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	Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:18:00 -0500 Naughty Dog's critically-acclaimed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was the big winner at the 10th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, presented at a ceremony this evening at UBM TechWeb Game Network's 2010 Game Developers Conference (GDC), receiving a total of five awards, including Best Writing and the coveted Game of the Year award. Another major honoree, 5th Cell received the award for Best Handheld Game and the Innovation Award, for its creativity-fueled portable game, Scribblenauts. Zynga, ... Source: Gamasutra News (Gamasutra News)

 

	itwbennett writes "Sony on Tuesday 'rolled out the ability to buy HD movies from the PlayStation Network,' writes blogger Peter Smith. Sony claims they're the first service to offer HD titles to own from all six major movie studios. Smith runs the numbers on 'standard' pricing for titles ($19.99 for new releases; $17.99 for older movies), file sizes (ranging from 4 GB for Zombieland to 7.5 GB for 2012), and resolution (720P as far as he can tell)." Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:49:00 -0500 Pocketwatch Games' stylish co-op caper, Monaco, was the big winner at the Twelfth Annual Independent Games Festival Awards, which was hosted by the Game Developers Conference 2010 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. Monaco received the top award at the ceremony, earning the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game, as well as the award for Excellence in Design. Other IGF award recipients for 2010, as judged by over 170 industry ... Source: Gamasutra News (Gamasutra News)

 

	itwbennett writes "In a 45-minute press conference at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Sony announced its motion controller, officially named the Playstation Move. The Move consists of the Eye Toy (a camera pointed at the player) and a wand-like controller with a lighted ball at the end and a range of buttons on the shaft, writes blogger Peter Smith. 'Alternatively games can use two of the wands, or one wand and one "sub-controller" that has an analog stick (the camera is always required),' says Smith. 'If this is sounding very much like the Wii's Remote and Nunchuk well, you aren't far off (though at least there's no cable between the two parts to smack you in the face when things get heated).' Here are Smith's thoughts on the demo: 'All in all, the demos seemed OK, but I, at least, wasn't really blown away by any of them. That said, it's always hard to tell how well these systems work without actually trying them for yourself. You need to feel the connection (or lack thereof) between what your hands are doing and what's going on on-screen in order to be sure. For example, in the boxing demo the player did a quick spin move that led to a roundhouse punch. It's hard to say if his motion triggered a pre-set action (a 'combo') or if the system was able to track the controller that accurately, and was able to 'connect the dots' from when his body briefly occluded the wand to when it reappeared.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:55:00 -0500 "We took some pretty different aesthetic choices on this game, and it wasn't easy to bring it to where we are today," said Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, art director of Eidos Montreal. "We started from nothing, literally," he said, referencing the fact that there were 5 people in the dev team initially. The first thing they did was go back to original. "That was very, very important. We all started playing it thoroughly, and then somebody voluntarily ... Source: Gamasutra News (Gamasutra News)

 

	Paul Taylor noted a story that I would have thought to be an April Fool's Day joke a few weeks from now, which makes it only seem more tragic. A 3-year-old shot herself with a gun after mistaking it for a Wii controller. Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:22:00 -0500 It's possible that an over-reliance on metrics-driven design and extrinsic rewards for in-game actions could lead to a future of "designing shitty games that you have to pay people to play," warns independent developer Chris Hecker. Hecker, who is currently working on the espionage-themed multiplayer game SpyParty, presented his hypothetical "nightmare self-fulfilling scenario" as part of a talk inquisitively titled "Achievements Considered Harmful?" during Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Hecker based his talk on ... Source: Gamasutra News (Gamasutra News)

 

	c0mpliant writes "IGN and Gamespot have each released a preview of the recently announced and eagerly awaited Civilization V. Apart from the obvious new hexagon shape of tiles and improved graphics, the articles go on to outline some of the major changes in the game, such as updated AI, new 'flavors' to world leaders, and a potentially game-changing, one-unit-per-tile system. No more will the stack of doom come to your city's doorsteps. Some features which will not be returning are religion and espionage. The removal of these two have sparked a frenzy of discussion on fan-related forums." Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:18:00 -0500 R.A. Salvatore, the popular fantasy author best-known for his Forgotten Realms novels starring Drow Elf Drizzt Do'Urden. For the past several years, he's been working with Curt Schilling's 38 Studios to produce a game codenamed Copernicus, an MMO. With the disclaimer "I'm not here to tell you how to create a world. I am certainly not here to tell you how to design a game. What I am here is to tell you the principles ... Source: Gamasutra News (Gamasutra News)

 

	suraj.sun writes "Microsoft has shown off XNA games running on Windows Phone; full 3D is a go. From Engadget: 'Microsoft just showed us a pair of 3D games running on its ASUS Windows Phone prototype and built with its brand new XNA Game Studio 4.0 9. The two titles are The Harvest, a good looking touch-controlled dungeon crawler with destructible environments, being developed by Luma Arcade; and Battle Punks. Microsoft spoke to the ease of its Direct3D development platform, which was built by the same folks responsible for the first-gen Xbox. What we saw of The Harvest was built in "two or three weeks," mostly from scratch, and folks who've already built games for XNA in VisualStudio shouldn't have much trouble with a port from the sound of things: "very, very easy," said Microsoft. Right now developers can do their testing in Windows, but there should be a Windows Phone 7 Series emulator out for devs eventually.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:08:00 -0500 Akira Yamaoka, famed for his Silent Hill soundtracks, today discussed his thoughts on sound design, informed by his 20 year career of making music and games. Orginally, he went to design school, and that's how he came into the game world. But he loved both games and audio, so he wanted wanted to do both. "When I started getting into games, the Famicom was yet to come," he said, as computers were the prominent game ... Source: Gamasutra News (Gamasutra News)

 

	adeelarshad82 writes "After eight years of development, remote gaming service OnLive is scheduled to roll out on June 17 for Windows and Mac. The company also announced its service pricing: users will need to pay $14.95 per month, which will allow them access to the service. However, the company did not disclose the price to rent or purchase games. 'It is partnering in this launch with publishers including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, 2K Games, THQ and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The games will also include new releases like Mass Effect 2, Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed II, as well as a bunch of other titles. Perlman anticipates anywhere from a dozen to 25 titles to be available at launch time, and more after that, depending on how negotiations with other publishers proceed.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:29:00 -0500 Hardware constraints dragged on February's NPD results, but PlayStation 3 saw unit sales up 30 percent year over year -- and though Sony is facing supply constraints, it still plans to make a major sales milestone by the end of the month. "There continues to be incredible demand for PlayStation 3, but tight inventory is definitely having an impact on recent sales numbers," says Sony Computer Entertainment corporate communications senior director Patrick Seybold. "That said, ... Source: Gamasutra News (Gamasutra News)

 

	An anonymous reader writes "Philippe Dauman, Viacom CEO and President, announced today that Harmonix is currently working on the next Rock Band game, Rock Band 3, due for release Holiday 2010. 'The company is pursuing the game in spite of an industry-weakening decline in the once-booming genre of peripheral-equipped music games. Although the franchise has generated over $1 billion to date, the category in general saw sales contract by as much as half throughout 2009. MTV Games parent Viacom also saw Rock Band declines drag on its balance sheet in its last fiscal quarter, and expressed a need to refocus away from pricey peripherals in favor of software. It also said that due to royalties it would need to be more "selective" about track listings, and that it needs more support from the music industry in that department.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:14:00 -0500 Though revenues were down across the board year-on-year, February 2010 releases achieved big numbers, with 2K Games' BioShock 2 for the Xbox 360 leading the chart -- though last fall's big hits, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, are still represented by strong sales. According to the NPD Group, year on year, overall retail sales in the U.S. video game market are down 15 percent, falling to $1.26 billion from $1.48 billion. Game ... Source: Gamasutra News (Gamasutra News)

 

	eldavojohn writes "A new report from Games Industry indicates that MMO gamers in the United States paid $3.8 billion to play last year, with an analysis of five European countries bringing the total close to $4.5 billion USD. In America, the report estimated that payments for boxed content and client downloads amounted to a measly $400 million, while the subscriptions came to $2.38 billion. Hopefully that will fund some developer budgets for bigger and better MMOs yet to come. The study also found that roughly a quarter of the US population plays some form of MMO. Surely MMOs are shaping up to be a juicy industry, and a market that can satisfy people of all walks of life." Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:41:00 -0500 In a lecture Thursday at GDC, Blizzard EVP of game design Rob Pardo shared Blizzard's core design concepts, offering examples of places where the World of Warcraft developer succeeded and failed in creating compelling multiplayer experiences. Pardo offered a plethora advice to the designers present, stressing that these lessons may not necessarily gel with other studios and suggesting that everybody go through this same exercise to set down their individual design team's rules. Below are ... Source: Gamasutra News (Gamasutra News)

 

	An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Gamasutra: "Valve will release a version of its Steam digital distribution service for Mac next month, along with Mac-native versions of its own games, the company confirmed today after days of hints — and owners of Valve games will have access to both platform versions. The Source engine, which Valve uses to develop all its internal titles and also licenses to third-party developers, will incorporate OpenGL in addition to DirectX, to allow Mac support for all Source developers. ... 'We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform, so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360,' said Cook. 'Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:30:00 -0500 Independent consultant and lawyer Alexander "The Mittani" Gianturco gave an impassioned talk Thursday at GDC, urging developers to examine the inherent "espionage" metagame of EVE Online and take inspiration from it for other products. "In my opinion, espionage is the ultimate in user-generated content," said Gianturco. "You don't constantly have to crap out new raids, players will amuse themselves by trying to tear each others' throats out." The metagame Gianturco referred to is practically unique ... Source: Gamasutra News (Gamasutra News)

 

	arcticstoat writes "AMD has just aimed a shot at Nvidia's PhysX technology, saying that most game developers only implement GPU-accelerated PhysX for the money. AMD's Richard Huddy explained that 'Nvidia creates a marketing deal with a title, and then as part of that marketing deal, they have the right to go in and implement PhysX in the game.' However, he adds that 'the problem with that is obviously that the game developer doesn't actually want it. They're not doing it because they want it; they're doing it because they're paid to do it. So we have a rather artificial situation at the moment where you see PhysX in games, but it isn't because the game developer wants it in there.' AMD is pushing open standards such as OpenCL and DirectCompute as alternatives to PhysX, as these APIs can run on both AMD and Nvidia GPUs. AMD also announced today that it will be giving away free versions of Pixelux's DMM2 physics engine, which now includes Bullet Physics, to some game developers." Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	ZuchinniOne writes "With Ubisoft's fantastically awful new DRM you must be online and logged in to their servers to play the games you buy. Not only was this DRM broken the very first day it was released, but now their authentication servers have failed so absolutely that no-one who legally bought their games can play them. 'At around 8am GMT, people began to complain in the Assassin's Creed 2 forum that they couldn't access the Ubisoft servers and were unable to play their games.' One can only hope that this utter failure will help to stem the tide of bad DRM." Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Engadget: "Microsoft's Eric Rudder, speaking at TechEd Middle East, showed off a game developed in Visual Studio as a singular project (with 90% shared code) that plays on Windows with a keyboard, a Windows Phone 7 Series prototype device with accelerometer and touch controls, and the Xbox 360 with the Xbox gamepad. Interestingly, not only is the development cross-platform friendly, but the game itself (a simple Indiana Jones platformer was demoed) saves its place and lets you resume from that spot on whichever platform you happen to pick up." Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	Last year we discussed news that an Xbox Live gamer was banned for identifying herself as a lesbian on her profile. Microsoft said at the time that nothing sexual in nature could appear in Gamertags or profiles. Now, they seem to have reconsidered their stance, and they've updated their Code of Conduct accordingly. Xbox Live General Manager Marc Whitten wrote: "[The update] will allow our members to more freely express their race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation in Gamertags and profiles. Under our previous policy, some of these expressions of self-identification were not allowed in Gamertags or profiles to prevent the use of these terms as insults or slurs. However we have since heard feedback from our customers that while the spirit of this approach was genuine, it inadvertently excluded a part of our Xbox LIVE community. This update also comes hand-in-hand with increased stringency and enforcement to prevent the misuse of these terms." Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	MojoKid writes "When a game developer releases a demo, it's typically intended to entice players into first trying and then purchasing the full version. This is the stuff of Game Design 101 for most of us, but a crack team of cutting-edge gaming researchers at Sony have applied for a patent based on a novel concept: game demos that become progressively less fun the more you play. Sony refers to this as 'feature erosion.' The idea behind this dubious concept is that gamers will become hooked on a game while it's still in demo, then squawk unhappily as features and abilities they've unlocked begin to disappear. In order to prevent this, the player ponies up for the full version. A demo or program that provides limited functionality or play time is one thing; a game that's purposefully designed to take your progress away, in an admitted attempt to get you to buy once you've been hooked, is something altogether different." Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)

 

	eldavojohn writes "Enough rumors, Portal 2 is due out for 2010. Valve also let users know through an announcement on Steam. Game Informer seems to be the de facto provider of Portal 2 information so far. Prepare yourselves for more aperture science! Notice anything funny about the underlined letters in Steam's announcement?" Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot: Games (News for nerds, stuff that matters)