Just posting some links to some interesting articles I've bookmarked recently..
"Tecmo seems fucked".
Hard to imagine such a high profile developer doing that to its employees, but I guess it happens even to the best of them. But when you have the entire development company (minus management) kicking a huge stink, that Kotaku title seems appropriate. http://kotaku.com/5017065/tecmo-employees-sue-tecmo-tecmo-seems-fucked
"Who stole all the colours from games?"
This is an article which David Hewitt would appreciate more developers start reading about.
The article writer has the opinion that it's all because of teenage boys.. "I think that publishers have convinced developers that the game buying public is composed almost entirely of teenage boys.
...(they) want "mature" titles and someone told them that mature meant dark, dank and bloody." http://www.quietbabylon.com/2008/05/30/who-stole-all-the-colours
"We were torturing Vancouver studio"
EA CEO admits that the Vancouver Need For Speed team has been working for eight consecutive years on a 12 month development cycle. O_O I wonder if anyone managed to stay on there for the eight years :D It reminds me of the time I looked through some game developer's portfolio who had worked on Madden NFL for yonks. He had picture after picture of Madden NFL game covers in his portfolio page.
I've been following the Need for Speed games for a long while, and it's obvious that the team behind the series is a damn talented one. The Underground series was really good, Most Wanted was brilliant, but Carbon and Pro Street? They looked great, but it didn't appeal to me as much as Most Wanted. Anyway, they're going to try a two year development cycle. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/riccitiello-we-were-torturing-van…
"UK Games Industry Over the Hill?"
The UK is falling behind in coding skills because Universities aren't up to scratch, and because the youngins aren't being brought up coding / hitting the hardware like they used to with computers like Amiga / Atari ST. I had this exact conversation with a programmer friend of mine years ago. It explains why so many have difficulty with programming the PS3, he says, whereas people who coded on the Amiga/ST find PS3 programming a breeze. Anyway, a great read.
http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/06/19/1719206.shtml
Sounds great - I can't make it to any of them though :( I suppose it's unavoidable that this is the case, but it does seem pricey ? A lot of people wanting to get into the games industry, by definition, haven't got jobs in the game industry (not to say that they don't have money or other jobs)...
Have you run any workshops like this before ? feedback from anyone who has attended would be good too ?