Fascinating Links on a Sunday Morning
There are just too many things I've found recently that I felt like sharing:

Psychochild on Designing Attribute Systems - Thoughts on designing attribute systems for RPGs.

Profit vs. Passion Photos from Casuality 2008 - Indie game developer Grey Alien Games posts a report on a "Profit vs. Passion" talk. The take-away from this summary seems to be that games manufactured purely to "cash in" tend to sell worse than games that are made out of enthusiasm for the game itself. Although the most telling example for Reflexive was their best-seller out of the list ... which was, in their view, equal parts profit and passion motive.

The Aberrant Gamer: Getting To The Action - Leigh Alexander explores (as she often does) the topic of sexuality in games. But in this case she hits one of my personal soapbox issues, and takes games to task for dealing with mature topic - specifically sexuality, intimacy, and relationships - in a juvenile fashion. She makes some suggestions for making games that really do appeal to mature audiences beyond the "M" rating. She comments, "An inanimate cube, juveniles holding hands, and the nuances of a complicated adult relationship as seen through the eyes of a youth – the conclusion here seems to be that games are able to create that sense of intimacy by revealing less, not more ... games lose dignity the more decadent cleavage shots and full-body pans they show."

Gleemax Finalist - Depths of Peril was selected as one of the finalists for the new Gleemax "Gleemie" award at the IGF. Congrats Soldak Entertainment!

“Because, uh, but, uh, I wrote a book.” - Rock, Paper, Shotgun (specifically, John Walker) takes both Fox News Network and Jack Thompson to task for pulling the same ol' crap they keep pullin'. In this case, suggesting video games mind-controlled an adult who was nearly 30.

QoL Watch: Beware of Bioware - Surfer Girl Reviews Star Wars posts rumors of bad quality-of-life problems at Bioware long before EA showed up. However, a more interesting rebuttal (of sorts) appears in the comments by someone who claims to be a Bioware employee. The rebuttal has a ring of truth to it. It's still not a glowing appraisal of life as a Bioware employee, but it does indicate that things aren't any worse than the rest of the industry. Which, in a word, still sucks, as "death march" is still sort of an industry standard practice. (But, pointing at the second link here, one man's "death march" is another man's "labor of love").

Labels: Biz, Game Design

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