I wrote an article on David Perry’s wiki about where the money goes in the games industry. It explains in details and in simple terms all of the many source of income and costs involved in selling a top-quality next-generation videogame, from the cost of developing the game itself to the money gained from selling strategy guides.
If you’re interested on the business aspect of games, I think you’ll find the article very informative. You can read it here.
The last week has been one of the busiest in my life. It started last week-end, when I moved to a new appartment. A lot of work and sweat, but the new place is much better: it’s bigger, newer and located right next to a park. I took a day off sunday, before returning to work monday morning after two weeks vacations…
…Only to be shown the door before I could turn my computer on. Long story short, I took the fall for a project that was going badly before I joined it. My boss disagreed with the decision of letting me go, but the decision came from above. I didn’t really fit within the company culture anyway — I had considered quitting before — so it wasn’t too big a loss for me. It’s just too bad I won’t be working with the folks at the Montréal office anymore — lots of great people there.
On tuesday, I found a contract to work on: I’ll be contributing new contents on David Perry’s game development wiki. It’s still in its infancy, but the site is shaping up to be a great ressource for everything related to game development. Everybody can contribute to the site — just like wikipedia — so go in there and add links to your favorite game development articles or write your own! I’ll be writing a lot more for that site than for this blog in the next few weeks, so check it out regularly.
And so begins my work as a game development consultant. I’ll be working this way until I figure exactly what I want to do with myself. I like it so far, so I may continue this way if work is good. I’m also considering other possibilities, like continuing at a “regular” game design job or even making a start-up (I have a great idea, but I’d need funding).
If you have need of an experienced and talented game designer and programmer, permanently or for a contract, don’t hesitate to write me. I have 5 years of experience as a programmer and designer, and I’ve worked on 17 games (on mobile, set-top boxes, GBA, DS and PC). I can help you improve your game (from the earliest conception stages to advanced production) and your development process. Just tell me what you need and I’ll tell you what I can do — you have nothing to lose!
In a recent comment, Maxest mentioned how hard it was to find information on how to write a good game design document (to sound like a pro, call it a GDD, pronounced Gee-Dee-Dee). Honestly, the reason there’s so little info is that it’s mostly improvisation at the start of every project. There’s nothing near a standard format. Still, some GDDs are better than others, so how can you write good one?
I have a strange fascination with design docs. While some designers want to get to development proper as fast as possible, I just love to work on conceptualization — finding the right gameplay, giving each element a unique personality, coming up with the overall vision of the game. I’d do that all year long if I could. The GDD is the best way to communicate that vision, so I’ve worked very hard on improving mine. While the design docs I write are nowhere near perfect — I’d love to hear from other designer’s approaches in the comments — I do believe they’re pretty good.
Read on for more details on what a GDD is, what it’s not, why you should write one, what format it should be in and, of course, what it should contain.
I’ve recently subscribed to a game rental service. It sends me games in the mail, which I play until I’m bored of them. I then send them back, they send another game, and so on. As such, I’ve played more games than usual lately.
I thought I’d review the games I’ve played so far. Most reviews are long, boring reads when all you want to know is if it’s worth playing or not. So my reviews are going to be short and sweet, going straight to the point. While the games reviewed are months old, the reviews are completely independant — no publishers have tried to buy my review scores, as opposed to some other sites…
Enough chatting, to the reviews:
The thing that struck me most about those games is that you could easilly beat them all in a week-end (in single player), aside from Project Gotham. The traditional argument for games costing 60$ is that they offer many hours of entertainment, but it’s just not true anymore. Some DVDs last longer than that with their special features…