Toronto Thumbs

GameON Finance
Interview With Zack Karlsson

Recently at the GameON: Finance conference I had a chance to talk to Zack Karlsson, VP of Business Development & Digital Platforms at Capcom. During a panel he had some interesting things to say about the direction of current “triple-A” games. Karlsson said that he doesn’t believe that development costs of AAA titles will inflate anymore than they already have. Even as new generations of consoles come into play Karlsson stands by his statement. Below is my brief interview with Karlsson on his views on AAA titles.

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Event Report
GameON: Finance 2012 – The Start-Ups

At first glance, GameON: Finance can sometimes appear stuffy for a digital media event. The amount of investors, publishers and like-minded professional men and women can seem a little daunting in contrast to the creative minds in the industry. Marketing, capital and revenue are a part of the business and without them many of those creative minds wouldn’t have the support they had aspired for their company. In a world that revolves around money, it’s sometimes not easy to maintain focus on the creative aspects of a company.

It doesn’t hurt to be a skeptic; business and creativity working hand in hand seems so unlikely. However, GOF is interesting in that while business-oriented goals are ever-present, the creative aspects of companies emerge; proving that their role in the industry is an important one. During Canadian Interactive Showcase (Presented by CMF) up-and-coming Canadian companies each had the opportunity to present a five-minute pitch sharing their project and future endeavours. With an audience of potential partners and investment opportunities at stake, this was quite the event for each of the candidates.

Curious to know what some of these showcase start-ups have created and what they hope to achieve in the future? Following is an interview with three of the participants:

• Introduction
• Cinder
• Kolody
• Era: Origins

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Event
PS Holiday Preview – Interview with Matt Levitan

Click the pic to watch the interview.

We had the chance to interview Matt Levitan from Sony Playstation Canada about new titles, old titles, and faded dreams about being a rockstar. We apologize for the crappy audio* – we tried to fix it in post prod, but it didn’t turn out as well as we would have liked.

In any case, this interview is full of win.

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Interview
David Board – Stage 2 Studios

David Board, from Stage 2 Studios, recently sent us a note about his latest venture: Lifeless Planet. Pitched as an action/adventure gaming experience in the spirit of games like ICO, The Dig and Out of This World, LP follows the adventures of a skeptical astronaut searching for life on a distant planet. However, instead of coming up short, this space traveler discovers a Russian laboratory. Wondering if this is a hoax, he is saved by an unlikely being from a deadly phenomenon.

The visuals look great (especially for an indie developer) and the premise is pretty cool. We had a chance to ask David a few questions about this neat-looking game.

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Interview
Fighting Community: Russell Ordona

A few months ago, Steven Loung approached us about doing a feature about the video game fighting community. Much like pinball and other choice arcade games, a strong community exists around the genre of fighting games. Please note that this interview was conducted before one of the events listed within (T12); due to being swamped, we couldn’t get it out in time, so the references may be a little out of whack (time-wise). Check out the piece; it’s pretty cool.

Ever since Street Fighter IV came to home consoles back in 2009, fighting games have become a big deal again; as a result of this revival, a genre that sparsely saw new commercially successful entrants is now one of the more vibrant and successful ones in the industry, mainly because fighting game fans are among the most loyal and dedicated gamers out there. For most fighting game enthusiasts, the genre isn’t just a matter of seeing his/her virtual pugilist beat the crap out of somebody; it can dictate a person’s lifestyle.

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Interview
Alfe Clemencio

A few weeks ago, we had a brief chat with Alfe Clemencio, from Sakura River Interactive. His game, Fading Hearts, was a welcome surprise to us and we thought we would ask him a few questions. We held onto this interview until we posted a review of the game to give our readers some context.

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Interview
The CRPG Addict

Dave found a really interesting site run by a very cool guy. I’m just going to let him explain.

If you’re a fan of classic game and RPGs, I highly recommend you check out The CRPG Addict. The site author has the extremely ambitious mandate of playing through every PC-based role playing game ever released – from the very oldest game on through to present day releases. He is early on in his journey at the moment, but he is making good progress and writing diligently about his experiences along the way. I recently had the pleasure of chatting with the CRPG Addict about his experiences so far.

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Mini-Interview
DIG 2011

A little over a month ago, we posted a little bit of information about the Digital Interactive Game and Web Conference (DIG). Since then I have run into Mark Mikulec from Antic Entertainment who also mentioned this during a panel discussion. I recently had the opportunity to ask the folks that organize DIG a few questions.

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Interview
Tobyn Manthorpe – Cedar Hill Games

The resume of Tobyn Manthorpe is impressive to say the least. A major part of the house that Bioware built, he had a hand in Baldur’s Gate (the famous opening cinematic), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (the cinematics), Neverwinter Nights (the fabulous Aurora toolset that made NwN the darling of the mod community) and Dragon Age: Origins (Orzammar, home of the dwarves) as an animator and lead level artist. Solid credentials, to be sure, which meant Tobyn’s future was as full of possibility as anyone could ask for.

What followed, then, was perhaps not the most obvious outcome: in 2007, on the tenth anniversary of his employment with Bioware, Tobyn packed up and left the company on good terms for the greener pastures* of Vancouver Island, doing contract work for his former employer as a graphic designer until taking the plunge and founding his own game company, Cedar Hill Games.

Why leave a job at arguably one of the most respected game developers in the industry and start from scratch as an independent? Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Tobyn and lead designer Mike Sansregret to talk about the transition from big-time to small-time, the challenges of trying to be successful as one of the little guys, game design and CHG’s two released games, Pistols at Dawn and Emissary of War.

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Interview
Marcus Smith (Insomniac Games)

The Chimera sometimes like to re-enact West Side Story.

An awesome tidbit from Erika and Ricky to tide y’all over until our Resistance 3 review is out.

With the recent release of Resistance 3 exclusively on PlayStation 3, we had the opportunity to speak with Insomniac Games’ Creative Director Marcus Smith about the game-play and plot changes from Resistance: Fall of Man to the latest iteration, articulating the measures taken to make the game what it is today. We also talk about alien invasions, nightmares about the Chimera and other influences this series holds dear. Insomniac has certainly done an impressive job with this series and hopefully this interview will shed some light on more aspects of it.

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