- The British Board Of Film Classification is to introduce age ratings for downloadable video games in the UK. About as much use as a chocolate fire guard. The good guys will still be the good guys and it will still be impossible to stop the bad guys. And the internet is global so a one country system is just plain silly. This just looks like more wasted public money and more public sector empire building.
- Eco fascists desperate for publicity. Yes, it’s Greenpeace knock the consoles time again. They won’t be happy even when consoles are made of lentils and powered by hamsters. These people are just a group of unelected publicity seekers and I am making a mistake here even giving them the oxygen of publicity.
- Ubisoft seek 900 new employees over the next year and are immune to the economic turndown. You really have to admire what Ubisoft are doing. Organic growth instead of acquisitions. Original IPs, quality games and profits. They are doing it right and it is about time some other publishers sat up and took notice. This is what a game publishing company should look like.
- Film producer and media financier Todd Eckert believes that games can replace movies as the dominant form of entertainment. No surprise there then. But it is nice to see that people are starting to take on board the reality of the situation. Gaming is fundamentally a better medium than movies and TV and that superiority will lead to dominance. This is inevitable.
- Microsoft XNA progress as Community Games goes to beta. Done well this will be absolutely massive and promises all sorts of game innovation and creativity that consoles were deprived of till now. It is inevitable that many offerings on this service achieve cult status.
- The top 20 women working in the game industry today, according to Gamasutra. A poor reflection on the male geekiness of games creation that women have to be singled out like this. As middleware and tools become more powerful and intuitive to use we should move to a 50/50 male/female staffing split. And the games will be a lot better when we do.
- The Times business editorial comes out in support of the games industry in the UK and criticises government attitudes. They are right of course. But it isn’t so long since they were wrong, with anti gaming articles. Maybe Rupert is about to make his move into game publishing and has sent out orders to his journalists to toe the pro gaming line. Keeping an eye on Fox News should tell us if this is so.
- Only 39 companies to attend E3 this year, down from over 400 in 2006. The ESA have screwed up badly here. It won’t have the critical mass to be worth attending. Leipzig has taken over and the centre of gravity for big gaming events has moved to Europe.
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As middleware and tools become more powerful and intuitive to use we should move to a 50/50 male/female staffing split.
Are you saing that before middleware got powerful enough women were too dumb to get into the business?
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No that is not what I am saying.
Of those 20 women in the article none are programmers, this is because female programmers are like hen’s teeth.
Good middleware allows more focus on the creative process and less on the technical aspects of making a game.