Game Developer Staff Changes Audience? Answer: Lots of Testing, Lots of Iterating, and Lots of Indiana Jones
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coNTENTS.0512 VoLUmE 19 NUmBER 5 dEPaRTmENTS 2 GAME PLAN By Brandon Sheffield [EDITORIAL] PoSTmoRTEm Make Games for Yourself 24 INDIANA JONES ADVENTURE WORLD 4 HEADS UP DISPLAY By Staff [NEWS] How do you make a social game that can bring elements from THE Old fan-favorite franchises get revived on Kickstarter, LEGEND OF ZELDA: OCARINA OF TIME or TOMB RAIDER to a relatively casual and Game Developer staff changes audience? Answer: lots of testing, lots of iterating, and lots of Indiana Jones. Zynga Boston lead designer Seth Sivak shows 35 TOOL BOX By Matt Link [REVIEW] us what went right and wrong with Zynga’s casual-core-bridging Pixologic’s ZBrush 4R3 INDIANA JONES ADVENTURE WORLD. BY Seth Sivak 39 THE INNER PRODUCT By Slawomir Nikiel [PROGRAMMING] Cells for Cell Phones FEaTURES 44 DESIGN OF THE TIMES By Jason VandenBerghe [DESIGN] 7 2012 SOCIAL/MOBILE TECHNOLOGY SURVEY The Five Domains of Play Our big technology survey for 2012 focuses on the engines, tools, 47 GDC NEWS By Staff [NEWS] middleware, platforms, and services that mobile and social game GDC Vault debuts classic videos, GDC 2012 lectures developers are working with—as well as the tech they wish they were working with. By Mark Deloura 48 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore [ART] Tech Tao for Tiny Teams 16 TERA: EVOLVING MMORPG COMBAT If your MMORPG’s players are spending more time staring at 50 GOOD JOB By Patrick Miller [CAREER] cooldown meters than the monsters they’re fighting, you’re doing Q&A with Matt Sughrue, who went where, and new studios it wrong. Bluehole Studios’s Seungmo Koo explains how they pulled 51 THE BUSINESS By David Edery [BUSINESS] off TERA’S truly real-time “free-targeting” combat system without The Magic of Free-to-Play breaking their servers. By Seungmo Koo 52 AURAL FIXATION By Damian Kastbauer [SOUND] 32 WHAT WOULD MOLYDEUX? GAME JAM POSTMORTEM Vroom Vroom During a single weekend, over 900 developers across 30-plus 53 EDUCATED PLAY By Patrick Miller [EDUCATION] cities worldwide made more than 300 games as part of the “What ONE AND ONE STORY Would Molydeux?” game jam. Read about what went right and what went wrong with organizing a massively popular game jam in 56 ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT By Matthew Wasteland [HUMOR just under three weeks. By Brandon Sheffield Secret Info Inside Here www.gdmag.com 1 game developer GAMEgame PLANplaN // BRANDONBraNdoN SHEFFIELDSHeFFIeld magazINe www.gdmag.com MAKE GAMES FOR YOURSELF UBM LLC. 303 Second Street, Suite 900, South Tower ...AND NOBODY ELSE San Francisco, CA 94107 t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090 A lot of people say that if you want they’ve already put the weight of praises to the ends of the earth. to make a popular game, you need their appreciation behind it. Nathan Vella, president of SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES to listen to focus groups, carefully SWORD & SWORCERY developer Capy FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND monitor metrics, and focus on the OKAY, LET’s do it Games said this quite well. He ADDRESS CHANGES t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606 mainstream. I say: bullshit. Scaling » How do you emulate these said, “I believe that when you’re e: [email protected] small and being true to yourself successes? Contrary to popular targeting everyone, you’re really www.gdmag.com/contactus can win you free marketing and belief, you shouldn’t emulate the targeting no-one. You’re not EDITORIAL make you rich, if you do it right. actual products. Instead, pay making it for anyone specific, so Even better, your games will be attention to the thought process your target group is no-one.” PUBLISHER Simon Carless e: [email protected] way more interesting! that goes into making them, People can feel when a product EDITOR-IN-ChIEF beginning with the initial idea. is genuine, and there’s nothing Brandon Sheffield e: [email protected] PERSONAL POWER There is something that you more genuine than something EDITOR » Let’s look at some examples. like more than anyone else you you’ve made for yourself. That Patrick Miller e: [email protected] SUPERBROTHERS: SWORD & SWORCERY know does. Maybe it’s Apple II-era feeling of “I can’t believe someone MANAGER, PRODUCTION EP for iOS is single-player, has a platformers. Maybe it’s fractals. made this” is what gets you Dan Mallory e: [email protected] ART DIRECTOR singular aesthetic, and launched Maybe it’s dubstep, god forbid. instant success on aggregator Joseph Mitch e: [email protected] at $4.99, which is expensive for Find it, and dive right into it. communities like Reddit, which CONTRIBUTING WRITERS the App Store. It was a recipe What qualifies as a niche, then? are huge drivers of content. Seungmo Koo, Mark Deloura, Seth Sivak, Matt for commercial failure in a world “Sports” is too vague. The Olympics Your method of delivery is Link, Slawomir Nikiel, Steve Theodore, Jason Vandenberghe, Damian Kastbauer, David Edery, where the birds are angry, and gets a bit closer, but if you take, say, important too, though. If your Matthew Burns the top games are free. Still, the the Hurdle event in isolation, you’re game is hard to find, none of ADVISORY BOARD game wound up selling 300,000 starting to get somewhere. Now you what I just said applies. Consider Mick West Independent units in the first 6 months, need to find a visual or gameplay BLOODYCHECKERS, which is an Xbox Brad Bulkley Microsoft Clinton Keith Independent because the game was absolutely hook that really appeals to you (and Live Indie Game. Players explore Brenda Brathwaite Loot Drop true to its creators’ vision. They hasn’t been done to death). a massive first person dungeon, Bijan Forutanpour Sony Online Entertainment made it for themselves. A good example of this is QWOP, with loot, items, and experience Mark DeLoura THQ Carey Chico Globex Studios MINECRAFT is another easy one. which was a massively popular points, as they battle the denizens Mike Acton Insomniac Notch made the game that he Hurdling game for browsers. It had of a haunted castle—all by playing ADVERTISING SALES wanted to play. Granted, he knew stupidly difficult controls, but was a bizarre version of checkers. If he was making a sandbox for hilarious to watch in action, so this game were on Steam, the GLOBAL SALES DIRECTOR other people to fool around in, but people played and talked about it creator would be a millionaire. You Aaron Murawski e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6227 he didn’t do any market research religiously. The game has since gone have to go where the people are. MEDIA ACCOUNT MANAGER first. In making MINECRAFT for on to App Store success, and is a If you’re developing a game for Jennifer Sulik e: [email protected] himself, Notch created a massive great example of a good niche game. yourself, you can make something t: 415.947.6227 self-perpetuating hype machine, Once you’ve established smaller for less money and only GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, RECRUITMENT Gina Gross e: [email protected] because when people like your your niche and tone of gameplay, take a minimal risk. But the payoff t: 415.947.6241 game, with the proliferation of determine the targets you want to can be huge. You might think this GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, EDUCATION social media, they can’t help but hit, and never deviate from them. If doesn’t apply to you if you’re Rafael Vallin e: [email protected] talk about it. the mandate is “everything blows working on a big team, and you t: 415.947.6223 Something that resonates with a up,” then make everything blow might be partially right. But the ADVERTISING PRODUCTION small group of people will expand to up, even your UI. Rules like this principle of digging deep can be PRODUCTION MANAGER their friends, and then their friends, can help you scale small. Throw applied to one or two features just Pete C. Scibilia e: [email protected] and eventually to their parents and out everything that doesn’t fit as nicely. If your open world game t: 516-562-5134 grandparents, who would never your vision. has a really deep crafting system, REPRINTS have otherwise thought of playing You may worry that people for example, someone out there Wright'S media one of these games. won’t latch on to your idea. But will play it just for that. Jason Pampell e: [email protected] The reason this works so well none of us is unique, as much as And who says you should be t: 877-652-5295 is because people want to identify we might like to think so. There’s anonymously toiling away on that AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT with cool things, and they want almost certainly someone else big, bloated team anyway? If you AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER other people to think that they’re out there that likes the things have an idea, just get out there and Nancy Grant e: [email protected] cool for thinking that this “cool you do. If you make a game for make it. So find your passion, see it LIST RENTAL thing” is cool. This little corner of yourself, you’re also making it through, and don’t let the bastards Peter Candito the world they’ve discovered is for them. Nobody expects you to get you down. I’m taking my own Specialist Marketing Services t: 631-787-3008 x 3020 something they now identify with, make a game that targets their advice, and I’ll live or die by it.