our challenge is who’snot using Perforce and why not?”

Aside from this, even if it wantedto branch out, Seiwald argues, thereis a lack of obvious partners. “SCMhas been around long enough thatpeople are broadly in agreementabout what works and what doesn’t.That’s not the case when it comes tobuild systems or testing systems,and there must be 50 defecttrackers out there,” he says.

“We try to provide someintegrations ourselves if we seethere’s enough feedback andsometimes we work with individualcustomers on a consultancy basisbut by and large, customers do itfor themselves. A lot of companiesinvest in infrastructure becausethat’s what gives them competitive

advantage so they’re willing to puteffort into making it work.”

The games industry has had aneffect on Perforce’s directionhowever. Competition from the art-focused Alienbrain resulted in athumbnail viewer so users could geta visual idea of what assets arestored on the server. The sheer sizeof games is also forcing basicrequirements.

“We don’t get into content anymore than noticing the differencebetween binary and text files and ifit’s a binary file we rely on a tool tomanage it,” Seiwald says. “We nowdo integration with 3ds Max, Mayaand XSI. Games pushed us in termsof what we need to supportbecause there are a lot of file typesbut there are also very large files sosome customers run up along theedge of what we can handle. Itturns out that even with the fastestnetworking, if you’ve got to make acopy of 50 GB of data, it’s going totake a certain amount of time to getacross the wire.”

So back to making sure whateverPerforce does well now, it doesbetter in future, then.

Top: ChristopherSeiwald, founder,president and CTO,Perforce

Middle: TheRevision Graphdisplays a file’sbranch history

Bottom: Perforce’sVisual Clientprovides quickaccess to versionedfiles

“Our challenge is‘Who is not usingPerforce?’ – and‘Why not?’…”

Christopher Sewald, Perforce

KEYRELEASEPRODUCT: Perforce 2007.3 (2008.1, summer)COMPANY: PerforcePRICE: $800 per user ($900 from July 1st)CONTACT: +44 845 345 0116W: www.perforce.com

The ‘Forceremains strongJon Jordan finds that the bulletpoints for Perforce’s eponymous versioncontrol software are robust, simple and reliable…

56 | MAY 2008

BUILD | GUIDE

Horsepower forThe headlines might be grabbed by the likes of Unreal3 and Tech 5, but there are game engines available forall sorts of different projects…

When it comes to engines, thependulum has definitelyswung in favour of

technologies developed by companieswho also make games.

There are clear advantages, ofcourse, in terms of having a battle-hardened system from a battle-hardened studio that’s actually shippeda game. Yet compared to vendors suchas Emergent and Qubesoft, who justdo the technology, the Epics, Cryteksand ids of the world do havedisadvantages to overcome too.

Historically all three have had apropensity for the PC; something thatrequires plenty of re-engineering interms of providing similar featuresacross Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, let

alone Wii. Indeed, of our featuredcompanies, only Emergent andQubesoft support Nintendo’s little boxof fun. Other mundane issues such assupport and documentation don’talways sit well in terms of the gamedevelopment mindset either.

Yet when it comes to any sort ofengine, sheer horsepower generally wins out, and that seems tobe the priority in terms of the bigstudio-wise deals publishers aresigning up for.

But as the range of games beingmade continues to broaden – fromcasual and serious gaming on onehand to Triple-A and MMOs on theother – there should be plenty ofbusiness to go round.

ENGINESROUNDUP

Perhaps the most obviouscompetitor for Unreal, theCryENGINE 2 reputation as bleeding edge technology forshooters is based on Crytek’scallingcard, PC game Crysis. Thecompany points out the flexibility of

systems such as the animation andphysics means it can be used formost genres.

The quality of the forthcomingXbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versionswill be the key to future successhowever.

www.cryengine2.com

CRYTEK

Apparently there are some gamedevelopers and publishers whoaren’t yet using Unreal 3, but therecan’t be too many left out in thecold. Indeed, the cross-platformengine is become increasinglypopular in other sectors including

MMOs, architecture and pre-visualisation. Epic’s IntegratedPartners Program for othermiddleware companies to integrateinto Unreal is also going fromstrength to strength with Scaleformand NaturalMotion recent adopters.

www.unrealtechnology.com

EPIC

It’s full speed ahead at Emergentwhere the focus is on Gamebryo 2.5, which is due to ship this summer.

New features include a terrainsystem, which consists of a runtime component and editor,

a re-architected geometry pipeline and integrated GPUinstancing.

The Floodgate stream processingengine will also be fully integratedwith the core engine via the newmesh modifier system.

www.emergent.net

EMERGENT

Gamebryo 2.5 is due this summer

Unreal 3 isn’t just a FPS engine

Crysis was the first CryENGINE 2 game

TECHNOLOGYUnreal Engine 3CLIENTSActivision, BioWare, EA, Gearbox,Microsoft, NCsoft, RealTime Worlds,Sony, Take Two, THQ PLATFORMSPC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360INTEGRATION WITHEnlighten, GameSpy, Kynapse,morpheme, PhysX, ProFX, Rendez-Vous,Spark, SpeedTreePRICEAvailable on [email protected]

TECHNOLOGYCryENGINE 2CLIENTSAvatar Reality, Games Academy,MindArk, Paleo, Reloaded, WeMade PLATFORMSPC (Xbox 360 and PS3 in development)INTEGRATION WITHAlienbrain, CRI, FMOD, Perforce, andScaleform, plus plug-ins for 3ds Max,Photoshop and XSIPRICEAvailable on [email protected]

TECHNOLOGYGamebyro v2CLIENTSBethesda, Blue Fang, EA Mythic,NCsoft, Sony, Take Two, The9 PLATFORMSPC, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360INTEGRATION WITHAnark, CRI, Kynapse, morpheme, Miles,PhysX, ProFX, Scaleform, Speedtree,Wwise, and plug-ins for 3ds Max andMayaPRICEAvailable on [email protected]

courses

A lightweight cross-platform plug-in framework, Q is designed to enable you use the providedcomponents or customise and addnew ones appropriate to the game or application you’re making.

Data streaming, arbitrary scenerendering, n-dimensional animationblending and a real-time 3D editorare just some of the out-of-the-boxfeatures. You’ll have to add your ownphysics and AI, though.

www.qubesoft.com

TECHNOLOGYQ 2.0CLIENTTBA HOST PLATFORMSLinux, Mac, PC, PlayStation 3, WiiINTEGRATION WITHVisual Studio 2008PRICEAvailable on [email protected]

QUBESOFT


TECH ADVICE | BUILD

IF YOU’VE EVER DONE any shader programming then at some time you’veprobably experienced a niggling doubt about how tightly coupled thegeometry is with the lighting.

My first experience of HLSL programming was with an Xbox and I wrote ashader for doing soft-skinning. Well, actually I wrote five shaders, one for nolights, one for one light and so on up to four lights. To any software engineerthat kind of cut and paste duplication is just wrong.

Deferred shading, on the other hand, feels right. The geometry and thelighting aren’t bound together at all. You render the geometry in the scenewithout doing any lighting. This makes for great batching with fewer drawcalls and state changes. As each pixel gets written into the colour buffer youneed to render the information needed for lighting into another, off-screen,render target (called a x-buffer). This information comprises normals, motionblur vectors, specularity, reflectivity etc.

Then, after all the geometry has been rendered, you render a series ofscreen-space shapes representing each light and, using the info from the g-buffer, perform the lighting calculations. For the sun, for instance, you mightwant to render a full-screen quad but for a street light it might be a small conethat represents the light-volume. Each visible pixel gets shaded exactly once.

You can also use the depth buffer that has been laid down for all sorts ofinteresting effects from soft particles to screen space ambient occlusion.

There are a couple of flies in the ointment. Firstly the g-buffer means thatthere’s no way of storing alpha so that has to be rendered using a traditionalrenderer, and hardware anti-aliasing isn’t supported so you’ll need to anti-aliasthe scene yourself.

We started off down the route of the deferred renderer a few years ago andone of my colleagues, Shawn Hargreaves, did a presentation at GDC(Hargreaves 2004), but we abandoned the plans after getting the Xbox 360specs and seeing the 10Mb EDRAM limit. Not a great thing to have if you’replanning on writing a 12Mb g-buffer!

Now, though, we’re resurrecting the deferred renderer partly because ourgame demands more lights and partly because we require the z-buffer for ourlighting effects, but also because the PlayStation 3 seems better suited to thetechnique – it has no EDRAM for one thing, and is happier with the simplervertex formats that deferred shading gives you. On the Xbox360 we're justtaking the hit of the additional resolves required from EDRAM.

Interestingly, at GDC both Microsoft and ATI said the technique was goingto become dominant in the future, so an investment made upfront now seemslikely to pay off in the long run.

With no announced clients or in-development titles, except id’s Rage, not too much is known about idTech 5. One much discussed feature however is theMegaTexture system, a streamingtechnology which treats

environments as one very largetexture rather than small tiledcomponents. Another talked-upfeature is the collision system whichid claims prevents the geometricinterpenetrations and collision errorstypically seen in games.

www.idsoftware.com/business

ID

Tech 5 is id’s fifth engine

by David Jefferies

Black Rock Studio

Q includes animation blending

DeferredShading

TECHNOLOGYidTech 5CLIENTSTBA PLATFORMSMac, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360INTEGRATION WITHAlienbrain, DevTrack, plus plug-ins for3ds Max, LightWave 3D and MayaPRICEAvailable on [email protected]

We are launching with a targeted database of 18,000retail and industry professionals sourced from MCV,Develop & Mobile Entertainment.

This is a fantastic opportunity to grow your business.

www.casualgaming.bizeditorial enquiries: [email protected] or [email protected] enquiries: [email protected] or [email protected]

promote your casual games

sell your casual games

fill your job vacancies


by Dave Robertson

Decoding the Future

OPINION

Life is never easy for hard-working game developers –many of whom face same

challenges. Namely, as games havebecome increasingly complex, thesophistication needed to manageassets has increased dramatically.

Take source code forexample. The amount of codetesting and modification necessaryfor the average game has increaseddramatically as the codebase hasballooned, and managing thatcomplex process can present teamswith a significant problem. Add themanagement of the other digitalassets in a game, such as video,audio and 3D graphics files, andgames companies that don't get thisunder control risk devoting asignificant portion of theirresource to administrative issues.

An effective management systemis therefore vital to a gamesdeveloper trying to bring all of theseassets together in a cohesive way.The challenge has become hardersince the industry realised titlescould be developed more effectivelyusing specialist houses toconcentrate on particular areas.

SUSTAINING GROWTHDeploying such tools isn't simply away to make life easier foremployees. It could help to solve oneof the biggest business challengesfacing development houses in thenext few years: sustaining growth.According to last summer's GlobalEntertainment and Media Outlookreport from PriceWaterhouseCoopers,the industry will enjoy a globalaverage compound annual growthrate of 9.1 per cent in revenue termsbetween 2007 and 2011. That growthcurve is far from linear. Instead, itwill slow considerably throughout thatperiod. Global growth of 18.5 percent last year will plummet to 10.6per cent this year, and will hit just 6.7per cent in 2009. Developers mustfind other ways to maintain the levelof success that the industry wants,and the obvious answer is to increaseprofits by driving efficiency.

Other environmental factorspeculiar to the games industry bring

their own challenges. For example,the symbiosis between gamesdevelopment and the film industryimposes particular constraints thatcan harden timelines.

In the early days of development,games stood alone in the market,and setbacks in developmentschedules had a limited effect. Agame that was late by a monthmight have meant lost revenue for apublisher, but the effects stoppedthere. Now, high-revenue games arelikely to be developed as tie-ins formovies. If a summer blockbusterhits the box office and thecorresponding computer game isn'tready, the business implicationscould be significant. Proficiency inmanaging digital assets and theassociated workflow around themcan help games developers and theirpartners to hit their deadlines.

MULTIPLE PLATFORMSShort-term deadlines aren't the onlychallenges to consider during gamesdevelopment. The proliferation ofnew platforms creates longer-termchallenges that require developersto build as much flexibility aspossible into their systems.

Mobile platforms are a goodexample. They have given new lifeto game titles that previouslylanguished in the catalogue. Whowould have thought in the mid-eighties that people would one daybe playing Commodore 64 games

on a mobile phone? Similarly, it ishard for today's games developersto imagine where their digital assetsmay end up, and for what platformsthey may need to be repurposed.

When Nokia moved to acquireNorwegian open source softwaretoolkit company Trolltech in lateJanuary, the industry immediatelyunderstood the potential for thedeployment of the Linux platform onmobile consumer devices. To whatextent will games developers be readyfor such developments in the future?In such situations, there is a directcorrelation between agility in softwareconfiguration management, and timeto market. Proficiency at managingand manipulating intellectual propertywill have a direct effect on revenues.

Some studios have alreadyunderstood this need, and lookedfor areas in which the greatestimprovements can be made.Matching not just the source code,but other digital assets vital to theproduction of a video game hasbeen one of the toughest challengesfor video game developers in thepast, and all signs indicate that thisis only going to get more difficult inthe future as games become moresophisticated.

DISTRIBUTED DEVELOPMENTThe increasingly distributed nature ofgames development that studios areencountering means developers nolonger have total control over the

platforms used to create blockbustertitles. Schisms may emerge as differentteams use preferred tools to modify orcreate assets.

The greatest problem in distributeddevelopment environments ariseswhen developers try to manage theworkflow between these far-flung remote members of the game'sdevelopment team. Digital assets suchas wireframe animations, sound filesand code segments must be checkedin and out and properly versioncontrolled, so that everyone in theteam understands the changes thathave been made, who is responsiblefor the asset, and how it fits togetherwith other assets in the system.

MORE THAN A ONE TRICK PONYThis means that not only must a trulyflexible software configurationmanagement system manage morethan just lines of code, but it must beable to support links to otherproducts used in the developmentlifecycle. This may not necessarilymean that interfaces are bundled withthe software out of the box -- thenumber of platforms used by differentproduction houses may be toodiverse to be covered by a singleproduct. Rather, the SCM systemshould have the flexibility to interfaceto any tool for which the softwaredevelopment team can write its ownplug-in. That requires an extensiblesystem with a rich set of APIs, so thatdevelopment teams can configure itto suit their own needs.

For the industry in general, thatfuture is likely to see talent beingsourced increasingly from regionssuch as Romania and Russia, wheretalent is high, and human resourcecosts are relatively low. In thatcontext, the need for tight integrationof distributed, heterogeneousdevelopment systems will only grow.

Developers may be moreinnovative than ever when it comesto crafting algorithms, but coding isno longer enough. Getting the righttechnical infrastructure in place nowto prepare for a volatile businessenvironment tomorrow could be thesmartest technical move that they'llever make.

Dave Robertson is director of European operations at Perforce Softwarewww.perforce.com

The need for tightly integrateddevelopment systems has onlygrown as games continue to rise incomplexity

OPINION | BUILD

Today's software developers need to design infrastructures that will support a challenging, volatile future,says Dave Robertson, director of European operations at Perforce Software…


TUTORIAL | BUILD

The ecosystem for gamedevelopment is, as ever, in adramatic state of growth and

change. With technologies like XNAand Steam lowering the bar of entryand the emergence of vibrant socialnetworks, it is possible to build asuccessful title with a fully distributedteam. The distributed model providesmany benefits. For example, artists inGermany can collaborate withprogrammers in China who caninteract with production teams in theUK. This can lower the costs of aproject significantly together with thebenefits of utilising best of breed skills.

Bu this model also poses newchallenges. The biggest of these iscommunication and managementcontrol. Managing a distributed teammeans making sure everyone isproductive and meeting deliverablesover a 24 hour period. When someoneis in the same building, it is easy to geta status update. When your team is inmultiple locations, across many timezones, getting a simple update can bea painful experience. It is up to themanager of the distributed efforts tocoordinate activities and effortlesslysee the current status of the project.This is the first communicationproblem to solve. Tools can be put into

place to build a virtual office: acentralised point of communication forthe entire team and this is one of theconundrums that TechExcel’s DevSuiteis seeking to solve.

BUILDING A VIRTUAL OFFICEThe key to communicating ideasacross distributed teams is providing acommon space for the team membersto interact. This can be through aknowledge system, a wiki, or anintegrated game lifecycle toolset.Within the virtual office, you need away to highlight the work to be doneand gain visibility into the work that iscomplete or in progress.

The task tracking system is the heartof a virtual office. It should allow for aproducer to communicate theirdeadlines while allowing leads tomanage the day to day tasks and workbreakdown of the title. The tasktracking system is the core of thevirtual office – global studios such asEA Games and SCE already have themin place.

Also, the task tracking system mustkeep everyone working towards thesame goals while not being ahindrance to productivity. Tightintegration with other tool sets (fromgraphics applications to source codelibraries) means that the team can dotheir work with minimal interruptions.Workflow from the task tracking systemensures that processes are followed.Messaging and reporting make sureitems don’t fall through the cracks.

BRIDGING CULTURAL GAPSIt is also important to bridge culturalgaps in your virtual office. Not everyonewill understand a word in the same way– different regions and teams mightinterpret words and symbols in theirown way. For this reason,communication in the virtual office isaugmented by clear diagrams, images,requirements and specifications.

This requires additional functionalityin the task management system. Artistsshould be able to see the concept artthat is inspiring their work items.Developers need to understand how acertain piece of code will need to workin order to meet the designer’s goals.Producers need to understand theimpact that a change to certainfunctionality will have on the rest of theproject. But, overall, be clear aboutwhat it trying to be achieved.

TYING IT ALL TOGETHEROnce you have task tracking and clearvisibility in requirements governingthose tasks, the team can workindependently on their respectiveareas. Since the task tracking systemcommunicates deadlines as tasks arecompleted, they can go through a testplan. Because the requirements areclearly defined, testing is the processof verifying that what was deliveredmatches what was designed.

Alex Potier is TechExcel’sbusiness manager forEMEA game markets.TechExcel recentlyreleased DevSuite [email protected]

“The distributedmodel poses newchallenges. The

biggest iscommunication and

managementcontrol…”

tutorial:distributeddevelopment

< coding >

skill level■ everyone

■ intermediate

■ expert

Building a virtual officeTechExcel’s Alex Potier looks at things to keep in mind when managing distributed game development teams…


AUDIO | BUILD

HEARDABOUT

The migration of Death Jr: Root ofEvil from PSP to Wii handedBackbone’s lead sound designer

Yannis Brown a blank canvas. A tongue-in-cheek hack’n’slash-

come-FPS, the game is strong onhumour, featuring an array of trulywacky environments as Brownexplains: “Imagine a toy cemeterywhere dead toys come back to life andcrawl from the graves – the game is anoutsize funhouse complete withmassive pinball machine, giant kitchen,sewers and subterranian caverns. It’srich pickings for a sound designer. Bythe way, Death Jr. is the son of theGrim Reaper trying to rescue his fatherfrom the clutches of a dastardly fairywho has imbibed an elixir which makesher uber-fiendishly evil. So as you canimagine, there are some hilariousmoments in the dialogue.

“What was exciting for me was theopportunity to completely revise theoriginal sound design to exploit thecapabilities of Wii. My first priorityworking with the technical team was toensure we had the requisite audioengine features in place and designing‘real-time’ implementation tools toproduce an efficient, audio-friendlyworkflow.”

Taking time out for tools creation,even within a relatively shortdevelopment window, was the master-stroke as far as Brown is concerned,enabling him to realise the full potentialof the situation confronting him. “Ienjoyed this amazing luxury of havingthe finished levels from the PSP versionto work with. However, a lack ofimplementation control – say, having towork vicariously through programmers –would have been disastrous given arelatively tight schedule.

“Playing through the levels ‘silently’was creatively inspiring and Iinstinctively knew the sounds I wantedto create and try in situ – what wouldmake the environments feel alive. I wasable to play every inch of the gamewhilst incremently adding sound anddoing a rough balance en route – nore-booting – I could re-load a soundbank, tweak parameters and carrystraight on auditioning the game. Itwas a brilliant process, which got mycreative juices flowing (I even had themusic to work with). Obviously, it’s notalways possible to work this way butit’s certainly made me think carefullyabout how I want to approach futuretitles – perhaps leaving some aspectsof the final sound design work until

much later than I might have donepreviously. Whilst it’s useful to workwith video of game footage or evenscreenshots, being able to exploreevery nook and cranny is tons better –it’s surprising what ideas come to youpoking around the back of the giantrefridgerator in the giant kitchen.”

According to Brown, enjoying theprivileged exact opposite of ‘workingblind’, as many sound FX creators stilldo, has direct consequences onquality. He says: “There’s a real senseof the sounds fitting with the visuals –really belonging to them – notsurprising as I’d been able toexperiment so freely. Another result ismuch better detailing of sound andthere’s also much more variety.”

Brown’s personal commitment alsoclearly came into play too, as heexplains: “You absolutely have to doyour own audio QA. As well as a solidtwo weeks adjusting the mix, I

hammered the game for 10 to 14hours a day during ‘crunch’, picking upany changes/adds that had gone undermy radar and addressing them swiftly. Ilistenened on a variety of speakersystems from small TV to full 5.1.

“I’ve learned a lot from theexperience. It was great working onthe Wii, a powerful platform, whichalso proved flexible – for instancebeing able to share memoryintelligently with a ‘give and take’approach where the ratio could bepushed in favour of audio for specificinstances where it deservedprecedence. But most of all it’s soimportant to have the sound peopleinvolved in the technical design of thetools, and getting those tools right willsave literally months of developmenttime. It will definitely yield bettersound – so invest time for tools onyour project.”

Death Jr. 2: Root of EvilFORMATS: WiiDEVELOPER: BackboneEntertainment - EmeryvillePUBLISHER: Eidos xTHE AUDIO TEAM:Audio Director: Robert BaffyLead Sound Designer: Yannis BrownAdditional Audio: Jared Emerson-Johnson, Anna Karney, JulianKwasneski, Kurt Harland, JeffWessmanOriginal Music: Robert Baffy, KurtHarland; Audio programming: DavidAldridgeDialogue Direction Wii: JamesStanleyOriginal Dialogue Direction PSP:James Stanley, Micah Russo, ArdryEnglehart, Chris OdophalVoice Talent: Amy Provenzano,Andrew Chaikin, Brett Pels, BrianSommer, Casey Robertson, DaronJennings, Melissa Hutchinson, PaigePerezCasting & Recording & PostProduction: WebToneAudio intern: Kentaro Fischer

John Broomhall is anindependent audiodirector, consultant andcontent [email protected]

www.johnbroomhall.co.uk

“You absolutelyhave to do yourown audio QA. Ihammered thegame for ten to 14 hours a day

during crunch…”

John Broomhall talks to Backbone’s lead sound designer, Yannis Brown…

The audio for Death Jr. on Wii benefits fromthe platform’s flexible memory sharing saysBrown (pictured right)

DEVELOPMAG.COM62 | MAY 2008

BUILD | EPIC DIARIES

To discuss anything raised in this column or general licensingopportunities for Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, contact:[email protected]

FOR RECRUITMENT OPPORTUNITIES PLEASE VISIT:www.epicgames.com/epic_jobs.html

Mark Rein is vice president of Epic Games basedin Raleigh, North Carolina. Since 1992 Mark hasworked on Epic’s licensing and publishing deals,business development, public relations, academicrelations, marketing and business operations.

Epic has teamed up with Intel to launch the ‘$1 MillionIntel Make Something Unreal Contest’.

This is a great way for aspiring game makers and modteams to hone development skills, gain recognition andpossibly even land a job.

Many Epic employees have been recruited directlyfrom the mod community. We always have openings,and this is a great way to get noticed.

Winnings include cash awards, high-end PCs and, forthe grand prize winner, an Unreal Engine 3 license inrecognition of Unreal Tournament 3 mods that standout in a range of categories, including level design,graphics, physics, characters, vehicles, weapons andmore.

The previous “Make Something Unreal Contest”grand prize winner, Tripwire Interactive, earned over$80,000 in cash and hardware prizes throughout thecontest, as well as an Unreal Engine 3 license. Tripwire’sWorld War II shooter Red Orchestra was laterdistributed on Steam and released to retail outletsworldwide.

The competition will entail four preliminary phasesand a grand final, with judging starting in June 2008and running through fall 2009.

Contestants may enter one phase or multiple phases,and the same mod may be submitted in multiplecategories and phases.

For more information on the new competition, checkout www.makesomethingunreal.com

EA INCREASES ITS COMMITMENT TO UE3EA has deepened its relationship with Epic bysigning a deal that gives it the right toincorporate Unreal Engine 3 into “more thanfive” of its upcoming titles, in addition togames already released or underdevelopment per its initial Unreal Engine 3license agreement.

EA has utilized Unreal Engine 3 to createseveral cross-platform games, includingMedal of Honor: Airborne and Army of Two.This new agreement represents EA’sconfidence in Unreal Engine 3 by providingits development teams with industry-leadingtools and technologies to best serve theneeds of each game.

“With the largest and most talented studiooperation in the world, it’s critical for us togive our studio teams the best tools theyneed to make great games,” said EApresident Frank Gibeau. “This agreementreflects our commitment to Epic’s technologywhich, in combination with our own cutting-edge systems, allows us to create ground-breaking hits.”

Intel and Epic launch the ‘$1million IntelMake Something Unreal Contest’

NCSOFT, 38 STUDIOS AND BLUEHOLE LICENSEUNREAL ENGINE 3 FOR UPCOMING MMO GAMES

NCsoft has licensed Unreal Engine 3 for two top-tier,massively multiplayer online role-playing games(MMORPGs), a move that signifies its recommitmentto Unreal Engine technology. NCsoft has used UnrealEngine 2 to develop Lineage II and Exteel.

“Unreal Engine 3 has a well-structured renderingpipeline, and its graphical quality is superb thanks toadvanced lighting and shadowing systems,” saidYoung-muk Choi, lead programmer, DevelopmentUnit, NCsoft.

“Tools within the Unreal Editor empower us toinstantly produce and optimise our outputs, and weespecially love how the engine enables designers toeasily prototype concepts without the need forprogramming.”

38 Studios, founded by legendary Major League

Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling, is using Unreal Engine3 to develop its upcoming PC MMO game, which isbeing art directed by Todd McFarlane and written byR. A. Salvatore.

“Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 is best-of-breed,empowering developers with superior contentcreation tools, extensive middleware integration, andexceptional visual quality and rendering,” said 38Studios President and CEO Brett Close.

Epic has also welcomed Bluehole Studio to theUnreal Engine 3 family. Bluehole is an online gamecompany comprised of key members from some ofthe foremost development and management teams inKorea, and it has licensed Unreal Engine 3 for its next-generation flagship MMORPG for PC, currentlycodenamed Project S1.

upcoming epicattended events:Nordic Game Malmö, Sweden May 14th to 15th, 2008

Sony DevStation 08London, UKJune 10th to 11th, 2008

GameHorizon Conference Newcastle, UKJune 18th to 19th, 2008

E3 2008Los Angeles, CAJuly 15th to 17th, 2008

Microsoft GamefestSeattle, WAJuly 22nd to 23rd, 2008

Casual ConnectSeattle, WAJuly 24th, 2008

Please email:[email protected] appointments.

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Game DesignChildren in Charge: Real Kids tell us what makes a Kids’ Games Tick Jonathan Smith, Traveller’s TalesMovies aren't our Friends: A Call to use Popular Culture and its Study asTools for Game DevelopmentMatthew Southern, Evolution

BusinessWhy we sold our studio – and why we didn't: A candid discussion aboutselling up or staying freeSarah Chudley, Bizarre Creations & Ian Baverstock,Kuju Entertainment

ProductionWorking Hard and Having Fun: How Naughty Dog MadeUncharted: Drake’s FortuneRichard Lemarchand, Naughty DogCreating Drama from Script to GameplayTameem Antoniades, Ninja TheoryCreating a Successful MMOG: Challenges, Insights andProduction TechniquesHenrique Olifiers, Jagex Ltd.

Art & Animation Re-rendering Magical Movie Moments in GamesPhil Gray, Traveller’s TalesBefore Pixels and Polygons: Using Traditional Art Techniques toGuide TechnologyCumron Ashtiani, Midway Newcastle

World ViewSecrets of Process Excellence: The latest evidence fromindustry leadersJonathan Sapsed, CENTRIM, University of Brighton

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66 | MAY 2008

BUILD | ONLINE GAMING

NetworkingIt may be the marvel of the modern age, but the internet can be a hairy place whendealing with time-critical applications like games. Ed Fear takes a look at the sector andwhat middleware companies are doing to help…

When we talk about middlewarenormally, it’s usually a case of savingyou precious coding time.

For networking, though, the code is only partof the problem – there’s a massive amount ofback-end work that needs to be done even forthe most straightforward of online games.

“If you’re planning for anything beyond thebasics, you’re going to need both in-gamecode plus back-end infrastructure,” says ToddNorthcutt, director of GameSpy Technologies.

“That complicates the picture, bothfinancially and operationally, for mostdevelopers and publishers – and it’s also anarea where an established middleware servicecan provide assurance and cost savings.”

LIVE AND ONLINEIt’s an important point, because one ofgaming’s latest trends is to have a socialexperience alongside the game, so that userscan not only play against each other but alsoform teams or clans and share photos, videosor other user-generated content.

To put such an infrastructure together onyour own, however, means you’d require onlyneed a large amount of servers but also a team

of maintenance engineers keeping an eye overthe service 24/7 – not an insignificantundertaking.

“As online expectations continue to increase,producers will have to internally developincreasingly complex server code and buildnew capabilities more akin to enterprise ITdepartments,” says Quazal’s Henry Ryan.

“Or, they can choose to work with a trustedpartner that can supply proven code andclosely support the development team, andwho can also deliver the long-term hostinginfrastructure and services for live operations ofthe online game.”

It’s these strange melds of middlewarecompany and service provider like Quazal andGameSpy that is become the definingcharacteristic of this particular sector, andsimultaneously proves how large (andinseparable) the problem is.

Putting aside the back-end for a moment,there still is the issue of code to deal with. A big reason for middleware’s proliferationoverall is because targeting multiple platformsbecomes an easier (but still daunting) prospect, but again in the networking space it’s a slightly different matter. On the one hand,

“The strange meld ofmiddleware companyand service providers in the space proves how inseparable the

problems are…”

Studios need tobe aware of themany problems

inherent tonetworked titles,otherwise pitfalls

can sneak upon them

opportunitiesthe PC is a totally open online platform and thePS3’s service is deliberately ‘minimal’, whereasMicrosoft’s is more closed but provides muchmore of the matchmaking and connectivityfunctionality than its rivals. As such, it’stempting to think that you’ve really only got todo all the hard work for one platform – but thetruth, says Ryan, is that neither platform is asopen or closed as it may seem.

“Even if Xbox Live looks more like a closedsolution, they provide a means for thedevelopers to extend Xbox Live using thirdparty servers if they want to go beyond thefunctionalities provided,” he explains.“Features like clans and tournaments are beingasked for more and more by players, and toachieve this there is a fair amount of workinvolved in setting up that third party hostingservice to comply with Microsoft’srequirements.

Life isn’t any easier on the PlayStation 3 side,though. “On the PS3, even if the system looksmore open, there are still a number of Sonyservices that developers need to integrate with,such as authentication, friends andmarketplace, which have to be somehowintegrated with their own services.”

It’s easy to think that the main battle to fightis that of lag and the general unreliability ofworking in a non-deterministic world, butactually there are many more issues that needjust as much attention and up-front planning.Have you tested with enough routers toconfidently say you’ve solved the hugeproblem of NAT negotiation? Have you loadtested your servers, even if they’re performinglittle more than lobby services andmatchmaking? Have you implemented areliable backup plan so that gamers’ preciousstats are protected?

THE FINAL TESTOne final warning given by Quazal is that it’scrucial back-end code is comprehensivelytested, as bugs have the potential to wreak farmore havoc on servers than they could on theclient. ”Imagine this scenario: a single, difficultto replicate bug in a game that happens once ina while may lead to ten crashes a day across allthe gamers that bought your game,” says Ryan.

“However, if a similar bug on the back-endwould make it crash ten times a day –effectively disconnecting all players – theaffected number of players would be

considerably higher than a client-side problem.The server is a living creature that evolves overtime. The databases get bigger and the usagepattern changes, which always brings newchallenges. A good design based on past experience is the key to building anevolving system.”

Both Ryan and Northcutt agree thatdevelopers often underestimate the scope ofthe networking problem, although the situationis getting better. For this generation inparticular, it’s now strange for games to nothave an online component, and in many of themore popular online titles it’s clear thatdevelopment of the multiplayer side has takenequal priority to that of the single-player.

“Developers often prioritise core gameplayand game design above figuring out anythingrelated to multiplayer functionality,” warnsNorthcutt. “Of course, this is a trap – as severalwatershed titles have proven recently,multiplayer functionality is a core component of game design and requires a lot of thoughtfrom the designers, the network coders,everyone. The online component of a gameneeds at least as much consideration as thesingle-player campaign.”


ONLINE GAMING | BUILD

What challenges did you face in supportingonline play for Rock Band?I think the biggest thing was shipping on Xbox 360and PlayStation 3 – we wanted to build a game withan online solution that would work on bothplatforms, and that’s why we turned to middleware,because it provided that middle ground so that wecould develop the features we wanted in the gameand then let the middleware communicate with allof the platforms.

Also, we were growing the code team and weknew we probably weren’t going to have all thenetwork support we needed right at the start, sousing a middleware provider and not just licensingthe product but developing a relationship withthem to help them develop features, wassomething we definitely were interested with. Wehad an arrangement where we didn’t use theirproduct out of the box, we were working with themto help them integrate the features we needed tosupport. It was more of a networking partnershipthan it was just licensing.

Did you use them to help with the servers too?We broke a lot of ground with Rock Band. Thescope in terms of the amount of content and whatwe planned to be doing with in-game commerce –there were a lot of things that meant that havingsomebody with experience, that could providemiddleware and hosting for us, filled a lot of rolesthat would have been difficult for us to do whiletrying to do all this other stuff.

How do you deal with lag when you’re doingsomething as immediate as music?We had a couple of creative solutions that areproprietary, but there are various ways around that.It isn’t a server game, it’s a peer-to-peer game, sothere’s a direct connection between the playerswhich helps. I can’t say much about the solution,but I can say that because of it lag wasn’t a hugeproblem when building the game.

CASE STUDY Q&A: ROCK BAND PRODUCER MICHAEL VERRETTE


BUILD | TUTORIAL: CHARACTER DESIGN

In the first part of two-part tutorial, Axis Animation’s Graham McKenna offers advice on for character deisgn…

One of the biggestchallenges we comeacross as a 3d artist is the

‘character’. Striving to insert lifeinto them can unravel a multitudeof nuances which are thebackbone to believability.

Over this month and the nextI’ll outline a few aspects Iconsider beneficial whichhopefully allows you to make asmuch time for those nuances. Forthe purpose of the article we’lllook at a creature I created atAxis for the stunning short filmCodehunters directed by BenHibbon (pictured right).

I cannot stress theimportance of this firststage enough. It is thefoundation from whicheverything else will grow.

In production these canvary dramatically, on a scaleof very simple to verydetailed. I prefer the latterwhen working with an artdirector as it leaves lessroom for interpretationwhen the goal is someoneelse’s vision.

Where possible I try andget elevations of thecharacter from front andside. This can be invaluablein terms of getting yourgeometry proportionallycorrect at an early stage,allowing you to concentrateon those details we talkedabout earlier.

The image below showsthe concept I used for theside elevation, which Iconsider a good initialbuilding block. Note thered line overlay, which I’musing to approximate theactual form of the skinunderneath the fur.

1. CONCEPTSAND DESIGN

Character Building

Graham McKenna is one of theco-founders of Axis Animation,and has experience in games,commercials and broadcastprojects both as director, artistand supervisor.

tutorial:distributeddevelopment

< coding >

skill level■ everyone

■ intermediate

■ expert


TUTORIAL: CHARACTER DESIGN | BUILD

Dependant on the character I do some ‘3D groundwork’ inthe form of a simple cage. This can either be low poly countprimitives or wire extrusions, whatever you find easier. Thereason I find this stage beneficial is that it allows you tocreate a mould for that third dimension and confirm that the‘2D to 3D translation’ is working.

Where this is most evident is when you view the characterfrom a three quarter/isometric view. It could be a simpleheight of the hip or width of the waist but I find this onetechnique that allows you to put those ghosts to rest early,freeing up time for those nuances.

This being said I admittedly go ‘freehand’ on manyoccasions and don’t discourage it; complexity dictates theapproach on most occasions. In essence you’re building atemplate at this stage and it’s worth mentioning that withsome subject matter you could already have the perfectbuilding block available to you in the form of a previousmodel you created.

Human characters are a perfect example; you could havespent many hours finessing a head, hand, foot etc, and with afew minor adjustments these can be massaged to suit yourneeds.

This is an approach I would encourage but, in this instance,the character design is quite unique so that dictates theapproach. The image below shows early development ofboth proxy and wire cage approaches to the creature.

2. PROXY CAGESAND WIRE CAGES

Once we’re happy with our 3D template it’s time to moveonto actually creating the geometry. In this instance what Ilook for next is primitive forms, the shapes that whencombined, create the overall shape.

Experience has taught me it’s best (and easier) to tacklezones of your mesh in isolation and then join them togetherat a later stage. A classic example of this is the face andmodelling such aspects as eye sockets, nose, mouth and ears.and then stitching the zones together to create the overallface. By creating these zones it also allows us to do a furthercheck on our proportions and manipulate where required withease before we stitch it together.

The first image below shows a technique I use on occasionbefore creating my primitive shells. It shows a basic ‘marking’of zones on the concept art. I sometimes do this when thecharacter is complex or off-beat (i.e. not human) or I simplywant to understand it more.

Where this can be beneficial is it gets you ‘thinking aboutwhat you’re going todo before you do it’an aspect youshould train yourselfto do early in yourcareer.

The second imagebelow shows thecreature’s arm, whichin basic form is twocylinders, shaped tofit ourconcept/cages. Theyare then joinedtogether to create acontinuous mesh.

4. PRIMITIVE SHELLSBECOME ONE

Proportion can ‘make orbreak’ nailing a character,especially a human.Proportion is actually one ofour nuances. The gapbetween a character’s eyes,the face height splits, theforearm’s length to thebicep’s length etc.

By creating cages Ioutlined earlier it allows usto manipulate such aspectsearly creating a simple 3Dtemplate before seriousmodelling takes place. Thiscan be particularlyinvaluable when theconcept art has limiteddetail as I described earlier.

It should be said thatalthough we’ve beenthinking about proportionand manipulating it at suchan early stage, it should notbe forgotten aboutthroughout the rest of themodelling process. As yourmesh evolves we have theability to finesse proportionand should always take thatopportunity.

3. PROPORTION

next monthIn part two of this tutorialwe’ll look at topology, mirrormodelling, UV creation,texturing and shading ofyour character models.

Primitive shells

Basic zone markings

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Studio NewsSPECIAL REPORT: Stats reveal Australian industrygrowing at a ‘rapid rate’

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has published a comprehensive survey of theAustralian game development market. The data takes a look at the industry betweenJune 2006 to June 2007, examining monies earnt and spent in the development ofgame products.

According to the survey, there are in total 45 businesses in Australia that areinvolved in the game development industry, employing a total of over 1,400 people.These companies generated a total income of AU$136.9 million, 85.4 per cent ofwhich was attributed to the provision of game development services.

79.1 per cent of this income was earned from overseas sources, and a further 1.2per cent was received in the form of funding from the Australian government.

Breaking down this income in terms of platforms, 71.1 per cent of the income wasearnt from games developed for console formats, while 14.6 per cent was accountedto games developed for the PC and Mac and a further 9.6 per cent down to the salesof handheld games.

While the industry may have generated AU$136.9 million, total expenses incurredby development studios in the same period came to AU$128.5 million – leaving anoperating profit before tax of AU$8.5m, a profit margin of 6.2 per cent. Almost two-thirds of these expenses were attributed to labour costs.

The survey states that, in total, 1,431 people work in the digital game developmentbusiness, 89.2 per cent of which were male. Breaking down the figures by job area,34.1 per cent of those workers are artists or animators, while programmers account for29.1 per cent of all Australian developers. Managerial and administrative workersmade up a further 14.8 per cent of development staff, followed by designers with 9.5per cent of the employee pool. The statistics also show that the vast majority ofworkers are permanent full-time employees, making up 92.6 per cent of the workforce.

Almost 83 per cent of the workforce are based in the states of Queensland andVictoria (48.6 per cent and 33 per cent respectively), and similarly these two states alsoaccounted for approximately 73 per cent of the income generated from game sales.

The Game Developers Association of Australia has used the figures to prove thatthe Australian development industry is growing at a rapid rate. GDAA president TomCrago said: “We’re seeing year-on-year increases of around 15 per cent, whichemphasises both the strength and potential of the industry here in Australia. In anenvironment where many other industries are contracting, Australian gamedevelopment is going from strength to strength.”

However, the GDAA has also mentioned that due to the exclusion of companiesancilliary to the development of games, such as audio providers, the figures stated inthe report are an underestimation of the market’s true value.www.gdaa.com.au

studios

Broadsword Interactive 01970 626299 www.broadsword.co.uk Fuse Games [email protected] www.fusegames.com

WWW.DEVELOPMAG.COM MAY 2008 | 71

studios

NC Soft 01273 872000 www.ncestudio.co.uk

LEADING ONLINE GAMESJOIN US Technical Director

Senior ProducerTechnical Artist

Java ProgrammersDevelopment Server Engineer

For more information about these and vacancies in other departments, please visit: www.ncestudio.co.uk All interested candidates should send a formal covering letter, salary requirements and CV/resume to [email protected](please quote NCDM03)

© 2008 NCsoft Europe Ltd. All right reserved. NCsoft, PlayNC and all associated logos and designs are trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.


studios

Stainless Games [email protected] www.stainlessgames.com

We need Programmers, Designers,

Artists and Producers for projects

at our Oxford, Derby and Liverpool

studios.

Contact us: [email protected]

- Please provide a CV only.

For portfolios/showreels, please provide a link

for download.

JOIN THE REBELLION

Rebellion 01865 792201 www.rebellion.co.uk

Razorback Developments [email protected] www.razorback.co.uk Real Time Worlds 01382 202821 www.realtimeworlds.com


toolsStrawdog Studios 01332 258862 www.strawdogstudios.co.uk

Venom [email protected] www.venomgames.co.uk

Tools News

Geomerics has appointed RobPrecious as its new full-timevice president of sales.

Precious brings with himsignificant experience in thegame middleware field, havingpreviously worked atcompanies such as Criterion.He will be in charge of drivingand developing global sales forEnlighten, Geomerics’ newreal-time radiosity technologyfor consoles and PCs, which isnow available for evaluationafter numerous years ofdevelopment.

“The challenges ahead areas compelling as Geomerics’ remarkable Enlighten technology”, said Precious.

“GDC was a spectacular success in terms of generating demand and we’re nowin the position to deliver evaluation versions and establish Enlighten as the leadingnext-generation real-time lighting solution.”

Gary Lewis, CEO, Geomerics added: “We are delighted to welcome Rob as ourvice president of sales. His years of experience and deep understanding of themiddleware sector will be invaluable in the months to come. As such, Rob isfantastic addition to our already stellar team, which will be the driving force behindEnlighten’s success.”www.geomerics.com

BLITZ CHOOSES HANSOFTBlitz Games has signed up to use Hansoft’s increasingly-popular projectmanagement solution.

The project managment and bug tracking tool has been successfullyimplemented at the studio to support its new projects which include a number oftop secret mature projects and new casual titles.

“We were pleasantly surprised how easy it was to set it up and get the entireteam to use it and really buy into it. Games are big business now, competing withbudgets of films. Team sizes are rising dramatically and it’s important to managethese teams as efficiently and effectively as possible and Hansoft has the perfectanswer in their project management software,” said Andrew Oliver, CTO at Blitz.www.blitzgamesstudios.com

Q ADDS WII SUPPORTQ, the next-gen middleware solution from Qube Software, now supports Nintendo’sWii. The engine is said to provide 80 per cent of a game’s code but still be flexibleenough so that developers can utilise only the parts that they require, essentiallycreating their own custom solution.

All of the core features of the engine are available on the Wii, includingbackground data streaming, a renderer that supports arbitrary scene renderingalgorithms, support for multi-gigabyte texture scenes and n-dimensional animationblending.

“We designed Q so that it’s lean enough to perform well on last generationconsoles and is even better on the current generation of machines,” said Qube’sServan Keondjian.

“Q is an incredibly powerful tool that really brings out the best in the Wii. Q fullysupports special hardware features including custom shaders through platformspecific APIs.

He added: “High standards of performance and rendering quality are veryimportant to us and we will continue to build on Q’s already excellent capabilities onWii over the coming year.”www.qube.co.uk

Geomerics shines light onnew sales VP


toolsbluegfx 01483 467200 www.bluegfx.com

Epic +1-919-870-1516 www.epicgames.com

Be part of the team that develops Wwise®, the acclaimed audio pipeline solution.

We are looking for several Software Developers. Positions based in Montreal, Canada.

[email protected]

www.audiokinetic.com

Audiokinetic [email protected] www.audiokinetic.com

Natural Motion www.naturalmotion.com


tools

Perforce 0845 345 0116 www.perforce.com

WWISE MOTION

SpotlightTool

Putting vibration support into gamesis often a last minute addition – afterall, it’s not like the programmersdon’t have anything better to do.Wwise Motion takes control of forcefeedback and places it in the handsof audio designers, requiring only asingle line of code if Wwise is alreadyintegrated into the game.

Rumble can be associated withsounds, so that it plays as thoseeffects do, and can even take data tocontrol the motors from the wavefiles – but if greater control isrequired, sounds can be authoreddirectly within the Wwise interface, where effects can beapplied to modify volume, pitch and attenuation.

Just like the audio engine itself,the Motion engine works with Xbox360, PlayStation 3, Wii and Windowsdevices, including the D-BOXgaming chair. It provides the firstcross-platform solution for forcefeedback. It also means thatprogrammers can claw back that all-important time at the end of theproject for more pressing issues.

CONTACT:409 rue Saint-Nicolas Bureau 300Montreal 2Y 2P4 Canada

www.audiokinetic.com

Phone: (1) 514-499-9100 ext 230Fax: (1) 514-499-9109

Develop Magazine 01992 535 647 www.developmag.com

GREAT ADVERTISINGOPPORTUNITIES

CONTACT: [email protected]

Tel: 01992 535 647


services

3D modeling: game environment, vehicle and character creation a speciality.

Provided environment outsourcing for Bizarre Creations’ titles The Club and PGR 4.

20 staff onsite and additional support.

Game-ready artwork to suit your budget.

Now Recruiting:Animators and Character Modellers.

Contact: Chris Morland, Producer, 3D CREATION STUDIO,

Gostins Building, 32 - 36 Hanover Street, Liverpool, L1 4LN, UK.

Tel: +44(0)151 703 0111. Email: [email protected]

www.3dcreationstudio.com

For all your Video Game Art requirements contact

the UK’s best…

3D Creation Studio +44(0)151 703 0111 www.3dcreationstudio.com

QUALITY ASSURANCE TESTING SERVICES

OUTSTANDING SERVICE QUALITY AND VALUEAbsolute Quality, an e4e company, is one of the world’s leading providers ofquality assurance testing, technical support and content localisation to thegames and interactive entertainment industry.

TAILORED QUALITY ASSURANCE TESTING• Quality Assurance Testing including Functionality, Localisation, Compatibilityand Compliance Testing, etc.• QA Testing on Mobile, PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, DS, Xbox 360 and PC.• Porting and Platform conversion on J2ME, Windows ME, Symbian, Brew, etc.• Localisation, Translation and Games Technical Support Services.• Native European languages including English, French, Italian, German,Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, etc.

Absolute Quality - an e4e company - www.e4e.com

GLASGOW BALTIMORE

BANGALOREMUNICH

ABSOLUTE QUALITY QUALITY ASSURANCE TESTING AND LOCALISATION

www.absolutequality.co.uk

Tel : + 44 (0)141 220 5600email : [email protected]

Absolute Quality +44(0)141 220 5600 www.e4e.com

Services News

Audio company 2002 Studios has expandedits services range into the games market.

The studio, which has worked in theadvertising space with clients such asOrange, Motorola, Vodafone and Disney, hasadopted Audiokinetic’s WWise and Firelight’sFMOD Designer into its suite – saying that it has chosen those tools as it sees thepotential for cross-platform sound design work.

2002 is looking to provide a service directly targeted at both the casual gamespace and small- to medium-sized developers, as these companies often lack theresources to produce sound, music or voiceovers in-house.

“We are very exited about game audio, and we feel that we have a lot that wecan bring to the market,” said studio owner Steven Gurevitz.

“We have a very creative team and are able to compose and produce music in awide variety of styles, and create simple but effective sound design to suit anyimagination. Our studios are fully equipped professional facilities and we have along history of providing the very best in sound and music for visual media.”www.2002studios.com

AUDIOMOTION POWERS 10,000 BCIt might be a film set in the distant past, but getting 10,000 BC’s massively

populated vistas look alive took some cutting edge technology, for which Warnerturned to Oxford-based motion capture specialist Audiomotion.

Directed by Roland Emmerich (of Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day AfterTomorrow ‘fame’), the film charts the journey of a young mammoth hunter on ajourney to protect his tribe. The journey takes him through Giza, and features ahuge amount of shots that required populating with up to 50,000 slaves andsoldiers.

“On 10,000 BC we needed to build a comprehensive library of motion capture todrive the movements of an array of synthespians - from a single hunter to an army ofthousands,” said Barry Hemsley, VFX producer at Warner Bros.

The production team called upon Audiomotion, who spent several weeks with 60of their Vicon MX40+ cameras, building a library of hundreds of variations ofdifferent movements that were then mapped onto digital characters by MPC andDouble Negative. They even required mammoth blocks three metres high on a 15-by-30 metre ramp, which had to be constructed by Audiomotion to specification.

“This was definitely the largest location shoot we have executed to date. Sortingthose massive props was a challenge in itself,” said AudioMotion MD Mick Morris.“It was great that Roland Emmerich was there to direct personally; it’s great to see adirector take a personal interest in the motion capture elements of a movie. TheVicon hardware and software, as always, never let us down throughout the shootingof this movie.”www.audiomotion.com

NEW COO FOR IMAGE METRICSFacial mocap provider Image Metrics has appointed

Michael Starkenburg as its chief operating officer.Starkenburg has previously worked with the company

as a consultant for the past year, but will now bestepping up to the full-time position of guidingoperations in the United States and the UK. Starkenburg has also served as a technology partner atventure capital fund the Sprout Group and CTO ofGemstar-TVGuide.

"I wholeheartedly welcome Mike on board to help usgrow the company and maximise its immense potential,"said Kelvin Duckett, executive VP of Image Metrics.www.imagemetrics.com

2002 Studios entersgame audio market

WWW.DEVELOPMAG.COM

services

MAY 2008 | 77

Air Studios 0207 7940660 www.airstudios.com

Localsoft (+34) 952 92 93 94 www.localsoftgames.com

Datascope 020 7580 6018 www.datascope.co.uk

universallyspeaking

localisation quality assurance audio services

localisation services• all languages

• translations

• voice over's

• marketing services

quality assurance services• all platforms

• localisation QA

• functionality QA

• compliance and standards QA

make contacttel: ++44 (0) 1480 210621email: [email protected]

Partnertrans UK Ltd., Priory Chambers, Priory Road,St Neots, Cambridgeshire, PE19 2BH, United Kingdom

Partnertrans 01480 210621 www.partnertrans.com


servicesSpecialmove +44 (0) 141 585 6491 www.specialmove.com

Testronic 01753 653722 www.testroniclabs.com

PHILIPS amBX www.ambx.com

Think Tank 07712 885 934 www.thinktankstudios.co.uk


servicesIan Livingstone/Tsunami Sounds 01483 410100 www.tsunami.co.uk

FACTFILEArea of expertise: Art & visual outsourcingLocation: LondonFounded: April 2000Number of Employees: 32W: www.thinktankstudios.co.uk

Key Personnel: Gavin J. Rothery (art director and chief of concept), Kevin Duffy (technical art lead and chief animator), Matt Carter (chief audio engineer)

Recent work: Numerous ‘confidential’ titles including a major release by aJapanese publisher

Upcoming titles: Three next-gen titles and feature film Moon

THERE CAN’T BE MANY more amazing starts for a business than workingon a Grand Theft Auto game, but that’s the stroke of fortune that Think Tankfound itself in shortly after it launched its services.

From working on the vehicles for Grand Theft Auto 3, the company hascontinued to grow, working on many more projects for top publishers such asMicrosoft, Sony and ‘certain Japanese publishers’ that sadly can’t be named.In addition to this work in the gaming field, the studio has spread into the TVand advertising spaces, recently creating a widely-shown full CG advert for Carling’s C2 alcohol-free lager as well as film pitches, concept andanimatic work.

Indeed, it’s this variety of services – from pre-visualisation work through tomodelling, texturing and final renders – that the company is keen to showoff. It says that within its team of artists are illustrators, traditional conceptsculptors, digital motion artists, graphic designers, low- and high-polygon 3Dmodellers, traditional animators, motion capture specialists, texture artists,rendering specialists, 3D lighting engineers, web designers andprogrammers. That might seem like a huge array of disciplines, but artdirector Gavin J. Rothery says that the studio “believes in working our teammembers to their strengths rather than treating them as generic artists,”ensuring that each person working on a job is a specialist in that field.

And it’s from this talent pool that the company custom tailors a team foreach project, relocating itself as necessary. “Think Tank Studios wasconcieved around the notion of scaleable teams of hand-picked specialistscreated around our clients’ brief,” adds Rothery, “and our talent pool is re-configured from job to job to ensure our clients get the most out of their investment.”

It’s also recently made its first foray into the film space, working on theBritish sci-fi film Moon, and feels that its knowledge breadth has expandedhugely thanks to the transition, which Rothery warns “wasn’t an easy jump tomake,” and has used this know-how to develop a new type of special effectstechnology for the production community.

ContactTop Floor352A Kings RoadChelseaLONDONSW3 5UU

Tel: (0) 7712 885 934

Email: [email protected]: www.thinktankstudios.co.uk

THINK TANK STUDIOS

SpotlightServices

Develop Magazine 01992 535 647 www.developmag.com

GREAT ADVERTISINGOPPORTUNITIES

CONTACT: [email protected]

Tel: 01992 535 647


courses

The University of Hull +44(0) 1482 465951 www.mscgames.com

BSc (Hons) Sandwich ComputerGamesTechnology

School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences

Faculty of Technologyand Environment

The Computer GamesTechnology coursein Liverpool JohnMoores University aimsat producing Computer Game SoftwareEngineers with strong skills andexpertise in problem solving andprogramming combined with specialtiesin any of the following areas: advancedcomputer graphics, artificial intelligence,computer vision, console programmingand more. The course has beendeveloped with input from severalleading companies in the games industryand has run successfully for six years.

Several core topics of the course include:

� Programming and Problem Solvingusing C++

� Computer Graphics using OpenGLand DirectX

� Linear Algebra andMatrix Operations� 3DModelling and Animation� GameDevelopmentWorkshop using

Microsoft XNA

The course is run by an academic teamwith strong research activities in

Computer Science and Computer GameTechnology. We annually organise aninternational workshop to give ourstudents early contact with the industrypractitioners and enabling them to learnfirst hand about the challenges ofworking in the games industry.

Other related courses available:

MSc Computer GamesTechnology

BSc (Hons) Computer Animation andVisualisation

For further information on any of theabove courses please contact:

Debbie Parker or LucyWilsonAdmission and Information Officer,Liverpool John Moores University,School of Computing andMathematical Sciences,Byrom Street, Liverpool, L3 3AF

Tel: 0151 231 2267Fax: 0151 207 4594Email: [email protected]:www.ljmu.ac.uk/cms

Liverpool JMU 0151 231 2267 www.ljmu.ac.uk

Goldsmiths +44 (0)20 70785052 www.gamesgoldsmiths.com

Training News

Game Republic, the trade association for thegames sector in Yorkshire and Humber, held itsfirst Student Showcase this week.

The event saw awards given out to students inthree categories – Technical Achievement, GameArt and Game Design – judged by a panelincluding Rockstar North’s Ian Bowden and Team17’s Martyn Brown (pictured right with GameDesign first prize winner Toby Everet).

“The day was a success from start to finish. Weset out to put the region’s young development talent in the spotlight and they allplayed up to the occasion,” said Craig Albeck, Game Republic project manager.

“The industry judges were massively impressed with the talent on show,something that was reflected in their endearing tributes to the students duringthe award ceremony.”www.gamerepublic.org

QANTM ADDS TWO NEW COURSESQantm College has had two of its new degreecourses validated by Middlesex University.

It will now offer a BA (Hons) in InteractiveAnimation and a BSc (Hons) in GamesProgramming. Both courses are follow-ons fromQantm’s 3D Animation and Game Design &Development diplomas respectively.

“This validation further enhances our positionas the leading private educator in the Games and Animation,” commented NicOliver, international & domestic marketing manager for Qantm College.www.qantm.co.uk

Game Republic showcasesstudent talent

Be Inspired

Media SponsorInternational Media Sponsor Organised byMember Discounts

EUROPE'S LEADING CONFERENCE FOR THE GAME DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY

29 JULY 2008

Mobile

ONE COMMUNITY • ONE VOICE • ONE PLACE

With 2008 sure to be a banner year for mobile games developers and publishers,the Develop in Brighton Mobile Conference is expanding to offer more new tracks.

With focussed sessions on everything from 3ds max and the latest 3D technologiesto case studies of successful games, proven techniques for launching a new IP, andcross-platform casual games design, Brighton is the place to be this July.

Nokia • T-Mobile • Sony Studios • Orange • Intel • Glu Mobile • O2 • EA Mobile • SegaEurope • THQ Wireless • Climax • AMD • IOMO • Vivendi Games Mobile • Player X •Eidos Mobile • Exit Games • Rockpool Games • Autodesk • Ideaworks3D • M:Metricsare just some of the companies that were there in 2007.

Make sure you don’t miss out in 2008.

To find out more please visit:

www.develop-mobile.com

GOLD

It’s easy to slag off Windows. It’sclunky, bloated, continually targetedby virus makers, laden with

prohibitively restrictive DRM,expensive, error-prone software – butat least it’s overly cautious. You canbarely do anything within theoperating system without clickingthrough a bazillion warning messages,asking – just one more time – are you sure you want to do that? Reallysure? Really.

If it was designed with any sense ofhumour, it’d follow this with littledialogue boxes stating “Hmmm… Iwouldn’t do that if I were you,” “I thinkthat’s probably going to ruin thesystem,” and other assorted brain-niggling seeds of doubt. But it’s notdesigned with any sense of humour.Because it’s a clunky, bloated,continually… etc.

Life should come with similardialogue boxes, to give you theopportunity to pause beforeembarking on something withpotentially disastrous ramifications.Honestly, is putting a road cone onyour head that hilarious? Do you reallywant to text her while you’re pissed? Isdancing now really a good idea?

If iTunes was honest, it’d certainlyintroduce some sort of are-you-sure-you-wanna? pop-up activated after thepubs shut. Honestly, the amount oftimes I’ve woken up in the middle of

the night slumped over my keyboardhaving purchased an iPod full of Adamand the Ants… well, it’s one. But it stillcost me shitloads. And worse of all,I’ve felt compelled to leave them onmy iPod because, you know, it’sactually been paid for. That’s my actual excuse.

And if the PlayStation Network reallydid want to be as user-friendly as itpretends, it’d have a similar warning.And that warning would read, simply:“Don’t buy Gran Turismo.

What an absolute farce. Maybe it’ssome sort of childish loyalty, rose-tinted irises thing, but even whenyou’re going through the additional

hassle of topping up your PlayStationfunds to cover the whopping 25(twenty-five) pounds (pounds) the thingcosts – the perfect moment for a what-are-you-doing? headslap – you’ll stillcontinue like some mindless Sony-sucking nob-gobbler, dribbling withmisplaced optimism at the opportunityof playing a demo being sold to youfor a quarter of a hundred pounds; thesort of figure that tends to make theprices Future Publishing charges seemcharitable by comparison.

It doesn’t matter if you’re usingsome futuristic pipe made entirely fromspace and fused directly from yourPlayStation 3 to Sony headquarters –the fast service that doesn’t stop atstations like Porn or Spam – it’ll stilltake longer to download than it wouldto order and get delivered fromGameplay.com. And – here’s the reallynut-busting fact you’ll realise in themorning – downloading it directly toyour PlayStation 3 hard-drive, doingaway with packaging and manuals andall the nice things games collectorswant stacked on their shelves, willactually cost you seven pounds morethan owning the actual physical box.

But that doesn’t matter, because youcan leave the download runningovernight, so you’ll be able to play itthe following day, immediately afterwaking up from your petrol-fuelleddreams featuring the world’s most

beautiful vehicles making sweetbeautiful love to each other. Exceptyou won’t be able to, because somenumbskull at Sony or Polyphony orwherever decided that as soon as thegame was finished it wasn’t actuallyfinished, so you’ll need to download amassive patch before you’re allowed todo anything meaningful, and this patchwon’t download until you’ve madethree aborted attempts to obtain thebloody thing. This’ll take you at least acouple of hours. Are you having funyet? Are you?

Then you’ll realise that the patch isessentially a delaying tactic, designedto keep hope alive. Because once youactually get into the thing, you’llremember how frustratingly obstructive the Gran Turismo gamesare, holding all the promise back untilyou’ve completed an endless list ofdull-o-vision races and challenges. It’sbasically like buying a Muse album but being told you can’t listen to thebest bits – i.e. all of it – until you’velearnt to play the guitar. Annoying, iswhat.

So seriously, don’t bother. Play Riffinstead because it’s genuinely brilliantand a real illustration of whatdownloadable PSN games should belike. Not like this pile of po-faceddrivel. Are you sure you want todownload it?”[email protected]

thebyronicmanSimon Byron wishes he’d been warned…

82 | MAY 2008 DEVELOPMAG.COM

“If the PlayStationNetwork really didwant to be as user-

friendly as itpretends, it’d have a

similar warningnotice…”

DEVELOP AWARDS: THEFINALISTS ARE REVEALEDPublication date: June 10thBUILD Feature: PhysicsBUILD Guide: AIEvents: Paris GDC, GameHorizon

DEVELOP CONFERENCE ANDEXPO – SPECIAL ISSUEPublication date: July 8thBUILD Feature: Procedural

content toolsBUILD Guide: Game audio

Publication date: August 12thBUILD Feature: 3D modelling BUILD Guide: UI EnginesEvent Distribution: GCDC

ASIAN DEVELOPMENT MARKETS – SPECIAL ISSUEPublication date: September 8thBUILD Feature: User interface

toolsBUILD Guide: MMOG Engines

Publication date: October 6thBUILD Feature: Face/body

graphicsBUILD Guide: 3D modelling

Publication date: November 10th BUILD Feature: Security BUILD Guide: Networking

develop FORWARD PLANNER

EDITORIAL enquiries should go through to

[email protected],

or call him on 01992 535646

To discuss ADVERTISING contact

[email protected],

or call her on 01992 535647

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Develop - Issue 83 - May 2008