JANUARY 2002 GAME DEVELOPER MAGAZINE 600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6070 ✎ GAME PLAN Publisher LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Jennifer Pahlka [email protected] EDITORIAL Editor-In-Chief Jennifer Olsen [email protected] Managing Editor Laura Huber [email protected] Production Editor Olga Zundel [email protected] Product Review Editor War Games Tor Berg [email protected] Art Director he game industry overall did joint effort between the Army (who provid- Audrey Welch [email protected] Editor-At-Large an admirable job of weathering ed $45 million in funding), game develop- Chris Hecker [email protected] the public criticisms lobbed its ers, Hollywood talent, and the University Contributing Editors way immediately following of Southern California, which recently Daniel Huebner [email protected] Jonathan Blow [email protected] September 11. Some popular announced development of two projects Hayden Duvall [email protected] genres, such as real-time tactical shooters, that will have both military and commer- Advisory Board T Hal Barwood LucasArts especially those featuring counter-terrorist cial applications. C-FORCE is being devel- Ellen Guon Beeman Beemania Andy Gavin Naughty Dog operations, came under fire for hitting too oped for consoles by Future Combat Joby Otero Luxoflux close to home in post–September 11 Systems (a venture between Sony Pictures Dave Pottinger Ensemble Studios George Sanger Big Fat Inc. America. In just one among many similar ImageWorks and Pandemic Studios), and Harvey Smith Ion Storm actions by game publishers, Ubi Soft CS-12 will come to PC from Quicksilver Paul Steed WildTangent announced shortly after September 11 that Software. Effectively, these are the first two ADVERTISING SALES it would be delaying the release of Red commercial games ever commissioned by Director of Sales & Marketing Greg Kerwin e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6218 Storm’s ROGUE SPEAR: BLACK THORN indefi- the military and developed with DOD’s National Sales Manager nitely to modify sensitive content. direct input, through the Army’s Training Jennifer Orvik e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6217 Senior Account Manager, Eastern Region & Europe What a difference a month makes. Not & Doctrine Command bureau. Afton Thatcher e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6224 only was the modified BLACK THORN Such efforts could end up being good PR Account Manager, Northern California & Southeast Susan Kirby e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6226 released with fanfare less than a month after for the game industry at a time when public Account Manager, Recruitment its original ship date, but by then Ubi Soft interest in the military is particularly high. Raelene Maiben e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6225 was proudly publicizing the fact that they DOD-backed games could also serve as a Account Manager, Western Region & Asia Craig Perreault e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6223 had recently licensed the ROGUE SPEAR recruitment aid for the Army (much the Sales Associate engine to a contractor working for none same way Top Gun, produced under the Aaron Murawski e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6227 other than the U.S. Department of Defense beaming auspices of the U.S. Navy, sent ADVERTISING PRODUCTION (DOD). New maps and scenarios will be aspiring Mavericks to Navy recruiting Vice President, Manufacturing Bill Amstutz Advertising Production Coordinator added in order to train Army troops in offices in droves). However, we are also Kevin Chanel Reprints Stella Valdez t: 916.983.6971 urban counter-terrorist strategy and tactics. opening our industry up to a whole new GAMA NETWORK MARKETING Technology sharing between the game level of scrutiny. What headway we’ve made Senior MarCom Manager Jennifer McLean and defense industries is nothing new, of convincing the general public that Marketing Coordinator Scott Lyon course. But our industry’s collaborations videogames aren’t sophisticated training for Audience Development Coordinator Jessica Shultz with DOD suddenly takes on a whole new would-be high school snipers may well CIRCULATION significance as ground troops, possibly reemerge when people realize that the Army Group Circulation Director Catherine Flynn Circulation Manager Ron Escobar trained in part on technology that originat- is co-developing commercial applications Circulation Assistant Ian Hay Newsstand Analyst ed from game developers for entertainment for its own training purposes, and with tax- Game Developer Pam Santoro products, begin fanning out through payer dollars. (The difference, of course, is is BPA approved Afghanistan. Perhaps some of the game that the Army has no interest in using these SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES industry’s most outspoken critics will find applications to train soldiers to shoot For information, order questions, and address changes themselves unsure of whether to continue to weapons. The emphasis, say Army officials, t: 800.250.2429 or 847.647.5928 f: 847.647.5972 e: [email protected] chastise the game industry or raise a hand is strictly on strategic and tactical training.) INTERNATIONAL LICENSING INFORMATION in salute. Strange times tend to make for It would be wise for our industry to contin- Mario Salinas strange bedfellows. ue to keep tabs not only on our known crit- t: 650.513.4234 f: 650.513.4482 e: [email protected] We’ve come a long way since 1980, ics but also on those who would ride our CMP MEDIA MANAGEMENT when Atari’s tank simulation arcade game, coattails to further their own goals. President & CEO Gary Marshall Executive Vice President & CFO John Day BATTLEZONE, caught the attention of Penta- Welcome, Hayden. This month, we’re President, Business Technology Group Adam K. Marder gon officials who wanted Atari adapt it for pleased to welcome Hayden Duvall as our President, Specialized Technologies Group Regina Starr Ridley President, Technology Solutions Group Robert Faletra military training. To say that most game new Artist’s View columnist. Hayden brings President, Electronics Group Steve Weitzner developers — then and now — don’t fit the with him a wealth of experience in both art President, Healthcare Group Vicki Masseria Senior Vice President, Human Resources & Communications Leah Landro mold of your typical straitlaced defense and the game industry, and currently works Senior Vice President, Global Sales & Marketing Bill Howard contractor is an understatement. as lead artist at Confounding Factor on Senior Vice President, Business Development Vittoria Borazio Vice President & General Counsel Sandra Grayson ALLEON Nonetheless, collaboration efforts have their upcoming console title, G . Vice President, Creative Technologies Philip Chapnick stepped up in recent years. One organization to keep an eye on is the Institute for Creative Technologies (www.itc.usc.edu), founded in 1999 as a 2 WWW.GAMANETWORK.COM SAYS YOU C THE FORUM FOR YOUR POINT OF VIEW. GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK... Sound Design Kudos have a different development cycle than We strongly encourage any licensed just wanted to thank Andrew Boyd for the current standard one, most of his Playstation 2 or Gamecube developers out I his kind words and intelligent observa- article seems to suggest that mobile plat- there to evaluate our product themselves. tions about the sound design of MEDAL OF forms have lesser hardware and what we If you’re interested, let us know by sending HONOR and MEDAL OF HONOR: really want is better hardware, so we can a message to [email protected]. UNDERGROUND in “Escape from Bad play on them the same games that we Brian Gildon Audio” (October, 2001). We here in the play on PCs. Director, Entertainment Products audio department at Electronic Arts Los On the game design side, it might be Metrowerks Corp. Angeles/DreamWorks Interactive have been interesting to see games designed for enjoying reading it and we're pleased that mobile platforms, instead of adapted to PRODUCT REVIEW EDITOR TOR BERG RESPONDS: you so astutely picked up on some of our them. Thinking games (which include While it is not our practice to run com- techniques. It was an excellent article. adventure games) seem like a good match parative reviews of development tools, in Erik Kraber to PDA-style games, because they fit the the case of Jamie’s review of ProDG, both Senior Sound Designer control method and the goal of saving bat- he and I felt that mentioning a competitive MEDAL OF HONOR tery life. For action games, the control lim- product established a tone for the review MEDAL OF HONOR: UNDERGROUND itations may also not be that serious, espe- that would be helpful to the reader. Trey- via e-mail cially when targeting non-hardcore audi- arch had evaluated Codewarrior for ences. My father liked some action games Dreamcast and found it to be inappro- enjoyed Andrew Boyd’s “Escape from on my old VIC 20. These days, he doesn’t priate for the studio’s specific develop- I Bad Audio.” I am a member of the play any action games, although he likes ment needs. This experience led Jamie AIAS Best Music category panel, and I can MINESWEEPER and such. I’d imagine that and the Treyarch team to examine SN tell you your points are right on. We are one reason is the complex control methods Systems’ ProDG 2 for Playstation 2. all very dedicated to great music and of current games. Simpler hardware could In today’s game industry, development sound. One of the problems we have faced mean a simpler interface, and that might tools are generally too specialized to com- is that many noteworthy games don’t not be a bad thing. pare to one another. Feature sets are rarely make it for our review because the game Eyal Teler even similar, let alone equivalent. So a fea- developer or publisher didn’t submit them. via e-mail ture-by-feature comparison is inevitably We have been working to improve this by unfair to one product or the other.