Monthly Archives: January 2011

UK Charts: Black Ops back on top

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Call of Duty: Black Ops is once again top of the UKIE GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 40. It’s Black Ops’ seventh number one and now the game only needs one more to match Modern Warfare 2’s total of eight weeks at the top.

It marks something of a revival for Call of Duty: Black Ops, which had slipped to third last week. The change at the top pushes FIFA 11 – which had held top spot for the previous two weeks – back down to second, while Just Dance 2 drops one place to third.

The top five completed by two motion controller based games with Wii Fit plus up one place in fourth while Kinect Sports has jumped from fifth to tenth spot.

The rise of these two pushes Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit down two places to sixth while Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and former Number 1 Gran Turismo 5 drop a spot each to seventh and eighth respectively.

Another former chart topper in the form of Fallout: New Vegas remains in the top ten but slips to ninth while Sony’s PC and PS3 MMO DC Universe Online claims 10th spot in its first week on sale.

The UKIE GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top Ten for the week ending January 15th 2011 is as follows:

1. Call of Duty : Black Ops (Activision)
2. FIFA 11 (EA)
3. Just Dance 2(Ubisoft)
4. Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo)
5. Kinect Sports (Microsoft)
6. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (EA)
7. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
8. Gran Turismo 5 (Sony)
9. Fallout: New Vegas (Bethesda)
10. DC Universe Online (SOE)

The coming week sees a couple of big releases in the form of the long awaited Mass Effect 2 release for PlayStation 3, and LittleBigPlanet 2.  The latter has been getting some great review scores which you can see here on the Train2Game blog.

So Train2Game, are you surprised to see Black Ops back on top? What do you think about DC Universe Online making the top ten? And will one of the big new entries this week be Number 1 come next Monday?

As usual, you can leave your thoughts here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Nintendo sold 15 million consoles in US during 2010

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Train2Game blog image Nintendo Logo

Over 15 million Nintendo consoles were sold in the United States alone during 2010 the gaming giant has announced.

Their figures say the various Nintendo DS consoles sold a combined total of 8.5 million units during 2010 while the Nintendo Wii was the best selling home console with over 7 million of them sold.

Nintendo sold more than 2.5 million Nintendo DS systems and more than 2.3 million Wii systems in December alone, bringing their lifetime U.S. sales totals to more than 47 million and more than 34 million, respectively.

“Nintendo has sold more game systems than anyone else for five years running,” said Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America’s senior director of Corporate Communications.

“Of the quarter billion hardware systems sold in the United States during the past 10 years, Nintendo sold more than half. We look forward to bringing fun new experiences to consumers when Nintendo 3DS launches in March.”

The 3DS looks set to bring Nintendo even more success. The handheld console doesn’t yet have a European release date, but it’s likely to be revealed at an event in Amsterdam next week. The Nintendo 3DS already has a Japanese release date which is set for 26th February

While we have no official confirmation of what the European launch titles will be, though this is likely to change after the Nintendo event! You can check out the Thoughts of Train2Game blog to see which games Gabe believes will be available with the Nintendo 3DS at launch.

It’s not only the Nintendo consoles that had a successful 2010, with Wii Fit Plus and Wii Sports resort both appearing the top selling UK games of the year.

What do you think about Nintendo’s success? Is it well deserved? Can they keep the momentum going? And how successful do you think the Nintendo 3DS will be this year?

You can leave your thoughts here on the Train2Game blog or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game blog student interview #1: Lauren Black

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There are over 2000 students currently on Train2Game courses, and with so many out there we decided it’d be a great idea to chat to them. Our first mini interview is with Train2Game Development student Lauren Black. Subjects she talks about include why she chose Train2Game, what was she doing before and her favourite part of the course so far.

Train2Game Blog: Hi Lauren, why did you choose to study with Train2Game?

Train2Game student Lauren: Since leaving school I’ve had quite a problem with studying in an academic environment. I had tried college, with the ultimate aim of going for a degree three times, and I’ve always felt like the tutors don’t know the subject they’re teaching well enough.

I even had one tutor who didn’t know the difference between Java and JavaScript, and for a web development module that would be quite an imperative titbit. With this being the case, I felt like I wasn’t learning anything, so why continue? I found out about the course when I was moving house – I found one of those little blue leaflets on my new doormat, and I took that as a good omen. A new house and a new direction, it couldn’t hurt to give it a go!

Train2Game Blog: Which Train2Game course did you decide to take and why?

Train2Game student Lauren: I’ve always been a bit of a geeky chick, and because of my history in web development I chose the Game Development course. For a couple of years I’ve wanted to break into the gaming industry so that I could both do something interesting with my skills, and also gain the knowledge and expertise to expand my businesses.

Most of my expertise lies in PHP development and since the course seemed to cover C++ in quite some depth, I figured that it would be beneficial to learn, not only to be applied to games, but to other performance-critical applications relevant to my clients.

Right now I’m having so much fun doing the course, hearing the ‘thunk’ of the book hit the floor in the post has become the highlight of my week!

Train2Game blog: What were you doing before you started your Train2Game course?

Train2Game student Lauren: Before starting the course, I had mostly been working on a freelance basis. I currently own and run an IT business, which deals primarily with web application development.

Prior to hearing about the course, I knew I needed to gain more skills; specifically I needed to learn C++. What most people don’t realise is that games, no matter how trivial they may seem, are a result of very sophisticated pieces of performance optimised software, making thousands of independent calculations every second.

The Train2Game Development course seemed like the perfect compliment to the direction I was already taking, and is allowing me to continue my career.

Train2Game blog: How are you finding balancing the course with the rest of your life?

Train2Game student Lauren: The course itself is very easy to keep on top of, each new chunk of information is provided in bite-size sections. I may be a little more experienced than the average student, but generally it takes me about an hour to read through each section followed by the tutor marked assignment I usually take around lunchtime. It’s the sort of thing that can easily be done in the evenings, or spread over a number of days.

Given my academic history, it’s great because I can take the course at my own speed without feeling patronised by incompetent tutors. Actually, speaking of tutors, twice I’ve called the tutor team to ask fairly complicated questions – and both times I really felt like I was speaking to someone of my own level, who actually knew what they were talking about. Definitely not someone in a call centre reading from a script!

Train2Game blog: What has been your favourite part of the course so far?

Train2Game student Lauren: Currently I’m about half way through Section 2. I’m just in the middle of developing a simple 2D game engine to build a platform game on top of.

Whilst it’s true the code given (at least at this stage) has been simplified, it clearly illustrates each integral part, so as a little side project I’m now able to expand upon the lessons learned by studying the engine provided to create my own cross platform version that will run on Windows, Linux and Apple machines and even iPhones.

Granted, these extras aren’t taught by the course, but it does go to show that the same fundamental lessons can be applied in many different circumstances.

Lauren is on the Train2Game Game Development course.

Codemasters recruiting for new online F1 game

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F1 2010 Train2Game blog image

Codemasters are hiring staff for a new browser based Formula 1 game. – encouraging news for Train2Game students keen to see jobs being created in the video games industry.

The new game development team will lead the development of what Codemasters describe as a ‘service-based online game.’ The announcement from Codemasters states:

“Set to deliver a fully official and high quality FORMULA ONE browser gaming experience, the as-yet-unnamed game will focus on being highly accessible, thanks to an innovative design approach to car control, while offering persistence and depth of gameplay for a mainstream online gaming audience.”

“FORMULA ONE is incredibly popular in many countries around the world, particularly in countries where online gaming is either already big or rapidly growing such as India, Brazil, Korea and China, the potential is clear” said David Solari, Vice President and General Manager for Codemasters Online.

“We have proven F1 is a major games brand and what we have planned will build upon that”.

No date has been given for the release of the newly announced project.

F1 2010 proved massively successful for Codemasters last year, with the game even taking top spot in the UK Charts during late September. The provided the Warwickshire based company with their most successful ever game.

What are your thoughts on the announcement? Are you pleased to see more jobs being created in the games industry? Do you think targeting a ‘mainstream online gaming audience’ could point towards Codemasters looking towards social media gaming?

Leave your thoughts here on the Train2Game blog or on the Train2Game forum

Social gaming market to pass $1 billion this year

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Another day and another Train2Game blog post about the ever-growing world of social media gaming. This time, a report by research group eMarketer suggests that social media gaming is set to pass $1 billion in revenue this year.

The estimate is up 28% over last year where revenue totalled £856 million.  The report also suggests that 62 million internet users in the United States – or 27% of those online – are expected to play at least one social media game a month. That’s up almost ten million from 53 million in 2010 according to eMarketer.

Revenue from virtual goods will continue to bring in the biggest share of dollars this year and next. And marketers are expected to spend $192 million to advertise on social networking games, up a massive 60% from last year.

“Forecasts of audience and revenue growth present an opportunity for marketers to promote their brands through social games,” said Paul Verna, author of the upcoming report “Social Gaming: Marketers Make Their Moves.”

The news comes only one day the Train2Game blog reported over 100 million people are playing Zynga’s latest social media game Cityville. This week also saw a report from EConsultancy – also featured on the Train2Game blog -which suggested that one fifth of all consumers now play social media games.

It’s likely that a lot of this revenue will also come from in-app purchases, a subject discussed during last months Train2Game interview with games industry consultant Nicholas Lovell.

All this goes to show that a Train2Game student who cast their eye towards producing social media games may not me making a bad move at all.

What are your thoughts on the report? Do you believe that social media gaming is really going to pass $ 1 billion in revenue this year?

As usual, you can leave your thoughts here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Reuters]

Cityville has over 100 million people playing

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Cityville Train2Game blog image

Over one hundred million people are now playing Zynga’s latest Facebook game, Cityville.  The social game only launched last month but Inside Social Games reports that the latest Facebook stats say 100,064, 578 people are playing the game. And impressive number that even eclipses Farmville.

This new information confirms the findings published on the Train2Game blog yesterday that Social Media Gaming is on the rise. This news was met by a mixed response from users of the Train2Game Facebook page, but as Train2Game students will know it’s much simpler for a small team to develop a game for social media than it is for them to produce a big blockbuster title.

Cityville was launched on December 2nd and in just two weeks managed to attract 26 million users, just a month later this has quadrupled to over 100 million! Some Train2Game students may not find social media games to be their cup of tea, but it’s hard to disagree that there is a wide audience for them!

Yesterday’s Social Gaming Smart Pack from EConsultancy said that one fifth of all consumers now play social media games online with one third of those playing several times a day.  Among other things, the report also suggests that a fifth of regular social gamers have paid to play and that more women than men play them. These are numbers that Train2Game students can’t really ignore!

In fact during the Third Official Train2Game webinar last year, veteran games designer Jon Hare said that it’s relatively simple for a small team of developers to produce a casual title. Cityville is quite a basic social media game, but that only adds to its appeal which can be seen through the massive growth in the user base!  Developing a good, successful social media game could provide a Train2Game student with a good start in the games industry.

What do you think about the massive user base of Cityville? Have you played it yourself? Can you see yourself developing a social media game in the future?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game student favourite Minecraft passes 1 million sales

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Train2Game blog Minecraft Image

Indie success and Train2Game forum user favourite Minecraft has now passed the one million sales mark.

The creator Marcus ‘Notch’ Perrson announced the news on his blog with a small update that simply read “Minecraft just passed one million sales.” And given that Minecraft costs over $10 to purhcase, Notch is now a very rich man….all thanks to a game that has only recently entered its beta stage!

The success of Minecraft is sure to be something many Train2Game students with aspirations of their own will admire. Especially those involved on the unofficial Train2Game Minecraft server! The Train2Game forum thread about the runaway indie success now stretches to over 16 pages.

It’s not just Train2Game students who are impressed by Minecraft, with many publications including Eurogamer and PC Gamer declaring it one of the games of the year

Notch still has plenty of plans for Minecraft, and recently wrote on his blog that it should get a full release by the end of this year:

“We’ve written down major goals that we want to do for Minecraft release, and it looks like the release will happen sometime late this year. Hopefully we’ll be able to set a date soon.”

He also added that he plans to make Minecraft even more fun:

“Because I want to avoid us just focusing on reaching release, I suggested that we should dedicate 50% of the development time in Minecraft towards adding fun new stuff. Basically, any developer working on the game (two people at the moment) can just come up with something they’d want to add on a day-to-day basis, as long as the rest of the team thinks it’s a decent idea. If it ends up being fun, it gets added.”

It’s amazing to think that such a huge game is being developed by such a small team, but it’s something that Train2Game students will no doubt be encouraged by. You can read a lot more about Minecraft on the Thoughts of Train2Game blog.

So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on the success of Minecraft? Is it worth all the hype? And what do you want to see Notch add to the game?

As usual, you can leave your thoughts here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

How is Train2Game student Adam Gulliver finding his work placement at DR Studios?

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The top Train2Game students now get the opportunity to join established games studios on work placements as part of their Train2Game courses. The Train2Game blog caught up with Train2Game Games Design student Adam Gulliver to chat what about his work placement at DR Studios.

Train2Game: Hi Adam, what Train2Game course are you on and how are you finding it?

Adam Gulliver: I’m on the Train2Game Games Designer course and I’m finding it really useful, really good and I’m learning a lot of new skills.  But as it’s great to be gaining some experience of working in a games studio at the moment.

Train2Game: Why did you decide to take the Train2Game Games Designer course?

Adam Gulliver: Well, I really like playing games basically! So when I first saw the Train2Game course on a jobs website I rang the company and an advisor game to talk to me about it. It sounded really good so I decided to go for it.

Train2Game: What do you want to learn and achieve during your Train2Game work placement at DR Studios?

Adam Gulliver: I hoping to learn what it’s like working in a proper studio, so hopefully this experience will help me add to my portfolio and then get a permanent job in the games industry.

Train2Game: Is there anything in particular you’re working on during your work placement at DR Studios right now?

Adam Gulliver: It’s mainly some pitch documents with concepts, a lot of documentation basically!

Train2Game: Do you think your Train2Game work placement at DR Studios will provide you with helpful experience when it comes to finding a job in the games industry?

Adam Gulliver: Yes! You can’t really learn everything while working at home so you need to try to get some experience in a games studio environment and with people experienced when it comes to working in the games industry like at DR Studios.

Train2Game: You have your own thread on the Train2Game forum! How are you finding that, is it strange?

Adam Gulliver: Yeah it’s a bit weird having my own thread and people talking about me and people talking about. But I’m looking forward to telling them how enjoyable this placement is!

Train2Game: Thanks Adam.

Dragon Age II story developer diary

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Dragon Age 2 Train2Game Blog Image

Bioware has released another Dragon Age 2 Developer Diary which will be of particular interest to Train2Game Games Design Students.

This latest Dragon Age 2 Developer Diary mainly examines the character of Hawke, his (or her!) back story and how decisions made by the player will have consequences for the characters development.

The story of Hawke spans across many years and sees them escape The Blight of Dragon Age: Origins to eventually become the Champion of Kirkwall. But how does this work in just a single game? The Dragon Age 2 developers explain that the story is set within a story, with the tale being told by a character called Varric who knew Hawke. They also discuss how because it’s being told as the story of a legend, exaggerations will often occur!

The Dragon Age 2 writers also discuss romance in the game.

The Developer Diary is very interesting and it’s amazing to think that there are so many different dialogue options and outcomes depending on the choices the player makes.

Train2Game students can watch the Dragon Age 2 developer diary below.

If that isn’t enough information from Bioware about Dragon Age 2, Train2Game students can also check out this almost must watch developer diary from last month. There’s also an extended trailer available in this Train2Game blog post.

The information that’s been revealed about Dragon Age 2 so far seems to suggest that it’ll match or even beat the expert character development and story telling of the original game.

Train2Game students can pick up Dragon Age 2 when it’s released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on March 11th.

So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on the developer diary? Do you think the concept of telling a story over many years will work? Do you think focusing on a specific character – as opposed to creating your own in Dragon Age: Origins – is the way forward?

As usual, you can leave your thoughts here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Team Fortress 2 to make adding user created content simpler

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Team Fortress 2 Australian Christmas Train2Game Blog Image

It’s often evident on the Train2Game forum that Train2Game students are keenly looking for opportunities to get their work and ideas out into the open. Train2Game students may therefore be keen to know that the latest update on the Team Fortress 2 blog reveals that Valve are planning to make it easier for players to contribute their own items to the game.

Players will also be able to test their new items, be they weapons, hats or anything else, before submitting them for contribution. Interested Train2Game students can find full details on the on the Team Fortress 2 blog.

The contribution page really does provide Games Designers with the opportunity to see their work not only put in a game, but a very successful one at that with Team Fortress 2 having thousands of players online at any one time.

Readers of the Train2Game blog may remember this post about the Polycount contest which gave budding game designers to end up with the items they designed added into Team Fortress 2. The winners did indeed have their original items added to the game in the Mann-Conomy Update at the end of September last year.

Not only did the Polycount modders see their work enjoyed by thousands of Team Fortress 2 players, but the nature of the Mann-Conomy Update meant that players could buy the items if wanted to spend money on them. 25% of the income made from the user generated Polycount items went straight back to the people that designed them with each of them making a small fortune in just the first two weeks they were on sale.

Shaylyn Hamm, Shawn Spetch, Steven Skidmore, Spencer Kern and Rob Laro made between $39,000 and $47,000 each in just those two weeks. Who knows how much they’ve made from their user generated content now!

Speaking back in October about his new lucrative line of work, Kern said:

“It’s astounding that so many people want to purchase the items that came out of the community. The response exceeded my wildest expectations. There really is no doubt at this point that there’s a huge demand for community-created content in TF2 and, hopefully, more games will start to tap into this demand.”

The demand for community-created content in Team Fortress 2 didn’t stop there with further community items being added to the game in the Australian Christmas update. This update included many of the hats and weapons made by Team Fortress 2 community modder Mister Royzo. Given the amounts of the new items I’ve seen during games of Team Fortress 2, it looks like there’s been a high demand for them in the Mann-Co Store and that Mister Royzo will be following the footsteps of the Polycount modders and making himself a nice little sum of money!

Train2Game students may find themselves looking on with envy now, but in theory anyone could submit an item to Valve and see it added to Team Fortress 2. So if you think you’ve got the skills, why not try and design something yourself? It would make good practice for Train2Game Art & Animation students at the very least!

It goes to show that PC gaming could be a great asset to Train2Game students, thanks to the likes of Team Fortress 2 community updates and the vast opportunities to mod a wide variety of games. Why not have a go?

So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on Valve being so keen to involve community developers with Team Fortress 2??  Will you try modding? Or have you produced your own user created items for games before?

As usual, leave your thoughts here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.