Slashdot Mirror
50 Games Industry Figures To Watch?
Thanks to 1UP for their feature discussing important videogame developers to watch out for, as they list "...fifty people in the game industry - some you've likely heard of, many you've not - who we think will help define gaming the most in the next twelve months." As well as the John Carmacks and Warren Spectors of this world, notably overlooked figures on the list include Julian Eggebrecht of Factor 5 ("Eggebrecht's team is one of the few out there that actually try to tax the GameCube to its limits") and Yasumi Matsuno of Square Enix ("..the director of Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy Tactics... [now] directing Final Fantasy XII.")
I think Penny Arcade put my feelings best...
Sharp mind. Sharp dresser. Game-to-Innovation ratio is high. Ego the size of the Jupiter. Likes to give keynote speeches. C'mon! Get him on the list!
Miyamoto isn't even on the list.
We're supposed to believe that the guy behind the dead-on-arrival N-Gage is more important than Miyamoto? Please.
The original Turrican was nothing special, but the later versions - Mega Turrican (Genesis) and the two Super Turrican games (SNES) - were some truly great-looking, action-packed platformers.
Circumcision is child abuse.
If this was written a few years ago, I could see including the Stamper Brothers of Rare. Bur first off, Rare's quality has greatly gone down hill over the past few years. More importantly, they want to get out of the business soon. That's why they sold all their stock of the company to Microsoft a year ago.
And how can you include all the big people at Nintendo except for Miyamoto?
Speaking of designers... anyone know what happened to Lori and Cori Cole from Sierra? They made some great games, but the Yosemite division got shut down a few years ago.
A list of the top engine developers for the games, rather than a list of directors with a mix of other important developers.
Ken Silverman ought to be mentioned somewhere...
-Adam
51: Valve's IT Security Guy
Watch him get booted out of every job in the future!
Watch him use MS Outlook without patching!
Watch him lose his company millions for leaving ports open!
Watch him get grilled into little chunks by the HL2 community!
Eggebrecht's team is one of the few out there that actually try to tax the GameCube to its limits
Clearly the article submitter is not a game developer. Aside from possibly porters, there isn't a developer out that that doesn't "tax a console to its limits".
You write the game. It runs too slow. You optimize it until it runs quickly enough. It needs just about all the juice.
May we never see th
Romero... Romero... Nope. No Romero!
And I'm appalled. APPALLED, I say. We're all his bitches, you know.
Or maybe this is just like in Soviet Russia...
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Perhaps you haven't looked at games recently. Let's do a comparison.
What looks better, a game that uses bump mapping, or a game that doesn't? A game that does, of course, because proper use of bump mapping gives the illusion that a model (such as terrain or a character) has many more thousands of polygons of detail with a simple extra bitmap.
Now, what games for the GameCube use bump mapping? Nyo-ho! Now we see that most of the games for the GameCube do not use this feature, thus not taking it to the limit.
Until games targetted at the GameCube (and, by extension, the Xbox) use all the advanced features like surround sound, bump mapping, and higher-resolution video output, you can't say that every develop takes the console to its limits.
Repeat after me, "I own a Nintendo GameCube -- NOT a Playstation 2 -- I desire 4 player support, bump mapping, prologic 2 encoded audio, online broadband and system link features, and GBA connectivity support."
Repeat after me, "I own a Microsoft Xbox -- NOT a Playstation 2 -- I desire relevant content downloads on Xbox Live, 4 player support, really good positional audio for my 5.1 surround sound setup, 720p mode with widescreen support, good system link features and Live online play, real caching of disc access via the HDD, a truly persistent in-game world because of amazing amount of save space available, in game soundtrack support."
Most developers develop for the PS2 -- which means support for memory cards, rumble in the controller, and little else; they do not include in their visual engine things like bump mapping or the interesting pixel shaders that the GeForce in the Xbox, they do not include support for positional audio beyond stereo, they generally do not even bother to extend 2 player support to 4 player support (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, anyone?). In some cases, they can even not bother to totally port the work over, leading to bizarre slowdown (MSG2: Substance on Xbox on tanker level and other areas!). GBA connectivity beyond EA's silly "unlock a level" stuff is rare beyond Nintendo's own titles.
There is so much more to a game than wether or not it slows down, it's not funny.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I for one would keep an eye on the group at S2games. I have been a diehard CS player, then BF 1942, and now Savage. I think these guys have built an engine that has the staying power of the HL build (in it's infinite modability, expandability, etc). Jesse Hayes and his group over there could probably pump out some more excellent games, of course as small companies go, I guess you never know who's payin the bills tomorrow.
What about Rand and Robyn Miller? Creators of Myst and it's various sequels. They're set to release an MMOG that doesn't involve killing stuff over and over again. I think that's something to watch out for. Besides Myst set various records and helped put cdrom pc games on the map (although, it was inevitable).
Ken Levine?
He doesn't belong on that list.
The guy was some kind of scriptwriter before getting into the game industry, and somehow I think he got a job at Looking Glass and then quit to form his own company and got a lucky break when Looing Glass took pity on the three guys who started the company and gave them a contract to do System Shock 2. The other two company owners were programmers and had a lot of talent, and the reason the game turned out as well as it did is thanks mostly to the artists and level designers who worked on it.
Here's a couple Ken quotes for ya:
"I want you to go home tonight and take a look at Banjo Kazooie to get some ideas for the look of Shock 2." (Yeah that'll make Shock 2 really creepy.)
"Everything on the ship should be clean and brightly lit. This ship's just come off the assembly line." (Note how in the final game everyhting is messy and broken, as it should have been from the start.)
Yes, indeed. System Shock 2 was as creepy as it was all thanks to Ken.
And here's one last Ken quote. This is a classic:
"The more public a person you become, the more a sheen of phoniness goes around you."
Where are Brian Fargo of inXile and Tim Cain from Troika? These guys have and will produce the greatest role-playing games of all time. Fallout? Arcanum? WASTELAND? The Bard's Tale remake? Wtf? Get off your couch and play a real game, young man.
#19845
One would think the developer of the Rollercoaster Tycoon franchise (not to mention the beloved Transport Tycoon Deluxe game)should be somewhere in that list.
Has anyone other than Will Wright made more money than he has with a single franchise?
When Feargus Urquhart and the Black Isle founders aren't even on the list. What about Romero?? Highly questionable...
I find it hard to believe that Tim Sweeney isn't on the list. He and Carmack are both highly regarded as a couple of the top dogs in the engine arena.