New consoles promise big problems
By Owain Bennallack
Develop magazine in San Francisco
Making games for future consoles will require more graphic artists
and more money, an industry conference has been told.
Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will debut their new consoles at the
annual E3 games Expo in Los Angeles in May.
These so-called 'next generation' machines will be faster than
current consoles, and capable of displaying much higher-quality
visuals.
For gamers, this should make for better, more immersive games.
In a pre-recorded video slot during Microsoft's keynote address at
the Game Developers Conference, held last week in San Francisco,
famed director James Cameron revealed he is making a game in tandem
with his next film - believed to be Battle Angel Alita.
The game's visual quality would be "like a lucid dream," said Mr
Cameron.
But numerous speakers warned that creating such graphics will require
more artists, and so next generation console games will be much more
expensive to develop.
The first new console, Microsoft's Xbox 2, is not expected to reach
the shops until the end of 2005.
Games typically take at least 18 months to create, however, so
developers are grappling with the hardware today.
No newcomers
According to Robert Walsh, head of Brisbane-based game developer
Krome Studios, next generation games will cost between $10-25m to
make, with teams averaging 80 staff in size taking two years to
complete a title.
Such sums mean it will be difficult for anyone to start a new game
studio, said Mr Walsh.
"If you're a start-up, I doubt that a publisher is going to walk in
and give you a cheque for $10m, however good you are," he said.
Mr Walsh suggested that new studios should make games for mobile
phones and handheld consoles like the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS,
since they are cheaper and easier to create than console games.
Sowing the seeds
One developer bucking the trend towards big art teams is Will Wright,
the creator of the best-selling The Sims games.
The founder of California's Maxis studio surprised the conference
with a world exclusive preview of his next game, Spore.
Spore will allow players to experiment with the evolution of digital
creatures.
Starting with an amoeba-sized organism, the player will guide the
physical development of their creature by selecting how its limbs,
jaws and other body parts evolve.
Eventually the creature will become capable of establishing cities,
trading and fighting, and even building space ships.
Advanced players will visit the home planets of creatures created by
other Spore players. These worlds will be automatically swapped
across the Internet.
Mr Wright said that enabling players to devise and share their
creatures would make them care more about the game.
"I don't want to put the player in the role of Luke Skywalker or
Frodo Baggins - I want them to be George Lucas or Dr Seuss,"
explained Mr Wright.
Few games have hinted at the scope of Spore, but Mr Wright explained
that he has nevertheless kept his development team small by hiring
expert programmers.
Instead of employing lots of artists to create 3D models of the
digital creatures, Spore generates and displays the creatures
according to rules devised by the programmers.
"The thing I am coming away with [from the conference] is that next
generation content is going to be really expensive, and creating it
will drive the smaller players out of the market," said Mr Wright.
"I'd like to offer an alternative to that."
Tool solution
New development tools will be another important aid in making next
generation games, and dozens of companies demonstrated their latest
products at the conference.
Oxford-based Natural Motion launched Endorphin v2.0, which enables
artists to direct a 3D 'virtual actor'.
The actor is realistically modelled according to the laws of physics.
Endorphin simulates how the actor falls down stairs, for instance, or
crumples up after a gunshot.
Artists can blend together these visual sequences, and include the
results in their games.
The process is much quicker than having an artist animate each
movement by hand, and so lessens the need for larger art teams.
Another British company aiming to reduce the workload of artists is
Manchester start-up Genemation.
Its latest tool, GenCrowd, enables artists to create unique, photo-
realistic human faces for games involving lots of people.
GenCrowd works by blending together elements of an in-built supply of
stock faces of differing ages and ethnicities. The software can
create up to 2,000 new heads an hour.
Mobile option
One area not yet dominated by graphical blockbusters is mobile phone
games.
Even the latest phones are not as powerful as the consoles of a
decade ago, so smaller teams of half a dozen people can still create
complete games for the devices.
The Game Developers Conference included a special two-day summit
dedicated to creating mobile games.
A niche attraction for a few dozen conference attendees when it began
five years ago, GDC's Mobile summit this year drew several hundred
delegates.
Mobile games are a fast-growing sector because newer phones have
better graphics and sound, and are thus more suitable for playing
games.
Furthermore, the adoption of mobile phones continues to spread across
the world.
It's predicted that by 2006 two billion people will own a mobile
phone.
The growing importance of mobile gaming was reflected by a keynote
given by John Batter, general manager at EA Mobile.
EA Mobile is a division of Electronic Arts, the biggest games
publisher. Until recently Electronic Arts had been dismissive of
games for phones.
"The last time you checked, EA wasn't in this business," Mr Batter
admitted. But he said EA now planned on dominating the market by
releasing mobile versions of its most popular franchises.
EA plans to release up to 20 mobile games over the next 12 months.
The first will be a version of its Need for Speed racing game,
created by EA Mobile's 30-person development team.
Mr Batter predicted that by 2006, mobile phones would be capable of
running games of comparable quality to those on Sony's upcoming PSP
handheld console.
Owain Bennallack is the editor of Develop magazine.
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