Looks, like one of my predictions is coming true: Heavenly Sword in-game art looks so beautiful, that people have trouble finding words to describe it – as you can see on that Ninja Theory Forums.

The above picture is not modified high-resolution image for promotional use. It’s actually an in-game shot with resize, lighting and depth of field then applied to the scene so that it can be used as a desktop wallpaper. See Kotaku and Ninja Theory Forums for the original story.

I remember when I saw player face textures in NHL ’97 and thought “this is unbelievable”. Well, I guess I have to find another meaning for word “unbelievable”. Because this Heavenly Sword image is unbelievable.

I just found out about the Indie MMO Game Development Conference that takes place April 14th – 15th, 2007 at Minneapolis, MN, USA. I must say that I was impressed since I didn’t realize there wouldn’t even be such events like this. One of the featured speakers is Brian Green (aka Psychochild), so I bet there will be some informative sessions there.

IMGDC describes the conference in the following way:

The IMGDC is a much needed conference that is geared towards the ever-growing world of Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) and the Indie developers who dream to cut themselves a piece of the MMO market pie. Designers and developers alike will find useful tracks and discussion groups at the conference. This conference is here to prove that Indie developers can and should be successful in the MMOG market.

I wrote in the past about MMORPG production and even answered to couple of questions about MMORPGs. I believe that tools such as Multiverse will help indies make MMO games, but there still lots of work to do. Presumably the conference will shed light on how to succeed in MMO production. We’ll see how the event goes in April.

The registration fees seemed quite decent (especially for the next couple of days, since the fees go up after 15th February). Here are their rates:

* Early Bird special rate: $49.99 until December 15th, 2006.
* Normal rate: $99.99 until February 15th, 2007
* Late registration rate: $149.99 starting February 16th, 2007.

You may register here.

If you wish to find out more about the event, there’s speaker bios and other information available at their website.

Rumors and opinions

I’ve heard so many rumors about Windows Vista that it starts to be quite hard to track what’s really going on. In one indiegamer discussion thread there was some debate regarding the DRM (digital rights management) and how it’s done in Vista. It looks like Microsoft people are enforcing the DRM (compared to older windows versions) and how this affects is left to see. I know that personally I hate being forced to do something when I’m a good customer – and I actually wrote about this in the past. There are good points (in theory it should help against piratism), but it might be just really annoying to user in the end.

Security rumors

In the BBC article there was talk about the improved security. Bill Gates was reported to say that “Vista is more secure than other operating systems”. As we look in the past “secure” operating systems – and the need for security patches one after one – I have my own concerns. Finnish security professional from F-secure “It’s dramatically more secure than, say, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP. However, it’s fundamentally not more secure than operating systems like FreeBSD, QNX, AS/400 etc, I would claim it’s not even as secure as another operating system from Microsoft; namely the operating system inside the Xbox 360.”. That’s something I can believe, and I bet we will see security packs in the future.

Compatibility

Then there has been talk about Vista’s compatibility: will older games work with Vista? Some people have reported problems, while some have said their products have worked fine. I wrote earlier that Vista wouldn’t affect indie game development – and took the older technology perspective arguing that since many indie games are played 5 year old computers which cannot run Vista. That’s why Vista won’t affect development of games that are targeted to older machines. Naturally Vista affects newer game development, AAA title development and eventually (when more and more people are moving to using Vista) it will affect casual games more and more. I thought Vista’s problem would be technical but there might actually be bigger issues: Game Explorer’s malware protection and ESRB ratings.

Rumors about Vista’s Game Explorer and ESRB rating killing casual distribution

ESRB rating is – roughly speaking – a symbol that lets people know if the game is suitable for kids or not. Unfortunately ESRP rating is expensive for indies and meant for bigger titles. This means Vista’s Game Explorer will give hard time for casual games. Besides the ESRP rating, the problem is the notifications about “hazardous” products. There was an article about this problem in GamaSutra which goes into detail regarding this.

Conclusions

I really don’t know what kind of conclusions to draw from the discussions. I bet DRM will be annoying, but it’s eventually the consumers who decide what happens: we are the ones who buy stuff or not. What happens to casual distribution is left to see, but I would expect Vista getting a lot of lawsuits if big games portals couldn’t let people install their casual games without warnings.

I suppose time will tell.

Gamespress reported that Eidos – one of the world’s leading publishers and developers of entertainment software – announced a distribution deal with premium casual game developer and publisher MumboJumbo. They will release six top PC game franchises to European retail on 9th February 2007.

The six hit titles have all been featured prominently in the global download charts, with combined sales of over two million copies to-date. The titles to be released to European retail include: Jewel Quest, Luxor: Amun Rising, Super Collapse! 3, Cubis 2, Chainz 2: Relinked and 7 Wonders of the Ancient World.

If you look at for example the Luxor game, it has a darn simple idea, pretty graphics, different levels – all things that every game might have. But something made it a hit game and now it’s going to be published by one of the biggest game publishers in the world. Casual games are getting more and more coverage and deals like this will guarantee the increasing trend of casual gaming.

Some days ago I mentioned about the Wii success and then I saw interesting figures from gamesindustry.biz. Nintendo UK has reported that 50,000 units of the console were sold in just 12 hours. That’s one unit purchased every second according to them.

BBC reported about the sales – but from different point-of-view: “Wii shortages frustrating gamers”. Wii has not been shipped in many places and not every customer has had a chance to get the console delivered to them. Some people have pre-ordered Wii months ago, and still cannot get their hands on the vehicle anytime soon.

That’s a real problem for Nintendo, and there’s another problem knocking on the door: there has been a lawsuit about the Wii-mote patent.

We’ll see how it will go in the future – whether Nintendo can get enough consoles for customers and whether the patent issue is going to interrupt their business.

When I first heard about new game console Wii I thought it would face the same end as “interactive movies” – bad. I thought the new Wii controller wouldn’t be user friendly. I thought it would be way too strange to use.

Today I think quite the opposite. I heard Finnish people – who had given a chance to test Wii – saying that the controller actually works, and is fun to use. I also read a story that says Wii selling millions: “We will sell everything we make, so now it’s a manufacturing thing”. Same time PlayStation 3 is in trouble: Because of logistic problems they couldn’t manage to get enough consoles to stores in Japan and many people are choosing Wii over PlayStation 3 because of the PS3 high price.

I really think Wii will be successful in the future – it already is. The games seem to be more about innovative ways to use the controller, so there might be room for indie game producers to start considering Wii as their target platform.