Last week I spent in “The Fabulous” Las Vegas. It was my first trip to the Sin City. I believed it might become crazy and it was, both in my private time as well as on MIX10 conference.
I’m quite often attending major Microsoft conferences (those that attract global audience). I thought that PDC is the place to go. MIX is definitely an equalizer. Major announcements and keynotes not to forget long is one thing, huge content as for sessions and topics covered is the second. Add great people both from Microsoft and partner + customer space. Head can literally blow up, add Vegas to it – first trip of mine and here we go with my memories
(learning a lot from my friends whispers I didn’t take a camera. “Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” they said :>)
I’m used to perceive huge events by its major theme. PDC08 was about Visual Studio 2010, Windows Azure and Windows 7. PDC09 was little bit unclear to me, but with great Silverlight 4 announcements that made the conference worth its time. MIX10 all about WP7 at least for me, second message worth coming was IE9. These two products showed that even though Microsoft overslept many years in Mobility and Internet standards now was the time to show that it was just because dreams were huge and company showed truly that it can provide features audience demands. It’s not a victory yet but good pair of trainers to run after all again at full speed.
As for technologies behind products, Silverlight and Xna grow really fast to become a mainstream focus for Microsoft oriented developer. Both started as some tiny projects with portable aspirations in their specialties: Silverlight in RIA space, Xna to become the gaming primer. Both still have to win their developer audience but with extension to Windows Phone Series and features coming in version 4.0 of these two technologies I’m expecting fast reach and aspiration growth for other application types and scale utilizing these technologies.
To add more, Scott Gurthie and his wolf pack announced that tool-set to address these apps will be free and stay free forever. This includes SL and Xna projects and also (most importantly) includes Blend to keep designers busy with the company. That’s really great move.
Second day showed that under good and strong reign weak performers can go back to the good track. Most sessions I remember with Dean Hachamovitch speaking were rather subtle arrogant rather a visionary. Since Steven Sinofsky took the team over I see what I’d seen with Windows 7: a reasonable path from unfinished Windows Vista to Windows 7 we all love.
IE’s Platform Preview is first touchable proof that Steven has meant what he said during PDC keynote. Four months later and we have CSS3 selectors test passed and Acid3 at the mid point. Still much more to do but Html5 and CSS3 looks indeed like a priority. IE’s Platform Preview is in fact a technical demo to show current stage of IE’s rendering capacities. It’s hosted on an developer ready rather a consumer ready window, which suggests also (but it is only my assumption) that maybe they have rewritten IE9 from the scratch. If they switched only renderer from IE8 to IE9 version why not to use host windows, tabs and all else from previous version’s architecture. IE9 PR dropped it all, I hope for a reason. If all that’s true and 8 weeks release promise will be kept we should expect IE’s comeback very soon.
I had a discussion with one of my friends on methods how Internet works for me. This discussion started with thesis that URL is more for technical people. That was in consequence answer to a question: why people start browsing from search engine even for known pages and relatively known addresses.
Somewhere in that conversation I shouted that I almost do not use search engine, only occasionally when I definitely need to search for something I can’t find the other way. Never on a regular way to find “anything”.
This triggered big questioning mark on my friend’s face and big “How?!” reply.
Well short and quick answer I could provide was that I’m a power user with very well defined needs. Search is one of them but only on-demand basis rather than regular access point to the Internet.
So how can I marginalize search engines while browsing and live these days?
It started with a dramatic reflection that Internet is full of garbage and 99% of it is just useless crap I don’t need. I started to split my needs into categories like: looking for knowledge (educational), looking for recent news in areas I’m interested, communication and participating in communities then undefined, occasional search for a keyword that for any reason popped up in my mind.
With that exercise I eradicated “just to waste some time” need, so “I’m feeling lucky” feature is not for me anymore.
For communication and communities it’s easy, Facebook simplified the thing to the very end. Adding Twitter and additional clients for both I have my connections and chasing for news managed.. somehow. Getting recent information cannot be solved at its full extend as it only depends on your contacts recommendations. It’s incomplete.
So for my areas of focus I have I found 9-12 top sites that are my news and new knowledge hubs as information on web sites is very well connected, usually I can follow one site after another without any single try on search. After a while I’ll be rather bored or completely happy with the information already gathered. These sites are speed dialed and thumbnails to these pages appear on my browser’s main window.
Not to get overwhelmed, sites like tweetmeme.com and techmeme.com are blessings more powerful than Google itself. With these sites I realized that in 2010 information stored in the Internet is much better connected by communities than Index Servers maintained in big data centers of Microsoft and Google.
I also found that for community-driven information that’s connected, search engine like Ice Rocket seems to be more attractive than anything else.
This way I surprised that friend I have mentioned, because usually I find myself free from Google and free from massive search usage on my daily browsing routine.
It’s really fantastic experience because when you start feeling it, then on a question “what can possibly kill Google’s dominance in the Internet” you find simple answer – that what has created the Internet as we see it. Which is us – the communities.
With information so well connected outside search engine, I find Twitter and Facebook as the biggest threat guys in Mountain View probably perceive and they should. These relatively new services in Web 2.0 sphere have already marginalized my search usage and I assume that they can only grow.
As for Game-Dev heat map I can easily find three strong regions: US (and Canada), Europe (mainly represented by UK, France, Germany and Scandinavia) and Japan. Some talented studios and people also live and work in Australia but as for number of titles and teams, it has not that impact as those three I have already mentioned.
Trend in the industry is to cut costs and many managers look for countries that are lets say more cost effective to outsource there more and more work. Common to other industries, but as well for game development we have China where I see Ubisoft like good example of huge investment. India is also worth a notice. Many local companies there offer their creative services to western studios. I also perceive my region worth some comment.
CEE which stands for Central and Eastern Europe hides many AAA ready studios. Some countries like POLAND, Czech Republic, Hungary are now in European Union which makes us predictable and reasonable business partners that are still much better considering cost effectiveness than the core, old Union. Also countries from former Soviet Union (Ukraine and Russia) are more and more visible abroad. Just to mention title I’m expecting to play soon – Metro 2033 – is developed in Russia. Great, atmospheric first person perspective shooter called Stalker was made in Ukraine.
Summarizing game development in Russia and Ukraine I see that my eastern neighbors have found their specialty in shooters and strategy games. It’s little bit different in Poland. As for the biggest studios I wanted to highlight in this post, I see that we do of course great job in FPS space, but we also dare to challenge one of the most difficult genres – role playing games (like The Witcher and Two Worlds).
Current strength in Polish Game Development comes from PC development and current state of these studios is to break in or sustain and grow in console markets. This is fantastic achievement considering the past where I had a feeling that we all the time chase global trends being still late for at least 5 years with skill and experience. Now observing current growth I’m amazed in genre, scale, platform and project’s type diversity Polish companies address.
Warsaw, Cracow and Wroclaw are top three places to live if you consider game development career
We do have great example of promoting own, new IPs (Two Worlds, Call of Juarez, Painkiller). We are good at customizing existing IPs to the gaming medium like in Witcher, which originally was a fantasy novel with a super hero story created by a local writer – Andrzej Sapkowski. We’ve got some recent experience with AAA title conversion and porting (Gears of War PC port for Epic Games). Leaders have already realized potential in on-line communities, Web 2.0 and digital distribution learning fast how to market it globally as well as locally.
New players are establishing their position on the scene but in this article I wanted, indeed, focus on fantastic four of biggest veterans in Polish Game Development that have already presented themselves as high quality developers attractive for a global player.
Company started in 1991 in small Polish town. It’d started as a publisher and software localization company. At the end of 90-ties they broke into gaming industry as well as developer opening a studio in Wroclaw. Crime Cities was first title I considered worth checking at the time. It was something like Quarantine meets Fifth Element as I remember. Not a bad start. Then they made Chrome – FPS with quite a decent engine which has become a base for their further developments. Techland still refers Chrome Engine as technology used in their games.
Most important achievement in their history is named Call of Juarez. Game obviously designed to focus on American gamers. At the end of last year they have released sequel called Bonds in Blood. With this title I’m pretty sure that they received proven track in console space and growth warranty. I’m not surprised then looking at their job openings that they have Dev teams not only in Wroclaw (original location) but also in Warsaw (capitol city). Looks like they have opened a second development studio. Good Job!
CD Projekt is also a veteran in Polish publishing and distribution market. They have started in early 90-ties pioneering CD-ROM based games in the world dominated by floppy discs. In 2002 they opened a branch office called Red Studio with one purpose – to investigate game development opportunities for the company. Brave and important investment in huge team that has learned effectively how to make complex role playing game based on IP that is very well known in Poland – The Witcher. Because of novels’ popularity, expectations in Poland were very high. CD Projekt’s aspiration, though, were even higher. They licensed Bioware’s engine – Aurora – used in Neverwinter Nights and planned to sell that popular Polish IP to the world.
Development was long and many started disbelieving in CD Projekt’s skill to produce complete product. Finally two years ago Witcher hit the stores and got critical acclaim in Poland and worldwide. At the end, Team proved that they were worth consumers’ trust and waiting.
Witcher - Major landmark in Polish Role-Playing
Unfortunately, then some troubles started. Company outsourced console port of the original Witcher focusing its core forces on new initiatives. It failed big time in this effort (porting), I presume from lack of experience in such a process. This is a part of bigger issue which I’ve noticed. CD Projekt looks like they’ve overestimated its new investment capacities (my subjective opinion, I hope to be wrong).
They first presented themselves as big investor and gaming innovator. They acquired another old game development studio – Metropolis, they started on-line store (gram.pl) and digital distribution service (Good Old Games). On Xbox360 launch they started distributing Xbox games (deal with MS), and many more. Then they started closing some of its businesses. They shut Metropolis, stopped Witcher’s Xbox 360 development with French developer (as I already mentioned). Finally they have merged with former Polish stock market giant – company named Optimus, on unclear conditions looking for new funds, I presume.
Regardless of these issues (mainly generated by some troubled time we used to call the crisis) this company has great potential and foresight ability. They quite recently announced that they work on The Witcher second installment, no details up to date on platform and game-play specifics.
With this studio I have personal memories. Somewhere between 1999 and 2001 I wanted to join their ranks. At that time I lacked experience they wanted, but the conversation was very interesting and I still recall it with big grin smile on my face. On their pages you can find that they started operations in 2001. Might be true, but the team existed even before and was known in Poland from strategy games like Polanie and Earth ****. These RTS games have continuations already branded by Reality Pump.
Two Worlds - Oblivion's little sister
These games were offered worldwide but I’m not sure if they (and how) were recognized. For me, first title they have made and that should have not been ignored is role-playing game Two Worlds. Reality Pump took different approach than CDP-Red in their RPG efforts. They have created their own IP with open world trying to compete with such RPG giants like Elder Scrolls or Gothic series. They released the game on PC as well as on Xbox 360 which makes them another studio where developers can learn how to make games for current generation video games consoles. Now they also work on a sequel.
Last but not least – People Can Fly. Behind this company’s scenes you can easily reveal true Polish game-dev legend – Adrian Chmielarz. This guy has very much a similar story to say as Peter Molyneux. he’s just not used to be the same charismatic in old English way as Peter has during his speeches. Adrian started developing games as programmer and was pioneering high quality games development from the very beginning. At the beginning of 90-ties where Amiga, PC established their position as home computers and Nintendo fought its eternal war with Sega in consoles space, first Polish game dev companies were discovering true masterpiece ideas but for 8bit Atari and Commodore and starting to make some old-looking and rubbish titles for PC and Amiga. We were definitely behind the time (thanks to the bloody communism) but not Adrian Chmielarz himself.
With his first company Metropolis Software House (mentioned earlier in CD Projekt’s story) in 1992/1993 he developed adventure game – “Secret of the Statue” – that was not worse than so called “Western” counter-parts. Adrian was experimenting with many genres and sub-genres. Secret of the Status was a first person perspective adventure game with digitized pictures (like Myth). His further adventure game, Prince and Coward, had traditional point and click interface.
In late 90-ties he started moving toward shooters. First was Catharsis, a scroller shooter with 3d pre-rendered environment (below movie):
Then he resigned from Metropolis and in 2002 started new company, People Can Fly. This company quickly marked its existence in the gaming world with Painkiller, true masterpiece horror-like FPS for PC and first Xbox.
With such a proven track People Can Fly was later acquired by Epic Games as its internal development studio. Their first project under Epic’s patronage was to port Gears of War to PC. They succeeded and now they work on new yet to be announced big title. Can’t wait for news!
SUMMARY
Polish game development studios as I already wrote have diverse experience and interests. These companies are leaders in my subjective opinion but not the ony ones in the country. New and not so new companies climb the ladder. Some other examples worth mentioning: company called Farm51 and their game – Necrovision. Tate - scene’s long-timer and I think first Polish company that broke into console development with Kao the Kangaroo, ages ago. Another long-time runner is company named City-Interactive. This studio for long was focused on smaller titles for PC and handheld now according to their strategic shift want to make less titles but with higher budget. I’ve got some pictures from their first Xbox 360 production they’re developing
Yet to be announced City Interactive X360 development. Looking good aye? You can find more pictures.
Poland is definitively growing in game development space and it is more visible worldwide. Being born here I’m personally proud of that.
Just short off topic note to have you informed. I’ve got feedback, several times, that reading white text on black background may not be the best option to keep readers focused. It may be true, so I decided to experiment little bit and change it. Some little details on these pages may disappear and appear for a moment. Not text obviously, rather some details like RSS icon on the bottom (which I think should be better on top) and other layout elements. Sorry for your inconvenience, at least it’s no more white text on black background.
Latest creation from Quantic Dreams cannot be ignored. David Cage presented himself as great storyteller in his previous game – Project Indigo (Fahrenheit outside US). While playing Heavy Rain, I could hardly avoid comparisons to that previous title. These two games come along with Cage’s redefinition of adventure game with cinematic glamour. Cinematic experience in Heavy Rain popped up another question I asked myself: is still Heavy Rain a game?
In Fahrenheit we had several characters to play with through the story. All of them had some purpose to the main plot and it’s similar in Heavy Rain. Major difference in game play I found, is that in snowy precursor game mechanics were bound to traditional action adventure controls. Balance was only pushed little bit more toward adventure rather action. Action in Fahrenheit was strictly related to some arcade elements blended in and between puzzles and dialogue. Still I had a feeling that I was free to do whatever I wanted at limited stage of scene. In Heavy Rain I have a feeling, that it’s mostly all about the story. I’m not even surprised to see YouTube version of the game. That’s good example of how limited game playability is. My reflection from playing: controls over characters were only a necessary waste of time to trigger new dialogue and choice of action which I rather watched than played. After a while I found no sense to walk around, lurk for some hidden spots.. somewhere. The only exception is one character who makes real investigation with tools that even CSI folks should be envy at.
Arcade elements in Heavy Rain are close to beat-em up mechanics, which is really tough. There is no time to learn these “combos” as next button to press shows up on the screen and you have like a second to push the right one. Honestly, it was really frustrating. This game is about a story. Limited freedom of game-play replaced with really tough control in some “magic” moments is first serious risk I perceive David Cage has taken. People who are not accustomed to gaming but who will like to test current stage of interactive storytelling & drama may fail to finish it because of difficulty. People who seek a game with rich story may actually not find a game in Heavy Rain. Not by their (and my definition). I don’t mind, but I believe many will do. I really appreciate the story. In my humble opinion it is so strong that I dare to compare it to David Fincher’s “Seven” movie.
In one of my previous articles, I described story structure based on a single, main character development from mundane folk to a hero. It’s barely the way David Cage chose for its games, and it’s really fantastic. I have no other examples in gaming, but Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain where you are put in some moment of time, dense with dramatic events and many characters who are involved and engaged almost simultaneously to that plot. In both games terrible crime is chosen to bind characters to the story. Major difference between these games, is that in Fahrenheit player-character roles were competitive to each other. Playing cops and a murderer was a real challenge because they had quite opposite goals. Culmination point was when these goals had blended to a common one. In Heavy Rain, from the beginning, all characters we play have the same goal: solve the riddle and find the bad guy. Shock and culmination point is at the very end when the truth is revealed.
Maturity is another aspect that differs David Cage’s games. In Fahrenheit beginning was really dramatic. Nothing that could not happen in our world was described there. I could easily explain all unreal situations by drugs or psychology, If I only wanted. I didn’t. It was fun to see all those strange moments inspired something where Matrix meets strange cult conjured by Multi-Personal Disorder known very well from dozen of famous movies (like Lost Highway or Fight Club) taken as an inspiration. Dense atmosphere ended fast when I got some jumbo-mambo sci-fi for which even Matrix looks authentic. It’d built a distance to the thriller side of that story and then I started enjoying it as an action game (fight on the roof, what a pace!). Heavy Rain is mature and for adults only story about grim world where terrible crime simply happens. There is no magic, aliens and other stuff that kills the atmosphere of Gotham City’s social failure, but in rainy not dark metaphor. Rain brings sadness not fear, and it’s a feeling that you can’t stop thinking about during the game. As a victim of a serial killer you have occasion to feel how it’d like to get through whole that psychological trauma, you start believing how it could be. Psychological impact on what’s happening on the screen is indeed comparable with “Seven”. It’s first game where I didn’t want to do something which game was expecting me to do to go forward. It was that terrible like in those movies where you moved your head away because you didn’t want to watch something drastic. Power of this story is there just because Cage does not escape from such situations. They make Heavy Rain even more authentic. It’s interesting to experience it, as it’s totally different from all controversial aspects in games we’ve already had. Having sex in Mass Effect or playing a terrorist in Modern Warfare 2 is like eating peanuts comparing to that one scene in Heavy Rain, I don’t want to spoil.
As for hard decisions in game, I found two situations where I wanted to have more time to think of. While playing I killed twice. In both scenes it was so fast that I had no time to reconsider my decisions. In both situation it was not like “kill or be killed” 1sec moment. Game mechanics helped little bit where you have options to push some button and you don’t exactly know what can happen. In both situations I was shocked how fast pressing the trigger was. Then, when it was done and dead body laid on the floor, my first thought was that I didn’t want to do it.
It’s very interesting from social perspective. I strongly believe no-one playing that game is a killer and then you’re put in a situation so strong and serious from story perspective to do so, with exact feeling. I’d not be surprised the find moral questions like what should and what should not be put in games coming from the Press once again. Media like challenges like this and put gaming controversy on the front page. Usually they fail to bring correct message. I presume Heavy Rain is so hard to comprehend, that it will never be covered. If killing in games is a problem considering silly shooters and other games that ignore almost all real aspects of what real death is, then Heavy Rain shows all possible physical, ethical and moral aspects of such. Hard decisions in Heavy Rain bring questions like this often. Playing it and replaying I had one on mind pretty often: “is this really necessary?”. In many cases, for the story, it was.
David Cage has invented very powerful tool to present dramatic and even traumatic stories. For me, Fahrenheit has built very high expectations for the next game from Quantic Dreams. Heavy Rain is even more interactive movie than a game. At the beginning failed to meet expectations built in my mind, I expected game. I changed my opinion and I exactly know why. Maturity and power of the story presented in that game is so tremendous, that with my own high expectations to the game based on Fahrenheit nostalgia, I for sure didn’t expect to see something like this. It’s simply a different thing. Expecting that Heavy Rain will be Fahrenheit 2, new sequel but better was wrong and misleading.
