Office Reorganization: Last week over 50 people in our studio changed offices. This happens periodically at the start and end of major projects when people move to something new. In this case we were just getting our teams together and looking ahead for when those teams might be growing. Each project now has pretty much its own floor in our building with space available for growth.
We try to make these moves as painless as possible and hire professionals to help us get it done in one day. The most harried people are in our IT department; they have to make sure all the machines are set up properly, with Internet and Intranet connections, and all phones are working. We probably average about 4 PCs per employee. We hope this is the last of these reshufflings for a while.
Buzzed by a B-17: I was sitting in my office looking out over the expressway below when suddenly a real B-17 bomber flew by my window heading north. Then another bomber went by on the same heading. I thought it was a B-24 but Ian Fischer tells us it was a B-25. Harter Ryan confirmed a B-24 did go by later. (There is an air show in town and you can pay for rides on these planes). For the history buffs in our group this was cool.
I began to think immediately of two personal experiences. The first was the research I did on the 8th Air Force years ago when I prepared a board game about B-17s for publication. Secondly, around that time I got to climb on board a real B-17 at an air show. I was amazed at how small it seemed compared to planes of today. The fuselage was very narrow and cramped. I thought the whole aircraft could sit on the wing of modern passenger jet. I gained a deep respect for the very young men of my parent’s generation who served in those planes.
The 100 Best Hobby Games: ES colleague Sandy Petersen and I both participated in the creation of a book discussing the best hobby games of recent time. Mostly board, paper, and card games were considered for inclusion, not electronic games. We both were assigned one game to write about from a list that we helped compile. We couldn’t write about a game that we had been involved with personally in design or publication. We have been asked not to reveal at this point which game we wrote about. The book is titled Hobby Games: The 100 Best and is being published by Green Ronin Press of Seattle. The editor in charge is James Lowder and the book is targeted for release at Gen Con 2007.
Hockey and Age of Empires: An interview with Craig Conroy of the Calgary Flames brought up teammate Jarome Iginla, who is into computer games, especially the Age series. A few years ago we invited several of the Flames to our office for a visit when they were in town for a game with the Dallas Stars. We recall that Jarome wiped the floor with all of us in the Conquerors. The interview is here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=amber_david&id=2806753
Designer Lunch: The designers at ES get together for lunch usually each week. Work is discussed but it is also a chance for people on different teams to meet semi-socially and discuss stuff outside of work, including games we did not make. What is good and not so good about new games is a popular topic. Last week’s meeting took us to a different part of town so the group could look at new office space the studio is considering. Our long term plans call for multiple teams and growth related to that. Our current space won’t hold us if we are able to deliver. The discussion at my end of the table ranged from NCAA basketball to the paper on game design I mentioned last time to whether you put your console in the family room (yes if you have children) or the office with your PC.
Raise $150M- Make 60-100 Games in Five Years: No problem. A news item that caught our eye reported that the executive producer of the film 300 was partnering with a dot.com entrepreneur to launch a new game studio. They are apparently looking to raise $150M and already have 20 people at work in Atlanta. The games are to be based on big brands from film, literature, and other media. Our first thought was this was another misguided attempt by the Hollywood types to double down on their intellectual property by cranking out hit games. This gets tried fairly regularly but rarely with success. If a blockbuster game today takes $20M to make with 30-50 great people over 2-3 years, we don’t get the math. But colleague Rob Fermier pointed out that you could probably push one casual game onto seven platforms (DS, PSP, 360, PS3, PS2, PC, Wii). So creating 60-100 games in five years would really require 10-15 original moderately sized games over the period, or 2-3 each year. And that is within the range of what some studios can do, especially if they are able to effectively use outsourcing, as they plan to do.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17793242/
What ES is Playing This Week: Of course it is Halo Wars every day and some Warchiefs as we keep an eye on balance. But after work or at lunch there are other options.
The newest game being discussed is God of War II; the consensus is that it is excellent. People are amazed at how good it looks on the PS2. WoW’s Burning Crusade is generating a lot of mail regarding how it plays and the new stuff. Our WoW email alias usually has a weekly report on a new instance experience. One of the board game groups is looking to try Ticket to Ride or Metro this week. At lunch there are usually several WoW card game battles going on.
Bruce Shelley