Game Developer - August_2012.pdf

(20051 KB) Pobierz
T H E
L E A D I N G
V O L
1 9
N O
G A M E
8
I N D U S
M A G A Z
A U G U S T 2
I N S I
H E A T
T R Y
I N E
0 1 2
D E :
S P A T I A L
A U G U S T
2 0 1 2
G O
B E Y O N D
A N A LY T I C S :
T H E
M A P
P O S T M O R T E M
Join the World's
Largest Mobile Social
Gaming Network
Get the SDK at
developer.gree.net
Come Play on GREE Platform:
CONTENTS.0812
VOLUME 19 NUMBER 8
p o s t m o r t e m
22 DEAR ESTHER
D
EAR
E
STHER
started as a narrative-driven Source Engine mod made as part of a research project,
and turned into a standalone cult hit that made back its Indie Fund investment within six hours of its
release. In this postmortem from thechineseroom, writer and project lead Dan Pinchbeck explains how
the team created a powerful game that took the “S” out of “FPS.”
By Dan Pinchbeck
f e a t u r e s
7
AI ARCHITECTURES: WHAT’S ON THE MENU?
How do you choose the right artificial intelligence architecture for your game? Even if you do your
homework, it’s not always easy to know which architecture best fits your game genre, design, and
development workflow until you dive in. AI consultant Dave Mark walks you through the most prevalent
AI structures to help find the one that best complements your game.
By Dave Mark
15 BEYOND THE HEAT MAP
Get better game analytics, and you’ll be better able to understand what makes your players tick. Heat
maps are only the tip of the iceberg, though. You can use telemetry data, geographic information
systems, and trajectory analyses to fine-tune your game even further, and with greater control.
By Anders Drachen
d e p a r t m e n t s
2
GAMEPLAN
By Brandon Sheffield
[EDITORIAL]
The Aftermarket
4
HEADS UP DISPLAY
By Staff
[NEWS]
Quick looks at a new interactive fiction development tool, updates to Commodore and Amiga
preservation packages, and the Seven-Day FPS Game Jam
31 TOOLBOX
By Alexander Brandon
[REVIEW]
RAD Game Tools’s Miles Sound System
35 THE INNER PRODUCT
By John Szczepaniak
[PROGRAMMING]
A Basic History of BASIC
41 AURAL FIXATION
By Alexander Brandon
[SOUND]
Audio in Unity 101
44 DESIGN OF THE TIMES
By Soren Johnson
[DESIGN]
When Digital Meets Physical
47 BUSINESS
By Paul Taylor
[BUSINESS]
In Defense of Paying Once
48 PIXEL PUSHER
By Steve Theodore
[ART]
Tread Lightly
50 GDC NEWS
By Staff
[NEWS]
7
[CAREER]
DC Europe adds Journey, Goldeneye 007 postmortems
51 GOOD JOB
By Patrick Miller
Q&A with Taiyoung Ryu, new studios, and who went where
53 EDUCATED PLAY
By Patrick Miller
[EDUCATION]
15
WWW.GDMAG.COM
L
OVE
P
UNKS
56 ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
By Matthew Wasteland
[HUMOR]
Vox Populi
1
game plaN
GAME PLAN
//
BRANDON SHEFFIELD
BraNdoN sHeFFIeld
game developer
magazINe
w w w. g d m a g . c o m
the AftermArket
I recently watched a trailer for a
game by Diego Garcia and Emmett
Butler called
H
eads
U
p
! H
ot
d
ogs
.
It’s an amusing iOS game about
dropping hot dogs on people’s
heads as they walk by at various
speeds. Some of them bounce up
and down, making it tougher for
the dog to settle. Cops try to shoot
your hot dog out of the sky. The
game has a nice art style, good
music, and seems like quirky
fun, if a bit light. As soon as the
trailer finished playing, I thought “I
reckon that’s about 99 cents. I’ll go
buy it.” I went to the App Store and
found...nothing.
Turns out the game isn’t due
out until fall 2012. The trailer got
coverage on a few major blogs,
and for a game of this size, that’s
about all it’s going to get. By fall,
who will remember the little game
about dropping hot dogs? Even if
I do remember it, will I still want
it then? Will Kotaku want to write
about a game of this size a second
time, no matter how quirky? With
the press, your first shot is when
you convey the excitement of a
New Thing. After that, the thrill
is gone, and at best you’ll get a
“remember that game? It’s out
now,” if that.
The pace of the game world
is speeding up, and the window
of opportunity for promotion is
changing accordingly. I think
that for indie games on PC, iOS,
and Android, the bulk of your
marketing should thus be after the
game is already on the market.
it, so there must be some mistake.
99-cent App Store games have
become the impulse purchase of
the game market. I don’t want a
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup right
now, but when I’m in the checkout
line waiting for the pink-haired old
lady in front of me to take out her
checkbook, it starts to look pretty
compelling. When I’m avoiding
work for five minutes to look at
a video of a new game, that’s my
checkout line. I want to buy it right
away, and I don’t want to be told to
come back later.
ZiggURat
had two spikes in
sales, which were related to two
favorable reviews from larger
publications, and a postrelease
YouTube mock infomercial Tim
created. The most important
lesson is that while Tim did a
good job promoting the game
before its release, the major
sales came when promotions
hit postrelease—not when the
game first went on sale. In his
case, releasing too much good
information to the press before
the game was out might actually
have hurt sales.
It’s been well established that
any barrier between the game
and the player is a significant
loss of revenue. In the case of
H
eads
U
p
! H
ot
d
ogs
, I thought it
was interesting enough to buy.
But how will I remember to check
when it’s released? If industry
blogs never talk about it again,
or nobody links it to me once
it’s out, I won’t know. What if
the developers used up all their
goodwill with that first trailer
push? Will potential players even
remember the name?
UBM LLC.
303 Second Street, Suite 900, South Tower
San Francisco, CA 94107
t:
415.947.6000
f:
415.947.6090
FOR SMALLER TITLES, YOU CAN NO LONGER PLAY THE WAITING GAME
visual and sonic style, and the
video was all about tone, not
gameplay (in fact, it barely even
told you what the game was).
Unlike the
H
eads
U
p
!
trailer, the
S:S&S EP trailer had a voice and a
direction, but no detail.
Here, then, are my ideas for
the modern world of iOS and PC
indie game marketing.
If your game is high-concept:
Tease it with video. Establish a tone
and authorial voice for your game,
and present developer diaries in
that voice. Don’t be too specific, and
keep all communication with the
outside world in the game’s voice.
After the game is out, promote
further in this manner, but also
discuss your game frankly in your
own voice as well. When you’re
releasing game updates, return to
the “game voice.”
If your game is anything else:
Do not release an expository
trailer before your game’s release.
Tease it with images and sounds,
but don’t show a trailer. Keep
your public info to just your loyal
followers, fans, or friends. Do
accept feedback, and discuss
your game publicly and answer
questions if asked—it’s always
good to let people feel involved
in your work—but don’t release a
trailer or do a real press push until
the game is out. After that, go wild.
In the world of triple-A games,
building buzz is still the name
of the game, but that’s because
you have to have a big brick-and-
mortar launch, and you need to be
at the front of players’ minds when
they enter that GameStop. But for
smartphone, PC indie, and other
smaller-scale platforms, you won’t
have the budget to get tons of
trailers into their brains. For most
games, you’ve got one shot to get
people excited. Make sure your
game is out when it comes.
—Brandon
Sheffield
twitter: @necrosofty
SubSCriptioN SerViCeS
for iNformAtioN, order QueStioNS, ANd
AddreSS ChANGeS
t:
800.250.2429
f:
847.763.9606
e:
gamedeveloper@halldata.com
www.gdmag.com/contactus
editoriAl
publiSher
Simon Carless
e:
scarless@gdmag.com
editor-iN-Chief
Brandon Sheffield
e:
bsheffield@gdmag.com
editor
Patrick Miller
e:
pmiller@gdmag.com
mANAGer, produCtioN
Dan Mallory
e:
dmallory@gdmag.com
Art direCtor
Joseph Mitch
e:
jmitch@gdmag.com
CoNtributiNG WriterS
Anders Drachen, Dan Pinchbeck, Alexander Brandon,
John Szczepaniak, Steve Theodore, Soren Johnson,
Paul Taylor, Matthew Wasteland, Mike Rose, Leigh
Alexander
AdViSory boArd
Mick West
Independent
Brad Bulkley
Microsoft
Clinton Keith
Independent
Brenda Brathwaite
Loot Drop
Bijan Forutanpour
Sony Online Entertainment
Mark DeLoura
THQ
Carey Chico
Globex Studios
Mike Acton
Insomniac
AdVertiSiNG SAleS
GlobAl SAleS direCtor
Aaron Murawski
e:
amurawski@ubm.com
t:
415.947.6227
mediA ACCouNt mANAGer
Jennifer Sulik
e:
jennifer.sulik@ubm.com
t:
415.947.6227
GlobAl ACCouNt mANAGer, reCruitmeNt
Gina Gross
e:
gina.gross@ubm.com
t:
415.947.6241
GlobAl ACCouNt mANAGer, eduCAtioN
Rafael Vallin
e:
rafael.vallin@ubm.com
t:
415.947.6223
AdVertiSiNG produCtioN
produCtioN mANAGer
Pete C. Scibilia
e:
peter.scibilia@ubm.com
t:
516-562-5134
repriNtS
WRIGHT’S MEDIA
Jason Pampell
e:
jpampell@wrightsmedia.com
t:
877-652-5295
AudieNCe deVelopmeNt
AudieNCe deVelopmeNt mANAGer
Nancy Grant
e:
nancy.grant@ubm.com
liSt reNtAl
Peter Candito
Specialist Marketing Services
t: 631-787-3008 x 3020
e:
petercan@SMS-Inc.com
ubm.sms-inc.com
A SmAll CASe Study
»
My friend Tim Rogers of Action
Button Entertainment released
a game called
Z
i
ggURat
on iOS
about four months ago. Before the
game’s release, he kept putting
out hints about it—releasing
trailers, images, and the like—and
he would always have people
asking where the game was. After
all, he had been talking about it,
so clearly it must be out, but the
people looking for it couldn’t find
2
A NotAble exCeptioN
»
s
UpeRbRotHeRs
: s
woRd
&
s
woRceRy
ep
is an exception in
a lot of ways, but we’ll just talk
about the trailer here. The team
released a teaser trailer well
before the game came out, and it
got people excited. The difference
is that
s:s&s ep
has a very defined
game developer | august 2012
WWW.ubm.Com

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin