The new studio will be headed by Swordfish founder Trevor Williams, and is tasked with creating original content using the company's EGO Engine, which is the power behind GRID, DIRT, and Operation Flashpoint 2. Nice catch, Codemasters!

CODEMASTERS® ACQUIRES SWORDFISH TO LAUNCH NEW BIRMINGHAM-BASED STUDIO

Codemasters' New Birmingham Studio To Be Led By Swordfish Founder Trevor Williams
Friday 14th November/...Facilitating an accelerated expansion of its development talent base, Codemasters® today announced it has reached an agreement with Activision Vivendi to take over Swordfish Studios, the Birmingham-based games development house. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The deal brings immediate additional resource to Codemasters’ development operations. Under the terms of the agreement Swordfish Studio’s development team will be integrated and managed as part of Codemasters’ network of studios. Trevor Williams, founder and managing director of Swordfish Studios, will continue to lead the studio reporting to Gavin Cheshire, VP, Codemasters Studios.

Carrying the Codemasters Studios imprint, the studio will create original content using the company’s proprietary EGO Engine, the technology behind racing hits Colin McRae: DiRT and Race Driver: GRID and is currently powering the highly-anticipated Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.

“We are committed to growing our studio operations across multiple facilities and increasing the internal capability of Codemasters’ creative resource,” said Gavin Cheshire, VP, Codemasters Studios. “There is a strong heritage and a compatible skill set, which has enabled us to fast track growth plans and allows for ease of management. Codemasters has ramped up as a UK games development powerhouse with a scalable support infrastructure that allows for rapid deployment of the highly versatile EGO Engine.”

With a 15-year heritage, Swordfish is a past recipient of Best UK Studio in the Develop Industry Excellence Awards and Best Company in the TIGA Awards. Swordfish and Codemasters have partnered previously for the development of hit sports titles Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 and Jonah Lomu Rugby. Most recently Swordfish led the creation of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand for Vivendi.

The Birmingham studio becomes the Codemasters’ fourth major development hub and joins established operations Codemasters Studios Guildford (UK), Codemasters Studios Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and its central base which operates from Codemasters’ corporate headquarters in Warwickshire (UK).

Codemasters continues its recruitment drive for development talent in all studios locations, details of positions are available at www.codemasters.com or email recruitment@codemasters.com

"We only need four days to complete the process. This means that visitors will be able to watch the game slowly take shape before their eyes. GC visitors in the glass development studio will be also be able to subject the different versions of the game to their own quality testing," explained Boje Holtz of exDream.

The Glass Development Studio at GC family

Visitors to the Games Convention Can Experience How a Computer Game Is Created at First Hand

The The German Federal Association for Interactive Entertainment Software (BIU) has joined up with Leipziger Messe to create the first glass development studio at the GC - Games Convention. From 23 to 26 August the Hannover development studio exDream entertainment will be developing a game at the GC family hall (Hall 5, stand F40), providing visitors with an insight into the typical working processes involved in the development of a game.

The game will be a puzzle similar to the games classic Tetris. Visitors to the show will be able to watch the four-man development team at work from idea and concept to programming and graphic design. In addition, the exDream team will also be answering any questions regarding the process of developing a digital game. "We only need four days to complete the process. This means that visitors will be able to watch the game slowly take shape before their eyes. GC visitors in the glass development studio will be also be able to subject the different versions of the game to their own quality testing," explained Boje Holtz of exDream.

The glass development studio opens on Thursday, 23 August 2007.

On a sunny afternoon in the middle of May, I made my way from the familiar streets of Da'an District, Taipei, all the way down to Zhonghe District. I drove by streets full of betel nut stands and motorcycle repair shops, but my destination was an inconspicuous office tucked into a generic high rise office building. Other than the EverQuest II poster that is hung next to the door, there's no indication that Sony Online Entertainment's Taipei branch, SOGA, lies inside.

Of course, a few months ago, most people outside of Asia had probably never heard of SOGA. With the announcement of a game based on Stephen Chow's 2004 movie Kung Fu Hustle, people have at least started wondering about the little studio tucked away in Taipei, on a little island that a lot of people can't find on a map. Not wondering enough to send anyone down to take a gander at the place, apparently, since SOGA's general manager, John Laurence, commented to me that "We haven't had a visitor in 4 years or something!"

Four years is about the length of SOGA's history. The studio's roots lie in EverQuest II; historically, Western character models - the more medieval style that anyone who has seen a game like World of Warcraft is familiar with - haven't worked well in Asia. Armed with the concept art of Japanese artist Hisanowo (who is also doing work on Kung Fu Hustle), the guys at what would become SOGA came up with the CG artwork that was found in Asian localizations of EverQuest II.

Even cool concept art and a solid attempt at faithfully recreating those stylized 2D, paper-and-ink renditions in CG didn't help EverQuest II in Asia. The game was shut down in most of Asia for a host of reasons, which Laurence thinks related mainly to game play. But Western gamers liked what they saw of the SOGA characters, and they were released in America and Europe. In a classic example of making lemonade out of lemons, Laurence said that the character models were a big success for the fledgling branch: "It was really cool, because we were able to nail a relevant graphical style for EverQuest II that worked the world over, and the source was here - it was the CG creators, who are all Taiwanese, and the concept artist, who's the Japanese guy."

After getting their feet wet with character designs, SOGA co-produced EverQuest II's The Fallen Dynasty adventure pack with San Diego-based SOE, taking full advantage of the wealth of Taiwanese imagery and Chinese culture at their fingertips. Most people wouldn't recognize the Taiwanese landscapes and facets of traditional Chinese culture, but they're in there. "[The adventure pack] was a big hit for EverQuest II," Laurence said. "And it was all based on Asian imagery, particularly imagery from Taiwan. Nobody knows that - well, probably most people - but ...we went out and took a lot of pictures of places in Taiwan."

Despite the failure of EverQuest II in Asia, Laurence was adamant in his stance against the idea of targeting games to consumers on a cultural basis, at least in terms of the way it's been talked about in Western press recently. "I think it's foolish to say that 'Chinese gamers like this, Korean gamers like this, Taiwanese gamers like this, and American gamers like that.' And I think the first thing people need to do in order to understand what they're really talking about to be successful out here - they need to abandon that outdated idea. There's just too much stuff with too much in common culturally to think along those lines."

With one blinding exception, that is - the variation in play styles, how people play games, must be taken into account. We spent a long time talking about the culture of internet cafes in East Asia something that is relatively unknown in the West. The free-to-play model, which is regarded, at best, as a bit odd in Western markets and at worst, degraded as a model that simply allows companies to nickel and dime consumers, is pretty much the gold standard in Asian markets outside of Japan. Consoles have never had the market penetration they've enjoyed in Japan and the West in China, Taiwan, or Korea, and so gaming emphasis has been elsewhere.

"This doesn't have to do with taste so much, it has to do with the evolution of how the games came about. Here in Taiwan, people's houses - same in Mainland China - you don't have big houses, it's unusual for kids to say 'Hey, I want you to come over to my house to play.' It's more like, 'Let's go to sing karaoke together, let's go someplace else ....' I think that whole culture of doing things outside, which started with things like ... the karaoke bars, turned into the internet cafes."

Laurence expanded on his thoughts on the traditional package- or subscription-based model, where he says the sales channels dictate what goes into game and how a game is designed, not leaving "any flexibility at all for the creator." Going further, he described what he sees as an "unwritten pact" between game designers and the users that so much content has to be supplied to justify either the initial purchase price or subscription fee. The free-to-play/microtransaction model really works for both designers and consumers, he says:

"It makes it so we can say, 'Hey, we don't have to make an MMORPG, we can make an MMO action game, there's still a way to give the player value for their short time playing the game.' If they don't like it, they can play it for free until they decide they don't like it. If they do, they can pay a little bit of money to continue or to get cool items. But it means when we're making a game like Kung Fu Hustle, we don't have to say 'We have to create enough content for you to grind 60 hours a month in order to justify the subscription price.'"

All this ties into the game version of Kung Fu Hustle, which will utilize the free-to-play, microtransaction-based model. Utilizing game points - which in a lot of Asia means purchasing cards associated with games or publishers at any convenience store or internet café, getting a certain amount of points depending on how much you want to shell out - they're going to make sure that "the game points will be a fun part of the game that won't be a nuisance to players." We'll have to wait and find out exactly how the in-game items and game points will work, and as of right now, release outside of Asia isn't confirmed, though it's something that the team is shooting for.

In designing the game, the SOGA team obviously had the Taiwanese or Mainland Chinese internet café phenomenon (and common microtransaction model) in mind, as well as an older arcade feel. Just as the movie version of Kung Fu Hustle pays homage to the tradition of Hong Kong kung fu flicks and the wuxia genre in general, the game version seems to want to pay homage to its own forerunners in the game department. "We wanted to recreate the experience of the video arcade when we were kids, where you can not only play the game yourself, but have the experience of a video arcade, with your challengers and opponents standing around you, waiting to challenge you."

In response to criticisms of the free-to-play, buy items and other things model, Laurence dismissed them as unfounded - criticisms that exist only because the model is largely unfamiliar:

"I notice on the streets, when you even mention the model of the game cards, and the paying for items, and getting the game for free, everyone's like 'Oh, you guys are just trying to nickel and dime us. And to screw us,' and stuff like that .... But the truth is, it gives the player a chance to try out a lot of different things. But the best thing for us as game creators is that you're not shackled to how the sales channels dictate what goes into the game .... For us, I'm really happy because it makes it much easier to pitch ideas up and get projects green lit and it's also easier for us to try new things, because ... we can almost decide the business model after we make the pitch."

While information about Kung Fu Hustle is scarce right now for a number of reasons - namely, John Laurence feels that "Stephen should be the spokesman for this, and not me," and the game isn't even in "pre-alpha" yet - we did get to talk about the thoughts and feelings behind the game. The SOGA team seems acutely aware of the speculation and sensitivity surrounding the game, and also cognizant of the plethora of "crappy movie-based games," something that they definitely don't want to replicate. The 'essence' of Kung Fu Hustle is what they are going for, with the input of Chow; they are also trying to create a game that is an homage to those older, classic kung fu and beat 'em up games like Final Fight or Streets of Rage, games that were killed by 3D, at least to Laurence's eyes.

Of course, no one sets out to make a bad game based on a well-liked movie, but the obvious sensitivity with which they are approaching Kung Fu Hustle was reassuring at least, as was the stack of classic kung fu flicks and a book on the Shaw Brothers Studios kung fu movies occupying a prominent place. "When they saw Kung Fu Hustle, Stephen Chow surprised them," Laurence said. "When they play Kung Fu Hustle, Stephen Chow is going to surprise them. So I think in a nutshell, that's the message - and there's only a little bit of information out, and I want to talk about it, I could talk about it for the next 15 hours, but we can't right now."

At the same time, the studio is excited by the reception (anxious though some articles may be) over news of a Kung Fu Hustle game. "How often can you say to people, 'Hey, we're making this game in Taiwan for the Chinese market,' and then a bunch of guys start to really want to talk about it, and ... all of a sudden - you're at our office!" Taiwan is largely off the radar of most people, and Laurence said it makes it the perfect place to develop games. With the heavy hitters like Blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, et al. setting up studios on the Mainland, there's a distinct lack of jockeying for prime talent on the little island that could.

But more than that, the unique variety of cultural influences that pervade Taiwan also make it a great place to set up shop. "Once you get here, you'll find that this is such a cool place, because you've got the Japanese influence, Chinese influence, American influence, and of course strong Taiwanese aesthetic sensibilities," Laurence said as we were wrapping up. "This is the perfect place to make games."

In the first of what will likely be many interesting previews of things to come at this year's Game Developers Conference, executive director Jamil Moledina announces that there will be two different talks during the conference about squeezing the most out of the Playstation 3 during development.

These development tips come straight from the mouths of first-party developers, so there could be some interesting tidbits buried in the presentation even for those of us that don't create games. Me? I'd love to hear more about just how much of the console's processing power is being used in these first iteration games. Brian Crecente

Preview Build: Sony Shares First Party PS3 Secrets [GDC]