Recently I was looking for a DS game to buy my nephew. I had hit upon the idea of getting him Super Scribblenauts, because it’s daft, sort of educational, and he’s a bright lad.

Looking at the box, I saw it had been rated a 12 by PEGI (Pan European Game Information, a ratings board whose ratings will become legally backed in the UK in 2011).

From what I could remember of the first Scribblenauts it wasn’t particularly violent or adult in content, so I was wondering what it had done to be rated 12.

Now, I know from previous experience the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification, a ratings board that you must also pass 18 rated games through in the UK) have a comprehensive site for their ratings. Each item they rate has a full page explaining what content they were shown (in the case of games it is usually all cutscenes, a video of representative gameplay, and often a script. You will get in a lot of trouble if you have been found to be hiding things from your submission). It also contains a paragraph explaining exactly why the rating was given.

For examples, you can see the page for Bulletstorm here, or the page for the film Confessions here to see how in depth they can go explaining their decision.

So, knowing all of that, I thought PEGI might be able to fill me in on exactly why they believe Super Scribblenauts to be only suitable for children over 12 (and don’t forget, this means that in April it will be an offense for shops to sell it if they believe it will be for the consumption of someone under 12). But they don’t. Their website just lists the rating, and whichever of their content icons apply, which doesn’t tell you as much as you would hope.

For example, Super Scribblenauts is a PEGI 12, with a violence icon. Free Running is rated 6, but also has the little violence icon.

So does Scribblenauts have much more violence in it? Or are there other factors that have led to its rating? Who knows? PEGI do, but they’re not going to tell you, the consumer they are meant to be helping.

Harmonix, creator of some music game or other you’ve probably never heard of, is for sale after Rock Band 3 has apparently flopped hard at retail. Other potential buyers are shying away. People have been predicting the music game bubble would burst for a year or so now, and with DJ Hero 2 and whatever the latest Guitar Hero is also not setting the charts on fire, it looks like they might be right.

I don’t entirely agree.

I think with their Kinect dancing game, and the stuff they did pre-Guitar Hero, they have shown they really know what makes a music-based game tick. They have just gotten stuck down the increasingly expensive peripheral route. No matter what is done in this field now, the customer is just seeing the cost of the latest plastic instrument, and thinks “well it’s probably the same game I already bought, I will leave it”.

But I don’t believe that people are sick of “music games” as a genre, I think they are sick of Guitar Hero clones. I am including stuff like Rez, Amplitude, and Lumines as music games, though.

So, assuming I had the money, here is my plan for Harmonix.

1. Buy Harmonix
2. Have them work on a few music games that don’t require new peripherals, and that aren’t just aping Guitar Hero in a different skin.
3. Release them all as reasonably cheap XBLA / Steam / PSN games. Hell, release some of the really cut down prototypes as Flash/Facebook games, for free. This stage is really all about getting as many different games out there as possible, to a decent quality level, and creating a wealth of new IP (even if most of it turns out to be worthless).
4. See which are popular.
5. Make sequels to those, with full game budgets (still no new peripherals) & full releases.
6. Well done, you have made at least one of the next big music game franchises.
7. Sell them on a year from that point, when their star is at a high again.
8. Make out like a bandit.

Anyone want to lend me a tenner?

From Edge magazine’s “Get into Games 2010”

Edge: What would you say is the most common flaw in candidates?

Simon Miles: Generic CVs. And I’m not just talking about portfolios here. It still makes me chuckle that someone who’s supposed to be creative, and has gone to university and want us to invest £20 million in game development and trust them with it, would still use Word wizards to produce their CV.

I’ll give you a couple of quick examples. We have a lady here at the moment who’s flown through the ranks of our UI team, and her CV arrived special delivery, was wrapped in silk, and inside had this fully designed leaflet and portfolio selling herself as a graphic designer, a UI designer.

We had a level designer send us his CV on a USB [drive] in the shape of a bullet, and he’d etched his name on the bullet and had it delivered in a camouflage packet directly to us.

And that probably cost each of them something like ten quid, but they’ve both got interviews and they’ve both got jobs, because they stood out.

So there you go – If you want to get a job at Codemasters, spend ten pounds on each copy of your CV. Because presumably their Talent Search and Selection Officer is too busy to look at all of the CVs he receives for talent, so sometimes the talent he is searching for goes unnoticed.

Still, I’m sure this approach works out for them.

So, after thinking a bit about that last post I made, and discussing it a bit with some people, I started thinking about what makes for a successful game series.

As creators, I am sure developers would say something like “a successful game is one that the players enjoy”. As a business, I think the definition would be more along the lines of “a successful game is one that results in an instant sale of the sequel.”

I think if I ran a company, that is what I would be aiming for – if players of your previous titles equate your name instantly with a quality and enjoyable experience that is worth their cash. There are a few success stories in games, where fans will immediately pre-order any title a particular studio or developer announces.

As I was writing this I was thinking of the likes of Valve, Blizzard, Bungie, and Polyphony Digital. I am sure there are many more. But there are also cases where, through presumably rigorous publisher direction, series that span multiple developers have built up a brand name – again, thinking of today’s Call of Duty launch, I know there are many gamers who don’t know or care about the Infinity Ward / Treyarch situation, and are just itching to get their hands on the next round of CoD goodness.

Anyway, the conclusion I came to here is that these success stories have all come about because the developers made individually successful games. The aim of the individual developers and the business as a whole, is the same in this case.

Yeah, sorry, I’m feeling quite introspective at the moment. It’ll pass soon enough and I’ll go back to talking about Hot Bi-Curious Sexy Teen Action (yeah, that still crops up pretty often on my Google Analytics results!)

So, as you’re no doubt aware (I do kind of assume that my readers visit other sites to catch up on what is going on in the games industry. At least I hope they do, ’cause they’d find out almost nothing from my ramblings) Microsoft have announced the launch titles for Kinect.

Depending on your point of view it is either an exciting or depressing lineup. The list is heavy on dancing games, sport minigame compilations, and “fitness” titles. Fighters Uncaged and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (it fair old rolls of the tongue, doesn’t it?) look to be the most “core” titles.

Yeah, Harry Potter is one of the titles most likely to appeal to the 360′s current audience.

But that’s fine, right? Kinect isn’t aimed at those people who have made the 360 a success by buying Gears of War, Call of Duty, and various other testosterone-y games. It’s aimed at the happy families that feature so heavily in the marketing materials.

(Does anybody expect children to enthusiastically high five after playing Kinect Joy Ride, by the way? Surely it is far more likely that the two kids would end up hitting each other “accidentally”?)

Thing is, are the intended market the sort of people to spend £150 on a new gadget at launch, having not played it? Or are they more likely to buy it months down the line, having drunkenly played it at a friend’s house over New Year?

Who is the type of person who has over a hundred quid (how much over will of course depend on how many games you want to buy with it) burning a hole in their pocket, ready to splash out on a new toy the moment it is released?

The Call of Duty players?

(No, not Milo – his actual kid.)

So Peter Molyneux (and if you read this, I’m just going to go ahead and assume you know who he is) recently uploaded a video showing his son begging Valve to get their arses in to gear with regards to finishing off Half-Life Episode 3.

This prompted a few comments on-line along the lines of:

Don’t you think it’s irresponsible for a leading figure in the games industry to admit his child plays a mature rated game?

To which my reply is: No, absolutely not at all.

I believe that parents who take an interest in the games their children are playing, and know their own children, will be a much better judge of what their child can play than some board imposing an arbitrary age limit.

I mean, it’s not like Half-Life is particularly mature – the zombies are probably the most scary bit, the enemies you’re shooting aren’t human, and there isn’t any swearing in it that I can remember.

I could easily believe a 9 (is he, or 10?) year old who had a fair amount of exposure to games and other media could play Half-Life or Portal without suffering any distress whatsoever. Equally I can believe that some children would be scared or upset by it.

We should be applauding parents who take a very active interest in the games their children are playing, not just dismissing them out of hand as being irresponsible.

Today in my head, I set up my future games studio.

Called “Daylight Games”, it will run very similarly to many other studios. We’ll make games, for instance. And more likely than not, use computers to do it.

There will be meetings, and producers, and drinks vending machines, and fresh fruit delivered for free, and people will swear at their 3d art package crashing exactly fourteen minutes and fifty nine seconds since the last auto save. Eventually an email will be sent around to the whole company discussing the inappropriate lack of aim that an unknown someone has exhibited in the gent’s.

There will be two things that will set Daylight Games apart, and one will lead directly on from the other. Canny developers may have already guessed (the studio’s name is a bit of a clue).

First will be the interview question “Are you prepared to work in a well lit office?”

Obviously, that won’t be the only question we’ll ask, but it will be one of the most important. Like the much more common “are you going to defecate on my desk”, the wrong answer will ensure that no matter how talented the potential hire, and how low a wage they are prepared to work for, they won’t get in the door.

For Daylight Games will work in a studio where a) sunlight will be let in, and b) if there isn’t enough sunlight, the office lights will be turned on.

Turning them off or drawing blinds will be classed as gross misconduct, and will result in a stern disciplinary meeting, where we will play back to you the recording of your interview answer (yeah, we’ll record all interviews too).

The second thing that will set us apart will be that, as a result of the working conditions, all of our games will be fully playable at 3pm on a glorious Saturday afternoon. Without you having to shut yourself away like a vampire hobbit.

Think about it – artists won’t be able to make dank dark basement levels, because they wouldn’t be able to see their them in our lovely and well lit office. Which means that you can play the games without drawing the curtains.

Which means your significant other will likely be a lot more fond of them because the house won’t be pitch black. And because they’ll feature nice sunny scenes.

Mark my words, I have hit upon the next wave of “mass market” gaming. This shit is beyond asking friends for Facebook Cockerels, my friends. You are peeking through the looking glass (and having to squint because it is so nice and bright on the other side).

Well, we can all dream, right?

Eurogamer have recently put up an article in which they ask a number of video game developers what one wish they would like granted for the industry, if they could have anything.

The replies are all rather disappointing, to be honest, and many are things that are within the developers’ grasp, if they really wanted to achieve them.

Greg Zeschuk, co-founder of BioWare, would like a “guarantee a hundred per cent agreement that games are art.” Aside from this being a boring addition to the ‘are games art?’ dirge, it seems rather bizarre to blanket demand that all games are art. Surely nobody actually thinks that, do they?

It’s particularly odd as he then goes on to say “hopefully ours are the ones that are closer to art”, which implies that even he agrees that currently, their games aren’t art. Eurgh.

Karl Stewart, who is the brand director of “Lara Croft” (which seems a fairly straightforward job, given some of the shit that has had that brand attached to it) would like a game that will make him cry. More cynical folk than me would maybe suggest Angel of Darkness.

Still on a Lara Croft vibe, Forest Large would “would love to see more women developers”. Men can’t animate women properly, apparently. A truly baffling (and kind of insulting to animators) comment to make.

This also made me laugh “I don’t want you to think that Lara Croft is the only multi-dimensional female character out there in games.” First reader to write down more than one dimension of Lara Croft’s character in the comments wins a prize.

Brian Jarrard (the community director at Bungie) thinks that it would be “great if games were just somehow a little more ubiquitous and accessible.” Free Flash and billions of iPhone games are just not accessible enough, games should be cheaper apparently. This coming from a guy working at a company that was platform exclusive for years. If you want to make these changes, how about fighting from within, eh?

Next up is respected designer Warren Spector who wants “to make games for a lot less money with much smaller teams, so we could take a lot more chances”. Well Warren, there are plenty of teams out there doing exactly that. How much of a small team do you want? Two guys? There are people out there making money like that. And let’s face it, you’re probably the one with the clout and cash to set up a studio doing whatever takes your fancy.

And finally Niles Sankey says “the nice thing about Bungie – it might sound clichéd, but we never really need to make wishes. We’re going to make it happen.” Which is brilliant news for Brian Jarrard, I guess.

So, now you’re read me picking apart the replies of half of the respondents, you’re probably wondering what my “one wish” would be.

Well, that would be telling. And might get me fired

“A Tragedy in One Act”

INTERIOR: A slightly run-down office. There is a table in the middle. Stuart Black sits on one side. He is trendy and young, and wearing cool trainers. Facing him are three middle-aged men wearing suits from Top Man.

CODEMASTERS MANAGEMENT
All of the E3 press about that new game you’re making was terrible.

STUART BLACK
Well yes – in a rush to ensure we had something at all to show people, you made us release pre-alpha footage that unfortunately looked shit. And these days the baying hordes don’t understand what pre-alpha means, they just write nasty comments about how the game looks like crap and they hate it.

CODIES
Well because of all of those nasty comments we don’t trust you any more, so we want to know exactly what’s going on with development from now on. We will have final say over everything that happens in the project, step by step.

BLACK
But that will just slow down decision making, and ensure the blandest possible result of a strictly by-the-numbers game that will probably just copy whatever Call of Duty is doing that year.

CODIES
Oh yes we like Call of Duty, imagine if we published Call of Duty – we would be kings of the world. It’d be like when we used to publish good games. We just want to publish good games. Please let us publish good games.

BLACK
You will ruin my vision. And I have already spoken to the press at length about how everybody’s elses upcoming shooters are just rubbish clones of Call of Duty. I will look like an idiot.

CODIES
Sorry, we weren’t paying attention. We were still dreaming about what we’d buy with our Call of Duty publishing billions.

BLACK
I cannot work under these conditions. I will leave, and you don’t want that to happen because I am great.

CODIES
o rly?

CUT TO: A gaming webpage spins into view. The headline reads “BREAKING NEWS: Black and Codies part ways”.

fin.

The back story to this obvious work of complete fiction is here. Stuart Black, one of the creators of Criterion’s “Black”, is leaving Codemasters in October months before his much-hyped (by him and them) new game “Bodycount” is completed.

I’m sure it’ll be great, though.

PS: Please remember to sponsor me, if you haven’t already.

Well, not brilliantly, it must be said. Here are the results. I’ve highlighted the ones I got right.

• Best New IP – Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream)
• Best New Download IP – Angry Birds (Rovio)
• Best Use of a Licence or IP – Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady Studios)
• Visual Arts – Split/Second (Black Rock Studio)
• Audio Accomplishment – DJ Hero (FreeStyleGames)
• Publishing Hero – Channel 4
• Technical Innovation – Unity Engine (Unity Technologies)
• Tools Provider – Hansoft
• Engine – Unreal Engine 3
• Services – Testology
• Audio Outsourcer – Side
• Visual Outsourcer – Axis Animation
• Recruitment Company – Amiqus
• Best New Studio – Hello Games
• Micro Studio – Hello Games
• Handheld Studio – SCE Cambridge
• Business Development – Sony XDev
• In-House Studio – Rocksteady Studios
• Independent Studio – Quantic Dream

As you can probably count for yourselves, that’s a whopping nine right, out of nineteen. Or just under half. Maybe I don’t know as much about this crazy old games industry as I like to think.

Tune in again next year, chums!

(Although at least I beat reader James. Ha, he is an idiot who knows nothing.)