EALA lead designer Sam Bass discusses the ideas that his team has injected into Command & Conquer 4, the last game in the series, to help make the RTS genre more approachable to newcomers and more satisfying to all. View post: The End of RTS? A Command & Conquer 4 Interview Bookmark It Hide Sites  Read More →

“It’s an interesting time to be an RTS developer,” says Command & Conquer 4 lead designer Sam Bass. The upcoming release of StarCraft II will be a boon to the genre overall, he says, expecting it to “help the market” — support he says RTS gaming needs right now. “I think we’re a little bit in danger of becoming like the flight sim market, where... 

[UK writer Fraser McMillan discusses Valve's seminal first-person action title Half-Life 2 for Gamasutra, examining and revisiting the smart design decisions behind the classic game.] I’ve just finished Half-Life 2 for the first time. It has taken me three attempts – once on Xbox 360 and twice on PC – to see Valve’s defining game to its conclusion. That this relatively minor... 

[IndieGames.com: The Weblog co-editor Tim W. rounds up the week's top indie games on his sister 'state of indie' weblog, highlighting the most interesting titles that have come to light in recent days.] This week on ‘Best Of Indie Games’, we take a look at some of the top independent PC Flash/downloadable titles released over this last week Read the rest here: Best Of Indie Games: Cut,... 

Warner Bros. Interactive has announced of Lord of the Rings: War in the North, a co-op action RPG, to be released in 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. The game will be based on the J.R.R. Tolkien novel series, not the film property, and will “explore both original and familiar narrative elements” of the series, says the company’s press release Read more: Warner Bros. Announces... 

In today’s Gamasutra feature, Ryan Winterhalter introduces us to two Westerners who’ve set up shop in Tokyo: Dutch-born British citizen James Kay and his partner Paul Caristino, founders of Score Studios. The two both say the fact they established their business in Japan was practically incidental, but not without a unique set of concerns. From the feature: There are many areas of the... 

Organizers of this May’s GDC Canada event in Vancouver, BC have confirmed the first social game and iPhone lectures for the event, with speakers from Zynga (Farmville), iPhone experts IUGO, and Diner Dash creator Nick Fortugno discussing major emerging markets. Registration is now open for the event at the Vancouver Convention Centre, which talkes place on May 6th and 7th — with early,... 

For its third straight year, chip maker AMD will support the annual Games For Change Festival in New York. The event plays host to educators, activists and healthcare professionals looking to work with video games. This year, AMD will provide a $100,000 grant to sponsor a full-day design workshop geared at educators at the festival. Go here to read the rest: AMD Provides $100,000 Grant For G4C Design... 

Excited about shaping the primary look of many different worlds? Read the rest here: Concept Artist – The Workshop Marina del Rey, CA, USA Bookmark It Hide Sites  Read More →

[GamerBytes editor Ryan Langley examines February 2010's PlayStation Network debuts and continuing successes, with charts and leaderboard data, to find out which games are doing well at the start of the year.] Back in 2008, February was the launching pad for several big titles – Flower, Noby Noby Boy and NHL 3-On-3 Arcade. Visit link: In-Depth: North American Playstation Network Sales, February... 

Nordic Game’s 2010 event in Malmo, Sweden has revealed its keynotes, headlined by Playfish CEO Kristian Segerstrale. Segerstrale will open the event on April 28, and his talk is designed to frame Nordic Game’s “Entrepreneurship”-themed portion Read the original: Nordic Game 2010 Reveals Segerstrale, De Fondaumiere Keynotes Bookmark It Hide Sites  Read More →

Here we are in an era of video games coming under intense scrutiny for their violence, and for any hint of sexuality. This is an era in which the Australian and German governments are rejecting the sale of certain games by the handful, Venezuela has banned all “violent” video games with sweeping terms, and psychologists study the effects of violent games on behavior around the clock. It’s... 

View original post here: Graphic Artist III – Bally Technologies – California Poway, CA, USA Bookmark It Hide Sites  Read More →

Electronic Arts’ Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has sold through 2.3 million units globally since its March 2 debut, developer DICE said today. The game’s seen 230,000 concurrent users at peak, and players have spent a collective 2.9 million hours online in the last 24 hours alone, says the company. In fact, Battlefield franchise EP Karl Magnus Troedsson says the game saw “such a tremendous... 

The story behind two Westerners who moved to work at Japanese game studios and then set up their own indie, Score Studios — and why they’ve chosen to set up shop in the country widely assumed to be struggling hardest when it comes to development. Read the original post: The Story of Score Studios: Westerners Move East Bookmark It Hide Sites  Read More →

Although some publishers have used downloadable content and unlockables to discourage used game sales, retailer GameStop sees itself as a publisher partner in the DLC biz. CEO Dan DeMatteo doesn’t believe DLC opportunities are much of a deterrent to used game buyers, anyway: “Through our years in the used business, we have learned that the second-hand user is a value-oriented consumer…...