Category: Audio&Games

I can’t believe how the digital distribution aka the backbone of my business is doing well. Amazon.com had a “record holiday orders” with 210 countries delivered. And a peak at 72.9 items sold per second. Talk about crisis.

Steam is skyrocketing. when I remember its launch and how people were just puking on it. I remember saying to myself that they had balls and a big big vision at Valve, an independant PC game developer. It was a mess but it was for the better.

Five years later, 559 games are available on the service which has 16 million active user account (suck it WoW). Jon Blow said that Valve was not really interested in his game Braid, except it’s now a success. They answered back and they want to publish the unique 2D platformer now. I think it proves that success is not turning them from the focus of providing great games (L4D is of course another proof).

In his last interview, Jon talks about the PC and once again, I totally agree (about consolish PCs):

“I think both those things are true. I definitely like Steam, in that I can buy a new computer and bring it home and turn it on and install Steam and I have all my new games on there. And pretty soon, they’re doing the settings and stuff now [via Steam Cloud, which allows users to store save game and configurations server-side]. That’s pretty cool.

At the same time, I definitely want to be able to play games that aren’t on Steam, right? I definitely want access to services that are not Steam and that are competing with them, because maybe they’ll do something better. Maybe they’ll do something in a different way.

So I’m in favor of both. And I realize that that introduces some amount of chaos into the thing. That’s okay, though, because the PC is the place where that can happen.”

This amount of chaos diminishes every year, every time people want to do things better. Man, LOOK at these websites they are promoting INDIE GAMES:

 
Polytron, Fez game.

Beatnik Games, Plain Sight game.

Pieces Interactive, Walkie Tonky game. 

These games are still in beta. These games runs on PC with no Steam or whatever client. How would you describe their websites? Far from the chaos. More like neat products, almost like they were there before you.

It strikes me. 

Plus on my three examples, none are from the US. I mean, the industry is focused on the US world number one game market where there is too much actors and companies focusing the same market (GTA/ Saint Row example). Jason Holtman from Valve is right, we need to listen and search for people who want to play our games. The world is large, there is about 100 and 200 millions PCs sold every year, we now have reached the billion machine connected on the internet..

The future of entertainment is not gonna be produced in one region of the world. Neither it’s gonna be on a closed platform with partners doing about everything they can to make the life of third-parties indies harder. MS seems to be the only one -hey it’s a software tools maker company first- to acknowledge that.

2009 Independent Games Festival Finalists, by localization:

Chile 
Sweden
USA
USA
Japan
Canada
Sweden
Ukraine
USA
USA
Czech Republic
Canada
Belgium
Switzerland
UK
USA
USA
UK
Singapore
USA
Sweden
USA

France, Spain Germany Italy what are you doing?? Even Switzerland and Belgium have a game in competition.

Hey ladies 

I wanted to talk about these guys from the north of Europe. They really rock hard, people there start coding before walking, the demoscene is huge.. A real and neat computer culture.

Petri Purho from Finland launched Crayon Physics Deluxe a few weeks ago and from what I can hear, it’s a success. Made by a damn twenty and something student who fucked up his education just for this really cool and awesome game that is CPD (buy a cheap wacom if you really want to enjoy it, or wait for the end of 2009, cheap multitouch screens).

Petri won the IGF last year. This year once again north guys are at it (meanwhile they were around for years): Eric Svedäng from Blueberry Garden fame which has never really had a fame BUT the game always seduced me (audio atmosphere, physics, simplicity I’m sold!), here’s the trailer.

Nicklas Nygren is a swedish game developer and musician who totally nails the art of "audiovisual atmosphering", his next game is going to be great, can’t be another way.

Kian Bashiri from YHTBTR fame is nominated for his non-game and I hope to see more from him in this way: satire we need more of that: the game industry is so serious in its fantasy with its Dead Wrath Of The Space King stuffs.

These guys really inspire me.

By the way I had a little crush with Dyson last year so I’m glad to see this UK rts game making it to the finals.

Have you seen the Subversion work and its procedural generated city tool? Just awesome.

Don’t miss the 1st GlobalGameJam, a worldwide event in which people are gonna make games in three days. As I start a game company with some audio design and project manager things to do, it’s gonna be a nice training. Paris event is HERE.

Coding Horror had a really good article on piracy (via Petri). The article still mentions the World of Goo case though we don’t have any update about the piracy rate. It’s gonna be really interesting to learn about numbers with 2DBoy at the GDC 09.

In a nutshell the solution is:  Have a great product. Charge a fair price for it. Piracy is not a dead end, it’s also the best viral software distribution network. Web 2.0 talks about getting eyeballs well, piracy with newsgroups and p2p are myHi5spacebook fo game developers. Publishers cannot deal with it but indies sure can. And should.

Rara Racer is awesome (via Raph). It’s a little game made in 48 hours and it’s the kind of game that surprises you even when you think it can’t. Trust me and play it.

There’s only two games from the ps3 that I’d love to play (videos in links): PixelJunk and Flower (ok, let’s add Noby Noby Boy).

Digital organic-ness.

What I don’t really understand is that these games are made by little companies (Q Games, TGC) which certainly want to maximize their investments. Why going exclusive with the horse who’s dying in liters of blood? I really feel it was the last time little gamedev teams would go this way. I hope so.

Gamasutra reminded me with his Best Of 2008 that the game business in Montreal seems like a great family in which employee salary fixing and spying could be the routine. Interestingly enough, Flavie was HR manager at Ubisoft Montreal -and ex COO’s wife? same Tremblay last name- then she was at Eidos and she’s back in Ubi, same position. Fucking weird and totally french if you ask me. Comments are quite funny:

“Ubisoft management “ideologues” are some of the most corrupt in the business, as anyone that has worked with them can attest. This is one of several methods they use to shore up either incompetent or shoddy internal HR practices.

What is surprising is that Eidos didn’t tell Ubi to go fuck themselves when extended this kind of offer like EA/Dice did in Bucharest or Crytek did in Kiev.”

Ouch.

“In fact, altough I am a employer, I must agree with the idea, competition to pay higher and higher salaries are what drive costs upward wildly, make games cost 60USD on the box, and results in stupid workers having high salaries.”

Then change your stupid business model of AAA that sell poorly and cost 18-24months/100-200 people to produce. Setting a salary-fixing BS is plain wrong, especially with a government as nice as the Canadian one (heavy tax breaks). Greed is a disease.

By the way another one:

“And, you know, I tend to only call sexism when something is offensive to women while glorifying men — but all the show really glorified was that it’s awesome to be a chubby nerd in your underwear. How do you guys feel about being portrayed that way?”

First I don’t wear underwear and I’m a funky nerd. But this is why “video” games awards have no appeal on me -even if it’s the start of recognition of a culture wall- because I’m too much fucking busy searching and experiencing things to really care about which game is the game of the year with people looking to the good old past. The same for a lot of folks in the game industry. I admire people able to do some code and express themselves in front of a camera. Opposite skills. Let us another few years.

Crayon Physics is out on the iPhone.

Dream timelessness. 

InfiniteAmmo announces Marian. I love how this little team is giving and sharing stuffs. Alec, composer and coder did a Pajama Jam. So cool, I did a little one too. They can’t stop doing games and prototypes, I love it.

This year the level of polish from indie games is gonna be mature.

I don’t play computer games often. I only had in my life a few gaming consoles, starting in 2001 with the gba. I have Steam and a gazillion games to play -just on this platform- and yet don’t have the time. I play music.

Harmonix (cool simple website I love it) knows how music is one of the best game available on earth (I’d say it’s the One!). There are Rock Band releases every week, 500 songs to play for now in merely 12 months. 28 millions DLC sold so far. On the last three months, music games are driving music sales. Founders of Harmonix are now multimillionaire. The other day I tried the drums (awesome Black Hole Sun) and looked again at how people are enjoying it and it’s brilliant. Even if sales of that kind of game are plummering, the essence of this funny activity that is music is quite unmatchable and will be forever. Like Go or Chess.

So Wii Music could be a great success in the long time. After watching more about it, I really think it will.

Music is so skills and co-op at the same time. The player is constantly giving input while receiving feedback when playing in/with a band, in a looping way I would say. Mastering that balance is meaningful, it boosts global listening skills and I’m convinced the world really need to improve on this point. Oh well.

Grinding? Endless grinding, no limits of levels, masterisation is a long road and every great musician would say "there’s always room for improvement, things to learn in music". Your life is not gonna be enough.

Maybe it’s just me but I find producing music (ie a la Prince "Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed") is very similar to making games: there’s a plan. there’s an overall architecture, key features. Two billions possibilities of interaction between that growling bass sound and that ethereal synth groove, why you change, in relation to which audio event etc. Exactly like the the birth of a game, so much choices and paths.

Of course you playtest like hell. When you have something, you debug (filters parameters, volume tweaks pan and all).

Screaming Tea Party via Flickr. 

So how is it that so few people in the game industry -at least here- actually play music one of the oldiest and best game we ever invented so far? Why people are discovering it with button mashing guitars? Music is not that hard.

A few years ago I learned something: you know that little game called Street Fighter II I bet that like Mario or Zelda’s themes every single game developer can sing one of the tunes of that awesome 1991’s game.

Well the music was composed mainly by developers. They simply had a music band in the Capcom Street Fighter dev team called Alph Lyla that would play at the end of the day and have fun. The music would eventually make it to the final product (tweaked by Yoko Shimomura I guess).

SF’s music is great with various styles, fits the game nicely (Sagat stage!). Has been made by CODERS. *head asplodes*

Q entertainment and Grasshopper are often talking about their respectively teams as "music bands". Jeff Tunnell‘s too.

There’s a great parallel between music and computer games. It’s obvious but not simple, I think you really need to do some music to understand that. Shigeru plays banjo Raph plays guitar, Alec plays piano etc. They all have a different feeling about games that those who don’t.

It makes me think about something: I feel that we in EU push so hard on the visual part of games and from a design (LBP) or technical point of view (Crysis), we simply rock hard, as hard as we blow with audio.

We lack AudioVisual consistency, something quite difficult to achieve but totally crucial: Nintendo is the Lord of the GUI audio feedback that gives you happiness you didn’t even played yet, you’re still in the menu!

Believe it or not, it’s a true part of their success.

The iphone really has the first point but the second is gonna be so hard to achieve.

The iphone is the hot gaming platform out there from a developer point of view. Everybody want to do some 8bits conversion sold 3.99$ and become Apple’s bitch millionaire games on it.

The iphone is more powerful than others portables gaming platform, it’s a friggin’ Dreamcast!

Well Sega how can you manage to get a Super Monkey Ball with a framerate that ain’t worth a shit? i love katamari? HAHAHAHAHAHA. I love how Kotaku seems so sure about a thing:

“Hopefully the game’s crippling issues are the result of sloppy programming, not the limitations of the iPhone itself, and Namco Bandai can issue an update to fix the thing.”

I don’t know. I am with some friends trying things making prototypes on the iphone and man, the limitations are here. The graphic hardware is good but you are very limited in what you can do with it. Saying bad framerate -which is on 90% of the games I saw on the phone- is the result of sloppy programming is childish, please show some respect to professional people who actually are trying their best with a platform so hyped that it seems that nobody can handle the truth:

The iphone is a phone. It’s not a gaming platform. The graphic power is really cool for little apps but if you think that it’s a matter of time to see beautiful rock solid 30 fps-ish 3D games, you’re stucking your head into the sand.

The only game I saw with solid framerate (the framerate is the feeling) is Touchgrind from Illusion Labs and as you can see, there’s almost NOTHING on the screen except your skate and some textures.

You think it’s just a design decision? Well you know… Yeah, you could tell that but truth is even with very good coders (sweden people are known to be good at it), the iphone is fucking limited.

So no, it’s not a Dreamcast because it has a powerVR chip Sega WTF.

There will be others mobile platform with better graphic specs, maybe it’s gonna be with an open distribution platform. Just wait another year.

the rise of the audio feedback… \o/

The multitouch capabilities are what game developers want to try and play around with. I really want another platform to do so and a cheap one (eee multitouch trackpad?  eee top?). I still can’t believe there’s not an 8″ multitouch screen tablet out there, it would sell like crazy (Kindle2?). I mean come on, even on Youtube you can see a student doing it what HP DELL and manufacturers are waiting for???

I hope patents are going to be clarified so that manufacturers like Asus and co could spread the multitouch way faster than Apple and its products can. The technology is cheap, the demand is here.

Bullshitting about a phone is not helping. Well, just saying!

I feel bad for all of the game developers especially in the US. In case you didn’t know, Midway is facing possible bankruptcy (well when they were making the DC vs Mortal I was wondering from where they were back. They were dead for me), Factor 5 -in which I know a frenchy- faces financial issues (no one paid, projects canceled) and the big one EA:

From DubiousQuality

Stock price of Electronic Arts. -75% in a year. Good luck Brütal Legend. This summer at the GDC Paris I was impressed by the “wind of change” that seemed to blow in this big corporation; they were explaining F2P with their Battlefield franchise, there was Mirror’s Edge, Boom Blox, Skate it, Spore… Sadly none of them really achieved something special.

Mirror’s Edge seems to have been rushed out to match a financial quarter (STOP making ten headlines about your game per day on the main games blogs, it’s ridiculous and yes LBP I’m looking at you too). Spore is quite a success but quite a disaster from a public image point of view (conclusion: STOP the fucking security bs before you even think about it).

So you would think Ubi is in good shape while rivals are biting the dust. Well maybe not:

“While three acquisitions are currently on the table, the loss of Cryptic Studios to Atari left the company disappointed, according to Martinez.”

Of course they are, they desperately need a cash cow like a MMO, like WoW the shit that sells like crack.

Did I mention F2P ?

So like the movie industry which was uncapable of doing other things that western and colonial stuffs with huge publishers, the medium is facing a large crisis. And a reborn. The rise of creative aware multi-talented people working the Game in every way. We’re all still brainstorming and prototyping but I think something really powerful is going on.

Minotaur China Shop is out. It’s fun well polished and all. Congratulations to the Flashbang peeps.

Knytt Stories, I have it on my netbook, lovin’ it, the feeling is great (listen to the audio). Polishing once again. Here’s a design tour (via Petri’s twittaah). 

How about labrute.fr one of the fastest growing website audience in France? The gameplay is simple ok there’s none BUT this is a game. Labrute makes more audience than some national newspaper with a  concept ala Battlemail. Good job Motion Twin.

Globz has launched a new version of Globulos, check it out.

Games are really, really mainstream when I see ads everywhere for Left 4 Dead or for the 360 or Babyz on my way to work, I have hard times to think this is fairly new. But this is, games are fucking HOT (via Raph).

I didn’t spread the word so that nobody can think about it but me but Ron Gilbert’s DeathSpank needs attention (coming in 2009):

There’s no point to argue against it: Europe is aging fast. Here’s the fact that is really really huge:

“Austria’s Social Affairs Minister painted a bleaker picture in 2006, saying the 55 to 64 year old age bracket in the European Union will be larger than the 15 to 24 year old bracket by 2010.”

In other words while the game industry is totally focused on the hard 15-24 year old bracket, almost nobody’s is thinking about this (full of cash) 55-64 bracket. Instead big publishers focus on.. Fuck-me.

I only saw two projects about the senior market. The first one is Dancetown “a PC-based dance game specifically aimed at older players and retirement homes, to give players regular exercise and reduce the risk of falling”.

A DDR game for people born in the 1920s 1930s, I really like the idea. My grandmother has no hard physical problems yet she can’t move without this because she did nothing with her muscles for YEARS. Dancetown can be a real good solution for people like her (well, before her state).

The second attempt to solve people problems with games is the Eldergames project funded by the European Commission. The first prototype is pretty cool: a touchscreen table with card games and adaptive AI to maintain player’s cognitive action up while playing with others. Hoping that it’s gonna get somewhere (this is a problem with EU you know).

Games are for everybody, and not everybody is a male stuck in the early twenties. On the left the original swedish developer design, on the right a korean fanboy design:

Bigger (not that, the overall pic dude).

Developer’s reaction:

“We really wanted to get away from the typical portrayal of women in games, that they’re all just kind of tits and ass in a steel bikini. We wanted her to look athletic and fit and strong [enough] that she could do the things that she’s doing.

We wanted her to be attractive, but we didn’t want her to be a supermodel. We wanted her to be approachable and far more real. It was just kind of depressing that someone thinks it would be better if Faith was a 12-year-old with a boob job. That was kind of what that image looked to me.”

I agree. The fact is that it doesn’t really matter in a First Person View game. Concept art is so 90s. Play, feel (the Pure Time Trial map pack DLC seems neat and totally going this way), don’t be a visual dumb slut.

About playing, Auditorium is an awesome experience. So is The Lake minus the music: please indie peeps, slow down on 8bits saw/square melodies and snare noises, it’s fucking limited. The Lake could have been a much more better experience for me with a good old stereo mp3/pcm whatever music file. I keep thinking about the experience though. We all should do more 5 minutes games like this.

Rhythm Tengoku is coming to Europe in January. Don’t miss it (Wario Ware meets Ouendan). Audio for the win.

 
So cutyfunkyfresh.

Le géant de l’informatique est en train de faire ce que beaucoup attendaient d’autres constructeurs. Asus à travers sa gamme EEE dévoile largement ses intentions de prendre votre maison d’assaut.

EEE box: minuscule PC qui se cache partout.

EEE top: PC à écran tactile qui se cache moins, mais qui peut être intégré facilement dans un salon.

EEE stick: nouvel input.

En plus d’avoir ouvert un marché, celui des netbooks (estimé à 50 millions de machines dans 3 ans) qui n’existait pas il y a quelques mois (performance bien plus balaise à mon sens que vendre un téléphone tactile mais je m’égare), Asus réussit là où beaucoup d’américains n’ont jamais vraiment réussi (pourtant ils en vendent des machines aux offices, HP==118 milliards de $ de chiffre d’affaire cette année oO): rendre le PC sexy et en même temps aussi peu important qu’un frigo.

Ca semble contradictoire mais c’est le cheminement normal de la technologie. C’est pour ça que j’aime sourire quand on me dit "j’aimeuh mon ordieuuh à pommeuuh" parce que c’est mignon. Ca passera.

Mais le plus intéressant ici, c’est les EEE sticks.

 
8 directions 3D, vibrations, 10m de portée.

N’oubliez pas: ce n’est qu’une première version (le bouton power un peu mal placé), il y en aura sans doute d’autres. En tout cas c’est exactement ce que je veux en tant que développeur de jeux: des inputs différents mais toujours un PC derrière, permettant l’utilisation d’outils de développement standards sans se poser de question de compatibilité et la liberté de vendre, distribuer exactement comme je le veux. World of Goo tourne parfaitement sur un EEE PC. Des milliers de jeux tournent sur ces petites machines. Hey, il y avait des jeux fantastiques avant les quads et les 4870 X2, siii !!

Donc quand un analyste prédit que le marché casual va exploser via les netbooks, il y a des raisons de le croire. Vu à quel point la Wii atomise ses concurrentes dopées aux stéroïdes, il n’y a pas beaucoup de soucis à se faire sur la véracité du concept.

Prochaines étapes de conception: rendre ces machines lavables à coups d’éponges (j’en ai trop marre de me laver les mains à chaque fois que je cuisine ET que je chat; imaginez avec de l’écran tactile), rendre ces machines noiseless.

Et alors là, vous allez pouvoir vous immerger grâce à l’audio…:)

Dans d’autres nouvelles (oui je sais…), CAMSPACE est prêt et il faut que je test avant ce we.

Pour finir: NO SHIT. Phil Harrison, la bouche à BS de Sony pendant des années et désormais patron d’Atari nous explique qu’il faut prototyper rapidement que c’est bien etc. Le gars a soutenu pendant des années la console la plus difficile à programmer qu’on ai jamais créé au point que même des putains de gros salaires d’ingés ne suffisent pas pour finir un jeu (THQ ferme 4 studios d’ailleurs) et il vient nous dire qu’il faut prototyper rapidement parce que c’est ce dont a besoin le gamedev ? Prends la porte Phil, vas faire un tour. Et marche une heure ou deux tiens.

Les jeux disparaissent. Tous ces vieux titres sur disquettes 5 pouces un quart, sur K7 et autres supports magnétiques supra fragiles sont en train de disparaitre dans vos greniers ou dans la liquidation de telle boite de jeux… 30 ans d’histoire pour le jeu numérique et déjà la mémoire ne sera peut-être pas complète (alors que techniquement on le peut facilement) tellement on respecte le travail des autres. Mais bref.

SAVE THE VIDEOGAME (via HoC)

Richard Lemarchand from gamecity on Vimeo.

Killer Shark, un jeu Sega de 1972 ça ne nous rajeunis pas !

Il existe la même initiative en France sous l’égide de l’association MO5.com qui a à ce jour récolté plus de 30 000 items autour du computer game (consoles, jeux magazines etc). M’sieur Ulrich soutient:

Tera et la Cité des Crânes. 1986, Loriciels.

Avec ce jeu, j’avais appris le terme "soudoyer", une des capacités des prêtresses. huhu.

Disquettes de boot et de backup qui ont un peu vécues.

 
Vu chez Jeff, source.

Samedi soir j’ai joué à la démo de Left 4 Dead, totalement adoré, totalement fait dans mon pantalon. Au bout d’une demi heure même pas avec casque sur les oreilles j’ai arrêté. Seul c’est vraiment flippant mais à plusieurs ça sentait bon dans le concept, ça l’est selon Kotak ("It’s arguably one of the best multiplayer games of all time.") l’IA cartonne etc bref avec l’UGC c’est LE jeu de zombies ultime. Il me tarde de faire une LAN avec mon clavier et ma souris…

Mais voilà samedi soir j’avais envie de me détendre, pas de stresser. Alors j’ai relancé mon petit World of Goo chapitre 3 tranquillou.

Petit jeu contre grosse artillerie c’est ça. Le petit jeu gagne tout le temps, plus mature et compatible avec le lifestyle adulte (en général hein). Je me ferais bien une nuit par mois de Left 4 Dead mais y jouer deux heures tous les jours ce n’est plus possible depuis un moment.

L’addiction rapide vs les sensations fortes. Pas besoin d’opposition, deux styles qui ne sont pas incompatibles sauf côté production où c’est vraiment différent.

L4D a été en développement depuis trois quatre ans maintenant, il bénéficie de tout le savoir-faire de Valve et de deals complexes avec les grands acteurs de l’industrie. Valve est unique.

WoG a été en développement pendant trois ans, à deux avec peu de ressources ( physique par ODE merci l’open source). C’est beaucoup trop long mais la porte est ouverte à tous: Il y a moultes petites équipes de 4 maximums avec des protos ou des jeux en cours de prod et distribués sur le Net. Leur cas est "facilement" copiable là où le coup de poker de Valve avec son moteur et sa plateforme de distrib sont "difficilement" atteignables. Pour le moment.