Pills, ills and bellyaching from developers on the

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13/12/04
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JANUARY 2005
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ISSUE 46
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Will you survive ‘05?
Pills, ills and bellyaching from developers on the edge…
C O D I N G
D E S I G N
A R T
S O U N D
B U S I N E S S
www.developmag.com
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UPDATEJANUARY 5
THE DEALS
Licked up
THQ has acquired longterm development partner
Australia’s Blue Tongue
Entertainment, which
recently completed The
Polar Express.
These lovely images, direct from the
Mauritanian border, portray a game of
Seig kicking off.
The nomadic mathematical strategy game
was discovered by Tim Hull, the former
developer, and M4 and TIGA co-founder,
who is travelling around the world on a
motorbike looking for clues about culture
Climax R US
Having just merged three
divisions to form what it claims
is the UK’s largest studio,
Climax Action (and denying
speculation of job losses in the
process), Climax has revealed
bold US expansion plans.
The company is to move its
US division to a new, 16,000sq
ft office in Santa Monica, where
it will employ up to 80 staff.
The US office recently put
the finishing touches to Tron
2.0 Killer Application for Xbox.
“We expected a few teething
problems, but the US operation
integrated exceptionally well
with the UK studios,” said CEO
Karl Jeffery. “Its location is also
critical to the entire company,
allowing us to work closely with
the biggest names from both
the game and movie industries.”
With the dollar falling to 12year lows against the pound
(making UK development
correspondingly expensive for
US publishers), the move looks
well-timed – and perhaps more
affordable for Climax too.
www.climaxgroup.com
and gameplay in the indigenous forms of
play he encounters on route.
Hull’s ‘Quest for Gameplay’ has seen
him take a year and a lot of pitstops to get
through Western Europe and North Africa.
On the way he is raising awareness for
UNICEF’s Right To Play campaign. Some
250 million children are child labourers,
engaged in debt bonding, prostitution or
war rather than carefree game playing.
“Seig is beautifully crafted in the sand,
and enigmatically mimics the dunes of the
surrounding desert in its construction,” said
Hull. “I fell in love with the social etiquette
of women playing Seig.”
www.globaltimoto.com
Thousand dollar smile
The injection of six figure funds
has surely put a grin on the
face of Genemation, the
Manchester-based facial
synthesis start-up. The
institutional investment comes
on the back of a previous six
figure DTI grant; together they
will enable Genemation to
push forward the development
of a run-time solution for next
generation consoles.
“At a time when parts of the
games development industry
are going through major
retrenchment and consolidation,
and investors are increasingly
hesitant about video games
companies’ prospects, it’s
heartening to be involved in a
business that investors see as
having leading edge technology,
good commercial prospects,
and very good potential for a
healthy return on investment,”
said CEO and ex-Psygnosis
man John Bickley.
“The UK has a long tradition
of innovation and producing
ground breaking technologies
No bald men were harmed in the
making of this demonstration screenshot
across many industry sectors. I
firmly believe there’s a great
future for UK companies
developing middleware for the
games sector, which with next
generation platforms is facing
unprecedented technical and
commercial pressures.”
Genemation was spun out
of Manchester University’s
Imaging Science & Biomedical
Engineering division (ISBE),
one of the world’s leading
academic institutions in
computer vision, in 2002.
It will launch a new upgrade
of its facial animation tools at
this year’s GDC.
www.genemation.com
Digital Bridges
goes for growth
Grow fast or get swallowed
is the stark choice in a
booming, but consolidating,
sector. And having just
completed an $18 million
funding round, mobile
content and distribution
veteran Digital Bridges can
afford a healthy appetite.
But for now, the company
is looking to grow organically,
rather than make the sort of
All You Can Eat deal that
saw IOMO and MacroSpace
gobbled up by InfoSpace
and Sorrent last month. It
will use the new money
(raised from existing investors)
to expand hard during the
next year, making itself
predator rather than prey.
It’s already set up a US
operational hub in California
to complement existing
production and technology
facilities in Scotland. And the
company is hiring across
Europe and moving into Asia.
www.digitalbridges.com
New award to win
Educational charity D&AD
has launched a new
category for console games
in its 2005 D&AD Awards.
Also known as the Yellow
Pencils, the D&AD Awards
are billed as the most
prestigious within the
design, advertising and
communication industries.
Log on to the website and
register your best work by
February 4th to enter.
Sammy says
Sammy Studios has given
$290,000 to the University
of California’s Experimental
Game Lab. Research will
focus on persistent evolving
multi-user online worlds,
streaming media, ondemand asset derivation,
soft body dynamics for
character development and
prototyping. Sammy will
also provide free use of its
game engine, SCORE.
Bad Nam
The Advertising Standards
Authority has upheld
complaints about an ad for
Take Two’s Vietcong: Purple
Haze. Seven people objected
to the quote from Official
PlayStation 2, “Napalm
never smelt this good”. The
ASA agreed it was likely to
cause serious or widespread
offence. It rejected complaints
that the game glorified war
and violence.
Top of the pops
Keen to exploit the crossover
potential of games and
music, EA has joined with
Cherry Lane Music to form
Next Level Music. The
publishing company will act
as an agency to licence EA’s
assets for commercials,
films and ringtones, as well
as signing up new talent
and expanding the music
EA can use by acquiring
other publishing catalogues.
www.dandad.org
www.experimentalgamelab.net
www.asa.org.uk
www.cherrylane.com
Keep on Truckin’
Eutechnyx is working on a
sequel to its million-selling
Big Mutha Truckers, to be
published by Empire
(Europe) and THQ (US).
More Eastern promise
Codemasters has signed
Russian codeshop KDV
Games to develop an
unannounced PC title.
Divide and conquer
EA will publish the official
game of the UEFA
Champions League 20042005 in February 2005.
Paper play
Midway continues to bulk
up, picking up Mortal
Kombat partner Paradox
Development in an all
share deal.
Light, game, action!
X-Men director Bryan
Singer is working with Vin
Diesel’s Tigon Studios to
develop Secret Service.
Extended life
Taito is developing an
arcade version of Half-life
2, which is due for release
in summer 2005.
Fatboy slims
Sumo Digital is creating a
PSP version of TOCA Race
Driver 2 for Codemasters.
Downhill all the way
Data Design Interactive
has gained the rights to
produce a JUGULAR
branded street luge and
downhill skateboarding
game. It is also providing
30 games for G-Cluster’s
broadband iTV gamingon-demand system.
Key DS deal
Ignition has secured the
rights to Zoo Keeper,
SUCCESS Corp’s
Nintendo DS launch title.
Denki is go
Denki’s Thunderbirds:
Flashpoint Earth has gone
live on Sky Gamestar.