Category: News

The Japanese video game console market has grown for the first time in 11 years, experiencing a spike in sales during 2017.

The increase in sales is attributed to the Nintendo Switch’s speedy hardware sales, which have surpassed 10 million units sold worldwide since its March 2017 debut. 

As Kotaku reports, in 2016 Japanese hardware sales were 117.05 billion yen ($1.05 billion), while in 2017 they flourished to 202.37 billion yen ($1.81 billion). Software sales also increased since 2016, going from 182.4 billion yen ($1.63 billion) to 189.3 billion yen ($1.69 billion) the following year. 

Japanese gaming markets last saw growth in 2006 when the Nintendo DS Lite, Nintendo Wii, and PS3 were launched, Kotaku also notes. 

Last year, a years-long mystery alternate reality game finally came to a close with the release of Glittermitten Grove, an Adult Swim-published fairy management game that secretly contained Frog Fractions 2. At GDC this year, that ARG will be dissected and discussed by writer and narrative designer Justin Bortnick. 

Since we at the Gamasutra Twitch channel could not contain ourselves, we invited Bortnick, who is partly responsible for that ARG, to discuss his work and philosophy on the Gamasutra Twitch channel earlier today. 

Since we didn’t want to spoil the contents of Bortnick’s talk (but we were happy to spoil parts of Frog Fractions 2), we decided to discuss his general narrative design philosophy, and the state of ARG experiences as a whole. It was an illuminating conversation, one which you can watch in its entirety up above. 

If you’re somewhat in a rush (or are still trying to figure out what Frog Fractions 2 is), here are a few quick takeaways for you based on our chat. 

Alternate reality games don’t have to have puzzles…they just wound up that way

During his work, Bortnick consulted with designers who worked on well-known ARGs like I Love Bees (the Halo 2 promotional ARG), and made the observation that an alternate reality experience doesn’t necessarily require puzzle design, it’s just been one of the more successful mechanics that eventually helped impact the genre. What’s interesting about this analysis is that Bortnick points out that there’s a fine line between an ARG and a general real-world puzzle scavenger hunt. What separates the two is finely-crafted narrative design, and a need to react quickly to how your players interpret your hunt. 

Sometimes your players come up with more interesting solutions, and it’s useful to use them

Bortnick explained that during the run of the ARG, players often failed to solve puzzles in the way they were intended to be solved…but then stumbled on “solutions” that were more inventive or interesting. In practice, that meant Bortnick would rewrite the “solution” on the fly to help generate more content for players to dig through, all helping cover developer Jim Stormdancer while he worked on the full game. 

There’s still more Frog Fractions 2 ARG puzzles out there in new games

To our utmost horror, as we tried to unwind the logic of Frog Fractions 2, Bortnick pointed out that there are still indie games being released with Frog Fractions-related puzzles (like Emily is Away Too). And with that revelation now we realize, that even Gamasutra has become a part of Frog Fractions 2.

For more developer interviews, editor roundtables and gameplay commentary, be sure to follow the Gamasutra Twitch channel.  

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas

When presenting the original concept trailer for Child of Light, one of the biggest pieces of feedback the Ubisoft Montreal team received was that there needed to be a stronger, more visually appealing main character. When it’s time to go back to the drawing board, what needs to be re-evaluated first?

In this GDC 2014 session, Ubisoft Montreal’s Patrick Plourde goes over the many iterations of the main character’s appearance in Child of Light, showing the process which would eventually lead to creating a unique look. 

The talk discusses sources of inspiration behind the initial art style, as well as the many iterations of art direction which occurred throughout development before a final decision was made over the main character’s iconic design.

Artists curious to see how the Ubisoft Montreal team came up with their final character design can now watch the talk completely free via the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.

Developer of the successfully funded Pixel Art Academy Matej Jan took to Medium offering advice on what to do after a Kickstarter campaign runs late. 

As Jan points out in the post, its not uncommon for projects to miss their estimated delivery date, offering a number of reasons that could delay a game. Game developers who are considering Kickstarter to fund their games should take note before moving forward. 

Funding is finite and may only last a short amount of time, which can force developers to look for other means of income in order to continue working. If a developer is fulfilling different roles on their own, it can be hard to manage time efficiently. Jan notes that lack of focus, faulty assumptions, and limited manpower all contributed to Pixel Art Academy running late.

What can be done about a late Kickstarter project after the problems have been assessed? Before actually starting the campaign “multiply your estimated delivery time by 3, and funding goal by 2,” suggests Jan. If a developer is already past the point of no return, issue refunds. 

“First of all, if you didn’t know, it’s pretty easy to issue refunds to backers. If someone is vocally disappointed, I immediately refund them,” Jan writes. “I see no need for people to feel cheated, like they’ve made a bad investment. I’m not here to steal people’s money. Just refund and move on.”

In addition to refunds, Jan acknowledges that documenting his development journey can also serve as a good way to communicate with backers to keep them in the loop. Creating a to-do list is also helpful, but developers should be warned that coming up with tasks for a to-do list is harder than checking them off. 

Game developers interested in how to analyze their own projects in case they run late should check out Jan’s Medium post for more.

Microsoft is working on a new “career” system for Xbox achievements, aiming to extend beyond the current Gamerscore system which rewards a tallied number to players for completing certain objectives in a game.

As reported by Windows Central, the new system is allegedly being implemented to alleviate the problem where Gamerscore doesn’t fairly represent the accomplishments of esports players or other gamers who might spend the majority of their time in a single game.

This new career system could affect how developers choose to use achievements in their games, which could serve to attach new meaning to the score. 

The career system comes with quests to complete tasks (like playing specific games) which will come with cosmetic loot crates for avatar customization and experience points as rewards. 

Although not intended to replace Gamerscore, the career system will incorporate achievements by rewarding experience points that will contribute toward levels in a player’s career, tracking progress and play time through their existing game library. 

We’re seeing the first signs of serious vulnerabilities’ impact on game developers and their games.

Epic Games’ Fortnite team in a Friday evening forum post briefly outlined how the “Meltdown” vulnerability is affecting its popular online multiplayer game.

A spokesperson addressed recent login and instability issues, saying, “All of our cloud services are affected by updates required to mitigate the Meltdown vulnerability. We heavily rely on cloud services to run our backend and we may experience further service issues due to ongoing updates.”

Meltdown has been confirmed to affect the past 20 years-worth of Intel-based systems, meaning potential wide-ranging impact on game development and online services. Security patches to protect these systems from attack cause notable slowdowns that reportedly amplify in correspondence with the CPU workload, which means cloud services are especially affected.

You can see the significant jump in CPU workload below on one of the game’s hosts following the implementation of a Meltdown patch:

For Fortnite and countless other software and services, developers will continue with the patches to mitigate vulnerabilities for the foreseeable future.

More on Meltdown and its cohort “Spectre” here.