Industry and Education

Unfortunately of those 35 we only had 8 show up!
We had:
2 ps2 hackers
2 slackers
1 professional game developer (well, employed by a game dev company at least :))
1 web developer guy who makes python games
2 uni students (1 undergrad, 1 masters)
At least thats what i gathered from peoples stated occupations :)
Most of the people there had not met each other before, so most of the discussion revolved around finding out what everyone did, what their interests were, what they had and were currently working on etc.
Hopefully we'll see more people at next months meetup.
CYer, Blitz
PS. Vote for Blue Train for the next venue so we have wheelchair access.

Sounds like fun, I'm moving to Melbourne before the next one so I might see you there.

It does sound like fun, is there any Sydneyites looking to get involved in a similar thing?

I'll be interested in something in Sydney if someone else organises it.

Vinh

Message to Binh, how did you go about setting this meeting of yours up? Just wanting to get some pointers.

gamedev.meetup.com
Then spread the word!
CYer, Blitz

quote:Originally posted by Wizenedoldman

Message to Binh, how did you go about setting this meeting of yours up? Just wanting to get some pointers.

Hi! Yep, head over to gamedev.meetup.com

Make sure you post around to raise awareness of the event too. Most of the people who came saw the post that souri placed on the main sumea news page.

Hi everyone!

The second Melbourne Game Developers Meeting is on tomorrow night at

Tue 8PM
Blue Train Cafe
Southgate Landing, South Melbourne

For more details please visit gamedev.meetup.com.

Everyone is welcome to come. I think it is also a good idea to bring along some of your work to share and discuss. I'll be bringing along some my project.

I'll also bring the events schedule for Free Play - The Australian Independent Game Developer's Conference to get some feedback.

Catch you all there!

The map link doesn't seem to be working, can anyone provide more details as to where it actually is for a newbie to Melbourne?

How late does the transport system run around here? Or would anyone be willing to help me out with a ride from West Richmond, it would be greatly appreciated?

ohhh but i have to be in bed by 8

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simagesmisc/agdcmap.gif[/img]

There was a [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=870&whichpage=3&Search…"]Sumea AGDC meetup at Blue Train[/url] last year.. About the map, "BlueTrain isnt on the map its following the arrow that says South Bank :) Which is where its located.
SouthBank starts just past the Casino (Crown Entertainment complex)." - Jacana

Ah so it's actually in the Crown Entertainment complex then?

Thanks for the help!

:)

Its not at Crown its across the streen from crown :) Southbank is marked by that little Southbank->

The best way to get to Blue Train is from the Flinders Street Train Station (main enterance) - I think that's Elizabeth Street.

Haha OK, I see now, thanks. Will there be an easy way to identify the group or shall I just look for the dark corner where everyone is hunched over a laptop screen? (I'm joking of course, I hope...)

[8)]

Well, I'll be coming along tomorrow night too, and I'm easy to spot... I won't link to the piccies from the agdc sumea meetup, for fear of making people bring up any food they've just eaten [:D], but look for the computer geek driving the wheelchair around the Blue Train at high speed [:)] I promise not to run _too_ many people over anyways [;)]

Cheers,

Mark/CW

Oh, and there's two ways from Flinders St Station to Southgate - either across the Swanston St bridge, or there's a pedestrian bridge at the western end of the station. Southgate is right between the bridges (well, between the southern ends of the bridges anyway :) Blue Train is on the middle level.

Trains run till about midnight, www.victrip.com.au links to timetables, and has a nifty search thing at http://www.victrip.com.au/timetables/train_trip_planner.php

thanks for the warning (i had forgoten about this)

decisions, go to salsa class or go to geek meet.... marrgh >:(

If you are having trouble with the previous map you might find this one a litte more useful...

http://www.street-directory.com.au/aus_new/index.cgi?CountryName=vic&x=…

Note that you can zoom out to see the general area.

[:)]

(This is open to suggestion)

The next game developer's meetup is

6PM August 16th
La Porchetta
308 Victoria Street
NORTH MELBOURNE 3051

I suggest we grab a chat/drink/dinner there and then pop next door where there is a game lan centre.

Please rsvp here or on the meetup site so I can book numbers.

There's no organiser and I can't be one since I don't have a credit card so if you can please pass the word on. For more details visit gamedev.meetup.com

Sounds great, I'm in.

Time Change

Meetup on 16th is at 8PM, not 6PM

Hmm should be able to make it.

Not to bash Multimedia courses too hard but?

Most of these courses are a bad mix of very basic graphic design and web page building with a certain volume of program specific information thrown in (the program in question usually depends on the lecturer but usually a little photoshop and a lot of flash)

This is where I get harsh: I have seen more bad design, plagiarism, copyright breach through image theft and vector tracings of photographs passed off as illustrations, come out of multimedia courses then I want to believe happens. This for the most part is not the fault of the students, but the lecturers and a course structure that does not seem to teach the basics of illustration, colour theory and design balance and seems in no way to punish the questionable aspects of image theft.

I would suggest that that you analyze the path you want to take and select a course that will give you the basics, an illustration or animation courses or even fine art are usually better choices, once you have these skills it is a relatively small thing to apply them to the digital media of your choice, and much better then doing so the other way around.

Pantmonger

interesting thoughts pants, i was thinking of taking the bachelor of multimedia design at swindburne, then maybe a more games dev orientated TAFE course, but u would suggest otherwise?

I am really with Pants on this one. Most Multimedia courses are rather... er... shit, to put it bluntly. I have known old friends who went through the courses copying other peoples work from off the net (reason why I say old friends). Their excuse, "oh, but I changed the colours". Not only would the teachers not pick them up about it, they would actually praise their work and help them to get jobs.

Unfortunately the design industry is a bit like that. Someone/some company will come up with some really cool new design schemes, and a few months later, everyone will be trying to copy it.

If you are actually interested in learning 3D apps, then do a course based on 3D animation. Even if it isn't entirely about games, you learn the basics and you can then apply them to games. There are plenty of tutes and tools to get models into games now. Keep in mind that 3D animation courses can be very expensive. Also note that most multimedia courses that have '3D Animation', don't actually teach you. It means that you have the ability to learn it by yourself, while they supply the software.

I have to agree with Pantmonger as well.

Unis which provide courses in gamedev just can't seem to correctly classify gamedev. Usually the best they offer is a degree in Multimedia which includes a couple of units vaguely relatated to gamedev and the rest of the course you're learning flash and all kinds of crap you don't want to learn. Don't get me started on "game" programming courses that teach java.

Creative Industries at QUT (Queensland University of Technology) comes to mind. I originally found out about it from someone who knew I was interested in studying gamedev. Upon looking into it however, I found no actual gamedev units, but rather a selection of (fairly crappy) multimedia subjects. The only way to get a good gamedev education from such a course would be to do a dual degree with CI and IT or Engineering or something (as a programmer), to get the same knowledge about actual gamedev that you would probably get in a one or two year diploma from Qantm, AIE or TAFE.

I'm not saying you can't learn useful stuff from these courses; You can. But as an aspiring game developer most of the stuff you will learn will not be of much use to you, where as a tailored gamedev or 3D animation diploma will be (pretty much) all relevant.

Yet another one to agree with Pants. I've just done first year of Multimedia (as a filler when I didn't get into Fine Arts or Animation, the former I've transferred into this year) and how I wish I could disagree, but I saw it all right infront of me. We did have a fair portion of colour theory and design principles and theory (was an awesome course which I think very few took anything away from), but plagarism still occurred.

A high factor of this IMO was lack of planning. Assignments would be started in the last week, which then gave way to Google searches, and then finished products. Students doing the bare minimum to pass in the final hours. Originality and perseverance will win you through. And if you happen to care about marks, you'll enjoy the distinctions and credits you get.

So yes... I generally wouldn't touch a Multimedia course unless you really needed the bit of paper. Do a course which you can apply to games, like Aven suggested. If you have the fundamental knowledge, the rest is just program learning.

So is there any uni in melbourne that has a good course? I was planning on kinda doing the same thing as MoonUnit. I wanted to do a uni course first. Shorely there gotta be one good course in melbourne. Like there one a Monash call Game developement but i think it is more programming based. Multimedia Systems at Monash sound pretty good though.
Here's a link to the course, look at the games developement column though, i think that this is very programming based.
http://www.multimedia.monash.edu.au/courses/bms.html

I had a look at Monash's offering at AGDC last year. Its more promising than other options, probably your best in melbourne. Its not without its problems though: programming is java based, there are a bunch of subjects that seem barely related to games (Database systems, educational multimedia, accounting, e-business models, etc). On the other hand, there are some really good subjects in there (programming for 3D computer graphics, human computer interaction, visual communication, etc)

Yeah, but the thing is that i don't care to much for programming i want to mainly do the 3D stuff.

Hey mate,

I actually study Multimedia at Monash, and I'm a third year student. At the moment they are REALLY trying to plug the new game dev stream, although, in my opinion it is only reserved to programmers.

There's some pretty cool subjects around, there's quite a lot of 3D type subjects you can do (as with all uni's now) the lecuturers are knowledgable, and there's some game design subject where one of your assignments is to make an Unreal level. In my course anyway, we did learn the fundamentals of drawing, colour theory etc, although I think maybe there wasn't enough of it. Nontheless if you know you have to improve on something, you can take a fine arts type elective.

I agree with everybody else, graphic design, particularly at a graduate level, makes me sick of how much ripped stuff you find. I'll be very interested to hear how all the respondants have come up with this viewpoint, whether it be through the POV of an employer or whatever. But as a student you do feel robbed when you see something blatantly copied off a website but they get more praise than the rest.

But I suppose about the plagurism issue, if the industry out there can already spot it, then its up to you not to do it. If you do copy something, sure you'll pass in the short term, but in the long run, when you whack it into your folio, your gonna look like shit anyway. So it's up to you.

Overall, I think Multimedia you'll get a taste of everything, a little photoshop, a little flash knowledge won't go astray. And then in final year, put your head down and attack the game career you've always wanted!

Hope that helped somewhat. And also I would like to hear response from everyone else too, multimedia is getting alot of stick lately.

Copying work was rampant when i did Computer Science at monash. It was not so much that you noticed/saw people copying work (although i did have people asking if they could "borrow" my assignments in prac classes), but just the sheer number of people who passed first year without knowing what a pointer was or how to use it was insane.
CYer, Blitz

IronhideNT: are you doing multimedia systems or just multimedia?
What software and stuff do they teach for 3D?

Multimedia , multimedia systems same thing .

They teach mainly 3DS Max or Maya depending on preference or which subject you take.

Cool I think that's what i'll do then and are they both really the same thing and do they teach it from scratch or do you have to know a lot already.

I think it's a broken link.

I got it working but you have to delete the sumea.com stuff b4 it

I was just wondering if Doord, Aven or Pantmonger are employed in the Industry. Coz if elite artists like htese can't get jobs in the industry then i don't think i have any chance.

But in the end I guess its all about dedication. I don't think people get a job in the games industry soon as they come out of AIE or what ever.

im only just about to start Uni, but this is my plan i think...

i think that advertising yourself would give a good impression to employers...sure you can send an application to every advertised position, but why not advertise yourself by asking for work when there are no available positions...

while I was in WA there was a radio announcer that done a talk at my school on how he got his job...he made flyers saying what he was studying, when he would finish and what he was most interested in, and sent them out to all the radio stations every couple of months...

its weird but i reckon it would get peoples attention...

im also going to do a lot of electronics stuff...if i know exactly what is happening everywhere inside the beast that is running the games we are making, then i think it would give me that edge over others...

well...my typing gland hurts now so im leaving...

Bullet21 -

Doord - Irrational
Aven - Needs to make a demo reel, the bum :D
Pants - Halfbrick Studios

In regards to the post..
I think that if you want to get into the games industry, you're going to have to work very fucking hard to do so. A piece of paper saying you have graduated from a course means shit if you don't have solid work to back it up. I know people that did the minimum amount of work needed to pass the course, and expected a job.

I do agree that there aren't enough developers in Australia, but I believe that Aussie developers are earning alot of respect, hopefully this will mean more money will be invested over here.

Any popluar industry is difficult to get into. It doesn't matter what it is about. The thing is that you need to distance yourself from everyone else trying to get a job. As SB said, the piece of paper at the end accounts for very little. Pretty much the only thing it shows, is that the person may have better people skills and be able to work in a group a lot better. A reference from any retail job would be handy for that as well though.

As for me. Well SB hit it again with me being somewhat lazy last year and doing dick all. I am now working on a portfolio that will hopefully seperate me from other people applying for jobs. I am still 21 and am not in a great rush to get into the industry. So the reason why I don't have a job is because I haven't wanted one yet. If you want a job, then you will have to try hard :)

There are many things that can be done to help you get a better job, but all of them have to be done by the individual. Education can only take you so far. The rest is up to you.

In my opinion.

Your folio is god, your piece of paper/qualification helps to get it seen, experience is the scale tipper.
In addition, having a reasonable level of interpersonal skills is a must, your employer has to think that they will enjoy working with you.
Though this is not gospel and there are exceptions.

Pantmonger

I remember something one of my tutors (Seb)at AIE said to someone, something along the lines of: A tertiary qualification (bachelor degree, diploma, etc.) is just a tie breaker. If an employer has to equal candidates, but one has a diploma and the other does not, they will give the job to the one with the diploma (under the assumption that they have more experience i guess). But if you are better than the other person, then you'll get the job no matter how many degrees etc. the other has got. Unless you're an absolute wanker and no-one is going to want to work with you of course :)
In my opinion, from my limited experience, these are the things that employers look for (well, at least, the employers i've had interviews with :) )
1. Talent/Ability - You do need to be able to actually do the job.
2. Enthusiasm (for game dev) - They want to hire someone who will be dedicated to getting the work done, and who is the type of person to teach themselves/keep up with new tech etc. in their own time. Not someone who is just there to get paid (willingness to work long hours etc. will also come into play here).
3. What kind of person you are, and how you work in a team - They won't hire you if they don't like you, or if you can't get along with people. Simple as that :)

Number 1 is really the only thing you can show before you get an interview, 2&3 are surmised from the interrogation.
I think i've kind of diverged from the topic now.

Ok, back to the topic.
What am i doing to differentiate myself from others...dunno, guess that depends what other people are doing! I'm not sure how much there is that you can do to differentiate yourself from others, other than through your physical presence. When I applied for irrational games (junior programmer) last year, i hand delivered my resume/demo CD. Whether or not they were impressed with that (or even noticed) i have no idea. When i apply for jobs atm, i send them a CD if i can get their postal address, I like to give them something to physically hold in thier hand, sit on their desk etc. instead of some transient email attachment. I'm not sure what others do though :) John DeMargerhitti (i bet i spelled that wrong again!) spoke of one person who came in to MicroForte every week and hand-delivered his resume to the receptionist. Eventualyl the receptionist was either so sick of him, or impressed, that he/she put the resume on top of Johns keyboard, so he couldn't miss it, and when he asked why it was there the receptionist told him about him coming in every week. John was impressed by his persistance and offered him a job on fallout tactics IIRC. Obviously he must have had the skillz too, but his persistance made him stand out. Of course other companies may just file a restraining order against you :)
Specialising...theres the obvious, graphics, AI, networking, sound (maybe less so?). There is also other things such as specialising in particular hardware (consoles), although thats pretty hard to do until you actually have access to it :)
Future technology i think will see a lot more "non-standard" control interfaces, such as eyetoy, speech recognition, etc. we could see more openings for people with specilasations in image processing/recognition, speech recognition, and natural language. As broadband access continues to improve we are going to see even more need for people who can do all the networking/database/etc. stuff.
Expectations on finding a job aren't great. I'll just continue to plod along and keep programming, improve my skills and keep my eyes out for openings. Also trying to make my own work, either doing handheld or working with a few people on a PC title or mod.
I'm kind of disagree with yusaf's blog in a way. I agree there is obviously more people who want to get into the games industry than there are positions to fill, but on the other hand, probably a very large majority of those people don't yet have the skill/ability to get a job in the industry yet. Once people do have the skill required to get their foot in the door THEN they can worry about being better than the rest, or differentiating themselves etc.
Hmm, it's amazing how much you can type when you're waiting for a 5mb file to upload on 56k :/
CYer, Blitz

I would have to say that the main thing that got me my job was a 57 sec animation I did at the end of my last year that the AIE. It was four days work and I had a hell of a lot of fun. This would have got me about 40% of the way there.

http://www.geocities.com/doord/Animation.zip

What Do I think that made up the other 60%.

Well I think my demo reel did help a lot I didn't have to tell them that I was able to do something or have a bit of paper saying I could do it. It was all in the demo reel. Also I read that Irrational was using the unreal engine so I put my a character in to the game.

Another big note with a demo reel is not to show anything you are not 100% happy with having people from the industry seeing. Your art is only a strong as your weakest art work, applies here. You maybe asked to show more but then you have the right to say that it is not your best work and why. What I mean by right to say, brings me to my next point. I have heard many times from employers talking about talking to people looking for work about there demo reel and many of the job seekers say that "they had a lot more work and there not happy with the art they are showing and that is also it half done, but they are okay with that." Never have half finish work, Having a fully compete demo reel, Mod, short film etc. shows that you are able to slick with a project to it end and also get it finish on time.

One think I did make an note of doing was to read all I could about irrational before my interview. Also I was getting sick of farm work and gardening, so I did sound like I wanted the job more then anything else.

But in the end the thing I had was a reel full of petty good work and as I was going for an animation job I had about 3 full mins of character animation in my demo reel. Many demo we get here saying that a person is a model/animator has very little animation in the reel.

So what set me apart from other in my class without jobs, I had many project finished (hail game, long 3:30 min demo reel 100% compete, short 30 sec demo reel 100% compete, 11 page modelling tutorial, and a go start on my next project a mode for UT 2003.) stuff in my reel was to do with game not just a ball jumping around and talking (a matter of fact the work I showed in my demo reel was all from my last year at the AIE, nothing from my first.) and knew what I wanted from my career at irrational and the game industry also.

PS. Why do you think I push animation work here at Sumea a fair bit, there not many people which go for that kind of work. I think is easier to get in the industry with animation, hell I had the same demo reel for MF as here, and the reason a got the job here was because it was for animation not modelling/texturing which a lot more people can do.

Even though some developers state in their job ads that applicants should have a degree/diploma etc, there are actually a few who prefer to employ artists who haven't been through formal training. The thought is that bad habbits (that are difficult to break) can be picked up at some training facilities, also that imagination and creative freedom are sometimes compromised in order to achieve the required end of year results. This is especially apparent in some animation courses when it comes time to put a showreel together and practically everyone in the class produces similar showreels.

As for specialising in any one particular area of game design, I think we're headed in exactly the same direction (art-wise) as the movie special fx industry with individuals being placed in an essembly line so to speak, (a lot moreso than we currently do) and if you can prove to be an expert in one particular area however niche it may be, you will have an definite advantage over the "jack-of-all-trades-but-not-exceptional-at-any" person.

I dont agree with Yusef at all. I have seen first hand that the industry has many jobs and it is struggling to fill them.

The problem is that there is a big gulf between what is needed and what is being taught. In addition, many people do not understand what it takes to get a role, and fall short of the requirements.

I spend a lot of time visiting courses and making suggestions and revisions to curriculum, as well as visiting games developers and finding out what they need. I come from a very pragmatic angle on the industry.

Make games and game stuff. If you do it well, you get work. Do courses to learn and meet like minded people, not to get qualificiations. use the qualifications to guage how you are doing in the course. Put in 110% effort and keep your eyes peeled. Dont slack off on a course, use it to push yourself up the ladder. Dont blame the course, YOU are responsible for YOUR education.

Good luck at getting those jobs guys! See you on the inside.

Dave

Why does this forum not mention any of the interesting stuff in the blog... :)

Yes, definately some interesting things brought up in there. Any comments on it??

As far as ive seen there are three big factors.

Talent - For those who have it, then the games industry will always have jobs for them, either inhouse or freelance. If your talented a game developer will snatch you up even if they arnt hiring. If you dont have it then dont give up, decpite popular belief, talented people arnt born with a golden pencil up thier arse, its learnt. Some learn faster than others.

Who you know - Its just the way it is, its not fair but its the game you play, its not as big as talent infact it dosnt come close, but it plays a good role. Most of you know it, its why forums like sumea exist.

and Personality - A minor role really, but if you show up showing distain for the employer, acting like the job is beneath you, because its games and you really should be in film. That what they are offering it pittance considering what you where being paid previously, and what your really after is a place to kick your feet up, and take a break from the rush-rush environment of film/tv, then leave when somthing better comes along.
If your telented they will probably hire you anyway.
But if the deciesion is between two equally talented people , they will probably choose the one who dosnt piss them off so much. That or flip a coin, ts hard to say.

Those things are the only things ive seen that will make you stand out. Everything else you can basically through out the window. I know the employers do, they wont give a toss if you have a degree in blah-be-dee-da-with-honours. Infact the only people who do care is those that lay down 3 years of their lives to get one, those that are on the payrole teaching you to do somthing they themselves have yet to acheive. And maybe your mom.

Now im not saying that doing a degree is worthless, just the peice of paper its written on. But you can make some good contacts, and get the skills up. And that is what really matters.
There is no secret handshake that will get you a job.

Even if they are unrelated, degrees still demonstrate commitment, and that you have worked on large projects / assignments (solo and in teams).

cheers

Plus degrees allow you to explore a career away from games development, so it actually gives you more choices etc.

Although games are becoming so complex now some of the funkier stuff is just being researched!

Not too good. Needs more cooling and power captain!

I had an opportunity to talk in one of the panels alongside Chris Crawford etc there. I declined because I didn't want to make an idiot of myself, especially next to "one of world's most famous game designers, author of "The Art of Computer Game Design"

I've never met the guy or anything, but from interviews of him i've read, and articles he's written, he seems to have a *very* high opinion of himself as a game designer...particularly considering the last game he designed that released was probably over 10 years ago...
(Heres hoping i'm actually thinking of the right person :) )
So, i don't think you're particularly missing out by not speaking alongside him :)
CYer, Blitz

So... anyone planning to go?

*nods* Why not. Shall seeya there @:-)

Sure, I'll be there.

Yes, if i happen to find an airfare to queensland lying on the footpath :P
CYer, Blitz

Okay, looks like I won't be there. Working tonight, dammit. Do make sure to let us know how it went.

Let us know how it goes. Actually, it would be *great* if someone can write an article on events such as these and submit it to Sumea if you're lucky enough to attend.. *hint hint*

*gives an even bigger hint*

Heh.. I was there, but don't know what I would write. The talk from Neville Scott of HP was interesting but brief. Aside from that it was more an introduction and an opportunity to recruit members, unveil logos and talk about the plan for the year. Maybe redwyre can think of something more to add.

This month is the talk from Brett Feeney of Animal Logic. We should have plenty to write about after that.

Quick summary:

HP make computers. HP guarantee their workstations. (This is an interesting concept to me, my work comuter doesn't like me)

HP make bigger computers. HP make even bigger cluster computers that can render gigabytes of data in realtime. Kez gets to use one, the bastard.

SEQGRAPH has a new cool logo. SEQGRAPH has a new webpage (www.seqraph.org.au I think).

Membership: Students: 15$ Others: $25

The end.

I personally hope that at some stage in the future, delivering games via downloading will make up a sizeable portion of a companies sales. Even tho' publishers take most of the risk, developers are doing most of the work but seem to get the smallest cut.

Not cool.

However, with download distribution business should cut out the need for high manufacturing costs.

I would assume (although i could be wrong) that that 5x figure is total revenue, rather than profit.
The developer starts to see money after the profit from each box (after packaging/marketing/whatever costs) pays off the development costs.
Or to put it another way, the developer doesn't see any money until the game is actually making a profit (ALL costs, not just development costs, have been paid off). With the size of marketing budgets etc. these days, it's not that much of a surprise.
CYer, Blitz

The development costs are essentially an advancement on revenue from sales of the game, in other words royalties in advance. So if your royalty is $2 per copy and your dev payment equals $200k then you'll start getting royalty monies after 100k units have been sold. This is pretty much regardless of whether the publisher is making a profit at that point or not, though they usually are. There's a bit more to it than that, but that's how the royalties are generally set up.

Most publishers will have the contract set up so that they are making profit way before the developer has made enough royalties to cover costs. Unless the developer is in a really strong bargaining position when the contract is written up.
CYer, Blitz

From what I've heard, many games are self funded. The majority of the development costs are paid for by the studio but it's the marketing, production and distribution that the publishers pay for.

Well the developer pays off the publisher's front through the royalties. So if you are getting, say, a ***very*** high 30% royalties - you pay the debt that you owe to the publisher using that percentage of the game's *profit* (the publishers factor in COG (cost of goods) before the royalties are calculated).

So it's not surprising that a game has to make a *lot* of money before the developer gets anything.

The publishers almost *always* make money, on even the crappiest-selling games, but the developers sit around struggling to cope and get shut down eventually.

To get 30% royalties would be fairly optimistic even if you didn't receive any funding help from the publisher (during production)! On top of that it's not uncommon for developers to have no rights to the IP, most of it sticks with the publisher (although not in this particular example)

The whole 'publisher' control over the industry is complete bullshit at the moment...things will change though with the emergence of broadband and independent developers -> publishers will have their shit days too (I hope). The more flexible and fair publishers will probably come out unscathed, but alot of the dodgy bastards will struggle to find developers.

Hello Everyone. I thought I'd throw out my 2 cents about various cost from my expeirence at Westwood Studios/EA Pacific.

For C&C Generals our packaging costs were $2.40 USD a box. This is actually pretty high due to the raised surface of the box and the number of colors we went with. Additionally, we had a lot of inserts in with the package that added to the cost.

Now, EA Turns around and for initial release, sells each box to the stores for $40.00 USD (Sorry, all these stats are in US dollars as that's where we developed the game). The stores turn around and sell the games for $50. Right away, you can see EA is pulling in $37.60 a box that sells. (EA owns/contracts with their own Manufacturing/distribution channels so costs are kept down).

Granted, Generals is a real AAA title, meaning it sells > 1 million copies worldwide. In this case, it's forcasted to sell 4 to 6 million, lifetime. Factor in the War last year and it sold really well. But I digress.

To develop the game, our studio was given $10 Million development budget. We had 50 employees working 1.5 years on it factor in all the dinners/lunches/snacks for our 7 day a week, 100+ hour workweeks and you can see how we surpased the 10 Mil number by a couple million. Anyway to keep it easy, we will say development costs were 10 mil. In order to cover costs we would have had to sell >265,000 copies. We easily spent an additional 10 mil for marketing although the war was the biggest help. So, now were looking at ~550,000 copies to start to see a profit.

Of course, Generals sold extremely well and they easily recouped their cost. EA is one of those companies that feels your "Bonus" is working for them, so, our project completion bonus was around 1 to 4k USD for those that actually stayed with the company after the game shipped. (For that project, we had about a 70% turnover rate for staff, with literally 2-3 artists staying).

Everyone of our design decisions were "And if we do this, we'll sell 100k more copies in korea" Instead of how all of us developers felt, We would rather make a great game like RA2 and sell a half as much then sacrifice on quality. Wouldn't the gaming world be different if Teams were actually allowed to make the game they want instead of having to bend to the will of Marketers.

Well, that kind of turned into a rant... sorry...

(OT) DaMunkee: To your quote above, two words: Total Annihilation.

Westwood Studios - did you work on Bladerunner by anychance?

quote:Originally posted by Daemin

(OT) DaMunkee: To your quote above, two words: Total Annihilation.

Total Annihilation was a fantastic game, but it did not have to be 3D to be fantastic :) (Although it did make it that much better that it was and it was made how long ago?!? Now why can't modern RTSs be that good with 3D?)

quote:Originally posted by Souri

Westwood Studios - did you work on Bladerunner by anychance?

Unfortunately no Souri, I worked at Westwood Pacific(Nox, RA2, Yuri's, Generals) and I only started there in 2001. My first title was Yuri's (Yay Voxels).

Here's an interesting tidbit of information. The Dune2 engine was used for every single Command and Conquer game through to Yuri's. If you look at the original Dune2 and compare it to RA2, yeah, you can imagine how hacked that code was :) Heh, useless trivia for the next time you're on Millionaire [:D]

what about homeworld? i cant really see that working too well in 2d

Souri-
Great article. It would be a lot better if more developer's could fund themselves. The main advantage of course would be flexibility and not having to curve to publisher's view/ideas on certain areas of the game. However, as budget's increase it seems less likely that this is possible. We just need a developer with the financial backing equivalent to some of the large publisher's.

DaMunkee-
Thanks for the info on your development of Generals. What area of programming were you involved in for the project?

An Publisher has a set amount money they wish to make from a game, they are not making games because they like them they are making games to make money nothing else (even if on a personal level they like them, that is not the goal.)

quote: From what I've heard, many games are self funded. The majority of the development costs are paid for by the studio but it's the marketing, production and distribution that the publishers pay for.

Jono: most games are self funded, but most games do not make it to market or are even finished. I would guess about 95% of games which do get released are by an Publisher. The publisher is paying for a game to be developed for them to make money, that is how the publisher is able to change the game anyway they wish, by stopping payment of milestones. Therefore the developer has no income and then they die or have to stop working on the game because they can't pay wages.

independent developer - hrmm yeah sorta.... me and my bro working on an engine, he does the art, i do the code, and i wanna make an 3rd person RPG.
what sorta details ya want?

I have a few ideas on how Sumea can support Indie Developers - mainly through a developer profile on the site (similar to the ones already offered to established developers). However, I'll be adding some functionality so that you can log in yourself, update your profile details whenever you please, add your game details, add your developer news which will appear on the main page etc.

Giving me a yell here will be good so I know who to contact when I have it all set up and running.

I'm starting something with Blitz again, this time for real hopefully...

We're building a protoype now of a game we hope to make sooner or later.

Holler if you hear me!
It's a good idea souri, particularly if they can be updated easily with journal entries, and perhaps give each game/developer it's own section on the forum kinda thing...
CYer, Blitz

I got an email from uni talking about a proposed sumea indie developers conference in melbourne like in May...i havent found anything yet so far about it but yeah if that happens i'd love to be there...are there any details about it yet?

Try this
http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1270
CYer, Blitz

hey my name is Alex Drummond

i'm very much looking for a company to work for.

anyway here's my site www.alticoncept.tk

I just launched my indy business website:

http://www.jaishaw.com

At present I am selling two products:

Dreamstars - A mix of an asteroids style arcade shooter and a random infinite upgrade system (similar to diablo's item generation). The result is a game with all the action and excitment of the classic arcade games but with almost infinite variability and replay.

Kidsafe - Is an educational Game/Tool aimed at teaching toddlers basic computer controls as well as letters and numbers will locking up your machine in a child proof environment (no easy feat in windows XP)

Souri these features sound sweet and I will enjoy hooking up with some of the other local indies :)

Cheers,

Jai Shaw

Hi Souri,

Actually I just realised I kind of need a forum for my game Dreamstars. It would be pretty cool to have a whole section of the forums here for Australian shareware game *grins*...

Just a thought...

Jai

Hey Souri,
Me and a couple of my friends created our company a couple years back now, we are still starting out, but take game dev pretty seriously.

check our our website for more info: [url]www.dimension-studios.com.au[/url]

I should have the new section up soon. My server admin guy has been pretty unresponsive (haven't heard from him since I emailed Monday) so I haven't been able to comeplete the changes..

Hi,

I'm part of the group organising the Independent Games Conference and I'd like to invite people in Melbourne to come to International Game Developers Meetup Day.

This is seperate from the conference but will be a great place to discuss game development and I'd welcome any comments for the upcoming conference.

The meeting is monthly and the first is on

Babble Cafe,
4B Izett St Prahran, Melbourne,
on Tuesday, February 17 @ 8:00PM
http://gamedev.meetup.com/

Ok, Sumea supports Independant Game Developers! If you jump on over to the developers pages, you'll see on the left hand side a space for a IGD listing. IGD profiles are exactly the same as the Developer profiles, so you have a link to your website, logo, blurb, game list with release dates and info, and all your company news will automatically appear at the bottom. I'll be making some application form for an account, amd I will point everyone in this thread to ir when it's done..

Wow Sumea, that looks excellent! Good work.

Ok, it's up and ready!! There were a few problems with things working on my personal web server but not online, and I've fixed and tested it all. Let me know if you run into any problems though. Register here!

http://www.sumea.com.au/sregisterdev.asp

i'm a student and me and a few others are planing on developing a demo game. we all have (at least we believe) a enough experience and talent to ensure that the demo wont be a clumsy inexperienced student game (we've already done something along those lines, but it was better than you would expect) and our next one should be pretty good, knowing what we do now.

basically: does my situation count? or are you looking for 'profesional' indi developers? our game is designed as self advertising.

just a note: "'profesional' indi developers"

think about that for a second :)

Indie developers are developers who self-fund their projects (hence they are independent because they are not dependent on an outside source of funding).
Professional indie developers are generally those that have a thick enough wad to be able to register their company and pay wages etc. :)
CYer, Blitz

what i ment was indie developers lokig to start a game a get it finished, publised, etc.

what we want to do is a demo game to exibit our skills

This thread welcomes any indie developers.
This means YOU!
So, yes, just to clear it up, you count :)
CYer, Blitz

I've just got my game 'bloody football' to a beta stage I am happy with :)

When an advertised position states that we have a minimum 2 years of in-the-field experience, is this really that important. I understand that the more experience you have actually making the games is more than beneficial. However, when graduates are wanting to apply to this position they are most likely going to be put off, due to the high amount of requirements wanted from them. I would think that the 2 years experience would be listed under additional requirements that could be beneficial, but not neccessary to get the job.

Hey souri what happened to those questions you were sending of to developer, did that end up happening or did i miss it.

what about...

What fields/areas would you like to see students specialising in?
What fields/areas would most draw your attention to a programmer apply for a job?

Yeh, I gotta start chasing up people again [:(]. Will have to do that next week.

But it hought u were nearly finished. Did you forget, if you did don't worry i forgive you
you poopy head :P

Hey, that's MR. Poopy head to you, dear sir. [8]

I'll chip in with some answers from the perspective of Sidhe Interactive

-Do you prefer some one from uni, or from TAFE?

We prefer Uni students. In fact all our programmers, past and present, have a uni computer science degree.

TAFE or Polytech programming courses tend to teach you all you need to know about specific programming languages but lack the depth of theory a uni degree has. Its our belief that uni graduates are more flexible and have higher potential on average.

Of course, we consider TAFE or Polytech graduates for programmer, and would possibly hire such a graduate if they demonstrated good practical skills and solid theoretical ability.

-What sort of demos do you like programmers sending in? and how do you like them sent in (CD, via website, email)?

No real preference on demo content at the end of the day. The most important factor is that it is complete. A finished clone of Tetris demonstrates much more to us than a 5% complete MMORPG.

If I was pressed to suggest what a demo might ideally include I would say something that reads and reacts to user input, some basic graphics and sound, and some basic AI/game rules in play. Don't get too ambitious or you'll end up in the interview saying "yeah, at this point in the program this really cool thing was supposed to happen, but I didn't get it finished".

Delivery mechanism isn't really important, although emailing a very large demo without warning could annoy those of us on dialup laptops working on the road (its happened more than once).

-Do you want to see sample code from demos, or is seeing the demo in action?

We don't hire any programmer without seeing their sample code. Candidates have to have clear, well structured, and commented code to demonstrate they can work well within a team proramming environment.

Note, we don't need to see your 'secret stuff' or everything, but supplying code of a couple of complex modules would be good.

- When an advertised position states that we have a minimum 2 years of in-the-field experience, is this really that important?

We have never advertised for an experienced programmer. None of our current programming team had any professional game development experience prior to working at Sidhe.

However, if an employer is specifying it as a requirement for the role, then you should respect that, and be prepared for a quick knock back if you don't have it.

Note that some employers might consider work on MOD groups, team projects while studying, and extensive work on personal projects as a substitute for 'in-the-field' experience.

If you are unsure, give the company a call and ask.

- What fields/areas would you like to see students specialising in?

We prefer students to be all rounders really. Specialisation should be determined once successful candidates have had a chance to try a few things out on the job. Interest and proficiency will steer people towards a specialisation.

Besides a lot of what one might learn in a course might not be applicable in a live game development environment, so educational 'specialist knowledge' may not be valuable in the real world.

- What fields/areas would most draw your attention to a programmer applying for a job?

A programmer should have basic maths, basic physics, software engineering and an understanding of OO design and programming.

Additional feathers in the cap might be courses or demos demonstrating proficiency in AI, advanced graphics techniques, advanced physics/collision, programmatically generated content, sound processing etc

Hope this helps.

Mario

MD, Sidhe

(didn't see this thread earlier!). Great responses there, Mario!

Due to the success of the artist portfolio questions, I reckon the programmer questions would be great too. At the moment we have these questions which Mario has put out neatly for us:

-Do you prefer some one from uni, or from TAFE?
-What sort of demos do you like programmers sending in? and how do you like them sent in (CD, via website, email)?
-Do you want to see sample code from demos, or is seeing the demo in action?
- When an advertised position states that we have a minimum 2 years of in-the-field experience, is this really that important?
- What fields/areas would you like to see students specialising in?
- What fields/areas would most draw your attention to a programmer applying for a job?

Any more suggestions??

Was just wondering this morning, if we at Sumea could interview a few Australian Game Development places and post it up on the web?

I think the problem stems from Aussie developers waiting around to be asked for an interview. If you want to promote your business it's in your own best interest to take the initiative and approach the media yourself, whether it be magazines, online sites, newspapers etc... it's very easy and most will ablige even if they're based overseas, and the best part is it's free advertising.

Well there's not much point in having an interview if you have nothing to say or show, eh?

True, but the games musing #5 refered to established Aussie developers not exposing themselves to the media, I'm sure they could think of something to say if they wanted to.

BUT, as was also noted in that musings, it is often that the developers can't talk about the project due to NDA's etc. with the publisher.
Any interview that goes along the lines of "Question 1: Blah. Answer: No comment" is going to be a bloody dull interview, and could cast a worse light on the developer than just not saying anything at all.
CYer, Blitz

As the saying goes: "It is preferable to be silent and thought of as a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."

I think John summed it up perfectly in a personal email that the majority of local press (web/magazines) and developers are just not communicating.

It requires the press to get off their butts, do some research on our industry, and actively probe for information. It simply isn't an excuse for them to "not know" that we have an industry, because you'd have to be living under a rock to think it doesn't exist here considering some of the world class titles that's come out locally. Those huge articles/developer diaries/double page magazine spreads on our games like Grand Prix Challenge, Transformers: Armada, Tribes: Vengeance etc that I've read from overseas magazines and websites should have come from our local press, damnit! I read an article on another website where they managed to get someone to write about their trip to Irrational Games's studio in Canberra. It was a *great* article, a terrific insight into the people and the working environment at Irrational Games, and it left me thinking why some website/magazine hadn't done that already here!. No need to fly someone a million miles by plane to another continent, and it would be such a GREAT way to inform and inspire those young game magazine buyers in Australia in local game development. Over a decade ago, I read in a UK magazine that there was a development outfit called GeeWhiz Entertainment from Queensland working on an amazing point and click graphic adventure game called "Flight of the Amazon Queen". It blew me away because I found out that people here were capable of doing world class games and making news, that there may be an industry here too and that I might have a future in it! I can't stress the importance of local media covering local developers. They've got a big role in inspiring young people.
I'd love for Sumea to have much, much, more articles on local game developers, but as you might already have known, I'm just one guy. The research into finding appropriate, interesting, and relevant questions, following up etc takes a bit of time. Put in my other duties like updating the site, replying to enquiries, adding new members, fixing up problems, website maintenance etc, and you can see I'm kinda overwhelmed at times. I have one article in the process which has lots of people to follow up, and it's an ongoing effort. I want to do an article on the AGDC 2003 winners, and boy, that's another big task there. So yeh, Daemin and anyone else, if you're up to the task of doing an article/interview on behalf of Sumea, I'm all for it!
Australian GamePro, having been at the AGDC with all those talented and experienced local developers around, should be slapped on their wrists for their article with Laura Fryer and Phil Harrison on Australian Game Development. That simply doesn't compute. If they did some journalistic probing, they'd know that the people running the GDAA, and the people who have been in the industry for decades like Adam Lancman, those who founded Krome and Micro Forte etc would be *perfect* candidates for such an article, and were probably mere metres away at times.

Now, we've got the local press out of the way, and seeing as communication goes both ways, developers have some work to do also. Developers have to send out frequent press releases, give out interviews, and make themselves more open and accessible to local press. That includes replying to emails. Sumea gets a few press releases now and then, but simply not enough. I've probably received a total of around 7 press releases since the site has been up, which isn't much considering the amount of developers we have. What's kinda depressing is that I've seen a fair few press releases on other overseas websites that I haven't received at all. Support your local press, developers! Make a web form so people can subscribe to your press releases, compile email addresses of pr/reporters from the local press and send news to every one on that list when there's something to report.
Yes, there are contracts, NDA's and what not, but that's no reason to be completely silent! There are a fair few local developers where we just simply don't know what's going on there, and they've been around for years. No website updates, no news reports, nothing.
I'm sure there are plenty of ways to communicate to the public. Contribute to forums with your knowledge on the industry, write some "how to" guides, share some of that know how around! Interviews don't have to cover game specific information. There's plenty of things they can talk about. Press have to adjust their questions to other interesting topics. How did you get into the industry, post mortems on previous games, opinions on industry matters etc... Just write anything! Developers, you have a role in inspiring the young into the industry as well! It's all free advertising so should be seen as valuable for the company. For everything a developer posts (articles, news, forum post), it informs the rest of us about your company, and hey, it gets word out on the industry as well.

Ok, I've re-read Johns article again, and I seem to be re-iterating a lot of his points, so I better stop now before I become too redundant [:)]

BTW, publishers preventing developers to talk about their games - it just seems so counter-constructive and stupid. They should definately take a leaf out of Vivendi Universal and Irrational Games's book. Tribes: Vengeance has been really well covered, and the fans love it. It's a gradual release of information, and it'll make that long wait till late 2004 seem a breeze. Developer diaries, Fansite kits, progress reports etc. Heck, who doesn't know about Tribes: Vengeance??? Contrast this to Microsoft and Citizen Zero, where a lot of the fans are a pretty angry and bitter lot. Sure publishers want to protect their investments, but what game/story idea, technology information, bit of concept/in-game art in the past few years was bitterly worth silencing the developer for anwyay...

A few key points were made in the article and I would like to comment/offer suggestions on a few. Of course, every suggestion involves some amount of money (however small) so unfortunately, that may mean nothing will come of it :(

?The Publisher won?t allow us to talk about the project?
Is that all that being a game developer is about? ?Publisher X signed us for title Y, sorry we can?t tell you what title Y is, maybe in a year or two.? Unfortunately to survive, it?s often best not to piss off your publisher. So a solution could be something like this. Krome has 110 employees. I?m guessing, a vast majority of those are from Australia. As was proven by the series ?Australian Idol? not to long ago, Australians love their ?home town heros.? (A huge + for the Australian culture by the way). So build off of that. 110 Employees at Krome alone equals 110 ?True Blue Features of the Week.? Whether it?s a column on a website(company or fan), or a panel in a magazine, start ?getting to know? your neighbors. Each Individual has an instant fan base typically that starts off as their family or school buddies, but admiration/proudness has the ability to spread news like wildfire. Plus, John Doe from Perth reads that Joe Programmer from Freo is working at Krome, hey, John Doe now has a common thread with Joe. This common thread is all John needed to prove to him that even being on the other side of the country from what seems like the gaming centers, like Joe, I too, could get a job! Excitement grows?

So, in terms of a news blackout due to publishers? Work around it, start sowing the seeds of the industry.

?Money, time is money, and time is something we seldom have?
Company X has 10 employees. Company X needs to make this milestone otherwise Company X will have Zero Employees. How can company X free up resources to communicate to magazines/websites on what their doing, or info about their employees. This is a difficult situation indeed. Even the best intentions of maintaining contact with the community can be over looked when you?re pulling long hours.

A solution: Game Developers Association of Australia. Last year at E3, the GDAA handed out fantastic booklets. In them listed almost every game company in Oz and it provided a good summery about them as well. Talk about a fantastic way of combining forces to help the collective as oppose to the individual. How about they take it a step further. Picture this, A committee is formed whose sole responsibilities is to disseminate information. A single point of contact if you will. Company X signs a new contract, the Project manager sends an email over to Bob at the GDAA ?Hey Bob, we did it! Take2squared interactive signed us for a new project!? Bob turns around and writes up a blurb that gets sent to his ?global email list? that contains fan sites, publishers, etc. Company X has succeeded in getting the word out with minimal impact on their Time.

For the most part, the game industry getting the word out seems to be working. I mean, if not, you wouldn?t have the Game courses in so many places like you do now. But with a little help, the word could be spreading quicker. After all, Australia only has 20 million people, you are more likely to know someone or know someone who knows someone who works in the industry there, then you would in any other game developing country.

Well, that was long [:)]

Chris

110 articles about the 110 Kromans?

Trust me, most aren't worth the mention ;)

In the TY 2 developer diary in Official Australian Xbox Magazine (which *cough* getsnomentioninsumeaatallever *cough*) about 3 or 4 Kromans are featured at once, talking about what they're doing on the game. There'll be a new one soon (honest Kevin! It's good!).

No magazine is going to want to run 110 seperate articles about what is basically the same subject...

Maybe kromestudios.com could set up a "Kroman of the day" feature or something. Randomly rotate an employee profile...

And about Company X signing a contract with Company Y...it's never, ever, ever Company's X's call to make it known to the public. It's not the GDAA's call, either. Signing a game with Take 2 (or whoever) doesn't mean we have the right to tell people about it. Sometimes the publisher will not want it known that you're working on the game for various reasons (exclusivity deals with other developers, waiting for a big announcement at e3, publishing the game on platforms that haven't even been announced yet, for example)

I'm not trying to downplay your suggestions....keep them coming! We need to sort this problem out! I'm just trying to illustrate some of the realities we have to deal with.

quote:Originally posted by Gazunta

In the TY 2 developer diary in Official Australian Xbox Magazine (which *cough* getsnomentioninsumeaatallever *cough*) about 3 or 4 Kromans are featured at once

Anyone can submit news to the site [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/submitnews.asp"]through this form[/url]. If anyone finds local developer related news, then you're the perfect candidate to report it. It's pretty unreasonable to expect me to find everything out there, especially from a magazine I don't buy for a console I don't even own.

Sorry Souri, I didn't mean that as an attack on your news gathering abilities (which are mighty, fearsome, and make mortal men tremble in fear). :)

I was just illustrating my point - I post here often, I work for Krome hell I even wrote the article and I still didn't post it as news! Good grief, I suck!

quote:Originally posted by Gazunta

I'm not trying to downplay your suggestions....keep them coming! We need to sort this problem out! I'm just trying to illustrate some of the realities we have to deal with.

Haha, I think maybe my suggestions were taken to literally. I'm mearly stating that in order to harbor a good relation to the community, you have to connect with that community. If a company agrees to a press blackout agreement about a title, then the company needs to come up with some other ways of relating to the community. For most decent sized game companies, they have a community manager who's sole job is that. When I mentioned the GDAA, I was suggesting that those companies who don't have the resources for a community manager, to band together in order to help out the group as oppose to doing little or nothing at all.

Oh, and your comment about "it's never, ever, ever Company's X's call to make it known to the public." Yeah, I kind of disagree with that. It is always Company's X's call to do whatever it wants! Last I checked an agreement required the signiture of both companies involved. If a company truly wants something (and I'm not talking just in this scope) there is always a way to get it. The problem is, companies feel, especially newer, younger companies, that they need to please the publishers in every respect. Unfortunatly, they do not realize that without these developers, the publishers are nothing. Who makes the games?

All it takes is communication between the developers and changes in the industry can take place. Sure this is easier said then done, but the point is, it can be done! Can you imagine if all of the developers in Australia united for a common goal? (My personal favorite reason being "No we will not put in 100 hour work weeks! We will make sure the quality of the games is there taking the time, within reason of course) There is a beginning of this in Australia with the GDAA, take it a step further and you will be surprised at all that could be accomplished.

Heh, I guess I just want to see Australian game developers not get trapped in the same misconceptions as the US ones are currently living in.

A game developer worker union? [:)]

The better places to find out stuff about proper costs and that is the Game Developers Association of Australia (www.gdaa.asn.au). However some more general type info can be found at www.gamedev.net, www.garagegames.com etc.

The time that it takes to make a demo really depends on the amount of time that you'd want to spend on it, and the people making it. From other developers in the industry I have heard that your demo must be 100% quality, nothing in it should be placeholder, all sounds / music / art if included must be of the utmost quality.

From what I've heard of you on the other thread it seems to me that you're both artists, hence you'll need to find some interested programmers to help you (I know a few in Adelaide), however that should not be difficult.

Good luck, it's gonna be a long hard road ahead if you choose to go down it.

my brother is a programmer interested has his own engine which he is working on with 3ds max tools... yeah ill check those sites out more :D

so you know some coders in adelaide that are uber intrested in game dev?
got thier contacts?
im gibbz bro, t3h coder ;p

Well I know people at uni, and am friends with a few interested programmer, and I was an interested programmer until not a while ago.

Maybe if we exchange details we could arrange something.
I did try and start some sort of game dev club at adelaide uni, but that didn't go down so well.

hrmm as long as they eat, dream ,think code yeah 4 sure ;)

As a side note : The game dev club at adelaide uni needed someone to show some leadership and put in some time and effort...these things tend not to happen on their own.

also would i be better off moving to anotehr state, as uni is really more for coders here in SA hardly an prctical :|

I wouldn't study anything more, just practice your stuff. I graduated from that course in August last year and wouldn't pay for any other education, with the exception of some traditional art training. How far into the course are you?

I had a look at your folio, some if it is really cool but I think there might be too many guns. More characters, vehicles and other textured models would round your folio out a lot more. If you want more feedback just work on some more gear and post it onto some forums... someone will always give advice and opinions.

Good stuff... I didn't come across a single other student there who could properly lay out uvs!

ok I was thinking along those lines... a course i was looking at at tafe if i study anything is http://www.dmit.sa.edu.au/cocoon/dmit/display_Works/1-90000/1-300/displ…
ill try and add more character and stuff too.
im am almost finished the course(another 15 weeks).

yeah ive spent a while perfecting my uvw's :D

Well 15 weeks is a long time! If anything I would say that completing say a character every few weeks, some vehicle work and low poly environments all with textures would do the trick... just go hard at it.

That course looks really good.... aah if only we could be students forever ;)

hehe ah but we can be student forever :P theheh

okay ill find out more about the course. and work on some vechiles and characters. do you suggest mainly unrealistic or unrealistic models/designs?

Well some other people might be better at answering this. I think Souri is organising a questionnaire based on this topic... [URL]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=869[/URL]. If I had to suggest anything it would be to lean towards realism, and if you are creating fictional designs make sure they are believable ie realistic anatomy, muscle groups etc. That's just my 2c, like I said the questionnaire will give you a more definitive answer.

I don't have any I hear about it in monday meeting. I haven't had the time to look for any. Trying to find one but.

Dude... daymn...

There is some talk about it here and there on forums, but still can't find any offical word.

i don't have official confrimation, but i can confirm they lost a big contract

I think it may be worth getting facts straight before you stir everyone up over incorrect or unconfirmed information. Especially if it is something that was heard in a private company meeting.

Bigworld = MF IP
Citizen Zero = Game for XBox

Someone posted the rumour a few days ago on Sumea. I had my doubts since it didn't provide any proof or links either, but if it's coming from different sources now...

I've also heard it has been canned and a bunch of people got laid off.

Hi Mick how's it going mate, long time no see :)

Hasn't Bigworld been in development for something like 3-4 years? be a shame if it got canned after all that.

quote:
Hasn't Bigworld been in development for something like 3-4 years? be a shame if it got canned after all that.

Ok :) *explains in more depth*

Bigworld is MF IP. Bigworld is the MMOG technology and has NOTHING to do with Microsoft. The only reason Bigworld would get "canned" is if MF decided to can it themselves.

Citizen Zero was the game MF was doing for XBox. Microsoft could "can" this project.

I really see a big difference between Citizen Zero and Bigworld.

I just hope people take the time to differentiate between the two as they are VERY different and Sumea does not need to be known as some industry rumour mill website.

Yes that is right that CS and Big world are two different produts. But How much of the money that microsoft paying into the game was being used to pay to development of the tech also?? And would MF have the income to keep working on bigwrold if CS was lost, have they sold copys of the engine?? Only time will tell I guess.

I have had word from many places also not just the meeting, it was the frist and I looked into it, and there is stuff every were. Then I made a post.

Marty: wat du u meen?

Doord: I think the point Jacana is making is that just because others have said things doesn't make it a fact.
Its still rumour-mongering until MF makes an actual statement on the 'facts' so its best to just not keep it going.

I just I'd mention why everyone is so touchy about it? Rumours fly all the time around game internet forums about all companies. Is it because it's a bit close to home?

The above comment is intended as an observation, nothing more.

There are quite a few reasons as to why I don't agree with it :)

1) There are plenty of other sites out that there rumour monger. Why not join one of those and join in instead of bringing it here?

2) Saying that someone in your company told you at a meeting about the rumour is really bad. It makes you look bad for carrying on the rumour as well as making the company as a whole look bad.

I wasn't at the meeing so I don't know what was said but I can make an educated guess that they were not expecting something said in a meeting to employees be posted on forums as well as an employee riding on the companys name as their "reliable source" for the information.

3) The information is totally incorrect. As I stated earlier Microsoft can not touch Bigworld.

4) If it is Bigworld that is failing I really don't like the idea of Sumea being a rumour mill about MF's downfall.

5) As I pointed out before the rumour was wrong so now people are adding more speculation to it. Such as doords post above where he starts to say how much money it must cost to keep up Bigworld if Citizen Zero was canned. Pure speculation.

6) This is all fourth or fifth hand information. Reminds me of the game telephone we played as a kid. Someone started off saying something and passed it on to one person. That person passed it on to another person. By the time it got to the last person what was said at the start was not the same as what was received at the end.

Can't agree more Jacana, if the information is accurate I'm sure Souri will give us a heads up til then lets hope its not.

quote:2) Saying that someone in your company told you at a meeting about the rumour is really bad. It makes you look bad for carrying on the rumour as well as making the company as a whole look bad.

I also agree that the company you work for Doord might not like the idea that you are divuldging information they tell you so freely, no matter how trivial they intended it to be.

jacana, loosing funding for a project is obviously very bad for any game development company. if microsoft pulling funding is true, then it could be a very serious problem for MF as a company, not just for the game that was canned.

All I know, that a lot of people had lost there jobs because Microsoft has dropped CZ. But there has been no word from MF or Microsoft (but Microsoft haven't said much about the game anyway.)

I should have posted it as a rumour, but I was informed in a way that I should had already known about it.

Jancana: I wasn't saying that if CZ is canned then MF wouldn't go on, I was just putting the question out there, has MF has sold a good number of copy of the Big World tech to have the income to run MF as is without Microsoft CZ income?

Also there has been jobs going at MF of late. But no more.
http://www.microforte.com/jobs/open.htm
Hopefully they have fill them, but maybe not.

http://www.citizen-zero.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001586.html
Also more rumours about this at the CZ forums.

I'm have been a big fan of the game and hope that is goes ahead and comes out, not only so that the people at MF have a safe working environment. But some of the game play element sound like a hell of a lot of fun. Playing online with 10000 people so much fun to be had.

Geeee folks :)

I am not so dumb that I do not understand what the possibility of the rumour could or could not mean for MF. So please give me a bit of credit.

What I am smart enough to do is keep my speculation to myself.

People seem to think that I am denying the rumour - which I am not. What I am denying is wrong information and speculation.

I am denying the topic:

quote:
Microsoft canned bigworld.

I am the necessary evil. I am a realist. I may be your producer someday.

I agree totally with Jacana. I come across information about what's going on all the time, as does anyone else working in the industry.

Common sense tells you though, that you shouldn't spread the news, especially on something like a forum such as this. Allow the company the courtesy of releasing whatever statement they will, and then the topic is open for speculation. Things like NDAs cover that. Its also ettiquette.

I can't believe we're still arguing about this.

Scott.

quote:I can't believe we're you're all still arguing about this.

quote:Allow the company the courtesy of releasing whatever statement they will *if there is one to make*

BLAH! I *BLAH* at you Inglis!

*yawn*

(goes back to thechaosengine.com)

Did anyone see the documentary about a year ago on the games industry which included MF. It basically had a look into the life at MF and I found it quite interesting. During the show MF did get some bad news from Microsoft, however it wasn't anything as bad as being dropped, just their schedule being pushed back.

Regarding the rumour, I haven't heard anything official either way. Remember though that prospective employee's may read these forums. Do you want to be known for spreading rumours with no proof to back them up?

Doolwind

yeah i saw that doco, then when i went to AGDC i was like OMG its them! :P
it was actually pretty interesting and its things like that that drive me to head for the games industry

Heh,
Try having a camera crew in your face for a few weeks... it was Bizarre! I loved the fame though... gonna be on home and away soon.

Strangely, in my circle of friends I was on that show, and then a girlfriend was on a doco about a unicycle for canteen, and another was covered by SBS about her trip to NY to get a clothing company started... it was weird, we were at the pub and like "so who here isnt on telly this week?".
Guess thats our sixty seconds of fame.

Dave

ps.. As for the MF thing, you have to wait for the company to make an official statement, guys. Only they can confirm anything.

hey all. i know this is an old thread. i was just doing some searchin' on google for the microforte documentary and ran into this thread. [ i check sumea daily for cz news ]

anyways, if anyone has a link to the actuall documentary or anything on it i'd be much obliged [sp]. far as news goes for cz, i guess mf is taking the engine to gdc this year. vrvader from the official cz fora is going and will get updates like he does evertime he goes. maybe something different then them loosing ms will come about. anyways, maybe citizen zero is droped by microsoft, but if so, why they still have the intro page on the official site talking about a new project [ supposedly, after they inked the deal with microsoft, they decided to change the name of the game to identity zero. ]??

well anyways, enough of me contributing to someone's rumor.

I wish I had taped it when it was on. Anyone make a copy?

we had a video and ripped digital format of it circulating around when I was still at school last year at the AIE - so it's possible it's out there still.

Wasn't it shown on Catalyst on the ABC? If I'm thinking of the same one. Maybe you could try contacting the ABC, dont know what the deal with getting an old episode would be tho.

Yep, Catalyst. That's the one! Someone should divx it and put it up somewhere. Only the part on Micro Forte though. The other story on gaming competition wasn't as interesting. [:)]

Ahh that doco crew....they were there seemingly for weeks. The camera man kept knocking stuff off my desk, including my mobile...grrr...and they lurking right before a critical milestone. The old office was crowded enough as it was without having them there.

As to the MF rumours, MF haven't officially stated anything so I'm unable to clarify on the speculation. I can say that the project is still steaming ahead and will see the light of dasy on PC and Xbox. :) What I can also say is that myself and a number of other people are now working on other projects and with other teams, here and abroad. A few ex-MF people are here at Perception for instance.

be well
-unit

Bill them depending on how long it takes you to build and finish it, and charge them about $25-30 per hour?

If I did that they would end up paying a fortune, since making normals takes me friggen ages, I'm not fast enough wih the high poly work

have a look on sites like turbosquid. see what others are charging for work of the same level.

p.s. little off topic- is anyone experienced with sites like turbosquid? anyone have any items for sale, sold anything on sites like these.
If so, do you get your money straight away, how much % do they take, do you make much sales etc.

Remember that with turbosquid, the artists rely on selling a number of the same model, so they price accordingly.

hey guys,

noticed that Cam, Bron, and Dave managed to sneak into hyper magazine this month in a special on the AGDC 2003.

matt

erm im just getting red Xs, right clicking seems like you tried to link to your HD. You have to upload it somewhere on the internet

ok how am i supposed to upload an image souri?

upload it to a server (any) somewhere and chuck the url into the img tags

You can upload it here..

http://www.sumea.com.au/sdesktop.htm

I'll edit your post to show the images when I get it..

Pictures should work now.

Also a few of the pics that were no posted had Zaph in them :)

quote:Originally posted by Jacana

Also a few of the pics that were no posted had Zaph in them :)

Surely I've used up my allocated 15 minutes of fame by now ?

Pretty much everything i did was related back to game dev somehow...
Basically, all teh theory stuff, data structures and algorithms, databases, architecture, graphics, ai etc. relates to games pretty obviously, other subjects (projects) helped by practicing coding etc.
I'd say the least related to game dev were one subject on "multimdia systems" (or something) which was basically web development related stuff, and the software engineering subject that was mostly about UML, which i haven't come across in game dev at all yet really, although that may change in years to come.
CYer, Blitz

Yep, that's true, you can pretty much apply anything learned in Uni to game development, after all it *is* software development!

That also includes beer drinking, lanning, getting drunk with your mates, and the theory stuff.

sick...Uni is sounding better than I thought!

I think it depends on the person, I always felt that for every good bit of Uni that I can apply to games making, there's probably at least as much crap that I don't want to do or know.

So now I'm doing a more math-oriented degree.

:)

yeh...i done a Cert 4 in IT (Programming) last year (2003), so I hope that i havent already done too much of the programming stuff...i shouldnt have, linked lists and the more advanced-ish stuff i havent looked at yet...

did you guys base your electives around game dev stuff, or just personal interest stuff?

i based a lot of my electives around personal interest stuff (which is game dev stuff, so it all works out). i really can't think of any aspect of computer science thats not related to game development in any way.

Also don't be afraid to pick the subjects that don't seem to have anything to do with game development, as you'll probably be very surprised at the applications some of them have, and they might be a bit of fun too!

i have chosen to do electronics for my electives, which still sort of ties in with game dev, cos it involves a bit of Assembly language programming and microprocessor stuff...mainly from personal interest, but some aspects can still be applied to game dev...

i am not sure whether to do the Honours year when it comes...the only reason i would do it is to do the Game Programming unit...

First thing you have to worry about is getting good enough grades to get asked to do honors!

you usually only need a 65 average (h3) to do honours, shouldn't be too much of a struggle

did you peoples do Honours?

well i'm doing software engineering which is 4 years, at my uni (uni of melb) and you can do honours subjects in 4th year, if you do engineering and you get an overall of 65 or above, you automatically get honours when you graduate, so yeah i suppose i am doing honours.

doing honours would be helpful, especially if you do your thesis on something gamedev related (which is why i'm thinking i probably should have done just computer science with a normal honours year instead of software eng, i changed out of comp sci to software eng in my first year as well, damn)

well thanks for the info guys...

good luck with Uni Tachyon and all the other Uni-goers!

Hey, wow, you have entire lectures/panels videotaped and available for download! Most impressive.. [:)]

Very cool. And they're not streaming RealVideo!

So can I get a hands up on who's planning on going?

I'm hoping to.

I'll be there if i can. Depends what happens in the meantime regarding time and money (travelling)!
It's a great idea anyway.
CYer, Blitz

I've noticed we've been mentioned on www.planethalflife.com about the Independant Game Developers Conference in Australia - the organisers definately getting word around to the mod community. Like the blurb on there says, if anyone has any questions, I'm sure the organisers will be more than happy to pop in here to answer all your questions!

Yep, we've just got a new dedicated conference staffer and we'll get on to that conference mailbox tomorrow. Bear with us!

Here's a question for sumeans: what would we have at an indie E3 (ie an indie game/mod expo)? (ok don't say booth bunnies - they don't come cheap you know!)

booth bunni... oh erm damn :P

nah what i reckon would be good for a indie E3 is pros from companys thats started out as indies doing talks and stuff, something to sort of bridge the gap between a indie group and the "real deal"

btw, im gonna do my best to get there :)

I think at the most basic you need to have discussions on how to survive as an indie developer, especially looking into finance during development, the pros and cons of going the indie route, maketing your game and some motivational talks from successful indie developers (if you can find any) *joke*

I also think the main emphisis should be to run an event that looks professional and well organised to help build the image of indie development, possibly to get the right people (with money and influence) interested and to squash some preconceived ideas that the indie scene is run by amatures.

As for booth bunnies, I know of a group who are real cheap, they may not look the best but I guarantee you won't argue about the price... they also double up as bouncers so they'll clear the place in no time once the show's over ;)

I will be willing to walk around with no pants if that helps.

What I would *really* love to see, which I'm sure is being organised, is showcasing some indie games. There's a fair few of them mentioned in the forum, so it would be a good idea to chase them up.

I also like the idea of getting mod people interested. And as I mentioned in the 1st thread about the indie conf, get Nocturnal, Hemiware etc to see if they want to show off their engines [:)]

I am a mod developer, and have my eys set on it, just have to see if my team will come from overseas - most of them are from EU. Though i think SAT might be willing to come along - they are our lattest mods sound team, and are very pro, and good pices (Indys would love there work)

Becuase i have never been to a trade show, i am lost, all i have seen is the pics from the Half Life 2 booth at e3.

I would how ever like to see PC Format, or PC Game mag writers, and them telling us in person what they look for, how they get pitced at, what games are big in there eys, such as FPS, MMORPG, and what games would be upcoming, such as a FPS, RPG Cross bread

and becuse there are some big houses in melbone, maybe they can tell us abit about there start, such as atari house, etc

Also, whats the expeted price?

amckern

hey that's a good idea: local game journos

as for price, it hasn't been worked out yet but this thing's not meant to run at a profit by any means. we'll be talking double figures not triple figures, and there'll probably be a price structure based on what people can afford (eg students, jobless etc.)

as for the big companies: there will be professional developers at the conference, but mostly just as individuals, and some will be roped in to share their skills, give advice on art, coding, design etc. there'll definitely be a thread of the conference that will be aimed at (and designed by) people already working in the industry who want to talk about the kind of stuff that the commercial industry conference (AGDC) isn't designed for.

I asked the question about an Indy E3 because we're having an expo event as part of the conference (ie conference AND expo-style event) E3 is a big corporate marketing affair, where you have to buy floorspace and all the major publishers dominate the floor. Developers impressing publishers, publishers creating hype for journalists, a few circus/fair style competitions, publicity stunts and freebies (and yes, the ubiquitous booth bunnies). People say that it's great becase there's lots and lots of games on show to try and freebies, and that it's crap because it's a major publisher dominated over-hyped wank.

So what should our low-budget DIY-style E3 be like? (and keep making suggestions about the conference too - we're taking notes!!)

BTW: if you guys really want booth bunnies, it'll have to be on a volunteer basis only. souri's already volunteered, which is great to see [;)]

heh i dont think my support as a booth bunny would be of any good

all im requesting right now is make sure you tell us some more concrete details, like venue and time and cost when you know them!!!!

Well maybe if some of the indie developers have hot girlfriends that don't mind cosplay they might become booth bunnies? (It's 4am and I've had a few beers tonight)

And if you're talking double figures for the conference I should be able to come, although I'm not a professional (not until I finish uni at least) I might have a game demo or two to show off.

I don't think you should be selling this as an "indy E3" because there are quite a few components to E3. There is the conference, which has many developers, publishers, agents and marketing types sharing knowledge. There is also the networking side (developers meeting publishers) and the marketing side (getting exposure for new games).

It sounds like the Melbourne conference is more of the first, a knowledge sharing conference. So I think the organisers should just focus the show on that, and not try to be "jack of all trades, master of none" like the AGDC.

Sorry Mick, it's been a bit unclear. The conference will be just that - a conference, but we're probably going to have an afternoon/evening as part of the conference where people get to bring along their stuff, dump it on a table in a large space and show it in a sort of 'expo'/'tradehow' setting - and I guess one thing to compare it to (albeit in a satirical way!) is to imagine it as an ultra-ultra-low budget version of E3. Or you could think of it as a zine fair, a swap meet etc.

If anything, the conference itself would be better compared to GDC or the IGDC in the US. As you say, a knowledge sharing conference for developers.

As for the "E3-like" event, we just thought that we should give people the chance to show off their demos to eachother, and have a time/place for the non-developer game-playing public (and perhaps people with cash too) to come and see the stuff we're producing, and turn it into a bit of a social event. But if people aren't keen on having this, everyone should speak up and let us know! Maybe we should do a sumea poll on it at some stage.

I think the problem with the AGDC expo thing is that it's really small and exclusive - probably because it costs money (lots!) to get a booth there. We're imagining tressle tables where people bung their PC on, have beer, a LAN, live music... whatever people think is appropriate.

So to summarise:
Conference: 3 days
As yet un-named event: afternoon/evening of the last day (maybe)

Sponsorship could help in the naming of that afternoon / evening event :-)

the discreet indy show day! free copies of max6 for everyone!! :D (i wish...)
i suppose ill just be there for fun as all my mod work is just texture work so its not really showcaseable.

i like the idea of it being more sociable then a sort of more badges and timetables setup, go in, play some LAN, kick someones ass at burnout 2 (ill take yaz all on!!! :P) and show off some of your indy work.

A speed game and or modelling contest would be good. Something along the lines of the ludumdare.com 48 hour comps, the indiegamejam.com thing, demo scene comps, blender speed modeling competitions etc.

Have a place for people to sit down for a couple of days and make a game. Group games could be a good way to get to know people. Pick names out of a hat to make the group, then try and work together ;) Maybe have seperate sub competitions. Best game made from scratch, best mod, over best game, best graphics/sound/music/gameplay/etc.

You can have pretty good modelling contests in under and hour. Same with music, and drawings. They can go for longer of course, allthough most people can come up with something quite good in that time. However making games from scratch takes a bit longer, the 24 hour comps didn't seem to work out so well. However in the 48 hour, and 72 hour ones lots of people seem to manage to get some good put together.

Meeting up with online distributers could be good. Allthough I know of none based in Australia.

Maybe look at the indiegamescon(IGC) for some ideas of things to do.

A show off area would be nice. Some place for people to show others their stuff; games/artwork/etc. Allthough just going there to show your stuff and look at others stuff would be bloody boring.

Have fun!

From what I've experienced, the indie games scene down here is fairly fragmented. I think the main problem is trying to find the right people and channels of communication.

I think the best thing we could have is some kind of social event where we get to know the other people who aspire to create or are creating their own video games. I think by creating some social links and generating discussion in an informal atmosphere, there could be some serious convergence that could spawn some projects.

I've just thought of another issue... funding. Of course, if you have multiple streams of revenue it's not so bad, but I'm pretty sure there are some government grants out there that can help you. I know of a person who applied for a grant to start a computer game with the SA Film Corporation, and was successful (until he got a job doing 3D with a small games company and left Adelaide). I'm sure there are other funding avenues that can be pursued other than vulture capitalists.

For anyone who hasn't seen it checkout http://gamedev.meetup.com/

Went to a couple in brisbane, and they were pretty fun.

illume - we had been throwing around an idea like that (an indie games jam style thing) but we weren't sure if it was feasible, would draw people away from the main conference, whether we should do it before or afterwards etc...

if you or anyone else can get together a proposal for something that might work (and we can get an idea of what the interest in it would be), please let us know!

on sponsors, i can't really say anything on that apart from the fact that we've had some interest from some quarters, but i'm fairly sure any deals we do won't involved naming rights over events. Come on, I bet you guys can come up with some suggestions for a name that's better than a corporate brand!! But rest assured, we will not stand in the way of freebies.

quiklite: we're planning to ask some state arts/business funding reps along so people can quiz them on funding avenues etc (after all, that's their job!!). If there's any particular body you think it's worth having a rep from give us a yell and we'll see what we can do

i am thinking mayb some one from "Australian Business Limited" in sydney. These guys are very (typo) Konolagble, in helping businesses start up, or if they need help with cash flow, or genral issues even legal issues if you dont have a law firm.

As for naming, is WAVE, the festiful name?

Maybe I-WAVE Indy-What ever WAVE means

amckern

Is anyone out there messing about with new game interfaces? I'd love to bring my dodgey-homebuilt-DrWho-syle giant Atari game to nextwave (seen at Electrofringe and SOOB this year) and am wondering if there are any like-minded loonies doing similar work...

Also, I'd like to see some forums at the IGDC on the subject of what makes a good game, and how do you get a good team together to do it? Perhaps the aim of the forum could be to come away with a team and project to build a bame for next year's event???

Just some ideas...

Richie [:p]

I think quiklite's idea of a social event is a good one. Perhaps have the venue open late with a bar every evening... ;)

Game interfaces? What kind of work have you been doing Richie?

I've got some wacky stuff planned that I hope to get done before this event comes around, but I don't know whether it will be done. I have four months to go at least. :)

Zoot: I'm not sure what organisations there are for funding... I would have to do some research. SA Film Corporation is one, but they aren't games specific. Apart from them, and say, the Nescafe Big Break, I've not really looked that far into it yet.

We just really had linux.conf.au at Adelaide Uni, and they had a State Minister talking there about open source and its benefits... apparently Mr Torvalds was there as well. Someone like that would be of an obvious benefit to rope in, I just have to find out his name again.

A social event would be great; I think that's where the big stuff will happen. I'll obviously see you at bar Richie. :)

quiklite : I use simple physical hacks (no programming) to old game hardware to try to bring about fundamentally different ways of playing electronic games - In the work I made with Kris Jasper enetitled 'one versus many' I replaced direction switches and fire buttons with big buttons made of chrome recycled hubcaps, flashing LED's and other scifi-style junk. You had to run around the room to play, and some functions were not accessible unless you had more than one person per side to hit buttons simultaneously. My aim behind this is to encourage more team play and a greater range of emotional interaction between players by moving games outside of the 'guy-staring-rigidly-in-front-of-the-telly/computer' physical dynamic and more into a playground-style world. FYI, the game I used as the basis was 'tank pong' on the 'combat' atari 2600 cart. Website with more documentation on the way...

Richie[:0]

quiklite again :
U in Melb? Want some help with your project? Rich [;)]

Reminds me a bit of back when i got my first PC (486) and doom 2. Me and my mate would play with one of us doing movement, and the other handling shooting. Very fun times playing like that and required a lot of communication and co-ordination between us.
CYer, Blitz

r23d:

That sounds pretty awesome and very original. In fact, that could be the gamers' ultimate way to combine exercise and gaming :). I think you could be on the verge of tapping an untapped market. :)

I'm actually in Adelaide, hence my conundrum, because everything happens in Melbourne. Arrgh! But hell, if you want to help I won't say no... I'm doing some preproduction before I start on programming for the next few weeks. You can e-mail me at quiklite@borg-cube.com if you want and we can chat and stuff.

Meanwhile, I think I might do some research in the funding, since it seems to be a good topic to focus on for the IGC.

Should there be other activities at the conference? If people were to stay a good 5-7 hours each day there, what would keep your interest up? If the schedule was like speaker - break - speaker - break for the 3 days of the conference, would it be a bit monotomous?

How about some small activity competitions like someone mentioned before? Small lan competitions? Other fun activities? I am kinda wary about competitions because their success depends on decent participation, so if no one is interested, it falls flat on it's face. And of course competitions require prizes, so that'll be something else the organisers will have to look into.

What about a screen projector showing some CGI movie, effects, or something.. a few lounges or seats around, so people can sit around and view it and chat, rather than idling around after they've seen all the displays and whatnot.

Will there be a lan? Bring your own computer? I guess if you don't, you won't be able to play.. It would be great if there were 10-15 computers that were available for anyone to play, but I'm not sure how realistic that idea is.

Should the conference try to get some support from Sony or Xbox to provide some machines for free play?

It would depend on the location, but I'm curious if speakers will be talking in a closed off room, or in the open at the conference?

I know it may be sounding a bit like the AGDC, but I think some more options and activities for people to do inbetween talks would be great. But do you want this? Think about what you want to do if you were to spend a day there.

I think a lot can be gained from AGDC... especially regarding what not to do.
The amount of people I've spoken to at many of the AGDC seminars who've said "I didn't learn anything that I didn't already know"... this (to me) is simply a waste of everybody's time.

Seminar topics have to be chosen carefully with a lot of thought into 'why' people would want to attend and 'what' they can gain from attending. To my way of thinking, people involved in indie development have two primary issues that need to be covered more than anything else 'funding' and 'marketing'... most already know the tools of the trade and how to use them.

A seminar that really stood out to me (at AGDC 2000) was the guy from Relic who went into great detail about all the mistakes he'd made since he formed the company... how he approached publishers, the bullshit he had to go through, and the bullshit he had to spin in order to be taken seriously, the often hidden rip-offs within the industry, horror stories of developers being screwed by publishers etc etc... this was the nuts and bolts stuff that we don't often hear about, therefore a lot could be learnt.

damn i must be drunk, there is actually a main link to it

Yeah i played it, didn't like it to much. But this might have something to do with the fact that i'am a UNION man. I think there are way to many rules in leaggue and playing it in real life was a pain in the ass. So I don't even wanna attempt learning the game. It was a bit of fun when with my mates. But i hate League.

Dont get me wrong, I love union more than league, I played Union for 8 years (Fullback/Centre/Wing plus a season in the forwards). But I totally disaree that there's more rules in league. League also translates to a better videogame. Players either pass it, or get tackled. This is a lot easier than passing it, going to ground, creating a rolling maul, getting tackled, setting up a phase play etc.. Once the man is tackled, there's too many things going on.

Rugby is far more open to interpretation and in EAs rugger game, you had to turn off the offsides because the AI was fucken stupid, they were always getting in the way of things and cocking it up. Mind you, it was made by Canadians - hardly a strong rugby nation.

I'm a union fan too, just remind me who won the world cup? I can't quite remember (guess where I'm from)????

Who was that guy that kicked the ball between the two sticks in the final? oh yeah, Jonny!!!

-- Unlike Cheryl, I don't have citizenship (or permanent residency yet), so I'd better shut up before some sore Aussie deports me. --

Matt

Ah - I bet England has a whole lot of Union fans now. They'd never heard of the sport before 3 weeks ago.

Thanks for the post, Ross. I've put it up on the news [:)]

That article was written by Jason Della Roca from IGDA :)

Hye, thanks for posting that link. It was a great read! No guys were allowed to the women's luncheon? [:)].. I sent an email to Jason to let him know that we linked to his blog as a news item.

btw, still waiting on your AGDC article, Jacana [;)] [:)]

Yup :) We'll have it by the end of the month *looks at Joel*
Since he's down in just over a week it should not be an issue to get something written up!

I was speaking to one of the guys who ran Lucid back in the middle of the year, and he seemed surprised the it was still listed on sumea. I got the impression that it wasn't exactly a happening thing anymore.
CYer, Blitz

dead puppy is still around
/me pokes reznor and lavamonkey

Dead Puppy is still rolling.

We'vre had terrible luck with multiple webhosts either going out of business and taking our money, or ignoring us and our money altogether.

The focus atm are the games rather than the website. It should be online soon.

Scott.