Anyone see the EASports.com Madden NFL blog site? I’m really surprised this is allowed out in this era of licensor approvals / PR-filter everything. Awesome. If only more games had this level of down and dirty designer diaries (alliteration!), I’d be a happy designer.
Powerthirst – Kick Mother Nature in the face with your energy legs.
From: http://sports.ign.com/articles/785/785850p1.html
On what the NFL would like to see improved in Madden…: “A lot of it are simply tweaks. Feedback coming from our guys who review our rulebook day in and day out, something as benign as this official should be positioned a little closer to the sideline on these particular plays or just some obscure calls with respect to punts or field goals. They are pretty much that, they are tweaks because they do the game, EA does the game fantastically well for us and we’re just there, again, to make it as close to what’s happening on the field as possible.”
On the stuff that is said in real life compared to the content allowed in the game…: “Sometimes there are things said that a microphone picks up, and I’m not just talking about expletives, it’s just something a little too negative. It happens. We’re not going to say that never happens. We’re never going to say that everything that’s said on the field is squeaky clean. But when it comes to a licensed product where we have the ability to make sure everything is good, we have the time, we have the opportunity to make those decisions about what is going to stay, what’s not going to stay.”
Emphasis added by me. Just an observation.
Ernest Adams thinks you should hold on to your EA stock based on the strength of EA’s brands, like James Bond.
James Bond? (Note that the article is thirteen months old)
Moral: You wouldn’t ask stock analysts to design video games. Don’t take stock-picking advice from game designers.
Gamasutra is really the best site on the Internet for game designers (I take that back. It is second to Google Image Search). Their latest feature is called Establishing a Beachhead in a Crowded Genre. It isn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff as it generally reaffirms beliefs I already hold. It is nice to see people insisting (like the article does in its opening salvo) to “Gut Key Elements of the Design”. That might work when you are Nintendo and you have complete autonomy as to what is the minimal feature set one can ship with, but when you have a publishing group that wants to see a half-dozen bullet points of major features on the back of the box, it is a hard conversation to make.
I looked for an online image of Medal of Honor: Vanguard for the PS2 as a counterexample, but couldn’t find one. It shocked me when I looked at the back of the box and saw zero bulleted features. It was essentially a mission pack, but even then publishers tend to pull BS bullets out of their ass (Experience WWII as never before! Use one of seven authentic period weapons! Killing Nazis is socially acceptable!)
Hopefully the “less is more” approach that Nintendo is making vogue again catches on with the bigger players.
I started a blog again? I feel so dirty.
I have the need for a personal site. I won’t explain why. Assume it is a need encoded in my DNA.
I had a personal page that I kept updated with my resume, pictures, etc. But to get it to look how I wanted, I waded knee-deep in CSS for days on end, periodically coming up for breath.
Screw that.
I give up. I’ll take the blogging software with its browser-neutral themes and easily accessible plugins. You win intarweb.
But I still refuse to be on Facebook.
