General Chat

A cool idea and very well done....but did they have to make him dance? Disco dancing is just not cool at all....

I would have liked to see the car racing towards the edge of a huge cliff, suddenly transforming into the robot. the robot continues to run and takes a flying leap off, free falling down to the ground. he then deploys his parachute, but the rope snaps and he continues falling. Just before hitting the ground he ejects his passenger and driver airbags out of his back, rips them out and holds them out in front, lands and bounces into the air, transforms back into the car in midair, lands wheels first and skids stylishly to a halt..then BAM! "Alive WITH TECHNOLOGY" underneath....now thats cool.

I guess the message in this post is, while making a commercial for a car that transforms into a robot is very nice, making it dance is just lame, boring, and old....

Citroen needs to fire their marketing team....

I think you should pitch that idea to citroen scorcho - your idea is much cooler! [:D]

yeah, Im hopefully going to get one when they come out over here

yeh, im pondering getting one as well but Im unsure how much id use it...

I just wanna try the new Yoshi game...the ideas implemented in that sound sweeet... [:D]

Any idea when this thing is coming out over here? I'll be heading to the US for Xmas and have one waiting for me. Just wondering when I'll be able to use the WiFi stuff with others here in Australia?

I think they're looking at march/april next year for europe/australian release. I'm thinking of importing one from the states, although i'm a little worried that with the massive ramp-up in production, quality control might suffer and i'd end up with a dodgy screen or something. Plus, most of the games i'm looking forward to aren't available (in english) until february or later next year anyway, so i might as well wait a little longer at least.
CYer, Blitz

march is good timing.. i'll be turning 21 yay - and try to con the guys at uni into putting in for it!!
wish me luck ;)

I've been lucky enough to have a play around on a DS (I have connections...;)) and it's quite a neat little package. I had a quick spin on the updated Super Mario 64 Yoshi version but found the controls very fiddly and unintuitive for that type of game, nothing beats an analogue stick for 3D platformers. Not much else to add cause I was really tired at the time and couldn't have been arsed playing for long.

I was looking around on the Burn website, and I found one you can grab from the states.

http://burn.com.au/products/info.php?lookup_code=L38784

Now I wish I bought that instead of the SP for xmas [:P] But I think it would be best to wait a few months just incase they realease a new and better version like they did with the GBA

I just got back from Hong Kong yesterday and got a DS from Toys R Us over there. Got it for 1399 HK dollars, which is about 233 AUD!!

At the moment I have mario 64 DS (jap version) Feel the Magic (US version) and another game called "Sprung" (US Version). I was impusively buying in HK. Haven't had a chance to play sprung or feel the magic. The only reason I got them was because they look so damned weird.

Mario 64 is pretty good so far though I'm a little underwhelmed considering it is a game I finished on the N64. What really amazes me is the stylus and turning on the system. Using the stylus to navigate the menus to set the time, date etc is so darn cool.

But yeah, at the moment I wouldn't buy it since there's no great games out. Just wait a while for the next batch of games. Or play GBA games on it :D

Well, I got mine and have to say it's freak'n sweet. I can't wait until more games come out for it though!!! I checked out the Burn site that was linked above... why the hell would anyone pay $400 for it when you can order it from dvdboxoffice.com for $250 AUD? And they have free worldwide shipping! Anyway, it's just pathetic the markup games have over here.

Anyway, I can't wait for more people to get it since the wireless mutliplayer support for the DS should be sweet!!!!

The Australian launch details were announced today.

Release is scheduled for February 24th and its RRP is $199.95.

I'm looking forward to this one myself, not sure If I'll pick one up immediately but I plan to get one eventually. I think the PSP comes out here in late march/april also.

I wonder if EB will change their trade-in set-up for the DS seeing as it has now been listed at $199.

They had it set up so you traded in a GBA and 3 games and got the DS for $100. Now I think they were operating on the assumption that it would be $300 - $400. But if they don't change their trade-in that is a big ripoff!

Trade in GBA and three games?? Damm if they do keep it like that, thats an insne rip off! Not that I'd do it anyway. GBA's are so much fun :D

I think the whole trade in system EB have is ridiculous. What?s the standard trade-in deal they do for a new game? Something like two near new games (that?s $160 to $200 worth) and they?ll sell you a new game for $50? So you?re essentially paying up to $250 for a new game. What a rip off!

Even if you've finished it, old games are great to keep for nostalgia. Years from now you?ll be glad you still have that vintage PS2 (or whatever) console collection! [:P] ? I just wish I kept all of my old Sega games, instead of trading them in when the original game boy came out.

Oh yeah, and to get back to the thread topic ? the DS looks awesome. Though the PSP might do very well just because of the titles Sony can churn out?

I noticed EB is also saying that if you pre-order ytou will get a copy of the Metroid Hunters demo. in every other country this has been included reguardless, and i would think it's the same here. seems like EB is twisting words to make people pre-order. if you pre-order you will be assured a copy of the demo, but they make it sound like you wont get it any other way.

oh, and i saw a kid playing one the other day - much bigger thani thought. but i still want one. wireless handheld gaming... mmmmm...

I've had mine for over a week (Japanese import) and been playing Feel the Magic, and I think it's fantastic :D Such a cool device with so many possibilities.

So, we know how much the system is over here, but does anyone know what price the games will be released at? Hopefully they're comprable to the US prices ($30 - $40 USD = $50+) here and not the traditional $100 bucks games tend to be here.

Most of them at EB were at around 60-70 bucks

There haven't been a lot of previews for next-gen game titles yet, but [url="http://www.digi-guys.com/"]Digi-Guys[/url] are showing off their product pretty early. It looks like a Halo inspired game and it's expected to be released on the Xbox 2 next year. It's a rather interesting look into where the bar for next-gen titles will be at...

[url="http://www.wardevil.com"]Wardevil[/url]
[url="http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=312307"]Screenshots[/url]
[url="http://xbox.ign.com/articles/570/570554p1.html"]Xbox IGN article[/url]
[url="http://www.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_wardevil.html"]Trailer[/url]

Here is the FarCry Tech Demo and Movie of the tech demo.

On my 9700pro it ran like crap at 1024 with 4xFSAA (defaulted). With no FSAA it ran a lot better, but was still slow in some areas. Looks pretty damn nice :)

Edit: The link would bloody help

http://www.gamershell.com/news/18890.html

Elderscrolls IV: Oblivion.

Thats all I need to see. [:)]

[url]http://www.elderscrolls.com/art/obliv_screenshots_01.htm[/url]

Malus: right on.....
and Stalker....Ahhh, im in love with stalker. :)

Malus you big RPG nerd [:P]

Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion looks so cool - Without any non MMO RPG's due for realease in the near future ive had to stock up on console efforts... not all that many to choose from.

God where are all the RPG Dev houses!!

damn i am hanging out for Oblivion! why must it be so far away????

Saw this on the Shack, some new screenshots of the Alan Wake game..

http://www.tilt.tv/acme_files/img/2b/34/2b3431d4a4610aa4f1271acaf4aabf3…
http://www.tilt.tv/acme_files/img/e1/d0/e1d093e37c87f168ef7ee431ae7fa90…
http://www.tilt.tv/acme_files/img/8a/c0/8ac02bde230882d10ea038a79ac5920…
http://www.tilt.tv/acme_files/img/d6/ae/d6ae80ec16625d2f4bd6b7ee4ee6998…
http://www.tilt.tv/acme_files/img/93/24/9324c2ca28132189e7612a353640956…
http://www.tilt.tv/acme_files/img/4d/39/4d3963b15ae3a2ead0d512ac15c955d…
http://www.tilt.tv/acme_files/img/92/c6/92c6391dededcd6fa70d2b2b3c016ef…
http://www.tilt.tv/acme_files/img/a3/b2/a3b21039ddded79943f100ebd16360f…

Looks darn nice.

*waits in corner for Oblivion*

Ever since I made it to the top of the fighters guild and the top of the Temple, and then for some reson the orc mage woman in like the thrid quest for the Blades somehow dissapearded from the entire game which effectivly ened my gaming after 40 hours...

but ever since then I have waited not-so-patiently for Oblivion. [:D]

the skull she wants yout o find dissappeared once for me (i knew it had cos i had done it before in a previous game and it wasnt there). so i just opened up the construction set and aded a new one in! anytime morrowind breaks like that and you would otherwise have to re-start that's the easiest way to fix it.

hahah nah the actuall WOMAN dissapeard lol. I tried to reset actors and all that and was looking into the walls in wireframe to see if she had glitched into the wall. The same thing happened to the teleport woman in Ald'ruhn that was annoying. Cause I was doing Redorian as well most of those were like, go to Vivecc, go herez go there all from Ald'ruhn so I was like "sigh" Siltstrider to Balmora then mages guild to whereever.

Also, Why do they make the characters in Far Cry still have that plasticy look to them? eg. soldier guy :/
It looks really bad IMO. The rest of the visuals are pretty nice.

i once had one of the stilt strider guys slowly fall through the platform. every time i came back he was a little further through, until one time i came back and he had fallen through completly and was stading on the ground below!
so many glitches in that game, and crashes more often than any other game i've ever played. still a great game though - i just bough the game of the year edition with all the expansions in it a couple of weeks ago. i plan on doing a massive upgrage at the end of the year in time for oblivion, i hanvt done one in a while and the newer games dont run too well, so i'm oging to be screwed for any games that come out next year - and some this year.

Hey guy's check this out, an in-game shot from Project Gotham Racing 3 [url]http://www.bizarreonline.net/news/images/studioupdate/nyshot.jpg[/url]

i find that hard to believe.

http://www.bizarreonline.net/index.php?action=fullnews&showcomments=1&i…

It says it's "a close-up shot of some of the buildings in NYC!", so I'm guessing it's a photo? It looks much better compared to these PGR3 screenshots. [:)] (although you don't see a good shot of the buildings to make a fair comparison).

http://www.bizarreonline.net/img/screenshots/pgr3/pgr_mtv0327.jpg
http://www.bizarreonline.net/img/screenshots/pgr3/pgr_mtv0398.jpg
http://www.bizarreonline.net/img/screenshots/pgr3/pgr_mtv0971.jpg

The cars look damn nice though:

http://www.bizarreonline.net/img/screenshots/pgr3/03.jpg
http://www.bizarreonline.net/img/screenshots/pgr3/02.jpg
http://www.bizarreonline.net/img/screenshots/pgr3/01.jpg

yeah i would say that is a reference photo. if it were an ingame shot then there is a stupid amount of detail in it that is completely impractical for most games, essepcially a racing game where you will be flying past evey little unique stain and crack at 200kmph. as much as i would like to see that kind of detial in a game, no-one is going to spend the time or money on it.

It is definitely an in-game shot, I've seen it first hand.

Wow, those shots are amazing.

It?s funny how many people just don?t accept that they are legit in-game screen shots. [:)] When you think about it it?s not really that unbelievable, considering the hardware. It?s really just some high detailed textures, heaps of polys, and some fancy lighting?
It?s going to be sweet.

Its easily an Ingame shot - Red5 would know [:P]

Why it is so hard to believe I'm not sure. The same goes for the ingame footage for some of the ps3 stuff. The tech is there, and theres definately people that can afford it - and contrary to beliefs it does actually add a new level of environmental awareness to any reality simulation.

Trees that have had bark pieces normal mapped on the trunks - Rubbish bins that have the pebbly surface normal mapped etc - the level of detail is great and I love it - more more more says the graphics whore [:)]

That's pretty impressive. I must've spent a good few minutes trying to spot the obvious signs of it being modelled by hand (tiling textures / repeated patterns etc) but couldn't find any.

yeah, what Souri said is why i find it hard to believe.

[url]http://www.bizarreonline.net/index.php?action=fullnews&showcomments=1&i…]

right! that's enough for me. proof is always good.

freaking awsome then, and scary...

i'm surprised how low detail the geometry is. some good shadder effecs going on there.

I thought these are worth posting about. [:D]

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/616/616310/motorstorm-2005051…
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/616/616966/motorstorm-2005051…
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/614/614797/motorstorm-2005051…
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/614/614797/motorstorm-2005051…
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/616/616966/motorstorm-2005051…
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/614/614797/motorstorm-2005051…

For sure that is cool here is an avi link for it.

http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/748/748488/vids_1.html

Those screens and video really do look amazing, all pre-rendered of course... I'd love to see some in-game shots of this game because it looks insane.

yeah the amount of physics involved is amazing like the mud, so im a bit skeptical about it being 'in-game'

i wont speculate on wether its pre rendered or not just yet (allthough... i mean its really hard to beleive) but none the less looks like a lot of fun. eat my dust!

I can belive that the 3rd and *maybe* the last picture are in-game cause it has that wonderful jagged anti aliasing on some of the models edges. It probably can be faked, but if I see that I feel pretty safe that its in game.
All the other shots didn't really have it so im a bit suss on those ones :/

I can pretty much state for fact that it isn't in-game, it's been made specifically as a trailer and it's fairly common knowledge now that all PS3 WIP shown at E3 this year was pre-rendered.

the only ones that wern't were the ducks and the Unreal 3 ones. funny that they didnt look anywhere as good as the rendered ones...

Yeh, I read that the picture above is concept art, but the name of the pic was HL2DM.jpg, implying that Valve has Half Life 2 online death match plans...

this may help
[url]http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58087[/url]

Damn... I can't even connect to steam...

I can't even open up Half Life 2 to play! I had a look at the Counterstrike:Source Game Arena servers (somewhere between 10-15 servers) which is usually near capacity on every server, and they're all almost empty [:D]. There are 166 people waiting to play, and only 22 people playing. Chalk this one as another Half Life 2/Steam gripe. [;)]

1) unplug network cable.
2) play in offline mode :)

http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=news&id=364

I've been playing it the last two days, it's really fun.. but the physics can cause it to lag out really bad

Ironically, just after I suggested offline mode I tried it - and Steam helpfully told me that I couldn't complete the operation (start in offline mode) in Offline mode.

Time for more chalk for those Steam gripes...

had a go at HL2DM, awesome fun. The grav gun does dumb down the required skill a bit (like if you get a bench, throwing that covers a area larger then a shotgun spray and with something that size its probably a one hit kill) but its still crazy fun to play.

Played it a little over the weekend and loved it. Although you can throw some big things around, they are much slower (compared to regular shotgun etc.) and so can be dodged more easily. Also the larger objects seem to be thrown more slowly. My favourite object to throw was the wash basins, they moved pretty damn quick!
I'm thinking some people might get annoyed about the magnum, it's like a freakin rail gun, i was racking up waaay to many kills for such a weapon :)
I think the gravity gun also adds a subtle amount of depth to the game, a few times i would whip up a table or cabinet in front of me as i was getting shot with SMG, then as they start to reload, shoot em up, when they finish reloading, grab that cabinet again and cover :)
I loved it, for a simple deathmatch game it simply ranks as the best i've played. However, it still holds nothing against true team games (not team deathmatch :P). Reaaally looking forward to some good team mods.
CYer, Blitz

It's fun for a few minutes, but mindeless deathmatch seriously numbs my brain after a while [:X] I need some more interesting multiplayer. Bring on class based, teamplay orientated multiplayer with interesting objectives! [8D]

Of course, that'll probably mean Team Fortress 2, whenever that comes out.

Bring on natural selection 2 (or source or whatever)!!
CYer, Blitz

yeah love to meet up with ya's, and since we have no idea where the good pubs are either, i'll be checking back to this thread...

and how about this: the winner of the comp buys the loser a round of drinks [;)], that is ofcourse if either of our groups win.

You bet.

I wasn't realy worrying if we didn't win, but now that drinks are on the line ill realy be talking up our game down there.

I'm also gonna come and look for your game. I wanna to see what you guys came up with.

Look forward to seeing you down there.

I kinda thought that once you were drunk enough any pub was a good pub. Just start at the clubs at the Crown (they have an arcade pub there) and then if you end up not leaving Crown you know its like a $3 taxi ride back to the motel.

Yeah, that barcode place at Crown is pretty good... just don't line your scotches up on the Daytona USA machine, as the chassis moves with the game!!

The sports bar at the crown is a favourite watering hole there because it's relatively unsophisticated... which is what you want when you have a nice cold beer. Closes early though. [:(]

Melbourne people say the crown is poo, so best bet is to find some lovely Melbournites and get them to show you the sights.

Scott.

Where did you purchase your copy of Half Life 2 from ?

Even though we sort know the guy down at our local EB he still proceeded to say " You know you need an internet connection dont you ? " I just snatched the bag hastily and ran off giggling.

I think the attendent should have informed you....

I was also informed of that when I picked up a copy, though it was hardly a problem for me since I mostly intend to play online anyway. What suprises me is that there doesn't even seem to be a number you can call to do it manually.

Read the specs, its stats it on the box.

..on the bottom, in very small print, seeming to relate to
the counterstrike portion rather than HL2.

Reading through the help on the valve site, apparently it
is possible to play on a machine without internet, but
requires burning a CD of some configuration files. I'm
having a go at this moment.

You dont have to be connected to the net to play solo do you?
Just registering right?

Yes, just registering.

I know it is a pain to need a net connection to register it, but most computers that have the power to play HL2 will have some form of net access. I know not all will, but it's still easy enough to take your computer somewhere that has the net, or use someones dialup access to register.

When you think about it, the costs involved in using the net to access it are significantly smaller than say buying a new video card or processor to play it.

There's a post at the steampowered forum by someone who bought the online version of Half Life 2, but only has a dialup modem. [:O]
I have to say, I've found the steam pre-loading/online activation to be pretty smooth. That is, I have broadband, I preloaded my copy early, and I activated a day after release date (it only took about 10-20 minutes to decrypt and whatnot). I'd imagine everyone else that did different would have run into some problem. I'm sorta mixed about Steam. One one hand, it's yet another hurdle for legitimate buyers (you also can't resell the game, and question whether you can activate the game if Valve goes under sometime in the future), but it could be the beginning of the end for the publisher stranglehold on game developers.

I got my copy off steam...i guess about 5 days after release. I started downloading it last saturday, and it was finished by about tuesday, which is fairly reasonable for the 2 gig or so that it downloaded. The only issues i had when downloading was occasionally it would crash due to network congestion...(having a bunch of torrents open etc.). But no big deal.
As far as reselling games goes though, this would actually be something the developers/publishers would also want to prevent, and cosidering the replay potential of HL2 (with various mods and whatnot) i have no problems not being able to resell HL2 :)
Reselling second-hand games is actually a bit dodgy anyway. It is possibly even more economically damaging to developers/publishers etc. than home piracy. At least with home piracy probably a large majority would not have paid for the game anyway, but with second-hand reselling, you have people who ARE actually willing to pay for a game, and not a cent going to the developers etc.
I'm not sure if the law still exists (or ever did), but i recall someone telling me that even when selling CD's secondhand, a percentage of the sale is still supposed to go to the distributor/artist etc. I wonder if it would be the same for games?
...back to the topic...
I wish they'd hurry up and release the SDK :P

Call me a luddite, but I don't like
the idea of having the net at home.
It's been my experience that it
can harm 'productivity' - websurfing
I find a blackhole for time; those
surveys on internet addiction I think
have some credence. Secondly I do
a lot of programming on my machines
and with the amount of crap flying
around out there the system becoming
unstable is the least that could
happen. One of the reasons I delayed
upgrading MVC++v6 was because I
thought that .net actually required
the net. I really hope this internet
registration business doesn't take
over, or at least keeps the option
of phone registration.

I actually like the idea of the internet registry, especially if it means that games companies can partially cut out the publishers.

I find it strange when a small group of people decide they don't want to use new techniques and think the rest of us should switch to there idea. lol [:P]

There where obvious hickups with steam but its the first time they've done this on such a large scale, I'm sure for HL3 it will be streamlined more.

If people don't like the way valve released with Steam, they don't have to buy there products, its not like they owe us something, pretty easy solution and that those of us who do like it still get to play it. [:)]

Do think you have a point about alternate registration though, phone, mail etc.

quote:Originally posted by Malus

I find it strange when a small group of people decide they don't want to use new techniques and think the rest of us should switch to there idea. lol [:P]

Ever the devil's advocate, whilst reading that I had an image
of you there as a kid scoffing a large bag of chocks whilst
your mates look on hungrily [;)] I ..would.. like to play the game!

If there's any forced switching of ideas, it's Vulve with this idiotic
registration system. And it doesn't seem to be a minority; forums
online seem saturated with complaints about this.

quote:
There where obvious hickups with steam but its the first time they've done this on such a large scale, I'm sure for HL3 it will be streamlined more.

If people don't like the way valve released with Steam, they don't have to buy there products, its not like they owe us something, pretty easy solution and that those of us who do like it still get to play it. [:)]

I wasn't aware of the situation when I bought HL2, as were many
that pre-paid for it. I forked out for a throw-away dialup account
with a few hours on it so as to register (+50 bucks total cost).

I will be playing HL3 when it comes out, but I won't
be buying it. The cracked copies normally surface on Efnet
and even Hotline a few weeks after release. In the end Vulve
will end up with more piracy as a result of alienation.
quote:
Do think you have a point about alternate registration though, phone, mail etc.

That's as far it should go IMHO. If a software company makes
software that I'm going to have, it should make it usable else
I'm still going to have it - but unbought and cracked (and many
evidently feel the same).

quote:Originally posted by Major Clod

I know it is a pain to need a net connection to register it, but most computers that have the power to play HL2 will have some form of net access. I know not all will, but it's still easy enough to take your computer somewhere that has the net, or use someones dialup access to register.

When you think about it, the costs involved in using the net to access it are significantly smaller than say buying a new video card or processor to play it.

Other than getting a pre-paid dial-up account for x days, you
could cajole one of your friends into allowing you to set up
the game using their dial-up. Going to a cybercafe is no good
unless you can get administrator access on the machine you
transfer the config files from, or can get permission to hook
your machine up to their LAN.

hAhaaa..
Malus may get an ironic laff from this.
After 2hrs of using my throwaway account 16 adware/spyware
programs trashed my machine. Lucky I have backups.

I'd never laugh at your misfortune but I had a slight chuckle that you didn't think to get some sort of protection before going online. tsk tsk.

By the way these choccies are to die for. [:P]

Ended up picking them out of the registry manually with a pair of tweezers; was not a good way to spend an afternoon. [xx(] Next time
i'll remember to put up something like ZoneAlarm (a free firewall).

If you were following valve anyway you would've realised that you needed the net to run/register Steam to get any valve game running.

I actually quite kinda like the idea, it means that you can install the game from a friend's dvd image, or copied dvd or something, or even copy the data files over etc, but then use your key to activate/register it. It's all legal too...

Though the downside is that now Valve are selling CD keys instead of games, but oh well.

If you had had internet you would have realised that you would have needed to have internet.

[xx(]

I'm sure they publicised this in some magazines or other?

I mean this is Half Life 2, I'd certainly hope that a magazine or two that has the review of it would include that you need the itnernet to play it?

its only required to register, not play, you can play offline once you register.

How much does a second hand 56k modem cost these days anyway lol, 10 bucks, hell valve should have just thrown one in to satisy the ludites. [:P]

Along with one of these...

http://members.home.nl/gis/

Scott.

You know instead of paying out the wazoo for parts he could have just got an old washing maching from the dump. [:P]
Was a waste of skin that guy must be lol.

quote:Originally posted by Malus

You know instead of paying out the wazoo for parts he could have just got an old washing maching from the dump. [:P]
Was a waste of skin that guy must be lol.

Perhaps he used one to house the net server.

Does anyone get the feeling that the big publishers are more than aware of the potential of Steam, and are working on their own online distribution system? I would be surprised if they sat back and did nothing, considering Steam edges away their market/makes their business redundant.
Of course, if they did come out with something, then we're really back at square one.

The only thing that bothered me was that the CD/DVD was required to play, but that has been removed. The fact that it requires online validation doesn't surprise me, and I rather like the idea. Power to the developers!

I like steam.

Steam can burn you badly [:)] but i do like it, no one can flog my CD key now like in the original Half-Life, but now i have Source too [:)].

My point was, publishers are probably thinking of their own online distribution system to take back the power. [;)]

C64!!! My first games were :

Hunchback
Ghosts in Goblins ( Ghouls & Ghosts clone )
Barbarian

and the first RPG I ever played was the old D&D Gold box series Champions of Krynn followed clsoely by Might and Magic III

First set of games I ever recall playing was on a Dick Smith TRS80 clone... 40*25 screen - text only. One called 'STOMP' which was surprisingly similar in gameplay to Popcap's "Mummy Maze", and the age old 'driving' game in which the stream of asterisks scrolled down the screen... Another I wish I could find and play which was a text adventure game in which you were magically transported from a high-rise apartment window to a pirate island.

One of my clearest memories, however, is programming Scholastic book club "Write your own computer games" on my family's Apple ][e, and being told off for modifying the code because my parents were worried I'd "break" the computer. :)

All I was doing was changing:

[code]
100 print "You see a skeleton!"
[/code]
to
[code]
100 print "You see a skeleton!"
101 print " 0 "
102 print ""
103 print "/ "
[/code]

Even then I wanted to make the games to have better graphics :)

Wow, I remember those books... with the pirates standing in the code saying "Arrr, better save to tape and take a rest here matey."

Maybe not my earliest game memory, but my most marked was "Arctic Adventure", one of the first games by Apogee. CGA graphics never looked so good. I was a shareware kid, and Arctic Adventure welcomed me to that world. I even started programming in Turbo Pascal 3.0 to be cool like Scott Miller was at the time. [:P]

Ahhh the mammories.

Scott.

EDIT: Ooooooh, Champions of Krynn... that was my first warez!

quote:Originally posted by HazarD


Ghosts in Goblins ( Ghouls & Ghosts clone )

In the spirit of being a pedantic bastard, I'm going to point out that Ghouls 'n' Ghosts was the sequel to Ghosts 'n' Goblins.

Anyway, I've been playing games since before I remember. I started on the Atari 2600. We got rid of that when I was something like 2 or 3 for an Intellivision, then got rid of that for a Vic 20, then got rid of that for a C64, and then an A500, then A1200, then PC.

I remember Space Invaders on the 2600. Also some game with a huge snake that attacked people. Pac Man was on there. Some game where you had to fly in to space and land back on earth. I also remember the Mickey Mouse Sorceror's Apprentice game and we actually had the infamous E.T. game. I remember not having an idea what to do in that game - walk one direction and do nothing, walk the other with a screen change and just stand there. I think that's about all I remember of the 2600.

Gooberman : I took a stab in the dark and provoked a pedantic bastard! [:P] Yeah i knew it was related somehow - ghouls and ghosts looked to have way cooler graphics that ghosts n goblins, or i maybe thinking the other way around.

All I remember was never finishing Ghosts n Goblins - games were so unforgiving back then - it was so clear cut. WIN or DIE. no drawn out sequences just a milisecond after dieing BANG! game over screen shown and it struck home that you had just toiled for x hours only to have to go back to the start of the game and try it all over again - none of this pussy save game business.

Imagine playing a game like HL2 like that [:O] Die and ... you DIE. that game is terminated. Start again from the beginning.

Gooberman, that's a pretty similar path to what I took. I got a C64, then A500, A1200, then PC (Cyrix 200mhz, Hah!). The first game I played was Space Invaders at the local corner shop when I was about 6 or 7. It blew my mind. It was so new, the idea that you could play a game with a machine and have incredible fun doing it.

Somehow, this dodgy guy on my street managed to get his hands on a Space Invader table top cabinet and charged everyone 20 cents per game in his garage. I'm pretty sure he thieved it somehow. [:O] I hung around there a lot to play it, all the while harbouring my own burning desire of having one in my own bedroom.

Soon, my brother got an Apple IIe and he had some even greater games on that. Midnight Mission (awesome pinball game), and some canons game where you shot people who were parachuting down. I typed out some basic games from a magazine (took bloody ages), and they turned out pretty crap, so I stopped doing that.

Eventually I was given a C64, and it was the best gift I have ever received. The first game I had was a game called Frog Master, a cartridge game that came bundled with the C64. It came with no docs or manuals, and to this very day, I still have no idea what the heck you were supposed to do in it.

It had a screen full of hopping frogs, and you didn't get any noticable feedback when you moved the joystick around/push buttons. I spent countless hours trying to figure it out, but it just didn't make any sense whatsoever. I swear, if I ever find the programmer/game designer for that game, watch out! >:( It was the only game I had for a while, but later I got games like Pitfall II and Jumpman. Great games. [:D]

I never had a console or computer at home till i was about 10 or so. i used to just play at friends houses....my friend had a c64 with The Hobbit, an old text game with really basic graphics..and someone else had Guantlet. then we got a pc and i think the first games we had on it was Alleycat, and in my mind the most frustrating game known to man, SpaceGoose. I also remember playing Flashback alot....

mines probably an adams family game on the NES at a friends house, yes im not as old as some of you people but they were still my good ol days! :P

Same story as MoonUnit, I'm a NES boy. I was first consumed by the following games on the NES:

Faxanadu
Duck Hunt (yay!)
Hook (not sure whether this was on NES)

I also remeber playing an awesome arcade game called Caveman Ninja, which I have recently downlaod and played using MAME.

quote:Originally posted by rezn0r

Ahhh the mammories.

What games were you playing????????

I was an atari kid. Grew up on the 2600. So I think the first game I really remember playing on that had to be the tank game where you shot each other. Then there was Dig Dug, Frogger, Centipede, and Space Invaders.

One game that so sticks out in my head.... Did anyone ever play the arcade game that was based of Journey (the band)? I am sure that was the first band game ever made - and they haven't got any better since ;)

quote:Souri
The first game I had was a game called Frog Master ... I swear, if I ever find the programmer/game designer for that game, watch out! >:(

http://www.lemon64.com/games/list.php?type=coder&name=Michael%20F.C.%20…

'Nonterraqueous' and 'Bruce Lee' on the Amstrad CPC 464
and 'Elite' on the Acorn Electron. I used to save my
lunch money and buy 1.99 budget titles every few days
on the way to school.

Another member of the C64 fan club here... but actually we had a C128 so never had to put up with tapes. Jumpman, Manic Miner, Bandits, Spring Thing, Pitstop II all spring to mind, this was also the computer I started programming on but I don't think BASIC counts as a game.

Wonderboy and Hang On on the Sega Master System 1. Hang On was a game that was built in into the console!

Wow, some great games listed. Makes me all nostalgic.

Barry Dahlberg ? ?Spring Thing?, was that the precursor to ?Thing on a spring?? I loved that game. And Pitstop II was awesome. Though It used to take about 30 minuets to load on the tape drive. :P My favourite C64 game ever was called ?Monty Mole?, a very clever platformer.

Makk ? hell yeah, me too - I got a Master system when I was about 10 or so, and the only games I had were Hang on and that maze game that came with it. The first separate game I got for it was Wonderboy, and that was all I had for about a year. I played Wonderboy soooo much. I got freakishly good at it. The problem was no save option, so to try and finish it you had to pause the game indefinitely ? I once had the system running for a whole week straight, constantly playing Wonderboy whenever I could, pausing it to sleep and go to school. And I still never got to the very end?

My path of gaming was: C64 -> Nintendo ?game and watch? things -> Atari -> Sega Master System -> Sega Mega Drive -> Game boy -> PS1 -> PS2? (With PC?s joining the action around the mid Mega Drive era).
I regret selling the original Sega, but I?ve still got all the others.

either Wolfenstine or Super Mario Bros, i forget probably mario, guess that would explane my love of nintendo games.

Oh no, not the central cavern!

Monty Mole - ah yes.. Did you ever play the last one,
Auf Weidersehen Monty?

first game i played was at one of my mum's best friends house who was 30+ and had a sega? Anyway There was a game on it called alex... thats all i rmeember about it hehe i was so little.
later on i plauyed the lion king my best friend's sega master system 2 and i was hooked. After completeing the lion king we got wonder boy in monster world and ecco the dolphin and boy they were the two best games of all our master system days... boy did we loose hours and hours playing those two games! hehe

WiffleCube, No, I?ve only played the first one, but I?ve just found them all for a C64 emulator, so I?ll be playing them soon. [:D]

I?m currently reliving the original Monty Mole. It?s weird, but it used to seem so hard, but now I can almost finish it on my first go. It must be that today?s games are more demanding on the skills then the older games? I find all the old games really easy now. Maybe it?s just growing up that makes them easier?

Anuxinamoon, that would have been Alex Kidd, which were classic Sega games. There were actually five of them, but ?Alex Kidd in Miracle World? was the best known. Wonder Boy in monster world was the third Wonder Boy, which was also an awesome game. It was basically more RPG then platformer. It get's my vote for best platform game ever. Man I loved that game?

Wonder Boy is awesome, I don't know anyone who didn't like that game :)

quote:Originally posted by palantir

WiffleCube, No, I?ve only played the first one, but I?ve just found them all for a C64 emulator, so I?ll be playing them soon. [:D]

I?m currently reliving the original Monty Mole. It?s weird, but it used to seem so hard, but now I can almost finish it on my first go. It must be that today?s games are more demanding on the skills then the older games? I find all the old games really easy now. Maybe it?s just growing up that makes them easier?

If I remember it right; he had to go all around europe, solving puzzles. I liked that one a lot.

He also breakdanced.

ahh nostalgia,

i was lucky enough to have a father as a computer geek who saw the potential of computers for information etc etc.. so i grew up completly stating out with a vic20 then c64

the first game i remember playing wasjumpman and the first game i ever owned given as presents at my dad's b-day was pooyan. i still remember the music to pooyan without fail

montemole was my favourite though,, getting throughthe tunnel afte the pipes with the mine cart always killed me. i can always remember the music of the games i loved the most.

montemole was a great game, same as mummy's tomb, those were the golden days of games for me.

I can't remember much of my gaming virginity before RiverRaid, H.E.R.O., and PitFall...

I do remember the neon green glowing tv screen of the zx80 spectrum however... ahhh how I stumbled around in the dark with tapes and game books/magazines.

If you still have that zx-80 (not zx-81) then it'd be a good idea
to hang onto it. There weren't many made and they're collectors
items now.

A really good site for emulation is: http://www.the-underdogs.org/.
There are emulators for a myriad of machines and just as many games.
Also, the site has a cute 'his master's voice' dog in a space-suit.

quote:Originally posted by palantir

Barry Dahlberg ? ?Spring Thing?, was that the precursor to ?Thing on a spring?? I loved that game.

That sounds familiar, maybe it was the same thing and I have the name wrong... We actually had the C64 for so long that my next computer was a Pentium 75, now that was a big upgrade!

It was either Galaga on the old table top arcade. Or River Raid on my cousin's 2600.

The take away store with Galaga was cool. Unfortunately they closed shop about five years ago so the old arcade machines were no more :`(

As far as I can remember, the first games I played were the Commodore 64 catridges 'International Soccer' and 'Lemans'. I can still vaguely remember my father opening the keyboard box and taking pulling out the styrofoam-covered keyboard. I then moved to a dodgey PC many years later, then to PS1, N64, Xbox, and kinda back to PC.

One of my neighbours had an Intellivision about the same time I got my C64 (must have been around 7-8 at the time); had some fun games on it like Ptifall, Burger Time, some sort of River Raid game, and some game with bees.

Oh, the good ol' days =)

----------------------
Jarrod
www.initiateofthepen.com
A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. - The Teachings of Don Juan

I haven't played it but from what I've seen and from what I've heard from people who did the open and closed betas it goes something like this:

run...run...run...click..click..click....
...ooh thats pretty!...
...click...click...ouch...run...run...run...resurrect....run...run.....

[:P]

lol - that pretty much describes every RPG..
Pretty much every game if you replace resurrect with health up/load last save where appropriate [:P]

lol - that pretty much describes every RPG.

HISSSS, SPIT, MEOW.... I love rpg's man, the best genre out their for real story telling and depth, unfortunately the problem is everyone takes rpg onto every combat orientated action game they make, seems if you can change weapons and open inventory thats enough to get the rights to the genre. [:P]

Yeah, I think RPG?s have long since stopped being about role-playing! It really sucks that people in mmorpg?s usually don?t even bother. When I?m hunting Orc, I want to be that Elf character, not some leet gamer focused on the next level up?

That?s the thing with mmorpg?s ? it?s entirely dependent on the gaming community to make or break the game.

BTW, my comment ?that pretty much describes every RPG?, in response to your example of WoW was true wasn?t it? Doesn?t every single game go:

run...run...run...click..click..click....
...ooh thats pretty!...
...click...click...ouch...run...run...run...

[:D]

It?s not very descriptive [:P]

quote:Originally posted by palantir


run...run...run...click..click..click....
...ooh thats pretty!...
...click...click...ouch...run...run...run...

That's the design document of Diablo/Diablo II, right there! [:D]

souri: you missed one vital step: .....potion....potion....potion....potion....

[comment]
When I?m hunting Orc, I want to be that Elf character, not some leet gamer focused on the next level up?
[/comment]

I couldn't agree more. My past housemates have been MMOG FREAKS, and I guess I've experienced MMOGing vicariously through them.

What has surprised me about the experience is that for games featuring 1000's of other human players, the focus is more on racking up XP rather than interacting with everyone else. If you join with other players, it's only to power-level with them.

Doesn't really tilt my kilt. I'm pretty interested in WoW as I'm an RPG fanatic, so I'm interested to see how it pans out. That collectors pack sounds pretty tasty. Too bad my connection is so poor right now [:(]

Scott.

I picked up my collectors copy yesterday and the presentation of the box is awesome, though I guess a little irrelevant to the actual game. I played in the beta for a few weeks as well and I loved it, sad to see my old character go.

If you think the game is all about XP grinding then maybe it is, for you. The game is what you make of it and to me it's a chance to interact with 1000's of other people in the Warcraft universe which Blizzard have done a great job of bringing to life. If you look hard enough there are some really fun people on line, but you will need to be a little less pessimistic to find them.

http://www.leagueofpirates.com/sirvival/queuedance.html

tic toc.. tic toc.. tic toc.... [:)]

Monthly subscriptions, yukko. I'd feel guilty if i played it too much and guilty if i wasn't playing it enough.

I find it kind of funny when people say they hate the idea of a monthly subscription fee, yet have no problem spending $100 on a new game only to finish it a week later and never play it again (example: Doom 3). If you were to spend $100 on a mmorpg and only play it for the first month of free membership, you?d be getting your money?s worth. If your still keen after a month, then I?d say you?ve found a good value game that would be worth spending $15 or whatever to play it for another three months.

I think it?s just the principle of an ongoing fee that people don?t like, because when you look at it logically, it?s really not that big a deal.

As for the loading time, yep, it?s a drag. Though I?m a pretty patient person, so it doesn?t bother me very much. Besides, it gives me a chance to get something constructive done while I wait, like some reading or drawing, or god forbid, house cleaning. [:P]
-Actually, a friend told me that WoW is pretty quick on a dial-up connection, much more so then most online games. Also it?s supposed to have a seamless transition between zones. Though I haven?t played it yet, so I?m not sure. But all the reports are that it?s a damn fine game.

BTW, I?ve checked out EverQuest 2, and it seems pretty average to me. The worst thing is the shocking lag on dial up. What?s the point of having cutting edge graphics if you have to turn every option off in order to play the game???

Well you're paying $90 for a game which only works for a month, that's not worth it for me. Say you finish your game in a week and then a month later you want to play it with your friends for a little while who only just bought it, well you can't can you? You have to pay again. Also, some people don't have a whole bunch of time to play a game so a month can turn into an hour or two a week. (Yes that's right busy people can enjoy mmorpg's [:D]) I hate the idea of having a time frame to enjoy my game.

I was glad when i heard it was monthly subscription, i bet a mmorpg made by Blizzard would be very addictive.

... and if you can't commit the hours to playing, or you stop playing for a month, you fall behind and your character sucks too much to do anything.

Scott.

Yeah, true. I guess the pay to play games are mainly for dedicated players. Still, I?ve always though that a 3 month subscription is enough time to fully experience a game.

If your dead set against ongoing subscription, but want to play a fantasy mmorpg, then Guild Wars is the game for you. Also it?s mission based, so you can play in little spurts without dedicating all your time to get anywhere. Also you don?t need a high lvl character to have fun, because it?s designed to be about strategic play and not power playing.

But if your serous about you rpg?s, then I don?t see how anyone can go past WoW.
Phfff, listen to me, I sound like a fan boy and I haven?t even played it yet! [:P]

quote:palantir:

As for the loading time, yep, it?s a drag. Though I?m a pretty patient person, so it doesn?t bother me very much. Besides, it gives me a chance to get something constructive done while I wait, like some reading or drawing, or god forbid, house cleaning.

quote:palantir:

Phfff, listen to me, I sound like a fan boy and I haven?t even played it yet!

What?? still haven't got into a game yet hey? My you are a patient person [:X]

tic toc.. tic toc.. tic toc.... [:X]

Well, what do you know; after the typical mayhem that goes with the release of a new mmog, everything seems to have settled down and the loading times are now quite tolerable.

This is an extreamly fun rpg, especially if you know other people who are playing it. It's awesome to team up with your mates (and anyone you happen to meet along the way) and go off adventuring together. There is so much to see and do.

It?s true what they say ? WoW will ruin your life. Well, this may be a slight exaggeration, but it damn sure is addictive. I only got about half way through Half Life 2 before WoW grabbed my attention and firmly kept it in a vice-like grip.

A good fantasy based game RPGish in nature will grab my attention EASILY over any Linear FPS. I have to agree with your statement palantir - but in defence of Half Life 2 - its the only FPS ive ever played and retain my attention for longer than 15 minutes of fragging.

Oh yeah, don?t get me wrong, Half Life 2 is an awesome game, easily the most fun I?ve ever had in a FPS. I?m just saying that I found World of Warcraft so great that it?s actually stopped me playing Half Life 2 half way through! [:P]. Of course I?m a big RPG fan, so that?s got a lot to do with it.

I?ll definitely come back to HL2, but I need to spend some time immersed in WoW first.

Actually, the HL2/WoW comparison makes me think how awesome an RPG done with the Source engine would be...

Edit: I've just realised this is my 400th post. WOOT!! I?m officially dangerous! [:D]

I don't really believe WOW is an rpg in the true sense of the genre, its a combat based game with inventory. [:P]

point click...point click...ooh stat management and more than one piece of armour, gee must be an rpg...

Sad when the only genre with any real immersion so easily has its name tacked onto an action game and people think its the best the genre has to offer.

Don't get me wrong the games pretty and big and deep enough for a action game, if I had the cash I'd play it till my eyes bled.

Its just not an RPG in the true sense of the genre.

Malus, what games would you consider true RPG?s? What makes a game an RPG?

I think any game that lets the player play in character is an RPG. Any mmog technically is an RPG because the players have the ability to play in character.

WoW is what you make of it. If you want to run around focused on power playing, then sure, it?s definitely just a point & click combat game in a fantasy setting. On the other side however, if you can find a group of people keen to role-play then it?s much more of an RPG then most games. When I?m with other people, I tend to spend more time typing in character then just pointing and clicking. And it?s much more fun then running off on my own in the search of points.

Actually, I can?t think of any other game that has more role-playing then mmorpg?s like World of Warcraft and EverQuest. But of course it all depends on the other people. Most people prefer to simply power play. Also I think there is much less role-playing going on in the lower levels. Once people get to a certain level, I think the RPG factor might become more common. I hope. Of course there will always be the power players.

When Middle Earth Online comes out next year, I think we?ll finally have a true mmorpg. If Tolkien fans can?t get the role-playing factor happening, no one can! (Um, except for maybe Star Trek fans- but that game is still a while off).

You kind of answered my reasoning for what I said, although quite a few people get into the rpg elements of WOW most end up being power gamers who just focus on combat and stats, the fact that its so easy to do that and alot harder to actually be pulled into a deep rich world makes me beleive it was designed less with rpg's in mind and more action.

We agree partially on what makes an rpg, but saying its a game that enables you to be a character means every game could be classed as a rpg doesn't it?

A focus on character growth, character interaction, story and immersion are what I believe are some of the key things that define the RPG genre.

WoW, while touching on these doesn't really focus on them, its all about pretty graphics and powerful combat skills, you could probably take away most of the npc interaction, stat management etc and still have a good action game with WoW, you couldn't with something like Morrowind as it was built from the ground up with them in mind.

Hail to Bethesda! The Elder Scrolls 4 : Oblivion!

I somewhat disagree with you Malus though I think this is probably a rather subjective argument. True to Blizzards recent works the world in WoW is beautifully put together focusing more on a coherent fun art style than pure realism. The game will obviously vary alot depending on your personal play style and we see all sorts of characters from those who are just lovely to play with to those who like to strip naked and dance in the streets with disturbing regularity.

Most of my game time is spent on various quests, many of which aid in character growth and connection with the world, the shamans totem quests being a good example. For a richer experience a couple of RP only servers have been set up where out of character chat is simply not allowed, I have yet to try one of these out yet though. Combined with the excellent oppurtunities for free form role play which are simply not available in a single player game I think the RPG tag is well deserved.

Modern RPG's seem to have become somewhat obsessed with numbers and statistics and I find the simplicity of WoWs characters refreshing as it makes it easier to get out of the 'power level' mentality and actually play the game.

Yeah, I heard it mentioned somewhere...

To think what some people will do when (presumably) bored...

Impressive none the less!

ba ha ha ha!! ah man way to kill the atmosphere :P

...hey, at least you can see! Next stop - Half-Life 2 in OpenGL ES.

Wouldn't that be Doom 3 in OpenGL ES ?

at least you can s- oh, already been said...

Anyone get the feeling that the latest game engines can really compensate for average/normal looking texture work?

I've lost the link but there was some guy who was recreating Half Life 2 scenes (using the same textures from the game) with the Doom 3 engine. Looked quite interesting.

[url="http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=64270"]Ah, here it is...[/url]

1. Mortal kombat?
2. A tie between Double Dragon and Wing Commander
3. Deus Ex

Wohooo! 500th post!! [8D][B)]

go makk... err yes im a spam whore

1)mario brothers! cause it was just funny to see bob hoskins play him, that alone was entertaining enough

2)the second tomb raider movie

3)Hitman (one of them, well ok not the latest, that was a cheap rehash, 1 or 2)

1. Mortal Kombat is probably my fav. Double Dragon was pretty cool too I thought... yeah it was dumb and it did have the guy from Party of 5 doing Kung Fu, but I didn't know any better when I was a kid.

2. Alien Vs Predator! Yeah, not STRICTLY a game movie... I think it would have been a better movie if someone played the game for 121 minutes instead. I hate it when people dumber than me make movies...

GUY: "ohh nooooo, the Aztecs had a base 10 measurement... that means that every 10 minutes the pyramid reconfigures!"
ME: "Minutes aren't base 10!!!"
GUY: *Ignores me*

Don't get me started.

3. Postal 2 would make an interesting movie. Dark Earth would make a cool movie too, though it's a bit obscure. Monkey Island?

Scott.

You know, the director for the Mortal Kombat movie did the Alien vs Predator movie [:D] Paul W.S. Anderson. He's an avid gamer too, and happened to have directed the Resident Evil movie and wrote the script for Resident Evil 2. He would have directed Resident Evil 2, but Aliens VS Predator came along. Personally, I think he does ok (but forgettable) popcorn action movies.
I've noticed that he's 'borrowed' elements of the movie "The Cube" in two of his movies. In Resident Evil, he acknowledges that he took the string-slicing of a human from the movie, and the reconfiguration of the pyramid in Alien vs Predator was obviously lifted from The Cube as well.

1: Street Fighter II, the animated movie. That movie is still absolutely kick arse. Brilliant artwork and animation, and all the characters looked like their video game counterparts. It had fantastic action/fighting bits, the soundtrack was *great*, and the story wasn't half bad either.

2: Street Fighter, the live movie. Terrible casting (Jean Claude Van Damme as the American G.I, and a bunch of no-names who looked like weaklings). Really unimpressive action and fighting, tonnes of corny dialogue, and a totally butchered the back story on the characters and premise. You'd think a movie that was done in co-operation with Capcom would have stayed true to things, but they couldn't have gotten it any more wrong. Filmed at the Gold Coast and also starred Kylie Monogue o_O .. It was also the last film that Raul Julia (a respected actor) was in before he died. [:(]
With some great fighting choreography and trip wire, special effects for the special moves etc, and utilising the rich backstory of Street Fighter, the movie had such a great potential. But they blew it, in every possible way. The movie had no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

3: I say Monkey Island as well! Pirates of the Caribbean reminded me a LOT of Monkey Island. I reckon use the same cast, crew, writers, and director, and you're in with a winner right there!
Another great movie would be Metal Gear Solid. It needs some kick arse action sequences, and cool Metal Gear fighting action! Slim pickings for Action heroes these days, I'm not sure who would make a good Solid Snake (and please don't say Kurt Russell).. Someone who would look cool with a MULLET. [:D]

When is Blizzard going to make a 3d animated film of Warcraft or other cool histories and great stories in the World of Warcraft. I would buy up every 20 minute episode of the Warcraft CG-Toon !!

1: Streetfighter / Tekken animated films i really enjoyed those!

2: If i may bend the rules and say the Worst game to be created from a movie IMO was The Matrix. The movies are one of my all time favourite series of movies that kicked major sphincter, and the game just didnt do the movies justice at all. [:(]

3: Devil May Cry / Silent Hill 4 / Half Life 2 with Edward Norton as Gordon would also kick major ass.

Best game to film ever made?
They all seem such average quality for some reason, but personally I?d have to go with Resident Evil. I?d say AvP, but I don?t think it?s really based on the games (though would have been way cooler if it were ? it needed the marines)

Worst game to film ever made?
Street Fighter ? what a joke.

Game that would be great as a movie? (+ best actors for the parts)
Anything set in the Warcraft universe would own! - Especially if it was given the epic scale of the Lord of the Rings trilogy production.

Also, something from the Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver universe would make for a great vampire movie.

I agree, Edward Norton as Gordon Freeman is a great choice. They would really need to improve the plot of Half Life 2 though?

Just on that note I heard yesterday that Halo is going to be turned into a movie. Sorry don't have a link but I'm sure news will go around and someone will post one up [:)]

BEST: Mario Bros - yeah it was pretty bad but it was still awsome when i saw it when i was younger.

WORST: Mortal Kombat 2 - i've avoided what i thought would be too bad, such as Tomb Raider 2 and others.

WANT: Deus Ex - cos it has the best story in a game, ever. and Metroid (yeah it would be really cheesy and porbably suck, but it's Metroid!!)

then again, this would be awsome too:
[img]http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2003/20030124l.jpg[/img]

"Woo has been developing a RAINBOW SIX movie for about a year now. A script is complete but the director hasn't made an announcement that he wants to do RAINBOW as his next film."

Now I know Rainbow Six is a book(an awesome book!) but i think this qualifies as a game to film because the game is more well known and popular(i dont think many ppl know it is based on a book) and I have a feeling this movie will be just a big action packed cheese fest(if u look at any of john woos american movies of late). I really wish this will be made by someone else.

About Half Life, someone has stolen the title http://halflifemovie.com/

That Tetris movie looks sick!

1. Resident Evil or Super Mario Bros.
2. Undecided...havent seen many video game movies...probably Tomb Raider
3. Metroid Prime with Alicia Silverstone as Samus... [:D]

1. Street fighter / Resident evil.
2. Tomb raider, I'm guessing the second was worse than the first.
3. System Shock. "Look at you hacker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone..."

John woo making rainbow 6! would probably make my worst movie when it comes out. Having Ding Chavez fighting terrorists dual pistols actions is a joke. He is a cool director but not the right one for the movie. Ah.. Tom Clancy must be puking at the moment.

1 Best movie. I guess mortal kombat 1. argurably the most successful translation so far. what about games to cartoons? I knew quite a few were made into anime.

2 worst movie. definetly street fighter. Atrocity has been committed to such a classic game. But the saving grace of the movie goes to Zangrief and DJ character.
DJ to Zangrief "Because he paid me an african fortune, you moron"

3 generally games do make good movie translations. movie goers are a different 'customers' to gamers and expectations are very different. I doubt any game would be ideal to make into a movie no matter how popular the game. Movies to game is a better financial risk.

1. Agreeing with souri/hazard, Street fighter animated movie is awesome.
2. I can't really decide... street fighter, double dragon had their horrible moments. Hmmm, i believe pokemon was originally a game too :P
3. Halo, with vin diesel as master chief maybe...i think the low mono voice would suit. I reckon you could make a pretty funny leisure suit larry movie too (animal house, revenge of the nerds etc.). Could cast that guy from buffy...Johnathan(?)
Jet Set Radio could make an interesting trippy animated flick :P
CYer, Blitz

quote:Originally posted by Blitz
3. Halo, with vin diesel as master chief maybe

GAH!! that would be awfull, case in point: http://movies.yahoo.com/movies/feature/thepacifier.html

quote:ScORCHo said:
Now I know Rainbow Six is a book(an awesome book!) but i think this qualifies as a game to film because the game is more well known and popular(i dont think many ppl know it is based on a book) and I have a feeling this movie will be just a big action packed cheese fest

Sorry man, but I completely disagree with you. Firstly, even though as gamers it may seem to us that most people know of the Rainbow games but not the books, I think you?d find that there are billions of Tom Clancy book lovers who don?t even know about the Rainbow games, much less play them.

As for Woo making a Clancy film, especially something more action orientated then the average Clancy story, I think it could work. Now just because Woo has made his mark with duel pistols and point blank face offs, doesn?t mean that this is the only style of action he is capable of. I think he is intelligent enough to realise that a Clancy story calls for a little more thought then some of the mindless actions he has made, and I think he has the potential to bring the right mix of drama, espionage and action to the franchise.

Here?s hoping, anyway!

I find it interesting that the Hollywood machine is taking such an interest in games. You would think that some great movies would come from this but for some reason they botch most of them. They just throw money at it, without even bothering to find out what made the game entertaining in the fist place.

When I heard that a new Final Fantasy movie was coming out I was very sceptical, after the joke the first one was. All they had to do was call it something else, but I was tricked, swindeld, bamboozeld. This new one however looks pretty good. If anyone knows the release date and weather it'll be released as a DVD could you please tell me.

Also, two knew movies are coming soon. Alone In The Dark is coming out next year, with Christian Slater as Edward Carnby.

Heres their website.
[url]http://www.alone-in-the-dark.com/[/url]

And one that Im realy interested in is Silent Hill. They had better not stuff this one up.

Heres an article.
[url]http://www.megagames.com/news/html/movies/silenthillmoviemakessense.sht…]

Do you mean final fantasy 7: advent children? If so, i believe it will be straight to DVD, not sure on the release date though.
CYer, Blitz

They should have just called it "The spirits within". Personally I thought it was a very good movie, but I've heard so many negative comments about it. I wish there were more movies like this (non comedy 3D), but unfortunately the masses seem to have a problem with it. [:(]

You all no the odd director Uwe Boll (house of the dead) is making Far Cry?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0400426/

1 - Mortal Kombat (its the reason I do what I do now)
2 - House of the Dead
3 - Doom, Half Life, Halo, Quake 2

i liked the FF movie. yeah the script was rubbish and the acting didnt help, but it had an original story and looked great (even if the animation was a little stiff at times).

FF was fantastic - you have to remember they were working on it the same time as final fantasy VIII and IX were being made - thats over 6 - 7 years ago, the graphics and animation were out of this world compared to anything else. [:O]

Aren't they making a Doom Movie?

The half life games would be some good ideas for movies, since they're practically just a linear movie currently. Although I would have to say that most of the action and most of the jumping puzzles would have to be replaced from the movies if they were made, and also they'd probably have the sidekick characters going throughout the whole movie too. (Hrm, now I actually have to go back and finish HL2 - almost there atm.)

An animated movie of Monkey Island would probably be cool, if they could get the humour right.
Wing commander was pretty pathetic, along with street fighter...
Something like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time would be a cool movie to make.

Though I would have to make a point that if movies from games were to be made, they would most probably be just plain popcorn action flicks, with limited story, and just a whole lotta special effects. Perhaps if they made a movie from a game with almsot no special effects, I wonder how that would go?

For everyone thinking that I am having a go at Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, I only have a problem with the name. I thought the movie was pretty good. Ending left me a bit sad though [V]. Im a sucker for happy endings.

What has always troubled me is why did they use the FF name. Sitting through the whole movie I just kept getting more and more confused.
"When is someone gonna summon a monster" I kept whispering to my brother. If any one out there knows why the name was used I realy love to hear it.

Years ago when Duke Nukem 3D was current and I was experiencing my first LAN all-nighters, I used to think that the coolest possible thing would be a Duke Nukem movie, probably staring Dolph Lundgren (or maybe even schwarzenegger). [:D]
?It?s time to kick ass and chew bubble gum?
? and I?m all outa gum.?

The only reason Duke Nukem would make a way better movie than the Doom/HL movie is because it actually HAS a character and forms of characterisation...unlike a bazillion other games.

As for the questions

1. best game->movie : Final Fantasy
2. worst game->movie : House of the Dead <- OMG-WTF-LMAO
3. potential conversion : Dreamweb - with Rufus Sewell (dude from Dark City) as Ryan...although any movie based on Dreamweb would definitely get refused classifcation in Australia!

Actually I'd just about give House of the Dead the gong for worst movie ever...but then House of 1000 Corpses was such a pile of turd - but that clown dude was kind of funny...gah can't make up my mind!

I didn't even know House of the Dead was released yet! There has been way too many zombie movies out of late.

holy hell in a bucket.... i heard he was working on something but not something like this

sounds different. "shooting it in 3D using the stereo imagining system " <-- interesting.

nerd ... factor ... rising

I am quite looking forward to this, have been collecting things by Yukito Kishiro's for quite a few years now (and have made two quake3 characters based on battle angel characters, eelai and a alita replica....)

good to see an alternative to matsumune shiro or hayao miyazaki reach the mainstream....

Just wondering if he'll let the mainstream audiences know it was a japanese anime before he did it or will he assume ownership like most asian film to hollywood films.

I'm pretty excited for this movie. James Cameron tends to throw stupid amounts of money towards film production, sets, and special effects. Terminator 2 was at one point the most expensive movie ever made. Titanic was as well (although I think he went overboard with that movie (PUN!! woot)). I absolutely love science fiction, and I can't wait to see the kind of sets and the world he will create for this film. He's a huge science buff, and I was fearing that the reports of his documentary on Mars would mean this project would get canned or delayed for another 5 or so years...

[:0] I think I need to change my pants.

wonder if they have the balls/budget to do the starwars thing of starting with the 3rd of six movies as the first movie, (like, make book 5 and 6 (fight with zappan, intro as tunned, figure 4, barjack) as the first movie produced, and then if successful enough, make movie 4 & 5, then 1,2,3.... would be a shame to munge up the story into one movie, especially since the ending of the comic is currently be rewriten as an ongoing series in japan.....

guess i may have to wait a while for details >(o)n(o)< (doctor nova glasses ready)

(got

James Cameron being [url="http://comingsoon.net/news.php?id=7877"]interviewed about Battle Angel Alita[/url] [:0]

that is so ridicously cute and neat

LMAO Moonunit :D

yeah that thing look scool, makes me want a DS more!

now that i look at it, it looks to me that the stuff on the bottom dont belong but i dont want to delete it unless i get one of you guys to let me know

1) This doesn't really belong here but we'll help you anyway.

2) Use an anti-adware/spyware app to help clean up your system (Try Ad-Aware: [url]http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/[/url])

3) Stop using Internet Explorer forever.

4) Start using FireFox. [url]http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/[/url]

if the program gives you and option to remove those items, just remove them all. If a program stops working you can reinstall it later (looks like Acrobat reader and maybe office).

post it here: http://forum.tweakxp.com/forum/messages.aspx?ForumID=29

the people there will help

thanx for all the replies it seems that no one has a set in stone idea what to do. i will post it at the url given and see what the deal is.
i am using adware and avg and they pickup nothing anymore. i deleted everything they picked up though.
i have stopped using ie i use mozilla now but it seems to have problems with windows media player and paypal (all i have found out so far.)

wish me luck :/

Yeah, that's quite a scary article if you think about it. Even more so when you realise that they will never really run out of employees if they keep on re-recruiting. I wonder what people that used to work at EA have to say about this? (hint hint)...

While I'd guess that this doesn't reflect the attitude of EA towards all of its employees, its ridiculous that even a minority should have to cope with such conditions. Given california's laws on these sorts of things, I think its incredible that any employees put up with it, especially if the project was on schedule the whole time.

hehe, see some of my earlier posts and you'll see that this has been going on for a while. In fact, one of my coworkers replyed to the slashdot posting of this article describing how life sucked on generals. Ahhh, how's it's nice to be in the defence industry now where they make you go home at 40 hours. So much for simulating submarines, now I actually write code for them :)

[url]http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=129283&threshold=1&commentsor…]

Edit - added some links to other sumea threads that I know of about the same topic, one in fact deals with another disgruntled spouce.

[url]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1857[/url]

[url]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1760[/url]

[url]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=525[/url]

The quality of life for game developers is a scary situation.
How do developers here find the working conditions (it seems that for the most part we have it better then many OS developers)? And is the situation likely to improve? Perhaps there should indeed be game developers unions?

The problem seems to come from there being so many developers desperately wanting to work for studios. In a way this connects with that geek tag thread, as maybe it?s the way game dev people are perceived that causes upper management to miss-treat them? Just because we love making games, doesn?t mean we should be treated differently. Other areas of software development also have large numbers of people trying to break in, but look how well they get treated (they work hard, but get properly compensated). And you can?t say that they don?t love what they do. So how are we (game developers) different?

? it can be a curse having a passion for something [:(]

geeze it's stuff like this that makes me want to try for an ordinary office job... Sure making games would be more interesting, but it's seriously not worth sacrificing health, family and friends for. If I was so passionate about gaming that I gave up everything else, that would be a little sad... And scary.

Sounds like the gaming industry will eat your soul...

Jason,

It's not limited to the games industry, not at all. On a recent death-march project I was on, we were regularly pulled into meetings with the weekends chopped up into eight-hour shifts, and we then had to fill all the shifts. This was in the second year of a two-year head-office declared "worldwide pay freeze", with most of the people on the project working in higher duties without higher pay. Rapidly, the "pay for on-call" we were expecting became "pay only if called in to the office - mobile must always be on". Five calls on Christmas day and two on New Years. Yay.

I was personally present where the manager went into the HR records to find a staff member's unlisted home phone number because the staff member had turned off their mobile.

Then, management decided that "time in leiu" would only be granted for saturday and sunday work. That is, those of us pulling 72hours work in four weekdays so we culd have a weekend would get nada, nothing.

One manager actually said "well, as if you're going to find a job elsewhere"? (this in the middle of the brisbane IT job-market doldrums of course).

Don't even mention the part where the estimate of a three week build and three week test was turned into a promise by the VP to the customer to "deliver in 7 days".

I finally realised that it's just part of life in IT (whether it should or not is another question), but at the very least I should be doing it in something I enjoy. Sure, the situation at EA sounds bad, but also eerily familiar.

Does anyone in Australia average, say, a 50 hour working week (with longer during crunch time but levelling out overall)? If not, what would be a more accurate figure, for programmers in particular?

that's a pretty disturbing story. i really want to get into the games industry, but if i was offered a job and asked to do that, would i take it? maybe i would stay a while, get a bit of experience and then get out quickly before it's too late!

I think the fact that these people are working with games, management thinks that for half the time they're at work they play games or something, hence to them an 80 hour work week would break down into 40 hours actual work and 40 hours game playing or something?

But yeah, now I see why you *really* quit the profession DaMunkee....

*sigh*

Sometimes I wonder where all the money in the industry goes when a large company like EA regularly screws it's employees over big time and turns massive profits. What scares me most is that answer to that question - and what kind of skewed human being would actually approve of that kind of practise simply because they stand to gain so much "wealth" (a very loose usage of the word) from it.

Go to Freeplay/IGDC and witness the massive amount of industry related cynicism, having witnessed this and done some soul searching I've been totally turned off the idea of making games via the normal retail/commercial avenues.

A company email about the current lawsuit against EA. It amazes me that they included sentences like "tightly managed cost structure", "committed to keeping EA a growing Company". If their employees were being screwed over, the last thing they'd want to hear from their managers are things about company profit and growth. The email seems more concerned about their development process rather than the problem. :/

-----Original Message-----
From: Earl, Nick
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2004 3:51 PM
To: STUDIO RFT @ EAHQ; Testing RFT@ EARS
Subject: FAQ on Recent Legal Action

On Friday, we were served with a class-action lawsuit claiming that Artists in our California studios are not correctly classified under California labor regulations regarding overtime pay. This suit was filed jointly by two law firms ? one in San Francisco and a second in Boston ? with one employee named as the plaintiff.

Unfortunately, under the rules of class-action lawsuits, the one short-tenured employee and lawyers now speak as a representative voice for every one of our Artists on this matter -- whether the Artists know they are included or not.

We believe EA has been fair and we will vigorously defend our position. Still, the lawsuit could drag on for many years and could have a significant long-term impact on our compensation, benefits and development process.

The two law firms may use the media to draw attention to the case. If you get any questions from the outside, please do not comment and instead refer them to Jeff Brown at x87922.

Because you all may have questions, I have attached a FAQ below which I encourage you to review. Because none of us are lawyers I urge you to use caution in what you say and write on email regarding this issue. Additionally, we will talk about this in further detail at our next All Hands.

We remain, regardless of challenges, committed to keeping EA a growing Company that will deliver successfully on our mission and objectives.

Thanks,

Nick

FAQ

What?s this lawsuit about?

This is a very sensitive issue that the entire digital entertainment industry is grappling with. Fundamentally, it is about re-defining who makes creative decisions in the development process. There?s no clear cut, final answer as each new generation of technology forces us to re-examine jobs and responsibilities.

What?s a class action lawsuit?

In essence, it?s a suit that aims to resolve legal questions for categories of employees rather than a single individual who has worked for us a very short time.

What are they suing for?

This gets into complex legal questions that our attorneys are sorting out and addressing. In most situations the attorneys fund and fuel these suits and take a large percentage of any settlements.

Why does EA oppose the suit?

We?re concerned any time one employee and a group of lawyers takes any action that could significantly change our compensation, benefits and studio development process.

If EA?s a #1 People Company, why don?t we just pay them?

EA succeeds because we combine good wages and benefits with a tightly managed cost structure. We believe that we?ve paid our people fairly and legally and EA pays for a lot of great benefits such as gyms, cafeterias, day care, game rooms as well as bonuses, benefits and stock options. On a global basis, it would be very challenging to pay for all that and then add additional compensation.

"...Great benefits such as gyms, cafeterias, day care, game rooms.... " The day care is all well and good, but the other options seem like areas to have a rest in or soak up some of that 'time away from work' - which to me sounds like these guys just arent getting any of, and even when these guys did get a chance to break away why the heck would they want to spend that time at the work gym ? ( presuming they had families / partners etc )

I guess the question that I ask myself over and over again is " Would I give my life up for an undefined period to break my back for a game? "

The only answer I can come up with at this stage is - it really depends on how well i know the 'man' in charge.

If hes a successful businessman and is good with figures - then the answer would likely be " A super-excessive wage may tempt me, but highly unlikely " This type of person is more likely to be all about the figures and the end result, *NOT* the journey, the trials tribulations and unbelievable learning experience that comes with completing a next gen title. Hence unrealistic deadlines - massive endless crunchtimes and a general " why isnt this done yet? " stance.

On the other hand if the guy was a people person - understood what projects were all about, possibly using his own money to fund the project - and showed a keen interest in looking after his team, then i'd seriously look into it.

The difference is I would bend over backward for the guy using his own money to fund something. Managers just dont care when the money isnt theirs - its human nature, and it breeds in all of us, just some exceedingly worse than others [:P]

Whats everyones thoughts on that ?

quote:Originally posted by Souri

What?s this lawsuit about?

This is a very sensitive issue that the entire digital entertainment industry is grappling with. Fundamentally, it is about re-defining who makes creative decisions in the development process.

Um, huh? I seem to have totally misunderstood.

What gets me is why they were *forced* to work heaps of overtime - 60 hours - when the gmae was still on schedule, and then they still had to go through a great crunch period to get it done on time? This looks to me like a symptom of really bad management. Coincidentally those are the people that remain when half the programmers leave.

Thought this summed it up quite to the point.

[url]http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20041114[/url]

hahahahaha, that's awsome.

[url="http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=21438&mode=thread&order=0"]EA looking into buying Digital Illusions[/url] (developers of Battlefield 1942, Vietnam etc (they've had a long history going back to the Amiga as well).

"Digital Illusions' Board of Directors unanimously recommends to the DICE shareholders that they accept the EA offer. Joining EA will accelerate DICE's transition to development for new platforms, including the next generation consoles expected in 2006-2007."

For gods sakes, don't do it Digital Illusions! EA have a history of buying up developers, running their good titles into the ground, and eventually dissolving the original team. The original Medal of Honour team, Maxis, Westwood Studios, the original Need for Speed team etc... In the end, EA get another license to develop at their sweatshop camps at LA, Quebec, and California. I remember being impressed by the pictures of the buildings/facilites that EA provided their employees (someone posted a link in the forum a while ago) but knowing what the working conditions there are like now, it sure doesn't look like the creative haven I thought it was.

BTW, there's a [url="http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/11/13/208253.shtml?tid=146&tid=187&t…"]whitepaper on the culture at EA[/url] written by a University Professor. Pretty eye opening stuff.

Here's a new one:

[url]http://www.livejournal.com/users/joestraitiff/[/url]

*cough* ... I feel a union coming on *cough*

maybe should just stop buying ea products and tell everyone you know to do the same.
its upsetting to hear stuff like that, especially when you try to do the right thing and buy games to support the industry when it's so easy to pirate them. Then, hear that they treat their people like shit.
bastards.

Yeah, after reading all about EA, I?ve decided to try my hardest not to spend any money on an EA title (unless I really really must have it [;)]). Here we are in the 21st century and one of the biggest companies in the Western world continues to practice slave labour. Bastards.

Damn, I was really looking forward to Need for Speed Underground 2! But I?ll take my money elsewhere until they clean up their act.

Hmm, Michael Moore should do a doco on the games industry and EA.

Just got a newsletter from the IGDA containing an open letter about the quality of life issue. It's definately worth a read - [url="http://www.igda.org/qol/open_letter.php"]Quality of Life Issues are Holding Back the Game Industry[/url].

Anotherslave: not buying there products would just make them downsize staff, hurting the wrong people.

plus Battle for MiddleEarth looks too awsome to pass up!

It's old news now, but the [url="http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/21/1746257&tid=187&tid=9…"]NY Times have made a report on it all[/url]. It's amazing to see every gaming/game development website discussing it all, and I wonder what the executives and managers at EA are thinking right about now...

Management in this industry, in my experience, is so terrible it's beyond a joke. There are so many producers that don't know their ass from their elbow about managing a game project. How much they get paid for doing nothing at all makes we want to cry, and they can get away with it is by making devs work insane hours. I have heard stories from some of my colleagues about producers who will just walk in for one day of the week, scream at the devs and threaten their jobs, then stay at home for the rest of the week. It's an unfortunate fact that there is nothing in place to stop this kind of practice.

quote:Originally posted by Souri

It's old news now, but the [url="http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/21/1746257&tid=187&tid=9…"]NY Times have made a report on it all[/url]. It's amazing to see every gaming/game development website discussing it all, and I wonder what the executives and managers at EA are thinking right about now...

Probably very little, besides they would be too busy counting there "hard earned" dollars.

"Leaked memo shows efforts to improve working conditions at industry's top publisher

An internal memo from EA's senior vice president of human resources Rusty Rueff to staff at the company has revealed that the firm is contemplating a change to how it classifies jobs with regard to overtime eligibility.

The memo, which was distributed to staff at the leading publisher's worldwide offices earlier this week, is the most direct response yet seen to the flood of negative reports about the company's treatment of employees which emerged last month."

http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=5789

And here is the memo...

"The last few weeks of reading blogs and the media about EA culture and work practices have not been easy. I know personally how hard it is when so much of the news seems negative. We have purposefully not responded to web logs and the media because the best way to communicate is directly with you, our team members.

As much as I don?t like what?s been said about our company and our industry, I recognize that at the heart of the matter is a core truth: the work is getting harder, the tasks are more complex and the hours needed to accomplish them have become a burden. We haven?t yet cracked the code on how to fully minimize the crunches in the development and production process. Net, there are things we just need to fix. And the solutions don?t apply to just our studios -- the people who market, sell, distribute and support the great games that our Studios create, all share a demanding workload.

Three weeks ago we issued our bi-annual Talk Back Survey and more than 80 percent of you participated ? much higher than the norm for a company our size. That tells me you care and are committed to making EA better. In the next 30 days we?ll have the survey results and we will share them openly with you by the middle of January.

Your feedback in the Talk Back Survey will help us make changes in the coming year, but we?re not waiting -- some changes are already in the works in the Studios. Here are just a few:

The Studios will be moving to a consistent application of the Renderware Platform. We bought Criterion because we believe there is no better technology platform (25% of all games in our industry are being built on RW). Having a standardized technology approach will save us from having to re-invent the wheel over and over. It will save time and effort we used to spend navigating technology issues.

Every member of the Studio will have gone through Pre-Production Training by the end of December (Tiburon will be going through their training in January when they move into their new facility). We understand the toll taken on our teams when we change directions late in the process. We are putting more teeth in our preproduction discipline to ensure that we more fully define and agree (at all levels) on what the features of the game will be before we scale up teams.

We?ve started a Development Process Improvement Project to get smarter and improve efficiency. Just as we have revamped the Pre-Production process, we are now creating a Product Development Map that will provide earlier decision-making (on SKUS and game features), improve our consistency of creative direction, and lessen the number of late in the process changes, firedrills, and crunches. We will be rolling these changes out over the next year.

We are looking at reclassifying some jobs to overtime eligible in the new Fiscal Year. We have resisted this in the past, not because we don?t want to pay overtime, but because we believe that the wage and hour laws have not kept pace with the kind of work done at technology companies, the kind of employees those companies attract and the kind of compensation packages their employees prefer. We consider our artists to be ?creative? people and our engineers to be ?skilled? professionals who relish flexibility but others use the outdated wage and hour laws to argue in favor of a workforce that is paid hourly like more traditional industries and conforming to set schedules. But we can?t wait for the legislative process to catch up so we?re forced to look at making some changes to exempt and non-exempt classifications beginning in April.

So, there are things in the works short-term, longer-term, along with those ideas that will come from you over the next few months.

Here is what I know about our progress as a Company.

First, we have the best people in this industry and arguably in the entire entertainment industry. Globally, we are now over 5000 strong and we continue to win in the market place. Year after year, our games finish at the top of the charts with the best ratings. We like to compete and we like to win.

Second, we?re doing something that no one has ever done before: No entertainment software company has ever scaled to this size. We take it for granted sometimes, but it?s important to recognize this fact. Every day is a learning day with new competitors, new consumers, new people working on bigger teams ? and all of this amid rapidly changing technology. We experiment, we learn from our mistakes, we adapt and we grow.

Most important: we recognize that this doesn?t get fixed with one email or in one month. It?s an on-going process of communication and change. And while I realize that the issue today is how we work ? I think we should all remember that there are also a lot of great benefits to working at EA that are not offered at other companies. With some smart thinking and specific actions we will fix these issues and become stronger as a company.

Thanks for taking time to read this.

Rusty"

quote:But we can?t wait for the legislative process to catch up so we?re forced to look at making some changes to exempt and non-exempt classifications beginning in April.

Or: "Yes we have been breaking the law. However we belive the Law should change to be the same as out policy on not paying staff for overtime, but as that is not going to happen and because someone is taking action against us, we will change out policy to a legal one. You big whingers. "

I always love how when caught doing something wrong, people pretend that they did it with your best interests at heart.

Pantmonger

though they seem to be changing very little anyway in terms of overtime etc.

and i like they way they phrased this:
"We are looking at reclassifying some jobs to overtime eligible ".

LOL! that article is so full of junk, for starters this apparent recent problem they relate to a game thats been out for something around 5 years. Secondly they attribute students aggresive behaviour to games, why? how was that link established?
oh and thirdly, love how it uses the term "dark side." Star wars fever has reached further then we thought :P

(btw im looking around and cant see a email to contact the writer or editor or anything, if anyone can find one please let us know)

I can't wait for Today/Tonight or A Current Affair to report this crisis!

I didn't read past the first sentence. I'm not giving shit like this the time of day anymore.

I would attribute half of this to psychiatrists wanting to name something and sell some drugs to go along with that. The other half to parents, teachers, and community workers that can't see any fault in what they're doing or don't see that humans are always a violent mob, and that they want a quick something to blame for all of this.

I'd even go to say that playing violent videogames often releases stress and tension, leading to a calmer and less violent person.

Daemin -> No *decent* study has ever shown that games playing is a catharsis. Sorry! It's pure speculation at this stage.

About as much proof as the link between gaming and violent psychosis. lol [:P]

personally im all for banning the violent reports in news papers and on shows like a current affair, their warping my fragile little mind and im just becoming so violent!!!

[:0] thats a realy good point Moony, In the other thread about the geek tag for the games industry. Just imagion what kind of name we are going to get if all this stuff keeps coming up. Could realy hurt the industry if they keep pounding this stuff into peoples minds [:(!]

hmm:
quote:But Professor Sanders said computer games affected only particular types of children and even then other [negative] factors were likely to be present.

"Generally no single thing is sufficient to explain the development of this sort of problem," he said.

obviously the writter dosnt seem to think so based on everything else that is writen there. it's all the games fault!!

I went back to this story again and noticed the opinion poll: 67% of people who read this article said "It's not the games fault if the children misbehave".

I still find a 33% minority in the opinion of "Children see, children do" to be quite frustrating on this topic; If 3.3 in 10 people actually believe that a child's aggression could be attributed mainly to playing video games, then the industry still has a serious image problem.

I'm also annoyed by the fact that this reporter fails to mention that "ultra-violent" games are not marketed towards children, and that parents should actively monitor their children's media exposure. By not mentioning this, he does what every other game-hating journo has done before him and make it seem like the game industry is just trying to corrupt the minds of innocent children, which is needless to say, really wrong.

Still thinking about forming a group like 'responsible adults against portraying violence to children? which are primarily concerned with removal of the image of Christ crucified, as it shows a violent death, being stabbed by a spear, then hung up by the wrists to the cross (fyi, nail through hand can?t hold someone?s weight, the nails where put through the wrists for crucifixions by the Romans?)

Or perhaps a group named ?society for individual responsibility??. Or just take a flamethrower to everybody?..

you know coen youve actually made one of the same points that marilyn manson made when he copped flak for the collumbine killings thing (another well established connection im sure), to give you the quote from the article he made for rolling stone: "A half-naked dead man hangs in most homes and around our necks, and we have just taken that for granted all our lives."

something else id like to raise was i was in a video store the other day and two kids who couldnt have been higher then a grade 4 or 5 came rushing in in search of grand theft auto 3 (i know this because they were telling it quite loudly to anyone who would listen). They found themselves a copy and handed it over to mum who paid for it at the cash register to the attendant who had watched the whole thing (and new mum wasnt buying that game for herself thats for sure). Yet the industry itself will get the blame (allthough for what its never certain).

Plus you've got to realise that violent games are classified as MA15+ etc, so if a 6 year old kid plays it who's fault is that? The parents for letting the, or for the game makers for making them.

Currently, the poll is at:

Do you believe exposure to such games as Counterstrike makes the average child more violent?

Currently, the results are:

1154 1154 25.79% Yes, children see ... children do.
3320 3320 74.2% No, it's not the game's fault if kids misbehave

Total votes: 4474

It seems like Counterstrike has become the new whipping boy ever since those [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/snews.asp?news=1238"]two men "dressed as Counterstrike characters" during killing[/url]..

souri: yeah i read that artical from a link on the atomic fourms. very funny. the writers at atomic made some interesting points:

> the clothing in CS is based off 'real' terrorist style clothing so the men might as well have been imitating them. you really wouldnt know.
> ironicaly there is no character in CS that is dressed like either of the two men.
> the picture is of CS Source while the crime happend several years ago.

What I find rather interesting is that every change in society needs to be blamed on something to give people a sense of relief. It can be related, in a strange way, to a workplace/road accident with certian professionals being brought in to determine how such a incident happened. As soon as a 'professional' arrives at a theory of why children are delving into this 'dark side' people are given closure, a relief, "we now know why".

Another point that I find quite interesting is how the school system uses 'behavior management' rather than 'disipline'. It seems now days we just accept that children misbehave and we just manage it, we dont teach right and wrong cause we let them get away with it. Hey, it seems so crazy, its like a woman could murder her autistic child and blame it on frustration and get away with it! I wonder how she will manage.

quote:Originally posted by MoonUnit


something else id like to raise was i was in a video store the other day and two kids who couldnt have been higher then a grade 4 or 5 came rushing in in search of grand theft auto 3 (i know this because they were telling it quite loudly to anyone who would listen). They found themselves a copy and handed it over to mum who paid for it at the cash register to the attendant who had watched the whole thing (and new mum wasnt buying that game for herself thats for sure). Yet the industry itself will get the blame (allthough for what its never certain).

I have a friend at EB and he has been giving parents lectures on what to expect in the game whenever they come in to buy it for their kids. (ie. violent and LOTS of swearing). I don't think any parents have decided to not buy it, but it's his own insurance policy so that if any parents come back complaining how the game isn't suitable for their child he can say "I told you so".
CYer, Blitz

At least someone's warning the parents, but I wonder if parent's now a days are too eager to please their younger children that they would buy them whatever they want?

It's pretty funny that this came up because I was reading issue #104 of PC Powerplay (October) and it had this tiny article on page 26 about a game that the Czech Republic's Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs commisioned a studio to make that involved the male figure beating and abusing his wife!

Apparently the idea behind it is that men who play the game will take their wife-beatable frustrations out on their "virtual wife" in game so as not to beat their wives in real life.

I think playing games offers a stress and reality release from the horrors and acumulating stress that children are exposed to every day. This doesn't mean give them games that are violent but to give them the apporopriate game for their age group. OBVIOUSLY if it says 18+ on the cover you wouldn't give it to a 6 year old! Would perents let thier 6 yr old child watch MA movies with sexual, violent and disturbing scenes in it? I doubt it, so why do they think that games are any different.

Another aspect that it is just ignorance on the perents part thinking all games are just games. ARH! >_<

This is interesting. At the start of the forum everybody is saying that computer games have no affect on people but by page two the forum is complaining about parents giving violent games to children and why would that matter unless it did have an affect? (I don't mean to sound aggressive or condescending. just trying to point a few things out)
I personally have a lot of mixed feelings about this. One is that as it says in that article "Public Schools Principals' Forum spokesman Brian Chudleigh said yesterday he believed violent computer games and movies had had " an accumulative impact on society". " (Don't get me wrong the article was pointless and moronic fear mongering)
Key words being "accumulative impact on society". The media in all forms seam to think that violence is acceptable from violent movies and games to the nightly news right to books. Any of you read "the chronicles of Thomas Covenant the unbeliever"? One of the first things the "hero" does is rape a 12 year old girl. And let?s not mention writers like Clive Barker.
Violence is all around us theses days. For example the movie Gladiator which has constant graphic violence but had the Caligulan orgies removed because having someone disembowelled is fine for an M rating but showing some "pink" isn't. The constant influx of violence does desensitise people which so the next thing to come out has to be even more violent to get a reaction.
At the start of this essay I said I had mixed feelings. One is the fact that despite watching/playing/reading lots of incapably violent material I myself am an incredibly NON violent person. I never actuality respond with violence. I even think twice before stepping on a cockroach. Is this because of the way I was raised? I was never allowed to watch movies until I was old enough legally ( I.e. 15yo = M15) while some of my friends were watching Predator at 10yo (which has skinless human corpses!) but most of them aren?t violent either. but on the other hand my brother is much more violent than me.

Where is the small book going? I don't know I don't have any answers; I'm just pointing about a few things and expressing a few opinions.
I think I'll finish up now saying I think we all need to be more responsible for our own actions raising our children with a decent set of morals and reducing the amount of violence in the world.

quote:Originally posted by Ponkavitch

At the start of the forum everybody is saying that computer games have no affect on people but by page two the forum is complaining about parents giving violent games to children and why would that matter unless it did have an affect? (I don't mean to sound aggressive or condescending. just trying to point a few things out)

The point here is the games were designed to be in the capable hands of a certain demographic and in those hands there is no harm. If a younger child is affected in anyway by a MA rated game then its not the games fault because the child was never supposed to have gotten a hold of it. So in sum there is no affect, provided its in the hands of its intented audience.

I think everyone agrees with me when i say f**k off! (Sorry but im sick of crap like this, i really wish the media would listen)

These days its just playing the blame game. Its the parents fault for not paying any attention to their kids so the kids go attention seeking elsewhere and causing trouble. The parents of course know this but are too embarassed to admit it so they blame what the kids love most, video games. Why admit to something when you can blame something else?

I bet you back in the old'n days the TV was considered the corrupter of children, today its video games.

that's a kinda funny way of wording it:

"These days its just playing the blame game. Its the parent's fault..."

I personally think the games made are a *reflection* of the state of things.

This does not mean that they are or are not a cause of violence, or a perpetuator or a catalyst for violence.

[IMG]http://img92.exs.cx/img92/3637/yaha.jpg[/IMG]

I was bored [:p].

havnt played it myself or followed the microsoft generated hype ("most anticipated game ever" - guess they're not counting halflife 2 or doom 3).

looks a lot better with all the bumpmapping and such. but how is the game? must be better than the original (though that cant be hard).

honestly i dont know what the facination with it was. i enjoyed the first half of the game (so about the first couple of hours) when you were fighting against intelegent enemies with intelegent allies, all who used intelegent tactics. lots of fun and lots of stradegy.

but once the flood came into it it was just midless drones running right at you along. became very boring very quickly. all the second half of the game i was hoping for covernate enemies to pop up just so i could have some real combat back! and it didn't help that some levels were repeated up to three times either.

i've only played a little of multiplayer, and that was good fun, so i guess that's where the facination is, cos i cant see it being in the singleplayer.

december: metroid prime 2 - now that's what i'm waiting for. original was the greatest example of game design and production values of recent years if you ask me. cant wait for the sequal.

half life 2 > Halo 2

not to say Halo 2 is completely sucky, im sure its a great game but im not loaded atm and im getting HL2 free thanks to my ATI card anyways. Im also confident of it being the superior game, just pointing out that just because one game is better then the other dosent mean the other is worthless.

on a side note, i owned metroid prime twice, (bought one, won another) and i sold em both :)
each to their own ;)

yeah i've had a few people say to me MP's not that great. but yeah, to each his own, i loved it.

Very busy this week.. Halo 2 is sitting on my desk at work, but no time to play it until Thursday night. Driving me crazy...

I'm debating if I should also get the HL premier pack, since now would be the last time I could get it for free before HL2 is released...

*sigh*...

Though I like some of the Total War series of games better than HL2, Doom3, Halo2 etc.

Need for Speed Underground 2 just went gold, and the latest Grand Theft Auto was just released.. Sure is a busy month for big game releases/sequels!

Yeh, Halo 2 is getting a lot of hype. A lot of the comments (usually from hardened PC shooter fans) say that it's unwarranted. I've only seen a tiny bit of the original, but my friend said there wasn't anything special about it and that there sure was a lot of backtracing (going through the same levels again, in reverse), plus too much mindless shooting. All that was most likely due to Microsoft having to push Bungie in getting it released for the Xbox, so they had to do some filler stuff.

From the footage of I've seen of Halo 2 was cool. They mix up the action very well. Visually (the design and look of levels/characters), it's not as impressive as, say, Unreal Tournament 2004 or Doom3, but it looks more fun to play.

Halo and Halo 2 look exactly the same. The only difference are the cuts scenes are better in the sequel.

It is basically the same game with new guns, vehicles, and levels. I would call it more of an expansion than a sequel.

It is what Halo should have been if Bungie hadnt rushed it

I think one of the things for me with the first Halo, is that unlike any other FPS i've played, Halo absolutely OOZED atmosphere. I'd come close to saying that of any game i've played, it's the one that had the biggest effect of making me forget everything else and just getting absorbed by the game. The discovery of the Flood, is probably number 1 on my "All time greatest gaming moments" list. I haven't played Doom 3 yet though, so maybe that will ooze more atmosphere? Certainly looking forward to Halo 2 though.
I would say Halo 2 is easily more highly anticipated than Doom 3, and either more or as anticipated as Half-life 2. Simple test...check the pre-order numbers.
CYer, Blitz

I have to agree with Blitz on this, its difficult to say exactly what it is about Halo, its just the sort of game that pulls you in and captures your absolute attention.

quote:I haven't played Doom 3 yet though, so maybe that will ooze more atmosphere?There aren't many things in Doom 3 that don't ooze in one sense or another...

Still waiting to play Halo 2...

Either way, this Christmas is going to be one hell of a Christmas for gamers... problem is the ca$h flow needed for so many good games... meh, i can buy most of them but will only buy several [:)].

Anyway, Christmas is coming early for us gamers [:)].

and the return of the king extended dvds - so there's another 70 odd $$ to add to the christmas list

Here's an [url="http://vgombud.blogspot.com/2004/11/eliminate-positive-or-only-negative…"]interesting article on Halo 2[/url]. The author just copied all the negative comments from 9 reviews of Halo 2 and placed them in order so it reads like a negative review. It's a good experiment, and I thought it was very interesting.

And while I'm at it, here's a [url="http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2478"]negative review of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas[/url] [:D]

Note, the above review is an experiment also...quote:"Now friends, if you'll remember correctly the whole point of this shit is to circulate the link to the Truth Media article throughout the Grand Theft Auto community and see how many people you can trick into thinking it's a real, legitimate review."

I liked Halo and I liked Halo 2.

I thought that the problems that Halo had (stop starting action), were fixed up in Halo 2. It is just pretty much constant action. Very little pauses this time. A few variations in game play (protecting and a few more rally areas :D ). The story is a bit better than the original.

My only two major complaints with Halo 2 (at the moment), are that it is too friggen short. My friend and I got it and played co-op. We finished it in 10 hours :( One of the best things about Halo was that it didn't have bosses. Halo 2 does...

Chances are, if you thought Halo was ordinary and overhyped, then you will here as well.

[url="http://www.gameindustry.com/ih/item.asp?id=415"]Halo 2 sales top $125 million[/url]...

Halo 2 broke entertainment retail records in its first 24 hours on store shelves. Microsoft Game Studios today announced that the highly-anticipated game sold through 2.4 million units in the U.S. and Canada, driving cash register receipts to the $125 million mark.

[:0]

quote:Originally posted by Souri

[url="http://www.gameindustry.com/ih/item.asp?id=415"]Halo 2 sales top $125 million[/url]...

Halo 2 broke entertainment retail records in its first 24 hours on store shelves. Microsoft Game Studios today announced that the highly-anticipated game sold through 2.4 million units in the U.S. and Canada, driving cash register receipts to the $125 million mark.

[:0]

Saw that this morning, but it made me wonder, if it keeps selling at that rate nearly every XBox owner will have a copy and then it will probably slow down in sales very fast.

Anyway, my bet is Half-Life 2 will work its way to the top some week, after all, theres nothing good out besides Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 [:o)].

GTA: San Andreas?

I've heard its ok, but not that much better then the originals.

The ca$h is on Halo 2 & Half-Life 2 sugar! [;)]

I just finished it on Heroic difficulty and it took 16hrs, maybe less seeing as its only been 4 days since release.
I thought it was an excellent game even though the ending was not as good as expected and it was shorter than i expected. Still it is not right for me to be annoyed when it is my own fault for expecting a 100% perfect game. I think this is the same with many people and when a 9.8/10 game gets frowned upon because its not perfect, I wonder about the nature of the industry.

Its a fantastic game, which in my opinion is a development masterpiece up there with (but not quite equal to) Metal Gear Solid.

I also think the multiplayer is the best available on any platform.

quote:Originally posted by wardenjam

I also think the multiplayer is the best available on any platform.

I thought the original Halo's multiplayer was terrible, but thats probably because my friends always play the same level 24/7 which is really boring, the same level for 3 hours one night, damn i was bored.

I might just try playing co-op with one of my friends who has a copy, i always had a bit of fun with co-op.

yer Halo 2's MP maps are very well designed. Also there are so many game types with so many variables that you could play for hours without repeating a match. The online works great too.

I juss completed the last level on legendary and there was no alternate ending like the 1st unfortunately. unless you have to complete every level on legendary.... [xx(]

Finally got around to playing the campaign in the last few days. I really did not expect the ending... I was still waiting for another level when the credits came on screen. Still, I enjoyed the game quite a bit, though nothing really new other than dual weapons, it was still a lot of fun. However, I do like how they expanded on the covenant a lot more than in the first.

Pity the ending had no sort of closure at all... it makes waiting for Halo 3 even worse. [:p]

At least I've got it out of the way for when I pick up Halflife 2 tomorrow!

Halo 1 bored me sensless, it was nothing new if you've even played a sub par PC FPS at that time, Halo 2 doesn't really interest me and after playing it for a while I can't see myself picking it up again, and whats with the graphical glitches? Bad form guys.

Btw, Half life 2 is amazing, everything else pales in comparison. [:P]

Just had a 5 hour Halo 2 Multiplayer session. While the singleplayer might not be the most original, the multiplayer is damn fun, and there is so much customisation with different modes you can play. Good fun!

i had more fun playing a couple of hours of multiplayer in Halo 1 than i did playing through the entire singleplayer game.

Im sure there will be many interested parties..Like Me!!

Cmon Everybody!

"Soaring high in the sky,
He may be small but only in size.
AstroBoy, AstroBoy,
He is brave and gentle and wise!"

"Stronger Than all the rest,
this mighty robot will pass the test,
Oh villans fear him, so we cheer him,
The amazing AstroBoy!"

and so on...

is it the old series tho for sure.. or the dodgy new remake?

It?s not the original which was made in the 60?s, but it is the 80?s classics, which were far superior to the crap they churn out today.

quote:From Souri?s link:
Produced: 1980

And 11 DVD's... awesome!

However, I was under the impression that the separately available DVD episodes are of the new serries? I thought the DVD boxset was just part of the madman classics range of DVD?s? In any case, it?s great to have access to the 80?s serries. They were awesome. Now, if I could only had $200 to spend on Manga?

greets from shanghai
hey nice ive been looking for this, hopefully i can find it and pick it up for about 5$ au.

im also looking for the robotech series and any other classic anime that i can find over here.

lets hope i can find it in english, or even with english subtitles.

I remember seeing a set of four or five brightly coloured boxes containing the entire series of Robotech at EB when their sale was on while ago. Anyway, what are you doing over in China for three months?!

holidaying, i havent yet found astroboy, but i have the entire first 3 seasons of robotech as a boxed set :O)

Great topic.

When I look to the state of the industry I can't help but be reminded of what happened to corporate IT only a few years ago.

Not so long ago when IT was booming and there was a lack of skilled labour, it was perceived that anyone that could wrap themselves around a computer would find themselves a stable, well paid career... if not become a millionaire! Subsequently there was an explosion in IT enrolments at universities and the market became flooded.

Fast forward to today and the IT sector is so saturated that the chances of finding that career become laughable.

Having studied IT at uni, I also harbour an uneasy feeling that a generalised curriculum in a restricted timeframe makes most graduates superfluous. Academics have a habit of adding fluff and pomp to a course, sacrificing relevancy. Thanks to my IT course for example, I'm also versed in statute law, psychology, and Asian Pacific trade history!

These issues I feel parallel the world of games today. As games careers are increasingly being shown as more and more viable, not only are more graduates being churned out, but more and more educational institutions are racing to offer game related courses.

The end result is a sea of questionably skilled hopefuls breaking against the industry wall like water.

As a person who has been on the receiving end of game job applications I would have to agree with you HazarD, that the level of skillusefulness is at times quite low. This is where I feel communites like Sumea offer an invaluable service in separating the cream.

Consider the number of entries at the beginning of a Sumea Challenge VS the number of completed works. Over time, this service of distinguishing those that can work to a spec in a given time and finish will become increasingly valuable.

I personally feel that the solution to tightening up the situation lies in the hands of the educational institutions. Restrict course access to those 5-10 who have a chance at getting a job. Those that demonstrate a level of personal effort showing that they understand what they're getting themselves into.

Leave the specialised training to organisations such as QANTM and AIE. Let the universities pollute other realms of academia and leave the course content practical and specialised.

EMPLOY PEOPLE FROM THE INDUSTRY. WORK WITH THE INDUSTRY.

The promise that next gen console titles will require large teams may offer respite from the dilemma, but the workforce needs to have the correct skills to be employable in the first place.

I'll put an end to this book I'm writing by saying that my ideas might be a bit over the top, but that's only my perfect world solution. The talent will always find its way to the top, be it through networking, reputation, or forums such as sumea.

Scott.

I know there is alot more to this topic then what I'm going to write but I just wanted to agree with one thing and disagree with one thing.

First off I agreed that there should be a limit of how many people they enter into 3D courses. With that said its not going to happen, new 3D courses are coming up because there is money in it. Schools want to get people in so they can fill there pockets. As far as I see it they don't care if the people have any skill they just want them in so they can take there money.

Where I did my schooling alot of people got a piece of paper saying they had passed while during the year they had not finshed assignments and when they did it wasn't very good. Its sending out the wrong message [:(!]. In the industry you have to keep your work standard up and have it done on time or the whole project suffers.

Anyways I do disagree that the Industry in australia isn't doing well. Irrational games has just brought out Tribes Vengence, Which is up there of the most top of the line games. The Australian industry is also growing and is getting alot more funding then it used to. I realy see Australia taking alot of the industry up over time.

With that all said.. When I read the topic I thought the topic was going to be a little different. When I was younger I loved to play games and still do but there was a point where I have to say cut down on the gaming and more art work. If I did this sooner I would of been in the industry sooner.

Hazard, I agree with you entirly. I'm a student at QANTM and i found it kinda amusing actually when a lead from Krome told a rooms full of us:

"The top 5-10 students in this room *might* have a chance at getting an interview"

i laughed at the resonse of some people (not out loud cos that would be rude :) ). there are a few of us that have discussed this a lot and long ago realised that NO-ONE is going to get a job right out of the course. so it came as no shock when it was told to my face. still, a large deal of the room did, and i guess that proves your point that most people arnt aware of this.

not to sound offensice to other people in my course, but i see a lot of low quality work (compared to pro standard that is). you just know they're not goig to get a job at the end. i was one of these people last year (i completed the dip screen at qantm) and thought that my work was pretty good. and while i wasnt erxpecting to get a job, i was at least hoping for some interest at the exhibition night. i got next to nothing (in fact the most interest i got was the week before at AGDC). i now look at last year's work and realise how dodge it really was.

that's not to say that no-one will ever get a job though. out of a course the ones that will get a job are the ones that go away and practice for 6, 12, 18, 24, whatever more months until they're good enough. the course can teach you the skills, but you have to get good at them.

this year i'm doing the degree at qantm and from my advance standing from the diploma i finish in may next year. i dont know if i'll be good enough then to at least getan interview. but i do know that i will be good enough sooner or latter - cos i am determined to get i and will practice day after day until i am good enough. and i think that's what most students dont realise -you cant just do your animation assessments, stick them on a demo reel and expect a call. you've got to do wholelot more than that.

at least that's the way i see it.

I'm doing a double degree in IT and Multimedia at uni and I definately know that its not going to get me into any jobs. But what it has provided me with is an opportunity to learn about things I never quite got around to really study. Programming, Multimedia, Web Development, its all helped me tune my decisions into what I may or may not want to do in the future.

I know that I will only get into the industry if I put in the hard yards, and if I don't, I only have myself to blame.

i think a lot of people that are interested in games dev are just big fans of the games they play... kinda how a lot of people will sing their favourite pop stars tune or try to play a simple version of their favourite song...

nothing wrong with that... except their favourite guitarist, and the creators behind their favourite game, have a lot of skill and practice and spends a lot of time developing their craft. I've never done a games course... and I was already under the impression that they'd be "primers" for people wanting to go further with a skill. ...same as a short music course I did. Soo many students were gobsmacked trying to finger chords and learn modes and were even 'annoyed' that you had to learn theory. They just wanted to be instant rock stars...

quote:in my course, but i see a lot of low quality work
...same story as that music course i mentioned. lots of people are bent on quick fixes, thinking a music course will make them the next [insert fav muso]. you cannot become an artist (digital, musical... etc) from a course. ...a short course (in my opinion)should teach you how to wield the 'tool', the artist then sculpts intuitively with it.

quote:Originally posted by Major Clod

I'm doing a double degree in IT and Multimedia at uni

is that the InfEnv and MMDesign course out at UQ Ipswich? :)

quote:From a class roll of somewhere in the 30's to begin with - Only 12 - 15 remained just like he said.

I find this to be very true. Although last year in my class (AIE) we only had one "dropout" (bloody joel leaving us in the lurch to go work for CA :P), there was probably a good half or more of the class that didn't seem to be willing to put in the hard yards that is required. I'm not neccessarily trying to find fault with people here, it's much like you said. People expect game dev to be fun and games, but then when the real hard work starts coming along they find themselves not enjoying it, and you can't really blame someone for not showing to class if they hate it.

quote:Leave the specialised training to organisations such as QANTM and AIE. Let the universities pollute other realms of academia and leave the course content practical and specialised.
Maybe for artistic stuff, but based on last years experience they still have a ways to go before they can compete with university degrees in the coding dept. I think they will improve quickly, but there are still a number of issues they (AIE at least) need to resolve, i won't go on about them here too much though. Certainly the education at these institutes isn't neccessarily *bad*, but i think that for coding students without a previous programming background, there is a lot left uncovered.

quote:Where I did my schooling alot of people got a piece of paper saying they had passed while during the year they had not finshed assignments and when they did it wasn't very good. Its sending out the wrong message . In the industry you have to keep your work standard up and have it done on time or the whole project suffers.

One of my major gripes last year :) These "specialist" institutions will never reach a high standing among employers while they continue to put the good, the bad, and the "was never in the running"s in the same basket.

But in the end, it all comes down to the person, how badly they want it, and how hard they are willing to work for it. Schooling can help provide direction, resources and many other things, but all of that means nothing without the students own hard work. It's been said time and time again hasn't it!
CYer, Blitz

heh, same in architecture. First design lecture, take a look around, 3 out of 4 of you will not become architects... (cough, programming is more fun anyrate)

well, im in year 10 so this applies to me soon. this is maybe a little off topic but from an artist point of view, i personally am looking at doing a fine arts (3 yrs) type course to widen my options then doing a shorter 3d course. This in theory should allow for work in fields other than pure games ie film advertising and the like, if i need to. So thats what im thinking of doing when i do have to decide,
my question is whether you think this is worth it or if i should close down my options and just go for 3d design type course?

conundrum: that depends on what you really want to get into. i want to get into games, that's it. so that's what i'm concentrating on. i cant draw and i dont like doing it. i can draw well enought for my own idea sketches for modeling, but other than that i dont do it, i just concentrate on my 3d. i have often found that good drawing skills really help 3d art, but i simply cant do it and dont like it (so i could never see a 3 year course through - i didnt like the 1 trimester of drawing this year at qantm!) so i've had a harder time learning modeling and anatomy than my 2d artistic friends. but that's not going to stop me from keeping at it.

anyway back to the game's course: my biggest grip with qantm is that it dosnt teach enough. some of the rubbish subjects we had first trimester i couldnt find anything to do with games in, and their asessments had no relevance what-so-ever. none since have been so bad, but still there is a lot that is useful, such as copywrite law, but not what we really need to be taught. granted the course is an animation major, but it really should be a games major, including into to advanced classes in everything from modeling, rigging, animation, and photoshop & texturing. not to mention classes on lighting, compositing, dynamics and such. we touch on most of this stuff, but not in enough depth. infact most things you have to learn yourself - the tutors are great and we woulddnt be anywhere without them. i know i've bugged them heaps with questions while trying to figure out stuff that was never taught in class. photoshop is the worst example - i had to learn that off another student and my own messing around. thankfully though it's starting to change, a lot of us made quite a fuss about this earlier in the year and we're starting to see results, but unfortunatly any real change is likly to come after i finish.
still QANTM has run a great course, and i've learnt a lot from it, it's just sad that they arnt teaching so much more.

Like I said on MSN, interesting topic Haz :)
CAnt really comment since Im not in the biz nor have I done any TAFE/Uni course.
A good read especially since Im thinking about doing a course.

quote:Leave the specialised training to organisations such as QANTM and AIE. Let the universities pollute other realms of academia and leave the course content practical and specialised.
I don't agree here, universities teach as well as private sector, if not alot better, it may not always be games specific but at Uni you might get a 3 year course in animation compared to a 1 year short course in the private sector, who would you hire as an animator?

Also I went to QANTM and while I'm working in the industry now I wouldn't really attribute QANTM for me getting in, in fact I went in knowing it wouldn't, it actually took a year more of hard slog after leaving and thats when I learnt the most.

quote:EMPLOY PEOPLE FROM THE INDUSTRY. WORK WITH THE INDUSTRY.
Easy enough said but we still have a small industry and in times of prosperity they are all hired, unfortunately for the guys/girls trying to get in that means hiring imports, when you need someone fast you can't be wasting time training them.

quote:The promise that next gen console titles will require large teams may offer respite from the dilemma, but the workforce needs to have the correct skills to be employable in the first place.

Although there may be a need for more employees, its unfortunately going to be people who already have basic games experience, next gen stuff isn't easy to create, there are stricter guidlines and workflows as well as alot of new software to learn, if you couldn't cut it with last gen the chance of getting in now is a hell of a lotter slimmer, shitty fact but true.

But getting to the question, I think there are 2 major problems:

Firstly, people think games development is some hollywood-like cool lifestyle, full of LAN parties and snorting coke off the boobs of booth babes.

EEEEERRR!! Wrong, its bloody hard work, long, stressful hours, with no million $$ paycheck, lack of sleep, lose of social life, you don't see as much of your family and friends compared to a 9-5 job and its resonably unstable too boot.

To be honest unless youre a masochistic bastard like myself you're better off mentaly working for freedom. [:P] lol.

Secondly, people take a 1 or 2 year course in games development thinking they'll be hired straight after leaving.
These courses just touch on the basics of alot of aspects of games but don't define even one properly.

Jack of all trades, master of none sort of thing.

The thing it gave me was the chance to find like minded people, contacts, drive and workflows.

Now that all sounds really scarey if your trying to break in but more and more its becoming a very specialised field, you wouldn't expect to do a 1 year course in lighting and get a job at Weta doing King Kong so why do people think that about games?

In the end its all up to hard work, really hard work, drive, drive, decent contacts, drive, alot of luck and most importantly, the honesty to look in the mirror and ask yourself, can I now, or will I soon be able to create assets as amazingly good as the stuff I see when I play games?

Conundrum: Don't underestimate the value of a good fine arts degree or any other University training, you will get a great base of knowledge to work from and can do a short course later.
That doesn't mean its the only way, I never studied at Uni and I'm working in the industry but I think my chances of getting work earlier would have been higher if I had.

One word of advice, with regards to the 3D artists sending reels in.

If you can't draw but are shit hot at 3D please get someone else to do your concepts for the models you make.
A model thats done well will still suffer if you follow a bad design, too many decent modellers ruin there chances by modelling to the letter from bad concepts.

quote:Firstly, people think games development is some hollywood-like cool lifestyle, full of LAN parties and snorting coke off the boobs of booth babes.
You crack me up Malus.

I agree that most people trying to get into the indusrty is under estimating the workload and how crazy deadlines can get. After all at the end of the day its business and everyones trying to make a buck. Its hard working your skills up to a level where you are employable and once you do get some paid work it doesn't get easier.

When I was working on the intro cg for the e3 dvd this year the last month me and two others were working about 16 - 20 hours a day 6 - 7 days a week just to get it out before game spots version (which in every reveiw said ours was better even game spots review). Yeah I know that's getting a bit hardcore and its not a game dev enviroment, but thats just one of my experience as an example to how demand 3D work can be. So you really have to enjoy 3D, since sometimes thats all you will have time for.

quote:A model thats done well will still suffer if you follow a bad design, too many decent modellers ruin there chances by modelling to the letter from bad concepts.
my biggest problem :( i cant drawn, i can come up with an idea fora cool character, etc. but i cant develop that into a good concept. my best work to date has been off other's concepts.

Quite some interesting feedback generated here !

Thanks to all who have replied so far, but when it comes down to it - there really is no way to get these main points across to students unless they are willing to come along to places like Sumea and read a post just like this one - OR be lucky enough to have a lecturer that is willing to risk his job by saying "This course is going to turn you inside out mentally, the games industry is no joke, if your shoulders arent broad enough to take massive strain - you should probably choose something else for a profession"

USF: I agree with about Australia doing well with the games industry - and I believe its *definately* picking up - but if your lucky enough to get a peek inside the developers production rooms, take a good look at how many imports there are in the team. Thats really what im talking about, youd be surprised at how often the " We need talent and cant afford the time & money to train someone, so get someone from overseas " thing happens.

DavidCoen: I imagined there would be similar circumstances for other professions, thanks for sharing! Im wondering if there can be anything really done about the ignorance factor which is probably built up by the controvesial media and hype that surrounds the games industry.

Now ive worked in several different careers quite different from what i do now - and i can honestly say none of them were as demanding mentally, physically ( drained, tired ) as games dev.

Ill never forget a quote from my Hero, Hironobu Sakaguchi of Square Enix I believe he says it best when he commented " Each member of the staff pushes themselves further than they have ever been pushed, day after day and night after night and when everyone has reached that limit and they simply cannot go any further, we have a result. And I hope it reflects in our work " <--- (Rough english translation) [:D]

I think Steven Stahlberg is on the right path and doing somethign fantastic for the industry in India ( from memory??? ) whereby he is starting a Games / CG school that will contain low class numbers... of say 5 - 10 and the students will be hand selected from the masses to study under these absolute masters of digital and traditional art. These masters are willing to share there secrets and knowledge to people that obviously are at a point in there skills where they have put in many, many hours of practise - that in itself would be the greatest treasure any games artist could possibly hope for.

Spread the knowledge!!! Down with secrecy !!!

I think .au and .nz need a Steven Stalhberg [:P]

Anyways thats enough from me for now..

I think anyone that goes through the manufacturing process of the education system and expects to get into an industry as specialised as gaming is a little cuckoo.

You're right about the standards not being up to par with overseas... I don't really get it. Sometimes I wonder if it's laziness.

One friend at uni, I told him to look at the stuff online and try to be as good as they are. Don't worry about what the lecturer thinks or the marks you get. That's all superflous stuff that allows you to get the piece of paper at the end, it wont get you the skills.

I think with the internet and growing community presence (such as this site) has definitely helped raise awareness about whats out there and the skills you need.

But yeah at the moment, I think Australia is way too small to have an expert like steven stahlberg setting up such a specialised course. Chances are, these experts are all busily working away in a game companies as it is. :D

Maybe when there's an over saturation of talent to the point where they become jobless, then they will begin specialised schools in an attempt to utlise their skills in some way. Ironically, these schools wont be needed since there's already an abundance of talent. lol.

quote:Originally posted by urgrund

quote:Originally posted by Major Clod

I'm doing a double degree in IT and Multimedia at uni

is that the InfEnv and MMDesign course out at UQ Ipswich? :)

Ahh, no its actually the IT/Creative Industries course at QUT Kelvin Grove/Gardens Point.

quote:Originally posted by HazarD

but if your lucky enough to get a peek inside the developers production rooms, take a good look at how many imports there are in the team.

USF takes a look around, hmm.. we have 2 guys from England and 1 guy from Russia. The rest are Australian. Its been said before.. its been said over and over again its not about where you've trained but on the character of the person.

USF : Fantastic! - You probably cannot say but what roles are the English and Russian playing in the company ? Juniors ? Seniors ? Leads ?

And i have to disagree somewhat with the comment regarding being a likeable chap or having a good character. If thats what Dev houses are hiring then we would have BIG KEV modelling stuff for Tribes [:P]

Your skills matter a great deal to ensure that initial reservation for an interview. ( or im hoping to god that they do otherwise that doesnt bode well at all )

What im trying to pick apart is that where are all the top 2 - 3 students from design schools / games related courses ending up - It can't be in the industry in AU theres simply not enough of us to compensate.

And why is the level of workmanship below sea level here ? I have family back home in Canada and Friends in many countries working in the games industry and ive seen numerous reels from 20 year old students trying to get their break in the industry from these places - they are so far above a good 90% of the reels ive seen here its not even funny.

Im pointing the finger at schooling and maybe a general laziness, unless someone can shed some light on something thats completely slipping past me. Sure there are more people in the US / UK etc but that cant be the only reason.

I am a gamer and a game dev. I am also in the finishing stages of completing my Networking assignments for IT.

I know someone who has a diploma in IT and is working in the vineyards and he dislikes it.

Game development is hard work.

You missed the point I'm not talking about "likeable chap or having a good character". I'm talking about where ever you come from if you put the effort in and try your best you can be as good as anyone. The people who do well at schools are the ones who but in the hours to go past what the teacher is teaching and push yourself.

Are you saying I can't become a Lead artist or Senior artist just because I don't come from England or Russia...

USF : Firstly i think you hit the nail on the head by saying it doesnt matter where you come from as long as you put in the hard yards and push yourself. So the main reason for the average lack of abilities would be that we are just lazy down this end of the world ?

And no I never said that at all, dont take it personally. You can become lead artist no problem if you ( like metioned above ) put in the hard yards.

You've actually sparked something that I think would be a major factor, and that is the industry being so young here, for there to be any hope of catching up to Bioware / Blizzard we need to hire guys from these places so we can drain them of their knowledge and use it as another tool to help us close the gap.

I don't think our youth is really the biggest factor in competing with OS.

Every few years or so we all end up using the same new tech, new procedures, new software etc anyway, more its a lack of drive and self belief.

Australians are a pretty relaxed bunch and while thats a good thing as a society I find it impacts a bit too much on us proffessionally.

And we don't really take ourselves that seriously internationally, just read some of the comments posted here, too young, too small, too stupid, its none of that, its more a belief that you can stick it to the goliaths out there.

The only other factor is that these bigger companies have a good financial base behind them, but even they started from small companies.

As for our lack of new skilled juniors, unfortunately I've noticed it too when portfolios come thruogh.

But in fairness its getting harder to make competetive assets, it also takes longer.

I do think schools do need to up the ante, but people need to take the initiative and learn for themselves also, hell we have the internet, its not like the yanks and poms have a secret source of information they aren't letting us know about. [:P]

quote:What im trying to pick apart is that where are all the top 2 - 3 students from design schools / games related courses ending up
Centrelink

and as for quality of student work, i put it down to training. at qantm most of what i learn in terms of real practical modeling skills is what i learn myself. we dont have any classes to teach us exactly "what is polyflow", "how to construct a face for lipsyncing", "how to rig a freaking sholder of rcorrect defformation" (i'm still perplexed about that one). the tutors are a great source of help for these problems, but the problem is it's not taught in class in the first place! they have into like "this is how you extrude a polygon, great, not you know how to model a character". there is a difference between teaching how to use the tools and how to realy model.
texturing i wont even start on cos that's not even mentioned in the course outline :?
animation is not so bad, as seeing as though that's what the course is based on we have a fair bit of lecturing on that.

Why Australian game dev students are bellow par is in an interesting question. I think our small population plays an important part, as our top few percent of students is only a fraction of the size of the top few percent of students from OS.

However, the problem seems to be that too many students who aren?t the top few percent, are not motivated enough to take their skills to the necessary level. Many students don?t understand the need for massive self-motivation, and therefore do not gain the necessary skills for the work place. And it?s not just in games but also across the whole IT sector and probably other industries also.

I think the main reason for this could be the antiquated (paramilitary) school system?
Many students straight out of school aren?t able to fully commit to a career, and with something as specialised as games, it?s only the most determined and dedicated students that will succeed.

I suppose that many game art graduates end up in some area of digital design apart form games. And maybe the top game programming grads that don?t get straight into games find alternative programming work?

don't agree, saw lots of crap demo reels while in canada. (we would watch them while eating lunch and then place in large garbage bag)

Perhpas we have a figment of human observation. We notice the local crap as it is easy to find, but tend to only get access to the better stuff from oversea (either it is more difficult to send casets overseas so jimmy-retard doesn't bother, but joe-godlike-skill does take the time/money to send it)?

or, ok, as a generalisation, the security of wellfare breeds lazyness.

re. palantir: I know of a few programmers that would like to make games, but sick to database maitanace type work as it pays 4x as much....

quote:
re. palantir: I know of a few programmers that would like to make games, but sick to database maitanace type work as it pays 4x as much....

..and lots of programmers who know well what it's like to put in an 80-100+ hour week when it's needed, and would rather do it on a game than a database system any day, (even assuming the pay really varies that much)

lazyness, when australian workers are amongst the hardest workers in the world? i guess it maybe younger people, i know i can be pretty lazy i guess...

It may be to do with trainning, i know at highschool art class was a what we called "bludge" subject then the last 2 years of highschool your pressured into the math/physics stuff and not many goto art side of things!

I know personaly its hard to get a job, ive been looking for about 7 months now, i can't even get work experience. Work experience woul dbe great then i can see what im doing wrong and improve what im doing, but Aussie companys seem ot dislike work exp. for some reason?

I would expect also that the best of the best would get employment overseas where theres more money and more games companys?(the brain drain as they call it).

i remember my bludge subject at highschool: drama. me and a mate spent most of the time 'rehersing' a sword fight scene from romeo and juliet. we broke so many brooms and bent so many polls the props room was virutally empty by the end! loads of fun!

I played Enemy Territory through a router with no probs. Check your firewall (Zonealarm, XP?) to see if Return to Castle Wolfenstein has permission to connect to the net.

I currently don't have a firewall, and the XP firewall is turned off. Anyone else had a problem like this before??

Check your router configuration - it my have its own firewall or you may need to manually configure IP adresses to enable direct access to your computer.

I had this problem, It happened to me cos of Norton Internet Security, all i had to do was customize the setiings for ET so it had full access to the net. Or you could disable Norton. Hope it helps

The thing is. I don't have a firewall enabled, and im not exactly shure what to set up on my router.
And I don't know why UT2004 works, and Wolfenstein doesn't, do they use a different system??
And how do I check if im behind a proxy??

Any Suggestions welcome!!

what is a game without chickens........

my only gripe about 'halo' -- no chickens

my only gripe about 'vice city' --no chickens

although i have never been a counter-strike player...

..... my fondest memories in my youth ....... kicking and throwing the chickens in zelda 2...
good to know that they have even bothered to put a distance measuring device for chicken kicking in 'Fable'
my highest kick yet is about 8 metres..... i think...

(just a disclaimer to anyone who may get the wrong idea... i have worked in the poultry industry before...
from laying hens to catching them and shoveling thier crap ...... i have more experience with chickens than computer game making ....i could carry them ten at a time! .. not joking either.... have experienced amonia poisoning from working with the fumes from thier excrement and even spent a night in the watchhouse for an unpaid fine realting to a driving related offence whilst still wearing my poultry working overalls.... almost 9 hrs without a bath straight after the midnight shift.... i have always strived to be gentle and understanding when handeling live chickens....and buy only RSPCA eggs in support of animal welfare... and although i have chopped off thier heads and plucked thier feathers in the past... i maintain that i only did this out of practicality and not for any other reasons of mal-intent or any other sadistic rational.)

ROFL!

Awesome! ya know i actually said when playing that map in CS:S "hey what happened to the chickens?" and suddenly the whole team was going "hey yeah, dammit!!"
hell yeah i signed :P

Damn, haven't played CS:Source yet so I didn't know they had removed them. That was always cool about the cs_italy map, running to the marketplace to be the first to kill the chickens... Ahh the days when CS was decent to play...

I signed it, dont know if it will go anywhere but meh, i had a few seconds to sign it.

chickens that have feathers flying out of them when they start to peak out and gap it away from you! Muhahah..
'cept the chickens in Neverwinter nights have lernt to retaliate! They almost killed my level 1 character! [:X]

yeah, i havnt played CS:S yet but i saw a video and their absence was one of the first things i noticed! i dont play CS much but when i play that state i always seem to be distrated into shooting them. it's great fun.

i would be even better in CS:S though if they made them run away from you so you could chase them! (then they could give away your loaction too which would be cool)

"Computer Science is as much about computers as astronomy is about telescopes." - Edsger Dykstra

Its a part of human nature to generalise other people into groups or categories. How a person understands another or their profession affects the group or type in which that person will be cast.

I think there are lots of reasons for it. Firstly, there are a lot of people out there who have little or no knowledge of computers and related technology. These people stuggle with the most basic computing tasks while we are able to create fully interactive virtual worlds using our computers. To these people this process would seem unfathomable, and they would most easily cast us as "computer" people because of it. 3D Artists/Animators in film and multimedia suffer from this problem also: Because you've created something complicated with your computer, you must be a computer genius. While this may be true in some cases, the computer is not the focus, its the tool. Dykstra said it best.

Secondly, I think the general public doesn't see enough of us and what we do and how we do it. This is a perfect opportunity to lay a finger of blame on the media. The limited publicity the industry gets in the general media usually focuses on meaningless topics like violence in games. Few people question the artistic or creative ability of a film director or screenwriter because of the amount of behind-the-scenes footage we have seen in our lives. Some people even study film in high school or university without having any real aspirations in the field, simply because of its obvious creative nature. I do think this will change though; TV producers will begin to recognise the untapped TV watching gamer market and run prime-time videogame shows with developer interviews and behind-the-scenes footage.

I think another area of blame lies in education. Considering the fact that the game industry is larger than hollywood, and is growing faster than any other entertainment industry, schools and universities should do more to incorporate game studies into film/writing/media courses. I think this is also simply a matter of time.

I wouldn't say the geek tag holds us back as a profession, although I think for some of us it does hold us back in our social life. I'm completely comfortable and happy being a game developer but I feel that because of the reasons above, you just can't discuss games with non-developers the way filmmakers can discuss and analyse films with non-filmmakers. This also will probably change over time.

Malus, just read your few posts about the topic as the way the industry is seen. Just like to know first off, where did you get the idea about the topic? News or something because it sounds like it hit a saw spot or something because you are talking rather passionatly about it [^]

No one where I work is chubby (Some of the guys I know in the industry are better build then alot of people who arn't), pimple faced, and I think there are only 2 21 years olds (me being one of them). Plus we are all pretty social, going out to clubs and pubs etc. Not sure about others but me and the other 21 year old are open about working in the games industry and haven't been rejected because of it.

If your honest and people see your as normal as everyone else then this "social myth" will go away and we can all live happily ever after... [:D]

I don't think it's limited to the entertainment industry, Malus. I'm sure that everyone's heard people who are "amazed at what computers can do these days" as if the computer itself does the work. Without changing that attitude, anyone who knows how to get a computer to 'do the work' will have a kind of merlin-esque mystique for other people.

The following is one of my favourite stories/analogies, especially since it's about 'Java Monkeys' :)

quote:
Stammbach, Eduard. (1988). "Group responses to specially skilled individuals in a Macaca fascicularis." Behaviour, 107 (December 1988), 241-266

Stammbach worked with a colony of longtailed macaques (Java Monkeys). In the paper cited above, Stammbach took the lowest-ranking macaque out of the society and taught him to operate a complex machine to obtain food. When the 'nerd' monkey was reintroduced to the society, the higher ranking macaques stopped kicking him out of the way long enough for him to complete operation of the machine and obtain food for the community. i.e., society cooperated to create the conditions under which the 'nerd' could toil for them. However, the monkey who acquired these special skills and provided for the society did not achieve any rise in his dominance status.

From: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/

Though there's something to be said about being considered some sort of magician :-) Although it is usually frustrating when people say "you're good at computers, why don't you do this job or other", when they are referring to a graphical website design job for a programmer. Argh...

I guess if we could better compare ourselved (programmers) to something akin to a carpenter/woodworker. They use basic tools and raw materials to construct all sorts of useful things. We do the same, though more often than not our products are made for outselves rather than the general public.

Yeah, I hate when someone asks me to fix their computer because they think that a programming qualification means that I know everything there is to know about computers [:P]. Of course I don?t mind helping people, it?s just annoying that most people assume that there is only one area of computing: computers.

As far as the geek tag holding us back as a profession, I completely agree that it is. I think the big problem with the general non-game playing public is that most people do not understand games and often perceive games as childish and a waste of time. Many times I?ve had conversations where after telling someone that I?m into developing computer games, they ask questions about games indicating that they think games are only for children.

I?ve also heard many non-gamer people talk about how much a waste of time they think playing games is. This in particular really annoys me, as their attitude is illogical and hypocritical. They may comment on how stupid their son is for example, sitting in front of the Xbox for a few hours each day when he could be doing something outside? Yet they don?t think twice to vegeing in front of some crappy American sitcom rerun all night every night. The other example often used is along the lines of ?people shouldn?t play games so much ? go read a book?. Being addicted to a novel and reading that for hours on end is no better or worse then being addicted to a game! Argh, people are hypocrites?

Sorry, had to get that off my chest; it?s been annoying me for years! [:P]

One things for sure, gamers and game developers fall into the geek category, and in many cases geeks are not accepted overly well in social situations. For example, if I was talking to a lady I wanted to impress, I?d sooner mention that I play guitar then mention I make games! Game development just ain?t that cool to anyone not into games.

Anyway, I think the current attitude about geekdom is slowly changing. Possibly due to the fact that most children of the 80?s are still playing games, and as the gamer demographic ages, the attitude towards game developers improves. There are less and less people who do not understand games, and it?s only a matter of time until interactive games is generally considered as professional an industry as any other entertainment industry. But unfortunately we are not there yet, and I think the geek tag is indeed holding the industry back.

(Would this thread better belong in the Industry and Education forum?)

quote:Game development just ain?t that cool to anyone not into games.

Sorry to completely disagree here, but compare "Yeah, I write computer games" with my job, which is "I write the software which does your phone bill" and see how cool you guys are. (Woohoo! Ask me about the privacy requirements of Mobile Number Portability in Australia and watch the time just fly by, or for a riveting three or four hours, just let me explain North American taxation rules to you!)

As you might guess - I don't talk about my job at parties. :)

Hey everyone, well that got a quicker response than I thought lol.

To put my angle on it, I can handle the tag (and quite often use it to describe myself) when its applied to me personaly as a games industry employee.

What I was more interested in learning is what people thought about its use in a more general sense, how does it impact on our industry as a whole, will it have negative impact for the future of our industry or will the informal nature of taking the piss out of ourselves and what we do bode well for keeping us a little less insular and self-righteous?

Big J: I'd actually point the finger more at developers than the media, I think we propergate the whole geek thing more than anyones else, its like we revel in it. [:)]

USF: God knows what got me onto it, just reading Palantirs post on age and it got me thinking about how we think about our industry, was curious what others thought, I'm also passionate about what I do and I want my field to be as respected and challenging as possible. [:P]

As for the chubby part, that wasn't my take on my fellow game developers, we're all gods! lol
I just noticed that when I tell alot of the people I meet for the first time what I do I get the whole "Wow, you don't look like you are a geek, wheres all the zits and pizza stains"? lol

MCDrewski: Oh I believe its a common problem in alot of industries but I work in this one so that why I was curious. lol.

Palantir: "One things for sure, gamers and game developers fall into the geek category."
This is the sort of thing I wonder about, do we really fall into the geek catagory?

This is probably a bad description of a geek but all I could find:

1. A person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy.
2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.
3. A carnival performer whose show consists of bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken.

I for one don't see this industry as any of those, maybe number 2 if by single minded you mean committed and passionate [:P].

Thanks for the replies guys. [:)]

Maybe most people consider geeks to be intelligent but socially inept people who are into ?geeky? things, like games, animation, D&D, Lord of the Rings, that kind of thing? At least that?s the feeling I get of what people generally consider to be a geek.

I think the public image of game developers is definitely that of geeks, but in reality, I think most of us are generally pretty cool. [8D]
After all, if we were all true geeks, wouldn?t Sumea be full of ?L337? speak? [:D]

I?m not sure if it?s our own fault though. We do tend to perpetuate it, but possibly the geek image comes from the origin of computer games, in the 80?s, and the image has just stuck with people? Or maybe it just comes from the comic book store guy from the Simpsons.[:P]

I think that the ways the game industry is hurt when it's viewed as a geek playground (or especially as a 'boys club') is when it's trying to attract professional talent. It doesn't make it a very desirable place to work in for female talent when it is viewed as primarily a boys club, and I'm sure the industry could do with much more of a female percentage. One can only imagine the difference if females had taken on the game industry as enthusiastically as other professions like graphic design (where their contributions as creative and talented individuals is unquestioned).
Perhaps, on why computer games development as a profession isn't as elevated as film making etc, is probably because, comparitively, production costs and art quality aren't as high and thus as polished, stories are an afterthought (they're simple, uninspired, or simply not there), and the target is catering to a smaller niche of people (predominantley young males)... And I dunno, to me it just feels like computer game development has always been the little brother to movie production in all aspects.

quote:Originally posted by palantir
For example, if I was talking to a lady I wanted to impress, I?d sooner mention that I play guitar then mention I make games! Game development just ain?t that cool to anyone not into games.

Funny, I haven't met anyone who doesn't think I'm "heaps smart" and cool when I say I make games for a living. I'd sooner say that I program Playstation and Xbox games than that I play guitar (I don't play) because for every game developer out there, there's at least 100 people who play guitar.

quote:Anyway, I think the current attitude about geekdom is slowly changing. Possibly due to the fact that most children of the 80?s are still playing games, and as the gamer demographic ages, the attitude towards game developers improves. There are less and less people who do not understand games, and it?s only a matter of time until interactive games is generally considered as professional an industry as any other entertainment industry. But unfortunately we are not there yet, and I think the geek tag is indeed holding the industry back.

Of course it's changing. The vast majority of kids now have consoles and use the Internet like it's nothing... just watch how your average 16yo conducts a lot of their communication via IM. When I was 16 it was geeky and nerdish to chat on the net, now it's normal. Gaming went mainstream with the PSX.

Frankly, who cares if people think we're geeks? That's their problem.

entering the late years of my schooling theres been a lot of the "what do you want to do when you leave school" and i must admit ive been hesitant to give a full response. Its actually suprised me though how my friends (who have as much to do with gaming as they probably own 4 between them) have actually been really interested. And since everyones talking about it, a girl i met at a party recently was really fascinated by it all (and i later discovered she was also an x-men fan!).

anyone watch the 60 minutes story on the games industry recently? besides the none-too-subtle marketing of the guy from Bugie:("it's the greatest and most anticipated game ever and everyone will be taking a sick day when it comes out, i know i will"), there was one part where they walked into a room of testers. first shot we see normal looking people, including girls, and the repoter goes on about how all sorts of people are in the industry, not just the stero types of 20 years ago. But who do they chose to interview? none other than the biggest, geekiest, gaming nerd sterotype they can find (and ironicly the only one in the room). thanks channel 9.

Moonunit: Score!

quote:Originally posted by Shplorb:
Funny, I haven't met anyone who doesn't think I'm "heaps smart" and cool when I say I make games for a living

Hehe ? cool [8D] I?m not a professional game developer yet, so I?m coming from a different perspective. I?m sure it would seem cool to people I meet if I was a professional, but as a hobbyist, game development isn?t something generally considered to be very cool (IMHO). Most people tend to categorise people into stereotypes, and the game dev enthusiast falls into the geek category a lot of the time. I think the attitude would be different if I had a job to back my claims of game developer! As it is, I personally don?t advertise that I?m a geek. [:P]

quote:Originally posted by Shplorb:
Of course it's changing. The vast majority of kids now have consoles and use the Internet like it's nothing... just watch how your average 16yo conducts a lot of their communication via IM. When I was 16 it was geeky and nerdish to chat on the net, now it's normal. Gaming went mainstream with the PSX.

Yeah, gaming is certainly mainstream but I was specifically talking about the general public opinion and perception of game developers. A career in games is still far from mainstream and I think that possibly the stereotypical image of a game developer that people imagine (geeks) is an image that is slowly changing ? and changing not so much because gaming is becoming mainstream (as we all know it?s been mainstream for many years), but changing because more people are taking the industry itself (as in the people not the products) as a serious industry.

LiveWire ? I saw that story (made me want to buy an Xbox [;)]). It was good to see that the public is starting to see game development as a serious industry and not just the domain of stereotypical geeks, but channel 9 did their best to keep the stereotype alive! [:P]

speaking about media coverage, remember a while back that someone from current afair dropped by to ask for our opinions and everyone said take a hike cause they were just gonna plaster it with "video games are evil and make kids violent", i saw the add for that report a while back ago and yeah that was the angle of their report. Didnt bother to watch it.

I?m so desperately surprised? no wait?. I meant to say the opposite.

So in a nut shell we are all a bunch of unfit, smelly, geeks, who make it their lives work to bring your kids violence inducing games.
God we are socially reprehensible.
Let burn something.

Pantmonger