>> PRODUCT REVIEW NDL’s GAMEBRYO 1.2 ENGINE FEBRUARY 2005 THE LEADING GAME INDUSTRY MAGAZINE >> ANNUAL GDC PREVIEW >>FEMALE MARKET SHARE >>BREAKAWAY INTERVIEW SHOW HIGHLIGHTS AND HOW MUCH MONEY CEO DOUG WHATLEY STAFF SESSION PICKS ISN’T BEING SPENT SPILLS SERIOUS BEANS POSTMORTEM: UP YOUR ARSENAL! ON AND OFFLINE WITH RATCHET & CLANK []CONTENTS FEBRUARY 2005 VOLUME 12, NUMBER 2 FEATURES 9 GAME DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE 2005 PREVIEW Future Vision. IGF. Serious Games. City by the Bay. If you haven’t met the buzzwords and acronyms yet, you’d better get acquainted, and soon. The 2005 Game Developers Conference is primed for March 7–11 in San Francisco. We’ve got outlooks and opinions on the lectures, roundtables, and panel discussions, as well as commentary on the highlights of the week’s agenda. By Simon Carless 9 16 INCREASING THE BOTTOM LINE: WINNING THE WOMEN’S MARKET SHARE The amount of money women have to spend—and indeed do spend—on electronic entertainment hasn’t been assessed into a well reasoned, comprehensive business plan in the game industry. Through a deep 28 understanding of the facts and by listening to the successes of other industries, developers, publishers, and retailers may be able to 16 (finally) earn serious money from this POSTMORTEM mostly untapped market. By Clarinda Merripen 28 UP YOUR ARSENAL: ON AND OFFLINE IN RATCHET & CLANK In this third adaptation of the entertaining RATCHET & CLANK series, 25 Insomniac ventured into the unknown by adding online gameplay. BREAKING THE WAVES Despite the usual issues, like creating a sequel without cloning the Doug Whatley, CEO of BreakAway Games, original, and careful scheduling (the team’s production timeline was shares his thoughts about the game a scant 13 months), Insomniac had the game out the door a week industry, how his company got into serious early. Here’s how. games, why independent developers should By Brian Hastings pay close attention to the medium, and where it might go from here. 25 By Brandon Sheffield DEPARTMENTS COLUMNS 2 GAME PLAN 44 THE INNER PRODUCT By Sean Barrett [PROGRAMMING] Kettle of Fish Late-Binding Data 4 HEADS UP DISPLAY 48 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore [ART] PSP launch, Molyneux’s fame, Acclaim’s shame, and more. Script Call! 7 SKUNK WORKS By Tom Whittaker 53 NECESSARY EVIL By Phil Cooke [BUSINESS] Gamebryo 1.2 Wireless Networks: Carriers and Barriers 72 A THOUSAND WORDS 54 AURAL FIXATION By Alexander Brandon [SOUND] Atlus’ SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI: DIGITAL DEVIL SAGA The Line of Quality Part 1: Middleware 55 GAME SHUI By Noah Falstein [DESIGN] Question Your Assumptions COVER ART: CREATED BY INSOMNIAC’S ART TEAM 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 YOU CAN REACH US AT [email protected] EDITORIAL EDITOR Simon Carless [email protected] DEPARTMENTS EDITOR Jill Duffy [email protected] ASSISTANT EDITOR Brandon Sheffield [email protected] ART DIRECTOR Cliff Scorso [email protected] CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Sean Barrett [email protected] Alexander Brandon [email protected] KETTLE OF FISH Noah Falstein [email protected] Steve Theodore [email protected] ADVISORY BOARD THIS ISSUE OF GAME DEVELOPER MAGAZINE scheduled for the 2005 conference, newly moved Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large squeezes in a diverse set of comfortable topics from San Jose‘s convention center to the heart of Ellen Guon Beeman Monolith Andy Gavin Naughty Dog on current issues, from Insomniac's ratchet-ing San Francisco at the Moscone Center West. Joby Otero Luxoflux up of the RATCHET & CLANK series, to a well- If the shift out of Silicon Valley and into the Dave Pottinger Ensemble Studios George Sanger Big Fat Inc. researched take on the better inclusion of women eclectic streets of the city by the Bay isn’t Harvey Smith Midway in game marketing, selling, and buying, all the enough, we've outlined some of the other changes Paul Steed Microsoft way through the outlook for this year's Game to the conference that we think are particularly ADVERTISING SALES NATIONAL SALES MANAGER Developers Conference. neat as well. GDC’s event organizers have taken Afton Thatcher e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6217 SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER, EASTERN REGION & EUROPE The postmortem for the month is from pains to secure several top Japanese developers Ayrien Machiran e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6224 Insomniac's critically acclaimed, somewhat as speakers; they’ve added a conference web site ACCOUNT MANAGER, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA & MIDWEST scatalogically named PlayStation 2 title RATCHET & composed entirely in Japanese too. Susan Kirby e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6226 ACCOUNT MANAGER, WESTERN REGION & ASIA CLANK: UP YOUR ARSENAL (page 28). Not only was this In addition, the new “Future Vision” track Nick Geist e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6223 game one of the highest-scored of the year in promises some piquant futurist ruminations for ACCOUNT MANAGER, GLOBAL EDUCATION/ RECRUITMENT & TEXAS game magazines, astute chart-watchers may the game industry’s long-term prospects. Aaron Murawski e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6227 have noticed that, in the first month of North ADVERTISING PRODUCTION ADVERTISING PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Kevin Chanel American sales, it outpaced friendly rival Naughty TICKING HANDHELDS REPRINTS Julie Rapp e: [email protected] t: 510.834.4752 Dog's PlayStation 2 action platformer JAK 3, no Speaking of future visions, as we continue to forge GAME GROUP MARKETING mean feat considering the popularity of that into 2005, and with the handheld next-generation DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS STRATEGY Michele Maguire competing series. The Insomniac team talks finally ticking over, it's likely that the big question on DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Tara C. Gibb MARKETING MANAGER Scott Lyon honestly about taking the RATCHET & CLANK everyone's mind is, “When will the next-generation MARKETING COORDINATOR Yukiko Grové gameplay online for this third iteration of the consoles finally arrive?” Will they be black or taupe CMP GAME GROUP franchise, which ended up being much trickier in color? Will they have four controller ports or VP, GROUP PUBLISHER APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES Philip Chapnick than they originally anticipated. Insomniac has seven? A select few of you probably already know CONFERENCE DIRECTOR, GDC Jamil Moledina ASSOCIATE CONFERENCE DIRECTOR, GDC Susan Marshall succeeded in keeping up the smooth gameplay the answers to these questions, but the rest of us EDITOR, GAMASUTRA.COM Simon Carless while subtly advancing innovation in the much- have been waiting for quite some time now. CIRCULATION loved single-player mode. The good news, however, is that we shouldn’t CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Kevin Regan e: [email protected] CIRCULATION MANAGER Peter Birmingham e: [email protected] Meanwhile, Cyberlore's Clarinda Merripen revisits have to wait too much longer for public CIRCULATION COORDINATOR Jessica Ward e: [email protected] the always-thorny question of the women's game pronouncements of a next-gen nature from the SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES market (page 16), bringing somewhat of a fresh Big Three. Though launching a next-gen console FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND ADDRESS CHANGES t: 800.250.2429 or 847.763.59581 f: 847.763.9606 perspective to the conundrum. Previous takes on first doesn’t guarantee its success, there are e: [email protected] this issue have often been fairly blue sky, but her millions out there who will buy it simply because INTERNATIONAL LICENSING INFORMATION article analyzes specific statistics and uses it's the next big thing. And there's nothing Mario Salinas e: [email protected] t: 650.513.4234 f: 650.513.4482 examples of the market inclusion of women in hardware manufacturers adore more than a EDITORIAL FEEDBACK other entertainment and service industries to draw sweet, sweet advantage in hardware installed [email protected] parallels between these outside businesses and bases. It attracts exclusive developers, makes CMP MEDIA MANAGEMENT the game space. your first-party titles sell more, and makes it PRESIDENT & CEO Gary Marshall EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT & CFO John Day much more likely that Paris Hilton will theme her EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT & COO Steve Weitzner SERIOUS BUSINESS accessories collection around your console's EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CORPORATE SALES & MARKETING Jeff Patterson Indeed, the definition of game space is ever color scheme. CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Mike Mikos SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, OPERATIONS Bill Amstutz expanding, as serious games become more of a hot- The rush to create bigger, faster, and better SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES Leah Landro button issue. In a featured interview, Doug Whatley, hardware un-nerves some who believe it to be an VP/GROUP DIRECTOR INTERNET BUSINESS Mike Azzara CEO of BreakAway Games, talks us through the ups arms race, which increasingly hinders the ability VP & GENERAL COUNSEL Sandra Grayson VP, COMMUNICATIONS Alexandra Raine and downs of developing serious games, as well as to make risky, low-budget games that look PRESIDENT, CHANNEL GROUP Robert Faletra some of the technical issues involved (page 25). competitive. Conversely, when news of customers PRESIDENT, CMP HEALTHCARE MEDIA Vicki Masseria Any unanswered questions that may remain should flooding stores for the new hardware hits the VP, GROUP PUBLISHER INFORMATIONWEEK MEDIA NETWORK Michael Friedenberg VP, GROUP PUBLISHER ELECTRONICS Paul Miller be addressed at the Serious Games Summit within media worldwide, it will only raise the industry’s VP, GROUP PUBLISHER NETWORK COMPUTING ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE GROUP Fritz Nelson this year’s GDC. profile. And ultimately, being state-of-the-art is VP, GROUP PUBLISHER SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT MEDIA Peter Westerman probably a positive thing for games, as long as we VP, DIRECTOR OF CUSTOM INTEGRATED MARKETING SOLUTIONS Joseph Braue CORPORATE DIRECTOR, AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Shannon Aronson GDC GETAWAY can find ways to make money without losing soul, CORPORATE DIRECTOR, AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Michael Zane The run-up to the Game Developers Conference is while on the dizzying rush to hyperrealism.