WGE:MAG Issue #3 by John Armstrong

ING

THE MAGAZINE FOR THE WORLD’S GAMING ELITE

WGE - ISSUE 3

WGE:MAG

G RLD AM

UTIV

PIMP

MY RIDE! The man who designed tech for Batman and Doctor Who CHARLES MARTINET

A COMIC BOOK HERO

We chat with Super Mario!

Andy Diggle interview

also inside: GAMING ON CAMPUS » Lord British

TAIKODOM

Brazil takes on the Universe

31 Distributed in partnership with

› HELLO Welcome to World Gaming Executives John Armstrong WGE Director

elcome to the third edition of WGE:MAG, the digital magazine of the World Gaming Executives. Since the success of our first two editions we have seen plenty of interest in the magazine and the WGE Community as a whole.

One of the questions we have been asked on a number of occasions is why we feature articles on gamers, we also get the same question with regards our poker and gaming coverage. Whilst our main focus is clearly on games development and the industry as a whole we feel that it is important to be able to shine a light on some of the real games enthusiasts, the people that expend a huge amount of time, energy and money on practicing games and who sometimes go on to play games professionally or as part of a pro-team. We feel that there is a real genuine interest in these gaming aficionados and we can gain a fascinating insight by tapping into their world. They certainly merit interest, just look at the following that the Fragdolls have, they are gaming celebrities. As for poker and gambling – that’s a fairly simple one. Poker, in its various guises, is the most played online game in the world. You’ve got more than 20m players playing Zynga Poker on Facebook and millions more playing for real cash on the numerous online poker sites – it’s a global phenomenon that just cannot be ignored. In terms of gambling, the games industry has been a touchstone for many of the companies which create casino environments, tables and slot reels. The gaming industry has had a considerable influence on the explosion of gambling online and whilst some may look down on it from an ethical standpoint, it’s certainly as valid as any other form. To those who argue that gaming and gambling have no real connection, take a look at the growing number of game-branded slots which can be found online, Lara Croft and Call of Duty just two of the titles who have bullied their way onto the gambling platform. Hopefully that clears up any confusion. If you’ve got any other issues or thoughts on WGE:MAG I am more than happy to answer your questions. John Armstrong

Editor in Chief

Contact:

Matt Morris

Editor: editor@worldgamingexecutives.com Sales: sales@worldgamingexecutives.com Articles: articles@worldgamingexecutives.com

Assistant Editor John Armstrong

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ian Howarth

Image Credits: Gaming on Campus - Images from digitalsaucemarketing.com Comic Book Hero - Images from Marvel Charles Martinet- Super Mario - Images from Bell-Pottinger.co.uk and Skyrim/Elder Scrolls Wikia permission Dan Walker - Images Crysis 2 and Burnout Revenge EA Press Sonic Legends - Images provided by Sonic Legends Writing in Games - Images from Monkey Island and Sam & Max from Telltale Games Press

Publisher Moshen Ltd / www.moshenltd.com

CONNECT WITH US HERE:

â&#x20AC;ş CONTENTS 04

Charles Martinet The mouth behind Mario

A Comic Book Hero Diggle talks games

21 Marcel Luske

Gaming On Campus The student sell

22 SpaceMan Brits in space

Pimp My Ride Gotham and beyond

Hero Engine Creating the online game

Taikodom Brazilian success story

Troy Hipolito Social gaming rules

Moronica Music inspired gaming

Hidden Variable Locailty the key to success

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Super Martinet! The man behind the voice of Mario

intendo’s Super Mario, perhaps the most iconic game character of all time, a plumber from Brooklyn brought to life in the Mushroom Kingdom by the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto. But Mario is not just a goodlooker, since 1985, the little man has also had plenty to say, voiced by the magnificent talents of Californian actor, Charles Martinet. In this exclusive interview, WGE:MAG uncovers the early career of the man behind Mario’s voice. We reveal how things might have been rather different for Mario had Shakespeare not intervened, not once, but twice in the career of Martinet and of course shaped the destiny of Nintendo’s Mario. Charles Martinet began life in San Jose, California and after a couple of Mario-style leaps across the Atlantic to Europe’s cultural dynasties of Barcelona and Paris, it looked as though the softly spoken Californian would be collecting coins as a Berkeley trained lawyer, rather than a sprightly Brooklyn plumber. But what the courtrooms of San Francisco lost, the world of Nintendo gained, in a twist of fate it was his admiration for the work of one particular political theory professor which actually led to Martinet ending his studies at Berkeley.

“I was going to college and had the intention of becoming a lawyer,” Martinet says, explaining perhaps the most crucial juncture in his career. “I was at UC Berkeley, in my last two quarters, and I couldn’t get classes with the professor that I loved. “He was the only professor who asked during a political theory exam ‘What is the nature of man according to Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire and what is your opinion, given your knowledge now of the nature of man?’

“I had this incredibly deep voice for a sixyear-old, I would often answer the phone and people would think I was the man of the house.” “I finished all the stuff about Locke and Rousseau as fast as I could and then I thought ‘Now it’s my chance to express myself’. It was the first time anyone had ever asked me to think. “I simply fell in love with this professor and said every class I am going to take from now on is from this professor. But in the next quarter I couldn’t get a single one of his classes, I had to take everything from this other guy, whose exams only had to do with regurgitating the information in his books.

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chimney, they had someone else playing the part of the real Santa Claus, because he looked more the part.” Those nerves were clearly still with Martinet as he took his first serious steps into the world of acting more than a decade later, but there was clearly something which grabbed his audience’s attention, even if it was nothing more than a shaky leg. “I remember our first monologue was from a Spoon River anthology, it’s a series of monologues about people who are dead and they are coming back to tell their excruciating tale about how they died – it’s the most miserable piece of theatre in the world – but everyone gets to do a monologue.

“So I said ‘Forget It!’ I left the University.” Perhaps an extreme and abrupt end to potential career in law, but after several months of soul-searching and recharging of the batteries, a chance conversation with an old friend provided an unexpected change of direction by suggesting he take acting classes.

“My monologue was some guy who burned to death in a warehouse fire and I remember standing in front of the class and I am sweating profusely. I started my monologue ‘Oh yes, I died a fiery miserable death, blah, blah, blah’ and my right leg was shaking so severely, bouncing up and down, I thought that my knee was going to hit me in the face, so I put all my weight on my right knee and then my left knee started bouncing up and down too. I tried to separate my legs as wide as I could, without looking like I was doing the splits and put my weight evenly between them, but then both my legs were shaking. I must have looked like a guy who was bouncing up and down on a rocky road. “I don’t know how I finished my monologue, but everyone was ‘Oh that was fantastic. You’re the only person of all the people who wasn’t nervous.’”

“At first I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard in my life, I am excruciatingly shy,” Martinet says.

From this nervy start, Charles progressed to more serious undertakings and it was a brush with Shakespeare which really set Martinet to thinking he had the prospect of a career on the stage.

“Even in fifth grade at school, I couldn’t conceive of standing in front of people. I had this incredibly deep voice for a sixyear-old, I would often answer the phone and people would think I was the man of the house.

“We had the College play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and I wanted to audition for Oberon, that’s the coolest part to play.

“It was my voice which got the me the role of Santa Claus, although admittedly I was only his voice as he was inside the

“After doing my audition I knew that I was the best. I thought that I was going to play this part, it’s going to be fantastic, it’s going to be great, I know just what I am going to do with this line and that line and I know just what I am going to do there. But I didn’t get the part! I not only didn’t get Oberon, I got absolutely nothing in the play and I thought, ‘Oh my goodness’. “Somehow that set a fire under me, a passionate fire, ‘I’m going to get some acting experience, I’m going to get these jobs”. The passion for acting saw Charles audition for an apprenticeship programme with a local repertory company in the San Francisco Bay area and after being denied once with Oberon it proved to be second time lucky. “I went and auditioned with the monologue from Oberon in Midsummer Night’s Dream. I was against the same exact people who had actually got the part of Oberon and all the parts in Midsummer Night’s Dream and I got the apprenticeship. “So I went zipping along to England, to the Drama Studio of London where I studied being a professional actor and from there I spent the next ten years doing 75 plays and bouncing around the Bay area acting in theatre.

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“I had this passion for acting, but regional theatre can be incredibly challenging in terms of your own personal finances. “A friend of mine called me up and asked me if I would like to audition for a corporate video and I’m like ‘Sure, what’s a corporate video?’ He said: ‘A corporate video is where you do a video for a corporation’ and I was ‘Ok, I’ll do a corporate video.’ “Luckily for me the first 10 or 15 that I auditioned for I got and I got to do lots of great parts. Aliens, martians, nerds, scientists, you get to do everything and they pay you more in one day than you made in two weeks in the theatre as a professional.” So almost like Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom, Charles had completed one level, before he had progessed to the next and it wouldn’t be long before experience took him up a platform once again where there were even more coins to be had. “I happened to do a job which was the American Gothic painting for Orchard Supply Hardware, and after doing that job the producer asked me whether I did voiceover, I said, ‘Of course I do, what’s a voiceover?’ “I made as much doing the voiceover as I did standing around with a pitchfork all day. “The economies went bad, corporate videos stopped but then trade shows suddenly opened the doors and I was doing a massive number of trade shows and that’s the best. I had an ear prompter, I can record absolutely anything in there and all I do is listen and repeat. It’s a great exercise in being mindless but looking extremely intelligent whilst you do it.” So from traditional theatre to corporate videos to voiceover work to tradeshows – it wasn’t long before he was invited to what was to become the most important audition of his life. Though at the time, Martinet wasn’t quite aware of how big a deal this chance audition was. Charles explains the beginnings of what would be a fateful audition: “A friend called me up and told me that there was an audition for a trade show in Las Vegas and that I should go and do it. I said, ‘My friend, I’m a professional actor, I never crash auditions, I get invited to them… what’s the address?’

“It’s the only audition I have ever crashed in my entire life, I can’t believe that I did that.” “It’s the only audition I have ever crashed in my entire life, I can’t believe that I did that. “I was enjoying a beautiful day at the beach and I drove down to the South of Market Street in San Francisco and I am late and I knock on the door and the producer and the camera guy are on their way out of the door with the camera in the bag, they’re walking out and it’s like ‘Oh hi, can I please audition for this?’ The producer looks at his watch, looks at me irritated, looks at his watch, looks at the cameraman and says ‘Ok, come on inside, we’ll set the camera up. You’re an Italian plumber from Brooklyn, so make up an accent and you are going to be having these things glued to your face, they’re contacts that when you move your face, that’s going to move these rollerballs which communicates with a computer and that in real time is supposed to make this plumber guy move his mouth. We have no idea whether that’s going to work, but you are going to be talking to people all day long, if it works or it doesn’t work. We’ll set a camera up and you will just talk to people, but that’s your job, to talk all day long. So here’s what you do, make up a voice and make up a video game, make up whatever you want to make up, just start talking and whenever you stop talking, that’s your audition.’ I’m thinking ‘Ok, an Italian plumber from Brooklyn. (adopts macho Rocky Bilbao voice) ‘Hey I’m under your sink, don’t bother me, leave me alone.’ I’m thinking I could do that, but it feels to me so gruff and coarse, I don’t know the age of the people but I want to make sure that if they are young people then I am being nice.” It’s at this point that dear old William Shakespeare enters stage left once again… “I am sitting there thinking that there is another voice, which by great circumstance, is thanks to William Shakespeare.

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“I had played Gremio, the old man in The Taming of the Shrew, whose daughter marries Petruchio, who was an Italian G.I. coming to Italy to find a wife and Gremio was the town mayor in 1947 Italy. “It was that voice, a much more friendly Italian accent, which provided the basis for the Brooklyn plumber in that audition. “I didn’t know anything about video games. I had played Pong and I had played Space Invaders. I don’t know why but I was having a great time, just sitting there being silly and I talked for 30 to 40 minutes, because he said until I ran out of things to say, I thought I might as well just keep going until he says stop. “Sure enough he shouts ‘Stop, cut, we’ve run out of video tape. Thank you very much, we’ll be in touch.’ ‘We’ll be in touch’, the ultimate kiss of death for an actor, it usually translates to ‘There’s the door, I hope to goodness we never see you again.”

“I went off to watch the sunset at the beach but as soon as I walked out of the door, the producer gets on the phone, calls Nintendo and says ‘I’ve found our Mario’. He only sent my tape up there, I guess all the powers that be heard the tape and that they said ‘That’s our Mario.’ That was 21 magnificent years ago.” The beginnings of a beautiful creative partnership were born from that audition. Mario’s voice started life as MIRT, Mario in Real Time, at Trade Shows but as technology progressed it soon became clear that Martinet’s Mario voice could be put to use on even bigger projects.

“In 1996 I got a phone call, ‘Mr Miyamoto would like you to play Mario in a game, the Mario 64 game, and for you to be the voice of Mario.’ It was such a profound joy and honour to go in and do this session, seeing all these animations and these things which came to life right there.

“It was supposed to be a one-off but people really enjoyed it, the interactions were terrific. Mario was a floating head and we would put the children on the TV so they could see themselves and then we would put Mario’s head on their head and we would just sit there talking, being playful.

“I have attended a lot of shows and whenever Mr Miyamoto walked by, and I’m playing Mario, I would see him and his entourage and they would be going to this show and I would say (in Mario voice) ‘Papa, hello.’” In a future edition of WGE:MAG, Martinet extends on his work with Nintendo, his excitement about the forthcoming Wii U, his work on Skyrim and much more.

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WGE MAG: 09

Still others, like 18 Wheels of Steel, provide the non-programmed data (images, small codepieces and the like) in a simple archive. Often modders will take the game in directions that the developers never anticipated or didn’t have time or funding to create. Some games, like Neverwinter Nights, could never have been as successful as they are without a thriving mod community, which is why many game companies openly support modding. In the case of Half-Life, a mod called Counter-Strike drove sales of the original software for years.

Catch 22

he big Catch-22 in the game Industry is that to get a job you need experience and to get that experience, you need to get a job. It can be pretty frustrating someone who wants to get a foot in the door. So if you don’t have ‘official’ experience, create your own! Picking up new skills is always a great idea. If you can, enroll in an accredited degree or certificate program where you not only learn the ins and outs of your craft (game programming, animation, game design, etc) but create something that can go into your portfolio. No matter what game job you seek, you’ll need to show examples of your work and demonstrate that you have the skill it takes to do the job. The good news is that you don’t need to be employed or have a shiny new degree to create a portfolio. Create your own art, design a soundtrack, or create mods of your favorite games. ‘Modding’ means modifying software to design an element or perform a function that isn’t currently in the product. Many games, like The Elder Scrolls series, come with a mod editing tool that actually encourages users to create and share original content. Some games even provide source code for player experimentation.

“Many game companies actually follow the mod communities and may approach the good modders for jobs.” GECK The Garden of Eden Creation Kit (GECK) allows you to edit and create game content for use with Fallout 3. The data is stored in files that are read directly by the game. The GECK allows you to build your own areas (towns, dungeons, etc) and populate them with your own characters, creatures, items and storylines. Want a job at Bethesda Software, the developer and publisher of Fallout? Create a killer mod and watch how quickly you’ll get the company’s attention! HAMMER The Valve Hammer Editor (known as Hammer) was the official mapping tool for the Goldsource engine, the engine that ran Half-Life and Counter-Strike as well as other pre-Source Valve games. The latest version is included in the Source SDK, for mapping under the Source engine (under which all newer Valve games run). AURORA The Aurora Toolset (also known as the Aurora Toolkit) is a set of software tools developed by BioWare for use with the

Aurora Engine, the game engine first used in BioWare’s Neverwinter Nights. The toolset is included in the Windows version of the game, and allows players to create their own adventures. The tools include a visual tile-based terrain editor, a script editor, a conversation editor, and an object editor. Use modding to show BioWare that you love the game and understand the engine. Unreal Development Kit (UDK) UDK is Unreal Engine 3, a complete professional development framework. It includes all the tools you need to create great games, advanced visualizations and detailed 3D Simulations on the PC and iOS platforms. Many game companies actually follow the mod communities and may approach the good modders for jobs. EA, for example, has a strong reputation of mining the Sims modding communities.The good news is that you’re not helpless here, so roll up your sleeves and get modding! MARC MENCHER BIOGRAPHY: Game Programmer / Technical Producer-turned-Recruiter and Career Coach, Marc Mencher has been in the Game Industry for 27 years. He is the founder and CEO of GameRecruiter www.GameRecruiter.com Marc began his career working for Spectrum Holobyte, Microprose and The 3DO Company. While he enjoyed coding, through the experience of developing product and leading teams, he realized that his true passion was helping people plan and manage their careers.

Marc is the author of ‘Get in the Game!’ an instructional book on building a career in the video game industry. His articles have been featured in a variety of industry publications. He is a speaker at game industry conferences and volunteers as an advisory board member for several colleges. Marc has been interviewed on television and radio as an expert on working in the videogames industry. His detailed bio can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Marc_Mencher Along with his team of Recruiter / Career Agents, Marc has had the pleasure of representing the game industry’s hottest talent, and has helped thousands of people manage their career and obtain strategically important game jobs. Integrity and confidentiality are the cornerstones of his success.

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The Guild

t was in 1959 that a group of writers working in the film industry decided to get together and form a union to negotiate on behalf of, and provide support for British writers. Before this group assembled and thrashed out a general agreement, contracts were negotiated on an individual basis, with widely disparate terms and conditions. This uneven, ad hoc approach to contracts led to problems not only for writers, but for their employers too. As both sides approached the negotiating table they did so without a clear expectation of what the other party was thinking. What credit should a writer receive? What was the definition of a draft? What should a writer be paid? These and many more questions led to disputes, costs and strains in working relationships that were avoidable on both sides. So, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain was born. Since this first gathering and the agreement that resulted, the Guild has gone on to organise other such accords in film, theatre, radio and television as well as providing guidelines and advice for a wide variety of other industries. By the end of 2004 it had become evident that the games industry was in need of such a set of guidelines. At that stage the industry mirrored the state of affairs in the film industry in the 1960s, with writers, employers and everyone in between uncertain as to a starting point for contracts, conditions and negotiations. While writers were starting to be employed more widely throughout the sector,

not all writers knew that it was an industry that contained narrative, and many games companies were only just coming to grips with the existence of a peculiar beast - the professional games writer. The brief history of writing in games has been a roller coaster. Many early games were text adventures containing thousands of lines and attracting writers such as Douglas Adams to the medium. Ask many a games designer today what his or her favourite titles are and they will speak fondly of wordfriendly point-and-click adventures such as Monkey Island,

“So, more than 50 years on from its founding, the Writers’ Guild is still offering writers and the industries they work in a place to go to for information, help and advice” Sam and Max, or Planescape: Torment. However, as graphics took leaps forward it was straight-up interactive action and visuals that began to dominate the industry leaving story and character behind. Happily, this didn’t last long; from the PlayStation 1 onwards, extended narrative started to reappear. From Abe’s Oddysee to Knights of the Old Republic, CoD4 to Mass Effect, story, character and dialogue became important again. While not all games contain, or indeed should contain either character or narrative it became clear that these were good ways to build a franchise because they were something that players could engage with.

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This latter set of problems is the one that the Writers’ Guild’s Videogames committee decided to tackle. In other media, the Guild meets directly with a central employer that represents that industry. Such a model works plainly in television and radio; however, no such central body, or single employer, exists in games. Instead, the Guild contacted games companies, outsourcing companies and working games writers to build up a picture of how things were working in the industry. Soon experienced games writers from across the world were submitting their thoughts as too were developers, publishers and studios. These responses helped the Guild construct guidelines representing both sides of the industry (writers and those who employ them) as well as the range of work that writers were being asked to do. This information was then distilled into a booklet that was sent to many developers and publishers, as well as being made available online. At the same time as story was returning to mainstream games, a new breed of writer was becoming more common, the games writer. Versed not only in the requirements of the Three-Act Structure, character creation and scene construction, games writers also understood the peculiar needs of an interactive environment. As narrative was developing in game, writers were realising that while the lessons of old held in many cases, it was also clear that this new medium required fresh techniques and its own vocabulary. Just as film had introduced the world to the cut and the pull shot, so games had their own lexicon, systemic dialogue, scripted events, FMVs, cutscenes and ondemand dialogue being unique to this medium. Developing the necessary narrative tools hasn’t always been an easy process. Games designers worried about dialogue and cutscenes interrupting the flow of gameplay, whilst writers worried that developers were unable to recognise the steps necessary to tell stories in this nascent medium. The audience for games narrative was different too, something that still fails to be clearly acknowledged. Among players, for instance, there are those who revel in long cutscenes, but there are also those who revile them. There are players who long for customisable creations of their own, and others who champion rounded characters a writer has created for them. Commander Shepard and Nathan Drake, Gordon Freeman and Mario, all are popular games characters, but they were created and perform in very different ways. To make things worse, beyond these creative challenges there was also confusion over the practical day-to-day considerations of the industry - how to find, employ, or calculate what to pay writers?

This latest version of the guidelines, which was the first such publication anywhere in the world, simply updates that original set. As before, advice has been sought from writers and industry figures so that the guidelines could take into account changes since they were first published in 2005, thus ensuring that the information is still as relevant as when they were first released. Since the guidelines were first published, the Guild has continued to support and recognise games writers. Those who join can utilise the Guild’s contract-vetting service, meet writers from different media and attend Guild events, maybe even find themselves in the running for a Writers’ Guild Award - which brings us to the next point, myths about the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. 1. The Guild Awards are for members only. This is not the case. Unlike the Writers Guild of America’s awards, none of the recent Writers’ Guild of Great Britain awards have required writers to be members before they can be nominated, or win the videogames writing award. The award is open to any British writer, or writer working in Britain within specific dates each year. 2. The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain is part of the WGA? This isn’t true either. The Guild here in the UK is a separate, but allied entity to the WGA. Guilds across the world certainly do work together, but they are separate organisations each with their own agreements and approaches. 3. Only experienced writers can join the Guild? The Guild used to have a points system that governed entry to the Guild, but while it is still necessary to have some commissioned writing credits to become a Full Member of the Guild, anyone with an interest in writing can join as a Candidate member. So, more than 50 years on from its founding, the Writers’ Guild is still offering writers and the industries they work in a place to go to for information, help and advice. For the games industry this centres around these revised, updated guidelines. This revision is unlikely to be the last. As the industry continues to evolve so will games writing and the advice that comes with it. Hopefully, though, the stress of negotiation and employment will be reduced so that the emphasis can be placed on the important stuff forging the tools that take this still young medium forward into the future. www.writersguild.org.uk

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A COMIC BOOK HERO Interview: Andy Diggle

Andy Diggle, is the World Gaming Executives’ very own comic-book hero. Best known for giving seminal sci-fi anthology 2000 AD a new lease of life at the start of the millennium, he was recently coopted onto the WGE advisory panel and will be lending more than decade’s worth of comicbook experience to the WGE community. The London-born writer is currently enjoying critical acclaim for his work on Marvel’s Six Guns - a modern-day Western, crammed full of guntoting scumbags and desperadoes. But when we sat down with Diggle this month we discovered that the former 2000 AD editor is keen to exploit what he sees as a burgeoning relationship between comic-books and video games. “A lot of video game guys are big fans of 2000 AD, there’s a very close correlation there,” Diggle told WGE:MAG from the sedate climes of his Lancaster studio.

“I got approached by Ben Judd, an American producer, based at Capcom in Japan, his brother was a big comics fan and liked my work, he thought it would be a good fit.” “2000 AD has a broad range of styles, but there has always been a kind of grungy, hardcore, heavy metal tough-guy vibe at the heart of it that you can see all over video games. That whole Gears of War vibe is very 2000 AD. “It seems like half the people working in the British video games industry have read 2000 AD, or even worked on it at some point. “I became the editor of 2000 AD in mid-2000, which by sheer coincidence was the same time that Rebellion, the video game developer, took over the comic. It was a new editor and a new publisher at the same time.” Diggle’s first significant work in with the video games industry came several years after his work on 2000 AD. A transatlantic move to DC Comics saw him writing on such titles as Batman, Swamp Thing and The Losers, and it was from here that he was invited to work on Capcom’s remake of the arcade classic Bionic Commando.

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“I would like to write more video games, it’s something I am in to. There isn’t a huge British comic scene at the moment. 2000 AD is still going strong and there is a good indie-underground comic scene but in terms of mainstream publishing there is not a lot going on there, but video games are big over here.” set-pieces and tried to assemble them into some semblance of a story. It’s kind of the opposite to the way I normally work, but form has to follow function.”

“It was very much a learning experience for me,” Diggle explains. “I was approached by Ben Judd, an American producer based at Capcom in Japan. His brother was a big comics fan and introduced him to my work, and he thought I’d be a good fit for the game. I was told that I was the first non-Japanese writer ever to be brought in by Capcom to develop one of their games. I don’t know if it’s true, but if so it’s very flattering. “They were working with Grin, the Swedish developer, to put this remake of Bionic Commando out there. Grin had a very specific vision for the game. It’s set in a ruined city where it’s all about height and scale; it’s all about trying to get elevation. If you stay on the ground then you’re going to get shot. The gameplay dynamic is Spider-Man style swinging combined with third-person shooting, which makes it quite tricky to master. “My job was to try and figure out a reason for all this stuff to be happening; the internal logic. Who is this guy and why is he in this city, why is it ruined? So I took Grin’s ideas and

With an American producer, a Japanese publisher, a Swedish development team, an American management team doing oversight and Diggle the British writer, things were always going to be difficult from a logistical point of view. It was a set-up which Diggle found a little bit frustrating. “Finding time when we were all actually awake at the same time was very tricky,” Diggle says of the multi-national production. “I thought they needed a writer who was actually in-house at Grin, someone who could work alongside the development team, look over their shoulder and see how the game was evolving on a day-to-day basis. But I couldn’t do that effectively from another country; it felt like the goalposts kept moving. So after writing the proof-of-concept demo that got the game greenlit, I stepped away and declined to write the full game. Looking back on some of the story choices that were subsequently made, I think I did the right thing. Capcom still asked me back to write a promotional comic, though, which was a lot of fun. I got to work with one of my childhood heroes, Colin Wilson, who drew Rogue Trooper back in the day.”

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“I thought Red or Dead Redemption was absolutely extraordinary, I just wanted to climb inside that game and live in it. Even forgetting the single-player pre-scripted storyline you could just go out into the wild and have adventures and encounters with people.”

Bionic Commando was released in 2009. Having acquired a taste for video game development, Diggle is itching to see some of his own story concepts brought to life as games rather than comic-books. “I would like to write more video games, it’s something I’m very much into. I have all these story ideas, and several of them would lend themselves very well to video games. I can see the game-play dynamic of it, certain abilities a character might have, environments and goals and objectives. I have wondered whether I should just take some of them to developers and publishers. Games are something I actively enjoy, and you’ve got to do what you love or what’s the point?” Video game technology in the new millennium certainly lends itself to Diggle’s expansive ideas on scenarios, characters and environment. But then hours and hours exploring the endless catacombs with Lara Croft would certainly ensure that you’d be wanting more from a game these days. “For me, a game’s ‘story’ can be as simple as knowing what you have to achieve, where you’re supposed to go,” Diggle explains. “I remember years back playing one of the Tomb Raider games, the environment was so huge, I had absolutely no idea where I was or what I was supposed to be looking for. You just find yourself endlessly doubling back on yourself, and that becomes quite tedious. “So the ‘big sandbox’ stuff can be risky if it’s not done right, but I prefer that to ‘on-rails’ gameplay. I’m a big Modern Warfare fan, but the single-player stuff is very linear with its pre-scripted set pieces. Somewhere in the middle is good for me. “I thought Red Dead Redemption was absolutely extraordinary; I just wanted to climb inside that game and live in it. The single-player storyline was solid, plus you could just ride out into the wild and have these interesting adventures and encounters. It was amazing, the perfect blend of free roaming with story. I found myself really identifying with the character, John Marston. The game’s ‘honour system’ is so perfectly weaved into the fabric of the world that you don’t really notice it, but I found myself wanting to be a good man, to redeem this guy. I found myself very invested in Red Dead Redemption.”

With Diggle’s love for Red Dead Redemption and his own Spaghetti Western themed comic-book Six Guns, you could be forgiven for thinking that any potential Diggle video game production would be very much of the same ilk. But don’t be too quick to put Diggle’s gaming tastes into a pigeon hole. “I’ve got pretty mainstream tastes when it comes to gaming,” he says, almost by way of apology. “I tend to find one game I really like and then just hammer it endlessly. I’m a big fan of the Modern Warfare games, plus stealth games like Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell and even Tenchu back in the day. I have kids now so I don’t have as much time for my own video games, but they’re obsessed with Portal 2. I love that game, but I’m actually kind of sick of it now because my kids ask me to play it every morning! They’ve bought into the whole mythology of that game, the universe and the characters, they love it. I think it’s genius.”

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“All sports have characters; football for example, in many games you see examples of bad sportsmanship and bad language exhibited by players and those players need to be penalised using FIFA rules - its the same in Poker, players will be penalised according to the International Poker Rules, depending on the act they commit.”

He said: “All sports have characters. Take football for example, in many games you see examples of bad sportsmanship and bad language exhibited by players and those players need to be penalised using FIFA rules. It’s the same in poker, players will be penalised according to the International Poker Rules, depending on the act they commit.

Straight Talking

It’s hard to escape the global boom of poker. Whether it’s for fun on Facebook, for real in a casino or even a casual game with friends it’s fast becoming a game which more and more people can enjoy wherever they are. But who sets the rules and standards for such a burgeoning pastime? Football has FIFA, who looks after poker? WGE:MAG spoke to leading poker personality Marcel Luske about his involvement with FIDPA, the Federation Internationale de Poker Association. The flamboyant Dutchman is well known for his upside-down sunglasses and his habit of singing during tournaments, but Luske is keen to promote an industry standard within poker across all the many platforms. “The Federation Internationale de Poker Association (FIDPA) is an international governing body for the sport of poker,” Luske told WGE:MAG this month. “It’s the recognized leader in promoting and developing the sport’s growth. Its main aim is to support the poker industry and bring fairness and consistency to the game. This also means creating internationally recognised poker rules. “From grass roots play for fun on social media sites like Facebook, to full time professionals, everyone needs to know the rules of whatever game it is they’re playing and also the way in which they should treat their fellow players, or poker etiquette. This is also covered in the FIDPA rule book. “Wherever you play, not only is it down to the individual to check their own behaviour but also, as important, is the need for the website or game managers to enforce the rules when they see breaches in regulations, no matter who commits them.” We’ve all come across bad losers, in whatever walk of life and Luske is keen to see poor attitudes stamped out in the game of poker, similar to how other sports deal with those who might step out of line.

“Poker, to my mind, is no less a beautiful game than football but as cerebral as chess. Even in chess there have been some ‘bad’ characters that held the world stage. But in the end, to play properly and to win, you have to follow the rules.” Anyone wishing to see the rules as they stand can visit http://www.fidpa.com where a beta rulebook is available for download. Luske is hopeful that it will be a set of guidelines that all players will adopt. “The rules have already been in action for over three years, starting officially with the Bellagio, followed by the Australian Poker League, Mexico, Belgium, Holland, with many applications pending! Many cardrooms can of course play by the International Poker Rules without an official endorsement as they’re free to be used by anyone. “Even in play for fun poker the rules need to be enforced. Play for fun on social media should be just that ‘fun’ and if bad behaviour disrupts the game or stops it being fun then rules have to be enforced. “Discussing the best ways to educate new players on social media would be a very interesting avenue for FIDPA and myself to explore, it’d be great to create a forum for open discussion.” Luske has been a huge character on the international poker circuit for several years now, however the FIDPA commitments have curtailed some of his more recent activities. The Dutchman is also working on another venture, but he’s keen to get back to the tables sooner rather than later. “I didn’t play too much in 2011 because of working on FIDPA’s International Poker Rulebook and my new business venture, Global Poker Support. I’ve also been working on Tockpoker; a poker tuition game for players just starting to understand the rules, the hands and the combinations, which uses simple transparant gameplay. “If you understand Sudoku, then you understand Tockpoker. The backs of Tockpoker cards are clearly marked to help any player figure out the winning combination as quickly as possible - meaning once they have mastered this they only need play Tockpoker with winning hands and they can then take the skills they have developed in Tockpoker to other poker games. “I have these projects to finish then I can enjoy my Pokerstars sponsorship and play my A game again soon!” http://www.fidpa.com

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A Never Ending Story? H

as articy:draft come up with a solution to help developers solve the problem of storywriting within coding?

The Situation Interactive storytelling is the key word when it comes to blockbusters like Heavy Rain or Mass Effect. No one can deny the great potential of non-linear stories that put players in the center of events, mediating the unique feeling of importance and actual influence. But people tend to forget the typical problems that occur every day during the design phase of such a project. The player sees only a section of dialogue and the consequence of his or her action, but the writer has to keep an overview over all possible dialogues and decisions - in addition the writer has to make sure that every ‘path’ works within the story. Writing a good linear story is already a challenge in itself, but when you add the ‘dynamic variable player’ to your plot, that’s when the battle against the branching chaos really begins.

The first and most obvious problem is the actual display of the non-linear structure. Which event is supposed to follow on which decision, which dialogue line is the reply to which question? In addition, it doesn’t even matter if we’re talking about the structure of an epic RPG or a small, casual point and click adventure, already a few player options are enough to make game writing in a classic word processing tool a nightmare – especially since interactive dialogues are a real challenge of their own. The reason why this happens is because this dialogue type has a very high density of relevant decisions that affects the ongoing story. Already a relative short dialogue with only two options as answers can quickly branch out into a dozen new storylines. Even if the conversation ends at the same point, the difficulty to transmit the feeling of freedom of action for players and at the same time to simulate a natural conversation flow still remains. On the search for alternatives (with a better overview) some writers use the classic Post-It notes or wikis with hyperlinks. But if you don’t have access to a very big office wall for your Post-Its you’ll very quickly reach the limits of this alternative. Even a wiki can be very difficult to handle when it comes to managing more than only the general context, like detailed dialogues for instance.

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“One of the problems with a tree structure is that there is often the need to copy whole sections of dialogue into new places in the tree in order to get them to trigger in the right way”.

The Approach Normally writers use a form of tree structure to display dialogue, Steve Ince, who has written the dialogues for Broken Sword - The Sleeping Dragon, points out in Develop magazine that: “One of the problems with a tree structure is that there is often the need to copy whole sections of dialogue into new places in the tree in order to get them to trigger in the right way”. A directed graph can avoid a lot of copy and paste and still offers an adequate structure compared to a tree structure. Why? Because a graph gives plot lines the possibility to rejoin, so instead of copying the same content to different spots within the tree structure over and over again the writer just has to take care that the different connections flow back together at one point. In addition this approach makes errors in the dialogue structure visually apparent like plot holes or branched out dialogue sequences with no end. Even the directed graph approach still bears an obstacle that prevents writers from concentrating only on their creative work - different output demands. Coders need clear conditions that they

can transmit, actors need stage directions and producers need additional information about characters and locations to create asset lists. This increases the time necessary to copy and paste content from flow charts and excel files to word documents and final draft formats (and vice versa). And it all starts over once again, when the design phase moves on to the production phase, because now content has to be transmitted into an engine format. While coders, graphic designers and producers have specified tools for their tasks that make their everyday work life easier and more productive, game writers and game designers still have to make use of auxiliary constructions. articy: draft - finally a solution? Our approach was the previously mentioned graph, or to be more precise a story network. articy:draft splits a game’s plot into fragments which can be interconnected to form a branching “flow”. Each branch represents a player decision, answer or junction in the game. In addition to the synopsis and dialogues, users can attach images, videos and other assets to story fragments via drag and drop in articy:draft. They can also create characters, objects and locations and link these with fragments or assets. As a client-server solution, articy:draft supports single-user and multi-user environments and offers a comfortable foundation for creative collaboration, intended to increase productivity, fun and – most of all – storytelling quality, regardless of how extensive and complex the story network becomes. Nevigo articy: draft website www.articydraft.com

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Hot Sauce Marketing to the campus masses

aming on college today has reached a fever pitch. Students are more connected than ever creating their own social gaming experiences through their phone, laptop, tablet, and consoles. With the seemingly constant release of first person shooter games, online competitions, and friend to friend combat in the sports arena, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no wonder this generation of gamers saves part of their financial aid to support their gaming habit. So what do we know about this group of gamers? We know that they race through games quickly staying up all night when they should be studying just to be the first in their group of friends to complete the title at hand. This may attribute to the reason why they will often play a game a lot over a short period of time before swiftly moving on to something new.

We also know itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about the competition. Competition is coursing through their veins day and night while mobile gaming in class, playing at home, participating in a campus game of Humans vs. Zombies, trading shots through Words with Friends, cheering on their campus teams, and multi-playing with their social communities. Console gaming still reigns supreme on campus as far as the preferred gaming platform with PC gaming coming up quick with titles like Skyrim and StarCraft transcending barriers and making a serious impression. Online content is becoming increasingly popular with consoles and laptops developing into the center of their entertainment universe. Campus gaming clubs are also growing in size and number varying from RPG groups, online gaming leagues, and competitive teams with games like Smash Bros., Call of Duty, and League of Legends at the forefront. As a result, campus computer labs and LAN groups are seeing increasing numbers of students coming through wanting to sign up for upcoming competitions with nothing more than bragging rights at stake.

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“If you’re a marketer wanting to make an impression on college with your upcoming titles, get in the trenches on campus and play alongside your consumer. Don’t work to just build loyal relationships; maintain them! ” For marketers, this college segment consists of statistically fickle individuals who are heavily influenced by their peers and who are often skeptical making it difficult to gain their interest. For the first time in their lives, the majority of college aged consumers are making their own purchase decisions and developing their own brand tastes. Companies stand to not only benefit from a good relationship with them now, but in years to come which makes them a target ‘sweet spot’. But with a complicated web of classes, media overkill, and social clutter grabbing their attention; students are looking for brands to engage them, not add to the traffic. To gain momentum, marketers need to give these gamers a challenging and fun experience with their products so that they will not only play, but so that they will also refer their friends so that they can play together. Companies like Google, UbiSoft, and Microsoft are currently working with campus rep teams to gain interest through experiential events, sampling, and social media promotions as it is a proven and organic way to interact with students. But where do you start; where do you lock up a solid team of trustworthy reps that will deliver results and how do you manage them?

Our exclusive Collegiate Gaming Squad of reps produce live interactions on campus through on/offline gaming competitions, product trial events, social media campaigns, affinity programs, focus groups, and traditional marketing tactics. Unlike most college campaigns and tours, our squad works throughout the school year armed with all the necessary gaming equipment to activate at any time. The squad consists of well trained, educated, gaming enthusiasts whose job it is on campus to live and breathe gaming. We understand that these positions take initiative, natural leaders, and social individuals who are willing to pound the pavement to meet new people; we go to great lengths to find them on campus and to monitor their every move. Members of our squad are already networked into their school’s campus social scene and are tasked with seeking out new event locations, promotional opportunities, and partners to access opportunities that will benefit our clients. It is our personal mission to utilize our extensive campus network to efficiently offer a wide variety of experiences for every student; gamer and non-gamer alike. Prior members of our Collegiate Gaming Squad have gone on to work for such companies as Nike, EA, Namco, Zynga, Trendy Entertainment, Wieden + Kennedy, the PGA Tour, the Tostito Bowl, and numerous teams in the NFL & NBA.

This is where Digital Sauce Marketing comes in. Los Angeles based Digital Sauce Marketing (DSM) is a college specific marketing agency that hires gaming brand ambassadors to play alongside and empower consumers by allowing them to engage with their favorite video game companies on campus. At DSM, our belief is that the consumer should be an integral part of their own marketing process by producing interactive hands-on experiences on their turf, surrounded by their peers. We work to deliver a clear message through strategic partnerships with various groups, event locations, and activities already established on campus.

DSM works with our clients to develop the anatomy of a collegiate campaign for any gaming product based on their objectives. Throughout the campaign, our campus efforts are compiled through detailed re-cap reports, ROI results, and visual content for our clients. We will always work hard to give consumers the chance to feel like they’re a part of their favorite brands and provide them a voice to make a difference with their invaluable feedback to create loyalty towards products. If you’re a marketer wanting to make an impression on college with your upcoming titles, get in the trenches on campus and play alongside your consumer. Don’t work to just build loyal relationships; maintain them! DSM is currently gearing up for their winter/spring semester campaigns working to produce some mobile and online gaming competitive events. If you would like to learn more about our Collegiate Gaming Squad, past clients, or to request your own custom college gaming campaign, please contact DSM Owner Summer Bradley at summer@digitalsaucemarketing.com.

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Putting the social into social gaming By Jim Mott & Mike Eagan of Pomegranate Labs

ocial gaming is big business, last year the social gaming industry was valued at $1 billion with 100 million players. Needless to say this is a profitable market and social games are tapping into something that the key industry players have harnessed very successfully. Whilst it is common knowledge that the big names like Zynga and Blizzard have plenty of tricks up their sleeves based on psychological hooks that help them to get players onboard with their games, we at Pomegranate thought it was worthwhile digging a little deeper into social games to see what really makes them tick. Six months ago we undertook a study to see if we could unravel some of the components of the more successful social games to leverage them for

good game design. What we found is definitely applicable to the market, but we feel it also has some application for the industry as a whole, mainly because the backbone of what we found speaks to pretty much every game out there. It boils down to one simple fact, community interaction is what drives engagement. That may sound like common sense but it sits at the cornerstone of our research, that one of the key factors of success for any game is to have the critical mass of an active community sitting behind it. That the more people who are playing a game and sharing their experience with other players, the more enjoyment and engagement each individual player will have. There is no hard math behind when critical mass occurs, but what we do know is that those games who have reached it are the ones whose communities offer something to everyone, not just to an elite cadre of hardcore players but to the full spectrum of playing styles and experience levels. A thriving community is one where those who wish to trade have plenty of people to trade with, those who wish to strategise have people with whom to share strategies, those who wish to compete have people to win against and those who wish to create have people to show off their creations to. Getting this kind of mix right speaks to good game design as much as it does to community dynamics. If

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“...there is a great deal of potential behind a more community-centric approach to gaming both in terms of how you deal with the communities that are already out there and how you can design games that will create even stronger ones in the future.” Building a community from these early stages right up to maturation requires an awareness of what kinds of facilities players will need at different stages in the process, but this is an organic rather than a scientific process, it is about individuals building bonds with each other and that takes time. However there are ways to stimulate and maintain growth that are in the hands of the developers. On a more obvious level rewarding players for continued participation works well, recognising that there is a micro-life cycle of play that exists within a game and releasing rewards or punishment avoidance schedules to bolster this cycle does maintain play levels. What we noticed by looking at daily average use data was that spikes in usage and adoption are more often than not tied to successful events, events that not only got people talking but got them playing as well. A good event creates a shared experience that the game community can talk about together and that directly enhances their experience of the game.

the game itself does not cater to people’s different playing styles then they will not be there to join the community in the first place but what we found interesting is the way that these playing styles spill out beyond the game and into a games community. From the Farmville strategists with their lists of crop rotation values for extracting the most profit from a harvest, to the massive facebook ‘add me’ campaigns of the Mafia wars resource gatherers, successful and thriving game communities extend and enhance the experience of playing the game. The community is just as much a part of the game as the game itself. Thriving game communities do not spring up over night and knowing how they develop to cater to the needs of their players is a big part of ensuring they become successful. What we found was that in the early stages of a community’s lifecycle there is not much differentiation between players. Early adopters are mainly concerned with learning the ropes and unlocking all of the games features. Gameplay is essentially all about strategy and resource accumulation and so everyone behaves like strategists and collectors. The way they socialise at this stage reflects this as well, interactions are far more transactional and driven by specific objectives rather than interaction for its own sake. It is not until the later stages that people are able to differentiate themselves and start to talk more broadly, we were surprised that another common thread amongst mature communities was forums for things like recipe swapping and movie reviews.

Oddly enough some of the most successful examples of events that drove up both conversation and participation were occasions where the game had been hacked. Rumours of ‘1000,000 free rubies’ in Dragon’s of Atlantis or the ‘multicoloured flashing sheep mod’ in Farmville spread like wildfire through both games respective communities. Whilst we do not expect developers to hack their own games the underlying truth here is that out of the many events and devices we have seen that developers have attempted to use to stimulate growth and retention, those that impacted both on the game itself and the community surrounding the game were the ones that achieved the most success. Promotions that offered in game benefits but failed to acknowledge the kinds of things that would appeal to the values of the community were just as likely to fail as events that appealed to a wide range of people but offered no in game benefits. To round up, what we have found is that successful social games may well be the ones that have a bag full of psychological tricks up their sleeves but they also always have strong communities at their back. Strong communities are those that serve to enhance and extend players enjoyment of the game itself by becoming an integral part of the game and catering to all of the different playing styles and experience levels of their members. Strong communities grow by recognising the changing needs of their players as the game moves through the development cycle and by releasing a steady stream of rewards and well timed events that have a value within the game itself but also speak to the values of the community. We here at Pomegranate think that there is a great deal of potential behind a more community-centric approach to gaming both in terms of how you deal with the communities that are already out there and how you can design games that will create even stronger ones in the future.

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ichard Garriott is not your run of the mill game developer. In fact that’s somewhat of an understatement, Richard Garriott is not your run-of-the-mill game creator, his real life submarine adventures to see the Titanic, treks to the Arctic Pole and space rocket rides make Richard Branson’s life look tame. The self-styled ‘Lord British’, son of a US astronaut, creator of the hugely successful ‘Ultima’ game franchise, credited with spawning the concept of MMORPG, and most recently the star of the ‘Man On A Mission’ documentary which followed Garriott’s quest to follow in his father’s footsteps and become an astronaut. Since selling his Origin Systems company to EA in 1992 his role in the gaming industry has taken a backseat to his quest to become a spaceman.

“I think it is essential that if creators want to succeed, they will have to figure out how to deliver in five minutes what their game is about and why you should be there.” Garriott looked all set to become the first private citizen to venture into space at the start of the millennium, but had to give up his ticket when he reportedly lost a fortune when the dot-com bubble burst. Undeterred, Garriott maintained his ambition and in October 2008 he left the earth’s atmosphere on the Russian Soyuz to link up with the International Space Station, reportedly paying upwards of $30m for the privilege. Now on earth again, Garriott’s new company, Portalarium, is developing social and mobile games across multiple platforms, with plans to compete with Zynga and similar companies on Facebook. WGE:MAG sent Burnes Saint Patrick Hollyman of the digital entertainment alliance to catch up with one of the industry’s leading lights.

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armour, supplies to leave town and go battle monsters, however, it takes you 30 minutes to an hour just to create your avatar and to go to the woods to fight your first creature and come home and sell off your goods and pick up your second quest. So it’s two to five hours of contribution of your time before you actually know what the game is about. But in social mobile gaming, like a traditional Hollywood blockbuster movie where I know what to expect, I want to know in five minutes if this is going to worth my while. BH: So now you’re going to try and bring new RPG gameplay to the social mobile space with your new ‘Ultimate RPG’ game under development?

BH: In the social mobile game space, why isn’t there any major RPG virtual world MMO-equivalent like what you built with Ultima years ago? RG: Well, there is nothing technical holding it back. It is purely a design and delivery issue. In my mind, the problem is one of artistic failure. Plus, there are a ton of free-to-play games out there obviously which have distracted people. BH: But MMO RPG’s are fully immersive and not casual in nature like Farmville is... RG: And that is what specifically is stopping casual, mobile and social media-based games from reaching the same level of sophistication as traditional RPG MMOS like World of Warcraft and Dungeon Fighter or the work I have done. In those RPG worlds, you have to do a lot of work to get going. Initially you look at a typical social mobile game out there and it looks to be completely fully featured, the visuals are completely cutting edge, you have an avatar you can create in detail, quest cycles, traditional places to get weapons and

RG: I think people are growing in their sophistication very rapidly and are demanding deeper content, higher and higher quality graphics. But I think it is essential that if creators want to succeed, they will have to figure out how to deliver in five minutes what their game is about and why you should be there. Contrast that with metaverses like Second Life, where you have a giant simulator to simulate all things which, I believe is never going to be as good as a simulator meant for one specific thing. Today, with my new company, Portalarium, and with the talents and skills of the team who made my previous RPGs, we set forth to forge a ‘New Britannia’, a new world from scratch, internally self-consistent, deep and refined. We have lofty goals as an ‘Ultimate RPG’. Many traditional gamers are concerned about the growth of the new social and mobile gaming and its impact on games with meaning and depth. They are doubtful that this era will provide them the Ultimate RPG experience they crave. But this new era has unearthed some powerful new tools that add to the value of an Ultimate RPG. BH: So what can we expect from ‘Ultimate RPG’ or are you still in stealth mode on its development? RG: I continue to debate how much of the new world designs to discuss in public as we work. Some part of me wants the new direction to be as new as possible to you when it arrives

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fully realized. Another angle is that this world will ultimately be your world, and player participation could both help me its crafting as well as clearly communicate its depth long before its ready. So, we will see. Likely a mix of secrecy and sharing will be the right path to tread. Here is what I feel is safe to say: Lord British’s Ultimate Role Playing Game, which may be called ‘Akalabeth’ or may be called ‘New Britannia’ or may be called a name I cannot yet say as it describes the setting I am considering and think I should keep secret at least until I know if it’s likely true, will be an Ultimate RPG. You will have customized Avatar homesteads and real roles to play in a deep, beautifully realized highly interactive virtual world. It will have virtues and the hero’s journey reflected back to the player. It will have the best of synchronous and asynchronous features in use. Fiction will support your arrival from earth into this new world. I even hope to make maps, coins and other trinkets available to players of the game. BH: Everyone talks about the tablet as the future platform replacing consoles but it still has some major limitations for doing what you are talking about. RG: Well, there are both great opportunities and great new challenges but I clearly believe that the opportunities far outweigh the challenges. I remember when I first saw ‘Spider’ on an iPhone and you could drag the little spider around, make him jump and make webs. That was the first time in my mind I thought it’s going to work; there is actually a mobile platform where you can do high quality user interface, high quality graphics, the frame rate works, the game play works. Hallelujah, the future is finally here! That was a watershed moment in my consideration of mobile platforms. I actually think one of the only real struggles with mobile platforms is really just some screen size issues. Sure there is no joystick, etc. but it’s got a full touch screen, a virtual joystick. So I became a believer that mobile devices are ultimately going to replace console units and it will be very special seeing it on my living room television wirelessly. BH: Portalarium seems to be pushing the OpenLife open source social game ecosystem concept while staying

“I actually think one of the only real struggles with mobile platforms is really just some screen size issues. Sure as there is no joystick, etc. but it’s got a full touch screen, a virtual joystick. So I became a believer that mobile devices are ultimately going to replace console units...” on top of the ever-changing Facebook API. How much time will you spend fighting standards battles versus just hammering out games? RG: Well, we are platform-agnostic. Because of our MMO legacy, we believe very much in the power of multi-player and the power of remaining connected with your true friends. The thing about the MMO era was that you weren’t playing alone, you actually were playing with other people you met who were willing to come online every night at 5pm, every night for weeks and months so you stayed at the same level, making it even more powerful with real true friends. But not everyone has that luxury. We need a new kind of set of features to do that. And my hat is off to early creators like Zynga for not only discovering this vast untapped market but also creating lots of ways to grow and monetize these new kinds of features. That said, we feel that most early adapters have missed one key piece, which is the social graph across social networks so you can move as your friends move from experience to experience across other games as well. Meaning, there is a huge opportunity to retain you within an ecosystem based on your social graph. BH: That makes sense, everyone talks about the ‘social graph’ but give me a simple example....

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RG: One of the fundamental things we are trying to change with our systems and these open processes and we are so much in favour of is to make sure if you are in one of our games and your friend is playing another, you would not only get a notification, which is a Facebook standard now, you will be able to click on that link in the notification and sit down right next to me, playing my game in real time. BH: Like linking game worlds, a party in different rooms? RG: Right. We have set it up where all of our games have gateways to the other game. You know if you are playing one of our games, you’ll see a table or doorway or whatever to the other game and can wander to another. And we are happy to interconnect with other games, not just our own internal games. But obviously, if your friends are playing competitor’s games, it is in our best interest to make sure we don’t leave our environment in order to play that game, because if we do now we have lost you. But we believe a rising tide raises all boats so that is why we believe that the more open standards increase the ties between you and your friends, respect your friend graph, support your friend graph

both the money trades as well as the assets you find in the game. I have a fascination with free-to-play games where the game is free but certain pieces of armour and some swords, for instance, cost a real dollar fair price. What’s nice about money, in this situation, is that people who create objects do so because they can make money in that game world. So in the virtual world, money separates the good content creators from the bad ones which adds to the experience and enhances the experience for everyone else. BH: So you will be building your new games in a world of hundreds of competitors quite unlike the good old days of online games decades ago when there wasn’t as much competition. RG: If you go back to the founding of Origin Systems in the early 1980s, we were in the Top 10. There were few competitors. As the industry matured, it became very obvious that to have access to Kmart game buyers they didn’t want 100 separate game companies to put their stuff on their shelves. At most they were going to talk to three to five companies so if you were not aligned with the biggest

“ I always go back to the real time strategy games from the early days. And I still think there is magic buried there that everyone has since missed despite all the games I have played on my iPhone for hours.”

and the more tools we give you, the user, to do this will make you want to play our games.

distributor like an EA, you were not going to be able to talk to buyers. And that is why we became part of EA.

BH: So what’s the solution for asynchronous game play across platforms?

Now fast forward to today. Things have changed significantly. If you look at the emergence of Zynga, the only reason they exist is because companies like NCSoft and EA and others didn’t pick up on this new social mobile new wave. But some of these companies are starting to “get it” and are catching up. Still, we believe that there remains is a brief window for new companies to scale quickly and carve out a significant market share in the new channels.

RG: We have talked about this a fair bit and it would be inaccurate to say we have a consistent plan as of yet. But the main thing is that you want to be able to hit the pause button like on online games across platforms and games so you start at the same level which is critical to a role playing game and proving a consistent experience across platforms. So it’s compelling to ponder solving this but I am not sure finding a solution is going to happen any time soon. BH: Now it’s time to talk about my favorite topic, monetization. The Asian companies like Nexon have nailed micro-payments and US game companies are now finally ‘getting it’. What about Portalarium? RG: We will be doing micro-payments with a system of our own but we are payment system agnostic. We actually think that the standards are by no means mature. I think that real money transactions are one of the more interesting potential features but they require a banking level of protection of

I have the greatest respect and admiration for certain other game developers and I am confident of my own abilities as a game creator. But I would be fearful of going too far afield into very wildly different other areas of creation than RPG. That has an audience. I always go back to the real time strategy games from the early days. And I still think there is magic buried there that everyone has since missed despite all the games I have played on my iPhone for hours. But none have recaptured for me the important subtlety of design in those early RPG strategy games from that first era. I think, in my own mind’s eye, I have a strong vision for how to re-craft that into the modern era of social mobile games. And that is what we are trying to do at Portalarium.

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Ireland’s Bubble Hasn’t Burst

hilst Ireland’s economy creaks and quivers due to its recent ill health, the Republic’s gaming community has remained vibrant in the face of financial adversity. Super Fun Play is one of many success stories to come from the Emerald Isle and WGE:MAG spoke with CEO Eoin Rogan about their latest release, Bubble Dreams. “Ireland has a long history of games development,” Rogan said of an industry which has recently received a Government sponsored incentives based scheme aimed at encouraging more game development. “It also has a long history of third level education focused on games development. But the industry has always been tiny here. In recent years things have started to change with government finally acknowledging Irelands potential with regards to games and focusing on supporting the industry. Things are finally starting to grow.”

The video games industry is a multi-billion dollar industry around world and it’s clear that Ireland’s politicians are hoping to tap into that market to spark their domestic economy back to life. It’s all positive news as far as Rogan is concerned. “The outlook with regards to the industry in Ireland is, ironically, more positive today than it’s ever been. For the first time the Irish government has seen the potential for growth in the sector and has committed itself to helping promote games development in the future. “Games development studios are currently being viewed as a way to help the country out of the economic doldrums. Several, official government studies over the last few years have added weight to this belief. The future seems very bright for the Irish industry right now.” Whilst the politicians are keen to attract new talent and investment to their shores, there is clearly already an abundance of experience and know-how in situ. Super Fun Play’s staff roster alone has a wealth of industry smarts. Rogan’s role as CEO also includes the title of Art Director and he has been in the industry for over 19 years, working for such companies in the past as Bullfrog/EA, Acclaim and PopCap. Super Fun Play also have Wayne Imlach heading up design. He’s been in the indutry for over 12 years and has also worked for many top studios in the past, including PopCap and EA.

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“Games development studios are currently being viewed as a way to help the country out of the economic doldrums.” Orla Mitchell then completes the board of directors as the head of programming. Orla also worked for PopCap and although she’s quite new to the industry has been much sought after by very high profile studios. “I’ve worked for both TV post production companies and games companies in the past and I am fluent with most 2D and 3D art disciplines,” explains Rogan. “I’ve also headed other games companies so I have a good knowledge of the ins and outs of running a development studio. It was decided early on that we would aim at creating the best looking games possible by using top end 3D rendering software. This has given us an edge in a market saturated with cheap looking 2D games. “Wayne as our head designer has not only got unique game ideas but also has a great knowledge of how to make those ideas work on a particular platform. His knowledge of platforms and the limitations and challenges presented is second to none. “Orla as our head of programming is a wizard with code. We very rarely hear ‘No hat can’t be done on this device’ from Orla so our ideas as designers and artists are free

“We are also keen to open studios abroad in time as well as helping to bolster the growing indigenous Irish industry and to really help put Ireland on the map as a great place for games development.”

to fly. She’s also proved herself and adept and patient mentor to our less experienced junior staff members.” Putting all this talent into practice has been Super Fun Play’s initial aim with the recent release of a title to the iTunes store in the bag. They’ll be pinning their hopes on the success of this game to make a small spark in the larger aspect of kick-starting the economy as a whole. “Our last release was Bubble Dreams,” Rogan says. “We are currently working on PC and Android versions which we hope to complete by early 2012. We are also adding the finishing touches to our next release. We can’t say too much at this stage but we think it will be a lot of fun to play and should really make people laugh. As the company and team expands in 2012 we will add more releases to our collection. Our current roadmap contains five games that we plan to develop. “The ambition of the company it to someday become a household name associated with fun, high production value games. We are also keen to open studios abroad in time as well as helping to bolster the growing indigenous Irish industry and to really help put Ireland on the map as a great place for games development.”

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MAN OF GADGETS YORKSHIRE’S ANSWER TO LUCIAS FOX

ruce Wayne owes a great debt to one canny Englishman and we’re not talking Michael Caine. Whilst on screen it’s Morgan Freeman’s Lucias Fox taking all the credit for Batman’s gadget-wizardry, a former Teesside University student is the real brains behind one of Wayne Enterprises’ most iconic inventions – The Batmobile. Yorkshireman Dan Walker got his big break when, after a grounding in automotive design, he was offered the opportunity to take the role of concept artist on the Batman Begins movie, kitting out the famous Batmobile, quite possibly the best episode of Pimp My Ride we’ve never seen. Since then, Walker has gone on to work on some of Hollywood’s biggest titles and closer to home was the man responsible for breathing life back into Doctor Who’s Tardis. He’s gone on to work on huge hits such as Prince of Persia, The Golden Compass, Captain America and his designs will soon be seen in the eagerly anticipated Expendables sequel. If gadgets need designing then Dan Walker is certainly your go-to-guy.

“...I’ve never considered myself to be a concept artist in the purist sense. By that, I mean I’m a product designer foremost, not an illustrator...” “That seems fair enough as I’ve never considered myself to be a concept artist in the purist sense. By that, I mean I’m a product designer foremost, not an illustrator,” Walker told WGE:MAG when we spoke with him recently. “I’ve perhaps become somewhat pigeonholed and given my background, that’s understandable. When I’m not engaged in the film, television and gaming industries, I work in industrial and automotive design. Whereas these industries differ considerably with film and games, particularly in regards to their deliverables, they do share a similar creative process. So, I suppose I have a natural leaning towards the tangible, such as props and gadgets. “I studied Industrial Design Engineering at Teesside University back in the early 90s, followed by a masters in Transportation at the Royal College of Art in London.

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“Design has been my vocation for the past 17 years, but film has always been my passion. It had always been my intention to work in film and television; however, it’s a tough industry to crack and get your first break. The design route, which is by no means an easy one is, comparatively, a conventional one. So I found myself working in the product and automotive industries designing everything from cars and motorbikes to white goods and toys. In hindsight, I couldn’t have hoped for a better grounding for being a conceptual artist. “My first feature was Batman Begins, over eight years ago. That really was a case of perfect timing. I was finishing a five year stint at the UK Design Consultancy, Seymour Powell, when I received a call from Ravi Bansal, informing me that the Production Designer needed a Concept Artist to design the interior of the Batmobile, and that’s, as they say, all she wrote! I couldn’t have wished for a better transitional job.” Not a bad first job and opening opportunity in the highly competitive industry of Hollywood blockbusters. Added to those ‘first job’ pressures, Walker also had to handle the fact that with the Batman franchise he was taking on a character and world which fans around the world were already accustomed to. It was a challenge which the Teesside graduate tackled in true Bruce Wayne style – full-on. “In the case of Batman Begins and the Tumbler, the Production Designer, Nathan Crowley had already designed the exterior, so we already had a fixed architecture to work to. Nathan and his researcher had already collated a good deal of visual reference for inspiration. The hard part was nailing the mechanics of the interior, as everything had to physically work. The script asked for a two-seater vehicle with a driving seat that slid into the middle and then collapsed into a prone position, which had to engage into an industrial slew ring at the fore…and all this had to work within a confined interior, using real world ergonomics. Not your typical concept artist job! Once this was resolved, the design language easily fell into place.”

“I was invited to contribute to Crysis 2 by their senior Art Director, Frank Kitson. The Aliens had been in development for some time and they had conceptualised some very cool stuff, but they needed somebody with an industrial bent to give them that additional, functional edge. That and I think they were looking for a fresh pair of eyes.” Things didn’t get any easier when he was invited to bring new life to the BBC classic sci-fi series, Doctor Who. Famous for low-budget special effects, the rebirth of the Doctor, whilst retaining the strict economical restraints of the licence payer, returned with high-end production values. It was project which Dan enjoyed for obvious reasons. He said: “Doctor Who was an entirely different experience in regards to pressures. For starters we were responsible for rebooting a British icon, a tall order, and yes we were aware of the fanatics out there. Fortunately, most of us in the Art Dept grew up on Doctor Who, so we were all committed to getting the tone right. It’s a rarity, to be working on material that you have real, genuine affection for. A real bonus was having Ed Thomas leading from the front. He had a clear idea of what he wanted, but was also generous enough to allow for an amount of interpretation.

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“When I joined the production, a week in, Ed had already fleshed out the overall architecture of the Tardis interior. So similarly to the Tumbler, the hard points were more or less in place. Along with the Sonic Screwdriver, my main role was to design the central console, and integrate it with his pre-established structure. The budget and lead time on Who, whilst being quite generous for a television show, was miniscule in comparison to Begins, so we had to apply some smarts to our design thinking.

With that in mind, the console was imagined as a chassis, which could later dressed by Set Dec. Given the time and budget constraints, I think the results were pretty exceptional.” It’s not just Hollywood blockbusters that Walker is the gadgetman for, his background in automotive design lends itself heavily to the demands of video game design and it comes as no surpise to learn that he has had a hand in video game design on Burnout Revenge and Crytek’s Crysis 2 “My involvement in Burnout Revenge was actually relatively short compared to my usual film contracts,” Walker says of his switch from silver screen to video screen. “The game cars were loosely based on existing models, so it was closer to tweaking rather than redesigning. “I was invited to contribute to Crysis 2 by their senior Art Director, Frank Kitson. “The Aliens had been in development for some time and they had conceptualised some very cool stuff, but they needed somebody with an industrial bent to give them that additional, functional edge. That and I think they were looking for a fresh pair of eyes. I worked alongside their in-house design team for about six months in the end, focusing on all the principle aliens; the Grunt, Stalker, Heavy, etc. It was pretty much all sketch work, with very few rendered visuals, and certainly no 3D. I was onboard to churn out ideas…my kind of job!

“I love working on both movies and games, but if I had to choose, it’d have to be the former. Emotionally, because of my long standing passion for film...”

“I love working on both movies and games, but if I had to choose, it’d have to be the former. Emotionally, because of my long standing passion for film. Practically, because the lead times are far shorter on film, less so in television. Contracts are usually between 2-8 months. It’s also very important for me to keep my hand in the real world. Short contracts in film and television allow me to frequently dip into both.” For a man who has worked on more than 25, film, TV and video game titles it comes as no surprise to learn that he has worked with some of the biggest names in the design industry and been influenced by plenty of them along the way. With Expendables 2 and several other big-budget blockbusters on the horizon, plus some low-budget fun, Dan’s certain to gadget master for a few more years to come. “The real old school film Designers/Art Directors would have to be the likes Joe Johnston and Ron Cobb and their drawing style has influenced me above all others. As for the specific work I have been influenced by? All of it…all the cliches; Alien, Outland, Empire, formative stuff for me - I still draw like them! As for my UK contemporaries, with each new job I find myself working alongside some serious talent; Adam Brockbank, Paul Catling, Rob Bliss… I could go on. I believe it’s never a good thing to be the best in the room…so it must be tough for them! “My last job was the Expendables 2, which is due out later this year. John Carter and Wrath of the Titans are released in March, Prometheus in July. “I’m currently working on a low budget sci-fi slasher, and yes, I’m designing kit!”

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Finding The Finance

tandfast Interactive and Chancery (UK) LLP have come together, in a games industry first, to launch a tax efficient games production finance business for UK games companies. Since the inception of home computer gaming in the 1980s, the UK has built an impressive reputation for delivering quality, innovative and inimitable video game titles. This had led to the development of a highly successful video games development and publishing sector that has revolutionised global interactive entertainment. In 2008, the UK was ranked the third largest centre of video games development in the world. In 2009 the UK games development community had fallen to be the fourth largest in the world after the US, Japan and Canada. However by 2010 it had fallen to sixth largest and is under continued pressure. This is despite the fact that many of the world’s leading interactive games are made within the UK although, unfortunately, the ownership of the intellectual property created and the resultant revenues very often leaves these shores.

“Chancery are leaders in the field of tax incentivised investments, having raised investment in excess of £600,000,000 in the last three years alone”

Once a powerhouse of worldwide video games publishing, the UK has seen more and more of its publishers either fall victim to outside takeovers or the pressures of competing unequally on the global stage. Tax schemes and financial incentives in other countries such as Canada, France, Japan and Finland have helped companies in these countries steal a lead on UK based firms.

To combat the decline in profile of the UK in the global games market, Standfast has teamed up with the Chancery (UK) LLP to support the innovation activities of the video games industry in the UK. Chancery are leaders in the field of tax incentivised investments, having raised investment in excess of £600,000,000 in the last three years alone – making this an ideal relationship.

Founded by video games entrepreneur Morgan O’Rahilly, Standfast Interactive is a specialist financier and production company for the interactive entertainment industry. The business was established to provide a full range of financing solutions to independent Developers, Producers, Publishers and Distributors of games and interactive entertainment. Standfast looks to help games companies create innovative financing routes to realize their ideas and bring their products to market.

Standfast’s management team has a long pedigree in the video games industry. With in excess of 100 games credited to them and having demonstrated a clear understanding of maximising product potential in the competitive landscape of interactive entertainment, Standfast are well placed to assist their partners develop content without ceding creative ontrol or lose ownership of their intellectual property. Further details can be found at www.standfastinteractive.com or www.chancerypartnership.com

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Creating the Online Game S

tar Wars: The Old Republic was this year’s most highly anticipated MMO World Gaming Executives had an opportunity to interview the people behind HeroEngine to learn more about the game development tool. Developers can download HeroCloud, the free service for building online games. For those who may be less technical, like myself, could you explain HeroEngine to my Grandma please?

“HeroEngine lets people create video games that run on the internet and that let many people play together in simulated 3D worlds.”

Hi Grandma. HeroEngine lets people create video games that run on the internet and that let many people play together in simulated 3D worlds. HeroEngine is the complete solution for building online games. We supply the engine that renders graphics and animation – like many other game engines – but we also include the server system that keeps track of all players and manages communication and gameplay.

Both the renderer (“client”) and the server are tightly integrated, which is much more efficient than using separate systems and trying to get them to work together – for example, the HeroEngine client and server use the identical scripting language which makes it much easier for your programmers to do their work.

HeroEngine functions in realtime – everything any member of the team builds is immediately working for everyone else on the team – this means that there is no downtime for the daily “build” process that other engines require, where everyone’s work is integrated together. Our system is faster and promotes collaboration as well as rapid prototyping and testing.

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We’ve heard from studios that the time to develop a game is significantly cut. We had an MMO ship recently on the engine in 15 months. People are telling us they are saving 25%, 50%, or more on time and cost. In a rapidly changing industry this is mission critical. It appears that contributors to the game build can work remotely, this obviously has huge benefits to studios and developers. Everyone, regardless of their geographic location, can work online and live on the server. Your team can be in the same office, at home, or around the world. This keeps cost down, obviously. We built in systems for promoting communication – for example, you can diagram information on a virtual whiteboard and share it with other team members inside the engine – you can tie the whiteboard to a specific location in the game world, so you can create notes that point right to the area. There are many features like this to make it easier to keep your team coordinated.

“People are telling us they are saving 25%, 50%, or more on time and cost. In a rapidly changing industry this is mission critical.” What kind of tools does it come with? The toolset is huge – the tools (called HeroBlade in our engine) include everything the entire team needs for development, except for the 3D modeling systems like Max or Maya. There are many tools for world sculpting, particle effects, scripting, team management, and many, many more. We include tools for monitoring performance and tracking down issues – for example, we make it easy to see if there are uncompressed textures in a scene, which could lead to degradation in frame rates. When you are building a game that could have millions of users you need to be able to build fast and make things perform to the maximum degree possible. I’ve never seen a game development system with anything close to the comprehensive tool set that comes with HeroEngine.

To streamline operations we include features for streaming and pushing content. Streaming means that players can receive updated content – sections of the world, creatures, and even new game systems – without waiting for long downloads – the new content streams down to them. Streaming management is intelligent and can be controlled by the game developer to make sure you are managing resources well. Pushing content works from server to server. Typically, a team will have a world for development, then a world for quality assurance, and live worlds for players. You can push any set or subset of content from world to world, which facilitates an approach where game content is easy to build, test, and deploy. Aside from our own tools, we have acquired licenses to industry leading middleware that is bundled with HeroEngine – we include the FMod sound system, SpeedTrees, Umbra to optimize occlusion and high frame rates, animation system technologies from RAD Game Tools, the FaceGen system for building high quality character faces, and more.

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HeroEngine is the technology that lets you develop an online game. HeroCloud is the service that includes HeroEngine and everything else you need to launch your game online.

You offer Hero’s Journey® as a reference game, what is that and do you also have a complete A-Z tutorial? Hero’s Journey was a fantasy role-playing game being developed by our team. We stopped work on it because demand was so strong for our engine that we did not have time to work on the game any more. We are using the incomplete game as a reference now, complete with animations, scripts, and many game systems. Teams using HeroEngine can access Hero’s Journey to use as examples of how things are built in the real world. We have an online Wiki that contains a huge amount of reference material on all aspects of HeroEngine game development as well as a large and growing library of tutorials that focus on specific aspects of game development. Right now we are building on the many MMO development lessons by adding material on how to use HeroEngine to create social games, shooters, and other styles of games. The recently released Star Wars MMO was created using HeroEngine. Please tell us about that? In 2005 or so we went to E3 to demonstrate Hero’s Journey to publishers. We also showed some of our friends how the engine we built worked. The reception to our engine was incredible! Our old friend Gordon Walton told us that he was about to start a new studio to work on a top-secret project and that he wanted to license our engine right away. He would not take no for an answer! We licensed our engine to that project, which became the Star Wars: the Old Republic project at BioWare, which then became part of EA. Any other popular titles we may know of? Zenimax Online is working on a project. As you probably know, Zenimax is the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, one of the world’s best independent game development companies. We are incredibly excited about their project but we’re not allowed to disclose what they are working on. A new studio based near Phoenix, Arizona is working on a science fiction RPG called Prime: the Battle for Dominus that looks amazing. They have started to release trailers and other videos for the game. We think it will be shipping soon but it’s hard to say right now. They have been working on the project for less than two years with a relatively small team and we think the quality of their work is remarkable – and we’re proud that they could only have gotten this much great work done thanks to HeroEngine. There are many more great projects in the works. You can read about some of them on our website, heroengine.com, and you will be hearing from a lot more in 2012. As well as HeroEngine, we’ve been hearing about HeroCloud, what is that?

Aside from the core HeroEngine technology, HeroCloud includes hosting, operations and customer management, and global billing solutions. HeroCloud is designed primarily for independent developers as well as educators, corporate and government simulation builders, and other projects. By licensing HeroCloud, your team accesses a full implementation of HeroEngine running somewhere in the Internet “cloud” so your team can access it anywhere and so you don’t need to worry about hosting, configuration management, or other annoying distractions from developing your game. HeroCloud is available for any development team, just go to the heroengine.com site and click DOWNLOAD NOW. We’ve decided to give HeroCloud away for free. We believe in the tremendous creative talents of independent game developers. By covering all the up-front operating costs of building an online game, as well as offering this technology that AAA games studios pay a lot of money for free, we believe we are doing our part to level the playing field a bit. Once any game developed on HeroCloud is published and begins making money, we take a 30% revenue share to help us cover our operational expenses. How much does a HeroEngine license cost? HeroEngine can be licensed with full source code and running in your own data center. Pricing is variable depending on royalty rates – our lowest priced plan currently is $75,000 for the license plus a 10% royalty. This is a lot less than the industrial-strength engines in the industry, especially when you consider that it includes the integrated server system and so much more that you don’t get with other systems. Large studios generally pay a lot more but then end up with a much lower royalty rate. We have sold a number of licenses for around $1 million per game. What are your plans for the future? The most important plan is the imminent delivery of new clients to join the original Windows client. We are replacing the DirectX code with Open GL, which was essential to bringing out clients for the Mac OS X, iOS (iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch), Linux and Android. Beyond that, we are aiming for full plug-in-free browser integration in about a year. We are opening up sales channels worldwide. Our development and marketing office is in the USA and we need to increase our presence in Europe and Asia. Our parent company is raising more capital so we can continue to grow our market and develop additional capabilities. We have essentially grown from a pure technology licensor to become a distribution platform. As we move ahead we’re looking for ways to offer additional resources to developers on the business side. Today, the main resource we can’t provide is cash for development and cash for marketing. We hope to have good answers in those areas in the near term. WGE would like to thank the people at HeroEngine for taking their time in answering our questions. May the code be with you!

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Taikodomination! Taikodom’s global success has seen the game licensed by American publishers GamesFirst and has been published in more than 31 countries. ANTONIO RIBEIRO: The Taikodom creative team attended the very first AnimaSerra in 2006, are there still elements of the game that you have kept from then or has the game been completely redesigned?

GE:MAG’s Antonio Ribeiro is our South American gaming expert and in this month’s edition he chats with Hoplon Infotainment director, Tarqüínio Teles, about their hugely successfull MMORPG, Taikodom – one of the biggest games ever to emerge from the Brazlian market. Set in the 23rd Century, humanity has lost the earth, but conquered the stars. In this environment thousands of players around the world, impersonate characters buy their very own spaceships; mining asteroids, trading goods and combatting enemy invaders.

TARQUÍNIO TELES: Let´s say that Taikodom is a project in constant improvement, something, incidentally, fully compatible with the current phase of maturation of the gaming industry in Brazil. Many good people have passed through Hoplon, many remain until today, and thus, many proposals and ideas about how to develop a space action MMO are being tested, approved, and also rejected. The important thing, however, is that the Taikodom concept is still revolutionary, and now not only the Brazilian public, but, increasingly, an international public is eagerly awaiting the launch of Taikodom: Living Universe.

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“From design and to final conception of Taikodom Hoplon, it’s been now 11 years of blood, sweat and tears.” AR: What partnerships did you have to establish to get the game distributed internationally? Did you experience any difficulties as a Brazilian producer? TT: I would say that there was more a feeling of astonishment than opposition. It was a bit unexpected, until recently, that a game the size of Taikodom could appear in Brazil. But it came out and was well received, because the games industry worldwide is very open-minded, always looking for news. Of course, a good command of English and excellent lawyers helped a lot. AR: How did you pick the team for creating Taikodom? Did you have difficulty in finding qualified professionals in Brazil? Was there any foreign labor involved? TT: The workmanship is all Brazilian, except for a few potential advisors (the lawyers I mentioned above). But it was not easy to find professionals with expertise already established in Brazil, and often Hoplon was forced to recruit people with great talent - talent that, thankfully, does not lack in Brazil! - And train at home.

AR: How long did it take from the primary design until the official release of the game? TT: From design and to final conception of Taikodom Hoplon, it’s been now 11 years of blood, sweat and tears. AR: With the great advancement of broadband internet in Brazil , the idea of online games is not so new, but when Taikodom began to be developed the internet was not as widespread as today. Was it always intended to be a MMORPG or did it start out as a single player game? TT: It was always MMORPG, but is designed to meet the poor quality of Brazilian broadband and even dial-up internet. Unfortunately, despite the increased penetration and some improvement in quality, the best definition of broadband in Brazil is still the old joke: “Broadband is one that makes no dial noise.” Look at Korea, the plans from the government over there were very comprehensive and well coordinated making them a powerhouse in the online gaming community. Connectivity was far beyond what existed anywhere in the world, to create an internal market that reflects the future needs of the world. Unfortunately, here in Brazil, we continue with a connectivity of 1992 and not 2012. AR: Is Taikodom restricted to PCs or do you have plans to release on PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii? TT: Right now, I cannot comment on that, though I can point out that the Hoplon ambition was never small. AR: What do you think about Free2Play? Is it a format that the Brazilian market are finally coming to terms with? TT: Absolutely! If you create a fantastic game and offer free access to it, people will engage and pay because they love the game and want to get more into it. It’s a format which is here to stay, in our opinion. So much so that many of our well established competitors are beginning to look across at us with some jealousy. AR: The book Taikodom Awakening is part of a series of comic books with the theme of the game. How did that come about?

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“Let’s get out there and show the world what Brazil is capable of, Brazil will be the next power of games and animation of the world, you’ll see!” AR: How well has the game been received internationally?

TT: We established a partnership with Becoming in 2008 to launch the books Taikodom: Awakening and Taikodom: Chronicles. Then came the comics, Taikodom: Eternal Return, in two volumes. Everything has been produced by Hoplon within their fictional universe department, and published by Devir. The Taikodom Universe spans 250 years and tens of light years around the Earth, telling a future where mankind had to leave his home planet and settle in the area, spreading out to our stellar neighborhood. Shortly after leaving our home system, however, humans are faced with the ruins of an ancient alien civilization, and begin to study them.

TT: Look at what the international press said about us when we announced the game at E3 2009 - incidentally, the first Brazilian game to be officially announced at E3! We were considered the most promising MMO of the Year and went on MMOHub.com and we hit a blockbuster position, with strong vote too. So, being modest, I’d say we rocked! AR: What do you think of the negotiations for the reduction of taxes on gaming in Brazil? Will this make the Brazilian gaming industry as competitive as the rest of the world? TT: This reduction is essential to develop a gaming market in Brazil, as has happened with Mexico, which now has an official market greater than Brazil´s, which makes no sense.

AR: Taikodom has taken some influences from the game ‘Home World’? Would you agree?

AR: What are your views on the training of manpower for creating games in Brazil?

TT: Dude! Taikodom is above all a tribute to the venerable “Elite”, which is a game as old as me! It is true though that, although unintentional, Taikodom bears some resemblance to Home World. Even to the point that when we showed the project for the first time in EGS 2004 the biggest question we got was “Is this Home World 2?”

TT: It’s very early yet. There are few courses, and even less qualified teachers. But this is starting to change, the improvement in the last three years has been amazing! Now, what is missing is the opportunity for a career. To illustrate, Hoplon, which is still a start-up, transfers 30% of our capital to the government in the form of income tax, social security contribution etc. It’s a lot of money, especially for Brazilians who pays Brazilian taxes!

AR: What can gamers expect next from Hoplon in the Taikodom universe? TT: Our main goal at this point in the Taikodom: Living Universe, is to make it more fun and engaging for the player, something very subtle and difficult to do. Gradually, we will forward our proposals and start showing the public our testers, collecting feedback and improving the game.

AR: Have you got a message for fans of the Taikodom Universe and for those wishing to enter the gaming market. TT: Let’s get out there and show the world what Brazil is capable of, Brazil will be the next power of games and animation of the world, you’ll see!

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Muscle Up! W

hile Artificial Muscle might sound like something out of the latest Hollywood science-fiction blockbuster, WGE:MAG discovers that it is a concept which is very much alive and kicking. Dirk Shapeler is President and CEO of Bayer Material Science’s Artificial Muscle company and they hope that their ViviTouch technology can revolutionise the way we interact with games on our mobile phones. When was the last time you thought about rumble in video games? Was it when it was first integrated for the Nintendo 64 and the original PlayStation or maybe never? It’s been easy to see the advances in graphics and audio over the years as we’ve moved to more detailed images on High Definition or even 3D televisions, rich surround sound and subwoofer effects with less compression thanks to better sound processors. However, during all this time, when your controller shakes or your phone buzzes, it’s been pretty much the same basic technology since the Nintendo 64. ViviTouch, an actutator we’ve developed can reproduce any audio or vibration waveforms as precise haptic feedback. We refer to this as “HD feel.” Now, instead of a simple buzzing, we can make the device feel like an idling race car motor, a ball rolling, an

“Now, instead of a simple buzzing, we can make the device feel like an idling race car motor, a ball rolling, an explosion, a gun firing, a skateboard rolling down the street, or anything else you can think of.” explosion, a gun firing, a skateboard rolling down the street, or anything else you can think of. You can see the first application of this technology in the mophie pulse, which is a gaming case for the iPod touch that creates HD rumble effects out of the audio signal. Without getting too technical, Electro Active Polymer (or EAP) material is an extremely thin piece of film that will squish or stretch when a current is applied to it, fairly similar to how our muscles work (hence the term Artificial Muscle.) This material responds amazingly fast to these signals, so it effectively behaves like a speaker that can reproduce feels instead of sounds. A traditional rumble motor can rotate at a few different speeds, but basically still give you variations on the same “bzzzzzz” effect.

“ViviTouch built into a phone would enable a user to assign different sensations to different contacts and instantly know who’s calling even with their sound off.” Not to mention, ViviTouch utilizes up to 70% less battery power than previously mentioned technology and the manufacturing process is both environmentally conscious and sustainable. Once people get a chance to feel what “HD feel” offers in a device, they develop a preference for it. This offers a great opportunity for mobile handset makers like Samsung, HTC or Research in Motion a way to make their phones stand out from the rather crowded hardware market if they elect to use ViviTouch. While it’s great in games, the shaking of the device can also simulate a subwoofer, so you can retain more of that big movie feel when you’re on the go. We even see potential for “HD feel” to open up a new market for silent ringtones or feeltones. ViviTouch built into a phone would enable a user to assign different sensations to different contacts and instantly know who’s calling even with their sound off. Maybe you set your spouse’s feeltone to feel like a heart beating, but your mother in law to feel like a car crash!

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compare are console games (from game systems such as XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation) and social games including smaller unit types (Facebook, iPhone, Android and web portal / social market). One can certainly argue that there is a major difference between something like an iPhone game and Facebook. However, I just lump them in the same group. I believe many games will be naturally branch from one to extend existing and emerging game titles. We mainly work on the social game side. Production on the console game market for us is simple, too cost prohibitive to produce and a harder market to break into successfully. Producing social games on the other hand is relatively affordable to produce and various relationships allow a way to market games to a wide range of players.

Broken Social Scene? I

SO Interactive’s Executive Manager speaks to John Armstrong about the changing market of social games.

What are a few project highlights at ISO? Actually we started off with a more traditional agency background with interactive projects such as website implementation and speciality applications. Then we quickly moved to the social game realm. Many of the web development projects directly influenced some of our major game systems and components we currently have and are in production.

Potter virtual world and various other client social game projects. We work directly with other agencies, developers and clients to provide beneficial services and partnerships. In fact most of our work is collaborative, so if there is a group that needs us, we are usually very happy to help. We now focus on client based projects and our own social game system called “MyMe”. How do you view the gaming market? Well gaming means something different depending on the audience. There are many different categories and sub-categories of what we call games. However the main two areas I like to

A few examples of projects we worked on with clients include CocaCola’s website and custom content management system, a speciality DASANI application, a fan-based Harry

“We mainly work on the social game side. Production on the console game market for us is simple - too cost prohibited to produce and a harder market to break into successfully.”

The social market is really big. Just look at the mega giant console game producer EA Games. They produced really high quality games for years. Well social game producer Zynga took the emerging social game market and easily surpassed EA Games’ revenue. Many people playing these social games do not even view them as games. It is simply an activity to enjoy. Activities like groom my pet, tend my farm or help customers in the restaurant are actual games believe it or not (and they produce a lot of profit). The game market as a whole is a moving target. There are many different factors for successful games. Personally, I believe one of those will depend on how well they can blend in different segments of the game market. I call this term “Blending of the Market”. In other words, how can you take a series of games from one platform and seamlessly merge to another (such as Facebook to a iPhone game or similar) at a fairly low cost. After all, the more channels to these different platforms the more profit avenues you have. We have actually created a system (called the MIMS platform) that not only allows for an easy “Blending of the Market, it makes the users account attributes, to move from game to game and platform to platform. Many people may not understand why that is important. Well once you max out on one game you can then jump to another and you can keep you avatar look and feel as well as some useful achievements you gained on one to help you in the other.

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work together as a single unit. We also decided to start on the Facebook social platform because any members we could drive to the games would have a much higher viral rate. Later we will extend it to the iPhone, Android and game portal markets. So each game could be linked together, costs less, has a shorter development cycle, quicker to produce profit, and had its own independent revenue stream. Then we share the business model to potential partners and other development teams in a revenue sharing model. Now about the MyMe game platform itself. Well, it is really cool with a great storyline.

This creates an additional built-in cross marketing feature that helps support a self-sustaining revenue model. I have seen some information about your MyMe project. What is that exectly? MyMe is our own branded social game series. Lots of independent agencies are trying to create their own product. Many are now seeing the importance of diversifying their revenue stream.

Long story short - an ocean-line cruiser filled with movie-stars, doctors, athletes (and, of course, fat tourists) crash on an unknown island in the Caribbean Trapezoid. Now later they figure out that there are a series of islands pulled from parts of time through out history. In addition, all these islands are on top of a giant turtle-like thingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s back. This giant turtle shaped thing travels through space and time, collecting islands, like bumper stickers, across its back. With each island having its own time period we can make any kind game with any kind of avatar figure. For example if the ninja them is hot then we can create that. If the Vikingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s become popular the system can support that class as well.

Because we have developed a number of award-winning social games for clients, we figured we could use that experience and knowledge of the market to create our own product. We have been toying with the idea and business model for a little bit. A few major concerns we had were the same as any other independent agency in our shoes. These were cost (of production and maintenance), reducing time to market, and producing stable profits (through some sort of player payments). We took a good look at the virtual world model targeting the kid market. After all, we have developed many of these types of systems for clients. We really liked how thousands of players could interact with each other in real-time and how they could jump to other games in a cohesive fashion. However we did not like the development time, cost and limited ways to market. Although we had the experience in creating products for clients, we did not have the millions of dollars to develop it, nor the much larger required budget to advertise it once it was completed. It seemed very frustrating without an investor or partner of some type. So I came up with a very specific plan to overcome some of these hurdles. Instead of creating an entire virtual world at once we figured a way to create it one game at a time. Each game produced would automatically be tied to the system allowing members and their accounts to jump from game to game. After all, a virtual world is actually a bunch of games and systems that

ISO Interactive also created The Chamber of Chat for Harry Potter fans. MyMeTM business model can be downloaded at: http://www.isointeractive.com/assets/uploaded_files/ SOWMyMeAdventure2DFlashPhaseI.pdf Capabilities document and a few project case studies can be downloaded at: http://www.isointeractive.com/assets/uploaded_files/ISO_ Company_Overview.pdf troy@isointeractive.com

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Moronica HARD ROCK HYPER HERO!

hat do you get when you mix an entertainer, composer, animator and comedian who has success with a San Francisco-based 15-piece funk party band called SuperBooty and has released gut-busting gems such as Barfed In My Backpack, Big Boobed Babysitter, Roasted Rump and Who Took a Dump in My Lunchbox? You get inspired to create a video game and a few albums on the side... The man behind these dubious distinctions is Mark O’Hara. He is the lead instigator for SuperBooty, has performed all across California with legendary recording artists such as Kool and the Gang, The Isley Brothers and P-Funk. The group went in hiatus in 2008 and O’Hara began to formulate the concept for an edgy and overthe-top super hero comedy rock entertainment property. As a composer he thought it would be unique to allow his music to drive the story and character development for his project.

He began composing tracks for the project and in the Fall of 2009 released his debut album Hard Rock Hyper Hero!, a delicious dose of hard rock comedy, distributed through Tunecore Digital Distribution. O’Hara had so much extra material that he quickly released the follow up Clowns From Uranus, also through TuneCore. The album features 12 totally twisted tracks including Swallow Your Soul, Evil Nad Cracker, Sphincter Boy, Retardation Nation and The Furious Fart Knocker.

website and iPhone video game and hire the amazing Andres Alvarez from ADC films, Redondo Beach, California for character and scenery design. He is interested in working with a leading studio on the Moronica cartoon series and console video game. What makes the Moronica property unique is the use of what Mark calls, “explosive musical weaponry.” This includes trombone rocket launchers, guitar machine guns and tequila filled maracas?!?

“O’Hara’s skill as a graphic/web designer and animator allowed him to spearhead the development of the MORONICA website and iPhone video game. regarded as one of the most popular teams on the planet...” Mark’s third album, Money Shot For Metal, was recorded in late 2009 and released on April 1st, 2010 through Island Def Jam Digital. The album includes comical and way over-the-top tracks such as Temple of the Gonad, The Legend of Stinky Butt, His Heinous Sir Loin and Queen of the Queefs. O’Hara’s skill as a composer and animator allowed him to spearhead the development of the Moronica

Go to www.moronica.net for more information

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Whether you are in high school, just graduated from college, or are already working in the game industry, you probably want to create your own game. The good news is that tools are now available that allow individuals and very small teams create games. In fact, there has been a huge resurgence in the area of independent games over the last five years, and you should be taking advantage of this to create your own games. Where to Begin There are three key areas you will need to consider before you can get started: the game design, the team, and the technology.

So you want to make a game? E

very kid who has ever played a video game has probably had this thought. For some, this idea falls to the wayside as other priorities take hold in life. For others, it becomes an obsession. There is an interesting mystique that surrounds the video game industry. In some ways, the game industry is different from other professions and it seems like you have to pass some secret initiation rites to become a part of it. In other ways, the game industry is just like any other profession in that you get a degree, learn the appropriate skills, and apply for jobs. Of course there are no secret initiation rites…really. One thing that makes the game industry different than most professions is that there are people whose hopes

and dreams are based on becoming a part of the game industry. These are people who, if given the opportunity, would actually work for free. These are people who actually make games on their own for no financial gain simply because they love to do it.

The Game Design Without a good game design there is no game. You should seriously consider creating a game design document that puts your game idea into writing. A good game design document will spell out all of the details of the game including game elements, gameplay, and an idea of the technology that will be used to turn your idea into reality. It is also good to have information about the team and other resources as well as time and cost estimates. There is no single correct way to create a game design document. Many examples can be found online at sites such as Gamasutra.com and GameDev. net. If you are having a hard time finding one then feel free to email me and I’ll send you a template.

You probably don’t find very many budding accountants creating the latest spreadsheet and posting it on YouTube just because they love accounting. There may be some.

The Team Although it is still possible for a single individual to create a game, it is more likely that you will need a small team of people. It is also likely that each team member will wear several hats, and these are the hats:

So, this series of articles is directed at those burgeoning game developers who are asking the question: “What is my next step?”

• Producer – The team leader and project manager. It is his or her responsibility to assign tasks and track their progress and completion.

Regardless of where you are at in pursuing a career in games (or for that matter, whether you even intend to pursue a career in games), the heart of the matter is creating games.

• Designer – Responsible for creating and maintaining the game design document, which means keeping it up to date as features are added or dropped. The game designer may also prototype the user interface, game levels, and other game elements.

“You probably don’t find very many budding accountants creating the latest spreadsheet and posting it on YouTube just because they love accounting. There may be some.”

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“there has been a huge resurgence in the area of independent games over the last five years, and you should be taking advantage of this to create your own games.” The Technology Finally, you will have to decide which technology you will use to build your game. The technology will drive many aspects of your game design. For example, if you choose Flash to create your game, then you are pretty much deciding that it will be a 2D game (though there are add-ins that allow for 3D games to be created in Flash). Unity, on the other hand, is much more suited for building 3D games than 2D games. There are way too many considerations to be dealt with on technology than we can cover in this article. The key question you should be asking at this point is, “What technologies am I or other members of my team already familiar with?” If your artists already know and have access to Maya and your programmer only knows C++, this is going to narrow down your technology choices considerably. What Next? In future columns I will discuss each of the three core areas discussed above in greater detail. Between now and then, you should start creating your game design document, sketching out who the members of your team will be, and then finding out what technologies they are familiar with and have access to. Until then!

• Artist – Responsible for creating the visual assets for the game. This may include 2D art and textures, 3D models, and animations used in the game as well as art needed for marketing, promotion, and a web site. • Programmer –The person who actually writes the computer code to make the game work. • Writer – Creates the story and dialogue for the game. • Audio – Responsible for the music, sound effects and possibly voice-overs. • Quality Assurance – Responsible for putting together a plan to test the game and for insuring that any bugs have been reported, tracked, and eliminated. • Testers – Test the functionality of the game and help make sure that there are no bugs that are harmful enough to crash or otherwise derail the game. There are certainly other roles in game development. You might even be surprised at the length of the list above. Certainly, many small indie teams will consolidate functions so that, for example, the designer is also the writer. Other teams may have multiple people covering each role. You have to adapt the list above to your team and your game, but no game will be made without covering all of the bases above, even if it is one person covering all of the bases!

Robert Madsen is a game development evangelist who also happens to run his own independent studio, SynapticSwitch. Robert is a programmer by trade. You can reach Robert at rmadsen@iname.com.

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Super Sonic Legends By Keith Olexa

ot every musician can conduct a business operation as deftly as they might an orchestra. Sonic Legends (www.soniclegends.com) founder Erika Lieberman, however, is clearly one such musician. Lieberman, along with her fellow music composers Christie Carew, Alex Kovacs, Randin Graves and Jon Ollsin (among others) strive to do what few have done: Provide through Sonic Legends an automated, one-stop music shop that will cater to all video game and computer software developers’ compositional needs. Lieberman originally created Sonic Legends to develop “soundscapes” – looping music tracks, often mixed with accompanying sound effects or auditory flourishes – for users to purchase in order to enhance their tabletop role-playing game experience. Through such evocative titles as Prosperous Tavern, Vampire’s Castle or Forest Skirmish, a game’s sense of peril, terror, or wonder would be elevated and enriched, captivating players in a whole new way.

Since Sonic Legends inception in 2009 Lieberman has grown her company’s brand and now offers a vast music library, and also a new online tool for video game and computer software developers to use to license the company’s music. But Sonic Legends’ most impressive offering is its sophisticated compositions that cleave beautifully and precisely to the milieu or scenario they were created to enhance.

“It’s extremely cliché to say that, but it’s true. I started playing piano at five years old, when I was in kindergarten; it was all I could do.” Such lyrical magic doesn’t come easy, though. Nuanced compositions like those offered by Sonic Legends need talented and seasoned composers to create them, so Lieberman wasted no time in gathering that talent. All of Sonic Legends’ composers had significant success prior to joining the company in film, TV and/or video game scoring. Each has helped elevate Sonic Legends to the position it now holds as one of the key aggregators of compelling multimedia music content. Like Lieberman herself, many of Sonic Legends’ composers were swept up by their art at an early age: “I grew up with music and theater,” admits Graves, whose work also extends to video games (Atari’s Civilization II). “I never had formal lessons as a kid, but my grandmother always tried to egg me on, and even got me a little Casio keyboard.” Nearly all the Sonic Legends composers echo Graves’ sentiment. “Ever since I can remember

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“A lot of overlap exists out there because gaming in general tends to follow a specific type of dramatic storyline. That’s what the music is enhancing. We soon had this giant catalog of loopable music that was eight to ten minutes long, and we began to realize that this is videogame music...”

“Years ago, I joined a large live action role-playing game, or LARP,” she explains, “and the guy who was running the game asked me to provide music for it. That led to me thinking, ‘If he needs music for his game… maybe other people do, too?’ So after doing some research, I created Sonic Legends, initially to provide music for tabletop role-playing games – games like Dungeons & Dragons – as well as for LARPs.”

I’ve been drawn to music,” says Kovacs, currently working on the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. “It’s extremely cliché to say that, but it’s true. I started playing piano at five years old, when I was in kindergarten; it was all I could do.” “I think I was about six,” adds Carew, a graduate of Royal Conservatory program of Vancouver who composes for everything from “commercials to zombie films.” “Yes, six. That was when I saw Star Wars. I didn’t know about film music, but I saw the film I went insane listening to the movie score – that’s what my dad tells me. I kept saying, I want to make ‘like that; like that.’ He asked, ‘You want to be like Princess Leia? Do you want to be an actress?” And I said, ‘No! The music, the music!!’” Ollsin, whose work includes scores for the game Skate and Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom Sabotage, adds. “I was self-taught on the piano. My parents bought me a Casio. You can go pretty far with your imagination on the Casio.” Lieberman’s story is similar. She would turn her creativity and early exposure to filmmaking (Her father, director Jeff Lieberman, helmed the films Remote Control and Squirm) toward music for media, eventually earning her masters degree in Music Technology and Film Scoring from NYU. A talented musician even before college (performing regularly on Celtic harp), Lieberman was now poised to take her impressive skills in a new direction. All it took was a curious introduction to a certain game to set the stage for Sonic Legends.

Thus Sonic Legends was born, though it wasn’t long before Lieberman recognized a games market niche yearning to be filled. As more and more video games began appearing on traditional and also newer platforms—tablets, smartphones, apps, social media—Lieberman saw that those developers could benefit from licensing reasonably priced music from a large and easy-to-access on-line library. She also grasped that music suited to tabletop fantasy games worked just as well for digital fantasy games. “A lot of overlap exists out there because gaming in general tends to follow a specific type of dramatic storyline. That’s what the music is enhancing. We soon had this giant catalog of loopable music that was eight to ten minutes long, and we began to realize that this is videogame music; this music can used by videogames and other systems and we should make it available. That’s why I started the Sonic Legends licensing division. To read the extended Sonic Legends article visit: http://www.worldgamingexecutives.com/page/sonic-legends

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SPECTACULAR CITYSCAPE “I am a real fan of the sci-fi genre and as a concept artist I have had to create several designs for various worlds,” says games illustrator Mark Molnar.

“It’s evening, and the sun has already set on the horizon. Takahashi Muromoto, CEO of the Muromoto Group, is standing in front of an enormous window and admiring the cityscape of Sol, the capital of Beta Terra. He’s an elderly man of mixed ethnicity. Outside, the urban sprawl consists of towering structures and brightly coloured neon signs, displaying various corporate logos and advertisements for the masses. Rain pours down steadily from the heavily cloud cast sky and a steady traffic of futuristic hover crafts should be present throughout the scene.

Mark is the man responsible for producing this stunning piece of art-work, one of several impressive pieces to be found on his website markmolnar.com.

“I have completed lots of artworks already for the same world, so I was familiar with the visual aesthetics of what the client was after. What instantly popped in my mind is the Blade Runner movie with all the neon lights, flying cars and constant rain. I wanted to mix that mood with the original style of the IP.”

Since graduating with an MA in illustration, Mark has worked on several inspirational projects within the film, game and animation industry, creating concept designs and promotional materials for unique new worlds.

Besides his production designs, he creates illustrations for well-known hobby game companies and also works on his own series of personal artworks and publications. His previous clients include a wide range of international companies including Weta Workshop, BrownBag Films, SoapBox Films, Crystal Dynamics (Eidos/Square Enix), Souljacker Media, Games Workshop, Fantasy Flight Games, Catalyst Game Labs/TOPPS, Storm Studios and OddBall Animation.

The full process of Mark’s work on this cityscape can be found on the World Gaming Executives website and as Mark explains, there’s an entire backstory to the art-work.

To see how Mark created this work click here

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VIDEO

GAME HISTORY

1947 - Goldsmith and Mann filed a US patent request for an invention they described as a “cathode ray tube amusement device” 1950 - Charley Adama created Bouncing Ball, a program for MIT’s Whirlwind computer 1958 - William Higinbotham creates Tennis for Two a precursor to Pong

1966 - Bill Harrison created the first light gun to interact with a gaming device

1979 - Atari release Asteroids

1979 - Namco release Galaxian and Pac-Man 1979 - Publisher Infocom founded to port games to personal computers. Subsequently sold to Activision 1980 - Space Panic hailed as first multi-level platform game 1980 - Defender, the first shooter using side-scrolling, released by Williams Electronics 1981 - Haunted House released by Capcom, possibly first ever Horror genre game 1981 - Revenues from video games in US exceeds earnings generated by US movie industry and music industry

1981 - Nintendo release Donkey Kong, which incorporates a character called Mario 1982 - Taito’s Jungle King features first ‘scrolling jump and run’ 1983 - Congo Bongo, the first isometric platformer (3D environment using 2D graphics) released by Sega

1969. Sanders Associates show off the world’s first dedicated games console device

1983 - Mario Bros released

1969. Space Travel the Worlds first Unix game created

1984 - Karate Champ released by Data East. First one-on- one fighter game

1971 - Galaxy (the first coin-op game) installed at a student union at Stanford University 1971 - 1,500 ‘Computer Space’ game machines created by Ralph Baer, who went on to form Atari

1985 - Space Harrier released to be the first successful ‘rail shooter’

1971 - First version of a Star Trek game developed

1987 - Final Fantasy franchise introduced the side-view turn- based fight. Where player characters appeared on the right and the enemies on the left

1972 - Atari release Pong, selling 19,000 machines

1991 - Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog make first appearance

1972 - Magnavox Odyssey, using game cartridges becomes first home video games console

1992 - Alone in the Dark became the most popular ‘Horror genre’ game of its time

1972 - Frank Sinatra in TV ads for Odyssey assists 100,000 first year sales! 1974 - Philips buy Magnavox. Life sales of Magnavox 2m units 1974 - Maze War and Spasim - first examples of first person shooters released

1996 - Quake pioneered turn based internet first person shooter games 1998 - Nokia installed Snake on its first handset 2001 - Microsoft releases Xbox

1975 - Dungeon created by Daglow. Based on Dungeons and Dragons it became the first example of a role playing game

2004 - Release of Nintendo DS and Playstation (PSP)

1978 - Taito release Space Invaders

2006 - Wii released

1979 - MicroVision handheld console created

2011 - Nintendo Wii, Microsoft’s Kinect, and Sony’s PlayStation Move

2005 - Xbox 360 released

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Bag It! Goes Local I

n December of 2010, my partners and I started Hidden Variable Studios, an independent mobile game developer, after years of working in console development for companies like THQ, Insomniac Games and Liquid Entertainment. There have been plenty of trials and tribulations since our inception; however, one of the most challenging has been the decision to localize our game. The thought of localizing seemed overwhelming at first, but we eventually realized that it is ultimately akin to the question “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer? “One bite at a time”. When we started developing our first game, Bag It!, we weren’t sure if we were going to localize it or not. While our primary target market was North America (since our game is based on common U.S. supermarket products) the data had shown that

making the game available globally would increase our sales. That said, the task seemed somewhat overwhelming for a small start-up studio. There were so many questions to be answered, including the cost of localizing (both internally and externally with vendors and partners), distribution channels, how to localize for different countries, associated price points, PR, and countless other items. Prior to making the final decision to localize, we knew that such a significant decision would require a lot research. Thus began our quest to gather information. We reached out to everyone we could think of to help us make an informed decision--fellow developers, the IGDA Localization SIG, vendors, and of course, the web. The data from large companies that had localized their games was fairly easy to find, but finding information about how or if smaller indie developers had localized was not an easy task. It was a challenge to piece together the fragments and often disjointed data points that we had gathered and to make sense of the sometimes conflicting information. Nonetheless, after weeks of research we concluded that we would localize the game in 7 different languages, but we would wait to do it until after our initial launch. Confident in our plan, we first released Bag It! in English-speaking countries on November 17th.

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“Only time will tell if our investment paid off, but had we not decided to localize Bag It!, we never would have known the possible return on that investment and probably would have always been wondering, “What if…?” distribution, payment and customer service allies. As of the writing of this article, we are still investigating and evaluating the myriad of potential partners. We also had to determine the global price points for our game. In China, a significant majority of the gaming market is driven by free, ad supported games with in app purchases. Creating this part of our business model was always in our long term plans, but knowing that the second largest smartphone market in the world required this, combined with a rise in piracy, caused us to accelerate this process. This decision created a huge challenge for us as a small studio. We now knew that we had to localize the game into 7 different languages AND implement a system for advertising concurrently. The task list seemed endless and the overall timeframe was unforgiving, given our limited resources. That said, we felt that with the upcoming holidays, we had no other choice but to set an aggressive internal deadline and finish up before the end of the year.

Within the first week, the piracy rates in foreign countries (especially China) were staggering, dwarfing our actual sales. If we had any lingering reticence about the need for localizing the game, those first few days stiffened our resolve. Our first step was starting to contact translation and localization companies with a request for a proposal. In addition to conducting our own research, we also had a number of referrals from our industry contacts. We ultimately decided to work with a U.S. based company, whom was also well known for their international track record. We created spreadsheets that not only covered all of the text in the game, but also the text in our marketing screenshots, our app descriptions, and our metadata. After signing a contract with the translation vendor, we sent off our text and moved on to our next task – distribution channels. From attending a panel at GDC Online, we knew that many countries had differing forms of distribution for both iOS and Android. For example, in China, the Android app market is fragmented with countless app stores and a variety of different billing solutions. In contrast, all payment processing is consolidated through mobile carrier billing in Korea. Furthermore, when considering Japan, customer service and responses to reviews are highly valued and having a partner who can respond to these requests was imperative. With this data from just a sampling of countries, we knew that we had to find

We also had cultural considerations that added to the growing pressure of our impending release. As a Western developer entering foreign markets with characters that were based on U.S. supermarket products, we had to analyze how to make the game feel local. For example, we noted that when Fruit Ninja was localized for China, they added a new fruit (a peach), a Chinese zodiac background and the Fire Cracker Knife to their game. While it seemed easy enough to say that we could add similar localized elements, the associated financial costs to produce the art also had to be considered. As an example, the cost for creating a new character was an expensive endeavor in its own right. Adding one seemed reasonable, but if we made one for every country, it would quickly become a fiscal impossibility. As we neared the end of our localization process, gaining visibility into all of the impacts of localization and breaking up the tasks into bite-sized pieces was definitely a best practice that I would suggest for any small to mid-size studio exploring this decision. It made what first appeared as an insurmountable task more manageable for the entire team. Only time will tell if our investment paid off, but had we not decided to localize Bag It!, we never would have known the possible return on that investment and probably would have always been wondering, “What if…?”. You can learn more about Hidden Variable Studios and updates on the Bag It! World Tour by visiting them at any of these channels: HVS website: www.HiddenVariable.com/Games Facebook: www.facebook.com/HiddenVariable Twitter: @Hidden_Variable

The digital world is constantly moving, evolving and changing. Everything is in moshen. Hi there, we are Moshen. We provide clarity of thought, execution of ideas, deployment and distribution of product across the digital world. Moshen enable our partners to engage with customers and generate additional revenue lines in new vertical markets. Moshen has a creative and technical team drawn from the Mobile, Web, Agency, Gaming, Games and Social Media sectors, each having accumulated their 10,000 hours in their field. We believe that each digital element is intrinsically connected to each other and that only by engaging with the consumer across all the sectors can our clients truly succeed. Moshen provide this 360 degree approach.

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Social Media Marketing

Text Messaging Communications

Appshen provide Applications for brands, IP owners and companies. Utilising our full knowledge across 20+ global platforms.

Soshen deliver our clients and partners into the Social Media stream. Producing engagement dialogue, products and management within the consumersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; medium of choice.

Comshen facilitate one-to-one and one-tomany digital communication for our clients to their customers. Providing Products, Tools and Services that enable one-way Push and two-way Pull instant dialogue.

For more information: Tel: +44 (0)207 183 3589 or email: info@moshenltd.com / Moshen / Storey Creative Industries Centre Meeting House Lane / Lancaster / Lancashire / LA1 1TH / United Kingdom / Web: www.moshenltd.com