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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land Independent games developers have it hard these days. 2K Australia/2K Boston (formerly Irrational) had to throw their hand in with 2K Games, and Bioware and Pandemic decided to join forces with backing from investment house Elevation Partners. Add in an out-of-the-way locale like Australia, where the Government seems oblivious to the existence of an entire industry, and the thought of firing up your own coding factory looks more insurmountable than two Everests piled on each other.
The best place to get advice? From someone who’s done it.
NCSoft today announced that Carbine Studios is working on an unannounced massively multiplayer online game for them. Carbine Studios is made up of 17 former Blizzard employees including the lead and senior developers from the World of Warcraft team.
“This is a dev team made in heaven,” said Robert Garriott, CEO for NCsoft’s North American business. “This group is as experienced as they come in the area of computer role playing and multiplayer game design. Making successful games is second nature to them. They are a very welcome addition to the NCsoft family. The gaming community should be excited to see what great things come out of Carbine Studios in the coming years.”
“NCSoft’s established global infrastructure, commitment to their development studios and passion for online gaming makes them an ideal partner,” says Carbine co-founder Kevin Beardslee. “In the coming months Carbine Studios will continue to grow and we look forward to bringing many more talented industry professionals into our fold.”
I wonder if this could be one of NCSoft’s secret Playstation 3 projects?
Yesterday’s post on how the Australian games development community is getting the shaft by the Government generated a lot of terrific comments – comments that don’t deserve to be buried with the story just yet.
In case you missed the action, you can hit the jump to see the top few comments from the bunch.
It should be noted that many asked if there was anything they could do to help. The GDAA has details on their website on how you can petition for the rebate, if you’re serious about fighting the good fight.
Minister Helen Coonan has given the Game Developers’ Association of Australia’s (GDAA) proposal of a 40% rebate for game developers the shake of her head, according to IGN.AU.
GDAA CEO Greg Bondar was understandably upset with the turn of events and the Government’s lack of support for the country’s growing games industry. From the IGN.AU story:
We are continually encountering situations where large scale projects are being awarded to game development companies overseas as they’re able to provide a rebate incentive for companies in the game, film and entertainment industries to employ their services. Without the same sort of ‘carrot’ to dangle in their faces, we find that an enormous amount of business is being lost.
When you read this comment made on ANZ game developer portal Sumea in regards to the story, the situation seems even more bizarre:
Interestingly enough, both Firemint and Torus picked up a Commendation at the Governor of Victoria Export Awards on Tuesday night, which is an official recognition that games companies contribute to the export economy. Didn’t see any film makers get a mention.
So what exactly does our Government think it’s doing? Or more accurately, Minister Coonan? Considering Auran had to seek overseas investment for Fury, it makes you wonder if the Government is paying attention to the industry at all.
Minister Dismisses AU Games Industry [IGN.AU, via Sumea]
With video games becoming more and more a part of American life every day, the Writer’s Guild of America has finally decided to recognise achievement within the field of video game writing with the creation of a Video Game Writing award. It’s part of the guild’s New Media Caucus, which seeks to bring writers outside of traditional fields into the organisation. “Writers are finally being recognised and valued in the video game industry. Both artistically and financially, video games matter – and video game writers matter to the WGA,” commented WGAW New Media Caucus member Jay Lender.
Of course after the first year, award nominations have to be produced under WGA jurisdiction, which means membership fees and the like, but since the award will first be presented at the 2008 Writer’s Guild Awards in February, any video game writing is currently eligible. I’ve personally played through some amazing stories over the years, so it is great to see the people behind the stories getting some recognition.
Writers Guild creates videogame writing award [GamesIndustry.biz]
I discovered at an early age that I never wanted to work in game development, despite my love for the medium and my illusions of creativity. It was when I learned that programmers, artists and designers had to work weekends that I realised this was not the field for me. We’re all presumably familiar with the development cycle “crunch” that sees developers sleeping under their desks, seeing their kids only while they sleep and growing fat on a diet of savory snacks and sweet sodas. And they do it for a set salary. Insanity!
Well, Haze developer Free Radical Design is looking to change the payment structure for its employees, paying them extra money for the extra hours they put in. Genius. Free Radical co-founder Steve Ellis tells Develop that “it’s the way that the whole games industry needs to go” and that the indie developer is just adapting early. I know that I certainly appreciated my holiday overtime pay when I was foil-wrapping boiling hot candied hams as a kid! This is just like that!
Free Radical paying its staff overtime [Develop]
There’s been some mixed press for NCSoft as of late: their European arm has just gotten a hefty grant from a British foundation, but profits are sagging and employees in the Korean office have been jumping ship on a fairly regular basis. The Korea Times has an article talking to NCSoft’s CEO, Kim Taek-jin. With a pretty high turnover rate for employees and profits stagnating, it would seem that the company needs to do something different – and soon.
Other than the financial overload, the “Tabula Rasa” project was one of the big reasons many employees of NCsoft lost their confidence in CEO Kim. He hired Richard Garriott and his brother Robert Garriott in 2001 by allegedly paying 16 billion won ($17 million) in cash and 1.5 million shares in stock options, worth 50 billion won. But the brothers failed to deliver the product as promised, and the project has been protracted for six years.
“One of our annual events is to listen to Kim saying: `This year, we will finally release Tabula Rasa in the market,’ in his New Year speech. I heard it four times since 2004,” said a company insider last week. “The only person in the company who have trust in the Garriotts is the CEO,” another said in 2006.
While the CEO was spending a great amount of the company’s budget and resources on the project, many other talented Korean employees deserted him. In fact, the average service length of NCsoft employees is only two years, according to its annual financial report.
Pissed off employees are never a good thing to have in a company. An analyst also points out that NCSoft is targeting mostly the hardcore gaming population, which has a limited depth of market. Will expanding efforts in other parts of the world pull NCSoft out of the apparent slump, or just make problems more apparent?
NCsoft CEO Stands at Crossroads [The Korea Times]
Nintendo knows it. People buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games. So no wonder third parties don’t get much respect! Mike Wilson from developer GameCock explains the situation:
…we discovered that it’s actually the letter of the law with Nintendo to put the publisher’s name on the front of the box and the spine, and the developer only on the back. Obviously, this flies in the face of our philosophy of who deserves the credit, and how gamers can actually see who made the game they love or hate, and thereby develop a relationship with their favourite artists, just like authors, musicians, directors, and so on. Nintendo of America says it’s a customer service issue, and they believe people might try to call the developer if they have a problem with the game, and they want them to call the publisher, who is the licensee of NOA.
Sure, it’s a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval thing, but c’mon. Seems like unnecessary branding on Nintendo’s part — like they’re taking credit or something. GameCock Interview [GameSpot via Go Nintendo]Hit the jump for the update.
Take-Two today announced that they have sold “substantially all” of their Joytech video games accessories company to Mad Catz Interactive as part of a previously announced plan to ditch “non-core” businesses. “The sale of the Joytech assets is consistent with one of the key goals we established in our 100 Day Plan: to develop strategic alternatives for any operations that we determined to be outside our core publishing business,” said Ben Feder, Take-Two’s Chief Executive Officer.
Update coming in just a tick. But Dave Karraker, the senior director of corporate communications has just announced he will be leaving Sony Computer Entertainment of America for Skyy Spirits. His last day at SCEA will be this Friday, his first at Skyy Spirits will be Oct. 1.
