The Guardian has a rather interesting interview with known interesting interviewee Jade Raymond, about what to expect of next generation hardware. Like a good churnalist, I'm going to copy-paste large chunks of it. There's the usual evasiveness as to specifics of the machines in question - well, the one we care about anyway - but Raymond's comments about how teams need to staff up to approach new consoles are revealing. In case you didn't know, she's the lady tasked with building out Ubisoft Toronto into a powerhouse that stands comparison with the mighty Ubisoft Montreal, and is presently overseeing development of the formidable Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
"It's effected several different areas, in terms of strategy for our studio," Raymond began. "Telemetry and measuring the way that people are actually playing the game, and having ways to visualise the process and react to those things, is going to be incredibly important for games moving forward.
"Finding people with database experience and people who think about data tracking and data mining, and how to tune those things live... unless you've been running an MMO not very many developers have been thinking about that stuff, but it's going to be key for big budget games."
Naturally, all this is a reflection of that well-documented industry trend towards the notion of games as online services, vast universes of content that are to some degree structured by social interactions between players. Bungie's always-online Destiny is probably the paradigm.
This is paralleled by a shift away from the old upfront cost model towards indirect revenue generation and micro-transaction, schemes that have yet to really prove they can support games as vast and expensive to produce as, say, Blacklist. As a consequence, Raymond thinks developers will need more in the way of economic insight, going forward. "In games where the business model is changing, you need some designers who are cross-trained with finance people so you can model how different game systems will work.
"You now need much more complicated ways of calculating the profitability point for your games. Before, it was a simple calc of, well, I think we'll sell this many boxes, and we make this much profit per box, so the budget for the game can be this much. It's much more complex when you have different systems, you need people who can figure out how to model game design so that you know at what point it will be profitable."
Decent motion and facial capture are additional prerequisites, of mounting importance given the powers of modern screens. "Ubisoft believes that all games will become HD - look at what the latest Samsung phones are capable of: you can plug in a controller and people are playing mobile games on a large screen TV," Raymond observed. "As more games become HD there are lots of interesting things to push in terms of, say, facial animation.
"[Quantic Dream boss] David Cage talks a lot about this. How do we show more emotion in games, how do we take characters to the next level? There's some interesting stuff to do on the narrative side, the realisation of the story ... We have a motion capture facility here in the Toronto studio and it's allowing us to get some great performances. I'd like to invest in some innovation there - now that we have the body, how do we get the facial expressions?"
Developers need dedicated writers, too; the role is no longer something you can hand out to anybody who's got a moment free, as in the grim days of the 1990s. "We need to hire top notch writers, top notch actors, everyone has to be at the top of their game. I mean, not so long ago, the writer on the game could be a programmer who just happened to be able to write.
"Now, we're not just working with people who are homegrown in the games industry, we're working with writers who move back and forth between games and TV, we're all competing for the same people. That's interesting." (Rihanna Pratchett and Alex Garland are two English-speaking authors who are comfortable moving between media.)
Last but not least, Raymond reckons AI will be of more importance than looks in next generation gaming. "That's one of the most exciting uses of bigger processors. It's nice to have a prettier game, but with the extra power you can have more AI characters and greater intelligence.
"If you look at Assassin's Creed, because the main character can go everywhere and the city is full of nav meshes, it took us forever just to get the people on the street to walk normally and not bump into each other or turn in circles! There could be a whole new level to open-world games if the AI archetypes are arranged in new ways.
"Imagine a mafia game that had real social relationships and your way to take down the head of the family could be to take down certain sub-clans or different characters within the social chain, infiltrating from different ways... I love thinking about these things. I'd like to have a game that's totally open in how you complete your objectives."
What do your reckon? Our own interview with Raymond about male fantasies and "grown-up" gaming is worth a read, if you haven't already.
Source: OXM
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Thanks to: Rheena.com
"It's effected several different areas, in terms of strategy for our studio," Raymond began. "Telemetry and measuring the way that people are actually playing the game, and having ways to visualise the process and react to those things, is going to be incredibly important for games moving forward.
"Finding people with database experience and people who think about data tracking and data mining, and how to tune those things live... unless you've been running an MMO not very many developers have been thinking about that stuff, but it's going to be key for big budget games."
Naturally, all this is a reflection of that well-documented industry trend towards the notion of games as online services, vast universes of content that are to some degree structured by social interactions between players. Bungie's always-online Destiny is probably the paradigm.
This is paralleled by a shift away from the old upfront cost model towards indirect revenue generation and micro-transaction, schemes that have yet to really prove they can support games as vast and expensive to produce as, say, Blacklist. As a consequence, Raymond thinks developers will need more in the way of economic insight, going forward. "In games where the business model is changing, you need some designers who are cross-trained with finance people so you can model how different game systems will work.
"You now need much more complicated ways of calculating the profitability point for your games. Before, it was a simple calc of, well, I think we'll sell this many boxes, and we make this much profit per box, so the budget for the game can be this much. It's much more complex when you have different systems, you need people who can figure out how to model game design so that you know at what point it will be profitable."
Decent motion and facial capture are additional prerequisites, of mounting importance given the powers of modern screens. "Ubisoft believes that all games will become HD - look at what the latest Samsung phones are capable of: you can plug in a controller and people are playing mobile games on a large screen TV," Raymond observed. "As more games become HD there are lots of interesting things to push in terms of, say, facial animation.
"[Quantic Dream boss] David Cage talks a lot about this. How do we show more emotion in games, how do we take characters to the next level? There's some interesting stuff to do on the narrative side, the realisation of the story ... We have a motion capture facility here in the Toronto studio and it's allowing us to get some great performances. I'd like to invest in some innovation there - now that we have the body, how do we get the facial expressions?"
Developers need dedicated writers, too; the role is no longer something you can hand out to anybody who's got a moment free, as in the grim days of the 1990s. "We need to hire top notch writers, top notch actors, everyone has to be at the top of their game. I mean, not so long ago, the writer on the game could be a programmer who just happened to be able to write.
"Now, we're not just working with people who are homegrown in the games industry, we're working with writers who move back and forth between games and TV, we're all competing for the same people. That's interesting." (Rihanna Pratchett and Alex Garland are two English-speaking authors who are comfortable moving between media.)
Last but not least, Raymond reckons AI will be of more importance than looks in next generation gaming. "That's one of the most exciting uses of bigger processors. It's nice to have a prettier game, but with the extra power you can have more AI characters and greater intelligence.
"If you look at Assassin's Creed, because the main character can go everywhere and the city is full of nav meshes, it took us forever just to get the people on the street to walk normally and not bump into each other or turn in circles! There could be a whole new level to open-world games if the AI archetypes are arranged in new ways.
"Imagine a mafia game that had real social relationships and your way to take down the head of the family could be to take down certain sub-clans or different characters within the social chain, infiltrating from different ways... I love thinking about these things. I'd like to have a game that's totally open in how you complete your objectives."
What do your reckon? Our own interview with Raymond about male fantasies and "grown-up" gaming is worth a read, if you haven't already.
Source: OXM
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- [SUP]^[/SUP] Source: OXM (www.oxm.co.uk)
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Thanks to: Rheena.com