Game Addict Hotline

Had a fun time time yesterday meeting up with the guys over at GameHouse and Real.com. They were having a tour for game press and local press and a look at some new games coming out from the companies. I really enjoyed myself and met up with some friends in the industry.

I got to play the Wiiware game Boingz that will be released in the next few months. It was reminiscent of The Lost Vikings in which you can switch players, but the intersting thing about it was the idea that you “pin” your guy to an object. I really thought it was an interesting idea, not sure if it will grab the audience it wants, especially after a certain article. But it is the beginning of WiiWare, so I am not expecting crazy awesome games. Too bad the downloadable content side is getting bigger with DSi and XNA coming out this November.

Here are some pics and videos from the event

You’ve been thinking for years about the next great game that could sell millions of copies and now you want to get it developed. Who do you go to? What should I expect when pitching the game? What do I to prepare for the pitch meeting? These questions were answered by Zombie games president John Williamson and panel guests on Friday night at the Penny Arcade Expo.

“So you want to pitch a game?” focused most of its discussion on choosing the right game ideas, what you are expected to do to prepare for that pitch meeting and what to do during the pitch to publishers. The panelists, including developers and business people that work with publishers told the crowd of gamers started the panel by speaking about the over 1,500 to 2,000 pitches they are sent to them every year, and how only 3 to 5 of those ideas become games that are sold in the market.

The process of an idea becoming a game goes through steps that include coming up with the idea, preparing the idea for presentation, presenting it to an agent inside the company in charge of game development and ends with the approval by the companies heads.

Many think that there idea could become the next big game, but Williamson and his panel gave the aspiring game makers advice about what to do before starting to shop around their game:

* Cultivate your idea: Though you have an idea, have you looked at
all the questions that people might have behind it. What will the
art style be? Who is this game towards? What differentiate this
game from other? Can you describe the game in under 15 seconds?
* Create a demo: Proof of concept is very big for the publishers. If
you can show you have more than just an idea, you on well on your
way. The demo doesn’t have to be perfect said the panel, but
should show that you are serious about the idea.
* Find the right developer for your game: A penguin platformer game
with two brothers that wear red and green sweaters probably won’t
work well with Nintendo. Find the developer that you think works
well with your idea.
* Do your research: Research how games that compare to your game do
with the market and add that to your pitch. Also research the
costs and other things that may spark the interest of the
publishers. One panelists said he would like to see 3 – 6 months
of preperation, with 200 – 300 pages of documentation on all areas
of the game. (including budget)

Once you have done those things, the panelists said its time to find the agent working for the companies you are interested presenting to and set up appointments with them or go straight to the developers to show them your idea. Once you get those appointments, the panel gave some important tips on making a better presentation

* Simplify your presentation: Make sure you can tell a publisher
about your game idea quickly and simply so that you don’t confuse
the person you present to or even yourself when questions come up
about the idea.
* Bring your team: Bringing the developers that know the more
complicated parts of the game like art or game mechanics can help
to answer some of the publishers questions. But don’t bring too
many people or you may have too many people talking at once about
the idea.
* Don’t start with the Story: Game publishers, according to the
panel, say that most of the presentation should be about the
gameplay. Though art, story and the cost are important, if the
gameplay sucks, it won’t be picked up.
* Be prepared: Be prepared for any question that could come up from
the developers and if your game is rejected. Be prepared to find
out why it was from the developers and how you can make it better.
Their opinions may tweak your game to the level it needs to become
a game later on.

Peggle is going portable one more time with the help of Q Entertainment. PopCap Games, makers of Peggle, Bejeweled, and Chuzzle, announced at Casual Connect Seattle that Peggle will be coming out for the Nintendo DS this Winter for the price of $29.99.

The game is being worked on with Japanese developer Q Entertainment. The company has had a lot of experience in the handheld gaming business with their games Lumines and Meteos.

“PopCap’s games are simple but addictive, and Peggle demonstrates that even a simple game can be extremely deep,” Shuji Utsumi, Q Entertainment’s co-founder and CEO said in a Press Release from PopCap Games. “We at Q Entertainment are honored to be working with PopCap and view this as a fun, exciting challenge – taking a very popular casual game and bringing it to a more hardcore audience on the DS.”

Though no official word on the details in the game, PopCap promises that their will be more levels than any previous Peggle game, controls specificly setup for the DS and some other surprises. PopCap also announced that Peggle will be released on mobile in the near future.

PopCap also announced today that their popular hidden object games Amazing Adventures and Mystery P.I. Are also coming to the DS. Amazing Adventures: The Forgotten Ruins and Mystery P.I. – Portrait of a Thief will be coming out in late 2008 with a price tag of $19.99

This discussion was on the use of Xbox Live Arcade and how game makers will make big money on their games. The talk started on a lot on different techniques that a game can get from demo to purchase

Acheivements: Some games that you can demo will tell the gamer when they have completed an achievement and if they buy the game, they can be awarded them. Scott Austin from Xbox Live Arcade spoke at this session says this has been very big in sales

Give them enough: Showing numbers of hours played by some gamers, Austin spoke that some games gave too much and would have gamers playing demos for hours on end without purchasing the game.

Don’t give it all away: Giving players the game with limited functionality and levels has been a mainstay and continues to help in getting gamers to convert to the full game

Show them enough: With games like frogger, you don’t need to give too much to show gamers you should buy. Other games need to show more and have to work harder to keep a gamer interested and later buy the game.

Austin also discussed numbers that told the crowd how much gamers are playing on XBLA:

• 110 million XBLA games downloaded
• 160 million gameplay hours
• 360 million gaming sessions
• 90 million acheivements
• 1 billion gamerscore points (achieved just a month ago.)

News about the games being played on XBLA last fiscal year was also discussed at the conference talk.

Top five games with unique gamers:

Uno
Bomberman Live
Street Fighter II
Sonic the Hedgehog
Feeding Frenzy

Top five games in gameplay hours:

UNO
Bomberman Live
Puzzle Quest
Worms HD
Zuma

Microsoft announces DirectX 11 and free online gaming on the Games for Windows games at XNA Gamefest in Seattle, Wash. Microsoft’s Chris Satchell, Chief Technology Officer for interactive entertainment business, announced the new offerings at the conference’s opening keynote.

DirectX 11 will include according to Satchell:

• Multi-threaded resource handling
• A more advanced shader
• Hardware Tessellation
• Fully supported in Vista and DirectX 10 and 10.1 hardware

Microsoft’s GM of XNA Group, Boyd Multerer, came on later to discuss the aspects of XNA and discussed new tools that will be released this August.

Xbox Live Community games, games created by the developers club, got more indepth information as well. Multerer discussed that games produced on the developers club will first be sanctioned appropriate by a peer review inside the club. Next, the game will be available for the price of 200, 400 or 800 points to people in the Xbox Live Community area in the new . It was also announced that creators of the games also get 70 percent of the profits from the game.

The community games will be released first in the USA, Canada, France, Italy and Spain. Games can also be bought from the Xbox.com website when it becomes public.

Microsoft also announced big news for Games for Windows with free multi-player for all gamers starting today, reduced tech requirements for new games, and a new marketplace that will be coming out in the future. Satchell also announced that people who bought Live accounts only for PC gaming will be reimbursed for their account.

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News of the Day:

• McCain Uses Video Game Music From a Composer Who Supports Obama
• EA Cracking Down on Dirty Spore Creatures
• EA’s Neil Young Leaves EALA For Unknown Project

Special *site only* updates:
Wii Menu Update Already Hacked
Take-Two Compromises With The FTC

Please leave a comment on our site or email me at
gameaddicthotline@gmail.com

School is over soon with graduation next week. I thought I would tell you what I have been up to and what has pushed me out of doing the podcast. Working on school projects in Public Relations, Technical writing, and a 20+ hour work week on the newspaper has really strained me for time. But, in the end, I have some cool stuff to show you.

Next week, I start planning for new shows and hopefully a daily five minute show. Hope you’ll enjoy.

Here are my stories and videos from the newspaper.

WARNING! Big files, broadband required.

Articles

Western students celebrate Chavez, farmworkers (page 7)

Runner fabricated attack story, police say (FRONT PAGE, page 4)

Sitdown Comedy (page 12 – 13)

Women’s golf finishes second at West Regionals, Men’s golf earns spot in national tournament (page 14, page 16)

Women’s golf finishes sixth at nationals, Men’s golf finishes eighth at nationals (page 21, 23)

Summertime jobs promised on flyers and posters (page 6)

Western design students encourage bicycle use (page 5)

Audio Slideshows

Plywood Project

Rakugo

Step2This

So, I got hit with a virus on the website. Don’t worry, it’s gone. I have placed the better business bureau on the case and they are going to find out who did it and shut down the owner of the virus. It’s hopefully the last of it. The thing I hated the most was that Google places my site as harmful and makes it hard to access. Luckily it was taken care of.

Anyway. Here is a story about the cut throat fight of the Commodore 64 in the UK.

It’s interesting to see how the market was and how it is today. It’s also super interesting to see the piracy issues of the past and how stupid easy it was to copy a floppy. (well, tape.) Anyway. I have been against piracy of still selling games where the game are still easily accesable in your area and the copywrite owner is hard to find. I think I changed my tune when I started working at Microsoft and saw how much time and effort is placed on each game. If money is still being paid to the creators, I still agree with it. I think that’s how some in the music piracy feel about the issue of music. But I’m a game journalist, not a music journalist.

The Scottish developers of Crackdown, Realtime Worlds, don’t have a new version of crackdown in their future. The company has decided to go back to its roots with a MMO game. The game is Grand Theft Auto MMO and have their CEO, David Jones, one of the original GTA developers, on hand to help in its creation according to John Duthie, Head of HR at Realtime Worlds.

So why no Crackdown 2? Seems according to Duthie, Microsoft waited too long to renew their contract with Realtime Worlds. I guess if you have a score of game makers with no game deal and you needed to start a new game so that you can pay your team, I would do the same. I’m trying to get some official confirmation from the games development team or public relations at GDC.

UPDATE: The game is named APB and Realtime Worlds will be having a session about it Thursday at 5:30. I also added a picture from the employment hall.

UPDATE2: Okay. Seems everyone knew they were making the APB game but me. I guess that’s not the news. Seems no crackdown on Realtimes Worlds’ minds is the big story. You can check out info on the game now here

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With 1 month already flying by on this new year of gaming, what will happen to the gaming landscape for the rest of 2008? This show is all about who will be the winners and losers of gaming and what games you should expect from your favorite system.

On the show, we had:

• Glenn Percival, podcaster for Playstation 3 Nation
• Dan Amrich, writer for Official Xbox Magazine and podcaster for the OXM Podcast
• Brett Elston, writer for GamesRadar

Music for the show compliments of Nullsleep

If you like to comment on the show please click on the show title link above or the comments link on the bottom of the page or you can email me at gameaddicthotline@gmail.com.