Game.Developer.2010.04.pdf

P o s tmor t em : S ony onl ine en t erta inmen t ’ S F re e re a lmS

vol17no4 APRIL2010

t h e L e A d I n g g A m e I n d u s t R y m A g A z I n e

CONTENTS.0410

VOLUME 17 NUMBER 4

POSTMORTEM

DEPARTMENTS

20 SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT'S F REE R EALMS

Despite years of experience building MMOs, SOE found itself in uncharted

territory when it decided to create a kid-friendly, casual virtual world. Old

assumptions had to be cast aside and new methodologies adopted to

create a game that young players would take to heart.

By Laralyn McWilliams

2 GAME PLAN By Brandon Sheffield

[ E D I TO R I A L ]

Ethical Choices

4 HEADS UP DISPLAY

[ N E W S ]

Indie Fund details, IGDA board elections, and 2600 M AGIC .

36 TOOL BOX By Michael Greenhut

[ R E V I E W ]

FEATURES

FlashDevelop 3.0.6

7 9TH ANNUAL GAME DEVELOPER SALARY SURVEY

How much is your job worth? For our annual survey we crunched the

numbers across discipline, experience, gender, and region, as well as

new stats for the independent developer sector.

By Brandon Sheffield and Jeffrey Fleming

38 THE INNER PRODUCT By Jari Komppa

[ P R O GR A MM I NG ]

Porting From DOS To Windows

42 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore

[ A R T ]

Going Solo

14 THE THREADS THAT BIND US

Current languages in use by game programmers were not created

with multithreaded concurrency in mind. Erlang, a language built

from the ground up for concurrency by the telecommunications

industry, may offer a solution.

By Nicholas Vining

44 DESIGN OF THE TIMES By Damion Schubert

[ D E S I GN ]

The Truth of Consequences

46 AURAL FIXATION By Vincent Diamante

[ S O U N D ]

Subversive Audio Design

48 GOOD JOB!

[ C A R E E R ]

28 INTERVIEW: DAVID CRANE

As one of the original Gang of Four who left Atari to form Activision,

David Crane helped lay the foundation for the game industry that we

know today. We caught up with the die-hard coder and found him at

work on iPhone development.

By Brandon Sheffield

Richard Garriott interview and new studios.

52 EDUCATED PLAY

[ E D U C A T I ON ]

Focus on UCF's G ALACTIC A RMS R ACE

56 ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT By Matthew Wasteland

[ H UMO R ]

The Genius Game Designer

33 LESSONS FROM D OOM

D OOM has an enduring legacy in the game industry. Here, B IO S HOCK 2's

Jean-Paul LeBreton looks at the venerable title to see what lessons it

can teach modern game designers.

By Jean-Paul LeBreton

COVER ART: GREGORY WRIGHT

WWW.GDMAG.COM 1

GAME PLAN // BRANDON SHEFFIELD

www.gdmag.com

Think Services, 600 Harrison St., 6th Fl.,

San Francisco, CA 94107

t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090

ETHICAL CHOICES

MAKING DECISIONS MATTER IN "MORALITY"-ORIENTED GAMES

SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES

FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND

ADDRESS CHANGES

t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606

e : gamedeveloper@halldata.com

EDITORIAL

PUBLISHER

Simon Carless l scarless@gdmag.com

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Brandon Sheffield l bsheffield@gdmag.com

PRODUCTION EDITOR

Jeffrey Fleming l jfleming@gdmag.com

ART DIRECTOR

Joseph Mitch l jmitch@gdmag.com

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Jesse Harlin

Steve Theodore

Daniel Nelson

Soren Johnson

Damion Schubert

ADVISORY BOARD

Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large

Mick West Independent

Brad Bulkley Neversoft

Clinton Keith Independent

Bijan Forutanpour Sony Online Entertainment

Mark DeLoura Independent

Carey Chico Pandemic Studios

ADVERTISING SALES

GLOBAL SALES DIRECTOR

Aaron Murawski e: amurawski@think-services.com

t: 415.947.6227

MEDIA ACCOUNT MANAGER

John Malik Watson e : jmwatson@think-services.com

t: 415.947.6224

GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, RECRUITMENT

Gina Gross e: ggross@think-services.com

t: 415.947.6241

GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, EDUCATION

Rafael Vallin e: rvallin@think-services.com

t: 415.947.6223

ADVERTISING PRODUCTION

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Pete C. Scibilia e: peter.scibilia@ubm.com

t: 516-562-5134

REPRINTS

WRIGHT'S REPRINTS

Ryan Pratt e: rpratt@wrightsreprints.com

t: 877.652.5295

THINK SERVICES

CEO UBM THINK SERVICES Philip Chapnick

GROUP DIRECTOR Kathy Schoback

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Cliff Scorso

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Anthony Adams

AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT

TYSON ASSOCIATES Elaine Tyson

e: tysonassoc@aol.com

LIST RENTAL Merit Direct LLC t: 914.368.1000

MARKETING

MARKETING SPECIALIST Mellisa Andrade

e: mandrade@think-services.com

UBM TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER David Levin

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Scott Mozarsky

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER David Wein

CORPORATE SENIOR VP SALES Anne Marie Miller

SENIOR VP, STRATEGIC DEV. AND BUSINESS ADMIN. Pat Nohilly

SENIOR VP, MANUFACTURING Marie Myers

SOMETHING SOREN JOHNSON

wrote in his March design column

re-ignited a spark that’s been

smoldering in my brain for some

time now. Most ethical choices in

games are not much of a choice

at all.

He was discussing B IO S HOCK ,

and how you’re given the option

of harvesting the innocent(ish)

Little Sisters for their Adam, which

is used as currency in the game,

or saving them, for which you get

much less Adam. But after saving

a few Little Sisters, you get a huge

package of Adam, worth about

what you would’ve gotten if you’d

harvested them. Thus, your reward

is simply deferred, and the choice

ultimately isn’t an ethical one, it’s

“do I want to be a jerk.”

Many games that pose different

ethical choices have this problem.

One of the worst offenders for me

was I NFAMOUS . The story simply did

not support ethical choices being

made. The world of I NFAMOUS takes

place in a quarantined city. The first

choice you’re presented comes

when some food is airdropped

in—you can choose to harm the

other citizens and take all the food

for yourself, or only take what you

need, and share with them, risking

going hungry later.

The trouble is, food is not a

currency, it does not determine

health, and it has no bearing on the

actual world of play. In this case,

there is nothing to the question

but “do you want to be mean to

these people.” There’s no upside for

you, no tradeoff. The next ethics

scenario boils down to “I can help

these people get away from the

guards (who are bullying them

senselessly) or let them die.” In

I NFAMOUS , these “moral” choices are

simply a means to an end—they

break up the skill tree by only

allowing “good” players certain

skills, and “evil” players other

skills. It also changes the attitude

of the anonymous populace toward

you, and which NPCs you can

get missions from. It only affects

gameplay to the extent of choosing

one of two paths. Ultimately the

choices are hollow.

affecting your teammates’ opinions

of you, and if their opinion is low

enough, they will leave the party.

In M ASS E FFECT , while characters

may approve or disapprove, it has

much less in-game relevance.

Furthermore, D RAGON A GE ’s choices

are one-to-one. Your character

speaks exactly what you select.

In M ASS E FFECT , you choose a

summary of what your character

will say in dialog, choosing the

top option for “good,” middle for

“neutral,” and bottom for “evil.”

The simplistic approach is far less

interesting than the larger case of

party approval.

A third solution can be found

in F ALLOUT 3. There, the choices

you make in dialog certainly

change how characters react to

you, and it does fall into the trap

of “say something nice” versus

“be a jerk just because,” but the

more important choices are in

what you do, not what you say. You

have the option of blowing up the

first town you come to, Megaton,

by detonating a bomb there. A

suspicious fellow urges you to,

offering promises of riches and the

key to the elite Tenpenny Towers

if you do. The choice here is clear,

but not intimidating. If you choose

to blow up the town, most of the

quests and shops are still available

to you in a different form. If you

choose not to, you still get to visit

Tenpenny Towers later, albeit in an

antagonistic way. Shoot a resident

of a town and expect the rest to

turn on you. Steal from them, and

expect the same. It’s simple, but it

works as immediate feedback for a

clearly moral choice.

I think moral choices are

incredibly interesting territory for

games, but they really do need to

be integrated into the gameplay

and story both. You can’t just tell

a player these choices affect the

world, or that they’re important. You

have to show that as true, and you

have to make them believe it.

—Brandon Sheffield

I CHOO-CHOO-CHOOSE YOU

» I truly believe that if one is going

to present choices or issues in

games as ethical, those choices

have to matter in the game world.

But I get antsy when games

present me with choices that

clearly open one door while closing

another, as I want to see all of the

game’s content, since I’m unlikely

to go through it multiple times

(Damion Schubert talks about this

in his column on pag e 44) .

As an example, in D RAGON A GE

you have the option of siding with

the golems or a rogue blacksmith

in a particular scenario. Depending

on who you go with, you will either

get a squad of golems to command

in your final battle, or the one golem

in your party will leave forever

(which is a ballsy move, incidentally,

considering that character is DLC).

This kind of choice makes me very

uncomfortable, because I want to do

what’s going to be best for my one

playthrough, and weighing those

odds is very difficult, given that

there are unknown variables (not

having fought the final battle yet, I

didn’t know if I needed golems).

METHODS OF CHOICE

» D RAGON A GE and M ASS E FFECT

have similar but subtly different

ways of representing your moral

choices, but both do it directly with

numbers, which is controversial,

as there are no “renegade points”

in real life. In M ASS E FFECT , you get

points in one column or the other

for your actions being good or

evil, so to speak. In D RAGON A GE ,

members of your party will approve

or disapprove of your actions

depending on how the characters

are designed. They will also react to

your decision with dialog.

I far prefer the latter method.

D RAGON A GE poses your choices as

GAME DEVELOPER | APRIL 2010

WWW. U BM . C OM

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