Postmortem: Volition Inc.'s
Saints Row 2

The Saints Row series is, according to publisher THQ's own statement, second-place in the open world combat genre after GTA, which is not a bad category in which to come in second. Here, producer Greg Donovan works through how the team created in Saints Row 2 a title that was able to distinguish itself from the rest, fighting scope creep, team fatigue, and legacy tool problems from the first title.

The 8th Annual Game Developer
Salary Survey

This year was a rough one, with "in these economic times" becoming the new corporate buzzword prefacing layoffs. This year's Game Developer Salary Survey doesn't fully reflect the changes in the climate, although the survey asks about layoffs and post-layoff placement, for the first time. In addition to that, you'll find the usual stats for all major disciplines, from coders through businesspersons, as well as details about who owns homes, and where, and regional stats for within the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

The All-Important Import Pipeline

In this artist and tool builder-oriented article Project Offset's Rod Green proposes a shift from the more traditional export-based art pipeline to an import-based one. While this approach won't solve all your art pipeline issues, Green proposes that it'll certainly improve a lot of them.