Out There: The thing with Zelda
The magic at the heart of Hyrule, the art of fantasy illustration, and the talk that called developers to exact revenge on society.
The magic at the heart of Hyrule, the art of fantasy illustration, and the talk that called developers to exact revenge on society.
Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski will host the Game Developers Choice Awards during GDC in March, organisers have announced. GDC also plays host to the Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards, which will be hosted for a fourth year by Andy Schatz, developer of former IGF Grand Prize winner Monaco. More >
A total of 568 games have been submitted for consideration in the Independent Games Festival (IGF) Main Competition, setting a new record with a 45 per cent increase on last year's figure. As Gamasutra notes, mobile game submissions - which have their own category for the first time this year - have almost doubled year on year. More >
Use our code to save 28 per cent on the price of admission to the region's leading internationally focused game development conference. More >
Mojang's world-building game Minecraft and Trion Worlds' MMORPG Rift each won two awards at the second annual GDC Online Game Developers Online Choice Awards in Austin, Texas. Minecraft scooped Best Live Game and Best Community Relations, while Rift left with Best Online Technology and was named the Best New Online Game. Sony Online Entertainment's MMORPG Everquest was honoured for 12 years of uninterrupted service and inducted into the Hall Of Fame. More >
Revered science fiction author Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash) discussed the relationship between game and narrative fiction world-building at GDC Online this week. "I think a lot of the same world-building skills and world-building mentality [of book writing] are going to transfer extremely well into the game world, and it's going to be a natural blend." More >
SCEA senior staff developer support engineer Chris Norden has confirmed that all PlayStation Vita retail games will be available as downloads through PSN on launch day. Speaking at GDC Online, Norden also delivered the welcome news that, unlike on PS3, Vita games can be submitted to Sony as a single file format for both the packaged and download version. More >
In a GDC Online talk this week, Blizzard SVP of creative development Chris Metzen discussed the publisher/developer's approach to the art of fiction. Metzen humbly conceded that Blizzard "isn't necessarily known as the best story shop in the business," but that: "To us [writing] is not about the best [story] hooks in the world, or the most clever hooks. It's not about being the most unique in the world, or the best-written dialog in the world. To us it's about heart, it's about the engagement." More >
Speaking at GDC Online, Ben Cockerill, associate producer at CCP Games, detailed the highest grossing avatar asset purchased by players: a monocle. More >
Speaking at GDC Online, Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell reinforced a recurring claim in game industry circles; that there won't be another (traditional) console platform, stating: "I don't believe there will be another major console". More >
3Speaking at this week's GDC Online, frequent Edge contributor Giordano Contestabile addressed the transformation of the mobile gaming industry. "One day the iPhone arrived and we became the darlings of the game industry," he said in a talk titled Successful Publishing On Smartphones: iOS vs. Android. More >
Ultima creator will use his keynote address to "examine the future of social games and their impact on the industry", drawing on his own experiences in setting up Portalarium, a social game company that recently secured $3.6 million in funding. The other keynote will be given by Jens Bergmann of German social studio Wooga. GDC Europe runs from August 15-17 in Cologne, Germany.
Readers entitled to €50 off entry prices if registered before August 9.
Video recordings of classic game postmortems and talks available to watch on GDC Vault website for free.
Low-cost smartphone-style software is “not going to make developers happy”, says Hideki Konno.
Video shows "unprecedented levels of realism" and "the next generation of gaming."
Rockstar western wins awards for audio, music, interactive score and dialogue at GDC ceremony.
Network engineer's GDC slide was a play for laughs that no-one got, says Halo developer.
Most - but not all - MMOG mechanics ill-suited to firstperson shooters, argues Battlefield 3 developer.
How catering for spectators as well as players was "like inventing Basketball 2."