Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

excite recruiting efforts isn’t even worth mentioning. It’s an insignificant expense for
the Army. It’s a serious source of much-needed revenue for an independent game
developer. It’s also further proof that you can make a good game while working
within the context of a license.
Look for plenty of game development in the near future to borrow on the success
of titles like America’s Army, especially as games become more mainstream and
more traditional companies begin to embrace the power of gaming. In the coming
years, publishers and developers alike will be looking to collaborate in a number of
ways with large company efforts to support brands and capture audiences by building
game content. Think about The Sims Online deal with Intel and McDonald’s to
include “Intel Inside” PCs, Big Macs, and entire McDonald’s franchises within the
world of The Sims Online.
There’s no reason to fight it … at this point it’s inevitable. The offbeat game industry
building those pleasant little time wasters for the local pizza palace crowd has grown
up into a corporate behemoth. It is big business when the Super Bowl telecast starts
with professional football players challenging each other to a game of Madden Football
with “EA Sports” logos conveniently scattered everywhere amidst scads of the
latest consoles.
So what do we do about it? How do we build games in this climate? We focus on
what’s still important and what will always be most important as developers—
making great games. They might not be our own original characters in our own
unique worlds anymore (some of them probably will), but we can all still work our
hardest at coming up with entirely new kinds of games to play and finding new play
mechanics for character to world interaction. The actors and environments are
important, but ultimately arbitrary when compared to the kinds of actions and play
they participate in. Refining the game design process itself, in my opinion, is one of
the next great areas of revolution in the game business. Even given the conditions I’ve
tried to describe for you, there is always a need for executable gameplay ideas that
capture a player’s emotions.
Interesting Trends for the Near Future
C H A P T E R 1 0
I think we’ll begin to see even more kinds of crazy partnerships between several factions
in the near future for gaming. Some of these partnerships will probably surprise
all of us. Just as in every other area of modern commerce, corporate influence will
continue to grow and most independent developers will simply have to ally themselves
with a diminishing number of uber-publishers. We’ve already seen this happening
all over town.
Most independent game developers, when given the chance, make quick and
deep alliances with the biggest-name game publishers. When viewed from the perspective
of an independent game developer, you can’t blame them. There are numerous
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Getting Started in Game Development