JANUARY 1998 GAME DEVELOPER MAGAZINE GAME PLAN What's Your .plan? EDITOR IN CHIEF Alex Dunne [email protected] n Hollywood, reading an interview ty, and developer name recognition. MANAGING EDITOR Tor Berg is the most common way to find Undoubtedly, all of these factors trans- [email protected] out about what's going on in a late in some way to increased sales. EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Wesley Hall whall@mfi.com star's life. Magazines such as People, At a personal level, authoring a .plan I EDITOR-AT-LARGE Chris Hecker Rolling Stone, Spin, and Interview are suc- can raise your personal stock — if it's [email protected] cessful because the public wants to know written consistently and intelligently. CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Brian Hook what's going on with the people behind And building name recognition within [email protected] the movies and music. There's a natural the industry and with customers Josh White [email protected] curiosity about what projects they're cur- should be a high priority for anyone ART DIRECTOR Azriel Hayes rently working on and what's going on who's serious about making a name for ahayes@mfi.com in their personal lives. With the excep- themselves. ADVISORY BOARD Hal Barwood tion of the rare autobiography, however, A word of caution, however. Noah Falstein it's rare to get first-hand information Remember that what the .plan giveth, Susan Lee-Merrow from well-known stars. the .plan can taketh away. Those who Mark Miller That's not true in the game develop- forget to engage their brains before 4 ment industry. Game developers putting mouths in action often learn COVER IMAGE Darwin 3D expound their opinions about life, the tough lessons about making derogatory universe, and everything via .plan files, public statements on the Net. Off-the- PUBLISHER KoAnn Vikören and outside of the academic world cuff comments have been misconstrued, ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Cynthia A. Blair (where .plan and .project files were innocuous statements have been turned cblair@mfi.com probably first used to keep colleagues against authors, and 3AM rants have WESTERN REGIONAL SALES Tony Andrade across the country updated on research proven to be public relations messes the MANAGER (415) 905-2156 projects), this candor is fairly isolated to following day. As with anything you run tandrade@mfi.com our industry. Some may dismiss finger- up the flagpole on Usenet and the Web, ing .plan files as an outdated mode of adopting a harsh tone or making inaccu- MARKETING MANAGER Susan McDonald communication now that web pages are rate statements can get authors and their AD. PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Dave Perrotti ubiquitous, but in terms of simplicity companies in hot water. Companies DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION Andrew A. Mickus and beauty, there's nothing like pure whose developers author .plans should VICE PRESIDENT/CIRCULATION Jerry M. Okabe vanilla text to get your message across. adopt guidelines that spell out which GROUP CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Mike Poplardo To help disseminate the contents of topics are acceptable to write about and CIRCULATION MANAGER Stephanie Blake the various .plan files around the indus- which are not. This may sound authori- CIRCULATION ASSISTANT Kausha Jackson-Crain try, a number of web sites have been tarian and somewhat counter to the DIRECT MAIL MANAGER Claudia Curcio launched in the past two years, which open nature of .plan authorship, but it NEWSSTAND MANAGER Eric Alekman effectively market .plans to the masses. also prevents someone from exercising REPRINTS Stella Valdez A quick scan of the Stomped Finger poor judgement in a .plan. (916) 983-6971 Tracker at redwood.stomped.com My point is this: don't overlook the Miller Freeman reveals constantly updated .plan files obvious when you're trying to get some A United News & Media publication from id, Rogue Entertainment, Ritual attention in today's crowded market- Entertainment, Raven Software, place. Web sites are great customer ser- CEO - MILLER FREEMAN GLOBAL Tony Tillin 3DRealms/Apogee, ION Storm, vice tools and online product CHAIRMAN - MILLER FREEMAN INC. Marshall W. Freeman Quantum Axcess, and more. Over 100 brochures, but all too often they lack PRESIDENT Donald A. Pazour developers have .plan files listed on the soul. If you're management, encourage SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT/CFO Warren “Andy” Ambrose site, and about a quarter of those are .plan authorship within your develop- SENIOR VICE PRESIDENTS H. Ted Bahr, updated every week — quite a bit of ment teams' ranks. If you're creating a Darrell Denny, information. game and your company doesn't David Nussbaum, At a business level, there are so many already support the notion of .plans, Galen A. Poss, reasons to author a .plan that it's hard approach management with the idea. Wini D. Ragus, to know where to begin. A good .plan Doesn't it make sense for you and your Regina Starr Ridley brings developers closer to customers, company to do everything within your VICE PRESIDENT/PRODUCTION Andrew A. Mickus letting consumers tap into the thoughts power to generate consumer interest VICE PRESIDENT/CIRCULATION Jerry M. Okabe and feelings of the people behind the and loyalty, especially when all that's SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT/ Regina Starr Ridley SYSTEMS AND SOFTWARE games. .plans build excitement for required is a little time every week and DIVISION upcoming games and connect con- some space on your server? ■ sumers with the creators of shipping games. They bring game players closer to members of the development team, and they build company identity, loyal- GAME DEVELOPER JANUARY 1998 www.gdmag.com SAYS YOU What Dave Said gy companies. In fact, those interested her suppositions concerning what does enough to spend their own time learn- and does not interest men, and the dif- ing a subject are usually more capable ferences between what men and f we are to believe Dave Thielen than those force-fed in the classroom. women like are valid, how can she I ("Goodbye For Now," Soapbox, If the heart, soul, and passion driving explain my taste, as well as my friends' October 1997), then all of us in the the individual are missing, no amount taste, in video games? Women's tastes game industry are uneducated sloths of training or experience that the indi- in video games are, by and large, dif- who would do better to step aside and vidual has will help finish the project. ferent from men's. Not better, not let the "professional" programmers do Larry Dolyniuk worse, merely different. However, the the job! If that is the way Mr. Thielen via E-mail area of overlap is so large, I strongly wants it, then scratch ULTIMA: It was doubt that it’s necessary to specifically developed by a young Richard Garriott. target the female audience. And scratch many other successful As the hardware, software, and tools games while you're at it. What Nancie Said improve, so will the overall quality and I have seen many games programmed complexity of games of all genres. For by "professional" programmers. These that small bit of software that specifi- games all have "really slick code" — and feel compelled to write concerning cally targets women, there will be plen- that's about it. No heart, no soul, no I Nancie S. Martin's Soapbox (“Take the ty of programmers and design- passion. The game industry may Y Out of Computer Games,” ers, probably female, to create 6 change, but it will never completely September 1997”). My first it. For the rest of it, I think stamp out the Leonardos and reaction was insult the developers should Michaelangelos of the game industry. and anger, which has concentrate on telling These are the hearty souls that other quieted to mere hurt good stories. industries wish they had. They are the feelings. Imagine her Jim Williams pioneers with the raw talent and stami- article being written via E-mail na to overcome the persecution perpe- by a Nathaniel S. trated by the arrogance so often seen in Martin… imagine theT the attitudes of those who deem them- sneering tone and condescend- selves "professional." Many of the games ing attitude of the article being applied Wal-Mart and the RSAC that people love today were developed to females, rather than males. Instead of on an extremely tight budget. How this one, lonely missive in protest, you many programmers working in other would be flooded with e-mail, demand- s one of the members of the industries would go the extra yard to get ing blood payment. A committee who created the their product out even though they The nature of video games, to date, RSAC ratings system, I can tell you hadn't been paid for a month? has been largely determined by the that one of our committee members Concerning game publishers' will- audience, the nature of those writing met with Wal-Mart and received feed- ingness to decide for themselves the games, and the limitations of the back from their management before whether or not a product is worthy of hardware/software. Conflict, the heart moving forward with the system. We publishing: This problem isn’t isolated of storytelling (which is what video knew that publishers would not sup- to the game industry. Publishers in games are about), is difficult to pro- port a system that couldn't get them general have this problem. They have gram, except through violent, physical into Wal-Mart. I am therefore alarmed many products thrust at them, and activity. Consider the complexity of by your September editorial which when a product doesn’t stand out from the plot in an action movie vs. the plot suggests that RSAC ratings wouldn't the crowd, it gets overlooked.