For my 20% Time is decided to find some information on a game design company called Interactive Games by going to a website called GameDesign.
Interactive Games is a one of a kind company that provides businesses with “winning” online promotions which utilize proven and proprietary game technology. Knowing which form and application a game should take is critical to the success of your online objectives. Interactive Games has measured and tracked hundreds of games and conducted an extensive market research. Their slogan is, “When it comes to fun and games we are very serious!” Basicallly, that all I could find out from that website, which isn’t much but it still works out.
So, for this week’s 20% Time I decided to look up some information on the outlook for video game designers. I came across an interesting website called, Adigitaldreamer, which basically had all the information that I was looking for.
The video game industry is becoming a big business, because if you don’t know, it is a multi-billion dollar industry that has now outgrown many other industries in a very short period of time. Today, video games are not only for young kids, they are for anyone who enjoys playing them. Nowadays, when you walk into a game store, you may see 20-30 year olds checking out the latest versions of video games and new releases.
With recent releases like the Nintendo Wii, XBOX 360, and Playstation 3 the production of games will be much harder and a lot more involved. In order to meet the demand of the next generation experience, video game designer teams producing games has drastically grown in size. So, basically there are loads of opportunities to get into the video game industry due to how much it is blowing up in popularity.
okay, so for my 20% Time this week I decided to look up possible game design opportunites after college working with a company. I came across a website called Gamasutra, which had information on a few different game developing companies which seemed pretty interesting to me.
So one of the game developing companies that interested me was a generally unknown and independant one known as Stray Bullet Games, which is in Austin, TX. Stray Bullet Games is a developer of massively multiplayer online entertainment. Stray Bullets was founded by key developers from Wolfpack Studios, the creators of “Shadowbane”. Stray Bullet Games develops products and services for a massive world-wide customer base with the mission of establishing a new standard in the areas of virtual 3D environments and persistent world gaming.
Another company that i found out about is Sucker Punch Productions which is located in Bellevue, WA. Sucker Punch productions looks for texture artists who can push the limits of their PS3 engine and shader technology. They are looking for artists gifted at creating texture maps and surface shaders that transform gray 3D models into lush game environments and richly detailed characters. That is basically all of the information that was given on Sucker Punch Productions.
So, this week i just decided to look up even more information on Game Design, in general because I doesn’t hurt to know a lot about something. I found some information on a website called, next-gen, which turned out to be a fairly good source on Game Design origins and etc.
Anyways, William Higinbotham built the first video game with an oscilloscope and some analog circuitry about 50 years ago. Today’s blockbusters owe some of their success to design innovations that were made many or few years earlier. New developments and design strategies were actually enhancements to older forms of play. For example: sports, driving, and shooting games go as far back as fairground and coin-operated games. Other games, like turn-based strategy, logic puzzles, and RPGs, started off as being played on the dining room table.
Game Designers have improved the earlier games in many different ways, and the use of computers has allowed them to create new genres that would have been impossible to create without the use of them. Unfortunately for the older designers, the true innovator of a design idea is often forgotten, while a particularly successful later game gets the credit for it. For example, more people remember Pong than remember Ralph Baer’s non-computerized design for the Magnavox Odyssey, even though Baer’s work came before Pong. So that’s just some information I thought would be if not useful, then maybe simply good to know.
For this week’s 20% Time, I chose to look up some information on The Art Institute of California by follwing this link. The location I chose was a campus in Santa Ana, California because it is reletively close to where I live now. The Art Institute of Santa Ana is a great environment for anyone who wants to pursue a career in game design, animation, culinary arts, or media artist and many other career opportunities.
At the Art Instutute of California-Orange County, there are like-minded students who are determined, talented, and excited. Most of the students that attend the Art Institute come straight out of high school or have at least tried different college programs. The thing that draws students into the Art Institute is the lifelong passion that they have for their art and the desire to turn that passion into a career.
This week, I chose to do my 20% Time on the technological war between Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3. When the Xbox 360 first came out there really was no other game console that competed or could even try to compete with the Xbox 360, but when the Playstation 3 finally came out on November 17, 2007, Microsoft’s system had a run for its money. Sony’s starting price for the PS3 was $599.99, which caused it to be somewhat of a failure, sale-wise, because now, it suffered a $300 price drop.
Technology wise, the Playstation 3 game system is way ahead of its time, judging by how an HD televison that will perfectly compliment the system will not be made until about 2012. Obviously, for anyone who has played both systems, the Playstation 3 completely destroys the Xbox 360, both graphics and overall technology-wise. If you would like to find out more information about the technological battle between Sony and Microsoft, then follow the following link: PS3 vs Xbox 360
For my 20% Time this week, I chose to look up information about a specific game design college that has really caught my attention. The college that has caught my attention is Ex’pression, which is a college for digital arts and is located in Emeryville, Ca. Ex’pression offers Bachelor’s degrees in Animation and Visual Effects, Motion Graphic Design, Game Art and Design and Sound Arts. The url for Ex’pression college is http://expression.edu.
At Ex’pression, a student can earn a Bachelor’s degree in as little as 2.5 years and begin to create a one-to-one student-to-computer ratio. It allows hands on learning, as well as 100,000 sq ft of professional grade equipment which is accessable 24/7. At Ex’pression, you can create your career with the support of ongoing career development assistance.
For this weeks 20% Time, I chose to do some research on a game called “Dark Sector”, which hits stores today. After seeing a few television cmmercials about it, I thought it seemed pretty cool. I went to the XBOX website to see if I could find out some info on the game. By following this link, you may see for yourself what the game is about.
The game was developed by Digital Extremes, and published by D3Publisher of America. It is classified as a shooter game and is rated M (mature), due to blood and gore, intense violence, and strong language. It is a one player, third-person action shooter, which also has a multiplayer versus mode. The game is available for the XBOX 360 console for $59.99.
Dark Sector thrusts players into the role of Hayden Tenno, a covert operative sent on a dangerous mission into Lasria, an Eastern European city on the brink of destruction that hides a deadly Cold War secret. During this mission, Hayden is attacked by an unkown enemy and becomes infected by the Technocyte Virus, a brutal bio-weapon that turns its victims into mindless killing machines. Hayden then finds that the Technocyte virus has granted him powerful, inhuman abilities the likes of which he has never seen before. Now, Hayden must evolve with his powers, survive and become a hero. Sounds like a really great concept if you ask me, I’ve definately got to check it out for myself!
For this week’s 20% Time, I thought it would be a good idea to do a little research on the origins of the game design industry. I learned that games originated from a thought of what else a tv could be used for. In 1966, a New Hampshire engineer named Ralph Baer came up with a breakthrough that would bring video games out of the lab and into the living room. With new improvements in computing, by the 1970’s development of video games was made possible. It all started when computer scientist, Nolan Bushnell hired a young engineer named Al Alcorn and gave him an exercise to get his feet wet in game design.
The whole idea was to build a fairly simple video game that was easy to think of. When the game was done, Bushnell and Alcorn called the game Pong and installed the first Pong machine for a trial run at a bar in Sunnyvale, Ca. Then, the coin-op company that brought Space Invaders to America had invaded the space of Atari. Soon after, sales of the Atari VCS console had doubled. Then Japan once again invaded the industry with an even bigger blockbuster: Pacman. So the three games responsible for the birth of gaming were: Pong, Space Invaders, and Pacman.
In class this week, we learned about surface computing and multi touch. Surface computing is when you touch the surface of a screen and your fingers work just like a mouse. Surface computing is good for organizing, resizing, and zooming in and out of photos with great ease. It also allows the share of content from device to device without the use of cables, just simply placing the device over the screen and dragging files or other items into or out of it.
Multi touch is something that has been played around with since the 80’s. With multi touch, a user can use all of his/her fingers at the same time to directly manipulate icons or photos on their computer. An example of multi touch is, that you could be able to enlarge or shrink a picture by just spreading your fingers either together or apart.
Microsoft has a surface computing software, Microsoft Surface, which they said would be available in 2007, but still has yet to be released. After doing further research, I learned that Microsoft won’t release it to the market until Spring 2008. Microsoft Surface is a 30 inch diagnal display table that is easy for individuals or small groups to use collaboratively. It allows people to engage using natural hand gestures, touch and physical objects placed on the surface. Microsoft said that they plan to sell their surface computing software to casinos, hotels, and business markets. For further information on Microsoft Surface or surface computing go to the following link: Microsoft Surface
