Daily News Spin — February 19, 2001 (Monday)

Demo derby

Gamasutra has an article looking at the demo scene, and no, not the kinds of demos you think. These are demos you never see, made by aspiring game developers and computer graphic artists. Some are done with an eye towards getting a position at a company, and others are done just as a means of self-expression.

Saxon Druce, from Australia, believes he was hired to his first game job because of his experience coding demos. However, he mentions that, �at the time I did it for 'the love of the code', not because I planned to get into the games industry. Being part of the [demo] scene you also get to discuss your ideas with other people, and show off, which all helps improve your skills. Also, you get some experience with building something through working with a few other people, both other coders and 'arty types', which is just like the real world.�

In part this is an article doubling as an ad for submissions for The Computer Animation Festival at SIGGRAPH. You can read the rest of the article here.

Press run

Avault has a lengthy article that examines the three gaming magazines (CGW, PC Gamer, and CGM) and analyzes the number of ads, advertisers, and review scores that appear in these magazines.

It's an interesting read, though perhaps Avault should have included a bit more information on the editorial similarities between print and the web, since Avault (like other sites, including this one) also accepts advertising from game companies. Avault is competing for the same ad dollars, in other words.

Film at 10

Dark Horizons has a bit of game-related film news today. First, Square is apparently abandoning plans of a Final Fantasy movie series. The first one is going way over budget and will probably cost $140 million when done. Add that to Square's own recent losses due to the downturn in the game market and they're just going to reorganize their film department and sub out to other studios to do CG film effects. (This bit of news was submitted to Dark Horizons by a "Loonyboi", so we'll assume it come's from the same Loonyboi who writes for Blue's News.)

Another bit of movie news is another bucket of cold water, this time dashed on the Tomb Raider movie and possible sequels. Seems Angelina Jolie misses her husband Billy Bob "terribly" and is thinking of having a baby, so she's cool to the idea of sequels. No word on how much she misses her brother.

Finally, Dark Horizons writes that the UK Dreamcast magazine mentions that a possible Crazy Taxi movie "is in the works".

Bill Roper interview

Our interview with Blizzard's Bill Roper is now up. Bill talks about Warcraft 3, the Diablo 2 expansion, the new Warcraft novel, and a few other things. Here's the link.

3am

Gamepen's Dan Clarke was at Daytona yesterday and has a brief editorial about the race, along with his feelings about the tragic accident that claimed Dale Earnhardt's life.

Also, we found out that the new Baldur's Gate game for the PS2 is not going to be ported to the PC. We'll have a little more news about it today or tomorrow.

Finally, for those of you who are off, enjoy the holiday!

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