Friday 8 January 2010
Aquired Knowledge
Bungie
It was interesting to discover that Bungie's website was a way Halo fans could get their own ideas heard for future projects. Bungie.net is even used as a way of developing a relationship between the creators of Halo and its gamers. Bungie is even said to recruit from its fan base.
Their priorities are to create well designed and decent games that are both visually appealing and interesting in terms of story. There is no doubt in my mind that Halo is probably one of the best if not the best game i've ever played. This is because it's Bungie's own creation. It is an arty game that is visually astounding, the characters and story line are interesting. The game is easily navigated in terms of both game play and programming. The other factor which has contributed to its success is the multiplayer online experience.
It is interesting to see the advances in technology over all the Halo games. I must say however, that since the split between Bungie and Microsoft their games look far superior. It is evident that Bungie have more control over their projects and thus their creative traits are allowed to flourish. I believe the graphics, design, story and music have all improved over the years. It is an interesting experience to see such a successful franchise explode and evolve let alone play the game itself.
There have been two major Halo franchise releases since Halo 3. Firstly a real time strategy game titled Halo Wars was released for the Xbox 360 which was produced by Ensemble Studios, which is set after the Fall of Reach (Halo Reach 2010) but before the first game of the trilogy Halo: Combat Evolved. The second is an animated Halo series titled Halo Legends which takes place before the events of the first game in the trilogy Halo: Combat Evolved. It follows various squads and campaigns against the covenant. This series was financed by 343 Industries and the animation is a collaboration between various Japanese production houses: Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4oc, and Toei Animation. Shinji Aramaki, creator of Appleseed and Appleseed Ex Machina and Mamoru Oshii creator of both Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell Innocence both serve as the project's creative directors. Warner Bros. will distribute Legends on DVD and Blue-Ray in early 2010. There has also been a notable Machinima production, a comedy series titled Red vs Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, a highly successful parody of the Halo Universe using real multiplayer gameplay which follows two opposing multiplayer teams.
Even a film of Halo was in production which was to be directed by Neill Blomkamp and produced by Peter Jackson. Before Blomkamp signed on, Guillermo del Toro was in negotiations to direct. The crew stopped and resumed preproduction of the film several times. Blomkamp declared the project dead in late 2007 near to Halo 3's release on Xbox 360. Peter Jackson however stated that the film would still eventually be made. Blomkamp and Jackson then collaborated together on District 9. Blomkamp told Film Magazine that he was no longer considering working on a Halo film even if the opportunity arose. He explained that it would have been difficult to return considering preproduction had halted on several occasions before the project's collapse. The rights for the film have since reverted back to Microsoft. Blomkamp commented that he was concerned about the fact that the main hero or protagonist "Master Chief" in a film would not hold much weight because of his faceless nature. Instead other characters around him would have to expand the story with "emotional heavy lifting" and the film would have to explore their perception of the Master Chief. However rumors have suggested that Stephen Speilberg has shown interest in acquiring the rights for and producing the Halo film. Microsoft has responded to these rumors by stating that the film project is still on hold.
There are also four very easy ways of following Bungie's development. (1) Either online on the internet via Bungie.net. (2) By playing the Halo games particularly Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST. (3) By using an Xbox 360 console to watch inside xbox videos which may occasionally have interviews with various Bungie employees and personnel. ( 4) The other way is to follow news and intel via a new community site on the Xbox 360 Dashboard when online known as Halo Waypoint. This is very new and currently the only game which has its own community site on the Dashboard interface. Here you can check your progress in the Halo universe, acquire exclusive access to interviews on game design and game development. You can also access anything that is halo related and on top of that watch all the Red vs Blue episodes as well as Halo Legends series.
Blizzard
Blizzard also uses both its main website and battle.net as a means of recruitment. Blizzard has a dedicated section to fan where sometimes individuals are noticed and offered jobs. In my opinion Blizzard is the Pixar equivalent in the games industry. Their games are always well designed, with superb plots and characters. I have played two of their games which are notably the most popular, StarCraft (Sci-fi Strategy game) and its expansion StarCraft Broodwar and World of Warcraft (MMORPG).
Their games are so well made that they are occasionally a problem as they become somewhat addictive as so many have experienced for themselves particularly World of Warcraft. Over the years Blizzard's games have improved in terms of graphics and game design. It is interesting to learn that a World of Warcraft feature film is going to be made and will be directed by Sam Raimi and produced by Chris Metzen. The release date is predicted to be in 2011.
World of Warcraft has expanded rapidly and has inspired two board games, a trading card game and the publishing of a comic book set the World of Warcraft Universe. Action figures have been made. Several commercials featuring pop culture celebrities have been aired to promote the game. Such celebrities include Mr. T, William Shatner, Verne Troyer, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Ozzy Osbourne. World of Warcraft has also been acknowledged by the popular series South Park. World of Warcraft has even been used to promote various products, such as Toyota Trucks.
A large portion of Blizzard's workforce work as World of Warcraft in game Game Masters who primarily tend to consumer queries and help with trouble shooting. These GM centres are located in Paris and Cork. There are of course game testers who are employed to test games for glitches and bugs.
On the more creative side Blizzard looks for highly talented individuals who are able to work in a team. They look for a particular personality. They must be imaginative. They tend to look for high quality work that is unique and interesting. They do not want to only see life drawing and heavily anime inspired pieces. They look for artwork which has come from your own imagination using reference. This work should represent your style and character. Your work should also demonstrate some sort of development process.They require that the artist is skilled in 2D drawing and has had significant experience with a computer with programs such as Maya, Z Brush and Photoshop.
Industry Research
Bungie Studios
Currently based in Kirkland, Washington.
Key Personnel: Harold Ryan (President), Jason Jones(CCO), Matin O'Donnell(Composer) & Joseph Staten(Writer).
Main Website = www. bungie.net
Bungie a video games company was responsible for producing various game titles such as the Marathon series, Myth series, Oni and most famously the Halo series. Bungie began as a small games company and was founded in May 1991 by Alex Seropian and Jason Jones. They were responsible for several small titles for both the PC and Mac platforms.
In 1999, however, their fame was about to change as they unveiled their new project, Halo, which they announced would be a first-person action game for both Windows and Macintosh. On June 19,2000, soon after Halo's preview at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2000, Microsoft announced that it had acquired Bungie Software and that Bungie would become a part of the Microsoft Game Division under the same name Bungie Studios. Halo would be developed exclusively for the Xbox console which was also owned by Microsoft. During the time this partnership seemed logical and somewhat enabled Bungie Studios to step out into the limelight. The reasons for Bungie accepting Microsoft's offer were varied. Jones stated that the merge was "all a blur." He explained that this opportunity to work with Xbox and a company which took its games seriously was far too valuable to reject. Even before publishing Marathon, Bungie had apparently had a serious offer from Activision. The stability and growing popularity of the Xbox console was a major factor for Bungie's choice to merge with Microsoft, but there was also another reason. During that time it was discovered that certain Asian Versions of Myth II in some cases could erase the player's entire hard drive of memory. This consequently gave rise to a massive recall and withdrawal of a huge number of game copies right before they were shipped which cost Bungie an estimated 1 Million Dollars. Martin O'Donnell explained that this huge recall created some financial uncertainty. It was stated however that accepting this offer from Microsoft was "something that Bungie did not need to do."
Despite all this Halo: Combat Evolved, meanwhile became a critically acclaimed hit, selling more than 6.5 million copies worldwide, and becoming the Xbox'x flagship franchise. It was no secret that many consumers bought an Xbox just to play Halo, this I do know as I was one of them. There was no doubt that Xbox's success was largely to do with the success of Halo.
Halo's success led to Bungie creating two sequels. Halo 2 was released on November 9, 2004 for Xbox, making more than $125 million on release day and setting a record in the entertainment industry. Halo 3, the final installment in the Halo trilogy, was released on September 25, 2007 for Xbox 360 and surpassed Halo 2's records, making $170 million in its first twenty-four hours of release and becoming the most pre-ordered game in history.
On October 1, 2007, a mere six days after the release of Halo 3, Microsoft and Bungie announced that Bungie was splitting from its parent and becoming a privately-held Limited Liability Company named Bungie LLC. As outlined in a deal Microsoft would retain a minority stake and continue to partner with B ungie on publishing and marketing both Halo and future projects, with the Halo intellectual property belonging to Microsoft.
After the split Bungie announced that they would be working on two more Halo projects. Firstly a prequel and expansion to Halo 3 titled Halo 3: ODST which was released on the 22nd of September 2009. The second project will be a prequel to the first Halo game Halo: Combat Evolved titled Halo Reach which is expected to be released sometime in autumn later this year in 2010.
During the success of the Halo Franchise, Bungie's Headquarters has been moved from Chicago to Washington. Particularly after the success of Halo 2 Bungie's staff has also expanded steadily from 120 to 165. There current headquarters is open plan and their culture has remained informal and above all creative. It was predicted that the relationship between Microsoft and Bungie was "doomed to fail" because of the fact that both companies had conflicting views and ideals. This informal attitude was however one of the reasons why Microsoft was interested in Bungie. Although Jordan Weisman stated that Microsoft almost came close to destroying the company's development which is exactly what happened to FASA Studio. It was apparent that many Bungie employees were concerned that Microsoft would eventually have suffocated the company's creative culture had they not separated. Perhaps the success of Halo 3 was a massive boost in confidence to Bungie employees demonstrating that they could now stand on their own two feet. I still feel however that Microsoft was a major factor which made Halo so successful.
Blizzard Entertainment
Headquarters currently based in Irvine, California, USA.
Key Personnel: Michael Morhaime (President and co-founder), Frank Pearce (Vice president and co-founder), Rob Pardo (Vice President), Chris Metzen (Vice President of Creative Development).
Main Website = www.blizzard.com
Blizzard is also a video games company and was founded by Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce as Silicon & Synapse in February 1991. In its early days it specialised in creating game ports for other studios. Ports include titles such as J.R.R. Lord of the Rings, Vol.1 and Battle Chess II. In 1993 the company created games such as Rock N' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. In 1994, the company briefly changed its name to Chaos Studios, before settling on Blizzard Entertainment after it was discovered that another company with the name Chaos name already existed. That same year, they were acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates for under $10 million. Shortly after this Blizzard shipped their breakthrough hit Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.
Blizzard has changed hands several times since then. Eventually Blizzard was sold to French publisher Havas in 1998. That same year Havas was purchased by Vivendi. Blizzard was part of the Vivendi Games group of Vivendi. In July 2008 Vivendi Games merged with Activision, using Blizzard's name in the resulting company, Activision Blizzard.
In 1996, Blizzard acquired Condor Games, which had been working on the game Diablo for Blizzard at the time. Condor was renamed Blizzard North, and has since developed hit games Diablo, Diablo II, and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Blizzard North was located in San Mateo, California; the company originated in Redwood City, California.
In January 1997 Blizzard launched their online gaming service Battle.net with their release of their action-RPG Diablo. In the same year Blizzard also released a military science fiction realtime strategy game titled starcraft which by 2009 has sold more than 11 million copies, it is one of the best selling games for the personal computer. In 2002, Blizzard was able to reacquire rights for three of its earlier Silicon & Synapse titles from Interplay Entertainment and re-release them on Game Boy Advance. In 2004, Blizzard opened European offices in the Paris suberb of Velizy, Yvelines, France, responsible for the European in-game support of World of Warcraft. On November 23rd, 2004, Blizzard released World of Warcraft, its MMORPG. World of Warcraft also known as WoW is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game. It was released on the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise which included titles such as Warcraft I, II & III. World of Warcraft was a massively successful game and has led to two expansions, The Burning Crusade, released on January 16th 2007 and Wrath of the Lich King, released on November 13th November 2008. The Third expansion set Cataclysm, was announced at BlizzCon 2009. With more than 11.5 monthly subscribers World of Warcraft is currently the world's most subscribed MMORPG and holds the Guinness Book Record for the most popular MMORPG. In April 2008, World of Warcraft was estimated to hold 62% of the MMORPG subscription market. In 2008, Blizzard was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for the creation of World of Warcraft. Mike Morhaime accepted the award. In 2009 Blizzard also announced two more title releases, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and Diablo III.
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