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Getting in the game
Getting in the game
| Name: | Shayne Guiliano | |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Jan 02, 2007 | |
| Rating: |  Not Rated | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
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| Profile Page: | View profile page for Shayne Guiliano |
Blog post
I've yet to prove myself to be a consistent blogger, but it's my new years resolution and this seems like the right place to start. I'll see how long that lasts (let's see if it lasts longer than my diet resolution...both might end in record time.)
My xmax vacation in Tampa was so nice. I moved out to San Jose from Boston in July and started working for Namco Networks in August. Since then I've probably been more focused and productive than ever in my life (mostly trying to get to that first raise and convince them to move me onto original games...porting Pacman and Galaga is fun, but not sustainably engaging.)
Anyways, so this was the first vacation in my life that really felt like it was absolutely necessary for my continued sanity. Fortunately, my 2nd Wii controller arrived in the morning just before we left for the airport. Made the whole vacation so much more fun than it would have been otherwise. I think the Wii should win the Nobel peace prize for the miracle that occurred at my parents' house Christmas Eve and day. Everyone had so much fun making Mii's of the whole family, playing Wii Bowling, drinking way too much of my Uncle Paul's "Special Sangria" and then we all laughed our asses off while watching the drunken results via slideshow after sliding the SD card from my camera into the Wii.
And then Super Mario Bros was released on Christmas day!! I've got a picture of my 76 year old grandmother playing Mario Bros on Christmas. Can't ask for a better vacation.
Let's see...my games of the year for 2006:
1a Wii Sports - Watching my other grandmother, who is developing alztimers, play a hole of Wii golf is probably the most emotional I got over xmas, and playing a game that 3 different generations can enjoy simultaneously is revolutionary. Nintendo might have just saved the industry for the 2nd time.
1b Wii Mii's - Probably as fun as actually playing the games, Mii's might go down as the most emotionally attaching video game device in history. I'm interested where Nintendo goes with them. I can imagine entire fan-built Miivilizations forming.
2 Battlefield 2 - X360 - Haven't spent more hours on any other game. Totally addictive. Better than Halo 2, imo.
3 Bully - PS2 - Just a brilliant game, the most important experientialistic game of 2006, imo.
4 Skipping Stone - Mobile - Probably the first original, addictive mobile game in the short history of the industry that truly works better as a cell phone game than it would on any other platform. Wish I had thought of it first.
5 - Cybernations.net - My nation is autonomonadia. The best 5 minute per day web site game I've ever played. My nation is already as big as San Jose, and hopefully I'll be gobbling up San Fran soon!
Honorable Mention - Trauma Center Wii - The first Wii game that proves the Wii is not a gimmick that will fade, and a game that will at least inspire 1 new child to become a doctor who might not of otherwise.
Personal Highlights from 2006
Winning GDC Mobile Game Developer's conference contest. Co-winning , actually, but it was still cool. Got to walk on stage during the Game Develop Choice awards and sat a couple tables away from Keita Takahashi and Tim Schafer. I have to say, Tim Schafer is like a cult leader with his dev team. I've never seen anyone so loved by his co-workers. His table-mates even had Tim Schafer cheers that seemed a little choreographed to not be regular. I wonder if they do those chants every time he walks into the office in the morning, like he's a rock star.
Getting a job with Namco - Just fricken cool. Not only do I get to work with Pacman, Dig Dug and Galaga, but before I got the job offer I had $26 in my bank account.
Becoming a Wii developer - If Autonomous can get Butterfly Garden done in 07, it'll be so fricken cool to be able to download my game onto my Wii.
Concepting Butterfly Garden - I just love the game concept. I actually thought of it while thinking about what to give my girlfriend for xmax 05, but didn't really start to understand the game design until after GDC when I got good feedback from MS and Nintendo after showing our initial butterfly demo movie.
Moving to California - This is paradise. Apple, Google, Ebay, HP, etc are down the street. Weather is amazing, especially compared to Boston and Tampa. Best choice ever. If it wasn't for the astronomical housing market, I'd never leave.
Looking forward to 07! I'll try to start blogging more often!
My xmax vacation in Tampa was so nice. I moved out to San Jose from Boston in July and started working for Namco Networks in August. Since then I've probably been more focused and productive than ever in my life (mostly trying to get to that first raise and convince them to move me onto original games...porting Pacman and Galaga is fun, but not sustainably engaging.)
Anyways, so this was the first vacation in my life that really felt like it was absolutely necessary for my continued sanity. Fortunately, my 2nd Wii controller arrived in the morning just before we left for the airport. Made the whole vacation so much more fun than it would have been otherwise. I think the Wii should win the Nobel peace prize for the miracle that occurred at my parents' house Christmas Eve and day. Everyone had so much fun making Mii's of the whole family, playing Wii Bowling, drinking way too much of my Uncle Paul's "Special Sangria" and then we all laughed our asses off while watching the drunken results via slideshow after sliding the SD card from my camera into the Wii.
And then Super Mario Bros was released on Christmas day!! I've got a picture of my 76 year old grandmother playing Mario Bros on Christmas. Can't ask for a better vacation.
Let's see...my games of the year for 2006:
1a Wii Sports - Watching my other grandmother, who is developing alztimers, play a hole of Wii golf is probably the most emotional I got over xmas, and playing a game that 3 different generations can enjoy simultaneously is revolutionary. Nintendo might have just saved the industry for the 2nd time.
1b Wii Mii's - Probably as fun as actually playing the games, Mii's might go down as the most emotionally attaching video game device in history. I'm interested where Nintendo goes with them. I can imagine entire fan-built Miivilizations forming.
2 Battlefield 2 - X360 - Haven't spent more hours on any other game. Totally addictive. Better than Halo 2, imo.
3 Bully - PS2 - Just a brilliant game, the most important experientialistic game of 2006, imo.
4 Skipping Stone - Mobile - Probably the first original, addictive mobile game in the short history of the industry that truly works better as a cell phone game than it would on any other platform. Wish I had thought of it first.
5 - Cybernations.net - My nation is autonomonadia. The best 5 minute per day web site game I've ever played. My nation is already as big as San Jose, and hopefully I'll be gobbling up San Fran soon!
Honorable Mention - Trauma Center Wii - The first Wii game that proves the Wii is not a gimmick that will fade, and a game that will at least inspire 1 new child to become a doctor who might not of otherwise.
Personal Highlights from 2006
Winning GDC Mobile Game Developer's conference contest. Co-winning , actually, but it was still cool. Got to walk on stage during the Game Develop Choice awards and sat a couple tables away from Keita Takahashi and Tim Schafer. I have to say, Tim Schafer is like a cult leader with his dev team. I've never seen anyone so loved by his co-workers. His table-mates even had Tim Schafer cheers that seemed a little choreographed to not be regular. I wonder if they do those chants every time he walks into the office in the morning, like he's a rock star.
Getting a job with Namco - Just fricken cool. Not only do I get to work with Pacman, Dig Dug and Galaga, but before I got the job offer I had $26 in my bank account.
Becoming a Wii developer - If Autonomous can get Butterfly Garden done in 07, it'll be so fricken cool to be able to download my game onto my Wii.
Concepting Butterfly Garden - I just love the game concept. I actually thought of it while thinking about what to give my girlfriend for xmax 05, but didn't really start to understand the game design until after GDC when I got good feedback from MS and Nintendo after showing our initial butterfly demo movie.
Moving to California - This is paradise. Apple, Google, Ebay, HP, etc are down the street. Weather is amazing, especially compared to Boston and Tampa. Best choice ever. If it wasn't for the astronomical housing market, I'd never leave.
Looking forward to 07! I'll try to start blogging more often!
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 01/02/07 - Getting in the game 08/05/03 - Plan for Shayne Guiliano 11/13/02 - Plan for Shayne Guiliano 10/01/02 - Plan for Shayne Guiliano 09/25/02 - Plan for Shayne Guiliano 08/08/02 - Plan for Shayne Guiliano |
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Submit your own resources!| J Sears (Jan 02, 2007 at 16:55 GMT) |
Also if you enjoy battlefield 2 on xbox then you really need to play the computer version, they watered down bf2 to make it playable on xbox, it is a game that should defiently be on the PC, and halo is truly just a bad shooter all around, the more you play on xbox the more you'll enjoy them rainbow six is fantastic.
What do you do for namco or is that in one of the earlier posts? That seems like it would be a great place to work we've all played those games.
| Vashner (Jan 02, 2007 at 18:52 GMT) |
The cost of living $$$$$$$.
| Jonathon Stevens (Jan 02, 2007 at 19:21 GMT) |
| Shayne Guiliano (Jan 02, 2007 at 20:21 GMT) |
As for Nintendo saving the industry, the industry would have depressed this year without the stellar DS and Wii numbers. If you look at the studio closings and downsizing that occurred late last year and early this year in anticipation of the predicted depression, and see that most analysts attribute the turnaround to the DS outselling everything else 2 to 1, think about what would have happened if Nintendo released gameboy advance 2 and a more boring gamecube 2. Now, all any analysts see is strong growth for the next 5-7 years and that's heavily attributed to the success of the Wii and DS penetration. (actually, downloadable and mobile are also contributing to growth) If Nintendo hadn't done the Wii, I really think the PS3 would have killed gaming as we know it since some people will never trust MS (especially in Japan), Gamecube 2 wouldn't have had 3rd party support, and no system over $400 has ever picked up significant market share.
And I know that PC games are deeper and the mouse interface more accurate, but for a console game you can't beat Battlefield and I don't typically play games heavily on my PC, for some reason. I think I'd rather step out of my office to play.
Edited on Jan 02, 2007 21:02 GMT
| J Sears (Jan 02, 2007 at 21:24 GMT) |
Now am I bad mouthing the wii? No not by any means in fact I'd like to own one, but since I'm still enjoying my xbox games and multiplayer I don't feel I have the extra money around to buy a second system and also be paying for games for 2 different systems. I think the wii is a fantastic idea and I think it would be a blast to play with friends but I think the 360 (and ps3) and wii are really in 2 different categories almost. The wii is great for casual games, fun with friends at your house. 360 and ps3 are the only systems I think of when I think big AAA graphic intense games, fps racing etc. And from my own personal experience a 360 is a great system to play multiplayer over the net, where as because ever game is just designed as split screen for same console multi it's not so good there.
I can agree with game companies hitting hard times, but I don't think I could agree that the wii is a savior, I would truly like to see the numbers to see how much ground nintendo has made with the wii, but I would also doubt that they have the majority market share of consoles.
If nintendo had released a boring gamecube 2 I don't think it would have killed anything since nintendo had such a small market share and in the later years of the gamecube everyone who had one was resenting it anyway because no one was making games for it. (I did own a gamecube) the DS I think was a great little device in itself and has it's place but also not a savior of games I don't think.
I think the true downfall of game companies was the lack of creativity and the lack of quality games which drove gamers off a bit. I grew up as a heavy gamer but I have noticed over the last 6 years or so that the games were becoming less original and more bug filled each year, and it turned into a bussiness (at least of the PC end) of trying to trick money out of people by adding 3 expansion packs to every game that gave a couple new maps and a few new weapons at 20 bucks a pop.
In the last couple years I have seen game companies start to work on games that were more interesting to players and take what the players wanted more into account. Look at the success of mmorpgs, and WoW specifically, the success was incredible, it gave people a world they truly enjoyed and a gamestyle they loved just as much and instead of quickly releasing as many expansion packs as possible to get extra bucks they just recently released a game pack.
I've always felt EA killed gaming, they bought out as many successfull franchises as possible and changed the game to the EA style which destroyed each franchise they got involved with. And they do the instant expansion pack and market it in a way you have to buy it to keep playing multiplayer.
Sorry I made that so long, but basically I'm saying I think Wii is a great system and a great idea, and I always liked nintendo as a company. I just think calling them a savior is a little too much
| Shayne Guiliano (Jan 03, 2007 at 22:03 GMT) |
Edited on Jan 03, 2007 22:03 GMT
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