Original link: https://markonreview.com/2023/10/05/markon-review-express-weekly-9/
Weekly directory
General information
- Game Developer interviews Lucy Blundell, developer of the visual novel “VIDEOVERSE”
- GamesIndustry: Is Digital Eclipse’s “Golden Masters Series” the future of gaming documentaries?
Market dynamics
- GamesIndustry: The current state of game investment
point of view discussion
- GamesIndustry looks back at September ten years ago: Behind the brilliant performance of “GTA V”, the poor studio culture should not be forgotten
- Eurogamer: Why do people in The Witcher 3 swear so much?
- It’s Okay To Cry – Review of “Shadows of the Past” and “Cyberpunk 2077”
- Rock Paper Shotgun interviews a group of RPG experts who discuss why they love Baldur’s Gate 3 and the future of the genre
General information
Game Developer interviews Lucy Blundell, developer of the visual novel “VIDEOVERSE”
“VIDEOVERSE” is the latest work of independent developer Lucy Blundell. It was released in August this year. It is a romantic love story set in the world of computers and game consoles in 2003. Players need to use the chat room and message board that combines the features of MSN and Miiverse. , trying to stay connected with others and maintain a relationship at the same time. Game Developer interviewed Blundell. The two discussed the fun and cost advantages of setting the game in the old era, the impact of this 1-Bit interface design on the story and characters, and how constructing a virtual system can influence the early stages of a game development. have an important impact.
Source: Game Developer , by Joel Couture
GamesIndustry: Is Digital Eclipse’s “Golden Masters Series” the future of gaming documentaries?
GamesIndustry recently interviewed Digital Eclipse, the developer of “The Making of Karateka”, and introduced the background of the creation of the game, the collection of historical data, the effects of the finished product, etc., and also talked about the “Golden Master Series” to which “The Making of Karateka” belongs. “(Gold Masters Series)’s vision, promotion process, future plans, etc.
Chris Kohler, editorial director of Digital Eclipse, said the Golden Masters paradigm is a great way to show people what’s really going on behind the scenes in game development, and thanks to the versatile nature of the engine used by the studio, the Golden Masters paradigm There will be considerable differences between the works. The second work in the series is “already locked” and is expected to be released before the end of 2023. The “balance of certain types of content” will be different from “The Making of Karateka”.
Source: GamesIndustry , by Andrea Maderna
Market dynamics
GamesIndustry: The current state of game investment
This article summarizes the information shared at last month’s investment summit on the current investment status of the game industry. Generally speaking, although it benefited from the surge in market enthusiasm and investment scale during the epidemic, as the market began to adjust and global economic uncertainty and other factors, the game industry The financing environment of the industry has undergone tremendous changes in recent years.
The author believes that the perspective of Matt Bilbey, a venture partner from London Venture Partners, is worth mentioning. He observed that under the current situation, seed-stage financing is still very active, and valuation levels have returned to the levels of 2018 and 2019, but for venture capital institutions and issuers, the scale of subsequent-stage financing is still the largest. Challenges, because investors with a more mature style need more conclusive and attractive evidence. Bilbey said what he often sees is that investors get eager to participate, make large data requests, dig deeper and deeper, and ultimately fail to deliver on the demand.
In addition, the types of invested companies and projects have also changed greatly. At the beginning of 2022, we can see the influx of funds into cryptocurrency, e-sports, VR, PC-first content, multiple mobile platform content, cross-platform games and other fields. By 2022 In the middle of the year, except for PC-first and cross-platform, most of them were judged to be unworthy of investment. Bilbey said that many investors and issuers currently hold a large amount of available funds and are waiting for the right projects that can bring significant revenue growth.
Bilbey finally warned that the gaming industry may still be in difficult times, with a wave of bankruptcies on the way as more and more companies run out of money, fail to achieve profitability, and find it difficult to raise funds for various reasons. It is expected that the next 12 The peak of bankruptcies will occur within 18 months; at the same time, investors realize that inflation has increased the cost of wages, services, and goods, shortening the time they have to hold cash, so they are paying more attention to raising enough cash to cope with the next 24 Months of market volatility.
Source: GamesIndustry , by James Batchelor
point of view discussion
GamesIndustry looks back at September ten years ago: Behind the brilliant performance of “GTA V”, the poor studio culture should not be forgotten
Looking back at the most shocking news protagonist in September 2013, it was undoubtedly “Grand Theft Auto V” (GTA V), which was officially released on September 17, 2013. As of the end of the last quarter, the total sales of the game had reached 185 million, and the number of units sold had reached 185 million. The average quarterly shipments are about 5 million copies. All parties may have guessed that “GTA V” will be popular, but few expected it to be so popular, including the chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of developer Rockstar Games. Strauss Zelnick.
The author mentioned that he believes there will be many commemorative articles detailing the overwhelming financial success of GTA V, the incredible growth of its online content, and the weird and wonderful things players have done with this “social sandbox”. thing, and he prefers to focus on the negative warnings behind and around the game that all of us should not forget – the toxic and extremely oppressive bad culture in the studio.
Source: GamesIndustry , by Brendan Sinclair
Eurogamer: Why do people in The Witcher 3 swear so much?
The author of this article conducted a very interesting investigation-why the characters in “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” love to “spit fragrance” so much, and this kind of experience surrounded by swear words is rare in other games?
The author first found the developer CD Projekt RED and interviewed Przemysław Sawicki, who was responsible for “talking dirty”. He had worked on the Living World team formed specifically for “The Witcher 3” and was responsible for filling the open world, and was responsible for the expansion film “Blood and Wine” 80% of the dialogue in “Blood & Wine”. Currently, his focus is on “Cyberpunk 2077” (Cyberpunk 2077, referred to as 2077), and he is responsible for all the commissions (Gigs) in the game.
Sawicki’s team created an “Input” mechanism for “The Witcher 3”: when the protagonist Geralt collides with or approaches other characters, an input will be generated, triggering the other party’s interactive behavior-this is also the player’s teleportation to Novi. The reason why Geralt (Novigard) triggers a lot of insults in an instant is that considering the medieval background of “The Witcher 3”, the team believes that vulgar and offensive words are completely in line with the characteristics of the times. At the same time, Geralt’s image is very out of place, so people give him Reactions are meaningful (V in “2077” is just one of the ordinary people in the city, so there is no need to have reactions from those around him).
The next question is: How can you come up with so many curse words? Sawicki’s solution is to learn from life. He bought a small notebook and carried it with him. Whenever he heard people saying interesting things that inspired him, he would take out the notebook and write it down. He especially liked to attend traditional Polish family gatherings. , because “there’s always new material out there,” such as Sawicki’s favorite rhymes like “If my lips don’t stink of wine, my wife won’t know they’re mine.” and “Wine is better than stew, for stew you have to chew.” etc. In addition, Sawicki also writes lines after impersonating characters. One of his favorites is a little girl based on the Game of Thrones character Arya Stark, who says, “My brother gave me a A sword, I named it a sewing needle!” line.
The author further asks, who wanted these lines in the first place? For this purpose, the author found Bartosz Ochman, Sawicki’s boss in the Living World team and currently serving as task director at Techland. Ochman, who has worked at CDPR for 11 years and joined the company during The Witcher 2, was responsible for testing narrative elements and storylines from the beginning. The studio’s current narrative director Marcin Blacha was responsible for these conversations at the time. Ochman had always been in awe of these texts, so when the project called The Witcher 3 he jumped on board.
Ochman said that this type of text had already begun to take shape in “The Witcher 1”. By the second generation, the concept was better established, and then carried forward in the third generation. Ochman created a “gossip system” for The Witcher 3 that he was proud of: someone in the game would ask another person if they had heard of something, the other person would say no, and then be told all about it. information, and people also react to what they hear. Ochman said that he taught Sawicki how to carry a notebook with him to record, and he did so himself. He wrote all the time for eight months, waking up in the middle of the night and writing when traveling, and he still eavesdrops unconsciously to this day. Others speak.
It is worth mentioning that Ochman also created the Nilfgaard language. The description of this language by Andrzej Sawpkowski, the author of the “Witcher” series, only has a few words. Ochman had to create a language to make the characters They can speak complete sentences, and the language is a fusion of real-life Dutch and Norwegian, with references to Elvish in the book.
When the profanity was added to the game, almost everyone gave it very positive and excited reviews, except for mission designer Dennis Zoetebier who complained to Ochman: “Bartek, I don’t like this, everyone is yelling at me.” Ochman responded sternly: “Dude, you’re a witcher! Everyone hates you!”
Finally, the author found Marcin Blacha to chat – it all started with him. Blacha is the lead writer on The Witcher 3 and has been working at CDPR for 18 years ( we interviewed him in writing ). Blacha said it all started with BioWare’s games, especially the original Baldur’s Gate games like Neverwinter Nights, where players could interact with and hear from a lot of ordinary people. Some catchphrases, which were unusual in those days, also contributed to CDPR’s desire to make the game as interactive as possible. Blacha said that when creating every “Witcher” game since “The Witcher 1”, the team hopes to make more use of the organic interaction between players and various characters. “This is not just to convey information and give a sense of interaction, but also to Creating a context, creating an atmosphere or mood for the game.”
As CDPR’s head of story and narrative, Blacha expressed excitement about artificial intelligence, which surprised the author of this article. Blacha said the technology could be a “game-changer” by allowing teams to generate lines and voiceovers faster, saving budgets and expanding diversity.
Source: Eurogamer , by Robert Purchese
It’s Okay To Cry – Review of “Shadows of the Past” and “Cyberpunk 2077”
Thanks to the invitation from CD Projekt RED, the author started playing version 2.0 of “Cyberpunk 2077” (hereinafter referred to as 2077) and the expansion pack “Phantom Liberty” about a week in advance. Halfway through, I experienced an issue with the Xbox version. Activation, damaged PS5 version saves, etc. have delayed time. In short, I have completed the experience of the new content so far. Here I will share some of my feelings and thoughts after playing the new version and new expansion pack through this article.
This article contains spoilers for “2077” itself. It does not contain spoilers for any specific plot of “Shadows of the Past”, but it does mention some scenes and lines.
This article is mainly divided into three parts: the first part briefly summarizes the gameplay experience in version 2.0 of “2077” and “Shadows of the Past”; the second part wants to talk about the overall experience of playing “Shadows of the Past”; in the third part, I would like to take this opportunity of the release of “Shadows of the Past” to share with you some of my personal thoughts after playing “2077” for the second time.
Source: Markon Review
Rock Paper Shotgun interviews a group of RPG experts who discuss why they love Baldur’s Gate 3 and the future of the genre
Regarding topics such as the inspiration brought by the success of “Baldur’s Gate 3” and the future of RPG works, the author interviewed a group of RPG experts, including the core creators of series such as “Dragon Age” Mark Darrah, creator of ZA/UM Studio, developer of “Disco Elysium”, Matt Barton, author of “Dungeons And Desktops”, Felipe Pepe, editor of “The CRPG Book”, etc. The topics discussed include: What makes RPG such a profitable game? Has the basic market become a phenomenon? What does it take to create a great RPG? What makes this genre so special to people? The author excerpted some interesting content from the article:
Justin Keenan, screenwriter and narrative designer of ZA/UM, said that the charm of an excellent CRPG is that it is the most computer-mediated experience that makes people feel that they are in contact with another consciousness on the opposite side of the screen. , which is also an important reason why the writing of “Disco Elysium” is so unique. Kaspar Tamsalu, art lead at ZA/UM, added that it is “this magical power at the player’s fingertips” that allows the team to touch the story using the many different perspectives provided by RPG elements.
Darrah compared “Dragon Age”, “The Legend of Zelda” (The Legend of Zelda), “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim), etc. and believed that RPG may be related to “people” and everyone. This RPG is about how to approach the meaning of “people”.
Barton said that everyone he talked to was optimistic about the future of the RPG genre, and Larian Studios, the developer of “Baldur’s Gate 3”, has made it clear that there is a huge demand for truly deep and weighty CRPGs. ,Everything is possible. Keenan said that we always seem to hear that “CRPG is a niche market and the upper limit of the number of players is relatively low.” Then things like “Disco Elysium” and “Baldur’s Gate 3” appeared, and they will definitely break through. this upper limit.
Source: Rock Paper Shotgun , by Nic Reuben
This article is reproduced from: https://markonreview.com/2023/10/05/markon-review-express-weekly-9/
This site is only for collection, and the copyright belongs to the original author.