Postmortem
Advent of Advergaming: Blitz Games’ Burger King Games
By Edward Linely
In a mere seven months, Blitz Games produced three small titles across two platforms (Xbox and Xbox 360) for restaurant giant Burger King. Burger King had very specific ideas in mind for Big Bumpin’, Pocketbike Racer, and Sneak King, ideas that Blitz didn’t always agree would make for great gameplay. Senior designer Edward Linely shares how Blitz learned to work within some of these restrictions, while also learning a thing or two from the creative minds at Burger King.

Game Developer’s 6th Annual Salary Survey
By Jill Duffy
Two mid-level game developers walk into a bar. One makes about $62,000 per year and the other cashes in only $53,000. Which one is the designer and which is the artist? If you’ve ever wanted to sneak a peek at your colleagues’ paychecks, now is your chance. In this sixth annual Salary Survey, Game Developer has collected and crunched the figures for you, comparing job titles, years of experience, education, location, bonuses, and other factors that affect a developer’s pay.

Optimizing Cell Code
By Martin Linklater
The Xbox 360 has six hardware execution threads running on PPU architecture. On the PlayStation 3, the Cell processor has two PPU execution threads and eight symmetric processing elements. With advancements in hardware this dramatic, clearly game developers need to rethink how they optimize code. In this case study, Martin Linklater of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Liverpool gets close to the metal with the PlayStation 3 Cell processor, examining how to best exploit the power of this parallel hardware.

Game Plan
By Simon Carless
Rise of the Game Engine

Heads Up Display
Overheard at the Game Developers Conference, Adventures in Motion Capture, and more.

Skunk Works
By Tom Carroll and Jill Duffy
Autodesk’s Maya 8.5 and product news

A Thousand Words
Amanita Design’s Samorost 2

Business Level
By Makoto Iwai
Marriage License

Pixel Pusher
By Steve Theodore
Neither Fish Nor Fowl

The Inner Product
By Mick West
Practical Fluid Dynamics: Part II

Game Shui
By Noah Falstein
Software Toys

Aural Fixation
By guest columnist Rob Bridgett
Interactive Ambience

Home | About | Subscribe | Write | Advertise | Resources | Subscription Questions?

Copyright © 2007 CMP Media LLC. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy | Terms Of Service