By Tracey John

As more and more schools around the globe offer game-design degrees, wannabe game makers have a variety of programs to choose from. Many schools offer vocational programs, but nowadays the academic and creative aspects of game design are also coming into play. Here, we take a look at the Game Center at New York University, one of the newest game design programs that take the latter approach.

By Stu Horvath

Innovation takes many forms within the gaming space, often beginning with insight and inspiration from a single person, be they a game developer, an engineer, a sociologist or anything else within the industry. That’s why we’re tracking down these thought leaders to give you a sneak peek of the digital arts future through their eyes.

In this installment, we sit down with Kyle Orland, a games journalist who writes for Gamasutra. Orland gives his thoughts on the impact journalism will have on the future of gaming and the relationship between the two.

By Matt Ployhar

Over the past few blogs, I touched on two of the four biggest game-changers I see hitting the gaming ecosystem simultaneously. First, we covered the trends and impact of mobile platforms. Second, we covered the trends and impacts occurring at the format and business levels. For this discussion, we’ll cover what I think is another enormous trend impacting the games market: globalization.

I cannot emphasize the importance of the globalization trend enough. By percentage of market share, as other geographies begin to mature and disposable income rates increase abroad, the U.S. and other traditional gaming geos become smaller as an overall percentage of market share. The primary reasoning behind this is that most of the industrialized nations’ markets have already been saturated with game systems.

Makes sense, but why should we care? There are several reasons why the entire gaming ecosystem should pay heed: source of revenue, more choices, fierce competition, and innovation and growth shifts.

 

 

By John Gaudiosi

With over 11 million subscribers worldwide, Blizzard Entertainment keeps online gamers coming back for more World of Warcraft (WoW) by consistently adding to the virtual world of Azeroth. Cataclysm is the most ambitious expansion to date for the massively multiplayer online (MMO) fantasy role-playing game. While most of the attention has been focused on the new 3D facelift that the game has undergone, Cataclysm is pushing the linear aspect of interactive entertainment forward with its Hollywood-inspired, in-game cinematics.

By Matt Ployhar

In my last blog, I talked about some of the biggest factors impacting the gaming ecosystems today. In part one, I discussed the impacts of mobile form factors; this time, I’ll discuss the biggest implications occurring in the formats and business models.

So, in no particular order, here are some of the biggest format and business-model evolutions I see taking place in the video game industry.

 

By Matt Ployhar

In my last blog, I talked about a spring-cleaning I did on my contacts database and observed the number of companies that have either gone defunct or underwent massive layoffs since the downturn in the economy.

This got me thinking about how or why some ISVs seem to have weathered the storm better than others.

The most interesting transitions occurring are the ones that are completely disrupting multiple platforms and business models simultaneously. However, while I’ve heard some ISVs complain about the big shifts and transitions, I’ve also heard others discussing how to embrace these shifts as an opportunity. Some platforms seem to be better positioned than others in order to address these changes. When all is said and done, it will likely end up being a survival-of-the-fittest exercise.

Here’s how I view and summarize the biggest macro-shifts impacting the games industries. There are four big standouts for me: mobile, format and business model evolutions, globalization, and innovation game-changers. We’ll start with the largest macro-shifts occurring on devices, and in subsequent blogs I’ll cover the rest of the list.

 

 

By John Gaudiosi

At Gamescom 2011 in Cologne, Germany, Gearbox Studios unveiled the follow-up to its critically acclaimed first-person shooter, Borderlands. Running on Unreal Engine 3, the 2012 PC game is adding more depth to the story and improved visuals and gameplay to the open world experience.

Set once again on the borderland planet of Pandora, the new game picks up five years after the events of the first game. There’s a new bad guy, Handsome Jack, who runs the Hyperion Corporation, ruining the fun. It’s up to the player to change that. We talked to Anthony Burch, the writer of Borderlands 2 at Gearbox Software, about what’s in store for PC gamers in this 2012 action adventure.

By Garret Romaine

Can you name the country that leads the world in movie ticket sales and the number of films produced? Hint: It’s not the United States. According to online sources, that country is India. Thanks to the huge demand for entertainment, India has become a hotbed for computer graphics and animation. The country offers talented technicians, competitive pricing and finished work of the highest quality, all on blockbuster titles you’re sure to recognize.

 

By Matt Ployhar

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been cleaning out my contacts database. This is something I’ve been dreading for a long time, since the database currently has something like 16,000 contacts in it. That’s right: 16,000. Frankly, it was getting a bit unwieldy and difficult to find active contacts, so it was time for me to roll up my sleeves and just tackle it.

Well, after three solid days of cross-checking to see who was where and what the status of the company was, my ISV (independent software vendors) contacts tab alone went from nearly 13,500 contacts down to a little over 10,000. I’m guessing only a third of my entire database still contains what I’d call “active” contacts. So what happened?

By Tracey John

Ask any game developer about schools that offer game development programs, and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t name Full Sail University.

The school -- which is based in Winter Park, Fla. -- was one of the first to offer several degree programs for would-be game-makers, including four-year degrees in game development and game art, as well as a Master of Science for game design. And you don’t have to be near the Orlando area to get a degree: The school is one of the few that have online programs for both game design and game art. Currently, over 1,900 students are enrolled in the game development classes at Full Sail University.