Game Matters

Radar announced and new blog

Since my last post, things took a whole new direction and I co-started a new company along with Jim Perkins, Raphael van Lierop and others.  This new company is Radar Group, and I've started a new blog.

A few links:

[Update] Wired.

Announcement coverage of Radar.

My IGN Interview on RadRaph's.

Raph's Gamasutra Interview.

Short summary of Radar:  Radar's primary goal is to facilitate the creation of original IP (intellectual property) for the game industry, because original IP has proven itself to be the driving revenue force for the game industry, which I've discussed many times in this blog's past.  We facilitate the creation of original IP by teaming up with established independent development studios and funding the pre-production of original IP.  We co-design and help shape original IP along with our development partners so that it has all the hooks in place to make the IP viable for cross-media monetization.  This is part of our secret-sauce that makes Radar so unique in the industry, because the vast majority of IP being created in our industry doesn't have the big entertainment picture in mind, creating IP that easily crosses over to other media.

And, because Radar's original IP is built from the ground up with cross-media hooks, we have established a partnership with Depth Entertainment, a new Hollywood-based production studio, to handle the Hollywood end of the business for us.  Depth's first film production, Max Payne, is already deep into filming, and is due out late this year.

Unlike most publishers, Radar will share ownership with development studios on original IP.  Creators should be owners.  This is our firm belief, because owners have the greatest creative passion for their work, and also reap the greatest rewards from a successful product.  Fact: There are not many creatively independent Epic's, Valve's, Remedy's and Id's in our industry.  Radar will change this in the next few years.  I personally had a hand in both Remedy's and Id's rise to creative independence, as well that of 3D Realms.  So, it's not much of a stretch to believe that Radar will take this to a whole new level by working with 10-12 new studios over the next few years.

So, wish us luck and keep an eye on us.  If we succeed, I believe there will be numerous other attempts at our model, and for the industry and gamers as a whole, this will be a big win.

Can you hear me now?

Our phone service is hosed. Here's a message our COO just sent to all employees, which was kinda funny so what the hey:

"It appears a work order for installation of a new circuit has caused confusion with the brainless phone company who has apparently cut service on the old circuit thinking the new circuit was going to replace it. It's not. You might have noticed the orange markings in front of the building. Those indicate the line run for the new circuit to be installed. This isn't the first time Verizon has screwed the pooch, and I don't expect it to be the last. They own the lines in the area so we have no choice but to continue to deal with their occasional incompetence."

While I'm here, in other news, quite a few studios have contacted me about a potential co-venture. I'm not actually looking to ramp up to 4 or so studios all at once, but over the next year. It takes about three months to ramp up with just one studio, fleshing out the game concept, etc. And right now I have one rock solid new studio I'm working with, and I'm meeting with another super-star candidate in a few days. Things are cookin'! I will say that I'm a little blown away by how many studios have, in fact, contacted me (and many I've yet to respond to). It's very clear that there are a boatload of talented, experienced independents looking for a fair shot at making a triple-A original game.

Casting a wider net

A relatively slow weekend, and a chance for a rapid fire update.

Real quick, some good news: Prey is a success. We know that within the first two months it passed one million units sold worldwide.  And for a game on two platforms that's pretty darn good. There will be a sequel, and we think we have a interesting follow-up story to tell and some all-new innovations to bring new excitement to the table.

I recorded a Next Generation Podcast last Tuesday (Episode 6) and discussed a few topics.  Interestingly, this podcast was recorded using Skype, with everyone on a conference call.  This was my first experience with Skype and I have to say it was super easy to install and set-up, something I rarely experience even with games. The clarity was as good as a land line, and I've even used it to make international calls and it works BETTER than land lines.  Skype for life!

In the podcast I give a reason or two why episodic content may have problems catching on, at least with major releases like Sin: Episodes, and the confusingly named Half-Life 2: Episode 1. One reason I didn't mention is that with episodic games there's frustration because you hardly ever come to a satisfying end -- instead they end with a cliffhanger so that you feel compelled to get the next episode 10-12 months later.  Cliffhangers are fine with weekly TV shows, but it's really annoying with once per year releases.  I think these studios will soon realize that they'll make a much bigger splash going back to major full-game releases.  I bet we'll never see an episodic release win Game of the Year, for example.

I also talk about our new business strategy of working with multiple independent studios simultaneously.  This has been something I've considered for a few years, but I wanted to wait until after Prey's release to purposely pursue.  We did this during the first half of the 90's, as Apogee Software, when we pioneered the shareware distribution model of releasing games as episodic trilogies (a vastly different episodic model than the one I refer to above).  Back then we worked with numerous external studios, giving many of them their start with funding, design guidance and marketing guidance, including Id Software, Terminal Reality, Remedy and one few people know about, Parallax Software, makers of Descent.  This was a game we significantly funded ($200,000+), but the team's funding requirements continued to rise over the months to a point when we decided that we no longer could afford to be involved, in large part because at this same time we had decided to build up an internal development operation.  We made a deal with Parallax to shop their game around, and they eventually signed with Interplay, who released the game a year later, and was one of their most successful titles ever.

Anyway, we are often contacted by talented, experienced independent studios looking to partner with us as we've done with past studios.  It has become apparent to many studios that partnering with us allows them to create an original game, and reap far more of the rewards and benefits, by getting a better overall deal, and also sharing in the ownership of the IP -- the real Holy Grail in this industry.  Id went on to become an industry super star.  Remedy has achieved that status, and Human Head is right at that level, too, with publishers knocking down their doors to sign them after Prey's release.

So, going forward, 3D Realms will become a studio polygamist, teaming up with more than one studio, working on perhaps 4-6 external projects simultaneously, creating new IPs and hopefully helping more and more deserving, talented independent studios achieve financial independence, and the ability to call their their own creative shots in the future.  I am hiring one or two additional IP Creative Directors to assist me in the management of these games.  We've already been contacted by numerous highly qualified independent studios, and more are welcome to contact me.  In a way, we're going back to our roots.  Fun times ahead!

AOL is the devil and other true stories

o  Why does any sane person use AOL?  It's one of the greatest unsolved human mysteries, to be sure.  And there's nothing worse that buying a computer that has AOL pre-installed.  It's like a cancerous disease you cannot fully excise -- with tendrils so deeply rooted that all efforts to remove it will be unsatisfactory.  I truly feel sorry for anyone stuck with AOL on their system -- the only true cure is a new computer, but be careful, it is really, really hard to cancel your subscription, as this story indicates.  And more reason to hate the AOL devil.

o  E3's demise.  Well, the majority cry among game developers is, "Thank goodness!"  I'm in that camp, too.  E3 had become somewhat pointless to its main purpose...previewing upcoming games to major retailers and distributors, in order to generate bigger orders (especially for Christmas).  E3 had become too loud, too expensive, too crowded, too overrun with "press" from little fanboi websites that don't matter to anyone's bottom-line (boy will I take heat for this comment! *grin*), and too irrelevant to anyone's bottom-line success (or failure).  The fact is that in a broadband world, video killed the convention.

The only thing we lose with a mini-E3 is all the big-time prime-time news coverage.  E3 made our industry look a lot bigger than we really were.  The fact that this was a lie cannot be disputed, if only because E3 could not sustain itself.  The bubble popped.

o Saw The Descent. Maybe the best pure fright movie I've seen since Alien.  Also, one of the very, very, very few movies I've ever seen that is ripe to be made into a video game.  I won't go into details, but those who've seen it are probably shaking their heads in agreement.  BTW, be sure to go to YouTube to see the real ending, not the watered down American sell-out shortened ending.

o Elsewhere, I made a few comments about conceiving a new IP, which I'll repost here since this blog space has been sorely lacking material of late and so cannibalizing myself is the least I can do:

Silver bullet design -- searching for a single element that will lead to success -- is not often successful.  Even bullet-time, in the wrong setting, with the wrong character, etc, would have done far worse.  Bullet-time worked because it was within a John Woo-style story that made you care about the character, with modern day weapons.  Bullet-time would have been less appropriate in a WW2 game, or a western game (like Gun).

Duke and Prey are prime examples of synergy, rather than silver bullets.  Each of these games had many little innovations, and within contextually appropriate stories and settings.

Anyway, it's hard to think of what comes first.  With Prey, it was the character (chosen for uniqueness), then the abduction setting was chosen because it wasn't typical for the character type (and provided easy conflict), then the character type led to the character's special abilities based on his Cherokee mythology, and then the alien environment led to gravity and portal effects, both of which make sense within the alien setting.  So, it's like a tower that builds up into something solid.

The gameplay hook, more than anything, comes closest to the silver bullet.  But, the gameplay hook needs to tie into the character and/or story and/or setting in a natural way that stays credible.  If the gameplay hook comes first, these other things need to wrap around it seamlessly.  If the story/character comes first, then the gameplay hook should emerge from this foundation and not feel like an after thought.  For example, if your original character idea is that a teenager is bitten by a radioactive spider, then bullet-time isn't a natural gameplay hook.  But wall climbing and web spinning are.

When we selected a Native American as a lead character in Prey, we didn't know jack about this culture.  We just knew that it was a ripe-for-the-picking area to explore because no game had done it before, and positioning has taught us that it's best to do something first if at all possible (Prey was conceived prior to the first Turok game).  When Prey was rebooted in late 2001, the first thing I did was spend $400 on Amazon buying a dozen books on Cherokee culture and mythology.  This is where the companion hawk came from, for example, because Red Tail Hawks play a key role in Native American lore, as protectors and messengers -- exactly the role that the hawk plays in the game.  The hawk also helped convey the game's story and mythology.

IMO, it's almost impossible to formulate a compelling IP on demand.  Instead, it must come to you, piece-by-piece, over time, as your brain chews on it as a background process over many months or even years.  You will enjoy several a-ha moments along the way if the original concept had merit.  Just yesterday, for example, I had an a-ha moment for Prey 2 that might be a significant story feature for the game -- something never seen in an FPS before, but could be extremely cool if well executed.  Many movies have used this technique, but no game as of yet.  And it will be something that's an easy sell for the press, and totally fits Prey's theme.

The main point is that I never could have forced this idea to the surface.  It is only through exposure to other media and sources that it occurred to me.

The REAL secret to WoW's success?

I haven't played since hitting level 60, over a year ago.  But I'm certainly anticipating The Burning Crusade, simply because it raises the level cap to 70.  I'm expecting those new ten levels will take 80+ hours or longer of actual quest time.  I hope so at least.  Because once I slam into 70, I will deactivate my account, putting my character into cryogenic sleep again until the level cap is raised again.

There's one overriding reason I played WoW, while I never played previous MMOs:  I could solo all the way to the top.  Not once did I group to enter an instance.  Occasionally I grouped with players in the same area doing the same quest, and occasionally with a friend to share a quest, but 95 percent of my experience was as a solo player.  And that's how I prefer it.  I like to be able to jump into the game and play without waiting to form a group, getting right down to the business of fun.

People might ask, why not just stick with single-player games then, like Oblivion or Titan Quest?  Why bother with MMOs?  Simple answer:  I love being in a game world populated by other real people.  It makes the world seem that much more real and alive.

I've heard that WoW is the first major MMO that lets players solo from bottom to top.  I asked this question to peers before I bought the game, and I was assured I could do it.  Otherwise, I would have never played the game.  I strongly suspect that many people feel the same way I do about this.

So, if you're working on an MMO that does not allow soloing the whole way up the level ladder, IMO you've seriously crippled your chance to create a WoW-like success in this market.  MMOs are social games, yes, but not necessarily are they for people who like group play.

Activision's CEO needs a surfboard

"The idea of full downloadable games is so far in the future that it's almost incomprehensible as an opportunity," said Bobby Kotick, chief executive of Activision. -- The New York Times

Short discussion: Wrong!

Longer discussion:  Kotick apparently does not know of newer streaming technologies that allow for large games to be played well before fully transferred to the user's platform.  This is the single technology breakthrough that makes large game downloads a viable option for gamers.

And once players, press and CEOs like Kotick experience this technology, they will all wake up to the fact that digital delivery is on the verge of an explosive acceleration of acceptance, much as CD-ROMs exploded in popularity a dozen years ago.

Valve's Steam, as an example, is NOT representative of the next generation of digital distribution that will change the way software is sold and delivered.  A much better example is Triton, the digital deliver service that Prey will use.  When player's buy Prey from Triton, they need to only download around 20 percent of the game before they can begin playing the game.  This takes about 20-25 minutes or so, a very reasonable period to wait before playing a content heavy, triple-A title.

Digital delivery simply has too many advantages for publishers to ignore:

o Immediate revenue stream.  No more waiting to be paid by the retailers, who make money on the float, the period of time they have the publisher's money sitting in their accounts earning interest, at the publisher's expense.

o Higher wholesale.  This means that the publisher makes more money per game sold, because digital delivery is inherently less expensive because there are no cost-of-goods (no game box and manual).

o No chance of rentals (until the publisher decides it's okay, like after a three month window).

o No chance of resells, an after-market that is killing publishers and developers alike.

o Less chance of piracy.

There are other advantages, too, but I'll save those for discussion after Prey is released via Triton, that way I can point them out specifically using a real world example.

The bottom-line, though, is that publisher CEOs like Kotick, who are likely unaware of the advanced state of coming next-generation digital delivery services like Triton, are about to be blind-sided by a wave that will either sweep them aside--or more likely they will whip out their surfboards and join our industry's Next Big Thing.

Best E3 IP

Various online game sites are coming out with their Best of E3 round-ups, and I just finished reading IGN's, where Prey was nominated in two categories, Best FPS and Most Innovative Design (rightfully losing to the Wiimote).  Not bad, especially since we only showed the weakest facet of the game, multiplayer.  But, this is not to point of this little rant.

One thing I noticed -- it was hard not to! -- is that practically every category winner was an original IP.  Not including sports categories, there was just one licensed game that won a major category: Age of Conan won "Best Persistent World Game" (with the other nominations being original titles).  Real quick, a clarification on what I mean by "original game": A game representation an IP (or brand) that was first developed for the video game market.

Looking at the other major categories, we see that IGN gave "Best Action Game" to Assassin's Creed (both runner-ups were also originals).  In the "Best FPS" category, all nominations, and of course the winner therefore, were originals.  Same for these categories: "Best Adventure Game," "Best Platformer," and "Best Puzzle Game." "Best Multiplayer Game" went to Gears of War, an original IP (although indistinguishable from Unreal universe, but hey, we can ignore this as Unreal is also original).  "Best RPG" is owned by Bioshock (original) and the runner-up went to another original IP, Mass Effect.  "Technical Excellence" meet Spore.  "Best Music Game," hello Guitar Hero 2.  And whaddaya know, "Game of the Show," say hello, Bioshock.  Oh, with the three runner-ups all being original too, Mass Effect, Super Mario Galaxy, and Spore.

Gee, where's all the licensed games that are suppose to "rock our world" like an Infogrames promotional song?  Whomever signed the go ahead for Lord of the Rings Online surely thought they had signed pure gold, no?  I mean, those movies were bigger than big, and so just Like The Matrix Online, LOTR Online is a sure bet.  Right?

And then the most read book since the Bible, the Da Vinci Code, with its own movie timed perfectly with the game's release, and yet the game is no where to be seen.  What's up with that?

Star Trek Legacy anyone?  Anywhere?  Scotty, can you hear me?  Oh, and what about Scarface, with one of the most elaborate theater set-ups at E3.  Seriously.  They made you climb stairs to see the demo, just like the stairs in the film.  How cool is that!  Not cool enough to get anyone to care about this game, apparently.

Nope, at E3, the buzz was always about original games, like Supreme Commander, Stranglehold, Lost Planet, Crysis, Redsteel, Company of Heroes, Splinter Cell, Dead Rising, Zelda, the WoW expansion, Quake Wars, and all of those IGN award winners and nominees.

Is it any wonder that publishers are all making announcements that they're shifting focus a little more toward original IPs.  Sure, they're a little slow at catching on to trends that have been stunningly obvious for 10+ years, but I still give them a little credit...better later than never.  The problem now is that they won't shift enough in the direction of original IP -- their mix should never be more than 20% licenses (not including sports and kids licenses).  But, I get the impression they will still rely far too much on Hollywood to supply them with ideas because, let's face it, it's easier to license ideas than to spawn a creative thought on your own.

Brand new brands & E3 '06

Just back from E3.  While I was gone The Hollywood Reporter ran this interview with me, where I discuss why our industry would be better off making original brands, versus turning to licenses so darn often, as if we do not have a creative mind of our own.

In the interview I was asked:

THR: What about "King Kong?" That did well as both a movie and game.

Miller: If you release a licensed game when the movie comes out, you'll probably do okay because you have that synergy working for you. That's why the "Enter The Matrix" game worked even though it was rated really low by the game reviewers. But when you do that, you can run into other problems because you're trying to rush the game out which usually results in a lower-quality game. UbiSoft really pulled off a miracle with "King Kong" and made a decent game around it. But those are few and far between.

I didn't add that if it weren't for the synergistic release with the mega-anticipated movie, I wouldn't have bothered with the Kong license.  And I would not expect further Kong games to do well.  (And yeah, Kong is dead, but if the license had inherent value to the game industry, you could easily have Son of Kong or whatever.)

While here, E3 thoughts.  Here's what I wrote in another forum:

Supreme Commander looked sweet.  Might be the game that gets me RTS'n again.

Saw the trailer for Resistance: Fall of Man (typical dumb name, like Halo: Combat Evolved) and I love the idea, and the brief look of the game I saw.  Hard to believe this is coming from Insomniac.

Saw the Turok demo, and WTF?  It was a 3 minute slide show!  Doesn't even star a Native American -- they've gone the nameless soldier route.  Guaranteed failure.

Overall impressions.  There are a LOT of games that I would not have green-lit.  A lot of followers, rather that leaders out there.  A lot of clueless publishers thinking their little me-too game with a few changes here and there are going to carry the day.  Um... no.  Money down the drain.  And way too many fantasy MMOs with interfaces that pretty much clone WoW's!

Eidos is one big failure of a publisher.  Saw several of their lackluster games at the Nvidia booth, and they all looked last generation.  The generically named Rouge Trooper is a big loser.  Tomb Raider looked like a big pile of meh (yeah, I know it's been out, but been too busy to see it).  And Hitman needs to be "Quickly Executed," because no one cares.  The Eidos games were being played by Eidos reps only, as the world walked by.  Oh how far Lara has fallen.  And deservedly so given the lack of innovation.

Bioshock looks beautiful, but a little too slow paced for my liking.  I'm sure it'll be a System Shock sized hit, though.  Which is basically a mild hit, not a mega-hit.

Good grief the Japanese can't name a game to save their lives.  Everything comes right out of the Official Manual of Generic Fantasy Words Names, like Dynasty, Final, Shadow, Dark, Legend, Sword, on and on and endlessly on.  They're not the only game name lamers -- there are so many poorly named games at the show I laughed out loud more than a few times.

Didn't see Gears of War, but heard good things.  Overall, was not an impressive E3 as far as finding unknown nuggets.  All the top candidates going in emerged unscathed by surprises.

Oh, and heard a LOT of negative comments about the Wii controller from developers who messed with it.  Be very worried, Nintendo.  Didn't get to see it myself because I didn't have 2+ hours to wait in line.  What a dumb way to run a booth, meanwhile the open booths of Sony and Microsoft I explored fully.

How important are independents?

Good friend, Binu Philip, co-Founder & Biz Guy of Austin's Edge of Reality, kindly gave me permission to post a talk he gave at the South by Southwest conference (SXSW) last month.  I really liked his message, and so I present it here in full.  And sorry, you'll have to use your imagination on the engine demo he gave, but trust me, it is amazing jaw-dropping next-gen tech.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Future of Independent Game Studios

We are in year one of a platform transition. As with every transition, we face a myriad of serious issues. Rising development costs, higher production values, unfriendly publishing contracts, recruiting shortages, all make tough challenges for independent studios. What is the rightful place in the game industry for independents? Who in their right mind would want to be an independent?

As Gimli said in Lord of the Rings: “Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?!” I sometimes wonder if this is the motto for independent studios these days.

Let’s start our talk with a one minute tech demo that was captured completely in our proprietary engine.

<<<cue video>>>

Our studio has been in business for 8 years now, and in that time, we’ve shipped 8 games resulting in many millions of units sold. We built our company gradually taking on small projects, executing them, and them moving on to larger and larger projects.

In order to have a discussion about the future of independent game studios, we must first have a discussion about intellectual property. Specifically licenses versus original intellectual property.

Licenses have played a large role in the growth of the industry. Licenses fill a need by consumers to play a game based on content they are familiar with and want.

The downside of licenses is that they are not as creatively fulfilling to make as original game content. Some large licenses have declined in sales and popularity in the gaming world such as Harry Potter. It is rare to find intellectual property that maintains strong popularity across various media such as film, games, tv, books, and comics.

Coming up with new properties is a necessity for our industry to thrive. The industry needs new intellectual property that is aimed at the gaming market first, not at films first. Translating a game from a film means that the developer is often tied into design decisions that limit gameplay in order to be true to the movie fiction. Games should be made with gameplay in mind first.

One major problem is that publishers are typically run by green light committees made up of a variety of people with different back grounds. Unfortunately, most green light committees are dominated by people who don’t have recent development experience. They are set up to minimize risk for the publisher, and this is the antithesis of innovation. You can’t create original game franchises without taking substantial risks. It often seems that green light committees operate like a driver trying to drive forward by concentrating on the rear view mirror.

Most publishers look to reduce risk by creating copy cat products by letting TRST dictate what they should make. Creating something new and compelling is extremely difficult, and exponentially more difficult when you must convince a large group of people at every step along the way.

I believe that today’s greenlight committees are well set up to handle licenses and established franchises, but they have a much tougher time gauging new original properties.

Creating new intellectual property requires a lot of patience and trial and error. This is difficult to do when most publishers have extreme pressure to perform on a year to year or even quarter to quarter basis for stockholders. One of the major new IP’s launched by a publisher recently had only 24 months of development time. We are already 24 months into the development of our original game, I could not imagine being forced to ship it so soon.

There are a finite amount of licenses that are worth having. Licenses often carry short development cycles which results in shoddy quality and lots of overtime for the team which leads to burning out good talent. Licensing costs are also going up as license holders become savvier about the economics of the video game business. Licenses may carry more predictable sales, but margins on licensed games will continue to be squeezed.

Owning a stable of original franchises should be a priority for publishers because it gives them greater control over their profits and their destiny.

The real value of an independent developer in today’s video game industry is in its ability to create compelling original content. Independent developers don’t have to answer to the stock market or to green light committees during the process of making an original game. By independent developers, I am really talking about veteran studios that have been in business for a while and can afford to self fund a significant portion of a game.

The risk of creating original properties is better suited for independent studios for a variety of reasons. Independent studios by nature have to be better than internal studios in order to stay in business. If an independent puts out one too many duds, the studio will fold. If an internal studio at a publisher puts out a dud, there are still other products in the publisher’s portfolio that can make money. Most internal studios do not offer royalty plans for their developers. This is a disincentive to developers who really want to work hard in a creative field and enjoy the fruits of their labor. Why try as hard as you can if you know that you won’t earn royalties and you will likely not get fired if your game fails? Internal studios have much less natural selection than independent studios.

The natural selection process at independent studios is much more fluid. If an area of a game isn’t shaping up as expected, we will work with the person responsible for that section, and if necessary, replace them. Independent studios have to perform.

Studios that are acquired often lose their identity and branding. This is a huge psychological disappointment to the developers within that studio because they are being assimilated into a larger parent company instead of being part of a cutting edge small independent studio. Instead of focusing on making great games, internal studios generally have a large amount of politics and red tape to deal with because they do not control their destiny.

Independent studios generally have smaller teams. With smaller teams comes better communication and greater clarity of vision and focus. Team members feel much more ownership of their portion of the game. Smaller studios have more freedom to do research and innovate b/c they don’t have to ask permission from a corporate parent. Larger internal teams have hellish communication problems. They are also at the mercy of the whims of upper management which is usually off site and often not in a position to make the best decisions about a particular project. Internal studios are often required to use shared engine technology between the various internal studios. This rarely works out well because no one engine is ideal for every type of game you can make.

In my opinion, established independent studios are extremely important to the future of the industry. It takes time to build a quality independent studio. You need to work out your processes and grow slowly. Hopefully the games you ship earn you royalties and you can save enough to fund your own title. Another route is to try to get an investor. The problem with this is that investors are always looking for an exit strategy and a return on investment in a timely manner. They aren’t necessarily interested in creating high quality IP’s if it means patience, trial and error.

You should be proud that Texas is a hotbed of independent development. Companies such as ours, id, 3D Realms, Ritual and Gearbox are all contributing to the industry by creating original franchises and maintaining the creativity and freedom that comes with independence.

Thank you for your time. Enjoy the rest of the show!

The big crunch

I'm not talking about a certain unhealthy sugary cereal with a ship's stumpy captain as a mascot...I'm talking about the 14 hour days developers put in near a project's end to shine-up our games before that inevitable looming date when we must hand over the gold master to our publisher.  Even us "when-it's-done" studios have such dates -- we just do not make them public until the very end.  It's impossible to avoid deadline dates nowadays, because there's so much coordinated pre-planning and marketing that must be created and purchased (magazine ads, banners, marketing events, etc.) in order to maximize the anticipation and awareness of your game's release.

Testing of the game is non-stop.  And there's always a rush to improve last second elements and add in last second ideas that might have a significant impact.  It's during this final race to the finish that a game takes leaps and bounds every week, with every new build, as it all comes flying together like an exploding jigsaw puzzle played in reverse.  There are two phases I love most about game development, the beginning conceptual phase, where the direction is set, characters created, gameplay hooks devised, and then the last few months, when it all comes together and you finally see the results of years of hardcore effort.

We will soon release a three minute trailer of Prey.  I'll post the details of where the trailer will debut as soon as I know.  We're working with a major game site for the debut.  We took a little bit of a different direction with this trailer, and I'm curious to see reactions.  The trailer opens with live action footage, to help ground the character.  A lot of people who've seen the trailer don't like this aspect of it, but I think it works well.  In a few days, we'll all see how it pans out, reaction-wise.

All questions and comments relating to the trailer are welcome here.