With Modern Warfare 2’s record-breaking launch at the end of last year and Wii Sports smashing sales barriers the world over, the industry would appear to be in rude health. But as consumers continue to count their pennies while the economy staggers to its feet, are publishers losing out by going for blockbuster or budget every time? games™ analyses whether there’s wealth to be found in the space in between.
Oddworld Inhabitants co-founders Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna sit down with games™ for a rare, honest talk about the house that Abe built.
If the announcement of the Indie Fund at this year’s Independent Gaming Summit revealed anything, it’s that transparency, flexibility and support are needed to keep the Indie scene producing innovative content. With that in mind, we sit down with the recently formed Tomorrow Corporation to discuss what it really means to be free from publisher pressure
Chris Hecker has been an influential figure in the development community for more than a decade – a technical problem-solver in the vein of John Carmack who was instrumental in the development of Will Wright’s Spore. games™ sits down with Hecker to discuss algorithms, independence and James Bond.
Teens are able to curb-stomp fellow players and massacre an airport full of innocent people; should not adults then be allowed to explore their sexuality from behind the safety of a keyboard? At this formative time in the games industry’s history, games™ investigates the medium’s greatest remaining taboo.
Level design is such a fundamental component of videogame architecture that we often miss the forest for the trees; it’s easy to forget that designers spend hundreds of hours perfecting every room we traverse in a matter of minutes. games™ talks to Epic Games, Bethesda Softworks, Rocksteady Studios and Ubisoft Montreal to better understand the effort that goes into making brown, decrepit warehouses feel fun.
From all outward appearances, the conclusion of Dead Space suggested that Isaac Clarke was a goner. Or clinically insane. Or both. Apparently not, as he’s returned with a new suit, new weapons, and a new medical file full of psychological disorders. We talk to Dead Space 2’s executive producer Steve Papoutsis about crafting fear anew.
If there’s a language that videogames understand, it’s violence. It is where the medium excels, where it comes into its own. A game without death and destruction is as rare as a tabloid scare story with proper fact-checking, but what are the alternatives to violence, and are developers really doing all they can to exploit them?
