Develop Conference & Expo

[pipo]

If other articles (from other sites) pop-up could you please add them in this thread?

Thanks!

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3395&Itemid=2

Starting June 12, Next-Gen will be at the Develop Conference & Expo in Brighton, which will feature top figures from Epic Games, SCEE, Q Entertainment and Microsoft, among many others.

The Develop Conference & Expo will feature keynotes from Epic Games VP Mark Rein, Bungie Studios’ Marty O’Donnell and a keynote panel which includes Rein, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios head Phil Harrison and Nokia global marketing head Kamar Shah.

...

Stay tuned for developments beginning Wednesday.

 

[one]

The conference website

http://www.developconference.com/

 

[Mmmkay]

http://next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3396&Itemid=2

Rein Pours Scorn on Episodic
Regarding the hot topic of episodic, he said, “I’ve heard a lot of insane talk about episodic content. Very little of it makes any actual sense. It’s a broken business.“

He explained, “Customers are supposed to buy half a game after 20 months, then wait six months for an episode? When I put a game down, I want to try a new one. Episodic games that offer faster turnaround will inevitably be using a lot of recycled content, walking through the same environments and shooting the same enemies with the same weapons.â€

...

However, his opinions did not go down well with all the audience in this busy seaside town.

“Mark, you are a dinosaur, you are wrong,†yelled one delegate. Another exclaimed, “Your brain is locked,“ and yet another accused him of self-serving arguments, saying that promoting the full-priced model best serves a company selling game engines such as Epic’s Unreal Engine 3.

Rein retorted, saying that Epic offers a variety of models including ones for Xbox Live Arcade.

He talks some more about profitability and best practices at the link.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Epsiodic content is likely to be similar to TV content I expect, and that means ghastly rubbish that gets worse over time until it fizzles out with a whimper. Modern stories have no end, or any really story arc. They just make stuff up as the go along to stretch the series and milk the franchise for as much as possible. After a while it gets boring. Plus most games aren't story based or even suited to stories. A FPS is about shooting things. That's why you play it. A collection of new cutscenes every month isn't going to affect the experience a great deal.

Instead of episodes, you could go with standalone stories, like the numerous Never Winter Nights modules. That way you're not stringing gamers out over the one story, but giving them many to dip into. Very few games are suited to such content though - adventure/RPG.

It's bad enough we have game sequelitus, but to have story sequelitus without even adding new content to the game would drop game development into the lowest pit of crass market-driven commercial tripe, IMO.

 

[AlNom]

It's bad enough we have movie sequelitus, but to have story sequelitus without even adding new content to the movie would drop them into the lowest pit of crass market-driven commercial tripe.

Sounds like what's already happened! The end is near for gaming!

 

[pipo]

A couple of hours ago, Epic Vice President Mark Rein opened the Develop Conference in Brighton with a keynote covering topics ranging from the economics of next-generation games, episodic content and middleware (which, incidentally, Epic makes a lot of its money from). The majority of the second half of his keynote took a critical look at Intel's place within gaming; specifically, Mark thinks "Intel is killing PC gaming".

...

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/12/epics-mark-rein-intel-is-killing-pc-gaming/

And:

Mark Rein is currently sitting 3 feet away from me, and is heavily immersed in an interview with a journalist. Only five minutes ago I heard him saying "I need a stiff drink" in not-too-subtle tones as he walked past the press area. The reason? Most likely his supposed "heckling" from developers over his strong opinions cited in the opening keynote of the Develop Conference this morning (UK time). One developer went as far as calling Mark "a dinosaur" regarding his views about the industry's direction.

...

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/12/overheard-develop-mark-rein-i-need-a-stiff-drink/



One more link to Rein's keynote (no new info): http://www.mcvuk.com/newsitem.php?id=1171

 

[Titanio]

Heh, that keynote was probably a lot livelier than he's used to. Wouldn't have minded seeing that for myself! I wonder if he'll come back to that conference in the future..

Some interesting sessions going on there. I'd say coverage will be limited though.

 

[pipo]

Microsoft says it's being overwhelmed by new game pitches for Xbox Live Arcade. At the Develop Conference today in Brighton, England, the firm's Jeff Sullivan said, "We're saturated."

...

He said 65 percent of Xbox Live users had downloaded an Xbox Live Arcade game, with downloads now at 5 million. The conversion rate is still about 20 percent (demo to purchase) compared with less than 2 percent in the PC market. "This is blowing away anything in the PC space," he said, explaining why the service is so popular with developers.

...

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3402&Itemid=2

Innovative controllers and input devices are crucial to widening gaming's appeal to the mass market, according to a Develop panel earlier today.

In “Designing New Kinds of Games for the Masses,” representatives from developers of popular music based games talked about the importance of controllers that feel natural to non-game-playing consumers.

...

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3401&Itemid=2

 

[pc999]

Personally I kind agree with Rain, episodic content like it as been said it is a bad thing IMO, I would like if it is something like a new level every week that brings something new (for the story, weapons, new things to do, a prelude, side storys etc) but I dont like the idea of needidng to wait a lot of months and at the end get only a bit more.

Personally I think it does have potential but not the way it is shapping it will be.

 

[TheChefO]

Personally I kind agree with Rain, epesodic content like it as been said it is a bad thing IMO, I would like if it is something like a new level every week that brings something new (for the story, weapons, a prelude, side storys etc) but I dont like the idea of needidng to wait a lot of months and at the end get only a bit more.

Personally I think it does have potential but not the way it is shapping it will be.

Agreed - more frequent updates should be manditory (weekly/monthly) as waiting multiple months for an update which doesn't last more than a day would get old before it starts. They are doing "episodic" content on live now in this sense with being able to download more cars/ tracks etc but there is no real excitement in that the content is more of the same. If the game story were truly engaging then adding to it will lead gamers who are interested in story driven games onward but in gamings current state, it would not work as there are maybe a handful of games which could sell on story. Traditional rpgs would be good with this but they would also have to update frequently enough to not let the story die. 5 hours of gameplay updated on a weekly basis would be great for this format but the pricing model must also be addressed. perhaps with the advent of in-game advertising the price will be matched closely to current game prices but with more overall content available via ad dollars.

 

[Titanio]

Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Keynote

He also showed off the new puzzle game, Gunpey, which is similar in nature to Lumines, but uses lines instead of blocks, and appears to be significantly more daring in terms of on screen incidental graphics and music.

He also spoke about Lumines II. "We will be making announcements about the artists and music [that] we will be working with. I am also very interested in the network situation with PS3," he said.

 

[ihamoitc2005]

"Episodic" content

yet another accused him of self-serving arguments, saying that promoting the full-priced model best serves a company selling game engines such as Epic’s Unreal Engine 3.

I think episodic is great for middle-ware technology sales because episodic content producer must have fast content production not long technology development. So I feel middle-ware maker has too much to gain from episodic content models. Pricing for middle-ware for episodic is easy to "adapt".

 

[pc999]

They are doing "episodic" content on live now in this sense with being able to download more cars/ tracks etc but there is no real excitement in that the content is more of the same.

In some games that is fine (eg fighting, multiplayer, racing) IMO but not enought (ie I like that too but just as a part of it), but for others it would need something that add something to the gameplay eg in a Halo (or even Splinter Cell) universe I would like a few episodes here you play the marines is a more team/tatical/action way here they capture intel that is used by master chief in the games. There would be some minor changes but I think it could work very well

In GoW it could be very interest see the first loucaust attacks and how the caracthers but now you do have to use "old" weapons (you would need to be better with them), there isnt as many places to hide, a few suprisses from the AI etc...

On the top of that this most be well priced, they may try cheat us on that.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

eg in a Halo (or even Splinter Cell) universe I would like a few episodes here you play the marines is a more team/tatical/action way here they capture intel that is used by master chief in the games.

Yeah, you mean like they could have actually completed Halo 2 and then sold us the Covenant missions as episodic content to 'fill in' the other side of the story one at a time every couple of months?

I'd go for that.

 

[pipo]

A little bit more in-depth article from the keynote: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10046

...

“A pretty reasonable expectation for a game should be 400,000 sales each on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC,” he said. In the case of the company’s forthcoming Xbox 360-only Gears of War, he revealed the company was aiming for the equivalent (1.2 million) on the one platform.

...

“You need to be able to make a profit out of your development advances, as well as having some royalty back-end, although you shouldn’t rely on it,” he said, suggesting profit of a couple of million on a development budget of $8 million seemed about right.

A key ability in this regard, he argued, was not over staffing projects, even when publishers demanded it, as well as maintaining strong control over the decision when prototyping becomes production.

“For the majority of Gears’ development, it’s been a 25 man team,” he boasted. “We’re borrowing more staff from the Unreal Tournament 2007 team at the moment, but for long periods of time, there were only 10 people working on it.”

He addressed the much discussed topic of intellectual property rights in typically blunt style.

“You have to be prepared to give up your IP rights, even ancillary rights,” he said, although not directly commenting on the ownership of Gears of Wars. “It’s not worth taking a bad deal and keeping the IP. Execution is a more important skill than coming up with ideas. When your track record is solid enough, you’ll get the chance to pick up the ancillary rights.”

...

And some news from Xbox Live: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10054

...

The headline figure for Jeff Sullivan, one of Microsoft’s developer relations managers for the Games Technology Group, was the attach rate for Xbox Live amongst Xbox 360 users - a massive 60 percent, which is a huge increase over the 10 percent gained by the original Xbox.

“Every time I do this presentation I have to check what the new figures are,” Sullivan said, before rattling off up-to-date stats such as Xbox Live has hosted over two billion hours of gaming, including over 500 million games of Halo 2. It also handles over 900,000 voice and text messages per day. But there’s plenty more where that came from, with Microsoft on-track to hit its target of six million Xbox Live accounts in 2007.

Two key drivers of this growth will continue to be Xbox Live Marketplace and Arcade.

...

Looking to the future however, the biggest shift for Xbox Live is what Microsoft is calling its Live Anywhere initiative. A way of bringing converge to Xbox 360 users and Vista PC gamers, it’s a process that will see a common interface employed across both platforms, as well as bringing all the advantages of Xbox Live, such as community, skill matching, anti-cheating and unified billing systems into the online PC gaming space.

The first titles to use the service will be Halo 2 for Windows Vista and the cross-platform shooter Shadowrun, due in early 2007. Sullivan said, these will initially only offer a limited subset of Xbox Live features, acting as guinea pigs to test how opening up Xbox Live within the PC Internet works.

...

And indeed, on a more strategic level, opening up Xbox Live remains one of Microsoft’s medium term goals. For example, publishers are now being encouraged to integrate their own services into Xbox Live through the XLSP program, which enables third party servers and data centres to fully interact with Xbox Live content, for example, enabling publishers to stream out in-game video feeds to website; something that up to this point has only be available for in-house teams such as Bizarre Creations.

...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Personally I kind agree with Rain, episodic content like it as been said it is a bad thing IMO, I would like if it is something like a new level every week that brings something new (for the story, weapons, new things to do, a prelude, side storys etc) but I dont like the idea of needidng to wait a lot of months and at the end get only a bit more.

Two examples of where it's bad. Simon the Sorcerer 3 was a zillion year wait to conitnue the adventure series. The game started as a Lucasarts-esque 2D adventure, and episode 2 ended in the middle of the story. It was then a huge wait for one of the worst games ever to finally appear. Totally destroyed the story. Another example was the Witch's Wake mod NWN. It provided a different experience system to killing things, and made for an engrossing RPG. It had two episodes released, more 'coming soon', and then the project got shelved. Even now they're creating premium content I think it remains dead. That's another risk with episodic content - the chance it'll stop halfway through.

 

[pipo]

... Margaret Robertson of EDGE gave her top picks from the last year or so's crop of games at the Develop Conference; read on for the lowdown. ...

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/13/develop-game-design-ideas-worth-stealing/

 

[Guden Oden]

That's another risk with episodic content - the chance it'll stop halfway through.

Well, compare that with traditional monolithic game releases where if a game is cancelled half-way through, nothing is ever released at all.

What would you rather have, half a game that could be good or great, or no game whatsoever?

 

[slider]

More coverage from Gamasutra. Touches on Rein's episodic comments.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10075

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What would you rather have, half a game that could be good or great, or no game whatsoever?

No game whatsoever, if it's story based and the story isn't finalised. I'll make do with all the other complete games, rather than spend my money on unfinished titles. There's a difference between story based games on most games though. The BGDA series was canned before a third title could be produced, but as the story was irrelevant and made up as they went along, it's better to have the games for the gameplay than have the series never released. Whereas if it's something like the Witch's Wake, which is more a story with some game aspects to move it along, I'd rather they not produce it at all if they're not going to finish it.