Game Developer Magazine June/July 2013 the Leading Game Industry Magazine Volume 20 Number 06 Performance Capture
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GAME DEVELOPER MAGAZINE JUNE/JULY 2013 THE LEADING GAME INDUSTRY MAGAZINE VOLUME 20 NUMBER 06 PERFORMANCE CAPTURE ANIMATRIK FILM DESIGN • Vancouver, Canada See why we are the triple-A choice at animatrik.com 001 CONTENTS_June/July 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 06 Postmortem 034 GOD OF WAR: ASCENSION Find out how Sony Santa Monica managed to make a proper follow- up to GOD OF WAR 3—and designed a multiplayer mode worthy of the franchise. By Whitney Wade and Chacko Sonny Features 009 POSTMORTEM: GAME DEVELOPER MAGAZINE At long last, we get to taste our own medicine! Game Developer’s longest- running editor-in-chief Brandon Sheffi eld explains what went right and wrong with the magazine you’re reading now. By Brandon Sheffi eld 015 TOP 30 DEVELOPERS OF ALL TIME It’s time for another yearly installment of our Top 30 Developers list. This time, however, we’re calling out our top 30 game developers of all time. By Staff 020 DIRTY GAME DEV TRICKS You know those ugly last-minute hacks and workarounds that you bring out at the last minute to make your milestone deadline? Everyone’s got them, and we asked you to share your favorites. By game developer magazine Staff 027 GAME OVER Before Game Developer calls it quits, we wanted to take one last chance to stand on our soapbox. By Staff Departments 002 Game Plan [Editorial] 004 Heads Up Display [News] 006 Educated Play [Education] 007 Good Job [Career] 039 Toolbox [Review] 040 Inner Product [Programming] 044 Pixel Pusher [Art] 047 The Business [Business] 048 Design of the Times [Design] 050 Aural Fixation [Sound] 054 Insert Credit [Editorial] game developer magazine 064 Arrested Development [Humor] 001 GAME DEVELOPER 002 gp MAGAZINE GAME PLAN_June/July 2013 WWW.GDMAG.COM UBM LLC. 303 Second Street, Suite 900, South Tower San Francisco, CA 94107 t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090 SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND REQUIEM FOR A ‘ZINE ADDRESS CHANGES t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606 GOODBYE, GAME DEVELOPER, AND THANK YOU [email protected] www.gdmag.com/contactus EDITORIAL I’ve been dreading writing this column ever since I found out Game Developer was closing. Putting off the editorial until the last minute is standard practice for magazine editors, but this one PUBLISHER Simon Carless [email protected] has been extra tricky because, well, it’s the last one ever. But in the end, after all the drafts are EDITOR proofed, and the illustrations are placed, and the sacrifi cial offerings of coffee, cigarettes, and Patrick Miller [email protected] booze are made to the production and design folks, the words that run through my head are not EDITOR EMERITUS “Goodbye,” but “Thank you.” The rest of this issue is about saying goodbye (we even made you a Brandon Sheffield [email protected] mixtape), so I’m going to use this page to express gratitude, instead. MANAGER, PRODUCTION Dan Mallory [email protected] TO THE READERS ART DIRECTOR First off: Thanks for reading. Game Developer wouldn’t have lasted 19 years if we didn’t have Joseph Mitch [email protected] people like you out there who stuck around for issue after issue, devouring all the game CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Kris Graft, Christian Nutt, Frank Cifaldi, development knowledge we could possibly throw at you. I’m convinced that our readers are some Brandon Sheffield, Mike De La Flor, Mike of the smartest and nicest folks I’ve met in the industry thus far, and I hope to see you among Acton, Steve Theodore, Jason VandenBerghe, Gamasutra blogs and GDC talks as they try to pick up where we left off. Damian Kastbauer, David Edery, Kim Since Game Developer is meant for professionals, we’ve had a relationship to our readers that Pallister, Matthew Wasteland, Magnus I’ve never been a part of before—because you are often our writers as well. Other publications Underland typically demand that the editorial staff function as capital-E Experts that pass knowledge down ADVISORY BOARD Mick West Independent to the readers in a one-way relationship, but with Game Developer, my job has more or less been Brad Bulkley Microsoft to provide readers with ways to share knowledge with each other. Some of the best stuff I’ve Clinton Keith Independent had the privilege to include in this magazine in the last year and a half began because a reader Bijan Forutanpour Qualcomm insisted that we should be covering X topic, or disagreeing with Y column—to which I responded, Mark DeLoura Independent “You wanna write about it for us?” So thank you, readers, for helping us make the best damn Carey Chico Independent Mike Acton Insomniac game dev magazine we could possibly make. Brenda Romero Loot Drop TO THE EDITORS PAST ADVERTISING SALES Game Developer has built up an excellent reputation over the years, and I credit that entirely to the dozens of talented people who tended to these pages before I did. I have been consistently VICE PRESIDENT, SALES surprised by the esteem with which industry people regard Game Developer. It felt humbling and Aaron Murawski [email protected] inspiring to know that the work we did was due in large part to the industry giants on whose t: 415.947.6227 MEDIA ACCOUNT MANAGER shoulders we stood. (It also made my day-to-day job a whole lot easier.) Jennifer Sulik [email protected] t: 415.947.6227 TO THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES STAFF GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, RECRUITMENT There are plenty of people involved in making Game Developer that don’t get any love besides a Gina Gross [email protected] brief mention on the masthead. Thanks to the sales team for doing their damnedest to keep print t: 415.947.6241 alive; thanks to our wonderful advisory board for offering their time, knowledge, and expertise; thanks to the Gamasutra staff for their support and collaboration; thanks to production manager ADVERTISING PRODUCTION Dan Mallory for talking me down each time I was sure we weren’t going to ship an issue out on PRODUCTION MANAGER time (this was usually about halfway through the third week of each issue cycle); thanks to art Robert Steigleider [email protected] director Joe Mitch for busting his butt every month to turn out an amazing magazine in about a t: 516-562-5134 week; thanks to our copyeditors, Alexandra Hall and Carrie Shepherd, for lending me two pairs of REPRINTS eyes much sharper than mine. And while I’m at it, I’d like to extend a personal thanks to Simon Carless, Pearl Verzosa, and former EIC Brandon Sheffi eld for taking a chance on a new editor and WRIGHT’S MEDIA giving me a turn behind the wheel. It was fun while it lasted. Jason Pampell [email protected] t: 877-562-5972 INSERT CREDIT TO CONTINUE AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the last year and change working on the mag, it’s that AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER the people who read, write, and produce Game Developer do great things. There’s an ex-Game Nancy Grant e: [email protected] Developer editor working in the White House now, for crying out loud—that’s pretty cool! So I want LIST RENTAL you to read the rest of this issue cover-to-cover a few times—maybe put it somewhere safe and Peter Candito re-read it every year or so, because it’s just that good—and rest assured that we plan on doing Specialist Marketing Services great things, and we want you to do so, too. Personally, I’ll be sticking around as GDC’s director of t: 631-787-3008 x 3020 [email protected] online community, so don’t think you’ve seen the last of me. ubm.sms-inc.com In closing, I’ll borrow a few words from author Garrison Keillor: Be well, make good games, and stay in touch. The end! Patrick Miller Editor, Game Developer game developer magazine @patthefl ip WWW.UBM.COM 002 Goodbye GDMag! Full Ragdoll Salute! See you on Gamasutra.com! www.havok.com 004 h HEADS-UP DISPLAY_June/July 2013 GOODBYE, GAME DEVELOPER Kind words and well wishes from Game Developer readers Bummed out that after years of reading Oh my God, Game Developer closing is Game“ Developer and seeing colleagues honestly“ heartbreaking. published, the doors are closing. ” —Nels Anderson ”—Evan Groenke Shortly after the news broke Wow. Very sad news. I started in the industry at of Game Developer’s closing, Thanks to Simon Carless, Brandon the“ same time as the magazine started publishing we found ourselves awash in Sheffi“ eld, Patrick Miller, and all past and and it was my best source of information. I read condolences, memories, and present Game Developer staff for delivering a every page (sometimes twice). well wishes from our reader killer industry publication. ” —-Clinton Keith community. We wanted to ” —Garth DeAngelis preserve a few of these in Get back issues of Game Developer if you print for posterity. can.“ You’ll learn a lot even if you don’t fully This magazine helped me fi nd my way into understand. game“ dev. Thank you for everything!” ” —Mitch Dyer —Brandon Perkins I’m about to choke up in a meeting thinking Great articles, oodles of eye candy, and good about“ Game Developer folding. lessons“ learned. ” —Chris Charla ” —Brian Zubert RIP Game Developer, your Deadly In my fi rst game dev job, my boss suggested Premonition“ cover story still fi lls my heart in“ a one-on-one that I read Game Developer for with love.