Change of Venue

Well, I was debating whether to post this or not since it's only marginally game-related, but figured, what the hell. I'm doing the writing here, and I work in the industry, so if I can;t write about me, there's not going to be much to write about :)

I quit my job last week (Well, technically 2 weeks ago. But my last day at the old job was last week). I was working for a small game publisher in Toronto and for a variety of reasons, decided it was time to move on. But the real news is that I got an offer for a new job only hours after I'd given my notice - at a AAA developer in Southern California, thanks to a couple of friends who were kind enough to recommend me. I started this past week, and WOW. You hear a lot about the differences between the really good devs and everyone else and it's true. I've been lucky enough to work with some great folks in the industry, and talked to a bunch more, but when I looked at the Design Doc for what we're currently working on, the level of detail just blew me away. I wish I could put a link to it here, but I had to sign all kinds of paperwork when I started, including an NDA. You'll notice I'm also not givng any names here, although anyone reading this probably knows where I was and where I am now anyway.

Add-on PlayStation 3 HDD will run Linux - News at GameSpot

Add-on PlayStation 3 HDD will run Linux - News at GameSpot

OK, I saw this recently, and it's pretty interesting. Most of the news agencies that picked up on this are going on about the trash talk between Kutaragi and MS/Nintendo, but I don't think that's the real story here.

If you skip down to the last paragraph, after all the talk about considering the PS3 a supercomputer, there's some interesting stuff about the other uses for the PS3, such as NLE and photo editing. But the bit I thought was worth thinking about was the idea of using the eye-toy as an input-device - something along the lines of what was seen in the film Minority Report.

Now, personally, I don't think the eye-toy really has the accuracy and resolution to be truly useful as an input device for photoshop type work. But it'd be really cool if it does work, and I'd be happy to be proved wrong because I think it'll open up a lot of posibilities for new apps on consoles. But the other really interesting thing that Kutaragi points out is that if MS wants to radically update their UI (like for XP) they have the issue of dealing with all the legacy products that need to be supported. Console gamers and indeed, conumers of general electronics are accustomed to having their hardware move into obsolescence every couple of years and having to learn new things to stay current. If something like the eye-toy control for PS3 turns out to be feasible, it could allow Sony to radically leapfrog MS in multimedia areas like home videos and digital photos. Again, I don't know that Sony can pull it off - they have the unfortunate habit of trying to force weird new hardware standards on everyone (remember betamax? minidiscs?) and it only really pans out one time in ten or so. And their record on broadband/networking isn't too hot either. BUT, if they can bring it all together here...wow. Things could get VERY interesting.

Slashdot | Miyamoto Says Today's Games Too Long

Slashdot | Miyamoto Says Today's Games Too Long

I pulled this from Slashdot games today. It's an interesting issue - there are tons of games made each year, and there are a number of studies that show that only a very small percentage of people actually *finish* games. Which means that there's huge amounts of money being spent on content that never gets seen by anyone - a bit of a waste. But on the other hand, some of the games that people DO finish are great, and the sort of experiences you wish would never end. The question really comes down to the idea of just because we CAN make long experiences, should we?

Part of the question involves how much value people feel they're getting for their money. If you pay $50 for a game, should you get 50 hours of entertainment? Movies are roughly $10+ these days for around 1.5-2 hours of passive entertainment. Should games be closer to offering that rate of return for the entertainment dollar?

Without getting into details, I just finished working on a game with around 40-50 hours of entertainment, and we had a lot of issues offering really compelling experiences during every second of the experience. The pacing was mostly random, rather than being pre-set and planned, and we're taking a lot of heat in the reviews for it now. On the other hand, I'm working on another title now which is probbaly only going to be about 15-20 hours when all is said and done, and although the gameplay is much more focussed, it will probably be sold as more of a 'budget' title just because the player won't get to enjoy it for as long.

The other half of the problem is the rising cost of development and the need to get the most out of development dollars as possible. Making longer games reduces the tech risks and gets more mileage out of the money spent on developing technology, but raises the costs deveoping assets to run within that code. Again, the question arises - where's the best point of balance, this time from the business side?

GameDAILY BIZ, Top stories Monday, May 23, 2005

GameDAILY BIZ, Top stories Monday, May 23, 2005

TOO HUMAN is back! I was lucky enough to work on this title a few years back when it was still on the original Playstation and it's going to be brilliant. The gameplay is already set, the story is great and it looked as good as anything on the original PSX. Now that it'll have the power of the XB 360 behind it, I can't wait. The guys at SK are great, and they showed me a blurb in EGM about the game when I bumped into them at E3.

Revenge of the Sith - (SPOILERS)

So Star Wars Episode 3 is out now, and I went to see it over the weekend. I've talked to few people about it and the consensus seems to be that it's better than the last two, but probably not anyone's favorite SW film. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's a pretty dark film and it's pretty hard to be upbeat about it. But here's some of my thoughts anyway.

BAD

• Too much CG is too much CG

I know people got a big kick out of watching the little green guy zip around like a hornet in Ep.2, but seriously, does Yoda HAVE to have super-hyper-acrobatic abilities just because he's CG now? And why does he become a cripple again when he's not fighting? I think it would have been much more contextual to have him be slow, but just be GOOD. I mean, if you go back to Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (which is suppsed to be be some of the inspiration for the earlier films although I don't really see it), samurai movies typically have a structure to how people fight. There's always the young new guy who gets excited and over extends, goes off balance, and then the master kicks his butt. We see this in Highlander, we see it in Kill Bill, and in almost every great samurai movie. Hell, we even see it in the Matrix, which arguably has been *the* force pushing CG at people in the mast 10 years. But I don't think it works for Star Wars, esp. with the very Zen philosophy being spouted by the Jedi knights.

• Time flies when you're having fun

Obi-Wan goes off back to Tatooine to wait and watch over Luke. At most he's maybe 40. But 16 years go by and suddenly he's 70? Did I miss something? Is this that "new math" stuff?

• Dark side=better?

One thing I wondered is about how quickly people gain the Dark Side powers. It seems like almost any Sith gets to shoot cool lighting bolts at people. But on the Jedi side, only Yoda can absorb it into a little ball. Basically, the only REALLY powerful Jedi is Yoda, who took 600 years to learn everything, while it seems like anyone can master some nifty dark powers in like 3 days with a study-at-home course. So how did the Sith lose in the first place anyway?

Maybe I'll follow this up with some things I liked in the movie. But I'm neglecting some work right now, so I'll leave off here.

And so it begins...

This blog is mostly an experiment. I tend to be a fairly quick reader and find all sorts of weird and interesting things in the course of my daily browsing. I email lots of these things out to different people, and my sent mail folder is getting ridiculous. So I thought I'd try this instead - maybe if I post things here rather than emailing them separately, people will start looking here to see what's up, and that will be easier.

Or not.

It's also a bit of an excuse to just play around with more tech tools. I was looking at all the different plugins available for Firefox, including MANY for blogging, and figured why not?