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October 2006 >> INTERVIEW CASTLEVANIA MUSIC COMPOSER MICHIRU YAMANE OCTOBER 2006 THE LEADING GAME INDUSTRY MAGAZINE >>POSTMORTEM >>ARTFUL RELATIONSHIPS >>MATCH-UP SHOWDOWN MYTHMAKING IN ACTION: WHAT DESIGNERS WANT PICKING ON SOMEONE IRON LORE’S TITAN QUEST FROM PUBLISHERS YOUR OWN SIZE ONLINE []CONTENTS OCTOBER 2006 VOLUME 13, NUMBER 9 FEATURES 12 TOP 20 PUBLISHERS How does your publisher stack up against the rest for review scores? Producer ratings? Game Developer's fourth annual Top 20 Publishers feature ranks the world's foremost game publishers according to strict criteria. There are a few surprises within, so ready the champagne! By Trevor Wilson 12 25 RANKING AND MATCHMAKING Online game modes are gradually becoming the standard for console games, rather than an added bonus. But how do you get the right players playing against the right people, close enough in skill to be challenging, but not so difficult as to be frustrating? Microsoft’s Thore Graepel and Ralf Herbrich discuss the concepts behind 25 TrueSkill in this extended technical article. By Thore Graepel and Ralf Herbrich POSTMORTEM 43 INTERVIEW: MICHIRU YAMANE In this capsule interview, we unearth the 36 IRON LORE’S TITAN QUEST roots and ruminations of Konami's Michiru TITAN QUEST, the mythic fantasy game from Iron Lore Entertainment, Yamane, celebrated composer of the modern united a start-up studio with one clear vision—put entertainment first. CASTLEVANIA series, whose career in sound From the game’s good publisher contract to unfinished and late design runs the gamut from the arcade heyday to documents, the development team learned to juggle realistic the next generation. 43 expectations and ideal implementation. Producer Jeff Goodsill shares the By Brandon Sheffield ups and downs of this well-received PC hack and slash’s development. By Jeff Goodsill DEPARTMENTS COLUMNS 4 GAME PLAN By Simon Carless 44 THE INNER PRODUCT By Mick West [PROGRAMMING] The Up Side? Visualizing Floats 6 HEADS UP DISPLAY 47 GAME SHUI By Noah Falstein [DESIGN] Women and horror, mobile game growth, 3ds Max 9 released, and more. Publisher Compatriots 9 SKUNK WORKS By Bijan Forutanpour 48 BUSINESS LEVEL By Tom Buscaglia [BUSINESS] Katherine Isbister’s Better Game Characters by Design That Wasn’t the Deal! 80 A THOUSAND WORDS 49 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore [ART] SEK’s PARAWORLD A Shady Deal 52 AURAL FIXATION By Jesse Harlin [SOUND] Musical Symmetry COVER ART: CLIFF SCORSO WWW.GDMAG.COM 1 Join Us Bring Your Development Skills To Blizzard Entertainment® We have openings in all development areas. For information and how to apply, please visit ... www.BLIZZARD.jobs EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER © 2006 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. GAME PLAN [] www.gdmag.com CMP Media, 600 Harrison St., 6th Fl., San Francisco, CA 94107 t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090 EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Simon Carless [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Jill Duffy [email protected] FEATURES EDITOR Brandon Sheffield [email protected] ART DIRECTOR Cliff Scorso [email protected] CONTRIBUTING EDITORS THE UP SIDE? Jesse Harlin [email protected] Noah Falstein [email protected] Steve Theodore [email protected] Mick West [email protected] ADVISORY BOARD IT’S ODD HOW THE MOOD OF THE GAME INDUSTRY Hardware makers have got to start somewhere, Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large Dave Pottinger Ensemble Studios can turn on a dime. Only a few months ago, I and that’s at zero units shipped. The Wii and Ellen Guon Beeman Microsoft George Sanger Big Fat Inc. Andy Gavin Naughty Dog Harvey Smith Midway remember tremendous consternation as the PlayStation 3 are bringing enough heavyweight Joby Otero Luxoflux Paul Steed Atari console transition started to bite current- chums along for the ride (mascots like Mario for the ADVERTISING SALES generation sales, but Xbox 360 supplies were Wii, developers like Ninja Theory and Insomniac and DIRECTOR OF SALES anemic and digital distribution was even more Naughty Dog for the PlayStation 3) that the hype Steve McGill e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6217 GLOBAL SALES MANAGER, RECRUITMENT & EDUCATION unproven than it is now. alone will take the install bases high enough to Aaron Murawski e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6227 But as of press time, NPD U.S. retail sales are allow developers a chance to release games and SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER, EAST COAST, EUROPE & EASTERN CANADA showing notable upturns over last year; the make decent money. Consoles only fail swiftly Ayrien Machiran e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6224 ACCOUNT MANAGER, NO. CALIF., NORTHWEST, ASIA & WESTERN CANADA PlayStation 3 and Wii launches are explicitly dated when they can’t get off the install base launchpad, Nick Geist e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6223 (if wobbly in terms of PlayStation 3 supply); and as the Dreamcast couldn’t, and I can’t believe this ACCOUNT MANAGER, SO. CALIF., SOUTH WEST, CONTRACTORS, & the increasing success of services such as Valve’s would happen for any of the next-gen machines. MARKETPLACE Jasmin Davé e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6226 Steam and Xbox Live Arcade, well ... the sky’s the ADVERTISING PRODUCTION limit, right? DIGITAL DOWNLOADS ADVERTISING PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Kevin Chanel Well, yes. And no. Let’s examine, for each of From previous discussions in this column, many REPRINTS Julie Rapp e: [email protected] t: 510.834.4752 these points, why we should be cheerful and readers already know that I believe compact, CMP GAME GROUP why we should be just a little wary going into the intelligently designed, independent games are VP, GROUP PUBLISHER APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES Philip Chapnick 2006 holiday season. going to be entering somewhat of a golden age, VP, STRATEGIC MARKETING Michele Maguire thanks to digital downloads on consoles and PC. GROUP DIRECTOR Valerie Pippin DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Tara C. Gibb INCREASED REVENUES? But look at the music industry as an example. The CONFERENCE DIRECTOR, GDC Jamil Moledina The first thing to note is that yes, the North opening up of digital downloads has led to a SENIOR CONFERENCE MANAGER, GDC Meggan Scavio American game business is making more money massive broadening of the market, and amazing EXECUTIVE WEB PRODUCER Peter Leahy than it did last year. However, a lot of that money possibilities for grassroots success using the EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GAMASUTRA.COM Simon Carless is attributed to the first properly competitive internet and other personalized marketing. ASSISTANT EDITOR, GAMASUTRA.COM Frank Cifaldi handheld market in many years, thanks to the The downside for performers is that the top CIRCULATION maturing of Sony’s PSP and Nintendo DS. The music acts just don’t sell what they used to CIRCULATION ASSISTANT MANAGER Jessica Ward e: [email protected] CIRCULATION COORDINATOR Miguel Mendiolaza e: [email protected] Xbox 360 may be nudging things along nicely in because the market is diffused in a greater way. CIRCULATION ASSISTANT Michael Campbell e: [email protected] North America, increasing its install base by a In looking at revenues in the game market, even CIRCULATION ASSISTANT Andrea Abidor e: [email protected] couple of hundred thousand units per month, but the top Xbox 360 Live Arcade titles right now are SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES it’s not really the console market which is yet making just $2 or $3 million in revenue—small FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND ADDRESS CHANGES leading any resurgence. beans for traditional publishers. Yet, 50 percent of t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606 e: [email protected] All signs point to this holiday season being the Xbox Live Arcade revenues go directly to INTERNATIONAL LICENSING INFORMATION start of a robust new generation for the video developers, which allows for a possibly holy grail, Mario Salinas t: 650.513.4234 f: 650.513.4482 e: [email protected] game business (PlayStation 3-related issues a self-sustaining developer business model that CMP TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT PRESIDENT AND CEO Steve Weitzner notwithstanding), and there will be plenty of room doesn’t rely on publisher advances. EXECUTIVE VP AND CFO Adam Marder for everyone in both hardware and software Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater, SENIOR VP, AUDIENCE MARKETING & DEVELOPMENT Bill Amstutz markets when all three consoles have debuted. Call though. Games are still darn tricky to make and SENIOR VP, CMP INTEGRATED MARKETING SOLUTIONS Joseph Braue this the handheld dawn before the console sunrise? predict success on, and putting all your eggs into SENIOR VP AND GENERAL COUNSEL Sandra Grayson one basket (the revenue on one game) is SENIOR VP, CORPORATE MARKETING Lisa Johnson extremely risky. SENIOR VP, CORPORATE SALES Anne Marie Miller CONSOLE LIFTOFF SENIOR VP, MANUFACTURING Marie Myers There’s little to say other than the uncertainty is Why shouldn’t a developer still get paid to make SENIOR VP, COMMUNICATIONS Alexandra Raine over—but it’s not. It’s over inasmuch as we know a game for a publisher and let the publisher VP, AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Michael Zane the remaining major next-generation consoles assume the risk alongside the reward? I wouldn’t PRESIDENT, CHANNEL GROUP Robert Faletra are going to launch this holiday season in some be surprised if we start to see more of this in the PRESIDENT, CMP ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA Tony Keefe form, with PlayStation 3 manufacturing woes digital download market, too. PRESIDENT, BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY GROUP Jeff Patterson SENIOR VP, GROUP DIRECTOR, ELECTRONICS & SOFTWARE GROUPS ruling out Europe. In other words, there’s never one answer. All Paul Miller Still, there are the matters of supply and kinds of hybridized models are probably going to SENIOR VP, GROUP DIRECTOR, COMMUNICATIONS GROUP, building up an install base. It’s not really whether appear in the near future. But the democratization Stephen Saunders manufacturers get console into stores, it’s how of gaming, and all of the good and bad things that swiftly they can reach a 5 million, 10 million, or 20 it implies, has begun.
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