Indies Launch Price Control Initiative

Because We May has launched as a way to highlight the importance of indie developers controlling their own pricing. It has over 50 titles now and is scheduled to end on June 1.

“We believe that developers should have the freedom to price their games how they like, without interference from the online stores that sell the games,” said the official site. “Why Because it allows us to promote our games more freely, as we are doing here! We rely on the ability to promote our games for our livelihood and control over pricing is an important tool for this purpose.”

Source: 2dboy.com

 

Chronicle Director Tapped For Shadow Of The Colossus

Josh Trank has signed an agreement with Sony Pictures to direct a live action adaptation of Shadow Of The Colossus. The film will be produced by Kevin Misher; Sony is still looking for a screenwriter.

Trank directed the $13 million Chronicle, which turned into something of a hit and made him a hot commodity. The Fumito Ueda-created game about a hunter killing 16 colossi to revive his dead lover in 2005.

To his credit, Trank has been looking to work on the project and is a fan of the game. Trank is also developing Marvel’s Fantastic Four and Venom for Sony Pictures, and is aligned to the Warner Bros comic book adaptation Red Star.

Source: Deadline

Sony Patents Game-Pausing Ads

Sony Computer Entertainment America has filed a patent for in-game advertising that puts gameplay on pause after a warning, resuming after it completes the roll of the ad. The patent notes that a server signal could make sure players see the ad simultaneously and that it could work on multiple different devices.

“A method for use in advertising includes initiating playing of interactive content, suspending playing go the interactive content, displaying an advertisement, and resuming playing of the interactive content,” reads the patent description.

Read more at the patent description.

Far Cry 3 Insane Edition Comes Loaded

Ubisoft has announced a collector’s edition for Far Cry 3. Called Far Cry 3 Insane Edition, it will launch September 7, on PS3, PC and Xbox 360.

The collector’s addition will include a 12cm Vaas Wahine bobble head and a ‘Insanity Guide’ containing hints and tips to help you survive the island. In-game bonuses include the NPC Hurk and his four new missions, the Lost Expeditions with two missions featuring an exclusive weapon (the Japanese gun), the Hunter Pack with the M700 hunting rifle and its three collector’s skins, the Warrior Pack featuring a handcrafted dagger and two exclusive tribal tattoos and the Predator Pack with four exclusive rare predators and a multiplayer bow.

Black Ops II: Activision Defends Oliver North Inclusion

Oliver North is a controversial figure in American history, and his involvement in the Iran Contra affair makes him a patriot to some and a traitor to others. He’s managed to rehabilitate his image and he’s a regular on Fox News, but that doesn’t mean his involvement in the promotional video for Call of Duty: Black Ops II went unnoticed, and Treyarch’s Mark Lamia defended the decision as one of authenticity, not politics.

“When we create the fictions that we create, we do a bunch of research and try to talk to subject matter experts on it,” said Lamia. “Part of that research is reading and watching documentaries and movies and everything else. What can be a part of it is talking to people who’ve been through the experiences, people like Hank [Lt. Col. Keirsey, military adviser], and when you’re talking about doing something in the ’80s, black ops, when we were doing research in the conflicts that we were covering and everything else and some of our conflicts . . . in any event he rises to the top as someone who was probably, obviously the most well-known covert operations [person].”

“So it made sense for us from a game development point of view to spend the time and be able to talk to [him]. One of the things we do is we have these brushes with history in our Black Ops fiction. That’s a signature, I think, to the way we create our historical fiction. We set you up with that,” he added. “We put you in this place where it’s, ‘Ok, I’m in that part of history,’ and we have sort of that fiction we weave right through. Part of doing that has been and is getting a first-hand account whether that was last time in Black Ops, when we were highlighting parts of Vietnam, meeting with someone who was a real S.O.G. who did black operations in Vietnam and in this case with Lt. Col Oliver North.”

North had been involved with wet work operations during the ’80s, so Lamia said that made him a good person to try and go to. “We chose to take on that late ’80s time frame and when you think about that late ’80s time frame . . . you know, we’re not trying to put anyone on a pedestal,” said Lamia. “We’re trying to create our fiction as game developers, as creators. Choosing this person, somebody who has met with leaders, and has run black operations, and understands that was really valuable to have that sort of first-hand account from him… Even down to people who he’s met with in terms of understanding this is somebody who has sat at these tables.”

Source: Kotaku

NYT Battle Was A Real Life Game

NYT, a Finnish newspaper, was looking to generate visits to their main website. The idea they had was three teams to try and complete as many of 47 tasks as they could, and ended up garnering 45,000 views and bringing 15,000 new visitors to their site!

Source: Ads of the World

007 Legends — Moonraker

The new James Bond game will, instead of concentrating on the latest film Skyfall, will focus on classic movies. First up for 007 Legends is Moonraker, guaranteed to have things like laser guns and showing that nearly everything is better with the James Bond theme.

Epic’s Mike Capps Talks Benefits Of Company Hierarchy

Almost everyone in the industry has an opinion about the Valve new-hire handbook. Mike Capps, president of Epic Games, sees the advantages in such a system but talked about the benefits of having hierarchies.

“The bigger we get as a company, the harder it is for everyone here to feel comfy just walking into my office and telling me what I’m doing wrong. There’s a lot of guys here who would do that in a heartbeat because they’ve been in the trenches with me but there’s folks here who only know me as the president of a multinational,” said Capps. “An engine programmer on the editor team, if he’s not happy with the tasks he’s doing, can talk to the editor lead or if he’s not happy with the editor lead he can talk to our director of engineering or he can talk with me. But there’s a lot of different folks you can chat with about your assignments and what you’re doing and whether you’re happy about the people you’re working with.”

“If there’s no hierarchy and you’re just two hundred people standing in a building, who do you talk to about what’s making you uncomfortable who can help you to fix it You need to know who to call on and where the specializations are internally,” he noted, adding about creative liberty, “There’s a lot to be said for freeing people’s creative impulses. We try to do that as much as we can because that’s where most of our cool ideas come from.”

“I don’t think we’re quite so laissez-faire about it [as Valve]. What we tell people when we hire them is ‘you need to tell us what you want to do and what you’re good at and then we’ll make clear what needs to be done’,” he added. “If somebody really wants to be a painter but they don’t have any painting talent and they’re a great programmer, I can’t afford to let them paint all day long so they’re going to have to program. But that doesn’t mean we won’t help them learn how to paint and give them the resources to learn. Maybe someday they’ll be a great painter too. And then if we don’t need programming but we need painting, well, now you’re a painter because that’s what we need to do to get this game shipped.”

Capps said that having job-title-specific roles is destructive. “We’re certainly closer to Valve’s self-organizing process but I think we tend to try for efficiency as well as creativity and that means you balance between the two,” he said.

“We do company meetings almost every week and we try to remind people what the high level goals of the company are,” said Capps. “But I think each team handles it very differently. Some game teams will organize around a very rapid ‘scrum’ style approach where they’re doing sprints and everybody is working together on combat this month and everybody is working together on experience systems the next month. And then we have teams like the Engine team who mix their time between adding new features and fixing bugs or optimizing for games that are shipping soon.”

“Day to day, the individuals are figuring out what they need to do to be successful,” Capps concluded.

Source: Gamasutra