The Game Developers Conference has come and gone. The weeklong event saw game developers around the world meet up in San Francisco to share and discuss the latest developments in the gaming industry. The event ran from Monday 23 March to Friday 27 March.
With the dust now settling on this massive exhibition, we take a look at some of the more (and less) important information that we could dissect from the event without actually being there.
GDC top 5
1. OnLive is the future
Easily one of the most important announcements made at this year’s GDC, OnLive is a technology that aims to allow people to stream live video games to their PCs or televisions without having to run them on their own PC or console.
This theoretically means that one could play Crysis on maximum settings on a 5 year old laptop, as long as the connection is of sufficient quality.
There have been many critics of OnLive, stating that bandwidth limitations will make the technology impractical. This may be true, and OnLive may have a fair way to go before it is a reliable alternative to current gaming platforms, but the concept of cloud gaming is definitely the future.
2. CryEngine 3 exhibits more sensible approach to video game rendering
Many onlookers have complained that Crytek’s latest iteration of the CryEngine as exhibited at GDC, presents an inferior visual standard to that which their CryEngine 2 is capable of rendering.
Crytek has certainly toned down the texture detail and lighting effects in the CryEngine 2. The point of the new engine is obviously not to push the boundaries in terms of visual quality, but rather to enable the engine to run on consoles and less high-end PC’s. View CryEngine 3 video on MyGaming.
3. Modern Warfare got a release date
Midway through GDC, Activision Blizzard announced that the sequel to the massively popular Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare will be released on November 10 this year. The announcement was imbedded in an otherwise rather uninformative sneak peak trailer.
4. Developers are still hiring
The term “recession proof” has been attached to the games industry more than a few times in the past few months. You will most probably have read at least one detailed exposition about how gamers will still spend money on video games even when disposable income becomes less available.
However, we have also reported on numerous game publishers, such as Electronic Arts, registering staggering losses, closing down multiple studios and letting go of numerous employees. It is reassuring then that there were a healthy variety of developers advertising job openings at GDC. The fact that the industry is still hiring is definitely a positive sign.
5. Mass Effect 2 in-game footage
BioWare demonstrated their upcoming sequel to their smash hit RPG Mass Effect, and from what we can tell from the relatively blocky video footage, the developer has put a fair amount of effort into improving the combat system.
Watch leaked Mass Effect 2 gameplay video on MyGaming.
Other notable Mentions
– Lionhead mastermind Peter Molyneux announced that the studio is putting the finishing touches on more Fable II DLC. He also hinted that Fable III is already being discussed, as well as a non-Fable related game.
– 2K’s, Ken Levine, stated that we will not get a look at Bioshock 2 anytime soon.
– Sony has dropped the price of the PS3 dev kit by over 80 percent. The hardware required to make a PS3 game now costs $2000. This should hopefully entice developers into developing for the PS3.
– Blizzard’s Rob Pardo has been in talks with Microsoft about their next console. The creator of monster franchises Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft (including World of Warcraft) has traditionally developed exclusively for PC.
– Blizzard discusses World of Warcraft’s 9 biggest flaws.
– Fallout 3 won GDC game of the year award.
– MaxPayne 3 is on its way
– A God of War 3 gameplay video was demonstrated at this year’s GDC. We will be uploading the video shortly.
Discuss GDC on the forums
Loading ...
