Where is the video game industry headed in 2009? That's a question the biggest names in the business debate every February at the 2009 DICE Convention in Las Vegas. Standing for "Design, Innovate, Create, Entertain," DICE is where game executives and designers mingle with each other. This year I spotted Xbox's John Schappert, Valve's Gabe Newell, Gears of War's Cliff Bleszinski, Little Big Planet's Alex Evans, and Fallout 3's Todd Howard. Here's my behind-the-scenes scoop on the highlights of DICE.
Capcom's Resident Evil 5 is unquestionably the biggest release in March.
ToddHoward - Bethesda's Todd Howard says great games are played, not made.
LittleBigPlanet co-creator Alex Evans addressed the crowd at DICE.
Resident Evil 5 Arrives
One keynote was delivered by Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi, who is celebrating the imminent release of RE5 for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this month. Given the stellar early reviews, it seems like Resident Evil 5 may be the first big hit of 2009. At DICE, Takeuchi discussed his ten rules of game development, or more specifically, how Capcom has worked to make itself relevant to the western market. It wasn't that long ago that Japanese publishers like Capcom and Konami had trouble creating games that were huge commercial successes in North America.
Given the stellar early reviews, it seems like Resident Evil 5 may be the first big hit of 2009...
Takeuchi said that his teams focus on building franchises but also reserve about 20% of their annual budget for exploring new ideas like Lost Planet or Zack and Wiki for the Wii. While his speech didn't provide any real insight into RE5's development process, I did catch up with him after the talk and learned about a new boss in RE5. He's called Popokarimu, a giant bat-like boss that you'll encounter at the end of the second chapter. But Takeuchi refused to answer any questions about whether Jill Valentine plays a role in the game.
The Story of Fallout 3
One of the nicest guys in the gaming business is Bethesda's Todd Howard, who also hit the DICE stage for a speech called "Great Games are Played, Not Made." Coming off the huge success of Fallout 3, Howard made the point that his games are never designed with some thousand-page Microsoft Word document. Instead, you have to constantly play a game as it begins development and be prepared to radically alter the design as you go.
Howard said there are four rules that Bethesda uses for all its games: Learn. Play. Challenge. Surprise. Nintendo, he believes, is best at the first two rules, whereas sometimes American developers make their games too challenging or hard for a mainstream audience. Finally, Howard also mentioned that even his games sometimes get too complicated. For instance, in Fallout 3 Bethesda removed about half of Washington, D.C. to simplify the world and make it more accessible. Of course, if you want to see more of the Fallout world you can check out the downloadable content on Xbox 360. According to Howard, the first mission, set in Alaska, is exceeding even the most bullish expectations.
LittleBigSuccess
The big winner at the DICE "Academy" Awards was LittleBigPlanet for the PS3 from Media Molecule. It took home the award for Game of The Year, and no one was more pleased than Head Molecule Alex Evans, who hails from Guildford, England (mind you, he probably didn't like host Jay Mohr's joke about how LittleBigPlanet isn't a game, but rather a job that forces you to create the game). The next morning, Evans was on stage to talk about the creation of the game. He broke the news that at one point, there were a series of weapons inside the game world, including a shotgun that blew holes in objects and a hairdryer to melt them. They had to be removed, however, because the items caused huge problems in the game world. Still, weapons have made their way into downloadable content, including a paintball gun for Metal Gear Solid.
I caught up with Evans after his talk and he assured me that there is a lot of downloadable content still planned for LBP in the months ahead. He even mentioned that the team is looking to hire a level designer for the company from the user community. So if you want to break into the gaming business, one way to do it may be to create a LittleBigPlanet level of your own and upload it!
God of War III
That's it from DICE 2009, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention another big gaming event that I also attended this month: The worldwide unveiling of God of War III. By now you've probably seen the amazing three-minute trailer that's on the Internet, and the game looks every bit as good as that in real-time. Sony rented out a movie theater in Beverly Hills to debut the trailer, which is all about epic scale - Kratos will now face off against up to 50 enemies on-screen, up from only about a dozen in previous games. The scale extends to the battlefield, which, as you've probably seen, takes place on the back of Greek God Gaia - and this means the battlefield will "move" at times, causing Kratos and enemies to contend with a shifting landscape. God of War was one of the best looking PlayStation 2 games, but GOWIII, the first on the PS3, takes things to a new level. I have a feeling this game will be one of the biggest hits at E3 in June.
Next month, I'll be back with an inside report from another big gaming industry event: The 2009 Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, where we will hear speeches from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata and Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima.
