At GDC on Friday, Jason Mitchell, one of Valve's leading graphics engineers, held a workshop entitled "Stylization with a Purpose: The Illustrative World of Team Fortress 2." The topics discussed ranged from the team's overlying theories of the game's visual design and its inspirations to the technical details of how the designers render the game's eye-popping visuals.
Photos and audio of the presentation are included.
There has been news of developers moving over seas, but not to much on actual outsourcing. As costs weigh down on developers and publishers a like, they are beginning to to take a good hard look at moving all aspects of the game development over seas.
Gamedaily.Biz writes: "During GDC we sat down with Scott Steinberg, VP of Product Marketing at SCEA, to talk about the impact of a Blu-ray victory, the PS3's momentum, controller complexity, reaching the mass market, GTA IV, and more.
GameDaily BIZ: Regarding the PS3 SKU strategy, there's been some talk about the 80 GB model possibly being phased out from some of the rumblings we've heard and that Sony is looking to possibly put some more distance between the 40 GB and some new model that might come out, maybe packed in with the Dual Shock 3... but it seems like there's been so much change over the last couple years; first you had the 20 GB and the 60 GB and the 40 GB and the 80 GB. Doesn't that lead to consumer confusion to have so many different SKUs out there?
Scott Steinberg: It hasn't hurt Apple. Our strategy at the end of the year was to offer up a $399 40 GB, which we thought was the magic price for a Blu-ray machine and then a $499 80 GB. What we were surprised to see is that $100 really didn't matter to a certain customer. Our sales were fairly equitable according to TRST and our internal numbers through the holidays and even into January; we're pretty dry on the 80 GB as a result of us underestimating the demand for the 80 GB and thinking that most folks, because the price message was such a big part of the pundits and the analysts decrying the differences between the 360 and the PS3, [would prefer the 40 GB]. Reality is the price wasn't that big of a deal and $499 sold a lot more than we thought, so the 80 GB got dry at retail not due to us artificially compressing it but the demand became greater than we thought. So you'll see us replenish these in the marketplace. We're still committed to our current strategy and there is much to do about nothing, I think is the way to think about it."
The part about MS spending as much money as several Latin countries GNP gave me the lulz.
In any case, I think he's very correct about the fact that people who are waiting on the fence about which system to buy and/or which system to buy GTA4 for will most likely look at what games came out within a month prior to, and after its release.
Playstation 3 is the obvious choice this generation.
Don't be gay. Just Play.
Jack Tretton, CEO of SCEA, and The Second Coming.
"I think yes in some ways, but I think also history will show that a lot of those grandmas and grandpas who don't want to learn button configurations aren't buying software"
Best sentence ever. So freaking true.
GamesIndustry.Biz writes: "According to GDC 2008 attendee evaluations, the most popular session was not the Portal post-mortem or even the Super Smash Bros Brawl development discussion.
The highest rated talk was "How to Create an Industry: The Making of the Brown Box and PONG" from Ralph Baer and Allan Alcorn. Both men spoke of their inventions and their contributions to the games industry circa 1960s and 1970s. Later that evening, Allan Alcorn presented the Pioneer Award to Ralph Baer at the Game Developers Choice Awards.
Both men were gracious enough to speak to GamesIndustry.biz about their first-hand experiences and the current state of the industry they helped to create. In part one of this feature, we first talk with former Atari engineer Allan Alcorn."
awesome read. the game rocks, the look rocks, and the gameplay is over the top and rocks! cant wait for the "Meet The Team" videos to start hitting the web, and the new gameplay mode and weapon unlocks to become available. keep up the great work Valve, your keeping my ass entertained!