>>PRODUCT REVIEWS MOTIONBUILDER 6 * IMAGEMODELER 4.0 FOR MAC MARCH 2005 THE LEADING GAME INDUSTRY MAGAZINE >>DEVELOPERS UNITE >>DOUBLE INTERVIEW ISSUE >>MOMENT OF IMPACT ORGANIZED LABOR: BUENA VISTA GAMES & SUCCESSFUL TIPS FOR CURSE OR BLESSING? INTROVERSION SOFTWARE AN EFFECTS SYSTEM POSTMORTEM: WHAT’S INSIDE THE ROOM? THE HORROR OF SILENT HILL 4 INVESTIGATED 456,500GBs daily* 25 of the top 30 media & entertainment companies trust Akamai to deliver hundreds of thousands of GBs daily. They trust Akamai to deliver more than content. To deliver billions of downloads daily and give users what they want when they want it. Why? Because Akamai provides instant scalability to handle spikes in traffic, delivering positive user experiences and increased customer loyalty. learning more and get your copy of Online Games: 10 Tips to Increase Play and Profitability. Call 888-340-4252 or visit www.akamai.com/gaming *Akamai delivers an average of 456,500 GBs per day, this is equivalent to approximately 702,307 CDs. (based on Akamai Platform data collected from the 12/1/04 to 12/20/05) \©2005 Akamai Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Akamai and the Akamai logo are registered trademarks. []CONTENTS MARCH 2005 VOLUME 12, NUMBER 3 FEATURES 14 UNIONIZE NOW? Truckers, janitors, nurses, and teachers did it. Then Microsoft contract employees did it. And most of the film industry did it quite some time ago. Game developers, faced in their places of business with major quality of life issues, have realized that forming a union is an option. But would it be the best solution? By Paul Hyman 14 21 MOMENT OF IMPACT: DESIGNING AN IN-GAME EFFECTS SYSTEM Irrational Games, creator of TRIBES: VENGEANCE and SWAT 4, describes a flexible approach to managing effects within a framework, showing how developers from all disciplines can trigger complex effect events without needing to constantly rely on programmers for support. By Terrance Cohen 31 INTERVIEW: BUENA VISTA’S GOOD VIEW In the last 10 years, movie production houses that were once making games fled the interactive side of entertainment. But Graham Hopper has helped Buena Vista Games chart a new course. Hopper talks about 31 Disney’s role in allowing Buena Vista to focus on a 34 core gamer audience. By Brandon Sheffield POSTMORTEM 43 INTERVIEW: FROM UPLINK TO DARWINIA Chris Delay and Andrew Bainbridge are self- 34 WHAT’S INSIDE THE ROOM? proclaimed bedroom programmers who say they are THE HORROR OF SILENT HILL 4 INVESTIGATED the last of a dying breed. Working as part of They say it’s more Psycho, less Nightmare on Elm Street. More Introversion Software, they completed a cult PC PLINK disturbing, less shocking. What makes SILENT HILL 4so scary is its hacking simulation called U for their debut, and deep focus on psychological terror. In THE ROOM, textures, camera are now finishing their second title, DARWINIA—a name angles, lighting, characters, a mysterious story line, and alternate that aptly describes their own search for survival in realities all push the player further down that dark tunnel of fear. an evolving business. 43 Yes, what is inside the room? And how do I get out? By Kieron Gillen By Akihiro Imamura and Akira Yamaoka DEPARTMENTS COLUMNS 4 GAME PLAN 49 INNER PRODUCT By Sean Barrett [PROGRAMMING] Enjoy the Silence Optimizing Pathfinding III: Inadmissible Heuristics 6 HEADS UP DISPLAY 55 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore [ART] EA bites Take-Two, Xbox sales figures, Stardock’s software, and more. Let There Be Light: Colored Light 8 SKUNK WORKS By James Alguire and Tom Carroll 61 NECESSARY EVIL By Hal Halpin [BUSINESS] ImageModeler 4.0 for Mac and MotionBuilder 6 Ratings Matter 62 [SOUND] 96 A THOUSAND WORDS AURAL FIXATION By Alexander Brandon The Behemoth’s ALIEN HOMINID The Line of Quality Part II: Licensing 64 GAME SHUI By Noah Falstein [DESIGN] In the Beginning COVER ART: COURTESY OF KONAMI WWW.GDMAG.COM 3 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] MANAGING EDITOR Jill Duffy [email protected] ASSISTANT EDITOR Brandon Sheffield [email protected] ENJOY THE ART DIRECTOR Cliff Scorso [email protected] CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Sean Barrett [email protected] SILENCE Alexander Brandon [email protected] Noah Falstein [email protected] Steve Theodore [email protected] ADVISORY BOARD Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large Ellen Guon Beeman Monolith Andy Gavin Naughty Dog IT'S ONE THING TO WREST A CONFESSIONAL “bedroom programmers” from the U.K., but Joby Otero Luxoflux postmortem from the callused hands of a local creators of two fascinating PC titles, UPLINK and Dave Pottinger Ensemble Studios George Sanger Big Fat Inc. Western developer, as we often do, but another the forthcoming DARWINIA. Although operating on Harvey Smith Midway thing altogether to get one from a Japanese a micro-budget, largely from the proceeds of Paul Steed Microsoft creator who explains both the triumphs and their last game, Delay and Bainbridge have been ADVERTISING SALES NATIONAL SALES MANAGER mistakes of creating a particular game. We using organic experimentation to brainstorm Afton Thatcher e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6217 ARWINIA SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER, EASTERN REGION & EUROPE managed it for our postmortem on Namco’s D ’s game design, a process frowned upon Ayrien Machiran e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6224 KATAMARI DAMACY, and luckily, we've now conspired at most larger companies, but offering some ACCOUNT MANAGER, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA & MIDWEST to get another of the biggest Japanese developers, unique opportunities. Susan Kirby e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6226 ACCOUNT MANAGER, WESTERN REGION & ASIA Konami, to contribute to this issue. The in-depth Nick Geist e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6223 postmortem of Konami’s latest, deeply unnerving ACCOUNT MANAGER, GLOBAL EDUCATION/ BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER RECRUITMENT & TEXAS psychological horror title, SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM, Luckily, that's not all the pleasantries we have to Aaron Murawski e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6227 begins on page 34. SILENT HILL 4 is both unsettling exchange this month. Check out the feature on ADVERTISING PRODUCTION ADVERTISING PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Kevin Chanel and daring, and the creators and article authors designing effects systems (page 21) by Irrational REPRINTS Julie Rapp e: [email protected] t: 510.834.4752 Akihiro Imamura and Akira Yamaoka explain the Games, creators of TRIBES: VENGEANCE and SWAT 4. We GAME GROUP MARKETING reasoning behind this paradigm shift from previous also have a news section particularly focused on DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS STRATEGY Michele Maguire games in the franchise, now that the genre and EA and Take-Two's battle for the sports licensing DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Tara C. Gibb MARKETING COORDINATOR Yukiko Grové mood are established with obstacles like dueling market; a special business column from Hal Halpin CMP GAME GROUP realities, unkillable ghosts, and a new third- of the Interactive Entertainment Merchants VP, GROUP PUBLISHER APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES Philip Chapnick person/first-person shifting perspective. Association, discussing the issues that retailers CONFERENCE DIRECTOR, GDC Jamil Moledina face in defending the voluntary ratings system for ASSOCIATE CONFERENCE DIRECTOR, GDC Susan Marshall EDITOR, GAMASUTRA.COM Simon Carless GRAND UNION FAILSAFE games; and the conventional columns from our CIRCULATION Ever since the current controversy over “quality of standing columnists. CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Kevin Regan e: [email protected] life” in the game industry barreled into view, CIRCULATION MANAGER Peter Birmingham e: [email protected] there's been a call to do something, anything. As INDIE, SCHMINDIE? CIRCULATION COORDINATOR Jessica Ward e: [email protected] SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES a result, the concept of organized labor for game The other day, we received a particularly FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND ADDRESS CHANGES professionals has been raised, perhaps “refreshing” letter to the editor, the subject line of t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606 e: [email protected] sometimes without full understanding what that which was “Dear CORPORATE Game Developer INTERNATIONAL LICENSING INFORMATION really means. Fortunately, Paul Hyman has helped magazine.” Once the red mist had cleared and we Mario Salinas us out. As the game industry journalist for the read the rest, we realized that the correspondent e: [email protected] t: 650.513.4234 f: 650.513.4482 EDITORIAL FEEDBACK Hollywood Reporter, Hyman neatly straddles the had underlined a good point. Although sister web [email protected] line between our industry (where unionization is site Gamasutra.com has been covering CMP MEDIA MANAGEMENT currently just a concept) and the movie business, independent games in greater depth and PRESIDENT & CEO Gary Marshall (where it's a long-time reality). In his feature frequency lately (take a look at the postmortems EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT & CFO John Day EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT & COO Steve Weitzner article on unionization (page 14), he draws some of selected Independent Games Festival entries), EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CORPORATE SALES & MARKETING Jeff Patterson piquant views from a multitude of parties, we sometimes find it difficult to talk about the CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Mike Mikos including EA_Spouse, high-tech union chiefs, the less well-funded but altogether more free indie SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, OPERATIONS Bill Amstutz SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES Leah Landro IGDA, and Electronic Arts itself. market, due to the space constraints of the VP/GROUP DIRECTOR INTERNET BUSINESS Mike Azzara magazine format. But, after featuring the IGF in VP & GENERAL COUNSEL Sandra Grayson our Game Developers Conference preview last VP, COMMUNICATIONS Alexandra Raine DISNEYVERTED PRESIDENT, CHANNEL GROUP Robert Faletra The expanded size of this issue of Game Developer month and Introversion Software and ALIEN HOMINID PRESIDENT, CMP HEALTHCARE MEDIA Vicki Masseria has allowed us to slip in not one, but two in this issue, we've already been making a VP, GROUP PUBLISHER INFORMATIONWEEK MEDIA NETWORK Michael Friedenberg interviews.