How Do You Meet Game Writers and Designers?

I got an interesting question recently on Quora and thought it might be useful to repost the Q&A here: How do I meet game developers? (I titled this post targeting game writers and game designers because that’s a little more relevant to this blog.) Here’s my answer: That’s not hard. 1) Find a local meetup […]

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Bioshock Co-Founder Calls It Quits

Surprisingly, Irrational Games’ co-founder Ken Levine recently announced that he’s shutting down that studio. This means that future Bioshock games will almost certainly have much less of his handiwork. He did also say that he will start a new studio under publisher Take-Two that will focus on smaller, digital-distribution games. The new studio will only […]

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An Indie Game Afternoon

Indie Game Madness at Fantastic Fest Spent a chunk of the afternoon at the “Fantastic Arcade,” something I had no idea existed until a few weeks ago. I was pretty impressed with the polish on most of these games, which are ripe and ready for DLC publication. Some of them are doubtlessly soon to hit […]

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Are Games and Workout Machines Crossing Over?

Will Your Next Game Console Make You Sweat? A recent article about exercise equipment with gaming features caught my eye recently: Nexersys, a new Austin-based workout machine maker, is pointing out that videogames and exercise equipment are reaching convergence. It’s worth taking a look at this crossover phenomenon. Fitness is a huge industry, and entertainment […]

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One of the Best MMORPG Info Sites

Finding the Best MMORPG Are you too time-constrained to figure out the best MMORPG for your gaming happiness? The Game Writer Central crew is sending a shout-out to WhatMMORPG.com, a very useful and noteworthy resource. Even figuring out the basics of MMORPG play can be a huge timesink. Who wants to wade through all the marketing fluff […]

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Game Cover Showdown: Motorstorm

Videogame Cover Art One-on-One The MotorStorm team at Evolution Studios just posted their cover art for the new MotorStorm Apocalypse. They’ve got two covers, one for the EU and one for the U.S. Same game, two covers. Why do marketing teams do this? Well, for one, there are different requirements for the labeling and legalese. […]

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Can You Be-Gleeve It?

The Gleeve: Frog’s New Power Glove So Frog Design has a new unstructured-play concept called the Gleeve. Cool concept that lends itself to horrible blog puns and nightmares of Nintendo’s abortive power glove. I think it has potential, although the description does seem a little light on details. I’m not about to criticize a simple […]

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LOTR Conquest: Tolkien-Flavored Cheese

Rapidfire Review: Lord of the Rings Conquest Some quick game designer’s observations about this PS3 game. This thing is hilarious. Yes, unintentionally hilarious, but I give Pandemic points for making the formula easily digestible. Admittedly, I’m kind of fond of Pandemic because they’re kind of scrappy and they did a solid job with Star Wars […]

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The Janus Fund Fee Game

The Janus Performance Fee Proposal The Janus fund fee (“performance fee”) recently pitched by Janus Funds is a good example of gamesmanship for higher stakes than seen in your typical RPG or RTS. We don’t usually talk about financial matters here at Game Writer Central, but I believe that it’s important to recognize game elements […]

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Game Designers Actually Write?

Game Writers Aren’t the Only Developers Who Need Writing Skills “Game designer” is an oft-misunderstood label that, like all labels, sometimes fails completely in describing the variety and depth of tasks tackled by the many talented people who fall into this bucket. Many times game consumers and friends have told me they thought game designers […]

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