Thomas Grové's Blog

Stormfront Studios sent out an email to their employees this week asking what games they “respect for their fun, creativity, innovation, and quality”. There will be a vote to determine the top four names which will be used to name the Scrum rooms in the new office. Here were the game titles given by the respondents:

Advanced Wars, Asteroids, Axis and Allies, Battle Balls, Blood Wake, Bubble Bobble, Candyland, Castlevania, Centipede, Checkers, Chess, Civilization, Clue, Command & Conquer, Contra, Cyberball, Deus Ex, Diablo, Diddy Kong, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Doom, Frogger, Galaga, Gauntlet, Go, Gran Turismo, Half Life, Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, Hogan’s Alley, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Jedi Knight, Joust, Katamari Damacy, Legend of Zelda, Lode Runner, Magic the Gathering, Marble Madness, MegaMan, Metroid, Monkey Island, Mousetrap, MULE, Myst, Netrek, Oblivion, Pac Man, Parappa the Rappa, Pikmin, Pitfall, Poker, Pong, Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, Puerto Rico, Quake, Rez, Risk, Robotron, Scrabble, Seven Cities of Gold, Sim City, Skara Brae, Sonic, Space Invaders, Spy Hunter, SSX, Starcraft, Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros, Super Sprint, Tempest, Tetris, Tie-Fighter, Ultima, Unreal, Virtua Fighter, Warcraft, X-Wing, Yahtzee, Zork

Which names would you pick? Are there any you would add or remove? It is interesting how the majority of the titles are old games; perhaps these are games that inspired game developers to become game developers, or maybe it’s just the nostalgia factor?

BTW, the above image is only related to this post temporally; it is a NASA photo of the San Diego fires that were burning this week.

My friend Brandon Sheffield interviewed my friend Christoph Quas about the DS tactics game he designed entitled Panzer Tactics. When I spoke to Christoph about his game at GDC 2007, he told me that there were 150 units with something like 40 tuning variables each—what a balancing task!

The interview can be found here on Gamasutra.com.

The game that I have been working on at Stormfront Studios has finally been announced! From here on out, the project that I have referred to as Ogre shale be known as The Spiderwick Chronicles.

The project is being published by Sierra and is slated to be released February 2008. Check out the press releases on Kotaku and Gamasutra. It is also being developed as a film by Paramount; my friend Hans is working as a creature animator on this project at Tippett. Here is the trailer:

Or you can go here for a Quicktime version.

Serialization FTW!

The Spiderwick Chronicles film and game are both based on a series of serialized children’s booklets of the same title, much in the same vein as the Lemony Snicket booklets. Out of curiosity, I did an estimate on the total word count of all five Spiderwick books; somewhat to my expectation I discovered that it was approximately the same length as Roald Dahl’s classic The BFG. However, each of the Spiderwick books retails for a price greater than that of The BFG! Now, they are hardcovers, so lets say that they’re actual profit margin per book is the same as that of a paperback The BFG… they make five times the profit per word! I think this is a lesson that any creative type should pay attention do if they are interested in monetizing their IP—serialization for the win!

In the following two part essay on N’Gai Croal’s Level Up, Midway Home Entertainment Chief Marketing Officer Steve Allison suggests What Developers Must Do to Make Games That Sell
PT 1: http://ncroal.talk.newsweek.com/default.asp?item=593154
PT 2: http://ncroal.talk.newsweek.com/default.asp?item=593219

He says that a successful game is a game that sells, period. He then goes on to say that the following—in order—are the most important things to make a successful game:

1. Good Concept
2. Timing
3. Execution

The only games that I can think of that satisfy this are Doom, Quake 1, and The Sims. Despite this, he goes on to mention Gears of War as an example of a successful game. I think that Gears of war has the reverse order: the execution was amazing, in terms of timing it came out when there was little competition on the 360, and the concept was standard fair. Another game in this same boat was God of War; amazing execution, pretty good marketing, fairly standard concept. Please don’t think that I’m criticizing these two games; it’s so rare for anything to be executed well, so they are above the curve in my book.

I would argue that the most frequent order of a “successful” game is the following:

1. Name on Box
   This can refer to a franchise name, an ip name, an auteur’s name, or a company’s name such as: Madden NFL, Zelda, Harry Potter, Sid Meier, or Blizzard.
2. Marketing
3. Execution
4. Timing
5. Concept

When that name on the box has been hard won by releasing great game after great game as in Zelda or Blizzard I am at ease, but that Cars was on top of the UK sales charts week after week saddens me… I wish that the order was simply:

1. Concept/Execution

Example: Katamari Damacy and most of the “art house” games that never get the attention that they deserve due to a lack of marketing.

The following was my favorite session at GDC 2007. In this presentation, entitled “Cutting the Apron Strings: Developer Liberation and Free Agency”, free lance game designer Michael John (Spiro The Dragon, Daxter, God of War PSP) delivers a heart felt message championing developer freedom and the need for a common voice.

If the video doesn’t load for some reason, here is the link.
Michael John has also posted some other stuff related to this presentation on his blog.