Hey guys, just wanted to make sure you saw the new version of GameVideos we just launched. We listened to a lot of your feedback, such as by putting in a much larger video player, and the whole site is much, much cleaner now. Anyway, hope you enjoy it! We'll be working hard on improving the site even further in the coming months.
Also, on the subject of video, I also wanted to make sure you saw the news that 1UP was selected as one of the Top 10 Video Destinations by Nielson. The company released its latest VideoCensus report, which listed the top 10 video destinations for 12-24 year-olds, and 1UP was listed along such other sites as Facebook and Adult Swim. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks to all of you for the support of our shows and specials. We work really hard on delivering the best gaming content each week, but it's because of you guys that we're able to.
As you may have already read on his blog, longtime friend and coworker Dan Hsu (shoe) announced today that after 12 years of being with Ziff Davis he's going to be leaving the company for a change in his life. Wow.
When shoe first told me he would be leaving, I wished he was just messing around (as he often tends to)...but I knew he wasn't. I didn't know what say, other than that it was hard to picture this place without him. Outside of a brief period in 2000 when he left Ziff in search of Internet Money, we'd been working together almost nine straight years. During that time I learned well not to attempt to outdrink or outprank him, and certainly never to hold anything he'd hand you. We worked hard and had a lot of great times along the way.
But it was actually the time before I was here at Ziff that I want to thank him for most. It was because of shoe and other guys like Mark, John D, John R, Chris, and Shawn, etc. -- all who have now sadly moved onto new things -- that I came to Ziff Davis in the first place. These were the guys who made me realize that this is where I needed to be.
When I was a still a late teen and starting my first gaming fan site, my one dream was to someday work at EGM and run its website. Just a few years later, after working with shoe on EGM and John on OPM, I was starting up 1UP.com. I guess it just goes to show that if you really believe in things and work hard enough, anything can happen. But especially when there are great people to help you out along the way.
Shoe, I'll miss you, man.
The other part of this blog is to then address my new role as a result of shoe's departure. As he mentioned, in addition to Site Director for the 1UP Network I'm now also taking on the responsibilities of Editorial Director. Now, I won't delve into editorial philosophies or anything like that right now -- there will be plenty of time to talk about ideas in the coming months -- but to those of you who'd ask if this means any big changes for the network, I'd say not really. First order of business is to make sure we're upholding the same editorial values and principles we've always had at Ziff -- just like Shoe had previously done and John Davison had done for many years before handing the reigns to shoe last fall. And, to be honest, just like what I had done as Editor-in-Chief of 1UP for the last four years. Are we all of the sudden going to be biased toward one platform over another? Well, I've been labeled pro-Microsoft , pro-Sony, and pro-Nintendo, so take your pick.
No, our editorial is not going to suddenly change. But I and our VP of Content Simon Cox will be continually working our hardest to ensure that we have the absolute best editorial in the business. And with Milky as Editor-in-Chief of Videogames for the group and Jeff Green as Editor-in-Chief of PC Games for the group, I cannot think of any two people who would be better to lead our PC and videogame content teams -- period. Not to put words in shoe's mouth, but I think one of the reasons he felt like he could leave now is that EGM is in such good hands with Milky as its Editor-in-Chief. We also have -- hands-down -- the best editorial team we've ever had working at 1UP. Don't get me wrong, there are people who've moved on over the years whose faces and talents are definitely missed, but we've never had so many brilliant people working on this floor as we do now. Some of them you already know; others you will know soon. I guarantee it.
And one piece of good news is that most of the people who have left us in the past have remained part of the family in some fashion or another. In cases like Mark or John, while they're off chasing other dreams, they've also continued to lend a hand, pitching in on the occasional review, podcast, or video show. I'd hope the case will be the same with shoe (Halo Editor? Please?).
But I tell you, the strange thing with shoe leaving is that I start to look around the floor and realize that I'm now one of the guys who's been here the longest (9 incredible years). What does that mean for me? Is it also time to start thinking about a change?
Not for me, not now.
As Site Director and Editorial Director, there's far too much to be done still. I started 1UP about four and a half years ago with a staff of two people. Now, we have a team that takes up almost an entire floor and we've grown into a network that reaches 15 million gamers each month. It's been a wild ride. But it's one that I feel is far from over. I don't know, hearing all the incredible article and show ideas from the teams each day and seeing all of the fantastic things we're going to be doing with our sites, I can't help but feel like we're still just getting things going.
Writing that with such enthusiasm now, I guess part of me realizes the torch really has been passed.
Not sure if you guys caught this, but the other night the kids on South Park attempted to make some Internet Money and in the process got to witness this:
Speaking of internet celebs, Martin Leung (aka the videogame pianist) recently emailed me about this thing he and some friends are putting on later this month called ROFL Con. The lineup of internet celebs they have attending this thing is pretty incredible, and it should make for some awesome blogs and photo ops. Sadly, I can't attend this one, but, er, maybe that's for the best... I can't even imagine how surreal it's going to be.
In case you haven't seen it yet, the last GTA IV trailer hit today. With only about 1 more month to wait for the game, I'm officially starting to get really, really excited for it (and it doesn't help that a friend of mine is probably already playing it for review right now).
(Also, check out our analysis video if you want to get some good info from the trailer).
But actually, the GTA Social Club site is even bigger news than the trailer IMO. From our story, check out the stuff you'll be able to do on it:
"In addition to multiplayer leaderboards, the Rockstar Social Club will include the following features (via press release):
* LCPD Police Blotter - A virtual map and tracker of single-player criminal activity logged in Liberty City from the aggregated data of millions of connected players - showing the most dangerous areas of town, most commonly used weapons and more.
* The Story Gang - This special single-player leaderboard recognizes players who complete Niko Bellic's main story arc of Grand Theft Auto IV - The leaderboard ranks players according to the total amount of playing time it's taken to complete the story, as well as a historical rank by who has completed it first. Members of this club will receive special online widgets and merit badges marking all of their in-game accomplishments.
* The 100% Club - Watch to see who will be the first to complete 100% of the game. The first ten people to be identified on the Social Club as reaching 100% will be sent an ultra-rare commemorative 'key to the city' to mark their accomplishment. In the future, the 100% Club will then carry a historical leaderboard showing rankings of who has completed 100% of a game in the shortest span of playing hours.
* The Hall of Fame -- This area will dynamically recognize those singularly elite players who have reached the top of the hill on various statistical leaderboards, and will also contain a personal awards display of special in-game landmarks and successes in Social Club competitions.
* The Liberty City Marathon -- A ranking of special physical milestones achieved in the game - from the amount of miles walked, driven, or swam - to the number of bullets fired and stunt-jumps jumped. There will be additional special marathon-based competitions in the future from this area as well."
The other day I went on G4's X-Play to discuss game reviews, in particular why the 1UP Network recently switched to an A - F grading scale instead of the 1 - 10 number scale we've employed for so many years, so I figured I'd bring it to your attention:
At the end of the interview Adam asked me about the news of Ziff Davis Media (1UP's parent company) being in Chapter 11. While I couldn't really comment on the situation, I did mention that this really doesn't affect us day to day, and that's the key point I'd want to stress to you guys here. I'd strongly suggest checking out Simon's recent blog post and our CEO Jason Young's interview with Folio for some better background on the whole thing -- I think you'll realize why those of us in the group remain very optimistic about the whole situation.
I also made an appearance on this week's 1UP Yours podcast, if you're interested in giving it a listen. Here was the pre-show:
I hopped in on the show since one of our regulars, Bryan Intihar, recently moved on to Insomniac to help get him closer to his dreams of actually making games. Bryan leaving was a real bummer -- he was such a great member of the team, not to mention one of the best guys I know -- but I am pretty thrilled for him (I always had a suspicion he'd end up at Insomniac). It was also a major bummer to recently see another great guy, Patrick Klepek, move on to MTV, even though that too was a big dream for him, and I couldn't have been more happy for the guy. Patrick had been a writer for 1UP since the early days of the site (he's one of the guys who really helped get it to where it is today), and he'd been writing for me on my first site since he was like 14. I'm certain we'll work together again in the future. In the meantime, though, Jason made a pretend Patrick to cheer us up. Still, it's not quite the same.
That said, whenever people some move on to other opportunities it allows us to find new talent, and I'm happy to say that Philip Kollar will be joining us in the office soon as our new News Editor for 1UP. Patrick had been training Philip the last year or so, and I think he's going to make a fantastic new member of the team. You'll really like him.
By the way, two or so weeks ago I posted a news story about the major site and server upgrades we had for 1UP, and I think you'll agree that things are loading faster than ever. However, ever since the upgrade the 1up tech team has been working really hard to fix the bugs that came about as part of the project. Just as another reminder, if you have any problems using the site, please send a note to feedback@1up.com and let us know. We've got an entire team working as hard as possible to make this the best site for you. Note: the top issue being addressed at the moment is one that occasionally causes your browser cookie to get corrupted, resulting in certain 1up pages not loading at all. If you're running into problems where pages just don't appear, try deleting your 1up cookie and then see if things improve. Either way, this should be addressed any day now -- it's admittedly pretty annoying.
11:42
What the hell? OK, kind of an awkward ending, but yeah, with Cliffy's announcement we're now done. Anyway, make sure to check back to 1UP News and to GameVideos for plenty more highlights all day. Later guys!
11:41
"Gears 2 is going to be bigger, better, and far more badass in every way." He says Gears 2 will be out in November of this year. Oh, and I guess the thing just ended.
11:39
OH SHIT...
GEARS 2
The trailer we were waiting for is coming on.
Huh.
Well, it was more of just a teaser trailer.
OH GEEZE
Cliffy just came on stage
with HIS FUCKING CHAINSAW GUN
11:38
He points out that the son in the game is now an orphan. This gets lots of laughs from the audience. Anyway, Peter went off stage.
11:37
Alrighty! Done with combat, so now we're on to visit the family. He takes us to his home in the game. He hasn't been back in 6 months -- so the characters react appropriately. The son in the game says that he thought she (the character Moleneux is playing) was never coming back. The husband comes out and is pissed. He shot the husband! PETER HAS NO SOUL!
11:36
Ok, so now they're showing off the combat system - "I promise you this, the combat in this game is going to be amazing," he says. He points out that it's been designed to be simple for anyone to pick up and play yet exceptionally deep.
11:34
So now they're showing the co-op - another person joins him on stage to add a new character to the game. One cool element is that any stats/money you accrue while playing co-op in someone else's game is transferred to your own profile.
11:33
Peter said: "I've played role playing games all my life and I love them - I absolutely love them - but I've been lonely"
11:32
Now he's showing the actual game. He's showing a woman character - talking about how in the game you can get married and have babies, so she's pregnant. Oh cool, they're going to show off the co-op!
11:30
Oh, this is interesting -- the game he's showing is actually a separate Xbox Live Arcade game. So you can play the table game and any money you earn in it can be used in Fable 2! They're going to release it on Xbox Live a few weeks before Fable 2 hits so people can start gaining money early.
11:30
The first thing he's showing off is money - which you get for doing jobs, gambling, etc. He's showing a minigame in the game that's a cross between roullette and craps basically.
11:29
OK, now Peter Moleneux has come on stage. He's going to talk about two new features for Fable 2 and he's going to do a live demo.
11:28
OK, Itagaki left the stage and Schappert came back out. He mentioned how Itagaki programmed Tecmo Bowl -- one of his favorites -- could he talk about the new one? Crap, it was just a tease.
11:27
Itagaki says that he's developing Ninja Gaiden 2 as an exclusive 360 title (duh), but that it's coming out on June 3 now.
11:26
OK, we're done with the play session.
Brian: Woah, it looks way better now.
11:23
He points out the save point in the level -- it's a record mark, basically, that records a clip of the action. The idea is that players will be able to upload their best clips so that everyone else can see them play.
11:22
OK, well, there's basically a lot of kick ass battling of enemies going on -- you're really just going to need to download the trailer later on Xbox Live or Gamevideos. Seriously.
11:21
It's an underworld looking stage, with lots of flying creatures. Holy crap, he's totally slicing through a bunch of them, then running across expansive bridges and stuff. Oh man, one of the enemies had a chainsaw arm and pinned him down on the ground with the chainsaw -- ouch!!
11:19
He loads up Ninja Gaiden 2 - the "Special GDC Edition" - the stage is "The Temple of Sacrifice"
11:18
He says he's not ready to give up on the Japanese game market -- he's going to prove with Ninja Gaiden 2 that some cool stuff is still made in Japan. So they're going to show off a new area from Ninja Gaiden 2 that they haven't shown before. Excited?
11:17
God, could he look like any more of a badass? (He's wearing his typical leather jacket/shades)
11:16
Oh snap! ITAGAKI
Itagaki is about to get on stage
He's going to show off Ninja Gaiden 2
11:15
Schappert is back on stage. He's talking about the outlook for 360 this year. Points to Pro Evo Soccer, Rainbow Six 2, Too Human, Splinter Cell Conviction, and Halo Wars. GTA IV, of course.
11:14
OK, they're done wowing us with physics. Tim just left the stage. Man, I hope that's not all we'll see from Epic today, though...
11:13
Now we're on to Soft Body Physics. He shows a giant cube of meat rolling on screen that can manipulated in crazy ways -- looks really organic, basically. And now he's on to destructable environments -- shows how most anything can be destroyed ('sup Red Faction 3?)
11:10
He's showing off what they can do now -- advanced character lighting, high density crowds, etc. For example, he's showing a locust hoard with like hundreds of them on screen.
OOOOOOH BETTER WATER EFFECTS!!!! (/sarcasm)
11:09
"We've been pretty busy since we launched Gears of War" -- he wants to show us what Gears would look like if they had launched it today, essentially. Tim Sweeny from Epic just came on stage to show this off.
11:08
But first! He's running a reel to remind us of all the great 360 games that use Unreal -- Bioshock, etc.
11:07
Dr. Michael Capps from Epic Games is now on stage to show off the latest version of the Unreal Engine.
11:06
He said this year they're really completing the vision of democratizing game distribution. Oh shit, he's about to introduce someone from Epic.
11:05
He's playing the overhead shooter on the Zune.
Shane: I like how you don't actually have to press any buttons.
11:04
Now he's showing an overhead shooter they built on PC, and now they're showing the same game running on Xbox 360, and now he's showing it running on the Zune. Great news for all you Zune owners out there!
11:02
He said you can get a free trial of a bunch of the games on Xbox Live right now!
11:01
They're showing a video of a bunch of the games that'll be available -- all sorts of stuff! Some pretty inventive titles, such as one where you're planting flowers on worlds.
11:00
Now he's showing a game that someone in Europe made - looks like a typical flash game, but where you can brutally kill all these little dudes on screen.
Shane: Man, these games better all be free!
10:59
He's showing a game that someone made called Jelly Car - looks a lot like Crayon Physics.
10:58
The next step is getting people to know about what your game is about (writing a description, etc.), and the next step is actually submitting the game to the service. It'll have to go through a peer review process, though (to filter out copyrighted content and stuff). But once the game is approved, it goes into the community games section of Xbox Live.
10:57
He's talking about how this will all work. You'll have a creator identity -- just like your gamer identity. You will gain reputation, etc. as you go.
10:56
But here's the question: will they be free? (Maybe free for Gold members?)
10:56
OK, here we go. They just announced Xbox Live Community Games
10:55
James is talking about all the things he loves about being able to develop on his own via XNA. You know, waking up at 2 in the afternoon -- basically, doesn't have to grow up. Yay for that.
10:54
Ha, Major Nelson was interviewing James in the video.
Shane: He makes Garnett seem youthful and vibrant by comparison.
10:53
OK, now James Silva (one of the programmers who won the contest) is on stage.
10:52
OK, now they're showing a video of one of the guys who one the contest. It's basically a lot of developer humor (note: the laughing is coming from the back of the auditorium - you know, the non-VIPs).
10:50
Now he's talking about a competition they put on to give a contract for a publishing agreement. I hope this is leading somewhere...
10:49
Points out that they're working with over 400 universities worldwide in terms of getting XNA in the hands of budding programmers.
10:48
"18 months ago we revolutionized the industry by democratizing the console." He says they've had 800,000 downloads of the XNA studio.
10:47
OK, now the chief XNA architect Chris Satchel is on stage.
10:47
Shane: This feels like an infomercial from 2006. Bring back Miyamoto!
10:46
OK, now we seem to be getting somewhere... He's talking about Poker Smash (my current addiction) -- talks about how it was only done by 3 people.
10:43
Now we're watching video clips of some developers talking about how good Xbox Live and XNA are -- Ken Levine, etc. This is all kind of like preaching to the converted, but whatever.
10:42
Mentions how 30% more people upload videos to Bungie's Halo 3 community every day than people upload videos to YouTube. GAMERS ARE INSANE.
10:41
Over $250 million has been spent for games on Xbox Live -- pretty impressive.
10:40
He's talking about Achievements. One Billion Achievements have been unlocked by the 360 community!
10:39
He's showing charts of how games are doing really well (selling more than the music industry). He's moved on to talking about how big 2007 was for Xbox. He has a list of some of the biggest titles on the screen -- Bioshock, Mass Effect, Madden, etc. Boasted about how they all sold more on 360 (though in the case of Madden, what he doesn't mention how last year's version sold 40 percent fewer units than the year before...)
10:36
Now he's talking about why he's excited about Xbox. Mentioned the Xbox 1 as the first console with a built in hard drive, and mentions the 360 as the console that ushered in HD gaming. TIME FOR SOME CHARTS!
10:35
But anyway, enough about him. He's moved on to talking about developers being the pioneers of the industry - mentions the early motto they had at EA: "We see farther"
10:34
Now he's talking about the games he loved back then -- Madden specifically. "As a programmer I felt the SNES was a bit inferior" -- but he claimed they pulled off a lot of technical feats with Madden (Schappert used to work for EA Tiburon).
10:32
He's talking about his background now - how he was a hobbyist programmer on the Apple II back in the day. "Those were great days," he said. His first real game was Desert Strike for the SNES.
10:31
He jokes about not giving away free HDTVs today. Aw.
10:31
He's about to introduce John Schappert - OK, John is on stage
10:30
OK, so Jamiel from GDC just got on stage - he's looking very well groomed!
10:28
Cool, so they said they're starting in one minute.
10:23
Nothing like techno blasting your ears off at 10 am in the morning! Note to self: stop off at Walgreens on the way back to the office for some asprin. Oh, the announcer dude said we're starting in 5 minutes.
10:15
So most of the people are starting to flow into the keynote hall now. We're about 15 minutes from when it's supposed to all start.
10:13
Speaking of Gears 2, apparently Microsoft will be showing a 1 minute trailer using the in-game engine. Sweet...
10:11
We're also chatting with a few Microsoft people who are a bit peeved that their Italian branch apparently leaked the Gears 2 news early (see our news story for the first details).
10:08
Ha ha, this was great. Shane just overheard two Microsoft execs sitting next to him talking about the death of HD-DVD. One asked the other, "So has Blu-ray really won?"
10:04
OK, so we're inside the keynote hall. I'm sitting here with Bryan Intihar and Shane Bettenhausen, so they'll likely chime in with some commentary too. We're in like the 5th row of the place so we have a great view of the stage (press got let in early) -- Bryan just mentioned how it's kind of ironic how the press is being treated as a VIPs at this keynote at the Game Developers Conference. Oh well, we won't complain!
---
As Site Director now you'd think I'd be exempt from covering keynotes the morning immediately following our highly successful, yet heavily booze-filled 1UP Awards party, but that asshole organizing all of our GDC coverageMatt Leone apparently doesn't like his job very much. Speaking of the 1UP Awards, I think I might still be slightly blitzed. Anyway, this should be quite fun and/or interesting.
The keynote kicks off in an hour or so, so stay tuned for updates on this blog as soon as we're situated inside.
Wow, what a busy past few weeks it's been. We've had some really exciting things going on at 1UP -- it's great to see a lot of things that we've been working on for years finally coming to fruition. We finally fully integrated our print and online editorial teams (so we're now one big 1UP Network team), we're in the process of switching to an A through F grading scale (trust me, you'll like it), and we're getting really close to finally deploying some much needed server/database upgrades that have been in the works for well over a year. And that's just the start of things!
But right now, the biggest thing on our minds is the Game Developers Conference this week. We're getting all set to deliver complete coverage of everything going on -- and considering how important GDC has become (with the diminished importance of E3 now GDC has certainly grown in size), there will be plenty to tune in for all week. We'll have reports of all the major panels and keynotes, videos of all the games shown, podcasts and interviews with some of the biggest names in the business, and so much more. Just reviewing our full schedule with Matt today, it's been quite a while since we had a week packed with so much cool stuff. Now, I don't want to oversell it -- this won't be like E3 in terms of new games and announcements, but from the perspective of really getting a taste of gaming's real culture and future trends, this should be great. The buzz is that Microsoft will have some pretty interesting things to talk about at their keynote on Wednesday. From a GDC announcement:
Schappert's keynote explores the Xbox 360 platform's next step in democratizing game development, vastly opening up the industry for developers of all sizes. The session will set the strategy for Xbox 360 this upcoming year, revealing top developers' plans for the platform in 2008. Schappert will discuss how the increasing role of online gaming will continue to shape gameplay and game distribution this year.
I can't wait to see what some of these "top developers" have in store ('sup, Gears 2?). Also, I like the comment about "developers of all sizes" -- perhaps Microsoft will make good on its promise of creating the "Youtube of games" in Xbox Live Arcade. "Unleashing the creative community" seems like a direct attack on Sony's Game 3.0 keynote last year. Should be fun.
Sony won't have a keynote this year (maybe because they got top billing last year?), but they will still have a few things to talk about. And you never quite know with Nintendo, but I would expect a few Wiiware surprises and possibly more (Mario Kart? I can dream, can't I? Then again, remember last year when Nintendo surprised us with a playable Super Paper Mario at GDC?).
I'm also really looking forward to this week since we're going to be holding our big 1UP Awards night where we announce the winners you voted for the best games of 2007. It should be a fantastic night, and we'll make sure to post all of the winners online when they're announced. Anyway, make sure to stay tuned for that and all of our GDC coverage this week!
In case you weren't aware, Rez HD just went up on Xbox Live Arcade. My full review was posted earlier tonight, but I'll summarize it for you here: Rez is one of my favorite games of all time, it's been upgraded to HD, and it's now available for $10. It really doesn't get any better than that.
To people that owned the original (which is not many of you, as apparently only 40,000 copies of the PS2 version were ever released in the U.S.), this version is absolutely worth getting if you own an HDTV. HD makes such a difference.
And to those of you who've never played the game before, now you have no excuse. But be warned: as an on-rails shooter, it may not seem as impressive as it should at first. Give it time, though, and you'll truly revel in its complexities. As an experience, it's simply unmatched. Level 5 is where the whole thing comes together, and if you're not fully entranced by then, you have no soul.
Rez HD may not be for everyone, but to those who appreciate what's been attempted and largely pulled off by the game, you're in for an absolute treat.
Guess who I randomly ran into at a comedy club tonight? Jeff Gerstmann and Alex Navarro. Which, if you read my blog from earlier today, is a pretty bizarre coincidence. We had a good laugh about that.
