Times are Changing

Fantastic article in Wired this month called 'The Good Enuf Rvlutn'. It's about how Lo-Fi tech is taking over. From mp3s, to Hulu, to netbooks to Flip HD cameras, people are foregoing bleeding edge for cheap, convenient and super easy to use.

I believe more and more the games industry is going to have to shift towards this trend. There will always be the big budget titles for $60 based on known brands (IP like Star Wars, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto) but I think big budget NEW IP is increasingly an endangered species.

This is great news!

In the race to the top, games cost $30-40M, teams are huge and the stakes are incredibly high. What chance the creative vision, when so much at stake, so many interests vested, and sales needing to be huge?

But now we have a new race to the bottom. Low costs, smaller dev teams, cheaper games.

Gamers are increasingly more comfortable with trading bleeding edge graphical quality for convenience, fun and originality at a fair price. These days, I play Shadow Complex, Battlefield 1943 and Trails HD on my XBox. These are games that cost in the $2-4M range, maybe even less and cost me $15 to buy.

With lower cost comes lower risk, so game creators have the opportunity to retain control and drive their unique vision. The last big budget game I played was Mirrors Edge. Although I enjoyed it, recently I have been loving Shadow Complex just as much. Great polished game in a small package. I get the sense with this summers crop of XBLA games that the small teams had FUN making them. That they were made out of a passion for the craft.

This is a great time to be creating new IP. This next decade for games could be what the 70s were for Hollywood, the time when fresh new ideas and young talent were able to break the mold of an entrenched system and deliver new content for an audience hungry for it.

Insanely Twisted

Michel Gagne is someone that I'm going to be watching with interest.

Check out this awesomely beautiful trailer of his upcoming game Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet



Check his blog for more info on the game.

This is a direction for games that inspires me. Another example of games that break away from photo-real and push visual stylization.

This is an exciting time for contemporary artists with cool unique art styles. Just see the success of The Behemoth, and how much the identity of their games, such as Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, is defined by the awesome artwork of Dan Paladin.

As digital distribution continues to break down the barriers between creator and consumer, the opportunity to make bold choices around the visual development of our games will only grow.

Coming out of hiding

I've been laying low for a while, heads down working on some cool new stuff that I'm super jazzed about. Will soon be able to talk about it.
What I can share is that I have been closely involved with LucasArts latest push into digital distribution.
We kicked this off with the release of Monkey Island:SE, that was developed by many of the talented people on my current team. The game was a true labor of love for many people at the studio and its been great to see the reception that it has got.

On a related note, check out my recent conversation with gamesindustry.biz on how we kicked off digital distribution at LucasArts.

Interview with gamesindustry.biz

Watch this space for more info soon!

Patronage for Game Developers

I was checking out Daniel Benmergui's interesting new indie game Today I Die and was curious to see the statement on his site saying "This game is ad-free thanks to an unusual individual". Poking around a bit I found this Gamasutra interview with Daniel that explains that his ability to release the game ad free was due to a financial benefactor.

This is an interesting development. Arts patronage has been around for ever but is now making its way into games!

Darius Kazemi, who conducted the interview with Daniel, has written an epic post on the subject of patronage, which I recommend if you are curious to read more.

And if you are interested, you can go here to invest in the development of Daniel Benmergui's next game!

Digging deeper into this idea of publicly funded games, I also found KickStarter.

Kickstarter is a site where anybody can post a project they are working and ask for funds to help them complete. Go there and invest in someone writing a novel, create an iphone app, producing a play or, developing a videogame. Greg Chukede is a small Indie shop called Caffeinated Games. He's looking for some additional funding to polish up his game called Farmlands, why not help him out and get a credit in his game?

The patronage model is something that seems well suited to small 'free to play' artistic projects created by a single person. Now I wonder... is this something that can scale to bigger game projects?

Scary Girl

Beautiful, awesome and inspiring. Check out Scary Girl.


Scarygirl Game Trailer from Touch My Pixel on Vimeo.

More games that push the boundaries of art in games like this please!

Check out the Scary Girl game site for more info on this game in development with artist Nathan Jurevicius. If you vibe off this and want to hear more about Nathan I found this pretty cool interview with him on CrownDozen.

You Have to Burn the Rope

This week is GDC so its a great time to connect with people in the games industry and see what ideas are taking shape out in the larger diaspora.

I'm really excited about all the great work the IGF is doing in promoting independent game developers. These people are blazing a new path for games and what the purpose of games can be beyond just entertaining us. It's a sign of the maturity of our industry that we are starting to see people actively choosing the 'indie' path as an alternative to taking that big job at 'big games company (tm)'.

Thanks to my buddy Jens Andersson, I got to hang out with some cool indie cats at the show.
One was Kian Bashiri. Kian created 'You Have to Burn the Rope', he is a really cool super nice guy and you should check out his 'game' here.

You may not be sure if its a game or not but it certainly makes you think about its meaning.

For me, burning the rope challenges a common commercial videogame convention of interactive experiences devoid of real choice. This challenge is interesting in of itself, but what I find fascinating is that even without choice, the game is still a compelling 'fun' experience.

I think part of the reason for this is that 'burning the rope' has a deeper meaning. It has something to say. It got me thinking. So I emotionally connected to it.

Its exciting for me to see that interactive experiences are getting to a place where they don't just focus on being 'fun' but actually pose questions, challenge us to think about things. There's a place for this in all entertainment, literature, art, film....and increasingly videogames. Pretty cool!

Half Life 2 the movie

Check out this wicked cool Half-Life 2 short. User generated content from indie film makers/fans The Purchase Brothers