ALPHA | NEWS
Editorial
Are you being served? ‘Games as service.’ It’s such an over-repeated games industry phrase that to type it out, let alone expect you to read it, feels like white noise seeping into the ether. It’s one of those things about the change in video games that we all know is true, but has become boring to hear. Yes, yes, we know – games are leaving strict single-player and multiplayer labels behind. We’ve heard many say it and few actually do it – enough already! One of the Develop team overheard someone saying exactly that at last month’s Develop Conference, but it’s something ignored at your peril. So let’s try again, slower, to understand why this often repeated - but easily ignored - emergent force needs to be appreciated by everyone in it. Games. As. Service. Ah, maybe that’s the problem; it sounds boring. Service – what an unexciting word to see on the same line as our precious ‘games’. Yet it isn’t boring, because when games become a service, something beyond a fixed item sold in a box, the role of the developer fundamentally changes. The studio goes from being author to broadcaster. While many of the day-to-day duties remain the same – content still needs to be made, updates issues, communities monitored – new abilities are needed to maintain audiences and keep them engaged. Unfortunately for the biggest, most cutting edge games and online sites already doing this well, much of the hard work is required around the boring stuff; quality of online service, latency/lag, server management, and so on. It isn’t about sexy stuff like rendering, poly-counts or things like iPad. But developers must dig beyond wariness over jargon – after all, this is an industry packed with it – to see the potential emerging avenues for games will offer their business. We’ve profiled a number of such companies making the jump on this issue (nDreams – p37, Virgin – p41, We R – p58) and the firms out there supporting them (IGN for one – p68) to get you started on understanding exactly why this is beyond a buzzword, and more the shape of things to come.
Michael French michael.french@intentmedia.co.uk
06 | AUGUST 2010
JAW’s Odd deal UK indie secures rights to revitalise the Oddworld series
by Will Freeman
THE UK GAMES industry is no stranger to curious business deals – but this one is decidedly Odd. UK indie Just Add Water is at work on a number of titles that revisit the world of the critically acclaimed Oddworld series – originally made by a team in the USA. Initially developed by Oddworld Inhabitants, the series began life on the original PlayStation in 1997, and rapidly established a cult following and a status as a champion of the 2D platforming genre. JAW secured the rights to create the next Oddworld games after a conversation at GDC 2009 between the Leeds-based studio’s MD Stewart Gilray and Oddworld creator and game design luminary Lorne Lanning. Since, JAW has been at work on a number of Oddworld titles, which Gilray hints will make use of technologies established and forthcoming: “The current projects are at various stages of development and all use
technology in different ways; some new and also some traditional technologies.” JAW has also secured access to many of those in the core team behind the
The current projects are at various stages and all use technology in different ways. Stewart Gilray, Just Add Water original Oddworld games, including Oddworld Inhabitants co-founder Sherry McKenna. “I’ve got direct access to Lorne, Sherry and Larry Shapiro, the CEO,” Gilray confirmed. “To give you an idea of some of the processes, over the past couple of months well
discuss something or show them something, then sometimes within minutes I’ll get emails and so on, asking if we can apply that visual to other aspects etcetera.” To many, the news that a small UK studio is at work on an IP traditionally associated with US developers and fans may come as some surprise. Currently JAW, which has described the pressure of handling such beloved IP as a positive influence, is keeping details of the projects close to its chest. Right now, the key part of the deal is the unexpected meeting of minds between Gravity Crash developer JAW and Oddworld Inhabitants, which has created a close creative bond. “As you can imagine Lorne and the guys are extremely busy people, so for me it’s been amazing to get the kind of access we’ve had and in turn the conversations that have evolved. Lorne and I both have similar ideas about stuff, and we try to evolve those ideas together.” www.jawltd.com