October 08, 2005

October's Octopus Of Optimism

oct05.jpg Oops, first things first - last time I posted about Game Developer, I got a couple of the issues conflated. As you can see by the cover, the Top 20 Publishers issue of the magazine is now out. The November 2005 issue, about to go to the printers, has Valve's Half-Life 2 on the cover - well worth the wait, with exclusive art and lots of insight from the team. We also have a technical article from SCEE Liverpool on Wipeout Pure's ship physics system, and its implementation within the relative constraints of the PSP, as well as an interview with academic James Paul Gee about games for learning - he's written a great book on the subject, and has some fascinating views.

Otherwise - well, Tokyo Game Show was great, and I managed to write up a whole bunch of stuff on it for Gamasutra. Also managed to pick up random crapola in Akihabara - a Bandai Wonderswan with Rhyme Rider Kerorican, the infamous Rez Trance Vibrator, and a copy of the super-smart Oh! My! Ouendan for Nintendo DS. Next up - Serious Games Summit in Washington at the end of this month. Oh, and I think I'm moderating an panel on game HR for the Game Developers Conference portion of IGN Live in Anaheim in a couple of weeks.

And a few highlights from recent Gamasutra features to end: an IGDA talk on Factor 5's Lair, a recent write-up of the CTIA mobile conference, tips on paper prototyping for video games from Tyler Sigman, Jim Rossignol's interview with the EVE Online developers, and a multitude of others. Content is still king, baby - even if actually making it yourself seems to be going out of style. Why is that? People are crazy.

Posted by h0l211 at 08:19 PM