GAME PRODUCER

The Game Producer is responsible for overall game performance of a significant MMO title including revenue, game content, and community growth. This Producer manages and coordinates the day to day activities of the game team supporting this MMO title. The Producer is also responsible for gathering the necessary resources from our engineering, quality assurance, marketing, and business development teams which will contribute to their game title's growth and success.

The Game Producer should posses a background that includes project management of multi-phased projects, daily management of hourly employees, and driving revenue based on marketing campaigns. The ideal candidate for this position should have a strong understanding of their gaming community and the ability to balance scope, time, cost, risk and quality of their title while also developing a high performance team.

The ideal candidate will meet the following requirements:

Responsibilities
# Perform ongoing game product analysis by working closely with the Director of Online Games to ensure project requirements are clearly defined, understood, and delivered
# Prepare and maintain daily documentation to include game project plans, status reports, risk assessment plans, change requests, and resource requests
# Maintain current knowledge of the latest MMOG market trends and customer requirements in both the US and foreign markets
# Define requirements for administrative tools used to manage the game
# Provide strategic direction to the game experience based upon community knowledge and expertise
# Work with your Community Manager to understand community needs and develop ways to effectively address them

Minimum Qualifications
# Produced and managed at least 2 - 3 MMO or PC based titles
# Minimum 7 years experience in the game industry, with increasing levels of responsibilities

Additional Positive Considerations
# Experience working at an Internet or web based company

I'd highlight the important parts, but they capitalized them for me. Is it Shin Megami Tensei Imagine? Or something new. Is Atlus USA going to sextuple the size of their studio and make a new MMOG? What the hell is happening here? I'm hyped for for a goddamn ghost. Someone hold me.

Edit: Some additional thoughts. Atlus is located in Irvine. The cost of living in Irvine is roughly the equivalent of chartering a 200-foot yacht to Mars and building the surrounding space shuttle with help from a team of highly unqualified heart surgeons. They are probably expecting an MMOG Producer to get paid the industry average +10-20%. Might I point out that Irvine would require an MMOG producer get paid 2-300% more, if not more. Especially if they have a family. Especially if they want someone with, ahem, SEVEN years of experience. Basically, wow, this is an interesting tree to bark up. God bless you, Atlus. Best of luck with this. It's total madness.

Edit 2: You know, on second thought, competition for this job will be FIERCE. Like, tooth and fucking nail and knife and shotgun. Then more gun. They should titled it *PRODUCER WHO WILL ACCEPT THE LITTLEST AMOUNT OF MONEY, BECAUSE WE KNOW YOU'RE ALL GOING TO APPLY. WE'RE AWESOME." And they are. Man, I wish they'd make it a reality show. It would be better than the trash they put on Hell's Kitchen.
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Editors note: This review was submitted by Cory J. Someone who lives in Arizona, near me (schild), and was willing to play through the new content so I could start over as I wanted the "full experience." I'm not really going to say anything about this review other than "we warned you." Without further ado, I present you with... well... this.

If you haven't played the original Persona 3 let me start off by telling you exactly how much I hate you. There are no known English words that come to mind that can accurate sum up how much I want bad things to happen near and to you. It reminds me of this one time a yellow VW bug pulled up alongside of me. Two problems here:

1. I hate bugs.
2. It was yellow.

I wanted bad things to happen to this car and its occupants. Like, say, immediate death. This all-together dangerous and violent feeling that was surging through my body was only heightened when they pulled slightly ahead to reveal a plush yellow bug in the window and a vanity license plate that read, "luvmybug." Trying to remember how to breathe, I raced past them at full speed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the passenger and driver. Both were relavitely old, and by justifying that nature would take my revenge soon enough, if cancer wasn't already, I was able to calm down. Now, in retrospect they never really did anything to offend me, but if you're reading this and haven't played Persona 3, you have. Keep that in mind because in a minute I'm going to tell you all to shoot yourselves in the face. And no not in a clever way to tie in a Persona reference, mainly I just want you dead. You deserve it for being thick.

Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 – Grin AB - PC

I’ve always had an outside interest in the Ghost Recon series as well. Well, kinda. Years ago I played the demo of the original game, enjoyed it, bought the original game, along with Island Thunder and Desert Siege, then promptly never got around to playing them. Even now, they sit in the shelf, in the metaphorical “I must get around to playing that one day” pile. Then the series became a console title and finally returned to PC. The PC version of this title is quite different to the console version, as I understand it.

The game at it’s core is a mostly-fun, semi-stealth-based realistic-looking shooter, which provides you with an endless supply of generic heavily-armed bad guys, all of whom look like hardcore special forces, regardless of whether they’re supposed to be US marines, Mexicans, Mercs or whatever.

Your squad AI is typically dumb, but then so is the enemy, so it’s kinda even there.

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Brad Wardell, founder of Stardock, had some interesting things to say about piracy in a post he made on his blog last week:

So even though Galactic Civilizations II sold 300,000 copies making 8 digits in revenue on a budget of less than $1 million, it’s still largely off the radar. I practically have to agree to mow editors lawns to get coverage. And you should see Jeff Green’s (Games for Windows) yard. I still can’t find my hedge trimmers.

Another game that has been off the radar until recently was Sins of a Solar Empire. With a small budget, it has already sold about 200,000 copies in the first month of release. It’s the highest rated PC game of 2008 and probably the best selling 2008 PC title. Neither of these titles have CD copy protection.

While I don’t see Sins as the best-selling PC title of 2008 (leave that to the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Spore, or The Sims 3 if it’s out in time), that’s not the interesting part. Brad goes on to say that the key to a successful PC title is to find a demographic that buys games, and then to build them a game.

(obviously, the rest after the jump)

Having been a fan of the Burnout franchise since I first played Burnout 2, I was in two minds when I started reading about Burnout Paradise.

Open world? Integrated online? I played the Demo on XBL and while it was a bit of fun, was still not convinced. Read a few reviews, and was turned off. Then I saw it'd been new-release discounted at one of the major chains, so I took their catalog to EB and got them to price-match, figuring that their 7-day return policy could act as insurance.

So anyway, there's both good and bad here. And also Meh.

I'm about four hours in and having a blast.  It's a solid FPS with some nice shiny and some good gameplay gimmicks.  The story isn't bad, the weapons are weird and fun to shoot, resource management is minimized in favor of running and gunning, and it's even got a nice classic rock soundtrack in some areas, with a cameo by Art Bell.

It was $5 on Steam last weekend, so if you didn't buy it then, sucks to be you, but it's bound to come around again, right?  Still worth the regular $20 price if you've got a hankering for some single player FPS action RIGHT NOW.  And if you're on the fence, there's a demo you can play to whet your appetite.

--

Buy it.

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Let me start out by saying, for the amount of "in development press" this game got, I saw almost zero amount of "release press". There where no big banners, or countdowns or anything like that. This really surprised me. Even on gamestop.com the game was listed as "coming soon 3/25" on the 26th, and the link to buy the game was "error no item found".

Being the sucker for new games that I am, I rushed down one of my local gamestops and bought a copy (also a pre-order of the Warhammer Online CE. Sucker I tell you) and headed home. Having skimmed the various previews from different sites over the last 9 months or so, I had a vague idea of the story and setting, no no real idea about the game play other than FPS + KRULL = LOLAWESOME, and that one reviewer had said it was sort of a Gears of War clone. I had no idea how right he was.

The game starts out with you on the wall of some russian castle that is being controlled by nazi-esque bad guys and you are on some sort of mission.

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Behind this cute little game hides its sinister nature, the grindy Korean free MMO.  If one is willing to give it a chance after understanding what lies beneath the bright colors and the Game Guard program installed along with, they will find a little gem of a game.  The commercial release is happening right now, so more features may be added along with cash shop options.

The look is cutesy.  Very cutesy.  Facial expressions are the familiar exaggerated anime style emoticons people like myself get made fun of for using.  One cannot look badass in this game, so don't try.

Using the free character card, your character is a human with a limited but decent set of options.  Through the wonders of RMT, many more options are available during a purchased Rebirth.  Other races will eventually be available.  Your character can start between the ages of 10 and 17.  Older characters are stronger to begin with, however they generally do not gain as many stat points with levels.

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Do you love civ-style games?  Miss the days of ASCII graphics?  Wish you were your micromanaging boss?  Need alcohol to get through the working day?  Then why aren't you already playing this game!?

The concept is simple.  In Fortress Mode, you take seven dwarves on an expedition to colonize an area.  You generate a huge random map (or use a seed), then select the tiny region you want them to settle.  You can select their skills and equipment or take pre-generated dwarves.  Once they embark your goal is anything you want.

The basic skills your dwarves will need are tree cutting, mining, carpentry, masonry, and farming.  The other fifty skills will improve the lot of your fortress and range from hunting and fishing to several types of crafts.  You tell your dwarves where to dig or what to chop, and assign tasks in the many, many workshops available.  Traps can be made to catch enemies.

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Heyooooooooooooooooo retailers. Thx for the heads up.

$79.99
Limited to 60,000 copies.
$10 Deposit at EBGamestop (Edit: This can be reserved starting tomorrow).

Exclusive GW Figure - Grumlock and Gazbag Miniature (Assembly and Painting Required)
Warhammer Online: Prelude to War (128-page Hardbound Original Graphic Novel)
The Art of Warhammer Online - (224-page Hardbound Art Book)
Bonus In-Game Item - The Librams of Insight - Special Use XP-Gain Modifier.
Bonus Quests - 12 of them.
Bonus Quest Rewards - 12 of them. I suppose this isn't shocking. Oh, and it adds a bullet point.
Bonus Character Titles - 12 of them.
Bonus Character Customization Options - 12 of them. All Heads.

So, there's that.
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So Bring Down the Sky is the first episodic DLC content for Bioware's Mass Effect. It's in interesting concept, adding downloadable side plots to an RPG. Of course the question is, is it worth it? (and the 400 MS points)

The early word I heard from most people was that it was just another random side planet mission, with a few bunkers to shoot stuff in. While that is loosely true, it's not really a fair description. They took the random side planet mission, and spiced it up. There are about eight different encounter points on the map, including the standard "clear out the badguys" bunkers, but it's the little changes that are cool. Things like new defences (you can't park the Mako three miles away and blow up all of the turrets this time), new little twists, some bits of humor and some suprises make the outside encounters feel new. Inside, the basic bunkers ain't all that different, but some creative uses of stairs and platforms give a little variety to the typical gunfight.

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Did you ever think to yourself, "Grand Theft Auto is a good game, but it has too much driving because I love running around, people should scream when they see me and I really should be able to use an anal probe as a weapon"?

Of course you haven't. Regardless, Destroy All Humans exists to fill this void.

Destroy All Humans' biggest issue is that by the end of the first three missions, you've seen every facet of the game. Your surly Jack Nicholson-sounding alien called Cryptosporidium-137 kills humans, expodes their heads in order to collect the DNA in their brains (the currency used to buy upgrades), reads the minds of humans to obtain information and flies around in a saucer armed with a death ray that can level buildings. That's pretty much the game. There are various objectives in each mission (most of which are pretty short) but there's not a lot of variation, just new weapons that achieve your goals.

This damns this game with faint praise to some extent.

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Here's an interesting little game. One you've probably heard of as well. Essentially a jumping platform, coloured coin (sorry, block) collecting game with simple combat mechanics divided between lightsabers and blasters, all presented in a cute Lego-styled package with a load of Star Wars imagery thrown on top of it. This is the kind of game that's more than the sum of its parts. I'm not normally a fan of jumping platform games, and definitely not a fan of collect 100 coin type gameplay. I usually find cute to be twee, and while I enjoy a bit of Star Wars-themed stuff, this licence can often spell lazy devs, aggressive publishers pushing games out before they're finished, or a HAM-fisted disaster of a MMO, but somehow, against all these odds, Lego Star Wars manages to get it right, and also be a game that's an awful lot of fun. This is actually the third game in the series (Trilogy?).

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At the beginning of October, 2005, f13 published an article by Dave Rickey [who also has a new blog!] - as the banner above says - about player types in MMOGs and the way players play these games. In my opinion, despite the badgers in the forums (and mushrooms and snakes), it's a good time to revisit it simply because the genre has taken exactly zero steps forward since then. But that's not what I want you to discuss since I'm mostly crazy, rather, the article, reproduced in its entirety, sans images (error: could not find them). Read on for the meat.