Modnation Racers! Following in step of Sony’s other “play, create, share” games like LittleBigPlanet, Modnation Racers offers you, to let your imagination run wild and create your very own unique avatar, as well as a race kart… apparel, color choice, stickers, accessories, body kits, vinyls, decals, you can create just about anything your artistic soul can think of…
and then, race it.
Racing like the way of Mario-Kart style “battle races”, you get special bonuses during races to take down your friends and boost yourself into the lead. The race tracks themselves are equally whimsical, with random obstacles sprawled all around the environment, shifting bridges, big air jumps…andd after you’re done playing, dive head on into the game’s seemingly-equally-robust racetrack editor! Build the track of your dreams, then share it online with your friends and loved ones, and take them on in your very own “home turf”!
This might just turn out to the competitor of Mario Kart! Only time can tell, ModnationRacers releases May 25th, 2010, on the Playstation 3.
Yay! Sequel for one of the most loved PS3 Games is about to arrive!
Little Big Planet 2 has a planned release for the Fall this year!
Seems to be offering a much more robust Game Builder for players to mess around with, opening up even more opportunities for modding and level creation. Different camera angles, more awesome lighting effects, “smarter” objects? o:
I think games like LBP are genius. You build a game, advertise it as a game where “you create your game, the way you want it, anything and anyway you like it!”
“Don’t only get to play the game, you also get to build your own levels and also download and play other players’ creations!” “You guys have made over 2 million custom games and worlds! Much moreee than we could have imagined!”
It’s genius!
Why work to build “DLC” to keep a game alive? Make your consumers do your work for you! Take “Modern Warfare 2″ for example…they push out like.. DLC Map Packs “+5 additional levels” every few months..
with custom game builders like Little Big Planet, you are pretty much getting 5000 “additional levels” every few months, and the work is done by your consumers, not by you!
haha, awesome x] Build something and have the world continue the work for you..hehehe..advertise it as a “build and share your creations“..
Sure, those “user created worlds” are free to download and share, so there’s no fee and can’t be labeled as “DLC”. But then, i’m pretty sure there will mean increased and continued sale of the game software itself, which probably makes up for the “free add-ons”. The game also features other purchasable stuff, like custom avatars for your in-game character, which you do pay for.
Another Gamasutra feature article, this time talking about game developers moving overseas in search of new work opportunities, and they’ve put up a lil’ something about Singapore and the gaming industry!
Singapore’s quality of life is “just amazing. Everything is super-efficient — especially the public transport system which is very organized and very cheap, the food is incredible, and there’s just so much energy in the air.”
- Claude Langlais,
Ubisoft Singapore
Haha, really? x) I guess you don’t realize these kinda stuff growing up there all your life, ’til you’re away from it and you start reminiscing it
Singapore is starting to show up more often on the map for game development, i’m really looking forward to see how much it grows there and what it grows into over the next 5 or 7 years. I myself was lucky enough to have had a chance to visit and speak to LucasArts Singapore back in 2008…as well as EA Singapore where i had a short chat with the VP-of-something x]
Other new game studios that had popped up in Singapore include Ubisoft and TakeTwo Interactive.
Yep, Limbo is an Indie Game too, developed for the Xbox Live Arcade platform only (unfortunately). I believe the game has won awards for it’s just-gorgeous art style…minimal yet still so powerful in conveying emotion in the viewer. Almost every part of the game, you can pause and it becomes a work of art, like a gallery showing.
The project began with 1 person’s basic sketches, which he made into a video (animatic), that captured the hearts of millions in an instant. Developers and publishers alike then opened up opportunities to develop it into what it is today. After 6 years of development, we have this beautiful piece of a game to appreciate.
This is just the reason why i have grown such a love for indie games. The art direction is usually what most Indiegames seem to focus on as a result of having limited resources/small man-power. Minimal, yet brilliant, simplistic nature of the games.
It drives home the fact that you don’t always necessarily need to make the next “Call of Duty Moden Warfare” or “Crysis” or “Unreal Gears of War” to win the hearts of gamers around the world.
for peeps that havn’t heard of this game yet, i think it’s one of the best takes on keeping that retro-spirit in gaming, alive.
3D Dot Game Heroes, developed by Silicon Studios, coming out in a couple weeks (May 11, 2010) for the PS3 exclusively, features the “pixelated retro look” from the old days of gaming on our crappy low-resolution screens… picture the days of the GameBoy and it’s green & black lcd display.
now modernize that by throwing it into the realm of three-dimensions, and you get this gorgeous of a game. The soundtrack keeps in step with the retro vibe, an energetic loop-ish “MIDI” music, mixed in with some orchestra to bring it to the modern era.
some nitpickers already comparing it to Zelda games…but hey, it plays well and has one of the most distinct visuals in years of gaming.
Just read about this brand new support funding group called “Indie-fund“.
Started up by 7 of the industry’s most successful “Indies” (Independent developers), namely creators of “World of Goo” Ron Carmel & Kyle Gabler, “Braid”s Johnathan Blow (one of the most awesomely hand-painted games in my opinion of all time), Kellee Santiago from “Flower” (PS3), “Critter Crunch”s Nathan Vella, Matthew Wegner “Off-road Velociraptor Safari”, and Aaron Isaksen of “Armadillo Gold Rush”…the groups mission is to support fellow Indepedant Developers/”Indies” by
…helping indie developers get financially independent and stay financially independent.
Ron Carmel explained that indies going to publishers was a “system that never worked” because there was no “transparency” in the process. Also Indies that go to these publishers (ie. Activision/EA/Ubisoft) always mostly end up getting pushed around, hurting the original game design process, restricting the creative process, and these Indies get tied down by the publisher..publisher tells the Indies “what is better to do”.
With Indie Fund,
…A focus will be onflexible development.
The game development process requires experimentation and iteration, so the old methodology of coming up with big design documents ahead of time, with milestones attached that risk employee pay, ends up causing developers stress and ultimately risks game quality.
Under the Indie Fund model, the developer submits periodic builds to the fund along with a change list, so the game can be evaluated based on where it was last time it was evaluated, “not on where we think it should be”. This approach “respects the game design process as it should happen”.
Importantly, Indie Fund will not seek IP ownership. “We want the developer to own the IP and for the developer to be master of their own destiny.”
“We don’t want to tell you how to make your game.”
“If we provide funding for a game, then that’s a vote of confidence in the team that they have a vision and that they can execute it.”
“If i know better than you what’s right for your game, then we probably shouldn’t be funding your game.”
- Leigh Alexander and
Simon Carless
GameDeveloperMagazine April 2010
Indie Fund is the bright light that many aspiring Indies will look to! Since the Fund only just launched, it is still a model in testing, and future funding for more games is still uncertain. They however, already plan to bring in bigger investors to support, if the funding model does prove successful.
This is great news for Indies. Especially today when “big houses” have been laying off so many people, regardless an industry veteran or not. Casual/Indie games have been booming, over Facebook, iPhone/iPad (mobile games), XBox Live Arcade, PSN, and other web platforms.
I am too personally, rooting for Indie Fund’s mission to be a success. I feel it’s a great time to break away from the developer/publisher model, let the hard work of indies pay off the way it should..encourage more people to explore Indie games as an option!
I would encourage anyone who’s interested in developing Indie games to check out Indie Fund further.
just a quick blurb.. Steam currently has a Rockstar Week going on..
pretty much getting all the games from Rockstar studios for like.. the price of one.
Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto 2
GTA 3
GTA Vice City
GTA San Andreas GTA 4 GTA Episodes from Liberty City
Bully
Max Pane
Max Pane 2 Midnight Club 2 (one of the best arcade racing games in my opinion)
Manhunt
Wild Metal
that’s 13 games for $40bucks…
what surprised me was that they even include up to the most recent title “GTA4 - Episodes from Libery City” which recently sold for 30bucks on its own.
to me, you’re not just buying 13 awesome games, you’re getting to watch and experience how a game grew through the years to what it is today (GTA series), which is awesome since there’s so many iterations.
ok so i just read this amazing article “Opinion: Be Wary Of The Innovation Bandwagon” (you guys should read it too!!) … and i thought i’d write down my thoughts about it, as i find every bit of that writeup very relevant to many aspects of my personal endeavors.
The writer basically says that you don’t necessarily need to come up with an entirely new ‘innovative idea’ for your game to be ’successful’…and he talks about the 2 kinds of developers, “clean-slate” types and “reactive” types…
In a blog post from a few years ago, Warren Spector said there are some innovators who are the “clean slate” guys who come up with these borderline crazy yet ingenious new game concepts that nobody has ever heard of before. Not only can they come up with the ideas, but they’re also able execute on those ideas by creating a game that’s truly compelling.
But Spector said that he considers himself more of a “reactive” guy — he plays existing games, gets annoyed with their shortcomings, and comes up with his own game that fixes the problems that he identifies.
see video here
An example i can think of as “crazy yet ingenious new game concepts” would be the student-project-gone-professional “Portal”. What game can u think of?
…and i completely agree with the writer in regards to the innovation bandwagon.
I finally learnt what “type of developer” i can identify myself as..”reactive” (yesh, i consider myself a game developer already! wahaha) …if you read back at my rants from earlier (months/years), you will notice that i’ve done just about what a “reactive” person does. Play games, get annoyed, and improve upon those aspects. Only piece missing is actually executing, which i’m quite limited to as of now because of my education & my experience (i even made a post some months back to look for programmers to help me!).
I have friends that knows me not to complete games (not finishing/playing all the way through) and this is probably the reason…on my end, i just play the game to explore and see what the game has done and is about, why people recommend it, why the love it, why they don’t like it, and take notes! x]
A good place to find games would be Steam, there’s tons of demos available there, and demos are pretty much all you need. oh and there is the Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) community as well (although i don’t have an xbox).
My favorite piece to take home from his writeup is the notion that
Most great games aren’t based on brand new, ground-breaking ideas. More typically, great games come from someone who has skillfully identified where existing ideas need improvement or further attention, and can execute on those observations.
I think he should have added something about sequels in that regard…everyone knows that the idea of a sequel to anything (game/movie/tv show) usually ends up on the two extremes as ultimate failure or epically successful, and i’m pretty sure these people making the sequels must have done some kind of research on their originals feedback.
Game creators should still absolutely take risks and pursue innovation.
Now that is what i call Art.
Some day, reaaal soon, i’m gonna execute my ideas…stand on the edge of the cliff and risk plunging into the waters far down below!
Look out world, i’m coming to get ya!
with the recent Starcraft 2 Beta promotion, people that pre-order the full game, will receive a beta key as a bonus, amongst other bonuses for pre-ordering.
and the numbers are showing already.. just last weekend, i saw no higher than 13000-15000 beta players on a friday night/saturday night, and this weekend, that number has doubled to over 25000.
many on the Starcraft 2 game forums are saying they’ve gone ahead to pre-order to get the beta key so they can play now…contributing to this sudden growth in the beta community.
if you do the math, that’s roughly around +10k players, we can assume such a big number because of pre-orders, that’s a lot of pre-orders already…and it’s only the first weekend.
the pre-order is a mere $5 , and with numbers like this, Blizzard is already banking in gold for a game that is just in beta form…pre-order will “upscale” to a further $50 or so when the game does launch.. since a pre-order secures the future product purchase.
Blizzard Entertainment’s phenomenal video game/MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) “World of Warcraft” aka “WoW” has recently released new downloadable content (DLC) for the player community.
This brand new virtual game item is a “Celestial Steed” or virtual Horse, that players can use to ride across the virtual game worlds. That’s all it does apparently, it makes your character travel quicker around the game.
and it costs $25.00 to purchase and download to your game account.
According to the reports/writeups on other websites, 4 hours in after the item was released (it was released around 9 or 10 in the morning), the Download Queue was already at 80,000 players..and rising.
4 hours, 80,000 units sold @ $25.00USD each. $2 million dollars by lunch break.
There’s alot of hateful comments and such circling this as well, something like “why so expensive? who would pay that? i could use that $25 so much better than a virtual horse.” Answers return with “It’s the person’s money, not yours. They decide not you.”
So, 80,000 players sounds CRAZY A LOT already.. but looking at it, the total online community stands at over 15million players (last i read reports of “14 million WoW players” couple years ago)..so 80k players is nothing really…instead, it does show that yes, the majority of players do feel that the item is not worth spending for. Nonetheless, it’s still $2million in 4 hours. Let’s see how many of us can say they even make $1k in 4 hours.
just read a bit ago how the Industry had an average loss of 4% in salaries..and the difficulties they faced in the past year..
but look now!
sales have gone up! “Up 6% with PS3 (Playstation 3) making the most of that..”
The top ten console retail software titles for March 2010 are as follows:
1. God of War III (Sony Santa Monica/SCEA, PS3), 1.10 million
2. Pokemon SoulSilver (Game Freak/Nintendo, NDS), 1.02 million
3. Final Fantasy XIII (Square Enix, PS3), 828,200
4. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (DICE/Electronic Arts, Xbox 360), 825,500
5. Pokemon HeartGold (Game Freak/Nintendo, NDS), 761,200
6. Final Fantasy XIII (Square Enix, Xbox 360), 493,900
7. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo, Wii), 457,400
8. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (DICE/Electronic Arts, PS3), 451,200
9. Wii Fit Plus w/ Balance Board (Nintendo, Wii), 429,600
10. MLB 10: The Show (Sony San Diego/SCEA, PS3), 349,200
These hardware sales are most interesting to me..for example it shows that there’s like an average of 300,000 new homes to purchase a PS3 each month! More and more families are having the gaming console at home, which means a constantly growing community, which means more love for the gaming industry!
and just look at the number of people now with a Wii in thier homes…550,000 more in just a single month of March.. wow. o-o
I’ve finally received my official Starcraft 2 Beta Invitation from Blizzard Entertainment!
Millions and millions around the world have all but been anxious to get a chance to participate in this beta, only mere thousands worldwide has actually got their golden tickets in thus far.
The beta has been running for about 2 months in now, having launched around Febuary this year, with beta access keys being valued at over $300USD on EBay…look at how crazy people are about getting this game! So it comes naturally to be this hyped about getting your very own beta invitation..!
Hmm.. i wouldn’t mind selling the account..i could use the money better hehe and i’m not sure i’ll have enough time to fully participate with all my homework piled up here.. x]
Who says you can’t make a living from Video Games? hehehe.
That’s also just average salaries from working in the industry, i don’t think they take to account outside work like casual games (iphone apps/facebook apps/web games) x]
Modnation Racers! Following in step of Sony’s other “play, create, share” games like LittleBigPlanet, Modnation Racers offers you, to let your imagination run wild and create your very own unique avatar, as well as a race kart… apparel, color choice, stickers, accessories, body kits, vinyls, decals, you can create just about anything your artistic soul can think of…
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