Specifically, in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, “We really finally have the hardware and the storage capacity to develop what we consider more traditional MMOs with lots of content,” said Craig Alexander of Turbine.

In addition to theorising that, because MMOs took a decade to mature on PCs, they’re poised to grow the consoles in a similar way, Alexander held forth on development differences between the PS3 and 360.

• Different memory. He described PS3 memory as “256ish MB” and 360 memory as “512ish”.

• Different tools needed for developing on both platforms.

• Migration from 360 to PS3 (Hello, Bayonetta?) is harder than going from PS3 to 360.

In case you were wondering about Nintendo, Alexander said, “The hardware in the Wii more closely resembles the previous generation than the current one. It’s just not there yet.”

Turbine: Easier to Develop MMOs on the Xbox 360 Than the PS3 [Joystiq via VG247]

Gamasutra, covering the keynote, reports that World of Warcraft grew out of a Blizzard team’s frustration with a concept called Nomad, which was to have been a squad-based RTS. Unable to find much purpose in the work, they chucked Nomad and asked “What would we do if we wanted to start a project today?” The answer was World of Warcraft.

“Operating an online game is about more than just game development,” said Pearce. “World of Warcraft has completely changed the organization”.

As proof, Pearce supplied numbers for the staggering amounts of manpower and computing infrastructure the game needs just to stay up and running, such as:

• 20,000 computer systems
• 13,250 server blades
• 75,000 CPU cores
• 1.3 petabytes of storage
• 4,600 staffers
• A partridge in a pear tree.

Kidding about the last. But they don’t stop there. Warcraft’s a game with 7650 quests, 70,000 spells, 40,000 NPCs, 1.5 million game assets and 5.5 million lines of code. QA’s swatted some 180,000 bugs. And the playing community has unlocked 4,449,680,399 rewards.

The keynote, mostly a department-by-department breakdown of those who keep the World of Warcraft running, is reported fully over at Gamasutra. Here’s another number: 5. It’s World of Warcraft’s age as of November. I’m not sure if it seems like it released just yesterday or a dozen years ago.

An Inside Look at the Universe of Warcraft [Gamasutra via VG247]

Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima is being honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Game Developer’s Choice Awards, held during the Game Developers Conference next month.

Each year the Game Developers Choice Awards single out one member of the gaming industry whose contributions helped shape what video games are today, awarding them the highest honour they can bestow – the Lifetime Achievement Award. This year, Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima joins past winners such as Richard Garriott, Sid Meier, Will Wright, and Shigeru Miyamoto as the latest in a long line of rightfully celebrated gaming luminaries.

“For years, Hideo Kojima’s contributions to game development have broken new ground and inspired the community to think about creating games in never-before-imagined ways,” said Meggan Scavio, event director of the Game Developers Conference. “From giving birth to the stealth action game genre to showing game makers how to interact with their players by breaking the ‘fourth wall,’ Kojima’s achievements make him an obvious choice…”

Congratulations, Hideo Kojima. They may single you out as the Metal Gear creator, but you’ll always be the producer on the Zone of the Enders series to me.

As reported previously, Kojima will also be on hand at the Game Developers Conference to deliver a keynote on creative game design challenges, showing off the creative mind that earned him the award.

The 2009 Game Developers Choice Awards will take place on March 25th in the Esplanade Room in the South Hall of San Francisco’s Moscone Centre. If Kotaku isn’t on hand for the event, something will have gone horribly, horribly wrong.

2009 Game Developers Choice Awards Honour Kojima For Lifetime Achievement [Game Set Watch]

Mass Effect 2 is going to be at GDC! It’s going to be the topic of a dry, academic discussion, but still… Mass Effect 2! We’ll learn all sorts of things from this discussion, right?

Nope.

EA reps have told VG247:

This GDC event is an academic panel, but there won’t be any concrete information provided on the Mass Effect franchise other than what has been outlined on the GDC website.

And what’s outlined on the GDC website? Aside from the prospect of seeing a Mass Effect 2 level under construction, bugger-all, that’s what.

EA: No concrete information on Mass Effect 2 at GDC09 [VG247]

The Independent Games Festival today announce the ten winners finalists for their annual Student Showcase awards.

As usual, the finalists include some interesting titles like City Rain, a blend of Tetris and SimCity, and Zeit Squared, a shoot-em-up that allows you to go back in time to assist yourself through the game.

All ten finalists receive a US$500 stipend to help them travel to this year’s Game Developers Conference and the winner will be awards a trophy and US$2,500 cash money.

The finalists:

Tag: The Power Of Paint (DigiPen Institute Of Technology, Seattle)
Feist (Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland)
Winds Of Orbis (Carnegie Mellon – Entertainment Technology Centre, Pittsburgh)
Dish Washington (The National Academy of Digital, Interactive Entertainment, Denmark)
The Unfinished Swan (University of Southern California)
Where Is My Heart? (Universität Ulm, Germany)
The Colour Of Doom (The Guildhall at SMU, Texas)
City Rain – Building Sustainability (Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil)
Kid The World Saver (University Of Southern California)
Zeit Squared (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)

Student Finalists [IGF]

The Brutal Art of Brutal Legend and rendering techniques of Killzone 2 will both be making an appearance at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco later this year.

Michiel van der Leeuw and Michal Valient from Guerilla Games will walk attendees through an overview of the rendering techniques they used in creating the Playstation 3 shooter, including a focus on lighting and shadowing and dealing with anti-aliasing.

In the Brutal Art of Brutal Legend, Double Fine Studios art director Lee Petty talks about creating the art for the Jack Black-voiced original game. Petty will also talk about how the independent studio has “evolved”.

Other sessions detailed in the latest Game Developers Conference update include a postmortem of Fable II, and a look at the narrative of Far Cry 2.

Bosslady Blog: Welcome To 2009! [GDC]

Crayon Physics Deluxe, last year’s Seumas McNally Grand Prize winner at the Independent Games Festival, hits PCs tomorrow, developer Petri Purho emailed to let us know.

A true indie developer, Purho only entered his whimsical game in the Independent Games Festival so he could get a free pass to the Game Developers Conference.

Now Purho is taking pre-orders for the title, which runs about US$20, on his website.

Cryaon Physics Deluxe

No longer required to put a positive spin on things, Moledina showed research that suggested in-game ads could not provide enough revenue to support AAA-level titles, only casual games.

Worse, Moledina said that his advertising contacts were finding it difficult to convince clients that games could provide enough exposure compared to advertising on the web.

Sadly, Moledina didn’t take issue with the main problem with in-game advertising – the way it makes disbelief harder to suspend than an elephant in a hammock.

Moledina pours scorn on in-game ads and digital distribution [Develop]

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A few months ago, Kieron Gillen sat down with Paul Barnett, EA Mythic’s Creative Director, and has been posting bits and pieces of that interview session ever since; this week, we were treated to one of the best cynical descriptions of GDC ever. Barnett explains why, despite being asked to go, he declined the chance to go to GDC and went to the LIFT futurism festival instead:

I never go to GDC. But I was asked point blank why, as it seemed this year they were quite happy to take me to GDC. Mythic wanted me to go there. And I effectively said “Well, I don’t like GDC”. Which turned out to be the wrong thing to say. Apparently I’ve now learned that if you’re in the games industry, and someone says “GDC” what you’re supposed to do is say lots and lots of lovely things about how wonderful they are.

I went for it from the other point of view – I’m not going to GDC because it’s combative, it’s a peacock display and it’s full of people who do what I do or want to do what I do or are doing what I do and don’t want me to do it anymore. It’s not open-minded. It’s very narrow-minded. We’re all talking about the same thing. We’ve all sharpened our knives for years at it, so we get into… well, not a fight, but it’s always about the same things. We talk about design, mechanics, philosophy of design. All I was going to hear about was: WoW and the Activision merger. Whether Spore is going to be any good. How do I get into the games industry? Would you like a job? You’re going to be fired. Why don’t you start a label? I can get you a lot of money? There’s no money available in the market. What we need to do is form an independent development company. What we need to do is unionise. Is microtransactions really the way? What do you think of INSERT WHATEVER IDEA WAS.

The rest of the interview set currently posted is pretty interesting, and it’s worth a read through — and not just for the scathing commentary on one of the premier events in the gaming world.

Barnett On: Why I Don’t Go To GDC [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]