Author Archives: Peter

When Game Developers Will Own Their Publishers

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developer-owned_publisher.jpg

Publishers pwn developers. And their IP. In the entire known Universe. This has been near-universal truth up until now. I predict we’ll see a time where the game publisher/game developer balance shifts and the developers will be on top.

Our company recently moved into a cozy old building in central Copenhagen. As we are a small and young start-up, we can’t afford a whole building, a whole floor nor a whole room for ourselves, so we’re sharing. In fact we’re sharing three floors with 6 – 8 other game developers (depending on how you count).

You could argue that the other companies are our competitors. You could argue that they could steal our know-how, our IP and our honour.

The fact is that yes, in some cases they are, and yes, in some cases they may. But up until that happens we all have a lot to gain from living door to door with the others in terms of sharing problems, ideas, tips, experiences and beer.

The benefits of sharing can however expand far beyond beer.

Small production units don’t need and small start-ups can’t afford much full-time administration and sales staff. Why not share producer, accountant, marketeer and sales resources? Why not in-source publishing?

I predict that we within 0 – 3 years will see several small independent game developers joining forces to form their own developer-owned publishers.

Creating an Image System Equally Suitable for 3 Continents

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Gents toilet, India

Recently I’ve been given an interesting challenge that includes creating a complex user interface that should work well for people not familiar with computers [read: Windows] at all. Not only should it work with computer “illiterates” – It should work equally well on three very different continents.

Take India for instance. If you need to take a leak in India and you’re a guy, you apparently shouldn’t be looking for the classic western silhouette of a man indicating that there is a rest room on the other side of the door. You should be looking for something like the above.. (more)

- Who knows what other subtle differences we have here? Ok, I’m not doing a rest room user interface here, so maybe I’m ok…

Two Things That Suck About XBOX 360

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Ok, no, make that three things.

I don’t get it. How is it even possible to make a machine that emits so much heat and noise and deem it safe for indoor home use? You get a headache and take a lethal chance of burning down your house just after playing for half an hour.

I don’t get it. How is it possible to make a device so incredibly bad at loading and displaying a frickin simple list? Caching is invented as far as I know.

And finally I don’t get the idea of filling up Live Arcade with all that vintage crap. Doom, Marathon, WhateverFighter Something and a bad Galaga port isn’t vintage. It’s just plain waste of space…