Game designers aim for Nobel Peace Prize

(From CNET.com) SAN JOSE, Calif.--Winning a Nobel Peace Prize may seem like a stretch for a video game developer, but on Thursday three leading designers attempted to show that it's possible.

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Sony's PS3 game console delayed

Sony's PS3 game console delayed
Blames snag in copyright protection for Blu-ray technology; debut is expected before holiday season.
March 15, 2006: 6:30 AM EST
TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp. said Wednesday it would delay the release of its new PlayStation 3 video game console until early November because development of some of the technology was behind schedule.

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Does Open Source make sense for games?

The State of Game Development
On August 3, 2004, Doom 3 was officially released by iD software after four years of work by some of the most talented individuals in the gaming industry. Interviews with the development staff report that from early 2004 until the recent release, 80 hour work weeks were normal and Sunday was the only official day off in the iD offices.

It would be an understatement to say that things have changed in the gaming industry over the last twenty years. Doom 3 had a four-year development cycle and an all-star development team. This may be slightly atypical, but two-year development cycles and teams of 50 or more are commonplace these days. In 1984, the average Atari 2600 video game was created by one programmer in three months. A banner title might involve two or three programmers and an artist working over a six month period.

So why do games take so long to bring to market these days?

There are some obvious answers to this question. Games today are many times more complex than games were even a few years ago. Recreating every three-dimensional point of a complex cave environment is going to take an artist several orders of magnitude more time than dropping a few rough dots on an Atari 2600's 196x160 screen and calling it a cave environment. Similarly, producing a full 5.1 surround sound track for a modern game requires sound engineers and advanced programming libraries. Triggering a few blips and bleeps is much easier.

But there are also some less obvious reasons for longer development cycles. In the old days, a programmer with a text editor and a few programs could create an entire game. However, to create all the complex content and code required for a modern game, programmers and artists need powerful tools such as 3-d modelers and advanced debuggers. Unfortunately, programmers and artists often have to use general purpose tools that are not at all well suited to game development. And when domain-specific tools do exist, such as in console game development, the tools are often unstable and immature due to the short life span of any particular console system. A multi-platform console world further complicates development by multiplying all of the issues of developing for a single platform by the number of platforms on which you intend to deliver your game.

An excellent summary of these issues can be found in the article Game Development: Harder Than You Think by Jonathan Blow.

But through all of this, one very important thing hasn't changed much. In 2004, just like in 1984, most players buy a game, play it for a while, and then move on. With the exception of a few genres, the lifespan of a single title is very short. The number of hours required for a brand new player to finish "Super Mario Bros." and "Metal Gear Solid 2" are about equal. But the amount of man hours that went into the creation of each is not even comparable.

Open Source is not an Advantage in Game Development

It is clear that building a top-quality game is harder than ever. The amazing amount of work required, the short schedules, and the need for experts in many domains all combine to make game development one of the most challenging areas of software development. Will developing a game as open source make things easier?

Open source works best as a development model when the useful lifespan of an application is very long. It allows many users to benefit from the application and provides an opportunity for users to become volunteer developers, thus furthering the project. The continued interest of the public drives the developers long after personal interest or utility has faded. This is the state of maximum efficiency for open source and provides two huge advantages over closed development: Users give back to the project and developers can directly build top of all of the code that has gone before them. Unfortunately, neither of these advantages exist in a meaningful way for open source games.

Most games, by their very nature, have a relatively short lifespan. This is natural. A game provides the user with an experience, but ultimately the user moves on. Since a single user is only interested in the game for a short period of time, it is unlikely that they will contribute much back to the open-source project.

In a modern game, the majority of work is involved in creating the art and story assets, not the programming. While there are plenty of open source game engines around, the bulk of a game must be created from scratch. Creating world class art and music is hard and you can not build on what has gone before you in the same way that you can with software. You can take the code for an algorithm, improve it, and use it to solve a problem. You can't directly take a musical score from an older game, change a few notes, and have a better score. You will just have an odd piece of music that sounds like a poor version of the original.

Let's use the real-world example of Doom 3. Could this be developed more efficiently as an open source project?

license in the art community might create a pool of art and music that open source game developers can draw from. At a high level, that is true. But almost all games need music, sound effects, and art custom designed to fit the needs and overall feel of the game. Otherwise, the end result will be a game that looks and sounds like a hundreds of sound clips and pictures put into a blender set on puree.

So does Open Source make sense for games?

World-class game development is hard and getting harder every day. Open source development has many advantages over closed development in many cases. However, these advantages become largely null when developing cutting-edge games. As a result, it is very difficult to finish such a large undertaking using the open source development model.

Closed source development also has many advantages. Among those is the ability to attract high-caliber individuals and allow them to focus directly on a project for two or more years at a time, without worrying how they will pay their bills. The level of talent may be very high in the open source community, but most individuals can not afford to spend two years without interruption on one project without compensation, especially one that has a very short useful lifespan when completed.

It is important to weigh the advantages of each model of development before choosing how to approach a particular project. In many cases, an open source approach may yield many gains, but high-end game development is generally not one of those cases.
Where does Open Source fit in gaming?

Of course there are exceptions to every rule. Open source might not be the best choice for developing the next so-called "AAA level" story-based shooter, but it works pretty well for games with unusually long lifespans. And that is exactly where projects like this have succeeded wildly. Examples include BZFlag, FreeCiv, and FrozenBubble. You can also include the entire multi-player Game Modding community in this category. That is a great example of playing off of the strengths of open development, while avoiding many of the pitfalls.

It is also possible that someone might come along and turn the open source development system on its head. One attempt that comes to mind is the HappyPenguin Game of the Month model. Each month, volunteers take an existing open source game and try to flesh it out into a finished product as quickly as possible. While this is a new idea and success has been mixed, projects like this might eventually stumble on a development model that works.

Open Source RPG Toolkit

ToolKitZone has a RPG Toolkit, which is an open source role-playing game creation system, providing both simple and advanced features for users of all abilities to utilise.

UCLA Extension -Composing Music for Video Games

Composing Music for Video Games Course:

Through weekly writing assignments, lectures, audio-visual demonstrations, and visits by guest speakers, composers interested in exploring the challenges of creating music for video games are presented with an overview of the composition techniques, organization, and delivery formats unique to the video game industry. Topics include in-game versus cinematic scoring; budgeting and project management; contracts; technology tools for asset creation and processing; music engines and compositional techniques specific to video game music; electronic music creation versus using live musicians; mixing; composing for different game genres (MMORPG, FPS, RTS, educational); and audio formats and delivery of assets for different console formats (SKUs), such as Xbox/Xbox 360, PS2/PS3, PC, GameCube, and handheld devices (GameBoy, Nintendo DS). Weekly composition assignments focus on writing original adaptive music similar to works created for current games. Participants also have the opportunity to compose MIDI/digital music with Pro Tools

The world's first Open Movie!

Blender News : Elephants Dream Premiere, March 24thPosted on February 24, 2006
I would like to invite everyone to participate in this exciting premiere of the world's first Open Movie!

Friday March 24th, the premiere of Elephants Dream will be in Cinema Ketelhuis, Amsterdam. This cinema is well known in Amsterdam as the place for documentaries and art-house movies. It is part of the re-developed industrial area Westergasfabriek, a new culteral centre in the heart of Amsterdam.

Recently the cinema got upgraded with HD digital projection, 10 bits per color channel. Just today we also found a sponsor who will help us with the proper conversion for our files this digital cinema format.

The cinema opens at 17:30 for us, and at 18:00 we'll show the world what we've been doing the past 7 months. :) Part of the screening will also be a preview of the Making Of documentary. At 18:45 another run of the show will happen.

To celebrate the premiere, starting at 20:00, I have hired one the hippest lounge/restaurant/bars of the city for an exciting after-party; and it's even called Blender!


Yes, the name is a total coincedence, I knew this very cool place was there for over 5 years, never got a chance to do something with it. But now is the right time! Expect here special Elephants Dream cocktails, excellent food from a renown cook, and a DJ to keep us moving for as long we've got the energy. Address is Van Der Palmkade 16, which is just a 500 meters from the cinema.

Entrance in the Ketelhuis cinema is free of charge, but for the Blender after-party, you'll have to purchase a ticket in advance. This ticket will guarantee you a seat during the premiere, and it includes access to lounge-restaurant Blender, all food and most of the drinks in the evening while chatting with the Orange crew. We'd love to see you there.

Saturday 25 and sunday 26 March, we will be available all day in Montevideo (Keizersgracht 264, Amsterdam) for presentations. Again the movie and documentary can be viewed - unfortunately not in exciting HD quality - but now you can personally meet with the makers and get real-life demonstrations of how it all was done. A more detailed schedule of these two days will be published later.

I would like to invite everyone to join us for this once-in-a-lifetime first release of an Open Movie! It will be almost like a Blender Conference, and certainly as much fun... and if that's not enough for you, on friday evening I'll also celebrate my birthday!

You can use the online e-shop registration system for the VIP Blender party ticket. There's only 75 tickets for sale, and first come is first served.

See you soon!

-Ton-

BTW; during the week after the premiere we'll prepare the DVD, early April it will be shipped to all our sponsors. Only after that - I guess around early May - we'll open up the movie and files for free download for everyone... I think our sponsors also deserve a personal premiere! :)

BTW2: It is still not too late to purchase a DVD! We can really still use your support!

BTW3: Note that we've added final movie shots to the frontpage and gallery... promising stuff eh!

Video Games Live announces first WORLD TOUR including the return to the Hollywood Bowl & additional U.S. dates!!!

Starting on March 24th, 2006 in San Jose, California, Video Games Live will become the first video game concert to tour the world! And what better place to start than the “official birthplace” of video games… Silicon Valley! Never before has a video game concert been performed in the place “where it all started”. And to accent the occasion even more we are holding the show as the closing ceremony to the Game Developers Conference (GDC). GDC attracts over 12,000 of the greatest video game creators, designers, artists and composers from all over the world who gather together to share ideas, knowledge and insight with one another to help forward the industry to greater heights.

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Carnegie Mellon Collaborates with EA to Revolutionize And Reinvigorate Computer Science Education in the US

PITTSBURGH – March 10, 2006 – Carnegie Mellon University has entered into a groundbreaking collaboration with Electronic Arts Inc., that has the potential to revolutionize and reinvigorate computer science education in the US from middle school through senior high and beyond.
EA has agreed to help underwrite the development of ALICE 3.0 – a popular, object-oriented, Java-based computer-programming environment created by Carnegie Mellon researchers – and provide essential arts assets from “ The Sims™ ” – the best selling PC video game of all time.

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Microsoft's 5,000th Patent

Microsoft today announced that the company has reached a new milestone by landing its 5,000th patent in the U.S. Patent no. 6,999,083 apparently covers technology that not only enables gamers to play against one another online, but also allows them to watch online game sessions as spectators from anywhere in the world.

"The patent, which covers technologies that will be featured in Xbox 360 games, brings new innovation to online gaming by allowing consumers to tune into a video game much as they would a sporting event broadcast," said Microsoft. Indeed, this feature is already present in Project Gotham Racing 3 via the Gotham TV option. Tecmo's Dead or Alive 4 also lets players view online matches while waiting to engage in fights online.

The technology is more specifically described as, "A system for generating a spectator experience in real time from a game or event, such as highlights, instant replays, and unique views of the action within a game to enhance the experience for spectators rather than players. Using viewing controls, a spectator can control one or more virtual cameras to select desired viewpoints or an automated camera control to frame the action and perform specific cuts to best convey the story and action. The game and in turn the spectator experience may vary as a function of participant interactions and other contributions to the game based on real-time spectator activity."

The patent also refers to: "A portal such as a Web site to access spectator-related services such as schedules and information on multiple games and events as well as the number of spectators and participants in each. The portal allows the spectator to find the most popular games to watch, preview the action, and then connect to the desired game or event."

"The 5,000th patent is a marker of the progress we have made in the past few years -- building a high-quality, innovative and industry-recognized portfolio," commented Brad Smith, senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for Microsoft. "Through patents, we are able to license our technologies widely to others in the industry, increasing the availability of our innovations and getting beneficial solutions in the hands of customers."

Microsoft Research software engineer Steven Drucker explained that the idea of creating a technology to enable others to watch games came to him when he watched others play at a Gameworks facility in the late '90s. "I suddenly realized that it would be really cool if people could watch really good games players online and from a different point of view, as though they are watching the game play in the theater," he said.

When Drucker explained the idea to his boss Curtis Wong, senior program manager with the Next Media Research Group in Microsoft Research, Wong was genuinely excited and saw further possibilities as well. "As we talked it through, I got more and more excited," said Wong. "We saw there were all sorts of fantastic applications for the idea. We were especially excited about the educational possibilities. We had a vision of creating massive online games that would allow school children to compete on teams 'terraforming' different parts of a planet."

He added, "I have a vision of really large numbers of people watching tournaments online. The top players could become as famous as sports stars, even endorsing products. This could really help gaming move into the mainstream."

To date MS has obtained over 7,000 patents worldwide. The software giant aims to file roughly 3,000 patents each year.