WGE:MAG Issue #2 by John Armstrong

ING

THE MAGAZINE FOR THE WORLD’S GAMING ELITE

EDITION 12/2011

WGE:MAG

G RLD AM

UTIV

Interview with the voice of

league of

legends

Adam Harrington talks about his epic voice over work! SURESH SUDERA

HEAD OF GAMES AT VODAFONE

Albert Zhiltsov

Rise of Flight

Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott

also inside: Bitoon Studio » Nordrassil Radio (WoW)

Pro Poker Player

Distributed in partnership with

› HELLO Welcome to World Gaming Executives John Armstrong WGE Director

Big Thank-You! The first edition of WGE:MAG came out in November 2011 and for a first effort it was certainly well received. Unlike many other publications we don’t have a budget for publicity so we think 3500 organic downloads is a fantastic effort. The magazine and its features certainly got people talking with the poll to find the favourite game of all-time from developers raising a few eyebrows. Our poll, which named the Baldur’s Gate series as No.1 game of all-time according to game developers received thousands of comments on gaming forums across the globe and was the subject of articles on several gaming sites, translated into eight different languages (at least). Enjoy the latest read and if you’ve got any ideas for features or want to contribute yourself, then drop me a line at: john@worldgamingexecutives.com

WGE ADVISORY PANEL:

› CONTENTS

EDUCATION Garry Crawford

Cultural Sociologist, University of Salford, author of numerous books including ‘Video Gamers’ (2011) and co-editor of the book ‘Online Gaming in Context’ (2011)

POKER Marcel Luske

Pro Poker Player - Twice winner of European Poker Awards Player of the Year and with 20 cashes as the WSOP accounting for over $1Milllion of winnings

Annie Duke

Pro Poker Player - WSOP Bracelet Winner, World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions Winner ($2million prize)

Paul J Dransfield

Co-Founder of Devilfish Poker - DevilfishProBet

INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT Chris Meredith (Ai Management) - formerly of : Warner Bros Interactive / Virgin Gaming / MTV Games / Glu Mobile / PlayStation GAME ASSETS Terrence Newsome

Founder - Game Pazzo

Legendary Voice Adam Harrington gives us the lowdown

Basket Case Spain nets a winner

17 A virtual jobs fair?

Storyland A dragon is born

20 Esports Competitive gaming

Mobile Boss: We spoke to Vodafone’s Head of Games

MOBILE GAME ADS & IN APP PURCHASES Jeff Bacon Director of Mobile Strategy - bitHeads Inc. VO Rebecca Michaels CAREERS Eamonn Mgherbi

Avatar Games

Take Flight Flight sim rewrites history

Making Waves A radio station for gamers

Kevin Dekoninck Consultant - Amiqus

Editor in Chief Michael Rohde: rohde.mj@gmail.com and Matt Morris

Assistant Editor John Armstrong

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ian Howarth

Image Credits: Cover and 6,7,8,9: League of Legends courtesy of Riot Games PR Page 21: Dino Andrade - Scarecrow courtesy of Wikia Page 22: Mekkatorque courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment Europe PR

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

Publisher Moshen Ltd / www.moshenltd.com

CONNECT WITH US HERE:

LEGAL Dan Rosenthal

Principal (IP Counsel), Game Law Partners

Steve Masur

Masurlaw

GAME ART Shannon Maer

Creative Director/Founder at Balance GFX

Bada Bing! Students take the challenge

Game Gone Bad How to develop an IP, then lose it!

COMICS Jerry Fuchs

Illustrated and animated for Cartoon Network and Time/Warner

Dave Windett

Illustrated for some of the worldís leading comic book companies including, Warner Bros, Fox Kids and DC Thomson.

Andy Diggle

Formerly Editor of 2000AD. Twice been named one of the Top 50 Most Influential People In Science Fiction by SFX, the UK’s best-selling sci-fi magazine.

Our thanks to all these people who have volunteered to help and contribute to the continued success of World Gaming Executives.

SEE COMPLETE ADVISORY PANEL MEMBERS LIST See full list: http://www.worldgamingexecutives.com/page/contact-1

Bravehearts Scotland producing top gaming talent

Blame Canada Plenty of talent north of the border

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Starting Out! Interview: Erin Michno Computer Games Technology student

“Don’t get overwhelmed thinking about the competition, just focus on what you’re really interested in - follow your passion!”

Who have been the key people during your time in Scotland? So many of my lecturers as well as my friends and family have helped me throughout my time at University. Henry Fortuna, Grant Clarke, Iain Donald, Nigel Lucas, Matthew Craven, Richard Paris, Colin Miller, Allan Milne, Suyehl Ozveren, Matthew Bett, Adam Sampson, Jamey Stevenson, Ian Reynolds, and of course my parents.

p and coming games artist Justin Pook tells WGE about self teaching and offers us a Modeling Tutorial.

“I have been 3D Modeling for around 5 years now. I started using 3DS Max in 2006 and eventually went to study my BA Hons in 3D Animation at University Of Central Lancashire. During this time I realised that I wanted to become a 3D Modeler within the games Industry.

How did you end up at Abertay? I always played a wide variety of games, but it was only after I had an office job for a while and realised that I was constantly thinking and talking about games that I decided that game development was the career for me. Abertay appealed to me because they focus on hands-on development for current gaming platforms - even the maths classes are centred around games.

What have been your Abertay University highlights? Studying at Abertay has been great. I got the chance to intern as a researcher and participate in Dare to be Digital. Most importantly, I’ve had the opportunity to work with incredibly talented people. Additionally, Abertay has lots of industry connections with developers like Sony, Disney, Microsoft and local companies, so I’ve also received advice and insight from many professional game developers.

Games Artist

omputer Games Technology student, Erin Michno, has travelled all the way from the United States to study at Scotland’s University of Abertay Dundee. She was also a member of the Furnace Games team which picked up the Audience Award at the recent Dare to be Digital 2011 competition.

Have you produced any games so far? I’m constantly making games! Over the summer, I made a Kinect game called Scorcher for Furnace Games as part of the Dare to be Digital challenge. For my third year group project, I worked on Magnetrix, a prototype for the PS3 Move. Other games I have previously created include Brickle (GBA), Paper Portal (PC), Phantom Flyer (PS2), Star Fox 2.5 (PS2), Above the Surface (audio game), and Space Dust (Flash).

Interview: Justin Pook

What are you currently working on? Furnace Games has just submitted Scorcher to the student IGF (check it out at http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2012. php?id=820), and for a side project I am currently working with two of my classmates on a mobile phone game called Moeba. My biggest focus at the moment is my Honours project, I am looking into how integration of GPGPU programming for post process effects can improve render pipeline efficiency. What do you plan to do once you have graduated? I can’t wait to make really interesting games as part of a professional team. My passion is graphics programming, I hope to be able to work for a games company as a graphics engine programmer. Any particular studio you would like to work for? I don’t know if I could pick just one, but Avalanche, BioWare, Codemasters, DICE, Double Fine, Irrational, Quantic Dream, Square Enix, Team ICO, Ubisoft and Valve... to name just a few! Any advice for prospective games technology students? Don’t get overwhelmed thinking about the competition, just focus on what you’re really interested in - follow your passion!

I have self-taught pretty much everything I know, spending hours and hours watching online tutorials on places like Youtube. The web is a great place to find out new techniques, tips and tricks from other modelers and industry professionals. Doing this I have learnt a lot of next-gen game modeling techniques, things like using normal/specular and diffuse maps to really get the best quality for low poly models for game engines. For the first few years of modeling I spent at least ten to fifteen hours per day on 3DS Max. I was first introduced to Zbrush whilst watching a tutorial on YouTube. Zbrush is the only way to create organic models, turning polygons to clay, you can really get up close and maximize the detail. It’s exactly like real-life sculpting so for me this was a great breakthrough. Whilst Modeling I have worked as a freelance sculptor creating Several pieces for theme parks such as being part of the three man team that created the 2 Giant Cobra snakes at Chessington World Of Adventure ‘KOBRA’ ride. I also worked on a giant pair of Boots for the ‘Puss In Boots’ Promotional appearance for Cannes Film Festival 2011. Jobs like these have been a great experience, whilst giving me more sculpting knowledge that I can apply when I’m modeling. The Games Industry is already an exciting thing to be a part of and it only continues to grow, giving artists more opportunities to get their work out there.” See the making of Justin’s Iron Man showreel model here: http://bit.ly/vMk0jO

“I was first introduced to Zbrush whilst watching a tutorial on YouTube. Zbrush is the only way to create organic models, turning polygons to clay, you can really get up close and maximize the detail. It’s exactly like real-life sculpting so for me this was a great breakthrough.”

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“The crew at Telltale put so much thought and humour into their characters. They create complete entertainment experiences, not just video games - Top notch storytellers.” AH: As a gamer I’d have to say I logged the most hours playing Godfather, and with good reason. It was a great game for its time. I became so engrossed in the gameplay that most of the time I forgot I was listening to myself voice all these different characters. It’s rare indeed for an egomaniacal actor to pay more attention to the gameplay than his or her own performances. I’ve got to say Puzzle Agent and the recent sequel were highly engrossing as well, a world in itself and a completely unique experience. The crew at Telltale put so much thought and humour into their characters. They create complete entertainment experiences, not just video games Top notch storytellers.

Interview:

Adam Harrington Voice over actor

ideo game fans around the world will know Adam Harrington very well, he’s voiced characters in classics such as Tales of Monkey Island, The Godfather, Resident Evil 4 and Assassins Creed and many more. But Adam is also one of World Gaming Executives earliest advocates and when WGE Director John Armstrong spoke to him for this month’s edition of WGE:MAG there was plenty of appreciation coming from both sides. In this extended Q&A, Harrington covers a wide range of topics, including his favourite characters, games and his stellar advice for any wannabe game voicers. John Armstrong: Thanks for taking the time out to speak to WGE:MAG, you’ve been behind World Gaming Executives and Game Voices since their inception.

Adam Harrington: The pleasure is all mine. In hindsight, I’m happy I discovered Gamevoices (and WGE) in its infancy. I feel like I’m part of the ‘inner circle’, and I can’t think of a nicer, more dedicated person to share that circle with. You continue to astound me with your selflessly diligent promotion of all your members. I’m sure all my fellow Gamevoices/WGE members would agree that it’s YOU who deserves the thanks. JA: That’s very kind Adam, thanks. You’ve appeared in many, many video games, including The Godfather, Assassins Creed, League of Legends and one of WGE members’ favourites Tales of Monkey Island. Which was your favourite to make and why?

As a voice actor there are so many great roles I was lucky enough to be picked for, it’s hard to definitively choose just one. I will say that my League of Legends characters (Ryze, Mordekaiser, Shaco, Karthus and Kassadin) have gotten me the most fan mail and positive feedback. League of Legends fans and players are incredibly loyal too, and often brutally honest with, everyone involved in the continued expansion of their beloved MMO. I had no idea what I was becoming a part of when I began voicing these guys a few years ago. I came across one fan’s youtube rap video, an ode to my character Shaco, and I was blown away! http://bit.ly/tG7cI2 So blown away in fact, that I offered to record a few custom lines for him in Mordekaiser’s voice for a new video.

“I came across one fan’s youtube rap video, an ode to my character Shaco, and I was blown away!”

http://www.youtube.com/user/FringeBeats#p/search/0/ Xz0Eel24L3Q There is a whole League of Legends universe out there, and I’m honoured to be a part of it. JA: What are your top three games of all time? AH: I’ve been a gamer since Pong, enough of a gamer to struggle with having to choose only three favourite titles. How about five in no particular order? 1 2 3 4 5

Tomb Raider (all of ‘em) Madden/NCAA Football (they count as one to me, only because a player can import his or her custom NCAA player to Madden after four seasons of college ball) Resident Evil (all of ‘em) Tiger Woods Golf Baseball Stars for the NES. An oldie but goodie, showing my age. My buddies and I wasted much of our late teens and early 20s building our custom teams for this criminally addictive game. The best baseball video game ever made, period.

As I review my list, I realize that, sadly, none of my top five are games I’ve worked on. I hope to change that when I finally get out of the stone age and buy me a tablet. I’ve been working on tons of iOS games lately, and many of them look and sound extremely cool. It looks like titles being developed for the iPad, iPhone and Andoid are becoming the future of gaming - I’ve heard speculation that console games will be obsolete in the not too distant future. Meanwhile, I’ve been lucky enough to benefit greatly from the ‘app’ gaming explosion.

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NEXT ISSUE!!

My current Gaming Character Reel: http://bit.ly/rXbjFv I quickly learned that building and editing the reels was going to be a cakewalk compared to finding enough clips to fill a reel. Sitting through hours and hours of gameplay videos proved to be, by far, the most time consuming part of the process, particularly finding the smaller title games. I remember saying to myself one night as I was about four hours into a walkthrough of an obscure game I voiced years ago, but absolutely needed a clip of my character from, ‘Man! I wish there was some poor sap I could pay to do this mind numbing work for me.’ As I became more adept at finding these proverbial needles in haystacks, it occurred to me, ‘Hey! I could be some poor sap who gets paid to find these clips,’ and combine them into a slick marketing tool for other voice actors.

Nintendo’s top guy talks to WGE

hen tech magazine Wired reported that Nintendo’s Mario and Zelda innovator, Shigeru Miyamoto was talking of retirement, it sent shockwaves through the gaming industry and wiped 2% off of Nintendo’s stock price. Wired’s report proved to more than a little hasty in bringing about the end of an era at Nintendo, but it seemed only apt that we gave you ‘voice of Mario’, Charles Martinet’s views on Miyamoto. In an exclusive interview published in the next edition of WGE:MAG, Charles covers a huge range of topics, talking about his early days in voiceover work, discussing his work on Skyrim and his excitement at the forthcoming Wii U technology.

After quite a bit of trial and error, I’m proud to say I’ve become, as a recent client, Bob Bergen, put it: “A combination producer, editor, and private investigator.” Another client and VO heavyweight Dave Fennoy said: “Adam scours the web, finds samples of your work, and puts them together as a killer demo.”

“Fred Norris and Billy West of the Howard Stern Show are also big influences. Most know Billy West as Ren & Stimpy, multiple characters in Futurama, and the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee, but he got his start on The Stern Show - He’s just brilliant.” I’ve been voicing scores of characters for these up - and coming developers, and I don’t see production slowing any time soon. One of my best clients, Gameloft, has been calling on me more and more, to voice characters for their increasingly slick, expansive and glowingly reviewed titles. I’ve worked on so many in the last year that I decided to build a Gameloft specific reel, featuring clips of just a few of the dozens of characters I’ve voiced for their hugely successful titles in just a twelve month span. http://bit.ly/tubfKl I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that all my Gameloft work is of course flawlessly produced by my friends and long-time collaborators, Nick Thomas, Matt Bruun, Ben Gabaldon and the rest of team at Somatone. They have consistently been a top client of mine and tops in the business at getting the best possible performance out of their voice actors. Sessions at Soma are always more like playtime than work time, which is the way it’s supposed to be. Soma’s finished products prove it - Without fail. JA: You’ve recently set up another side to your business making show reels for fellow actors. Which have you done so far? AH: Yes! What started as a nice little side project has turned into a nice little side job. A little over two years ago I started scouring the internet for clips of my gaming characters to build voice acting showcase reels for my own marketing purposes.

Bob Bergen’s Reel: http://bit.ly/t1MW5y

Here’s a quick teaser on his admiration for the man he simply calls Mr Miyamoto.

Lani Minella’s showreel: http://bit.ly/ttcTjQ Dave Fennoy’s Reel: http://bit.ly/sdnCSk I’ve done quite a few reels for other big names in the industry, Lani Minella comes immediately to mind, her gaming VO resume make mine look like a fortune cookie. Building a reel for a woman with that much range and power was a blast! Had a lot of fun building Doug Boyd’s reel too. We share many gaming scenes, so I didn’t have to look too far for clips of his characters. Doug and I play off each other nicely and have appeared in scores of games together. A little promotion, via social networking and voila! Affordable Video Voiceover Reels was born. Find me on Facebook :-) JA: Who are your VO heroes? AH: Top of the list? Cheech & Chong without question. I wouldn’t be a professional voice actor if I’d never been introduced to their albums. As a kid I would play them until the vinyl melted, then go out and buy new copies. Fred Norris and Billy West of the Howard Stern Show are also big influences. Most know Billy West as Ren & Stimpy, multiple characters in Futurama, and the Honey Nut Cheerios

Bee, but he got his start on The Stern Show - He’s just brilliant. Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane is another hero of mine. I could fill three more pages with voice actors who inspired and continue to inspire me, but those are the ones that stand out. JA: What are your top tips for newbie voice actors wanting to enter the industry and in particular the game industry? AH: Find a great and reputable coach in your area, build up a stable of strong, diverse characters to draw from and when you and your coach agree you are ready, record stellar character demos. Land a reputable talent agent with your stellar demos, provide standout auditions for any and every character that is offered to you and provide memorable performances when you are booked, to ensure solid, longlasting relationships with steady clients. My friend and fellow video game voice actor, J.S. Gilbert, voice of Sweet Tooth for the Twisted Metal series, offered me invaluable advice for landing repeat clients, “Be on time. Be Brilliant. Be Gone.” Never stop building your client base through networking and courting agents in multiple markets. Get your name out there, and get your voice heard. For the record my ‘great reputable coach’ was Susan McCollom at VoiceMedia-Susan and Friends Casting. JA: What are your own personal ambitions? AH: Simple really. Achieve enough fame and fortune through voiceover to ensure that my family is comfortable for a long, long time. And when that’s accomplished? Shamelessly exploit the fame and fortune to champion a select few philanthropic causes that are very near and dear to my heart. Lastly, secure a small island off the coast of Belize to build a home and studio where I spend the rest of my days, snorkelling and voicing characters for the next 30 Pixar films. That’s all - I don’t ask for much!

“In 1996, this (was an) absolutely wonderful gift; 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 and me putting a voice on it and inventing phrases that were recorded. “He [Mr Miyamoto] is one of the most amazingly wonderful nice, kind, thoughtful, considerate, generous, caring, people I have ever met. “What an incredible great mind, we have characters in video games because of Mr Miyamoto, we have side-scrolling because that was an innovation he took to another level, we have 3D, that was something he created with Mario 64 and the N64.” “He pushes the envelope and it’s the motivation of great laughter and adventure and creating joy and fun for people. I can’t imagine a more wonderful person than Mr Miyamoto.” So what of Mario’s Papa and his future at Nintendo? The following statement hopefully clears up any confusion as to Mr Miyamoto’s future at the games developer. “Video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto’s role at Nintendo is not changing. He will continue to be a driving force in Nintendo’s development efforts. In discussing his priorities at Nintendo in a media interview, Mr. Miyamoto explained how he is encouraging the younger developers at the company to take more initiative and responsibility for developing software. He attempted to convey his priorities moving forward, inclusive of overseeing all video game development and ensuring the quality of all products. Mr. Miyamoto also discussed his desire to pursue fresh ideas and experiences of the kind that sparked his initial interest in video games.”

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“Founding Bitoon was a complete adventure since the beginning. A couple of friends and partners - which Fernando has worked with for a long time felt that they wanted to create games they would really like to play.” He continued his career as partner of Zinkia Entertainment, managing the Games & Creative Development departments until 2007. While there, Fernando had enough time to develop the first massive multiplayer mobile games in Spain and he took part in exciting projects such as World Cap Game - a multiplayer online game that achieved big success with no promotional investment. When Fernando left Zinkia, he had a lot of ideas to build something by himself. After talking with a couple of friends, and finding good inspiration

For that to happen, Fernando believes the game industry needs to reinvent itself every day.

“Fernando is totally focused on making Bitoon a big and brilliant company by achieving their objectives and seeing the games grow with a huge mass of players around the world.”

he Spanish game market has experienced big changes over the past few years. Since 2007 and 2008, Fernando Piquer - founder of Bitoon, a game development company - feels that a new game industry is being built up in Spain and Latin America. Creators are starting to organize their ideas and are creating solid companies with enough structure to develop good games. Not only are Spanish developers making good games, but they are also able to commercialize them and play an important role in the international playground. Currently, you can find Spanish companies with great titles in the market. There are also important Spanish events that bring together big figures from the international gaming picture.

There is even some institutional recognition for Spanish game developers and professionals (Fernando still feels that they have a long way to go). Fernando thinks Spain is currently in a sweet spot and is hitting a stride, but they need to keep working. He’s sure that Spain will be one of the most powerful gaming markets in a short time.

It is important to be in the forefront and continuously update, to open new ways to reach users and players, and also to be creative enough to surprise people all the time. This market is still growing, and apart from temporary trends, it’s a solid industry with a promising future. Fernando has been dedicated to the internet business since its very beginning, near 1992. He managed the technical area of Teknoland, developing interactive entertainment projects like COMM.COM - one of the first Spanish -speaking internet communities. After that, Fernando landed in BetyByte Entertainment, developing projects as ‘El Movimiento Coca Cola’ (Coke Movement) and exploring multiplayer mechanics to improve the community experience.

by travelling through the US for some months, he returned to Madrid and decided to start up Bitoon. Founding Bitoon was a complete adventure since the beginning. A couple of friends and partners which Fernando has worked with for a long time felt that they wanted to create games they would really like to play. They have ideas, and they definitely know how to make the games. So, they took a chance and created Bitoon Games. At the beginning, Bitoon was just three people, and they did absolutely everything. Through their experience with the internet and gaming industry, they knew great professionals in Spain.

The most realistic darts app yet!

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And just like every other successful project, it started to grow slowly but surely. Some new people started collaborating with the original team and as they matured, they finally became part of Bitoon’s team. Currently, Bitoon has more than 20 people in the company. And they are really happy with what they are doing. In Bitoon, Fernando tries to create universal games. In particular, he thinks a Spanish game can perfectly match with a Latin American (LATAM) audience. There are a lot of Spanish-speaking territories growing in this industry and users from LATAM are demanding good products. BasketDudes, his very first game, was published in Spanish and English and they have a lot of Spanish-speaking followers out of Spain who dedicate time and effort to improve the game. When Fernando talks about the launch of a game in Spain, he’s really talking about its launch in LATAM. Fernando wants to develop multiplayer online games based on the free2play model that users all over the world would really love to play. He aims to

new

There are also gaming cards that create funny and unexpected events during the game. And of course, Bitoon’s team is still working on making it bigger and they update the content constantly. While Bitoon is working on upgrading BasketDudes, they are already on the pre-production of their next game. For the moment, Fernando can say it’s also a multiplayer online game based on free2play; but that it has nothing to do with sports. Fernando is totally focused on making Bitoon a big and brilliant company by achieving their objectives and seeing the games grow with a huge mass of players around the world. And of course, to continue working in what he loves: making games. Bitoon’s plans and ambitions are really close to Fernando and his personal objectives. He’d love to see Bitoon as a quality brand worldwide with happy and loyal followers. http://www.basketdudes.com/

create his own style of games, to make them easily recognizable all over the world, and to become a key player in the international markets. Basically, create fun and free games that people really enjoy. He hopes the rest will come after that. BasketDudes is one of Bitoon’s first games. It is played online and was released June 15th, in Spanish and English, both for the PC and MAC. In BasketDudes, users can create, personalize and manage a very special basketball team. They will play in real-time with users from all over the world. After each match, users will get experience and virtual coin to get new players and virtual items to improve their skills. It combines a direct and arcade mechanic with a role playing component that allows your team and each individual player to evolve.

Appshen's Professional Darts Championship takes all the fun, competitive and social elements of darts and puts them in a 5-star rated application. Easy to pick up, but hard to master, Appshen's unique physics engine has developed a simple but realistic swipe mechanic to throw the darts.

“Darts, a game that anyone can play and have fun yet it takes some skill to be really good, even virtually. Awesome fun!” John Armstrong | World Gaming Executives

Working closely with the darts community Appshen created a level of realism unseen on mobile phone apps before, including lifelike darts sound effects, the authentic sights and sounds of a professional darts tournament and 16 virtual opponents. Professional Darts Championship utilises Apple's Game Center technology, allowing for a wide range of achievements, challenges and tournaments to be won.

This app is designed for both iPhone and iPad

For more information on Professional Darts Championship please contact our PR and Marketing team on Tel: +44 (0)1524 509036 or email: pr@appshen.com / Appshen / Storey Creative Industries Centre / Meeting House Lane / Lancaster / Lancashire / LA1 1TH / United Kingdom / Web: www.appshen.com

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1. 3D Models are received and broken down.

5. An internal frame is added to the dragon’s main body and wings.

6. The dragon gets removable wings.

2. Rough cuts are made by hot wire machines. 7. The dragon is covered with polyurethane coating giving him a tough outer shell.

How To Build A Dragon With Storyland Studios

here’s never a dull day at the office for the employees of California’s Storyland Studios. Specialising in themed environments for the entertainment, retail and hospitality sectors, Storyland have created a wide range of fascinating and often astonishing commissions since starting out in 1986.

3. Sculpting begins on the dragon’s body parts

Whether it be a nine foot Incredible Hulk statue or a full size replica of a space station, the folks at Storyland Studios know how to make an impact on a grand scale. Their latest venture saw them produce a huge polystyrene dragon for display at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles earlier this year. Using urethane, fibreglass, EPS, resin, plastics and a wide variety of other materials, Storyland Studios take projects from initial drawings/designs, to manufacturing, painting, and to installation. But don’t take WGE:MAG’s word for it, check out our unique gallery of images from their dragon build to see the masters at work.

http://www.youtube.com/v IsOk30vUOiY&hl=en&fs=1 Our customer supplied us with a 3d computer generated model. We took that and produced a 20’ dragon with a massive 50’ wingspan in about 4 weeks. He was fabricated with EPS(Expanded Polystyrene), Poly-Urethane, Steel, and Urethane/Acrylic Paints.

4. The head which has been routed out on our 3D CNC machine is set in place.

8. The dragon’s is broken down and shipped to the convention center.

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Get a Real Job from a Virtual Interview?

Angry Multiplied by 240!

Just Like Playing an MMO! By: Marc Mencher

One of Storyland Studios biggest commissions came in 2008 when they were asked to create 240 ‘lifesize’ statues of The Incredible Hulk to promote Marvel’s comicbook blockbuster. The nine-foot tall, six foot wide likeness of the angry green giant appeared in movie theatres across America and around the world, creating a real buzz for the movie, but also creating headlines beyond the silverscreen. The statues were later sold off, with Incredible Hulk fans paying upwards of $2500 to own one, that’s a lot of greens for a lot of green! However, not all of the creations were sold, as thieves somehow managed to steal one away from a cineplex in the United States. http://bit.ly/vDqFup

ith the state of the economy and those pesky baggage fees, let alone hotel costs and precious time away from work or home; getting to a job expo can really cut into your budget. Does that mean you’re stuck posting your resume on generic job sites or slogging through a mound of cover letters? Not anymore! Thanks to the folks at Casual Connect, International Game Developers Association (IGDA), GameDev.net, World Gaming Executives (WGE), The Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA), Association of Virtual Worlds and GameRecruiter, you can attend the first Virtual Career Expo; a live 3D virtual world event designed specifically for employers and pre-qualified candidates to interact without having to travel. We’re actually offering two events:

“The virtual career expo saves time and money. It increases productivity by eliminating the dreaded return from a trip experience.” • A Professionals Only event for Publishers, Developers, 3rd party Software Developers and Service Providers hiring or seeking to market to Game Industry Professionals. • A Student / Recent Graduation event for job seekers, colleges and Publishers / Developers who actively seek to hire recent grads. Why Are We Having A “Virtual” Career Expo? Because the Video Game Industry is one of the most high tech segments, so why are we still getting on airplanes to attend a conference when we can use technology to accomplish it all? The virtual career expo saves time and money. It increases productivity by eliminating the dreaded return from a trip experience.

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When? Wednesday April 18th 2012 from 11A.M 7P.M PST Standard Time. Registration is FREE! Current Industry Professionals: http://www.gamerecruiter.com/services/virtualcareer-expo/job-seekers-attendees/

Most of us don’t have the luxury of another person keeping our work plate active or dealing with our daily work functions, so we come home to a double work load experience, which is never fun and actually exhausting to try and catch up. In addition to a confidential interview process, game industry professionals and candidates can network in the virtual lounge, view presentations in the auditorium and learn about products or services that make your work life more productive. For Employers No need for costly booth designs, or transportation and storage fees. Our exhibitor packages and sponsorship opportunities enable you to customize your booth and expand your presence through targeted channels. You can access CRM-ready resumes and applications and interview pre-qualified candidates for current and future job openings. Normally, the amount of time you’d like to spend on a solid candidate is reduced by the number of weak or marginally qualified resumes you need to screen. At the virtual expo, you and your team will only be dealing with pre-screened candidates which mean a better return on your time investment. For Job Seekers and Pro-Active Career Planners Attendance at the Virtual Expo is anonymous, your avatar protects your confidentiality and no one will know who you are unless you choose to reveal yourself. You’ll have unprecedented access to hiring managers from top companies at the expo. Being able to maintain confidentiality during a job search is especially important for folks who are currently employed. You’ll still need to prepare for the interview as if you were showing up in person except you’ll be on IM or Videocam (so maybe those super-hero slippers will be ok). Be sure you update your resume, and create a one-minute pitch on the value you bring to the company. Not only will you be able to submit your resume if you choose, you will also be able to submit your demo/portfolio. The Virtual Career Expo offers you a unique opportunity to interact with and engage directly with the real decisionmaker (the hiring manager) instead of checking your email every hour to see if you’ve heard back from the resume you sent weeks ago. In an MMO, you get virtual loot but in the Career Expo, the prize is a real career in the game industry!

New to Industry: http://www.gamerecruiter.com/services/virtualcareer-expo/get-in-the-game/ Exhibitor Information: Publishers / Developers / Service Providers: http://www.gamerecruiter.com/services/virtualcareer-expo/virtual-career-expo-employerinformation/ Academic / Education: http://www.gamerecruiter.com/services/virtualcareer-expo/exhibiting-information-for-colleges-anduniversities/ Watch the Tour and Demo of the Event: http://www.gamerecruiter.com/services/virtualcareer-expo/givce-tour/ Marc Mencher Biography: Game Programmer / Technical Producer-turnedRecruiter 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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Suresh Sudera Vodafone Group’s Head of Games

We have an intercontinental team of players which spans eight countries; United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, United States, Canada, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Korea. Our players are all over the age of 18, and all compete over the most prominent and successful eSport titles, those being; Quake Live and StarCraft 2, however we are always looking out at new game titles, and shall be expanding soon (so keep an eye out). In relation to events, we have a fairly busy schedule ahead of us over the next few weeks as we continue our successful Major League Gaming (MLG) tour as Lost and Gerbil will be flying out to Orlando in the US, EuropeanGamingLeague (EGL) in London will feature DreAm, and once again as he attends i44 in Telford, before we go to Sweden for Dreamhack Winter 2011!

The Kings Of Gaming

-Sports is a medium of gaming that allows individuals all across the world to share, connect, collaborate, discuss and compete without the fear of discrimination or prejudice. Identities and backgrounds are secondary when a new player enters the battlefield, judged rather on ability and merit, groups are founded through a mesh of systems designed to connect players of equal skill; challenging them in situations which require the utmost trust and teamwork to execute successfully. Through gaming friendships and communities are sown, racial backgrounds are forgotten, and passion is rewarded. Four Kings is a culmination of that belief, passion, and love for the industry we exist in, at the core of our business lays a belief this flourishing subculture of competitive gaming, will turn today’s vast, and global network of gamers into the mainstream sport of tomorrow. This is an idea and a belief which has grown from unintentional yet inevitable beginnings from the times of Twin Galaxies when the first competitive gamers toured in the U.S in the Golden Era of Arcade days, to the birth of the first professional teams such as Four Kings, SK-Gaming, Team-3D and aAa over 10 years ago.

Founded in 1997 by Satheesh Anandan, Four Kings was founded, and originated in QuakeWorld. We expanded to encompass new game titles, such as Counter-Strike, WarCraft3, Enemy Territory and Call of Duty. Since those early days, Four Kings have built a prestigious and historic relationship with British gaming, largely regarded as one of the most popular teams on the planet; we’ve strove to professionalise our sport, turning gamers into figureheads, community leaders and representatives of our growing industry, branching our business practices to encompass unique marketing initiatives, research and development, and consumer relations.

“Since those early days, Four Kings have built a prestigious and historic relationship with British gaming, largely regarded as one of the most popular teams on the planet...” The evolutionary stages have been enabled through partnerships of some of the most innovative and forward thinking technology companies, partners such as Intel, Alienware, Packard Bell, Steelseries, Razer and now Plantronics allow us to continue to develop, and we’re deeply appreciative of their commitments, both past and present.

Our players have a comprehensive understanding of the professional standards required of them both as a professional player, as well as a representative for our sponsors, and as a community figurehead for the game and industry they’re presenting to the wider public. All profits from the team are split equally between reinvestment and growth projects, shareholder dividends and savings. As a whole, the players and the organisation share a common goal - to remain competitive, to develop this sub-culture into a mainstream sport, to build a brand and encourage new partners and companies to work with gamers, and to increase opportunities to players around the world.

s Vodafone Group’s Head of Games, Suresh Sudera is the man responsible for the mobile phone operator’s gaming output on a global level. In 2002, with Sudera’s help, Vodafone successfully launched their UK java game download service and the multi-international will be aiming for similar success with their new Vodafone Platform. We caught up with Suresh for a quick chat about life at Vodafone… What’s your background Suresh? I studied Chemical Engineering, worked for BP for a short spell on a chemical plant, and then managed several large automated food manufacturing plants, after that I decided to learn programming (C, C++, Java) and move into IT. Following that I joined Psion as a technical consultant and moved very quickly into Product Management. After two and a half years at Psion I joined games developer Purple Software before moving to Vodafone. What was your first introduction to games on the mobile? I first started by playing board games on Psion computers about 13 years ago. But my first experience of mobile phones was on the old Siemens SL45, playing the first Java games. Tell us a bit more about the Vodafone Platform and how developers can publish to it? Android developers can upload their games online using our process at developer.vodafone. com. This tool supports both games and application distribution and publishes them to Vodafone’s new Android store, Appselect. We still support Java and other platforms outside of Android, Vodafone has a selection of long standing partners that can aggregate or provide content for Vodafone. Do Vodafone hold networking events for developers? Yes, we do. Details of forthcoming events can be found on developer.vodafone.com, as well as a host of various tools, blogs, features and articles. Finally, what do you think is the ‘next big thing’ in mobile gaming? The key will be an extension of mobile games and services to better integrate with the same game on other platforms – tablets/TV/PC - This includes more enhanced social interaction/engagement. For more information and to get involved with publishing your games on Vodafone’s Platform go to http://developer.vodafone.com/

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Interview:

Dino Andrade

Dino: If it fits and you can afford to spend the bucks on professional equipment. I mean that also makes a difference. Getting the compressors and de-essers and all of that good stuff, you can send them something of such a good quality it could net you that extra job.

Voice Actor By Rebecca Michaels

self-described geek and lover of great works of imagination, voice actor Dino Andrade spoke with voice actor and host of “VO Heroes” podcast Rebecca Michaels, providing a glimpse into his world as a successful voice actor, what it is like working on video games and other musings about life as a geek… From his facebook page, Dino describes himself as a “VO dude on such stuff as World of Warcraft (Mimiron, Putricide, Mekkatorque, Funglemancer Glop, the Death Knight Gnomes), Batman Arkham Asylum (the Scarecrow), Brutal Legend, Call of Duty, Basra 3, and more.” Dino’s also the creator of SoulGeek.com. He is inspired by Guilermo del Toro, Terry Pratchett, Jerry Goldsmith, and Buster Keaton to name a few. Dino’s acting resume includes live acting and filmmaking, but is much heavier with voice acting credits in TV, Video games, Feature Films, Online Series and Commercials.

Rebecca: Do you have a home studio and do you only audition with your home studio or do you actually work on projects at your home studio?

Dino: I have done some small independent projects directly from home and sometimes things that they need to do really fast. For example, when Batman Arkham Asylum was nominated for game of the year I guess they just didn’t have time. I assume they had to sift “Jump in, do through the original audio tracks your stuff, read to pull out my original scarecrow your lines, get dialog. So they just had me reout of there and record it, I recorded it at home. If you go to YouTube and look up that’s it, over, “Batman Arkham Asylum Game of said, and done. the Year”, that trailer is wall-to-wall But Batman Scarecrow. All of that dialog of Arkham Asylum the Scarecrow was recorded in my was like working home booth.

on a feature film. It was very intense, very intense work.”

http://bit.ly/vBCu0n

Rebecca: Well, that’s something we all can listen to, for those who are curious about voice over and how it works in these situations. You know, you can do this for a home studio if it fits, obviously.

A perfect example of that was I received a check for a thousand dollars for Fast and the Furious 4. I had no idea why. Absolutely none. No clue whatsoever. I called my agent and I said, “What’s this?” and my agent said, ’I thought maybe you’d know because we have no idea either.’ So we contacted the producers and it turned out that what it was, was that there was a sequence in the movie in which you can hear a radio DJ going on and on about something. They sent out audition copy without telling anyone that this was for the movie Fast and the Furious 4.

Dino: When doing projects of varying budgets the experience can be very, very different. It has less to do with whether or not it is an online thing versus a video game. It depends more on the size of the budget. For example, most video games have been very much an in and out experience. Jump in, do your stuff, read your lines, get out of there and that’s it, over, said, and done. But Batman Arkham Asylum was like working on a feature film. It was very intense, very intense work. Rebecca: You were a part of Hollywood at that moment? Dino: Yeah, it was really amazing. There were Warner Brothers executives involved. People like Paul Dini [writer and producer who works in the television and comic book industries]. It was amazing stuff. And then World of Warcraft is an entirely different kind of experience. Where there’s no chance to do any preparation because it is so secretive. You have to be pretty much ready to cold read. You don’t know what you are going to do until you are ready to go.”

“When I look at World of Warcraft I see a true change in interactive storytelling...I am very, very proud to be a part of it. I really am.”

They just said that they were looking for a DJ to do this radio spiff thing. I did the audition here in my home studio and sent it in. They liked the audition apparently so much that they decided not to have me re-record it. They used the audition for the scene in the movie. Then, funny enough, the scene was cut from the film. I quite literally got a thousand dollars for an audition. So I’m absolutely fine with that but I’m sure if I was doing this with a snowball mike off of a laptop with lots of hisses and air noises and so on, that would be a very difficult sell. Where as I do have a full booth at home that actually I built myself. Rebecca: Looking at your resume, you have a nice balance, between features, commercials, video games, on-line series and television. Do you feel there is a big difference between those types of work?

Rebecca: How do you audition for something like that? Dino: Well the audition copy is very vague. They tell you what the race is in some line of the script. They give you a few choice lines and then some impact sounds. ‘Say this line as if you were dying. Say this line as if you were wounded. Say this line as if you are the one doing the attacking.’

And then you’re brought in if you get the part. You were handed the scripts. Actually you’re not even given the scripts. The scripts are in a three ring binder in the booth. The writer is piped into your headphones and he tells you, ’Let me tell you what you are doing…’ because there is nothing in the script except the lines. There’s no descriptive stuff at all. That’s a whole other ball game. Every one of these projects is different and budget is always the defining thing. Rebecca: Are there any other games that have that level of secrecy that you’ve worked on? Dino: Well, they all do. There’s one thing that is common among video games is the signing of the NDA - None Disclosure Agreement. That seems to be very, very typical of

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Rebecca: How did they direct you, how did they let you play in front of the mic? Were you with other people? Were you alone in the booth? Dino: I was alone in the booth. It was just a case of having the writer piped into my headphones and saying ‘Here is the scene’. I immediately use some visualization techniques to try and put myself there.

“Well, I’m just a lucky guy. That’s all. Hey, there are lots and lots of very talented people who are not working. I am very, very lucky in that I get do what I love and make a living at it.” video games. Which is something that actors who have been around a while have a hard time with. It’s kind of standard operating procedure for an actor who is trying to make a living to promote what you are working on at the moment. Because it kind of gives everyone that feeling that you are hot, you are wanted. If you are only allowed to promote something after it comes out, you have to hope to hell that after it comes out it is not badly reviewed - It doesn’t suck. Because then if it sucks, well then you are linked to that suckage. So this piece of work becomes absolutely useless to you to help you get your next job. This is why actors have promotional folk! This is why they have press agents so that they can say, ‘I’m in such and such filming right now, or shooting right now’ and it just makes everybody say, ‘Wow, this guy is hot’. How many times have you heard, ’Oh my god how many movies has this guy had, in this year’ and several of those announcements are for things currently in production. You’re just not allowed to do that in the video game world and I guess it’s just that there’s concern that secrets of the game can be given away. I guess that’s how they are going to approach it. Rebecca: You mentioned a little bit earlier with me how Batman was sort of the Hollywood experience. Dino: Batman Arkham Asylum and WoW were very much a major studio project. I’m working with directors who have worked on Emmy Award winning shows. Again, Collette Sunderman, Paul Dini and stars like Mark Hammill and Kevin Conroy. You met some incredibly marvelous people working on this. You know, pinching myself. I am so, so very lucky to have been involved in this project. That’s a terrific, terrific feeling and I love it. Rebecca: Do you get to see a character drawing? Dino: No. Rebecca: So you don’t even have an image of the character that you are portraying? Dino: No. I have no clue. I have no idea. A number of the characters that I do, like Mekkatorque and Funglemancer Glop… a lot of these guys I had to research on-line after the fact, to find out what these guys even looked like! I really had no clue and these guys just let me improvise all over the place. So I just play and have fun.

Like for example, the Mekkatorque speech that he gives. The ‘Battle of Gnomeregan’ speech. They described to me: “It’s kind of like the speech that Sarman gives to the Ork’s with this big crowd of people hearing you.” That to me was not a good image because Sarman was of course a villain, whereas Mekkatorque was not. So what I immediately fixed in my head was just trying to think of something visually to put myself there and I immediately thought of the speech that Roddy McDowall as Caesar gives at the end of the “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes”. I jumped into that. That’s where the ‘Battle of Gnomeregan’ speech comes from. Not that I tried to imitate Roddy McDowall. But that was the image that I had in my head - of the city burning and the throng of apes listening to every word as he stood up on that concrete block and delivered that passioned speech. Rebecca: Is World of Warcraft the game that continues on the most for you? Dino: You know, it is the one that feels like a watershed moment, so I am very, very proud to be a part of it. I’m a huge fan of not just animation but of film history. When you look at the Jazz Singer, you see a turning point where sound comes into film. When you see Jurassic Park, you see a change in how films will be made from then on, using digital technology for digital effects and so on. When I look at World of Warcraft I see a true change in interactive storytelling. This giant, gigantic interactive, animated feature that is ongoing. It is a sea change in how we look at animated story telling and I am very, very proud to be a part of it. I really am. Rebecca: Congratulations on getting to that level of working class actor because a lot of folks would like to be in your shoes because of that accomplishment. Dino: Well, I’m just a lucky guy. That’s all. Hey, there are lots and lots of very talented people who are not working. I am very, very lucky in that I get do what I love and make a living at it. That makes me a very, very lucky guy. The unemployment lines are full of very talented people. So no, I am extremely lucky. I don’t take this for granted at all. Rebecca: That’s really, really wonderful to hear you say. I think that part of it seems to be, based on what I’ve heard you tell me, is also the fact that you are so interested in the genre that you are involved with voicing. Dino: I am and that’s very true but at the end of the day there is a certain reality which is that, OK sure, I am more talented than some people out there but I’m also a lot less talented then a lot more people out there and in the end, it was that I’ve gotten lucky. I’ve been at it and I’ve worked hard at it and I’ve gotten lucky to get the jobs. Phil Lamar told me, if you know who Phil is, he is Hermes on Futurerama. We were having lunch the other day and he told me that doing what we do is like winning the lottery. It really is, it really, really is. We are very, very lucky people to do what we get to do. Credit: Article edited by WGE and produced in co-operation with Rebecca Michaels. Copyright 2011 LoveThatRebecca, all rights reserved.

Celebrity Gaming Match-ups! It’s the stuff of dreams (and WGE:MAG’s wild imagination!) but the thought of three of Hollywood’s leading ladies strumming one out on Guitar Hero was just too tempting to leave alone. According to our research, there’s every chance that these Box Office celebs could just find themselves going A-List head-to-head on X-Box Live when it comes to playing their favourite games.

Quick Quiz!

Think you know your video games? Take this quick quiz. 1/ In Europe it was ‘Starwing’, in the USA it was known as what? Star Love - Star Man - Star Fox - Star Wolf

2/ In which year was the Nintendo Wii first released? 2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007

3/ Which character from ‘Legend of Zelda’ has an archery game for the Wii? Link - Princess Zelda - Navi - Ganon

Check out our top 10 celebrity gaming matchups and spare a thought our pill-popping, ghost chomping champ whose skills on the Atari warned off allcomers!

4/ Which of these bands had a ‘Guitar Hero’ game based around their songs released in 2008?

Jodie Foster, Megan Fox and Heidi Klum: Three-way competition on Guitar Hero

5/ Which of these bands had a ‘Rock Band’ game based around their songs released in 2010?

Cameron Diaz versus Hugh Laurie: World of Warcraft Supermodel Marrisa Miller versus Gym Class Heroes: Gears of War IceT, Andy Murray, DJ Chris Moyles and Dom Jolly: Call of Duty

Motorhead - AC/DC - Journey - Aerosmith

Blink 182 - Green Day - Rolling Stones - U2

6/ A version of which of these board games was in the top 20 most popular iPhone games of 2009? Trivial Pursuit - Mouse Trap - Snakes and Ladders - Boggle

7/ Which golfer’s ‘PGA Tour’ game was in the top 10 best selling iPhone games of 2009? Ernie Els - Vijay Singh - Tiger Woods - Phil Mickelson

Robin William versus Vin Diesel: Warhammer

8/ Unveiled by Nintendo in March 2010, what innovation did the 3DS demonstrate?

Kim Kardashian versus Vernon Kay: Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party

3D without glasses - Motion capture - Voice activation Touch screen

Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor versus Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst: Quake

9/ What is the name of the portable media player and games console released by Microsoft in September 2009?

Verne Troyer versus Stephen Fry: Angry Birds

Zune HD - Zune 3D - Zune 2 - Zune XL

Zac Efron versus Eddie Murphy: Halo

10/ Which of these games consoles is the smallest by size?

…And finally no one will play MTV’s Jenny McCarthy as she was a self-confessed Pac Man Champion at 9 years old

Playstation 3 - Wii - GameCube - Xbox 360

Last month’s book winner! The winner of Garry Crawford’s Signed Book ‘Video Gamers’ was Nicola Pallitt of South Africa

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“Thanks to the powerful Digital Nature Engine we are able to create landscapes with an area of 125,000 square kilometres in real time, with clouds, wind, hundreds of towns and villages and millions of trees.” And whilst the clouds, sky and scenery remain stunningly spectacular, it’s hard to take your eyes of the fantastic bodywork of these flying machines.

Still flying high W

orld War I flight simulator, Rise of Flight may have been released more than two-and-a-half years ago, but a succession of developments and modifications have ensured that the loyal and ever-growing fan-base remains firmly hooked to the action. One of the latest releases earlier this year changed the face and concept of the game completely, switching the game-play from an enjoyable romp through the skies to an engaging series of campaigns based on actual events in the last two years of the Great War. Rise of Flight players could now build a career on being a pilot in a British, French or German squadron. These innovative upgrades have been pushed through thanks to a new drive and commitment from the flight sim’s new publishers, 777 Studios, who purchased the game and it’s Russian development team in 2010. The Rise of Flight experience is now being compared to seminal WWI production Red Baron 3D and with further developments and add-ons to come, the RoF community will be kept happy for a few more years to come.

Zhiltsov continues: “Every aircraft in Rise of Flight is “built” from a large number of individual parts, just like its real world prototype was. These parts are many, more than a hundred various elements of its airframe, equipment, engine, chassis and struts, all docked to each other and work as one. This way of modeling an airplane gives it a unique and very close to reality properties and characteristics. For example, when calculating the aerodynamics, we calculate the lift and drag force for each element of the aircraft structure in isolation, according to the unique properties of that item and how it streamlines the airflow. We consider not only the speed of the aircraft, but its rotation around all axes, wind and pressure in the atmosphere, the presence of shock waves, explosions, wake turbulence caused by your own propeller or that of another plane and the mutual influence of some parts of the aircraft on the other - the so-called interference.

One of the most impressive aspects of Rise of Flight is the level of realism committed to the Spads, Sopwiths and Fokkers. Not only do these planes look and feel like the forerunners of the aviation industry, but they jump, bounce and react like a plane not long built. If you want a smooth, turbulence-free flight then don’t jump into the cockpit of one of these babies too soon.

“Also, for each element we calculate inertial forces acting on it during the motion and rotation of the plane, the force of impact with an obstacle or the ground, etc.

“This approach allows not only giving each type of aircraft a unique character, but it realistically demonstrates the influence these early airplanes had on aircraft design and the important lessons their shortcomings taught early pilots and aeronautical engineers.”

“Thus, with the sum of all forces acting together a complex picture emerges which provides realistic movement of the aircraft as a single object. The end result is an aircraft that performs very close to the real airplane that flew nearly 100 years ago.

Version 1.022 of Rise of Flight was released mid-November and comes complete with an all new R.E.8. ‘Harry Tate’ twoseater light bomber. For details visit riseofflight.com.

WGE:MAG caught up with 777 Studios, General Producer, Albert Zhiltsov to discover how they went about making the WWI planes and environment so damned realistic. “Our main task was to create a connection between the graphics, physics, sound and control systems so you feel like you are controlling the plane,” Zhiltsov said on the eve of yet another release of the game. “Rise of Flight has to simulate the ability to control an airplane which moves in a rapid stream of air, over summer, winter or even autumn terrain and below you is a realistic landscape full of the towns, fields and forests of Europe at the beginning of the 20th century at a height of up to 4000 metres. “To accomplish our task we created our own engine called “Digital Nature”. The Digital Nature engine is a set of modules that allow us to direct the process that turns a computer into a living world. This is the system that produces the candy for the eyes, sounds for the ears, physics and aerodynamics for the hands and feet and artificial intelligence in order to induce your brain to act.

“Every aircraft in Rise of Flight is “built” from a large number of individual parts, just like its real world prototype was. These parts are many, more than a hundred various elements of its airframe, equipment, engine, chassis and struts, all docked to each other and work as one.”

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Avatar Games Recruitment is a specialist recruitment consultancy that provides staffing solutions for businesses within the Games Industry. Avatar has extensive and exclusive relationships with some of the best developers and publishers around the globe, making it perfect sense to choose Avatar for your next career move or hiring requirement. Here is a current selection of some of our hottest opportunities: VFX Artists Up to £55k + Benefits + Bonus Environment Artists £22K - £55K + Benefits Senior Producer Up to £80k + Benefits Software Engineers (San Francisco) Up to $120k + Benefits

Nordrassil Radio

candinavian home produced radio station nordrassilradio. com is making a big splash on the online airwaves and WGE:MAG caught up with the station’s Joseph Cowell to uncover the full story.

from this interview that I applied for a role through Nordrassilradio’s careers page, a couple of meetings and friendly game sessions later I was offered the opportunity to present my first show in April of this year.

Nordrassilsradio’s humble beginnings came from an initial idea to broadcast music to players with the World of Warcraft environment during peak raiding times. The success of this model soon took off with the broadcasts talked about in the trade chat feature of the game and word soon spread amongst the gaming community.

Joseph Cowell is one of 30 people who work on the online radio station, staff ranging from DJs, webmasters and graphic designers. nordrassilradio.com has gone from strength to strength during 2011 with a whole host of

“The radio station was created with the idea of providing good music to the gamers in WoW. The success of that enabled us to target a specific kind of gamer, someone who was dedicated to the game and eventually lead to us having our first group of dedicated listeners,” Joe said. The station was relaunched earlier this year with a broader remit targeted at the entire gaming community, covering as much as possible about the gaming industry. It was following one of these broadcasts that Joe became involved in the burgeoning project. “The first time I listened to the station was when they interviewed ‘The Yogscast’,” Joe explains. “The interview went really well and you got a feeling of a real tight community and some good inside info. It was

“The radio station was created with the idea of providing good music to the gamers in WoW. The success of that enabled us to target a specific kind of gamer, someone who was dedicated to the game and eventually lead to us having our first group of dedicated listeners.” interesting features including interviews with developers of games such as Rift, Batman: Arkham Asylum, CS:GO and Guild Wars 2. There has also been plenty of focus on the indie gaming scene, featuring the likes of Pineapple Smash Crew developer Richard Edwards, Popcap games and the very successful indie title Magicka. “The guest which has caused the most buzz for us would have to be TotalBiscuit,” said Joe “We had a lot of help from TotalBiscuit in getting us to Dreamhack summer and

Senior Games Designers Up to £55k + Benefits + Bonus Design Manager/Director Up to £70k + Benefits + Bonus

whilst we were there our booth was swamped with TB fans as they listened to him cast starcraft 2 matches. We really appreciated his help and hope to work with him again in the near future.

Concept Artists Up to £60k + Benefits + Bonus Programmers £25k - £65k Attractive Packages

“Our big ambition for the radio station is to get sponsored. We are spending a lot of our own money travelling to events, buying equipment and paying for general radio upkeep. We are hoping to find someone we can work with to cover future events like Dreamhack and Eurogamer. After that? World domination!”

Animators Up to £55k + Benefits + Bonus Art Directors Up to £70k + Benefits & Bonus Avatar have over 2000 opportunities around the world, these include USA, Canada, Europe, China, Singapore, Korea, Australia

The fact that nordrassilradio.com is a home produced radio station on the net allows for a much more international feel to the show and they have had the benefits of being able to recruit some of the best indie presenters from around the world, currently boasting a roster of DJs from the UK, Sweden, the US and France. But the future success of the show is very much dependent on the quality of features and interviews they continue to stream, something Joe is keen to promote: “We are always looking for more people to interview, whether they be game developers, game writers, voice actors and even pro gamers. We aim to provide an insight into the industry as whole! We are always emailing companies asking for interviews, but the best way to contact us is to email us at pr@nordrassilradio.com.”

For more information about other positions we have please feel free to contact us: www.avatar-games.co.uk enquiries@avatar-games.co.uk

Your next move should be easy. We’ll make sure it is

www.avatar-games.co.uk

info@avatar-games.co.uk

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“The 24-hour coding sessions aren’t the end of it, as every team gets a further 8 weeks to finish and polish their app and submit for judging. Following this, we’ll be having a grand final in London where we’ll be announcing the ultimate winners!”

“Women usually don’t like the stereotypical style, the way many male characters are drawn, as well as, the constant use of male-oriented objects in casual games.“

The prizes are fairly substantial for those working on a student budget, but it’s not just about the cash, but also the kudos of having your final app rated as one of the best by Samsung’s panel of judges.

“This fact just struck me. How you guys can make hit games for us, women, often failing to understand us in real life? I really needed to get to the bottom of this!”

Prizes include:

Julia took to the streets of St. Petersburg in a quest to find out what women in gaming really think about how they are catered for and also portrayed in video games. With the help of some of the members of leading Russian game portal, Nevosoft.ru, the views and opinions of Russia’s female gaming fraternity might shock some gaming developers!

Grand Prize winners: £10,000 A fund of £10,000 spread across the Grand Prize winners. A £5,000 first prize, £2,500 second prize and £1,000 third prize, plus a £1,500 Grand Final University prize.

bada

Developer Challenge 2011

amsung’s in-house platform, bada, has been a qualified success since its launch in 2010, the ‘smartphone for everyone’ philosophy ringing true with an install base to over eight million handsets. But what next for Samsung? Their latest Wave III handsets were launched in November and with it, the all-new bada 2.0 platform. Ahead of the launch, some of the UK’s brightest young coders and developers have been getting to grips with the technology as part of the bada Student Developer Challenge. Whilst the ultimate aim of the challenge was to push the boundaries of what the bada 2.0 platform can achieve, there are also some seriously impressive cash prizes on offer for the best individual coders, the best teams and the overall winning university department. The Student Developer Challenge tour took in a total of nine different Universities, starting at the University of Abertay Dundee and culminating in an event at Dublin’s Trinity College. The events have been organised by Steel Media on behalf of Samsung and we spoke to event organiser Lee Kenny to find out how the tour went. “Every team and individual worked really hard over the 24 hours and we were massively impressed by the quality of what was achieved in such a short space of time,” Kenny told WGE:MAG. “We’re especially pleased at being able to bring together so many students, give them some resources and provide the freedom to put an idea into practice. The greatest achievements are yet to come though, when we get to award some serious cash and promote these apps through the bada store. Hopefully our legacy will be helping the foundation of a new wave of companies and start-up businesses in years ahead.”

First Round winners: £5,000 A prize of £500 to each to the 10 best apps after the codeathon stage ñ conditional on the winning apps being completed.

http://youtu.be/1_R3cfVp0Xw

Do you have crumbs in your beard?

Handsets for short-listed teams: 100 Phones. All short-listed teams will get a developer handset. Promotion for all qualifying apps: £Priceless -The best app in the world is worthless if no-one knows about it. Get the promotion your app deserves. In addition to the prize fund itself for students and the promotional support, Samsung will provide the following support: Long-term loan handsets for Universities: All universities will receive 5 handsets on a long term loan basis. bada Developer Guides: Printed guides to making the most out of bada (these have a £35 price-tag, but a number will be distributed at lectures and challenge-related events for free). Travel to final judging session for representative of each team and university contact. Every qualifying team will get paid travel to the final judging event in central London for one member of their team. Following the 24-hour codethons, each team is allowed a further four weeks of coding before submitting their work in progress to be assessed by the bada gurus. A further four more weeks of polishing and tweaking of the apps then takes place before the final app is submitted to the judges. With all submissions in, each app will be scrutinised by experts from SERI, Samsung and Steel Media, these judges will whittle the list down to a shortlist of six who will be invited to London’s Grand Final event in the week commencing 23rd January. For more information go to the official website at www.badastudentdeveloperchallenge.com

unique Russian perspective on the perceived male dominance and bias in the games development industry by Julia Lebedeva.

Think you know games development? Think again! According to research from a female Russian video gamer, there are three key rules which developers could do with getting right before considering whether or not their productions are sexist or not. Julia Lebedeva is one of a growing number of women working within the games industry, however the Russian believes that there is still a long way to go before the balance of power is truly addressed. “I looked through the credits of a number of casual games and guess what - developers turned out to be mostly male!” Lebdeva told WGE:MAG.

If you’re feeling a little wounded by the perception of game developers then it might make you think twice about how the views and thoughts of women are perceived within gaming. These further three videos explore some of the mistakes that male developers can make, many of which annoy female gamers. http://bit.ly/sDtZZb http://youtu.be/3aH2wLzgn3w http://youtu.be/KWTm1HY1bHs In conclusion, Julia’s research reveals some interesting issues which all game developers might want to take in to consideration. Women don’t want to be suffocated by pink in casual games, they like a bit of eye-candy in the male form and they also like hidden game objects to be relevant to both sexes. Summing up Julia says: “Women usually don’t like the stereotypical style, the way many male characters are drawn, as well as, the constant use of male-oriented objects in casual games.“ “Avoid these three mistakes and I’m sure your next game will be a great hit!”

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A Passion, A Dream and an MBA

Interview: Dr. Jose Lopez Gallego by Filippo De Rose

ou might think that an intelligent entrepreneur - who holds a PhD in computer engineering and an MBA and a brilliant and renowned developer, who also has a proven track record for creating successful games, would not have a problem with releasing new titles. Unfortunately, thatís not always the case. Continuously changing technologies, audiences and marketing strategies can dramatically alter course over the span of a decade, and even the best developers can experience pitfalls. Such is the story of Dr. Jose Gallego, a Spanish game developer who has put his degrees to use by managing a few companies and starting up a few different projects. One of those projects involved the start up of his own video game company, which was like a dream come true. The idea for the videogame came after visiting Africa, which Jose describes as the most wonderful land on earth. He was inspired to make a video game on how to survive in a jungle environment based on reality, real people and real experiences: what trees can you climb, what can you follow, what you must do when “ if you have a VC, encountering then you better certain animals, what can you strive towards eat, etc. a very wide

audience with the Facebook crowd.”

Pursuing this dream, Jose became friends with Mr. Don Quijote and Mr. Basco (real names omitted purposely) who were with him at a well known company and they worked together finishing Commandos 2. The three of them assembled a team of solid developers and enrolled them in the project. The company was called Uromastixs (they thought about that name for a long time!), but in the end, the project was called Arvirago. Dr. Gallego invested $24,000 back in 2001 as seed capital for his project, Mr. Basco and Mr. Don Quijote invested similar amounts. Like most entrepreneurs, he started with an idea and ran with it. With the company set up, the three main shareholders went about creating a game called Lord of the Creatures. Quickly, they grew to eight people, all of who were from other Spanish studios - much like themselves. The team was paid with the original team’s own seed money.

While they developed the concept of the game, Jose was busy looking for investors and publishers. Mr. Don Quijote thought this would be an easy process due to the enormous success and reputation they had gained with Commandos 1 and 2. So, the team proceeded to speak with publishers, investors, venture capitalists and so on. As an example, Electronic Arts visited Arvirago several times and were amazed by the graphics and the game, but never decided to invest as they didnít know how to market it because it was such a brand new concept.

After meeting with five or six international publishers and over a dozen venture capitalists, eventually Dr. Gallego and company found one that loved the project and decided to invest. They learned a lot, first of all, that back then many of those calling themselves VC (in Spain), did not even know what this meant. Then they learned that making an agreement with a VC is sort of like selling your soul. With that said though, partnering with a VC can be your only chance to promote an original idea, but you have to be aware of what it means. For example, once you have a VC in the company, you cannot put anymore of your shares in your name and if anything happens to you, your shares would go to the VC and not your families. However, the more original your project is, the more you need a VC unless you can raise enough money to go alone. If there is no other way of getting money, and if you can make a successful product, using a VC is perfect, because then you can liquidate them. Having a VC is not necessarily bad or good, it is just a matter of knowing what you are getting into.

Jose managed to convince this particular VC to invest in Arvirago because not only is he a good engineer, he also has an MBA, so he knew how to make the numbers look The game’s concept put players in a magical world with good. He was also already teaching at IE business school different forces. You play as a magician with a kingdom, but and that gave him enough credibility to be received by you were threatened by other magicians in VC companies. Then he made a full business other kingdoms surrounding you, which is plan that was adorned with an impressive an aspect for the on-line version. Players demo, lots of graphics, and other materials. “Game had a certain amount of powers, but Eventually, Mr. Don Quijote met with the VC, companies you had to increase your powers to fight which was reassuring for them as Don is a the other magicians and you did so by remarkably intelligent and knowledgeable require not collecting new spells and collecting beasts. man. By this point, Arvirago had an office, a only the birth Lord of the Creatures was something full team working on a real project and a VC of an idea, in between strategy, action and RPG, that trusted them. in which you look for different beasts but like in and spells and then add them to your While Dr. Gallego acknowledges that for this everything portfolio. Arvirago developed a graphic particular title they did partner with a VC, he engine from scratch to release the game also believes that financiers should not be the else, you on PC and consoles. Even for today’s only publishers in the video game industry. need to pay standards, it was a very fast engine, with Nowadays, because of the internet, and the impressive lighting and it was developed availability of alternative publishing mediums, attention to very quickly. Developers learn early on that such as Facebook, Jose will tell you that the market and you can start small and that you don’t need programming a game is in relative terms the easiest part of all; the tough part is the same logistics as you needed in 2001. what people knowing what to program.

expect. ”

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“As well as pool, I’d been playing a lot of poker in the evenings, mostly five card stud, and was earning a bit of extra cash. I don’t think anyone in those days ‘decided’ to turn Pro. It was just that you ended up playing more poker than working. The late nights didn’t help you get up in the mornings if you had a day job. When I got married and had a family, it just seemed that the money I was earning playing poker was better than what I got from my ‘actual’ job -- and I enjoyed earning it much more... so I found myself supporting my family by playing poker.

Nevertheless, the publisher can add value in different ways, mainly related to helping you tailor the project to make it more appealing to players, adapting it to regulations and different countries, etc. Publishers can help you become more successful in general terms. Ultimately, Lord of the Creatures didn’t find a publisher and Jose and his partners didn’t have the capability to publish the game on their own. The idea of the project was very good and the game had great graphics. The publisher, however, held focus groups and conducted other market research that only the internet can give you access to now. It’s not strictly the publisher that provides the green light for a game title, but the market vision can make the difference. At this point, they cannot move forward with alternative publishing means for his game because he doesn’t own the intellectual property; it is held by Mr. Don Quijote and the VC. Some efforts have been done to develop his game for mobile platforms within another company associated to the VC, but it has not happened yet. Jose firmly believes that by considering the concept of the game, it could easily be an MMOG the size of World of Warcraft. As for the secret to success in video games, Jose wishes he knew the answer. Not that many years ago, the industry was very much based on the capacity, experience and intuition of the game designers, with an important dose of luck. Now, mainly due to the evolution of market research tools, metrics, accumulated experience in different types of games and also very much the analytics obtained through the internet, big companies like EA can have much better foresight on the success of the game before publishing it. Much is still left to intuition, genius, luck and so on, but those factors are no longer as prevalent as before. Game companies require not only the birth of an idea, but like in everything else, you need to pay attention to the market and what people expect. The cold truth is that games designed for the masses are what pay the bills and not games developed for hard core gamers. The final lessons that Dr. Gallego learned from his experiences, is that if you have a VC, then you better strive towards a very wide audience with the Facebook crowd. Hard core gamers can still be served by publishers, but to attract the masses, VCs and the financial community should be involved. These are people who want a return of investment of 5 to 10 times what they put in.

“No big decision; it just happened.” “In those days, I really began learning my craft and needed to travel in bigger circles and bigger games -- Leeds, Bradford, Birmingham, Nottingham -- eventually working my way down to London. By that time I’d learned most dealers choice games and felt confident enough to travel to Vegas. In 1997 I entered the WSOP, winning a bracelet for Pot Limit Hold’em.”

Barrel Of Laughs Set For 2012 Debut

utch game designers Barrelman Games have announced that they will launch their debut title in the Spring/Summer of 2012.

The Amsterdam based duo of Alexander Sarton and Robin Bergman have revealed to WGE:MAG that the first release will be a mobile phone app available on the Apple iOS and Android platforms. “Our game design is still a little bit of a secret, but we can tell you that the game is going to be a strategic puzzle game with lots of humour and fast action. We believe that the key to a good game is humour - Humor makes people laugh and give them a feeling of satisfaction,” the duo told us earlier this month. Sarton and Bergman have been working together since meeting at the Utrecht School for Art & Technology in 2010. The pair met on the college’s Game Design and Development degree course and immediately hit it off. With a range of previous experience in game design, digital art and 3D modelling and development, as well as crucial business experience in sales and marketing, the duo decided to launch their own business together... and Barrelman Games was born. The company’s ultimate aim is to publish their own games, however under the Barrelman Media brand Sarton and Bergman are currently providing traditional graphic design, web design and digital video design solutions to help finance the Barrelman Games studio. “Our main focus at Barrelman Games is a games studio specialized in creating games and transforming them into unforgettable experiences.” You can check out the latest on their projects at www.barrelmangames.com

Interview:

Devilfish F

rom Jack the Lad on the streets of a shipping port in East Yorkshire to Vegas Celebrity and WSOP Bracelet Winner: the story of Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott sounds like the plot for a movie... and it very soon will be. Dave Ulliott’s book, “Devilfish: The Life and Times of a Poker Legend” is soon to be transferred to the silver screen. World Gaming Executives sat down with Dave to get the lowdown. Dave starts by telling us about his early days that will appear in the movie. “The first job that I managed to keep for more than a week, was at a place that made shields and trophies. I liked it. It was good work. We played poker and had a laugh. Over lunch time and breaks I’d work out on a punchbag (actually an old army and navy bag tied up with rope and hung from the rafters). After work, I’d train properly in the gym. I was a half decent amateur boxer. I had 10 or so turns in the ring and did ok, but one night my scheduled opponent didn’t turn up and there was another no show against a guy who was about half a stone heavier than me, they decided to let us fight each other. My Dad turned to me with a smile and said; ‘If you beat this kid... turn Pro!’ My Dad never gave me much advice except that; but the most important thing he ever said, which will always stay with me was, ‘Remember these three words son and you’ll never go broke, ‘Stick ‘em up’.” As Dave is talking, he’s watching me write everything down, he threw his head back laughing when he hit me with the ‘Stick ‘em up’ punchline. “Naturally, hanging around pool & snooker halls and Poker Clubs it didn’t hurt to be able to handle yourself. Every young lad gets into a few scrapes, don’t they? I used to love playing pool and wasn’t a bad player either but there’s bound to be a few rows, especially when we’re all playing and having a drink as well. Later in life, my early pool playing days came in handy. There was a VIP lounge with a pool table at the WSOP and over six weeks I managed to take $68,000 from the Yanks. Thanks.” Dave gives a wry smile.

“In the UK, outside of the Pro Poker scene, fame came when I was invited to a new TV show called, ‘Late Night Poker.’ It was the first show to use a glass table and camera showing the cards and it got a real cult following; mostly from people coming home late from the pub. Fortunately, I won the first series of the show and that made me recognisable to the man in the street and I guess my name became synonymous with UK poker after that.” These days, Dave is at home in a small village outside Hull and has settled down with his yoga teacher wife Anne who he married in November 19th this year. Dave lives only minutes from his first wife and children and sees them regularly. Finally, I ask Dave if the actor who will play him has already been cast and who he’d like to play him. “No, there’s been no decision yet, I don’t think its got that far. Brad Pitt would be good. He’s got my looks but maybe he’s about 3 foot too short. Ideally, it’d be Daniel Craig. I could do the Bond movies while he pretends to be me.” TV poker appearance and a part in his own new movie aren’t Dave’s only appearances on a screen, he also appeared in Hotel Babylon, a Brit Comedy/Drama TV series and a short movie that featured at Cannes as well as in Activision’s game ‘WSOP 2008: Battle for the Bracelets’ and he’s recently dabbled in voiceover. For what its worth, this reporter thinks Devilfish was made for a spot in the next Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto; I mention that to Dave and he smiles, “I’ll be waiting for the call,” he says. Devilfish: Life and Times of a Poker Legend available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Devilfish-Life-Times-PokerLegend/dp/0141047534/

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They developed their own mannerisms; twisting their necks, flapping their wings, pecking close to the buttons in a consistent manner in a bid to reproduce the luck they had previously had achieved by gaining food. In the article “Betting With Magic & The Use of Magical Belief Systems in Gambling” Bess Hayes and Dr. Tyler Jarvis conclude,“Despite understanding the probability and independence of events in gambling games, gamblers repeatedly exhibit actions that display their belief in an ability to control the outcome of an event in a game.” Argument 3: Governments can’t be wrong, can they? If the highest powers in the land acknowledged that luck could be influenced that would be some proof, yes?

Feeling Lucky? Of course you can influence how much luck you get.

hose players identified a priori as being highly skilled achieved an average return on investment of over 30 percent, compared to 15 percent for all other players. This large gap in returns is strong evidence in support of the idea that poker is a game of skill. - Steven D. Levitt and Thomas J. Miles 2011 The Role of Skill versus Luck in Poker:- Evidence from the World Series of Poker in April 2011. The almost universal accepted theory is that poker is a game / sport consisting of a mix of skill and luck. Levitt and Miles analysis calculates that highly skilled players win 15% more money than other players. So, one interpretation of the skill / luck ration could be assessed as a ratio of skill / luck as 85% / 15%. This is different from the percentages suggested by another economist, Phil Hellmuth. He calculates that ; “Poker is 100% skill and 50% luck” Another noted academic and psychologist, Fritz Heider suggests that performing any activity well consists of a mix of external and internal factors. The internal factors he identifies are; your ability to complete the task, and the effort you put in to achieving the task. The external factors are the difficulty of completing the task, i.e your opponents play and luck.

Heider suggests that you only have limited control of these factors. He feels you can control the internal factors by practicing hard, implementing successful strategies, etc.. but you have no control over the external factors, i.e. your opponents and your luck. I would disagree with that. I believe you can influence your opponents, (although Heider would probably argue that that would be defined under your internal strategies) and more crucially, and controversially, that you can change your luck. Heider would definitely disagree with that assertion

“I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run.” - Babe Ruth I believe poker players can influence their luck, and they know it, and their behaviour shows that they frequently act as if they can. Rationally most players will argue this is absolute nonsense. However, let’s look at the evidence. Luck can be influenced and here are a number of arguments to prove it;

Argument 1: 3.5 billion people, or more, can’t be wrong, can they? Half the population of the world believe in the ancient Chinese philosophy of feng shui which promotes good luck. A number of large Western Organisations are willing to invest a great deal of money respecting their beliefs; The Disney Corporation shifted the angle of the front gate of Hong Kong’s Disneyland by 12 degrees to align the park for maximum prosperity. The entrance to the original MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas was inside the mouth of Leo the Lion, MGM’s mascot. However many Chinese gamblers avoided the casino or entered the casino through the back entrance to avoid the bad luck they believed they would have entering the mouth of the lion. In 1998 the entrance was changed. The architects of the Crown casino in Australia complex consulted 3 feng shui experts when building the $1.6 billion hotel and casino. It is also lucky for gamblers to wear red underwear Oh, and let’s not forget the little prayer most poker players mutter when theyíre all-in in a coin flip. Argument 2: Animals can’t be wrong, can they? Animals don’t believe in luck, do they? In an experiment carried out by B.F. Skinner he proved that animals, in this case pigeons, are superstitious at heart and will carry out a set of rituals, or superstitions in order to give themselves the best chance of success. Skinner set up an experiment which meant the pigeon had to peck the correct button from a number of options, to get some food. The pigeons quickly established this and learnt which button to peck. Skinner then changed the system and rewarded the pigeons randomly whichever button they pressed. The pigeons responded by behaving in an unusual way.

“He (expert witness Roy Cooke) enjoys poker and agreed that there was skill involved, but he believes that luck prevails every time. He testified that he had seen a television poker tournament in which there was a hand that had a 91 percent chance to win and yet it lost to a hand with only a 9 percent chance to win. He opined that this was absolute proof that in poker, luck pre-dominates over skill.” - North Carolina Supreme Court findings summarizing expert witness testimony of Roy Cooke, July 2005 Sweden’s Supreme Court Judge Goran Lamberth concluded that “cash games constitute games that primarily depend on luck as in the meaning of chapter 16, article 14 of the Criminal Code.” “In the Gutshot Poker Club case in England, the court ruled poker to be a game of luck and so subject to the Gaming Act.” The argument is as follows; • • • •

Poker is a game of luck. Luck is by definition not consistent and must eventually balance itself out. Some players consistently win more than others over a substantial period Therefore these players must have an influence over the amount of good luck they have.

Argument 4: psychologists can’t be wrong, can they? 4a. An experiment was carried out with people who described themselves as “lucky”and another set who didnít describe themselves as lucky. The test was given to these two groups of people. Both groups were given newspapers with hidden messages. They were asked to complete a task and during that task they could come across clues and hidden messages giving them instructions on how to win $100. People from the “lucky” group did far better than the other group. The psychologists conducting this experiment concluded that feeling lucky can help you It gives you positive vibes and a more optimistic viewpoint. Feeling lucky makes you more likely to see the good side and influence your behaviour.

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“The more I practice, the luckier I get.” - Gary Player - South African golfer

4b. People can control their luck. Or, more accurately, people behave as if they can control their luck. Ellen Langer, psychologist, describes this as the “illusion of control.” This illusion of control was illustrated in an experiment she carried out based on a lottery. The lottery is an acknowledged game of pure chance with each ticket having as much chance of winning as any other, obviously. One group of people were given lottery tickets with images of famous sportspeople on them. Another group were able to select which lottery ticket sportsperson they choose. Each ticket cost 1$. When scientists attempted to buy tickets from these groups, based on the excuse that there were no more lottery tickets left, they found that the people who had been given random tickets negotiated the sale of their tickets for on average, $1.96. Whilst the perople in the group who had selected their own tickets sold them for an average of $8.67. Therefore the second group, who had choosen their own tickets, behaved as though they had more control of their luck than the first group who’s chances of winning was pre-determined. 4c. In a practical situation sociologist E.G. Coffman found that dealers who experienced runs of bad luck ran the risk of losing their jobs. He also observed craps players in action. He found that people tend to throw the dice softly if they want low numbers or to throw hard for high numbers, after, of course, blowing on the dice Argument 5: Sports stars can’t be wrong, can they? Paul Azinger, golfer, always marks the position of his golf ball on the green with a US penny that features Abraham Lincoln. Not only that but he lines the penny up to ensure Lincoln is looking at the hole. Wade Boggs, liked to eat chicken before a game at 5.17pm precisely. He then went and hit exactly 150 balls in batting practice. Serena Williams blamed her failure to win the 2007 French Open on herself: “I didn’t tie my laces right and I didn’t bounce the ball five times and I didn’t bring my shower sandals to the court with me.”

“As long as their routine helps them get into that state of mind and doesn’t damage their performance, or that of anyone else on their team, then I would encourage them to do it. When it can become a problem is when it becomes an obsession, that can be damaging.”

CONCLUSION The “Illusion of control” is a great way of summarising the attempt to control your fate. On the one, rational, level it seems absurd. How can having an orange in front of you at a poker table possibly affect your chances of winning? However, one of the most important aspects of poker, or any competitive activity really, is feeling comfortable about it and getting yourself in the best frame of mind. If that means doing a little dance around your chair before you sit down, so what. Do what feels right for you. “As long as their routine helps them get into that state of mind and doesn’t damage their performance, or that of anyone else on their team, then I would encourage them to do it. When it can become a problem is when it becomes an obsession that can be damaging.” Dr Tony Westbury, lecturer in sport, exercise and psychology at Napier University in Edinburgh. The dangers, as Westbury goes on to add, is that for some athletes, superstition can become dangerously close to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Perhaps the final word needs to come from Dylan Thomas, poet, not someone you would call a “lucky” person. In the foreword to his book of Collected Poems he writes; “I read somewhere of a shepherd who, when asked why he made, from within fairy rings, ritual observances to the moon to protect his flocks, replied: “I’d be a damn’ fool if I didn’t!”

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Bidding for a BAFTA World Gaming Executives caught up with Sophia George, team leader of Swallowtail, one of the three BAFTAnominated teams. Tell us about your game...

Great Scots Educating The Next Generation

cotland’s Abertay University taught Grand Theft Auto creator Dave Jones, launched the world’s first Computer Games Technology degree, and runs international game design competition Dare to be Digital. Academic Director Dr Louis Natanson tells us more. The world needs game developers. We need them for challenging and exciting new forms of entertainment, for new technological innovations that spill over into scientific research, and for launching new businesses to power the economy. But how do we educate the next generation? Three things are needed, firstly we need close links to industry professionals for teaching and advice on the skills students need, we also need to provide practical coursework tasks where artists, audio engineers and programmers have to work together to strict project deadlines; the third thing we need is access to business support and start-up financing to get new companies off the ground. The University of Abertay Dundee, on the east coast of Scotland, does all three. Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto creator, Dave Jones, studied here, and together with fellow DMA Design pioneer Russell Kay was a key part of a world first – the MSc Computer Games Technology degree the University launched in 1997.

More specialist courses followed, including a team-based Professional Masters degree where students work exactly as if they were running a small company. Project briefs, client milestones, firm deadlines - all key parts of succeeding in business. Another key part of Abertay’s role in educating talent for the computer games industry is Dare to be Digital, the international game design competition where exceptionally talented students have just nine weeks to complete a working game prototype.

“We’re also working with BAFTA on another key recommendation of that report – getting more school kids involved in computer science and programming.” When the competition has ended, all 15 games go on show to the public at our three-day Dare ProtoPlay games festival. Three winners are then picked by industry judges to compete for the unique BAFTA ‘Ones to Watch’ award, one of the most prestigious awards in the gaming industry. This year we brought the event home to Dundee, and in the process smashed the attendance records from previous events in Edinburgh. 9,000 people of all ages came to play the student games, give their feedback and have a lot of fun.

It was an incredible weekend and it was impossible not to come away with a huge amount of hope for the future of our industry. The next generation are talented, curious and ferociously keen to learn. We’re very, very excited to see the new games – and new companies – that they create. Our Dare to be Digital model of education has attracted a lot of attention and a lot of praise – games legend David Braben, co-writer of iconic game, Elite, was very impressed with the games at this year’s event, and the ‘Next Gen’ review from Ian Livingstone and Alex Hope says the Abertay University model of workplace simulation is the ‘gold standard’ of games education. We’re also working with BAFTA on another key recommendation of that report – getting more school kids involved in computer science and programming. Our Games Unpacked drag-and-drop level-builder gets kids trying out building games, and offers a first step into the exciting world of game design and programming. Abertay University also runs a multi-million pound Government-backed Prototype Fund to launch new British start-ups. Up to £25,000 of investment is available to get new businesses started, or for young companies to develop new IP. An injection of working capital helps develop a prototype and attract additional investment from publishers or venture capitalists. March 2012 will see the announcement of the next Dare to be Digital BAFTA winners, with iPad, Kinect and PC titles in competition. We look forward to seeing where they and our Abertay graduates lead the industry in years to come. www.abertay.ac.uk

Tick Tock Toys is a 3D puzzle/maze game for the iPad. The game takes place inside a cluttered toy box where you help your robot friend, ‘Tic Toc’, reach the goal by clearing a path for him. We originally designed this game for children, but Dare ProtoPlay proved that people of all ages can enjoy the game! How was the Dare experience? Dare was such an exciting opportunity! It was definitely a priceless experience, with some of my highlights being the fact that we were industry mentored, allowing us to receive honest feedback, ideas and tips. Meeting the other Dare contestants was a valuable experience too. Did you enjoy Dare ProtoPlay? Dare ProtoPlay was fantastic, as it allowed us to showcase our hard work to a huge audience! It gave us the chance to play the other games at the show, competing against the rest of the Dare contestants and the Abertay MProf students. I also really enjoyed the talks at the event, as well as meeting more people from the games industry. What did you learn in those nine weeks? Over half of the team had never made a game before, so we all learnt a great deal about the processes that go into game development - specifically, the importance of iterative design. I feel that we all learnt something new every day of the competition. Halfway through our development, Dare provided a focus group for us to test our game on. At first, I was unsure that it would be beneficial, but it was very helpful, as it highlighted problems that we could not foresee. And how do you feel about being BAFTA-nominated? We are all so excited for the BAFTAs in March – it’s such a privilege that we can attend the event, but the possibility that we might win is overwhelming! I’m hoping that this will be the first step in a long and successful career, not only for ourselves but for all of the nominees.

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Swede Dreams

The retribution – Wisp On 29th April, Triolith Entertainment released their second game, Wisp, a game completely different from Thunder BANG. This time the player is transported to the Nordic, mythological forests and is treated to an ambient experience with enchanting music.

Magnus Söderberg introduces his studio and team

Wisp garnered a lot of attention and positive comments from its users, who this time were pleasantly surprised. Many review sites gave Wisp high remarks for its pleasant setting and lack of stressful mechanics, such as time limits.

t all started with Magnus. Magnus had an ambition. Unlike his classmates, he didn’t want to join a developer studio; he wanted to launch his own. After having graduated from the University of Skövde’s Game Development Program, he found himself with a handful of partners in crime, ready to assemble what would later become Triolith Entertainment. The team enrolled in the Entrepreneurship program, a one year education in all things business. It was necessary that the team gained knowledge on how to maintain a proper company but it also meant that the whole team could survive on their student loans for another year. During this time, Magnus also spent a lot of time at Gothia Science Park; the business community located a stone’s throw from the university and home to a lot of successful business endeavors. GSP has become a popular location for budding game companies in recent years, where it has seen the launch of companies such as Stunlock Studios which, in partnership with FunCom, has released the popular online arena combat game Bloodline Champions.

“I think we made a mistake to think that the mobile games market would just accept any kind of game.” Magnus recalls his meetings at Gothia: “GSP are more than happy to accommodate new companies, but you’d be a fool to think that they would accept anyone just like that. They’ve got a lot of experience in business development so they are very quick to spot any and all weaknesses your business idea might have. Our case wasn’t any different; we had to revise our business concept on a regular basis in order to make it a viable platform to base our company on. The key is to always have an open mind and be willing to accept change.” Usually, a team of game developers seek incubation whilst already having an almost finished game to publish. The pre-Triolith team “King Kiwi Games” did not have a game at all, only a concept for business. This had its pros and cons, as GSP are a lot more inclined to work with people that have a genuine interest in entrepreneurship, but at the same time, Magnus did not have anything other than a few Word-documents to show for himself and his company.

“Looking back, we really did things differently when putting together the game Wisp,” Lead designed, Malte says. “Me and both our artists shut ourselves inside a room with a whiteboard and started brainstorming like crazy on a subject that’s very close to our hearts: Nordic folklore. The ideas just kept coming and when we finished for the day we all felt excited and eager to bring the game into realization.”

“At first we wanted to do games for Facebook and focus on a freemium model, but when our Turkish friend Sitki Emre Solak (now Dreamharvesters employee) joined, he got us into Unity3D, which also meant we could publish games for mobile phones. This meant smaller games that were quick to produce, compared to PC or console titles and I think that was a lot easier to digest for GSP. Finally, we had a business plan that was shaping up rather nicely, and games to back it up with.” says Magnus. During the fall semester the team saw a number of members coming and going. It wouldn’t be until January 2011 that the company solidified and was ready to become a real company.

“Even if the game has decent mechanics and a proper design, you still won’t sell anything if people don’t think your game is fun or appealing.”

The first baby steps – Thunder BANG Triolith Entertainment AB was founded on the 1st March, 2011. On the 1st April the company released its first game to the Google Android Market - Thunder BANG. The game was designed as early as autumn 2010 when the group, who would later become the owners, first started working together. The game received mixed reactions. On the Swedish Android site Swedroid.se the comments rained heavily and ranged between delight for Swedish developers to insinuations of bad April fool’s jokes and a discontent over the high price of $0.99. The company took every comment to heart and updated the game based on the comments which were constructive criticism. This generated a good response, as it showed people that the company actually listened. “I think we made a mistake to think that the mobile games market would just accept any kind of game. It’s not that we didn’t put any effort into making it, quite the contrary, but we certainly weren’t in tune with the rest of the market as far as customer demand goes. We learned a very important lesson with Thunder BANG - never aim low. Or put another way, ‘aim for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars’. If you try to make things cheaply, people will notice.” says Marcus, designer and music producer for Thunder BANG.

Triolith Entertainment worked hard to finish the conversion of Wisp over to iOS and on the 15th June the Apple Appstore was blessed with Wisp: Eira’s Tale, renamed because of another game was already called Wisp. The company saw its first great rise in revenue and they are more than happy for the great responses from players and reviewers. “We learned how to become a lot more customerfocused,” says Magnus.

“I think that’s one of the biggest lessons. You can’t develop a game that no one asked for and then expect people to pay up. Even if the game has decent mechanics and a proper design, you still won’t sell anything if people don’t think your game is fun or appealing.” Triolith Entertainment is currently working on their third title for iOS and Android, this time with a freemium model in mind explains Magnus: “More and more games seem to opt for this payment model, so we’ll give it a shot too. I can’t reveal much yet, but we’re hoping the game will come out this year. Hopefully it will also have a nice impact on the market. Time will tell.” says Magnus.

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A Sideways Glance Takes platform games to another level Playbrains’ innovative new platformer ‘Sideways: New York’ has won rave reviews since being released in October. On a normal day, strolling across the rooftops of New York City, graffiti artist Nox notices that someone has tagged over one of his pieces. When going in for a closer look, Nox gets sucked into a vortex and enters into the unique realm of Sideway. So begins your great adventure in Playbrains’ new Playstation 3 game ‘Sideway: New York’.

Ottawa Calling Jeff Bacon of bitheads studio gives WGE:MAG a local view of the growing gaming talent within Canada’s capital city

t never feels as cold in the Great White North when you’re making video games, I guess that’s why there are lots of people doing it! There are around 400 people working in the gaming field in Ottawa and not in just one specialized area of work, companies in Ottawa have been producing hit games for years - on many different platforms. The largest and most successful mobile studio in Ottawa, and indeed Canada, is Magmic Games. Having been involved in hundreds of game releases over the last 10 years, Magmic is a leading mobile games developer with games released on everything from black and white cellphones in the early days, to the top end iPhone, BlackBerry and Android devices of today. However, Magmic is not alone in the mobile gaming space in Ottawa; Glitchsoft is enjoying great success with their second big iPhone game, Destructopus; bitHeads’ gaming division, Playbrains, has released four mobile games - Babo Crash, Babo Crash Rush, Jaws and Zoo Toss

- on iOS and Android; Ratrod Studios has a hit with Drift Mania and there are new hit BlackBerry games from Smarter Apps and even games for young kids from Zeebu Mobile.

“Ottawa is an ideal location as it allows us to pull talent from the local area, as well as Toronto and Montreal. The city serves as something of a bridge between the two, and offers a little of what each brings to the table.” – Graeme Barlow, CEO, RocketOwl Inc.”

While mobile has been generating quite a gaming buzz in the city over the last couple of years, there’s a great group of companies working on more traditional video gaming projects as well. Veteran gaming studio, Artech Studios, is approaching its 30th birthday and celebrating 150+ game releases. And if you have played a major game on a Mac, you’ve probably been experiencing Transgaming’s Cider engine without even realizing it, as this technology is used by EA, Ubisoft, Activision and many more. Artech’s R&D department is based in Ottawa and continuing to develop gaming technologies for Mac and Linux gaming enthusiasts.

Fuel Industries has also been around for many years and completed a host of successful projects with major gaming studios worldwide including Tinker which was widely regarded as one of the best ‘extras’ included in the Windows Vista Ultimate Extras pack. Complimenting the larger and more established studios in the region are smaller, growing companies like Snowed In Studios, RocketOwl Inc. and many other companies that are feeding off the strong local talent base. The community in Ottawa is supported by great programs at four local educational institutions focused on training the next generation of game industry talent. Algonquin College has Game Development, Animation and Interactive Multimedia programs. Carleton University and The University of Ottawa have strong Computer Science departments – Carleton’s also includes a specific Honours program in Game Development and La Cité Collégiale is also producing great 3D artists. A combination of an annual wave of new, bright, eager graduates and a host of local gaming companies compliments the great atmosphere in the city which is spurring more and more start-ups to take advantage of the local community, and live the dream of building great and successful games. Every couple of months a new company emerges and adds to the wealth and breadth of gaming talent in Canada’s capital.

Launched on October 11th to critical acclaim, and live on Steam by the time you read this, Sideway takes you on a unique adventure merging a 2D platformer experience into a 3D world. Trapped on the walls in paint form, Nox must navigate through a world that brings a new perspective around each corner. There were over 25 people involved in the production of Sideway and Jeff Bacon for WGE:MAG’s sat down with a few key members of the Playbrains team to talk about their experiences working on this unique title. Where did the concept of navigating a 3D world in a 2D platformer come from? Adam Pilkington (Content Lead): The core concept came from our friends at Fuel Industries, and it was our job to immediately identify what’s cool and unique about the concept and present this to the player as soon and as often as possible. We wanted to hit the player with our visual hook immediately, within seconds of starting the first level, the player wraps his character around a corner and enters our world. Within a minute or two, he’s introduced to the rooftop mechanics, and how orientation affects gravity. The goal was to set the tone early, to show the player that we can do things most other games can’t.

“While at its core, Sideway is a platformer, we challenge players to think about 2D and 3D space at once and to take advantage of limits in one space to achieve progress in the other.” John Harley (Senior Game Designer): “When Fuel approached us with the character and concept I was really excited. In modern development there are too many pressures to reduce risk which flatten creativity to standard formulas. The opportunity to twist the norms and challenge the player’s sense of space and gravity was instantly obvious. Nevertheless we invested a solid chunk of time in preproduction into discovering how much puzzle and combat we would be able to mix into the parkour platformer Sideway came to be.

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Wrapping gameplay around walls and rooftops gave us a lot of room to explore different game styles, but we really wanted to challenge the player with kinetic feel. While at its core, Sideway is a platformer, we challenge players to think about 2D and 3D space at once and to take advantage of limits in one space to achieve progress in the other.” How have the previous games you’ve developed influenced Sideway? AP: On ‘Madballs In Babo: Invasion’ I learned the value of gameplay rhythm; it’s important to give the player time to breathe between the key situations of a level, whether it be encountering an enemy or finding a new power. The moments in between are just as important as the marquee events, and the former can be leveraged to add more impact to the latter Hopefully Sideway’s level design reflects this.

Preston Jennings (Producer): Sideway uses a large assortment of 2D graphics to display anything from signs posted on the wall to fully animated 2D characters moving around the world. To do this effectively, we employed an art pipeline that had been established on a previous iPhone gaming project, ‘Zoo Toss’. The art team would create their 2D assets in Flash and through careful use of metadata tags, the animation frames would be exported and packaged using our custom built tool. We also chose to use Scaleform for the UI system, this was because in ‘Madballs In Babo: Invasion’, we had created the entire UI system from scratch. UI screens would tie up a developer for quite a bit of time and often the art team would require changes to get the sort of pixel precision they needed in the game. Using Scaleform for Sideway helped us to speed up some of this process and the pipeline from source art to in-game screens became more accurate. What’s the biggest change you would make to the game if you had to do it all over again? AP: With Sideway’s unique hook, it took the level design team a little while to get the hang of the mechanics and find ways to employ them; given a second chance, I think we could explore the 2D/3D relationship even further. PJ: Near the end of the project, we spent quite a bit of time optimizing the frame rate of the game. Unfortunately at this point the levels had been mostly completed and so the development team was left with finding creative ways to squeeze out as much performance as possible. If we were to repeat the project, I would spend more time upfront, analyzing the capabilities of the 3rd party engine, and giving level designers and artists better parameters within which to work.

“If we were to repeat the project, I would spend more time upfront, analyzing the capabilities of the 3rd party engine, and giving level designers and artists better parameters within which to work.” JH: In our last console title, we went a little overboard with design and depth; for example having multiple experience bars for every character and weapon in the game. In Sideway, we were more judicious about where to spend time enriching features so that we could spend more time on the features that everyone sees - Sideway powers are unlocked with pickups instead of using a currency system. Another example would be co-op support; in the previous game we supported 4 players over the network, whereas in Sideway it’s been tightened to 2 players and same screen only. This let us apply a lot more dev time to the single player experience, and it shows.

How has the game been received? Paul Winterhalder (Executive Producer): It’s been awesome! From the first reveal at Comic Con and all the reviews since, it’s been amazing to hear all the great feedback from people. I especially like that we often hear from people that they were walking by the display at Comic Con and the art style really caught their eye. Once they played it, they just had a blast and their expectations for a typical 2D platformer were turned on their heads as they explored the game. One editor at IGN called it a “hip-hop Mario game” which is a great, quirky, description. The whole team here is really proud of what we’ve accomplished and looking forward to our next big project… after a well deserved vacation of course.

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