Cant.... stop..... listenin!

http://gizmodo.com/5343862/8+bit-trip-might-just-be-one-of-the-greatest-lego-music-videos-ever-created

Its been a while since last time i posted something on this blog, Ive been back home for a while (thats no excuse i know)

Meanwhile i gather up my thoughts ive posted this link, its pretty much the best thing ever done with legos and its a tribute to games, pretty pretty awesome!

Personal Project Blog

Me and a group of crazy folks from abertay Uni are involved in a small Personal Project Over the summer. We are making a game!!!

Its called Calamity and you can keep up with the team`s progress thanks to our team blog.

http://closedeyegames.blogspot.com/

Happy Birthday Tetris

Happy Birthday Tetris!!!25 years ago Alexey Pazitnov created one of the most popular games ever.

I loved tetris, it's one of the first games I played on my GameBoy therefore I feel like I should dedicate to it a little bit of space on my blog.

Can we really blame games when bad things happen?

This is a common scene of violence in games, people that like this kind of game buy it and decide to view this.

This however is what mankind is really capable of and it is what Ch4 decided to show millions of people.




I haven’t posted anything for a while, I was busy with coursework deadlines but now I have plenty of time to dedicate to this blog, my personal project and obviously trying to get a placement or a summer job.

Recently I have been talking with friends about violence in games, and more specifically, about how the media seem to blame games for the actions of all those psychopaths that go around killing people in schools or generally places where normal people should feel safe.

I know I am a little bit biased being a Game Production Management student. For that exact reason I won’t write a really long post on how games do not inspire violence etc... I am just a GPM student, not an expert in sociology, psychology or in any kind of behavioural science. I can’t prove that what I think is right, and probably neither can most of the journalists and reporters that condemn games on national TV and newspapers.

However during a trip to Glasgow with some of my personal project team mates, we discussed the difference between the violence in games and real violence.
Ryan, who by the way is a very talented artist, (if you don’t believe me visit http://loakers.blogspot.com), pointed out that it is quite disturbing that people seem to think that the violence in games is so bad and nasty and makes you want to kill other people.

If you think about it violence in games is an exaggeration of reality, it’s FAKE, it is made up, no one is harmed when I shoot down a Nazi soldier or I run over a pedestrian in Liberty city. When I say it is an exaggeration of reality I really mean it, and that is the sad thing.
If you think about it even more, the news reports about war, murders and the shocking images of brutal violence around the world is REAL. Yet, games are blamed when a total idiot with mental issues breaks into a school and kills everyone.

The truth is, nowhere in a game I have ever played, and I have played some violent games, it says go and kill real people, there is no subtle message either that states go and kill all your class mates.
Even when you play GTA, if you have a little bit of commonsense and even if you are a stupid teenager that has been brought up with the slightest hint of moral education, you can understand that killing people is wrong!

Personally, I don’t think violence in games is bad. I know it is fake, I don’t find it disturbing and it doesn’t make me feel like I want to kill someone. What I find disturbing are the news reports. I think the violence the real world is capable of is really disturbing, and how much detail is given by the news about it.
I am scared about what real people do, even if it is in faraway places like Israel, Darfur, in many conflicts in Africa, all the murderers that keep coming up with new ways of slaughtering someone.
And that is all true, it is real, real people die and they don’t re-spawn 5 seconds later!

Unfortunately we do live in a violent world, we always have. I chose to show that horrifying picture at the beginning of this blog because I think that mankind doesn’t need any help...or inspiration from games to be brutally violent so, next time someone decides to kill all his or her classmates we should blame their upbringing, their education, their mental illness or simply the fact that they are humans and some are just more fucked up than most of us.

Ciao for now

ActiMe Postmortem

ActiMe is a large concept which is being developed by Lazy Productions (BBC Rapid Prototype Team2). The Prototype of ActiMe is the result of an evolution of the demands proposed by the BBC client.

The main idea behind this game is to create a product that would avoid the stereotype of a lazy game bringing into play active game play and a social network that could be re-skinned based on up and coming sport events.

The client initially requested a product that would look forward to the 2012 Olympics with an aim to build content that is an antidote to the couch potato, stating clear purposes:

To develop applications/ideas which allow children to interact with content in an active, healthy way.

To encourage children to merge real world activity/sports with elements of gaming.

To use technology in an innovative way and in a way which promotes exercise.

Following the first Brainstorming session there were further requests and feedback from the BBC which, while encouraging us to progress with the development of the prototype, were at times contradictory to the initial brief:

Think more about the entertainment value of the product – keep it fun and create a fantasy world with the avatar; think of the experience of dance-mats, very active experience but essentially about fun, not sport.

Use real-life data but translating that into something more fantastic, e.g. 200 real steps = super moves/flying, rather than 200 real steps = 200 avatar steps.

Develop the idea of avatars being used in active, web-cam based games, particularly multi-player.

Less worthy, more entertaining and subtly healthy.

Portable Avatars (Bluetooth, Usb, Mobile Phones)

Due to copyright issues think less about Olympic theme and more about how to make it reskinnable or more fantastic.

What went right:

First of all during the 8 weeks available to complete the project, we were able to create an amazing team. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the experience, and that is probably the reason why all the team members were committed to the project from day one.
I didn’t need to put too much effort into building consensus: the artists, the sound engineer and the programmers were very passionate about taking part in this project and developing ActiMe.

Lazy Productions successfully produced a demo of one of the many features included in the original concept.
As a matter of fact, the pillow fight game demo satisfied most of the client’s demands.
We developed new technology like the scream control system and improved existing ones like the Wii mote controls and the webcam control system, all for the sole purpose of making game play fun and active.

The project was completed on time and without having to recur to crunch time, mainly due to the fact that the design documentation was clear and the project was well scheduled by me and the other GPM student on the team.
Good planning and well structured design documents made sure that the team understood their tasks well.

The Team reacted well to the frequent changes of demands issued by the client. As mentioned earlier, they were very passionate and the worked hard no matter how much the project changed aim and focus, even following the pre-production phase.
Communication was never an issue, the team behaved very responsibly and they hardly ever missed meetings, which made the project development a whole lot easier.

What went wrong:

From the beginning we had issues with a programmer. He eventually dropped out of the project and this caused a bit of a problem as we were left without a coder.
However, we were able to find enormous help from the BBC coder Anthony McKale, who was able to tackle the programming issues and delivered the code in time.
If he had not been available though, there might have been some delays in delivering ActiMe to the client.

Lack of time made it impossible to include all the features from the original concept in the prototype. As much as we would have liked to continue working on ActiMe, BBC Prototype provided us with other briefs and we had to stop any further development.

We originally planned on having 4 locations, but unfortunately there was not much time left at the end of the semester. For this reason we decided not to go through crunch time as exams and assignments were near.

Misunderstandings...

I don’t think I explained myself well.

My first post was somehow misunderstood, especially by my Italian friends! I was accused of slagging off Italy and the Italian games industry.
Quite the opposite, my intentions were to raise the issue and make sure someone was talking about the current situation.

The few existing Italian developers are talented and they are doing a great job trying to let people understand that the games industry is now a serious thing, and not just a bunch of geeks programming in some dark smelly room.

There are quite a few companies that develop mobile phone games and casual on line games, which have become very popular over the last few years, especially thanks to steam, PSN and Xbox Live.
Milan based Black Bean Games are definitely doing a great job, releasing games constantly on various platforms.

The reason I was criticising the games industry in Italy, is that people struggle to understand the potential of the games industry (is it still just potential? Games sales beat the movie industry last year) and there are not many investors and the Italian media still goes on and on about how games make you kill people.(what the hell?)

Getting in the games industry is hard enough already. I was doing some research and I found out that while British developers seem to show interest in hiring new talent and offering summer placements, Italian games companies barely have a jobs section on their websites.

However, while I was surfing the net for information on student placements and jobs, I was happy to find out that in April 2009, following the 2008 first ever Italian Games Developer Conference, there was a second IVDC, I read a few articles and a few blogs (unfortunately it didn’t receive much media coverage).
There was a massive improvement. First of all, people actually turned up to the various presentations, secondly, the people that turned up were able to view good presentations rather than endless arguments between the various developers (that’s what happened the year before, apparently)
I can’t wait to attend IVDC 2010, hopefully I will convince some of my classmates to come along.

So, things are starting to change for the better, there are still many faults, but they are not impossible to correct. Hopefully this time I won’t be misunderstood, the reason why I write about this on my blog is because I would like to get a job in the industry, and if I had the opportunity and the right environment I would like to do that back home but, currently, it seems like, compared to the Italian industry, the UK games industry has a lot more to offer to an Italian Games Production Management student.

Game Production Management group on facebook!!!

Hello everyone, I would like to inform you that I have created a GPM group on facebook.

Please join, even if you are not in a gpm course, as we are always looking for people to collaborate on our projects.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=83039612174&ref=nf

Games and Italy, is it like pizza and the UK?

My first proper post is about something I keep asking myself and I still can’t find a decent answer: “Why are Italians so, pardon my French, shit at making games?”

I am an Italian student, I study Games Production Management at Abertay University in Dundee, I love games, and the fact that my country seems to be unable to develop videogames really annoys me.

An ISFE (Interactive Software Federation of Europe) 2007 report states that Italy is the 5th leading market in the EU, with sales reaching 0.6 blillion euros, far away from the 2.3 billion euros reached in the UK software sales. However there are no popular companies in Italy, there are no developers who have released important titles yet there are loads of creative people that come from Italy and simply do not have the opportunities to use the creativity and the skills they have.

Italy, Spain and Greece are always battling with each other trying to avoid being the worst country in Europe at doing things, be it avoiding being worst at driving, knowing how to speak English, handling their own economy, public transport, pretty much everything you can thing of except for good food and sunshine. The games industry, and the IT industry in general is one of the various fields where Italy seems to be completely uninterested in being bad at it.

There are many causes and reasons for this, or maybe we are just too distracted making food and being sleazy in the Mediterranean sunshine, maybe that is why the UK is one of the world leaders in games development and where it is almost impossible to eat a barely decent pizza.
One of the main reasons why Italy is so bad at making games is that there are no big or popular game developers.

There is a massive, huge, enormous lack of Italian developers: the few companies that are located in Milan are small, and they mainly make licensed racing games, and the quality of such games is poor, and there are only a few big names like Ubisoft which by the way are only there because of technical support and they are not actually developing anything... there are a few ands, I know, but that is the frustrating thing!

Amongst the other reasons is the fact that any kind of media production is exploited by the politicians as a way of gathering votes for the next election, and that happens almost once a year because of the silly way Italian politics are run.

Italy simply has no videogame culture, games are considered a toy for children, rather than an entertainment device for any kind of age, it seems like Italian economy and businessmen ignore the fact that the games industry makes more money than the film industry!

Things are getting better though, in 2008 there was the first ever Italian Videogame Developers conference, it wasn’t an enormous success but at least someone is starting to understand that games are not just something for kids.

I know you will be thinking why does it annoy you so much? Mostly because I hate the fact that there are so many talented people in Italy that are forced to move away from home simply because my country is not able to provide a decent chance to shine and create their own career. And this includes any field or subject or industry, I am lucky, because I like Scotland and dislike my hometown, but at least the italians that live in scotland are not impressed by its weather or food traditions!

However , what really makes me angry and frustrated is that there is not enough effort put into the development of young talent and in new technologies (relatively new, since the games industry has been around for quite a while now) and I simply can’t understand why...
Italy is part of the EU and the UK, at one point or another, will join the European monetary system, countries like Italy, Spain, Greece etc shape the European economy, it is simply not fair to have countries dragging along especially in these times where everyone keeps talking about the way we are all going to run out of money!

I will stop complaining now, it is not my intention to denigrate Italy or the Games Industry in my country, I just want to raise the issue, and see what others think about it, maybe one day someone will do something about it...maybe one I will be in a position to do something about it!

Cheerio for now, or Ciao if you wish!

Daniele

first post

Hello everyone!!!

I'm Daniele, I am a Game Production Management student and I like games, a lot!

I will use this blog to express my opinions on things that make me happy,sad, annoyed, angry or frustrated...pretty much the whole point of having a blog!

My posts will be mainly orientated towards the Entertainment industry, however, I will talk about other subjects if there is something that really bothers me.

Whatever appears on this blog are my own personal opinions and I am more than happy to hear your take on my opinion. Criticism and discussions are welcome and appreciated as long as they are constructive and well meant.

Bye for now, I'm away for some banter in my hometown!

Daniele