Check out pixelsandpoutine.com‘s newest podcast and you just might recognize your favorite friendly neighborhood game designer’s voice Yup, Simon Prefortaine of Pixels and Poutine fame, a podcast dedicated to the game industry right here in Montreal, has chosen yours truly for an interview on the most recent installment of his podcast.

I must say, I actually sound like I know what I’m talking about Well, don’t take my word on it, check it out and let me know what you think!

For the second year in a row, I’m posting my views on this year’s E3 for your reading and trolling pleasure.

As with last year, I could care less about portable devices and so will only mention any console related info that got my attention. If I left anything out, it’s because I don’t care about it, and you shouldn’t either. This year promised to be a better show but honestly ended up being almost as lackluster as last year’s. Don’t these companies realize all that gamers really want are great new games? Please, no more gimmicks!

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Prior to becoming a game designer, I had actually not read any books on game design. I’ve been an avid gamer since the age of 5 and a web/graphic designer since highschool so it wasn’t much of a stretch, but I hadn’t had any actual formal education in the field prior to getting into the industry. It’s funny but I started reading game design books only after getting the job. So far, all of the books I’ve read on the subject have been an utter waste of time except for a Theory of Fun by Raph Koster.

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A couple of months ago a music executive said that royalty rates for songs used in video games are “paltry” and a game executive replied by saying that really, the music companies ought to be paying the gaming companies for promoting their songs.

This argument could really be applied to any license, music or not. It used to be that a game could profit enormously by having a connection to an established license. But now that media consumption patterns have shifted, those licenses profit just as much by being featured in a game.

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Like most people working in the industry and game fanatics alike, I’ve been watching the news trickling out of E3 rather closely.

As far as I’m concerned Microsoft had the best E3 presence and by far, but E3 was lame anyway. I have to confess, I’ve only watched the Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony announcements live and read about the others so I might have missed some info.

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To make the claim that any game is “the Future of Gaming” is a bold move, I admit, but if you’ve played Valve’s Portal than I’m sure you’ll agree that the industry will (or at least should) head in this direction. Sure, Portal hasn’t made any hardware innovations such as rumble support, online play, or motion/touch controls. Sure, it’s not even a new genre as much as a new spin on several pre-existing genres. It’s true that every element, except for the actual portal game mechanic, has existed in games before. But that, my friends, is not why Portal is the Future of Gaming. It is so because it does offer something which we haven’t seen in the video-game industry in a long time … hope.

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Yesterday I was preparing myself for another long Wednesday at the office. You see, Wednesdays are release days for our video game project, which means we have to come up with a playable version to send off to the Executive Producer for scrutiny. Unfortunately, we were informed yesterday that our project was canned.

“Well technically it’s on hold” said my producer while rolling his eyes even though he did admit that there was a chance the project might be picked up by another group in the near future. He also assured us that we did a good job and that no one was displeased with the project itself, they just couldn’t sell it to any online cell-phone carriers. In other words, good job but not good enough.

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