>>EDITORS PICK BEST OF GDC 2007 FEBRUARY 2007 THE LEADING GAME INDUSTRY MAGAZINE >>BILL’S GIFT TO GAMES? >>THE SPECTOR OF EVOLUTION >>VERTICAL SLICE OF LIFE A PROGRAMMER’S VIEW DEUS EX CREATOR THE SCRUM-OLOGY OF OF WINDOWS VISTA PUSHES STORY DYNAMICS AGILE DEVELOPMENT POSTMORTEM: INSOMNIAC’S RESISTANCE: FALL OF MAN []CONTENTS FEBRUARY 2007 VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2 FEATURES 13 GAME DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE PREVIEW 2007 GDC is upon us once more, so your friendly Game Developer and Gamasutra.com editors have put together a condensed list of events, happenings, and sub-conferences, as well as 13 those GDC sessions we personally find compelling. Also, we know where Will Wright will be staying and will trade this information for exclusive technical articles! By Simon Carless, Jill Duffy, Brandon Sheffield, and Frank Cifaldi 21 SCRUM RISING 21 Scrum is an agile development methodology which can save your studio a substantial amount of crunch time, headache, botched plans, and disorganized employees—or so says High Moon’s Clinton Keith. Scrum may not be right for everyone, but after reading this article, you should know if it’s right for 39 you and yours. 28 By Clinton Keith POSTMORTEM 39 ALL FOR GAMES: AN INTERVIEW WITH WARREN SPECTOR 28 RESISTANCE: FALL OF MAN As the creative mind behind DEUS EX and the newer THIEF games, Warren Spector is in a keen Insomniac is known more for its stylized character-based games than its position to talk about dynamic story and first-person shooters, but RESISTANCE: FALL OF MAN is in fact a return to the gameplay. In this exclusive interview, the game company’s roots—the first game the studio ever made was an FPS. designer discusses the state of game writing, Herein, project manager Marcus Smith shares with us the boons and before expounding on his dream game. difficulties of creating an original IP on a brand new console at launch, as well as why they want to set the next game in Tahiti. By Brandon Sheffield By Marcus Smith DEPARTMENTS COLUMNS 2 GAME PLAN By Simon Carless 43 THE INNER PRODUCT By Mick West [PROGRAMMING] TV Emporium Procedural Spooling 4 HEADS UP DISPLAY 47 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore [ART] Presidential candidates’ views on games, Penny Arcade’s Getting there from Here Child’s Play, and more. 51 GAME SHUI By Noah Falstein [DESIGN] 7 SKUNK WORKS By Ben Board and Ron Fosner Believing the Impossible Hansoft’s Hansoft 4.2, Microsoft Vista impressions, and product news. 53 AURAL FIXATION By Jesse Harlin [SOUND] 80 A THOUSAND WORDS Does it Sound Next-Gen? 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WWW.GDMAG.COM 1 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] TV EMPORIUM CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Jesse Harlin [email protected] Noah Falstein [email protected] Steve Theodore [email protected] Mick West [email protected] ADVISORY BOARD Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large Dave Pottinger Ensemble Studios HERE’S A QUESTION TO PONDER: WHICH BUSINESS subscription basis, then the consumer can try Ellen Guon Beeman Microsoft George Sanger Big Fat Inc. model, though rarely applied to games, has led to everything out for size. Demos are close to doing Andy Gavin Naughty Dog Harvey Smith Midway Joby Otero Luxoflux Paul Steed Microsoft some of the most innovative, interesting, and that, but the sheer amount of interesting niche ADVERTISING SALES high-quality products in the television business? games that can be easily flipped onto a DIRECTOR OF SALES And here’s a hint: This network had a record 14 subscription service and aggregated is massive, Steve McGill e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6217 nominations for this year’s Golden Globe Awards, compared to those that would be moved onto GLOBAL SALES MANAGER, RECRUITMENT & EDUCATION more than any other network, despite being Xbox Live Arcade and could survive a standalone Aaron Murawski e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6227 SR. ACCOUNT MANAGER, SOUTHWEST, CONTRACTORS, & MARKETPLACE watched by significantly fewer viewers. $5 payment. It’s the same with TV channels like Jasmin Davé e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6226 The answer is HBO. The station’s business Turner Classic Movies, which has plenty of great SR. ACCOUNT MANAGER, NO. CALIF., NORTHWEST, ASIA & WESTERN CANADA model relies on a monthly subscription that lets movies that most consumers would never pay to Nick Geist e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6223 viewers watch all movies and original buy or rent individually, but which become more ACCOUNT MANAGER, EAST COAST, U.K. & EASTERN CANADA programming on its service. I’m sure most people appealing when amassed and sold as a package Cecily Herbst e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6215 agree that some of HBO’s best shows, including of opportunities, rather than a single film. MEDIA ACCOUNT MANAGER The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Curb Your John Watson e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6090 Enthusiasm, and Deadwood, would not be FUTURE INDIE ADVERTISING PRODUCTION possible on a major TV network because shows A lot of the action thus far has been about ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER Kevin Chanel REPRINTS Cindy Zauss e: [email protected] t: 516.562.5000 with mature, niche, or edgy themes just won’t get repackaging existing games. If one of these Julie A. Douglas e: [email protected] t: 516.562.5092 big enough ratings to make it. services really takes off and gets one million CMP GAME GROUP subscribers at $10 per month each, it might be VP, GROUP PUBLISHER APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES Philip Chapnick NEW WAY TO PAY? able to fund the development of episodic games, VP, STRATEGIC MARKETING Michele Maguire Though DVD and licensing sales of its major independent games, and a plethora of others from DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Tara C. Gibb products no doubt help, it seems a subscription scratch. These games would then be available CONFERENCE DIRECTOR, GDC Jamil Moledina model alone might be the thing that keeps HBO exclusively on the subscription service first, and SENIOR CONFERENCE MANAGER, GDC Meggan Scavio EXECUTIVE WEB PRODUCER Peter Leahy strong. Why can’t this same system work for then could even be rolled out to retail at a later EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GAMASUTRA.COM Simon Carless games? date, or maybe given away as a bonus alongside FEATURES EDITOR, GAMASUTRA.COM Frank Cifaldi We’re starting to see some attempts to exploit the subscriptions. AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT this in the PC market. For example, some European That’s what excites me—the idea that there GROUP DIRECTOR Carolyn Giroux e: [email protected] companies such as Metaboli have tried it. Exent could be a fund through a subscription service for DIRECTOR Mary Griffin e: [email protected] has powered many games on demand efforts. And these edgy and cool titles, which would foster ASSISTANT MANAGER John Slesinski e: [email protected] most notably, of course, there’s GameTap. innovation and excellence, just as HBO does with LIST RENTAL Merit Direct LLC t: 914.368.1000 These services tend to offer unlimited access to its programming. But it requires a big subscriber SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES commercial PC games for between $10 and $20 base, and I’m not sure that launching solely on the FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND ADDRESS CHANGES per month, and it’s actually a pretty interesting PC is really going to do it. There needs to be a t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606 e: [email protected] idea—one which some companies (particularly console solution, or anything that will play in the INTERNATIONAL LICENSING INFORMATION Turner with GameTap) are putting significant living room. Mario Salinas t: 650.513.4234 f: 650.513.4482 e: [email protected] CMP TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT money into developing. The licensing fees are Maybe something like the inevitable Apple iTV PRESIDENT AND CEO Steve Weitzner significant if the company is using content that or massively upgraded cable set-top boxes will EXECUTIVE VP AND CFO Adam Marder has previously been released elsewhere, but that be the answer in the much longer term.