2007 Develop Conference Day 2

Risky Business - Managing Risk in Busines

Video games lawyer Vincent Scheurer takes on five major hidden risks to game development studios.  The lecture focuses on the risks which lurk beneath the surface of the games industry, and which are therefore easily overlooked.  The lecture also considers the strategies available for dealing with each risk. The lecture addresses the following five hidden risks:

• Market Risk (the risk that the market will move against the game, or against the game licence, whilst the game is in development)
• Financial Risk (exposure to adverse movements in currency exchange rate, particularly decline in US Dollar)
• Credit Risk (risks involved by exposure to publisher credit - i.e. the risk that the publisher runs out of money)
• Legal Risk (the risk of accidentally infringing someone else's IP rights)
• Political Risk (the risk that the regulatory environment turns against the game)
  

Takeaway
The lecture addresses risk mitigation strategies for each of the risks listed above.  It also addresses the additional hazards of projects which combine two or more of these risks, and includes an example of "expectation analysis" applied to a real video game project.

CONFERENCE ROOM 6

• Vincent Scheurer , Sarassin LLP

Making Games for Miyamoto's Wife

"My wife does not play any kind of games..... she has never 
showed interest, until recently," Shigeru Miyamoto, GDC 2007.

Miyamoto's and, for that matter, my own wife are typical of the vast majority of the public. Why is it so few people play video games? Almost everyone has a TV and wants to be entertained so why, as an industry do we reach such a small percentage of our potential audience?  David speaks on what he un-learned when making Buzz: The Music Quiz with SCEE and asks why we keep making games for the same 10% of people, why he thinks the game was such a massive hit and why he'll never make a 'traditional' vidoe game again!

CONFERENCE ROOM 3

• David Amor , Relentless Software

UK Games Sector Strategies

"The UK government and the European Commission  will be publishing a Green Paper/communications on the Creative Industries this summer which will include measures for the video and computer games industries, which they say is the most important of the all! By this time research by Games Investor looking at the prospects for the UK in the global market will be published.

This session will look at what is on offer and what are the key challenges and opportunities for the UK sector, the relevance the Tiga Triple Play strategy of skills, IP creation and Technology.

CONFERENCE ROOM 1

• Rick Gibson , Games Investor
• Fred Hasson , TIGA
• Jason Kingsley , Rebellion

But we failed maths in school!! When Artists Joined the Technical Team

Game development companies that have made the move to the next generation platforms will know just how much of an R&D investment is required from a graphics standpoint. The visual complexity expected in our games has increased dramatically and artists need to know so much more about the technical side of development. Independent UK developer Blitz Games realised the investment required in Art R&D with the addition of Art Direction Manager Steve Thomson and Creative Manager Aaron Allport into their Core Technology Team.

Take Away
This talk will outline how this invasion was received, an overview of the techniques and procedures that were developed, the training that ensued and lots of plans for the future.

CONFERENCE ROOM 4

• Aaron Allport , Blitz Games
• Stephen Thomson , Blitz Games

Emerging Issues in Game Design
[Session time 10.30-12.30]

In this two-hour workshop, top designers from some of Europe's foremost developers will discuss their latest work and the challenges that they face. A new generation of consoles has arrived, the casual market continues to explode, the retail PC market continues to shrink, and the Wii seems to have changed all the rules. What does it all mean for game design? Come and find out!

This session runs from 10.30-12.30

CONFERENCE ROOM 5

• Ernest Adams , Independant Game Designer
• Philip Bourke , Tipperary Institute
• Mark Eyles , University of Portsmouth
• Kate Pullinger
• Jolyon Webb , TruSim

Practical Multi-threading for Game Performance

The importance of threading game engines continues to grow in importance. The challenge now facing developers is to create architectures that not only scale between one and two cores but potentially well beyond into the multi-core era. This session will look at how current game developers are rising to the challenge of writing game designed to scale onto multi-core PC platforms using case studies of current high profile titles to highlight how the different components in the engines interact with each other and the performance issues that needed to be solved during development.

The goal of this session is to teach game developers what other games have done to date, the different ways that gaming engines can be multi-threaded, and some practical advice for multi-threading an existing gaming engine. Attendees will learn how different areas of a game engine can be threaded to minimize synchronization overhead and latency.

Sponsored Session.

CONFERENCE ROOM 2

• Leigh Davies , Intel

Creating Games for the Next Generation

David will look at (and demonstrate) some of the key new technologies that will allow our industry to move forwards into the fifth generation, including elements of The Outsider, and touch on some of the issues holding our industry back. 

CONFERENCE ROOM 3

• David Braben , Frontier

The Future of Game Work

This session will explore the game industry's ever growing need for talent along with the related economic, educational and policy challenges. Short of just thinking in terms of recruiting, what does the future of work look like in the game industry? From a personal/career level (eg, professional development, credit/trackrecord, quality of life, etc)? From the team/studio level (eg, corporate structures, team dynamics, production methods, outsourcing, etc)? And, all the way up to the structure of the industry itself (eg, business models, economic forces, impact of globalization, etc)?

Given the comprehensive treatment, this session is suitable to all levels and participants will take away a more holistic appreciation of how the game industry's global talent challenge is central to our understanding of the future of our work.

CONFERENCE ROOM 4

• Jason Della Rocca , IGDA

Bringing Colour to a New Generation

Lighting is universally recognised as one of the key areas of technology as we transition to the new consoles and graphics hardware.  In this talk Chris Doran and Sam Martin will provide insights into precisely what is achievable with modern hardware. They will offer a glimpse under the hood of Geomerics' Enlighten technology, and will discuss the challenges in providing highly optimised code across multiple platforms. A particular focus of the talk will be revealing how the cell's SPUs can be harnessed to improve lighting quality.   

Take Away
This talk is aimed at graphics programmers, though some level artists may be interested in the design possibilities afforded by new lighting technology.

CONFERENCE ROOM 1

• Chris Doran , Geomerics
• Sam Martin , Geomerics

Middleware: Revitalization of Middleware

A lively panel drawn from all areas of  development aiming to discuss middleware, it's place in the modern development ecosystem, the issues and challenges of the market and looking to explore and possibly debunk some of the myths surrounding the use of middleware as perceived by publishers and developers. In this discussion there are no sacred cows or givens...

CONFERENCE ROOM 5

• Darren Barnett , SCI/Eidos
• Mike Gamble , In2Games
• Chris Kingsley , Rebellion
• Gary Lewis , Geomerics
• Simon Mack , NaturalMotion Ltd
• Mark Rein , Epic

Small Developer's Survival Guide

A smaller development studio - albeit one with grand ideas - faces different challenges to a larger operation. How do you innovate and prototype with small budgets, squeeze the best out of every staff member, win deals that keep your business's future under your control, decide on burning issues such as IP ownership, and create a brand identity for your operation on a limited budget? This workshop sees two of the UK's highest-profile independents - Relentless, 'The masters of social gaming', and Introversion, 'The last of the bedroom programmers', offer valuable insights from the trenches.

Join Relentless, aka 'the masters of social gaming', and Introversion, aka 'the last of the bedroom programmers', in this workshop as they discuss the pros and cons of IP ownership for a small developer and other burning issues.

CONFERENCE ROOM 6

• Andrew Eades , Relentless Software
• Mark Morris , Introversion Software
• Matthew Nagy , Coyote

Introducing the Intel Threading Building Blocks

The Intel Threading Building Blocks is a C++ Template based library that provides commonly used data structures and threading paradigms. This session will deliver a high level view of the components, and cover some of the common cases the library is used for. As we move forward into the many core era, writing multi-threaded software needs to become easier, and that is exactly what the Threading Building Blocks has been created to do.   

The goal of this session is to make the gaming community aware of the steps being taken by Intel to make writing multi-threaded applications easier.

Sponsored Session.

CONFERENCE ROOM 2

• Jonathan Story , Intel

Crowd Control: Production Pipeline for MotoGP07

This session will present an overview of the methods used to implement the crowd system in MotoGP 07.  Developing a crowd system spans code, art and animation disciplines, and the strategies that helped us establish a structured workflow and enabled us to add thousands of animated characters to the MotoGP track environments will be recounted.  A component-based character system that is capable of producing a wide variety of geometry and texture variations from a single set of body parts and accessories will also be described. 

Topics will include our model format, skinning approach, animated imposter support, instance placement, animation selection, export toolchain, runtime engine architecture and implementation, lighting issues, performance analysis and optimization strategies.  The benefits of our approach will be demonstrated and future enhancements to the system explored.

CONFERENCE ROOM 1

• Matt Rubin , Climax Racing

Managing a Global Beta Trial Launch on Console

How can you hope to manage one of the most eagerly anticipated products to hit the console market through a Beta trial? What if that trial needed to be delivered globally?

Digital distribution of content via a console opens up a whole new world of possibilities for developers. The specific needs of Home forced SCE's Home team to re-evaluate and adapt all of its usual processes, arranging a global, secure model for distribution.  This allowed the developers to both select specific users in specific countries, and to give them access overnight, reducing reproduction costs and shortening the impact on the development process.

Mark Horneff (Beta Trial and Community Manager for Home) will be discussing the issues faced when managing the expectations and differences of both consumers and the development team from across the globe. Detailing the various difficulties involved, with such a high profile product, this discussion will expand on the various challenges faced, from the organisation and delivery of content, through to moderation and community management of feedback.

CONFERENCE ROOM 5

• Mark Horneff , Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Innovations in Games Design

This  talk by Peter Molyneux will look at how the RPG genre is evolving with particular emphasis  on combat  examining  some innovative game mechanics which will appear in Fable 2. He will demonstrate at how combat is being blended with emotional game play  to  give games players a very unique gaming experience.

CONFERENCE ROOM 3

• Peter Molyneux , Lionhead Studios

Viva Pinata: Visual Style and the Creative Spark

Games technology and tools for art creation have increased in power and scope dramatically over the past few years but they're nothing without a creative spark. During this session Ryan will talk about his experiences of creating the unique visual style of Viva Pinata, passion for a creative approach, love of concept art and the humble beginnings of a small garden game and how it bloomed into the huge Viva Pinata. No pipelines, no subdivision surfaces, no shaders, and definitely no normal maps. If you're just interested in art this is for you.

CONFERENCE ROOM 4

• Ryan Stevenson , Rare

Small Developer's Survival Guide (continued)

Session continued.

CONFERENCE ROOM 6

Developing for the N-Gage Platform

This session describes the technical aspects of the new Nokia N-Gage platform from a game developers' point of view. The topics covered are the N-Gage SDK philosophy and roadmap, N-Gage Arena multiplayer and community platform and the possibilities they offer for innovative connected gaming on a leading mobile platform. The session also covers the technical support structure and channels.

Sponsored Session.

CONFERENCE ROOM 2

• Miika Skaffari , Nokia

TBC

Description coming soon.

Speaker TBA.

CONFERENCE ROOM 3

A New Common Game Design Methodology

As production costs and team sizes on console and PC games continue to increase, getting game design right early in the production process can save tens of thousands of man hours. Despite early attempts to solve this problem via a formal game design notation method, no common or widely-used design methodology has emerged. Without it, communication problems often emerge within development teams resulting in expensive assets, such as complete levels, being scrapped due to fundamental misunderstandings about the game design.  Games in development can be pulled in conflicting directions by individuals based on their own personal ideas, a battle that can continue right through development.

Scottish-based ITI Techmedia is investing over £5m in a research and development programme to address this core issue and presents at Develop a new formal, easy-to-use notation-based methodology intended for widespread adoption across the games industry. This methodology will provide designers, programmers, artists and producers with a common framework that will allow them to work and communicate effectively and creatively together, and will save game developers millions of dollars in production costs.

The session will show how difficulty levels can be identified, viewed as a 'difficulty graphs' and modified to ensure that games stay in the 'fun zone' - that critical state between frustration and boredom. There will also be a software demonstration showing the notation in practice. 

The session will be hosted by Paul Sheppard, R&D Programme Manager at ITI Techmedia,  and formerly co-founder of Eidos's New Media Division. The session will be chaired by William Latham, Director of Games Audit Ltd and creator of best-selling game 'The Thing'.

CONFERENCE ROOM 1

• William Latham , Games Audit
• Paul Sheppard , ITI Techmedia

The Art of Crysis

The presentation will cover all the aspects of the production including  concepting, prototyping, building a team, establishing a vision, describing pipelines, interacting with other departments, and detailed information about how we create a our characters, weapons, vegetation, vehicles, aliens etc.

CONFERENCE ROOM 4

• Michael Khaimzon , Crytek

The SingStore, Open for Business: How and Why to Build an Ingame Store

With a strong emphasis on customisation, SingStar on PLAYSTATION 3 builds on the franchise's success on PS2 to include an integrated store and sophisticated community features. This session details the design & implementation of those features from a technical perspective.

The SingStore allows browsing, purchase and download of songs & other items from within the game, with a highly accessible user interface including streaming video previews. We explain how the store was built, combining PlayStation Network commerce features with a middleware solution and inhouse tools for managing large data sets.

My SingStar Online is a community of SingStar players, allowing upload and viewing of rich media including audio and video. We anticipate this to evolve rapidly, and have implemented a system which allows for server-side content updates while maintaining a consistent look and feel across offline and online pages.

Take Away
How and why to build an ingame store for a PS3 title, and insight into designing a flexible UI system that also works online.

CONFERENCE ROOM 5

• Richard Bates , Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Staying Alive

The games industry has started to change significantly. After the arrival of "next-gen" video game consoles causing another multiplication of production costs, the still common business model of developing games is finally sustainable no longer. Hannes will explain the nuts and bolts of the long awaited production and financing model now pursued by Games That Matter. He will show why it is advantageous for developers, publishers, producers as well as investors and why it will strengthen independent developers and service providers.

CONFERENCE ROOM 6

• Hannes Seifert , Games That Matter

Insight into Autodesk® Maya® and MotionBuilder

This session will cover some of the powerful animation tools in Maya including the new nCloth and enhanced character animation tools.  The presentation will also provide an insight into the powerful real-time workflow of MotionBuilder 7.5 including Non Linear Character Animation, Real Time Device Driven Control and the Story Tool for Pre Visualisation.

Sponsored Session.

CONFERENCE ROOM 2

• Nick Jovic , Autodesk