Asian Dynasties in Polish Mode: We recently got a look at box covers to be used in different parts of the world and a new version of the trailer. Big Huge Game is completing the content and polishing what is there. We are waiting to hear how much of a presence the Asian Dynasties will have at the Leipzig Game Show, the year’s biggest European trade show for games.
Our internal balance test team reported recently that in their opinion Asian Dynasties is on the right track and is reasonably balanced. There are no known critical bugs or balance issues blocking progress. They are aware of a number of smaller issues that need attention but feel that the condition of the Y pack is comparable to both Age of Empires III and The Warchiefs at a similar time.
Patch 1.04/1.12: This patch for The Warchiefs and Age of Empires III has been tied off for balance and feature coding. It is now going through hardware testing and localization into languages other than English. Sometime during the week of July 30th we expect to post notes previewing the patch, which we hope to publish a few weeks later. Check out our community site for the latest news.
Halo Wars Nominated for E3 Award: Congrats to our Halo Wars team for creating a great demo and to Chris Rippy and Graeme Devine for keeping their energy up through all those presentations. That work has paid off with the game being named as one of the five nominees for Best Strategy Game at E3. It is nice to see that the X360 led all platforms with 38 nominations and that Microsoft had a good showing with 8 nominations. Check out the other nominees here at Kotaku.
http://kotaku.com/gaming/e307/game-critics-announce-best-of-e3-noms-281541.php
Peter Moore Leaves Microsoft for EA: Peter was the executive at Microsoft who ran the games and Xbox group, two down from CEO Steve Balmer. We were part of Peter’s organization. We were as stunned as the rest of the gaming world when news came out that he was moving to EA to take over their sports game group. We have a lot of respect for Peter and were happy with his leadership. We wish him the best.
Microsoft’s XNA at SMU’s Guildhall: Microsoft is partnering with this academic institution in our home town to experiment with and improve XNA, a tools and technology program especially targeted toward game developers. XNA was created with amateur game designers in mind, but this new relationship opens the possibilities of it becoming a useful tool for teaching and professional game development. Several people at Ensemble Studios have offered support to the Guildhall since the inception of its game development curricula.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070724/20070724005958.html?.v=1
Global Growth of PC Installed Base: Patrick Hudson, the guy who watches the numbers for us (among many other roles), recently passed around links to stories about the explosive growth now underway in the number of PCs in use around the world. Forrester Research predicts one billion PCs in use worldwide by the end of 2008 and 2.25 billion by 2015, up from 775 million today. Most of that growth will be coming from China, India, Brazil, and Eastern Europe. These same areas are showing big growth in online gaming, as well. Catching this wave will be a big challenge for game companies, but Blizzard has demonstrated already that it can be done (we hear there are 9 million WoW accounts worldwide now).
http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/15/technology/personaltech/fastforward_pcgrowth.fortune/index.htm
Mountain Dew Game Fuel: Pepsi has announced a new soft drink by this name that it plans to launch in partnership with the X360. I like the Dew, though I drink sodas rarely these days, but I think it is cool that sharp marketers like the Pepsi people want to brand up with my company’s game machine.
Guess What Book ES’ers Are Reading? Certainly not everyone is reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but quite a few are. Within three days of publication Dave Pottinger passed around his opinion that he was happy with the book half way through but that the last 100 pages made it one of the best final books of a long series ever (“Really. Read it.”). Paul Jaquays read it straight through (with a break for sleep) and concurred with Dave’s opinion. Karen Swanson found the book very moving in many places. My wife and I are good for maybe 2-3 chapters a night, obviously way behind Charles Tinney and his fiancé . Anyone in game development or another creative enterprise should be considering what makes these stories so entertaining and popular.
Germany’s GameStar Magazine Turns 10: While PC magazines fade away in some parts of the world, they’re still big in Germany. GameStar, Germany’s largest PC game magazine by circulation for 7 years, turns 10 in August and we sent them a congratulatory note. Their reporters have always been prepared and knowledgeable. They are the only magazine that asked to take video of our studio at work. Many of their articles on the Age series are framed on our walls. Their GameStar Awards for games are prestigious and they recently started a magazine about game development called /GameStar/dev. Our games and their magazine have grown up at the same time. We wish them the best for the next 10 years and beyond.
Drive to Work/Get on CNN.Com: Justin Randall was approaching an acetylene gas storage facility in Dallas when it started exploding and he was quick to get some video with his cell phone. When pieces of flaming debris the size of car mufflers started falling nearby he tossed the phone aside and wove his way to the office. His experience made it to the front of page of CNN.com together with other eye-witness accounts. Patrick Hudson chastised him for not getting Halo Wars mentioned in the story or at least splicing a screenshot into his falling debris video J. Here’s a phone interview with his video.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/25/ireport.dallas.explosion/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
Bruce Shelley