Elonka writes "The Online Games SIG of the IGDA has released the latest in a series of White Papers on the online computer gaming industry. The 2004 Persistent Worlds White Paper (80-page, 457K pdf) had several contributors from across the industry, and gives general "developer to developer" advice, covering everything from a quick overview of major products, to design considerations on multiplayer gameplay and dealing with online communities, to technical considerations, to some stats about the international marketplace, including the rapidly-growing Asian market. Editors included Daniel James of Three Rings Design, makers of Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, and Gordon Walton, VP and Executive Producer at Sony Online and presenter of the Ten Reasons You Don't Want to Make a Massively Multiplayer Game talk at the 2003 Game Developers Conference."

IGN has the beginnings of an interesting series up entitled The Future of Game Design. The first part of this series covers game design elements that we've seen in the past that the author would like to see show up more often in future games. From the article: "We need better art direction in our games. Not just more polygons or slicker textures, but games with a better sense of visual style. Off the top of my head, one of the first games that really showed a distinct sense of art direction and style in this generation of games was Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. That game oozed with style, and even though it was simple and quick, it became one of my favorites because the main character, Sly, had real character." As we start to get into Uncanny Valley territory I hope more artists take the approach that Sly and WoW have.

An anonymous reader writes "Kotaku asks Do Game Reviews Have to Be Puerile? in a short editorial about the state of game reviews. The article points to a recent story in The New Gamer about Silent Hill 4 as an "experiential piece of writing about the emotions and thoughts that swirl through a gamer's head as they play a game over time" The Kotaku article ends on this note: 'The problem with many reviews is that both their writers and readers expect a formula. They don't want to be challenged, instead, they want to have the ideas swirling in the writer's head synthesized and explained. But critical thought, in its truest form, should be something that inspires others to think critically, not just accept what has been handed to them.' What are your thoughts on game reviews? Do they need to have scores and a summary of what's good or bad about the game to be counted? Is experiential commentary more or less useful than a breakdown of the game's design?"

GamesIndustry.biz reports that News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch is considering acquiring a game publisher. He's apparently "kicking the tires" on everything up to and including EA. From the article: "He highlighted Activision as one games publisher which is being considered for purchase. The Californian company, which is one of the biggest publishers in the world, has a market capitalisation of under $3 billion, compared to around $19 billion for Electronic Arts." It's sobering to consider that as big as EA is within the gaming industry it is small fry compared to the big fish in other sectors.

Gamasutra.com is running an article entitled Back to the Classics (no reg. required), discussing the perfection of the emulation used in the recent Atari Anthology. From the article: "In a port, it's easiest to consider a game written in a high-level language like C (though that wasn't at all common in the first half of the '80s or earlier). As the person porting the game, you'd separate the program into two parts. There's the C code that represents the game logic itself, which you try to leave intact, and there's the platform-specific code (for example, a video driver might be considered part of the platform-specific code). Early computers, arcade games and home consoles had video chipsets that bore no resemblance at all to what we have now. So, you'd have to rip out that code and replace it with something that hopefully works the same way on the new platform."

kingphreak writes "The popular Half-Life mod, Natural-Selection is undergoing an update. Natural-Selection: Source (a port of the original to the new Half-Life 2 Source Engine) and Natural-Selection 2 have been announced. It is not known by Charlie "Flayra" Cleveland and the rest of the NS Team whether NS:S will be a direct port or whether NS2 will use the Source Engine, UT2004 Engine, etc." They're currently testing Beta 6 within the community.

Chris writes "There's an interview up with the Havok Team on FileFront, talking to Chief Technology Officer Steve Collins about his company's physics engine. Questions are about development of the engine, getting developer support and the demands they have, and research. The Havok physics engine is responsible for allowing players to lob toliet bowls at unsuspecting Combine in Valve's Half-Life 2 and powers several other popular titles." From the article: "the realistic portrayal of characters is what we hope will define the next generation of games. You're going to see a lot more soft-body dynamics, hair dynamics, clothing simulation and all that cool stuff."

GarageGames writes "GarageGames, creators of the popular indie-focused Torque Game Engine, announced at MacWorld 2005 that their new Torque Game Engine will support Apple's OS X platform, Tiger. Torque 2D is all about rapid development for games. It takes care of the technology, and the developer can focus on gameplay and art. By extending the current Torque Game Engine platform, indie developers will have a powerful tool to compete in the exciting and growing arena of 2D gaming. In addition to Torque 2D's support of the upcoming Tiger OSX, other GarageGames products like the Torque Game Engine 1.4, Dark Horizons: Lore Gold, Torque ShowTool Pro, Zap! and many more will also be supporting Tiger."

Thanks to cdagobah for mentioning a post up on the America's Army game site. Executive Producer Phil DeLuca posts a message updating the community on a recent anti-hacking campaign they've initiated, and has a clear message for would-be wrongdoers. From the post: "Allow me to speak directly to the bad guys for a moment: When you get banned, know that we know and have records showing you were doing something that's a violation of terms of service, breaks your EULA, and also happens to be against the law. We know who you are, and can track down where you play from. We have incontrovertible proof you did something illegal. The Army is angry, and we're coming for you. "

Gamedrool.com (via Kotaku) has the text from a letter to Gamepro from 2001, sent by then-president of 3DO Trip Hawkins. It's a hilarious look at what kind of flack you can get for offering up an opinion in a public venue. From the article: "I would hope you can recognize that I do not love all my children equally and can be objective about both good and bad features in a game as well as games that are of quality and those that are not. I do not send messages like this to you after every review. But this happens to be a game that I have played all the way through and beaten on all difficulty levels and I know the game intimately. I also have seen the profound positive effect this game has had on my children. "

Spong.com (via Kotaku) has a story discussing a dire portent for the N-Gage. The Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association sales charts will no longer reflect N-Gage sales. From the article: "The N-Gage chart, though still produced, is of little interest to anyone. Sales of the machine and its software have failed to make any impact on the market at all. We still keep sales charted and are available on monthly, quarterly and annual reports, though we have dropped the platform from the ELSPA chart following a lack of interest."

GamesIndustry.biz has the news that NCSoft will be releasing City of Heroes in Europe on February 4th. The EU customers get all sorts of fancy doodads to offset the delayed release. From the article: "European customers will receive a special deluxe edition of the game, which includes all of the content updates to date, an 88 page comic, and a number of serial codes which unlock special items in the game."

Gamespot has the word that Resident Evil 4 has (finally) lurched and shambled onto the console market. From the article: Set after the events of previous RE installments, Resident Evil 4 follows series protagonist Leon S. Kennedy on an all-new adventure outside Raccoon City, the setting of the most of the previous games. This time around, the US government operative has been sent to a small European village in search of the president's missing daughter. However, since this is a Resident Evil game, he instead finds zombies--lots of zombies." Nothing like an outbreak of the undead to put on your tourist brochure. Reviews available via Gamespot and Gamespy.

OnlyNewZ writes "Testing using OpenGL Doom 3, we selected in total 32 different cards. 14 were NVIDIA cards and 18 were ATI cards, while 19 cards were AGP and 13 cards were PCI-Express."

Nick Yee's seminal Daedalus Project has released a new issue. Topics covered in this release include MMORPG Hours vs. TV Hours, Transfers of Stereotypes into virtual worlds, and a look at the virtual police state. As always a new issue means a new round of tracking on the Daedalus Survey, so if you're a MMOGamer go answer some questions. From the Television article: "MMORPG gamers spend on average 21.0 hours per week playing the game (N = 1996), and spend on average 7.7 hours per week watching TV (N = 1996). The national average for TV watching per week is around 28, which is what the above averages add up to. In other words, this lends support to the claim that time that was spent watching TV has been displaced by MMORPG playing." Commentary on Terra Nova.

MrM writes "According to the latest press release from G4techTV, G4 will drop the TechTV name in mid-February 2005. This comes as a major step to the old TechTV viewers, as the focused content has become gaming-oriented once more. G4 also released a copy of their "redesigned" logo, but quickly pulled it off the web after release." The article also includes details of "two new series, "Formula D" and "Girls Gone Wired." Formula D appears to be coverage of Drift Racing (because obviously gamers love that), and unfortunately Girls Gone Wired appears to be exactly what you'd expect: Guys ogling video game characters in a beauty pageant.

A new study by the Entertainment Software Association reveals that, amazingly, gamers are regular human beings. The study shows that avid game players are just as religious, artistic, and social as anyone else. From the article: "Gamers are everywhere and they're everyone. They are your friends, neighbors, co-workers, relatives, and kids, they lead responsible and caring lives, balancing their enjoyment of interactive entertainment with many other activities important to a well-rounded lifestyle...Indeed, those who continue to portray the game population as single-minded loafers are living in their own fantasy world."

Thanks to Blues for the news that the games making up first person action series Marathon are available for download from Bungie.org. The classic series, arguably the precursors to Halo, made up some of the finest action gaming available on the Mac platform. From the article: "The Mac .sit-format files are currently available, and apparently there is an effort underway to create a PC-friendly version of this release compatible with the Aleph One Marathon-based OpenSource project."

1up.com has a great article up entitled Getting The Girl. Zoe Flower discusses female gaming stereotypes, the role of women in gaming, and the mythical "girl formula" for gaming success. From the article: "Lara Croft continues to personify an ongoing culture clash over gender, sexuality, empowerment, and objectification. It was while standing in my first-ever ladies' room line at E3 2004 as I pondered the Playboy bunnies, the return of Leisure Suit Larry, and the slew of buxom virtual ladies headlining each booth that I questioned whether the industry had evolved at all."

mediak writes "A new book is scheduled to hit the shelves covering the emerging topic of Alternate Reality Gaming. This Is Not A Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming by Dave Szulborski will be available in e-book and print-on-demand format in mid-January 2005 and in a traditional print version in February 2005. The first 2 chapters of this book are available for download. From the site: "...While Alternate Reality Gaming has been around for several years, the recent phenomenal success of the online game "I Love Bees", produced by Bungie to promote the release of the video game Halo 2. ARG/immersive gaming has been featured in media venues such as CNN, Trendcentral, BBC, New York Times and countless other sources as of late."