You've played plenty of them, and think you've amassed enough knowledge about what does and doesn't work. But how do you make a game? In the coming weeks we'll be publishing a wide range of advice on how to make your first videogame: the tools to use, the platforms to target, sources of funding and, once it's out there, how to avoid your game sinking without trace in an increasingly competitive market.
“Work placements are so valuable if you want to get a job in games,” says Jack Couvela, art director of Newcastle studio Ubisoft Reflections . “If someone has done a year in the industry they know what it’s like to get up every day and go to a studio to work. It makes you miles more valuable as an employee.”
So many yellow exclamation marks are crowding our HUD’s minimap that we almost have to shade our eyes against the glare. We’ve just spawned in the hub city of Sanctuary, a charmingly ramshackle outpost made of scrap metal, and it’s clear the focus of today’s hands-on session will be Borderlands 2’s RPG and story elements.
Our weekly game industry jobs round-up highlights some of the recently advertised positions from Edge Jobs.
THQ's run of losses has finally come to an end after the publisher posted a profit of $15.4 million (£9.9m) for the three months ending June 30. However, the latest casualty of the company's restructuring and narrowed focus is Guillermo del Toro's Insane.
Mobile - by which I mean smartphones and tablets - is one of the hottest and fastest-growing gaming platforms, and it shows no sign of slowing down. A few years from now, I believe, mobile will be the largest gaming market in terms of audience size, and the primary platform for a majority of gamers - maybe even for a majority of Earth’s population. Mobile gaming is causing a dramatic paradigm shift in the market, one that few would have predicted could happen just five years ago.
Dota 2 is the onion of multiplayer games, and not just because Valve’s semi-sequel can be tough enough to make you cry. No, it’s the complexity, the sheer number of layers beneath the surface.
Dota 2 is the onion of multiplayer games, and not just because Valve’s semi-sequel can be tough enough to make you cry. No, it’s the complexity, the sheer number of layers beneath the surface.
So, Electronic Arts is suing Zynga, accusing the social gaming titan of infringing its The Sims Social copyright with its new Facebook game, The Ville. The full complaint suggests EA has a solid case, but while its legal team may be confident, champagne corks must already be popping in the publisher's PR department.
Binary Domain’s poor sales can be partly attributed to a shift in the games industry that mirrors the current Hollywood studio model. There, mid-budget releases are declining, as producers focus on tentpole blockbusters and teen comedies. Any that do slip the net are invariably afforded so little marketing support that they stand little chance of success. The same goes for games: all the money is in blockbuster console titles and social and mobile gaming, while the middle continues to feel the squeeze.
When it appeared on the Mega Drive early this year, Ecco wowed the punters with its enchanting graphics, slick animation, atmospheric soundtrack, and above all, its non-violent theme. Now the Mega CD version is upon us so we’re forced to question what it contains that justifies its existence on a CD.
The answer is, not an awful lot. The first improvement is the addition of five extra levels. You also get QSound.
Miner Willy is in The Bathroom. He’s drunk and desperate for sleep, but his tyrannical housekeeper, Maria, has barred the way to the Master Bedroom. Her foot taps judgementally and an outstretched arm commands her remorseful employer to clear up the debris of a debauched evening’s entertainment before slumber can carry him towards tomorrow’s inevitable hangover. The party is definitely over.
This is another massive megabit title, but for once you can see where the memory has gone. Every single sprite has been rendered in 3D, predrawn and stored in memory. And the result is stunning: every creature, gun emplacement and missile looks like a solid 3D object: serpents dive in and out of the water with breathtaking realism, and the huge bosses are just stupendous.
The original Star Fox was created as an exercise in showing off the abilities of the SNES Super FX chip. Taking its cue from arcade titles like Star Blade, it introduced polygon-based 3D flight to consoles, a marriage of convenience between cutting-edge technology and instant thrills.
The original Star Fox was created as an exercise in showing off the abilities of the SNES Super FX chip. Taking its cue from arcade titles like Star Blade, it introduced polygon-based 3D flight to consoles, a marriage of convenience between cutting-edge technology and instant thrills.
After hundreds of hours of playtime across Street Fighter IV's four major revisions, I ought to be a lot better at it than I actually am. The more of the game I watch - and I watch it a lot, too much perhaps, from weekend tournament streams to lunchtime YouTube binges - the more I understand about Capcom's remarkable fighting game. I'm just not getting any better at it. I have an Xbox Live win rate of 50.8 per cent; I am the very definition of slightly above average.
At most gatherings of games development people, there’s likely to be a writer holding forth annoyingly, wearing the regulation black T-shirt and, increasingly, in this shallow day and age, sporting a ‘haircut’.
The writer will be telling everyone how he or she really should be brought in earlier on every project, and how nobody really understands how integral the writing is. This is despite the fact that everyone understands how integral the writing is. And despite the fact that teams usually know exactly the right moment to bring in a writer.
With his tuft of beard and twinkling eyes, Stewart Kosoy looks more like a dungeon master than the co-founder and head of product development at a game investment firm. Perhaps that’s appropriate. After all, if you assumed that his job at Digital Capital suggests a degree of professional disinterest when it comes to the business of creating and selling interactive entertainment, you’d be wrong. Kosoy has been working in the industry for more than 25 years, and he got into the business in the same way that most people do: as a player.