Ok, so truthfully it's more like ZeniMax+id, but in any case, the company that owns and was spawned by Bethesda Softworks, developers of (amongst other things), Fallout 3 and Oblivion, have today announced they are purchasing id Software, creators of Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, and of course, Rage.

This is a pretty big deal for both companies, and says a lot for how successful Bethesda has been in their expansion plans over the past couple of years. Clearly their publishing of Oblivion and Fallout 3 (both 4M+ selling games) has given them a pretty substantial warchest, not to mention they've probably received other outside investment to fuel their strategic growth. So, between Bethesda's mastery of the open-world RPG, and their new internal capacity for FPS IP and technology, they are well positioned to go head-t0-head with any other publisher in the industry in these specific genres.

The id side of the equation is a little harder to decipher from the outside. Not too many years ago, id turned down a $100M+ offer by Activision to purchase the company. Now, they've been absorbed (although the PR is putting a good spin on it -- id is now "becoming their own publisher" -- it's pretty clear that Bethesda is the one wearing the financial pants in this relationship) for an indeterminate sum (one must figure above the $100M they turned down from Activision). In exchange, they get financial resources they would not have had themselves (??? this part I don't get...id has always been small and uber-successful considering their incredible developer:unit sales ratio) and no longer has to try to navigate the increasingly challenging publisher landscape. Presumably technology licensing has not been a big revenue driver for them in the past few years, since we rarely hear of id tech licensees that aren't also externally developed projects of id IPs (Splash Damage's recently announced 'Brink' being a rare exception to this).

It's likely that id has had to grow teams, like every other developer in the industry, and saw themselves at over 100 developers for the first time ever and realized that at that rate they just can't afford to work on things until "they're done". Given how that strategy ultimately worked out for 3DR, perhaps there's something in the Texas air that told id they might not survive until the next great acquisition offer came along.

In any case, the number of super-devs is really dwindling. Looks like Valve and Epic are some of the last to hold out. I doubt Valve has any reason to sell (other than founders wanting to cash out) because Steam revenue alone could keep them going for a long time -- Valve is essentially already a publisher. Epic on the other hand...as long as they can keep releasing 5M unit sellers every couple of years, they'll be ok, but...the buyout offers will only get higher and sooner or later money talks...

Interesting times!

So, I finished the Pitt DLC for Fallout 3 last weekend. It was really enjoyable, and surprisingly robust for a relatively small DLC. I'd say I got about 6-8 hrs. of gameplay out of it.

The transition from the Capital Wasteland to The Pitt is really quite well done, and the way they use colour and small flavour highlights -- the skies are this perpetual burnt red colour, tall smokestacks loom on the horizon of the industrial city giving it this ominous feeling, the bridge into the city littered with the remains of abandoned cars, etc. -- really make the Pitt feel quite different from the very grey environments of the CW.

The level design for the Steelyard area is especially fresh, using a lot of verticality and heavy industrial props to present a really different take on the environments.

Probably the Pitt's most impressive feat is that it presents the player with what I consider to be the most morally challenging choice of any Fallout 3 quest. I won't spoil it here for those who haven't played it, but I really found the choice to be genuinely challenging -- it made me stop to think about not only what would be right for my character, but what I myself would choose to do in that situation. Pretty powerful stuff for a game that can often be quite clunky in its presentation of narrative moments.

So, kudos to the team at Bethesda, for continuing to make FO3 my game of choice. It's the first game I've put over 100 hours into, and with Broken Steel waiting for me, I have a feeling my time in the Capital Wasteland is far from over...

Had the opportunity to attend a great seminar at work, presented by a Pixar 'story artist' named Matthew Luhn. Luhn went into some detail about Pixar's creative process and methodology for coming up with movie ideas, and most notably, for developing story.

It's always interesting to hear from creative leaders working in industries where "story" is considered of paramount importance, whereas in games we constantly manage to get lost in the "gameplay trumps everything" debate, failing to recognize that gameplay and story don't have to be mutually exclusive (and in fact, when the two have lived symbiotically, the results have been groundbreaking, as we've seen from Half-Life 2, CoD4, Bioshock, and others).

In any case, Luhn mentioned (in a very matter of fact way) that Pixar is the only company in the history of film to have a 10-film blockbuster streak. He also mentioned they spend, on average, two years developing characters and story for each of their films.

Hmmm...

This has been an absolutely shocking week. To think that after all these years 3D Realms is just gone...poof...it's just absurd. It's a bit like the feeling you might have if someone told you the sun wasn't going to come up tomorrow. It's not that the industry revolved around 3DR, but they were such an institution. The studio shutting down helps you to realize how vulnerable we all are, really.

3DR was always a bastion of developer-centric thinking and George and Scott have always advocated strongly for the rights of developers to be masters of their own destinies. Given how generous they have always been with their own time and advice, it's a real shame for it all to come down to this -- shuttered doors.

I was officially a 3DR employee for about 6 months back in 2007, while I was working with Scott to start up the company that would eventually become Radar. Even though I was working out of Vancouver at the time, I had an opportunity to visit 3DR in Dallas a few times, and hang out with George and some of the rest of the dev team.

One thing that was painfully clear from the minute you walked through the studio doors was...this was a company that loved games. Absolutely loved games. And there was a history there on the walls that would make any developer...hell, any publisher...proud. A legacy of innovation and quality and pushing the boundaries in business and design.

The people were extremely friendly and open, even given that I wasn't working on DNF and had very little interaction with any of them. You immediately had a feeling of walking into a tight-knit family that really believed in each other and really just wanted to make a great, great game.

It's a sad day. It's often easy to forget all the emotion and personal sacrifice that goes into developing a game. Then, to see that all dissipate into the ether with nothing to show for it, and on top of that to have to say goodbye to the company you built with your own hands, and your friends that are more like family...well.

I can imagine that heartbreaking doesn't really do justice to how it must feel. Words fail, really.

You'll be missed. All the best. Good night, and good luck.

Here's a great fan-made short movie mixing live-action with some in-game assets (mostly enemy models, sound effects, and some visual effects) from HL2.

Very impressive work considering the budget was apparently "less than $500". It was put together by the Purchase Brothers, a small film production company that's done mostly some commercial work until now. Apparently the City 17 shorts were originally created as a test-bed but have evolved into a series, so expect more to follow.

Seeing the HL2 world in live-action shows you how well the fiction stands up to adaptation. Even the 'uniforms' of the resistance members end up looking a lot less dorky than I would have expected.

In case the link above doesn't work, you can check out a lower-res version on YouTube. With almost 1M hits (as of this writing), the piece seems to have brought the Brothers some much deserved attention.

Hopefully Valve is watching and gets these shorts up on Steam.

A couple of updates on Dark Horizons that caught my attention.

Apparently, Ronald Moore of Battlestar Galactica (remake) fame has selected a director for his 'The Thing' prequel project -- a Dutchman by the name of van Heijningen. I've not heard of him before, but a quick IMDB search shows him to be very experienced (even if he mostly holds producer and not director credits), so we'll have to see how this turns out.

According to the DH piece, van Heijningen is pushing for the prequel to revolve around the exploits of the ill-fated Norwegien expedition, putting MacReady's brother as the protagonist. I have to admit, this sounds painfully contrived to me. One of the great things about MacReady is that you get the feeling that he's in Outpost 31 not by necessity, but by choice, probably out of some misanthropic motivation to get away from people. So, I don't personally like the idea of fucking around with this mythology and suggesting that he might have been out there to "find his brother" or some such bullshit. I suppose it could be pulled off if done well, but...it makes me nervous. File this one under "wait and see".

When scanning for the Thing prequel piece, I discovered another interesting tidbit on Dark Horizons. Apparently, John Turtletaub (National Treasure) is planning to take his cancelled TV series, 'Jericho', to the big screen. Along with the bigger screen comes a larger scale exploration of the apocalyptic scenario outlined in Jericho. If any of you missed it when it was on TV, you should definitely get your hands on the DVDs. It was a surprisingly compelling show, with a great premise, solid cast, and a rather thought-provoking, multi-layered narrative. The show surrounds the events of a nuclear terrorist attak on US soil, perpetrated by...nobody knows, but there are strong signs that the attacks were orchestrated by domestic dissidents. The majority of the show revolves around the citizens in the small town of Jericho, Kansas, in their attempts to understand what the hell is going on, and try to survive in the face of the attacks. As in these types of scenarios, all the worst 'small town'attitudes emerge and neighbour turns against neighbour, and of course there are many triumphs (small and large) along the way. Overall it was a really enjoyable show, and I have high hopes for the movie.

In gaming news...I am utterly addicted to Fallout 3 (where my character is also called MacReady). I've put in about 45 hours into it over the past few weeks, which means I've sacrificed 45 hours of sleep to play it. That's how much I'm enjoying it. I'm lvl. 13 and tripping around the D.C wastes. I've just completed the "Reilly's Rangers" quest and am on my way to Rivet City. I'm looking forward to completing the main quests so that I can go back through the world and revisit all the smaller towns and hideouts I missed in my first pass. In the past, I've always stayed away from the 100+ hour games due to anxiety around the investment required to experience them. But, I think Fallout 3 will be the first 100+ hour game I actually finish.

Are you playing Fallout 3? If so, where are you? If not, why not?

A bunch of random thoughts and updates...

- My friend, science-fiction author Tom Maddox, is working on a new novel. He's been giving me sneak peaks and it's shaping up really nicely. Tom's been a writer for a *long* time -- he was one of the original cyberpunk authors and is a contemporary of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (not to mention our industry's very own Marc Laidlaw (Valve) who also started out as a science-fiction writer before turning to games). I've known him for many years, and we had the opportunity to work together on a couple of projects at Radar.

In any case, it's been extremely interesting to be able to witness the birth of a novel and I wish Tom the best of luck. Simultaneously, his work with Radar is all wrapped up so if you're in need of an experienced writer who has also delved into interactive narrative, feel free to contact me and I'll put you in touch.

- Despite some softness in the opening hours, I have become fully addicted to Fallout 3. As a huge fan of the originals and a big fan of Bethesda, I was really looking forward to seeing how they modernized and re-interpreted the gameplay to make it relevant to a mainstream gaming audience. Looking at the metacritic and sales figures, I'd say they've definitely managed to strike a chord with players. I'm about 30 hours into it and still enjoying it, although I'm approaching the Washington Monument and I'll say the difficulty curve has just skyrocketed upwards, which is a bit jarring. In any case, this is likely the first 100+ hour open world game that I will see to the end.

In playing Fallout 3, and thinking about most of the games that have resonated most deeply with me as a player, I'm beginning to realize just how fundamental the promise of "reward through exploration" really is as an underpinning for compelling gameplay. Fallout 3's RPG mechanics allow the game to make the reward aspects really literal, moreso than other open world games like GTA4, where your rewards for exploring the world are more anecdotal and have more to do with optimizing your navigation of the environment than they do with collecting loot and grinding. But, it appears that many of the action games that resonate most deeply with players manage to satisfy some innate need to explore and discover. Particularly, the promise of exploring abandoned spaces and the possibility of discovering loot that's been left behind (buried treasure!) is extremely compelling, and seems to really pull on an inherent need we have. Maybe it has something to do with reptilian brain survival and resource gathering, and the fact that most of us have very little opportunity, in our daily lives, to truly discover new spaces, particularly physical ones. The allure of archeology becomes more apparent to me...

- Just saw "The Day the Earth Stood Still". What a truly horrible movie, and the perfect example of how a good high concept can be destroyed by poor execution. The director had all the necessary pieces to make a successful film -- big budget, high production values, capable cast, etc. -- yet somehow the film just falls flat. Weak script and poor editing are the likely reasons for this. The film suffers a bit from the same issue as the Spielberg "War of the Worlds" (granted, a much better film) -- the 'heroes' do nothing to earn their own salvation.

Oh, and this is my first post of 2009, so Happy New Year!