Posted on February 8, 2016 by Renee Gittins
‘Twas the night before Overwatch, when all ‘cross the globe,
Every gamer was waiting, donned in their soft robes,
Their headphones were hung by their PCs with care,
In hopes that Overwatch soon would be there.
The gamers were nestled all snug in each chair,
While visions of Tracer blinked ’round without care.
The beta was returning, just ‘few hours away
To bring joy and fast battles back to their day.
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Posted on February 2, 2016 by Renee Gittins
My name is Renee.
I am a gamer, game journalist and video game developer, and I have impostor syndrome.
gender impostor syndrome impostor's syndrome Potions: A Curious Tale Renee Renee Gittins sexism Stumbling Cat woman women
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Posted on January 31, 2016 by Renee Gittins
On October 28th, 2015, Sony quietly filed a trademark application for the term “Let’s Play” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Approval of the application would give Sony the power to remove any “Let’s Play” branded content that they disapproved of, including reviews of games of their competitors and criticisms of their own console games, and, potentially, follow the route of Nintendo and take ad revenue from content creators.
Sony’s “Let’s Play” trademark application.
Luckily, one law firm stepped up and took action to stop Sony’s trademark application.
“The McArthur Law Firm has filed a Letter of Protest with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) on behalf of all members of the gaming community against Sony’s attempt to trademark the term “Let’s Play”. We became concerned about Sony’s shameless attempt to monopolize a generic term used by gamers throughout the world when it was reported earlier this week that the USPTO had issued an Office Action assessing Sony’s application. The USPTO’s Office Action failed to even raise genericism as a possible issue with the trademark.”
The McArthur Law Firm specializes in supporting “companies in the digital industry and especially… software companies, app developers, video game companies, medium sized companies trying to protect their brand”. They appear to be the perfect fit for taking on Sony’s trademark application. And it seems that they were.
Two weeks after the McArthur Law Firm filed their Letter of Protest, the United States Patent and Trademark Office agreed that “Let’s Play” is a generic term and refused Sony’s trademark application.
Part of the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s argument for rejecting Sony’s “Let’s Play” trademark application.
The McArthur Law Firm noted that the two sources used in the refusal by the United States Patent and Trademark office were the first two of 50 that they provided in their Letter of Protest, suggesting that the refusal was based on the Letter of Protest. They have also confirmed that rejection is “far more lethal” to Sony’s application than the previous response by the USPTO that several sites erroneously claimed was a rejection previously. The McArthur Law Firm has stated that, with the newest refusal, “the term “Let’s Play” is now forever in the public domain.”
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Posted on January 21, 2016 by Renee Gittins
Carbon Games, the creators of AirMech and the Oculus Rift launch title, AirMechVR, found their domain http://www.carbongames.com/ was blocked by the major ISPs in Portugal on January 20th, 2016. Carbon was notified through their support requests that they were blocked, while Reddit kept a detailed thread of information about the block, as the block is Portugal’s first block on a website without any justification.
LinkRaider, a Redditor who claims to be part of the team that created Ahoy!, an extension to bypass the block in Portugal, said that they first became aware of the block last Monday, meaning that Portuguese fans of AirMech may have had trouble accessing the domain for several days. It was also noted that the Portuguese ISPs failed to block carbongames.com lacking the “www” prefix.Read More
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Posted on January 15, 2016 by Renee Gittins
Renee Gittins discusses how to recruit a team and lead them to help you create the game of your vision. Balancing your own preferences and desires with theirs, you can build a strong team that respects each other and works well together towards a common goal.
Renee covers details such as compensation methods, communication and management tools and other items you need to transform your personal project into a full team project.
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Posted on January 13, 2016 by Renee Gittins
EA DICE released Star Wars: Battlefront on November 17, 2015. While the game has been criticized for not having the same range of weapons, vehicles and campaign play as its previous iteration, the new Star Wars: Battlefront has made some awesome advances, including absolutely gorgeous graphics and stunning sound effects and music.
One notable different between the new Star Wars: Battlefront and its previous versions, is its inclusion of female and minority Stormtroopers. In fact, the game has gone to great lengths to provide a diverse range of skins to choose from, male, female, young, old, black, white. Each are listed innocuously as “Human” followed by a number, with a brief descriptor for each version of the skin of their hairstyles. This is a wonderful way to allow people to put themselves into these skins without labels telling them. I looked at one of the skins for a long time, trying to determine if it the character was supposed to be of Greek or Middle Eastern origin, before realizing it doesn’t matter. In the Star Wars galaxy, those labels have absolutely no meaning. Anyone could play with that character skin and relate to it as they wish.
The “Human 1” skin in Star Wars: Battlefront.
When Polygon asked Patrick Barch, general manager at DICE, about the existence of women Stormtroopers, he responded:
“Why wouldn’t there be? When you talk to Lucasfilm, they’re like, ‘Yeah, of course there are. We just haven’t shown you [in the films].’ For us, it’s about filling in the details in the universe. We help out by asking the question, ‘Can we do this, can we do that? Should we do this or do that?’ And then we work it out [with Lucasfilm].”
Thus, female Stormtroopers during the reign of the Galactic Empire are canon and Star Wars: Battlefront has been sure to include them. This is a great step forward for the community, especially for people like me, who have been desiring to step into some Stormtrooper armor both online and in real life.
Star Wars: Battlefront does a great job of having slight distinguishing physical features for females from males without making them seem sexualized or out of place. The Stroomtrooper armor looks basically the same between the two sexes. The only noticeable differences between the female and males versions of the Stormtrooper is that the female has a slight taper on the lower half of her chest piece, a smaller waist, slightly less bulge on her codpiece and a higher belt. Overall, it really does look like standard issue Stormtrooper armor on a female body– No ridiculously curvaceous proportions, no missing armor protection and no “boob plates”.
The base Stormtrooper skins in Star Wars: Battlefront (male on the left, female on the right).
EA DICE deserves applause for this, they have done a great job making the Star Wars universe more open and inclusive for all. However, they’ve fallen short of being a truly welcoming game.
It is easy to get lost in overwhelming joy of the sheer amount of diversity of skin selections in the game and overlook where they are lacking. First of all, on a pure numbers side, there are still simply more male choices, with 70 male skins (42 male Rebel skins, 28 male Empire skins) and only 55 female skins (31 female Rebel skins, 24 female Empire skins). Some of this can be attributed to male skins having combinations of hair and beard combinations. Where it is inexcusable, though, is for the high level skins.
In Star Wars: Battlefront, you unlock skin variations as you progress in level. For the most part, these skins are hair customization. However, at level 40, you begin to unlock more noticeable skins that clearly show your peers and the enemy team that you are of a high level. For the Empire, this first skin is a Scout Trooper skin and for the Rebel Alliance it is three alien skins (Sullustan, Duros and Rodian). The problem? All of these skins are male, with male voices.
In fact, of all of the high level skins (of which there are 9), only two are female skins and both of those are aliens on the Rebel side (Zabrak and Twi’lek). The complete lack of special female Empire skins means that, if you prefer to play a female character, you will never get to fully flaunt your accomplishments while on the Empire side.
The two high level Empire skins in Star Wars: Battlefront both only have male variants.
With the base Stormtrooper skins, EA DICE showed how little modification is required to provide both a male and a female version. Why would they leave out female Scout Troopers and Shadowtroopers? Using Barch’s own words, “why wouldn’t there be” female Shadowtroopers?
It seems quite a pity that EA DICE worked so hard to be inclusive in their character options only to leave out women at the highest reward tiers. At level 50, I am reminded of this every time I end up on the Empire side and have to choose between having a character that speaks in a voice like mine and one that shows my accomplishments.
Progress has been made, but we don’t have equality yet.
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Posted on January 5, 2016 by Renee Gittins
A new game has been announced on Kickstarter. It’s an expansive, open world RPG in the Star Wars universe with graphics rivaling Star Wars: Battlefront and “with the feel of The Witcher 3“. The game is set to launch December 2017 if its funding goal of $200,000 is met within the next 26 days. Development has yet to start, the team has not yet been formed, and licenses have not yet been acquired.
If you could not contain your laughter upon reading the last paragraph, congratulations, you may have a sane understanding of video game development.
While Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites have been an amazing resource for game developers requiring additional resources to complete their games, it also has been a breeding grounds for false promises, poorly managed development and even theft. Few developers using crowdfunding are outright malicious, but there are countless who try their hardest and still cannot produce the game they thought that they could on the budget they planned.Read More
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Posted on January 3, 2016 by Renee Gittins
Ty Taylor of The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild with one of his games, The Bridge.
Today we have the award winning game developer, Ty Taylor, joining us for a question and answer session. Ty is a renowned game designer and developer that leads the Seattle based indie studio, The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild.
His first major game, The Bridge, received critical acclaim and many awards. The Bridge is a 2D puzzle game that requires players to use movement of both their character and of gravity to solve puzzle levels in an M.C. Escher inspired world. More recently, Ty has been developing the game Tumblestone, another puzzle based game that has surprisingly addicting competitive modes. It, too, has been sweeping up the awards, and it will be released later this year.
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Posted on December 24, 2015 by Renee Gittins
Joe Waters passed away on the morning of December 23rd. He was a dear friend of mine and of countless others. As someone who was blessed with knowing him well, both within the game industry and as a friend, I would like to share some words about him.
Joe was a self-declared “asshole”. He was blunt and straightforward. You always knew what he was thinking and what he thought of you. Yet his bluntness and tendency to flip off cameras could not hide that he was an extremely caring, kind and passionate person. I joked to him that he was one of the nicest jerks that I ever had the pleasure of knowing. Even his harshest reprimands were intended to help, much like a parent scolding a child for playing with fire.
His intellect was only matched by his compassion for others. Joe took many under his wing, from people at the countless game companies he worked for to someone standing alone at the bar. He was quick to include you and make you feel truly welcomed. His friendship never felt forced, his conversations never consisted of idle small talk. He was interested in your and your stories and helping you become the best person you could be. Wherever he went, he always brought cheer and positive energy. And, despite his almost intimidating appearance, he was quick to drop a goofy face, a joking comment and a big smile.
Joe himself had clawed his way to where he was in the game industry. He decided he wanted to make video games and forced his way into the industry by making his own video game from scratch, some 17 years ago, an extremely rare accomplishment for those times. He made every lick of it himself, from the art to graphics rendering. He would often recalled with a chuckle how, in his first interview, they asked him what parts of the game he had worked on and he responded “I don’t understand the question” because he made them all himself.
In those years since, he has become a core member of the game industry. His intelligent, programming talent and understanding of graphics rendering gave him immense value, but he was always treated everyone else as peers, no matter their background or profession. In these recent years, he has lead Seattle monthly industry nights that helped connect countless developers, from AAA to indie, from programmers to artists. He had a wonderful talent for helping people connect and has brought countless people together. Like his own friendship, the connections he helped established were deeper and more open than they ever would have been without him.
I, among many others, have the honor of considering him both a mentor and a friend. He always had time to grant advice, give a hug or just share a drink. He valued his friends more than anything in the world and it was apparent in everything he did. The blow of his loss is tribute to how well he lived his life.
We will all take our time to mourn his passing, but he was adamant that, upon his death, he wanted his friends to celebrate his life. So let us celebrate this wonderful man, whether you knew him personally or simply had the pleasure of knowing his work. He has accomplished far more in his life than many could ever imagine and has left a lasting impression upon the world. He was happy, he was loved and he will be missed.
Here’s to Joe.
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Posted on November 19, 2015 by Renee Gittins
Blizzard has flagged for a huge number of accounts for this weekend’s Overwatch Beta Test Weekend. Luckily, I have had access to the beta for the past few weeks and I wanted to share what you can look forward to.
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Posted on November 8, 2015 by Renee Gittins
Here’s a quick rundown of the Overwatch reveals at Blizzcon:
New Map: Hollywood
New Heroes:
Mei
D.Va
Genji
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Posted on November 7, 2015 by Renee Gittins
If you missed out on Blizzcon’s Legion World and Content Overview panel, here’s a summary of the information and images.
Story
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Posted on November 5, 2015 by Renee Gittins
I recently wrote an article on my favorite virtual reality games. I think that ensuring people experience the best virtual reality games is extremely important to the health of the medium– a bad VR game is all it takes to make someone lose interest in VR and maybe lose their lunch, too.
Unfortunately, it is not always easy to identify the component of a VR experience that sends you in a rush to the nearest trash bin. I wanted to share my knowledge of core issues for both gamers and developers to keep an eye out for when playing and working in VR.
Frame Rate
Bad frame rate on computer games is noticed quite easily when it drops below 45fps. However, due to lagging frames when you turn your head, a framerate of 90fps is recommended for VR. While you can’t really tell the increased framerate when you are still and watching objects, it becomes apparent when you turn your head to look around a scene in VR. Unfortunately, with 60fps having been the standard for so long, rendering not one, but two screens at 90fps is quite the challenge for developers. This is why you’ll find that most VR games trend towards simple graphics.
User Interface
User interfaces (UI) have to be completely rethought to work well in virtual reality. While the standard for most games are active UI elements around the edge of the screen and locked position menus, neither of these work well in VR. Your peripheral vision is very sensitive to change, but is unable to focus on elements. Thus, a health bar to the side of the game would be distracting when it changed and impossible to see in detail. Locked menus in the center of the screen suddenly feel far too much like someone enthusiastically shoving a paper in your face. Certainly, you can read it, but it would be much more pleasant if they handed it to you and let you hold it at the distance that’s best for you.
The best solutions I have seen in VR for UI are systems that use the world space to host the interfaces. A particular favorite of mine are the menus and displays in Elite Dangerous. The displays are prominent on and in front of the cockpit’s windshield, far enough from your face to not be obstructive, but close enough to see clearly. The menu system is what blew me away, though. You simply turned to look to either side of the main console and a holographic menu would pop up in your spaceship in that location and become interactable with the controls. It really felt like I was using the control systems of a future space craft.
Another cool example of an ingenious virtual reality UI system is in Bazaar, where the sky acts as your inventory and your items save as constellations. The sky above you is so often unused in games, so it is great to see that space being put to use in VR and, especially, in such a creative way.
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Posted on November 3, 2015 by Renee Gittins
With both the SteamVR’s HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift releasing in the first quarter of 2016, virtual reality hardware has been getting a lot of attention. Yet it is the games for the platforms that really showcase the breathtaking experiences that can happen virtual reality. As a VR enthusiast who has had the pleasure of trying many VR games, both released and unreleased, on the Vive and the Rift, I wanted to share my favorite experiences.
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