Publishers cotton on to Kickstarter. Drama ensues.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119668-Obsidian-CEO-Publishers-Are-Trying-to-Sneak-Into-Kickstarter

Free to play

http://www.gamesbrief.com/2012/09/can-narrative-led-games-be-free-to-play-the-gamesbriefers/

"This post is the third in a series called ‘The Gamesbriefers’ where industry luminaries debate topical questions about game design, monetisation, business and ethics."

Another interesting KS article.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-07-29-kickstarter-the-wisdom-of-crowds

Vivendi set to divest 60% of Activision/Blizzard assets

http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/2012/07/activision-blizzard-is-up-for-sale.html?m=1

Games getting easier

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/06/28/games-are-getting-easier-5-reasons-thats-a-bad-thing/

An article regarding the recent trend of games getting easier to play/complete and some of the reasons behind that/reasons why that sucks.

Game dialogue writing

http://kotaku.com/5921878/why-video-game-characters-say-such-ridiculous-things
A few pointers and observations on writing dialogue for game characters.

Kickstarter technical considerations

http://e1ven.com/2012/06/13/exploiting-kickstarters-success-metrics-for-fun-and-profit/

Interesting look at the technicalities and loopholes of reaching kickstarter goals.  Something that will probably need to be addressed by KS in the future!

Full trailer released for Deponia

http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6379802/deponia-full-trailer

Beautiful point and click adventure game, somewhat akin to Monkey Island 3 in graphic style and attitude.  Worth keeping an eye on.

Booth babes at E3, are they bad for business now?

http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/banning-e3-booth-babes-isnt-good-manners-its-good-business
Great article about the shift in demographics for the games industry, and why aiming your promotion entirely at men and playing to stereotypes could be alienating female gamers and harming your business/sales.

Kickstarter musings

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/blockbuster-effects
An interesting article on the ins and outs of Kickstarter.  As Neil Gaiman puts it: "For anyone worried that Kickstarter is a finite pool, or a big Kickstarter is taking money away from smaller ones"

Infamous Adventures gets a mention in Game Informer!

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/209/gi2e.jpg/

Infamous Adventures feature in an article on classic adventure game remakes in the June edition of Game Informer magazine :)

Indie game marketing advice interview

http://www.indiegamemag.com/building-awareness-is-a-huge-step-indie-game-marketing-advice-from-phil-hassey/

Some helpful info about getting your new game noticed, indie bundles, games cons, and Steam.

Ron Gilbert's new game for Double Fine gets announced!

http://www.vg247.com/2012/05/24/the-cave-gilberts-double-fine-game-comes-out-of-the-dark/

After several character design concept teasers, Ron Gilbert's game is finally announced.  It will be published by SEGA.  Looks stunning, and definitely still carries his signature style.  Looking forward to this :)

Leisure Suit Larry makes it into the Wall Street Journal!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVGtSLsgwS4&feature=youtu.be

Great timelapse video of the vector art background elements in Space Quest 3!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1QPVfGq19f8

Interview with Al Lowe about LSL!

http://www.destructoid.com/interview-lowe-on-leisure-suit-larry-225743.phtml

Adventure games are go!

So with the continued success of Kickstarter, the adventure game genre is finally getting a revival!  All the old masters are crawling out from under the woodwork to get their new/remake game proposals funded, and they are doing well.  Al Lowe is pitching a remake of Leisure Suit Larry 1, which if successful, will pave the way for him, and the rest of the team at Replay games, to start making new Larry titles.  Tim Schafer has had great success with his kickstarter efforts, with a goal of $400k, they actually raised just shy of $3.5 million to make Double Fine adventures.  Jane Jensen, also an ex Sierra Online employee and creator of the Gabriel Knight games is raising funds to start a project where backers will get access to all the games they produce over that year, and get input into some big decisions in the games' development.

Jane Jensen Kickstarter page

I have also just discovered today, that on top of all this, Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe (the original creators of Space Quest) has teamed back up again with a new company called Two Guys from Andromeda, to continue making space related adventure games.

Guys from Andromeda

I genuinely hope that all these projects and more get the go-ahead and get the genre back in the public eye, and that the bottom doesn't fall out of this kickstarter trend before that happens!

Proposal for summer.

I am currently working on a proposal for the research I intend to do over the summer break from uni.  This will lead on to a dissertation length business plan and feasibility study to produce a 2D point and click adventure game, which I would be lead artist on.  I am basing the game on a continuation of the story my current animation, Forest (still a working title at the moment), and as such will be using my production bible as proof of concept.  I intend to use my time working at Infamous Adventures to learn more about the production pipeline and the ins and outs of business start up.

Edge games industry news for March

zynga-keen-draw-something-dev

braben-pre-owned-killing-singleplayer-games

molyneux-industry-wasnt-ready-milo-and-kate

Wow!

Preview of Deponia

Edge magazine

The most recent issue of Edge has an interesting article about microtransactions and the future of games developers.  Worth a read.

Double Fine's kickstarter efforts.

News at Double Fine

Homage or intellectual property theft?

 An interesting article about the increase in "cloning" of popular games in the casual games/apps market.

 Game developers - A faint line on cloning.

Games artist, living the dream!

Here is a link to the site and forums for the adventure games company I am working for.  I am currently involved in backgrounds, character dialogue portraits and cut-scene art.  There are links to download our finished games, and there are plenty of exciting new ones on their way!  You can also follow us on facebook for updates.

Infamous Adventures homepage

Interesting video about "the joy of discovery" in games from the developer of Braid.

The phrase "the joy of discovery" really struck a cord with me.  I experienced this playing the classic adventure games in my early gaming days, but also while recently playing Limbo.  I think it is a step in the right direction to design games that don't hand you the answers on a plate, and where part of the challenge is simply figuring it out.  It is also quite promising for the revival of the adventure game genre.

Work experience opportunities!

I don't know how far afield people would consider travelling, possibly over the summer for their placements, but thought the jewellery designers might like a little heads up about a post I just saw on the facebook page "punky pins":

Who would like to come and see what its like to work with Punky Pins for a week or 2? We have a couple of vacancies free for work experience coming up, email claire@punkypins.co.uk

Based in Middlesbrough.

A bit more exposure!

Just got an invite from Lainy Allison at Contemporary Arts Dunfermline, to submit work for their upcoming exhibition.  It's open to everyone, and all disciplines.  Thought there might be a few people on the Design and Market module who could benefit from this.  Check out their website for more info:

http://www.thisiscad.org/

Internship!

Another important part of this module, and in preparation for joining the industry, is to gain work experience on an internship/placement either during term time or over the summer holidays.  I fortuitously stumbled across a company a couple of weeks ago, who were remaking old Sierra adventure games, upgrading the graphics from the earlier EGA, to the VGA quality and style of their later releases, and producing some original work too.  I sent them an email and was invited to join their forums where I became an intern, and after a few sample projects was promoted to a full team member.  As the company is made up of people from all over the world, they operate online so we can all work from home, at the hours convenient to us, interacting through the forum.  The perk of this, is that not only do I see what goes on in my own department, but all the work being done everywhere else to make the game, from programming, to music, to branding and marketing.  So far, it has been a very fun job to do, and has given me great experience of working in a team, adapting to different styles and increasing the speed at which I work.

Progress so far!

To briefly explain the purpose and nature of this blog, I am currently in my 3rd year of Animation at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, and one of our modules is called Design and the Market.  This involves researching and interviewing creative people in the industry we have most interest in, or hope to work in.  My team chose to concentrate on the games industry.  Computer games, from their actual game-play to their design, have always been a passion of mine and it has been very enlightening so far finding out how others got into game development and made a success of it.  The first outcome of this module is to give a 20 minute group presentation on our findings and insights.

Our first order of business was to meet as a group (a rather large group, of 6 students!) and make a list of the games companies we were aware of that might suit our needs, research them a little and narrow those down to a shortlist to contact.  What we were looking for was a degree of success in the industry, innovative practices, and a creative approach to branding, marketing and design.  We selected companies who stood out from the crowd for one or more of these reasons and sent out emails, made phone calls, pulled favours with our contacts, in the hope of securing interviews with their staff.  We were equally interested in speaking both to artists within the companies; for info on their personal experiences getting into and working in the industry; and company directors who could give us more insight into how they made their company a success, through effective recruitment, market research, advertising and unique style.

We were lucky enough to secure interviews with two professionals who could give us both those sides, one by email and one in person, which also allowed us the opportunity to see their working environment.  After going over what we learned from the interviews, and selecting areas of interest, we have split up the topics to further research between us in preparation for the presentation this Friday.