Experimental Game: Shadow Physics

How World of Warcraft Promotes Innovation

Business Week has an interesting article for business people on how a MMORPG can help with the fundamentals for training employees.
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Immersion

You could say that an immersed player is a happy player. Here's an article that goes into detail about why players become immersed, and explains how to get players immersed in your game. Designers take heed!
A fresh look at the concept of immersion

Fixing Programmer Art

For many of us programmers, creating decent art to use in our projects can be a daunting task, but let's face it, we aren't artists. However! That doesn't mean we can't create something that looks decent for use as placeholders. Here's some tips that are actually pretty good! From Gamedev.net

Better Programmer Art

Almost Too Late

Game Republic's Yoshiki Okamoto today offered a pessimistic assessment of whether or not Japanese developers will ever catch back up with Western developers. He echoes the sentiments of Silent Hill: Homecoming producer Akira Yamaoka, who said late last year, 'Japan is in trouble' and Hideo Kojima who commented that Japan's leadership in the gaming sphere was 'becoming a thing of the past.'

"It's almost too late," said Okamoto according to a Kotaku translation. "During the Famicom (NES) era, Japanese video games comprised 70 percent of all video games. And currently, it's like 15 or 20 percent, isn't it? Now, Western games are more advanced. For games like GTA IV, those guys are spending something like 5 or 10 years to make them. Even if we thought about catching up with them now, they'd still be making progress. But, not necessarily giving up, it's just not possible to catch up in a single lifetime."

Force Unleashed on Xbox Live Sets Download Record

The Force is indeed strong with this one. The Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo has been downloaded 2.3 million times on both Xbox Live and PSN.
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Game Developer

Game Developer magazine is now on-line:
http://gamedeveloper.texterity.com/gamedeveloper/200809/?sub_id=Dazf2Nfzxyy2E

Insomniac to Open Studio in North Carolina

RALEIGH, NC--North Carolina is becoming a hotbed of video game development. Insomniac Games is the latest game company to target the Raleigh-Durham area (known as the Research Triangle with its collection of technology, video game and biotech companies) as the perfect location to make games. For the first time in its 14-year history, the independent developer is expanding beyond its Burbank, California studio.
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New Robotic Arms