Jul

Lost Garden’s very own Daniel Cook is hitting IB once again with another great piece, diverging away to yet another medium to demonstrate the wide berth of this man’s wisdom and understanding.  Today we look at the dichotomy that exists between casual game developers and their reliance on portals for short-term revenue at the expense of long term loyalty.  More importantly he delves into what the Casual Developer can do to break this short-sighted addiction and create life-long revenue streams from a loyal customer base

Title: “Casual Games Manifesto“ – Original Article

Written by: Daniel Cook(www.lostgarden.com)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on July 24th, 2009

Jul

The Gamedev.net book collection is here to bring you more insight and how!  Today we go over some advice for those looking to make their first product on their own, things to look out for, to plan for and to avoid in order to see your first indie product from start to ship.

Title: “How to ship your first commercial game without quitting your day job“

Book: Business and Production: A GameDev.net Collection – click to purchase

Publisher: Course Technology PTR

Written by: Raymond Jacobs (www.gamedev.net)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on July 23rd 2009

Jul

Ethan Kennerly hits us with another extremely well thought through and written article.   Today he sets about to establish a theorectical framework upon which we can discuss the and analyze the relations and problems between 4 correlating areas of game design: simulation, user interface, story and aesthetics.

Title: ‘Open Problems in Simulation and Story Analysis‘ – Original Article

Written by: Ethan Kennerly (www.finegamedesign.com)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on July 21st, 2009

Jul

Joe Ludwig, aka programmer Joe introduces us to the continuous deployment process and how it could be incorporated into an MMO setting.   Comparing it directly to the process used in running Pirates of the Burning Sea to demonstrate how properly implemented Continuous deployment would drastically improve efficiency and reduce times to implement patches/updates

Title A: “Continuous Deployment“ – Original Article

Written by: Joe Ludwig(programmerjoe.com)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on July 19th, 2009

Jul

Joris Dorman graces us with another bucketload of insight today in what will be a 3 part series detailing the game experiment ‘Shadowcaster’ where Joris attempts to bridge the gap between narrative and ludic simulations to create the blueprint for a new type of Narrative Game.

Title: “Shadowcaster Pt1“ – Original Article

Written by: Joris Dormans(www.jorisdormans.nl)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on July 9th, 2009

Jul

Eric Scharf and his insight once again grace the pages of Industrybroadcast.com.  Today we are looking at the second of 4 parts of his Protecting your Startup from being shot down article, covering some of the steps to take in the beginning of the process to ensure continued lasting success.

Title: ‘Protecting your Start-up from Being Shot Down (Pt2)‘ – Original Article

Written by: Eric Scharf (www.emscharf.com)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on July 8th 2009

Jul

Seth Spaulding‘s has graced us with another condensed chapter from his new Book: “Team Leadership in the Game Industry“.  Today we look at what it takes to be a lead, from the studio’s perspective, who they are going to support and how as well as the downfalls of supporting the wrong person and the warning signs to look out for.

Chapter: “Choosing and Supporting Leads”

Book: Team Leadership in the Game Industry – click to purchase

Publisher: Course Technology PTR

Written by: Seth Spaulding

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on July 7th 2009