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1up has coverage of a strange development: a gaming portal focused on tabletop and strategy games. The site is slated to be a editorial/community site focusing on Avalon Hill and Wizards products, as well as potentially offering a venue for independent PC games. "Wizards of the Coast is eager to stress that Gleemax is not about pimping their own products, so much as it is about strengthening the overall culture of gaming as a whole. It's a husbandry approach; by creating a fertile ground where the various tribes of gaming can meet and greet, they hope to build interest (and presumably sales) through the basic principle of cultivating a strong player community." The whole thing is something of an odd move for the company, and for some insight into the launch Greg Kostikiyan at the Games*Design*Art*Culture blog clarifies the reality of Gleemax as an indie game publisher. You'd think he would look at the site as competition for his own Manifesto Games, but he seems fairly philosophical about it.

Via some extended commentary on GameSetWatch, a post by Greg Costikyan on the Games*Design*Art*Culture blog on the lack of 'prestige' games in the modern game industry. By 'prestige' Costikyan means titles that may not do terribly great commercially, but that attract a lot of goodwill towards the developer and publisher. From the article: "Suppose Capcom, instead of closing Clover Studios and muttering about 'disappointing sales' had trumpetted Okami's critical success, instructed its publicists to attempt to interest both game and tech media in presentations of art from this beautiful and visually stunning game, and announced their strong support for innovation and creativity in future? They might have produced greater interest in, and sales for, the game, but more importantly, could have worked to establish for Capcom what no company other than Nintendo has in the industry today--a reputation for actually caring about gameplay. Could Ubisoft not have done the same with Beyond Good and Evil? And since Ubisoft is in direct competition in most of the cities where it has studios with EA, which has a reputation for mistreating its staff and a lack of innovation, would this not also have benefited their recruiting efforts?"

Gamasutra sits down with Manifesto Games co-founder Greg Costikyan to discuss how the revolution is coming along. They explore the group's business model, the retail market, and the dangers of GameTap. From the article: "They don't worry me, particularly; I'm skeptical that their business model is sustainable. But basically, my argument is that they can afford to offer so large a number of titles for a $10/month fee largely because the major publishers view older games as worthless, since they cannot be sold through conventional retail any longer, so they're willing to accept a small share of rental revenue. But I also believe that PC games, in particular, are going to move online in a big way over the next few years and will eventually disappear from game stores — PC games are responsible for just 6% of their revenues, and take up a lot more shelf space than that justifies." Mr. Costikyan further explores this last concept in a post on his site called, simply, Why GameTap is Evil.

Gamasutra reports on Texas technology company Bigfoot networks, which just received a $4 Million investment to develop a lag-reducing hardware PC card. From the piece: "According to the firm, it will bring to market the world's first Gaming Network Accelerator card, which will allow online gamers to play their favorite games with less lag. The company explained: 'Lag is the number one problem in online video games today, and Bigfoot Networks is the only company in the world whose sole mission is to fight lag', but gave no specific technical explanation about how it intends to do this." Greg Costikyan spells it out on the Games*Design*Art*Culture blog: "So yes, there might be a business here. But if so, it will be a business built largely on bullshit."

Thursday events were interesting enough, but now that everyone's had a chance to get home and relax there's news aplenty from this past weekend's MMOG industry event. For general first-hand impressions, we can turn to Greg Costikyan, Raph Koster, Lum, and Mirjam Eladhari, whose site is well worth looking at as it has liveblogging notes from many of the events. Speaking of events, the most popular session at the event seemed to be the MMOG industry Rant, a panel of big brains and angry thinkers. Reflections on the rant are available from Gamasutra, Psychochild, F13, and Next Generation. From the F13 write-up: "Jeff Hickman: Lum gave me ranting lessons. My rant is basically about (fist closed), as game developers - the fact we often make games - core pieces - it's a critical error in the things we do. As a player, it's effecting me in the game I play right now, damnit. As a developer, I've done this and made core changes and probably didn't achieve the goals I wanted to achieve. As I make these games, we attract a certain type of player. It's because of the things we put in - the gameplay - for whatever reason, we see another game that's cool, doing something better, or we want to change the billing process. For whatever reason, we make a change and it alienates people." There were other things to see and hear at the event. Zen of Design has notes on some panels, including Sex in Games, the aforementioned Casino Talk, Platformania, and Bleeding Customers is the Future. Gamasutra had two more postcards from Austin: East Meets West in MMOs, and Why the EFF is helping NCSoft. Finally, game impressions are available over at MMORPG.com, on Conan, Auto Assault, Dark Age of Camelot, and Pirates of the Burning Sea.

The yearly Austin Games Conference, the largest MMOG-focused industry event in the country, is taking place this weekend and a variety of places have coverage of the first day. For specific events, we have Gamasutra on MMOG economics and The Game Writer's Conference, a sister event to the AGC. Both Raph Koster (who has a blog now) and Next Generation have pieces on Damion Schubert's "What Vegas Can Teach the MMO" talk. For general color, Greg Costikyan has a feel for what it is like on the ground, and MMORPG.com has a Thursday wrapup. From the MMORPG.com piece: "The Austin Game Conference (AGC) looks and feels like a high school reunion. Dominated by the MMORPG industry, it allows developers to get together and compare their ideological toys. Unlike E3, this is not a commercial event. For example, EA's booth here is actually a booth, rather than some kind of football stadium. This allows for more of a community feel and serious discussion of issues facing the game industry without the need for marketing individual products to any great degree."

Edge Online reports that Greg Costikyan and Johnny Wilson have joined up to form Manifesto Games. The two game designers are aiming to promote and develop the independent games market over the next few years with their ambitious start-up. From the article: "Manifesto will distribute all the games it publishes via its site, and while the digitial download sector is a hotly watched one, Costikyan says that even those already taking advantage of this space are chasing the wrong goal by offering casual games or publishers' back catalogue titles. This ends up selling games to people who aren't really interested in them." Costikyan will be blogging about the experience of getting the company off the ground from his site, Games*Design*Art*Culture.

Via Games*Design*Art*Culture, a post over on the O'Reilly network discussing an unofficial "anthem" for the GDC entitled Viva La Resolution. From the post: "So imagine an alternate universe in which a major game publisher--Microsoft, say--actually embraced the notion that games are an artform and encouraged innovation. If that were to happen, they might conceivably commission a song like this to get game developers excited and pumped up and ready to go. Now here's the weirdness---apparently, they did commission the song, from the Fatman (George Sanger, one of the industry's best-known composers)--and then canned it when they heard it and found out what it was...Guess it wasn't the message they wanted, eh?" Update: 05/10 03:47 GMT by Z : Mirrors for the song can be found here and here.

Via Games*Design*Art*Culture*, a link to a Hollywood reporter story breaking the news that Oddworld Inhabitants is closing up shop in the games industry. Owner Lanning is apparently going to move the company into movies and TV, as a result of sour experiences in the current gaming industry environment. From the article: "As game production costs rise, publishers want more sure bets because with rising costs come rising risks. What we see is an industry which is rapidly discouraging innovation because people don't want to take chances on more innovative types of titles."

The Game Developer's Rant session held at the GDC continues to reverberate through the industry. GameDev.net and Greg Costikyan's site have more details on the session itself, while Terra Nova's original thread on the subject has been followed up by an open letter to the participants from Matt Mihaly of Iron Realms Entertainment. From Matt's letter: "Anyway, please, just stop the whining. Stop telling people about how horrible the games industry is. Stop telling them that they can't succeed without radical industry changes. It's bunk and you should know better. Are you intentionally trying to discourage people from getting into the industry?"

Gamespot has the news that Take-Two Interactive's MLB deal has already had repercussions. Sega has gotten out of the sports business, selling their internal sports studio Visual Concepts to Take-Two for a bargain price. This newest addition in hand, Take-Two has turned around and launched a new game label entitled 2K games. From the article: "2K Games will incorporate Take-Two's internally owned development studios Visual Concepts, Kush Games, Indie Built, Venom Games, PopTop Software, and Frog City Software, as well as the team at Take-Two Licensing..." This new label will have a subsidiary specifically tuned for sports titles. As expected, it appears the sports game market is now going to fall to only a few companies. Commentary on Greg Costikyan's Blog

GamesIndustry.biz iz reporting that in a show of European solidarity publisher Infogrames may assist Ubisoft (with the blessings of the French Government) if EA attempts a hostile takeover of the Prince of Persia developer. From the article: "Speaking to news agency Reuters, Bonnell expressed his hope that Ubisoft will remain independent - and rubbished EA's claim that its recent purchase of almost 20 per cent of the firm's stock was merely an investment." Further details on Greg Costikyan's Blog. All this is follow up to year-end shenanigans from EA.

Costik writes "Paranoia XP, the new version of the cult tabletop RPG which first debuted in 1984, and in which a 'well-meaning but deranged Computer desperately protects the citizens of Alpha Complex, a vast underground city, from all sorts of real and imagined enemies', is done, and will appear at Gencon Indy later this month. The interesting aspect is that it was designed 'in public,' using a weblog, an online forum, and a Wiki, with enthusiastic support from the community. Fans of the game wrote text, debated rules, proofread, ran statistical analyses, and even wrote a computer simulator to test the game's paper-and-pencil rules. Allen, the game's designer, says 'We borrowed the tools and methods of open-source software development for a paper game, and it worked brilliantly.'"

Costik writes "Paranoia XP, the new version of the cult tabletop RPG which first debuted in 1984, and in which a 'well-meaning but deranged Computer desperately protects the citizens of Alpha Complex, a vast underground city, from all sorts of real and imagined enemies', is done, and will appear at Gencon Indy later this month. The interesting aspect is that it was designed 'in public,' using a weblog, an online forum, and a Wiki, with enthusiastic support from the community. Fans of the game wrote text, debated rules, proofread, ran statistical analyses, and even wrote a computer simulator to test the game's paper-and-pencil rules. Allen, the game's designer, says 'We borrowed the tools and methods of open-source software development for a paper game, and it worked brilliantly.'"

Thanks to Costik.com for pointing to entrepreneur Gordon Gould's comments on possible new videogame funding avenues, as he notes "the coming console shift to Xbox 2 and the Playstation 3 is going to once again raise the bar on development costs", meaning "a shrinking number of titles per publisher slate w/increased pressure on those titles to be out of the ballpark blockbusters." He suggests that "developers' ability to gain more control over their destiny is handicapped by the relative scarcity of funding sources", but this may be changing, as investors from outside the industry start to fund development (as seen recently at MMO creator Turbine.) However, Greg Costikyan weighs in with a response, arguing that "...even looking at something as goofy and hit-driven as the game industry, an investor is already taking a big risk, and his or her instinct is going to be the same as the publishers': be conservative in what you fund."

Thanks to Costik.com for its in-depth discussion of the Nokia N-Gage's advantages and disadvantages, a post sparked by Scott Miller's weblog post on the same subject, in which the 3D Realms founder argues "Nokia means cell phones to consumers. So, when Nokia jumps into the games market, it doesn't make sense to people", and concludes: "Nokia needs to create a separate company to handle the N-Gage. The 'Nokia' name should never be associated with this device, much like the Toyota name is not associated with Lexus." Greg Costikyan's reply counters: "Launching N-Gage as a Nokia device wasn't a bad idea; the flaws of the device were, however", and ends: "I personally would not be surprised if, two or three years from now, Nokia decides to give it another go, with a new device."

Allen Varney writes "The classic tabletop roleplaying game PARANOIA, originally published by West End Games in the 1980s, returns in a new edition this August from Mongoose Publishing. PARANOIA, the game of a darkly humorous future, is set in an underground Alpha Complex ruled by an insane Computer. I am writing and (re)designing the main rulebook, under direction from original PARANOIA co-designer Greg Costikyan, with contributions from novelist and game designer Aaron Allston. I'd be happy to answer questions from Slashdot's gamers."

Allen Varney writes "The classic tabletop roleplaying game PARANOIA, originally published by West End Games in the 1980s, returns in a new edition this August from Mongoose Publishing. PARANOIA, the game of a darkly humorous future, is set in an underground Alpha Complex ruled by an insane Computer. I am writing and (re)designing the main rulebook, under direction from original PARANOIA co-designer Greg Costikyan, with contributions from novelist and game designer Aaron Allston. I'd be happy to answer questions from Slashdot's gamers."

David Thomas writes "There's a newly posted list of games every developer should know over at Costik.com, and a similar recent attempt at The Ludologist - both articles concern the idea of a 'canon' of games. Like a literary canon, the idea is there is a list of classic games anyone serious about games should have played, in the same way any serious lit person will have read through the canon of literary works." Gentlemen, look over the lists, and please start your heckling now.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to game designer Mark Barrett's page, where he has an opinion piece discussing the gameplay limitations of videogame licenses. He references earlier discussions on the subject from the likes of Warren Spector and Greg Costikyan, and says his Enter The Matrix play sessions revealed "..most of what I was doing and seeing had been forced not by design decisions, but rather by the promise of the license itself... [which was] encumbered by filmic conventions and film-related audience expectations, some of which were unrelated (or even antithetical) to a meaningful interactive experience." Do developers just have to rely on luck when it comes to how game-translatable a license is, or can they beat the odds by being smart?

Bakajin writes "Greg Costikyan's blog article A Specter is Haunting Gaming speaks in coarse language about "despair" in the independent game developing community. He says that despite the fact that no Independent Game Festival title "has ever gone on to major publication and success... 10,000 geeks... would just love to do what the IGF guys are doing... work on something you believe in, not churn out the next big-budget piece of crap." I can't help but read that and think that it represents a huge opportunity for a new game machine that lowers the bar for entry and has a unique revenue model. However, is the story of Indrema a prophesy? Is Infinium just vapor? Is there any other solution?"

Greg Costikyan has penned a Snood screed that bears reading for anyone into game design. I gave Snood a try a couple of years ago when I read that Woz was hooked on it. Fun. I've played it on and off since then. But the ninth most popular game in 2001? That's nuts. Is Snood part of a series of tiny puzzley games, like Tetris and Bejeweled, that can still do well in a world of Counterstrikes and Unreal Tournaments? Is there still the chance for an individual or small team to strike it rich writing a game like this (maybe for cell phones)? Or is the engagingly simple game doomed to extinction? M : The Snood-equivalent for Linux is Frozen Bubble.

Salon has a surprisingly deep article about how video game machine makers are engaged in a "War for America's Thumbs" and how their products are no longer just toys but are rapidly become multi-purpose electronic appliances. Greg Costikyan, who wrote the piece, is the author of Fantasy War and, Salon says, 26 other commercial games. Well worth reading!