Zen Of Design

The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

Month: February 2005 (Page 2 of 3)

Why Think Big?

February 15, 2005 /

Brian seems to ask this question a lot, so I thought I’d answer it:

I do have a minor quibble with this. Why focus on the “top 5″ games?

There are two answer to this: the dreamy answer and the business reality. The latter first. When you work for a large organization (as both Jeff and I do), you find that they really aren’t geared to think small. The PC and Console business is incredibly hit driven, and as such, publishers build all aspects of their organization towards their numbers. Continue reading

Home Sweet Home

February 14, 2005 /

But there’s another reason why Fantasy games keep coming bubbling to the top. It’s the Corner Bar theory – people want to spend their time in a space that feels inviting. Sure, you want your adventures to take you to the pits of Mordor, but you want to come home to your Hobbit Hole.

A lot of this has to do with familiarity – of a different sort. PCGamer gave Alpha Centauri a 98%, tied for the best score of all time. Yet, when I want to play a game like that, I reach for one of the Civs. It just feels more satisfying to discover the Wheel than some vague NanoTechnobabble Gizmo. Continue reading

A Random Thought on Change

February 14, 2005 /

For years and years, the only kinds of shooters were unrealistic, future fantasy games with completely unrealistic physics, and deathmatch was the only flavor. The games that tried to do realism all crashed and burned. “No one wants to die in one shot,” claimed many a designer. Now it’s impossible to imagine a shooter without a sniper rifle. Continue reading

WoW Easter Egg Site

February 4, 2005 /

Regarding our recent discussion on fluff, here’s a good list of cultural references hidden inside of World of Warcraft.

I applaud their team’s devoted and obviously systematic approach to populating the world with nods to the real world, as opposed to do what most games do and get totally enamored with their own backstory. That being said, I’m curious how much legal care they had to do to ensure they didn’t cross any lines. You never know when someone will sue you for being even marginally close to their own intellectual property.

Turns out, you can put a price tag on market dominance

February 3, 2005 /

Kotaku (currently the best game news site up, IMHO) claims that EA paid half a billion dollars for the rights to the NFL, spread over five years. That’s half of the rumored number that was flying around previously, I feel required to point out that Kotaku lacks a link that shows where that information is coming from, merely a sketchy description of accountant’s comparing EA’s public records before and after the transaction. Continue reading

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