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Epsilon
Dr. Strangelove
Posts: 9240
Location: War Room
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 Posted: Wed, 17th Nov 2010 20:43 Post subject: Brian Reynolds at Zynga |
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Brian Reynolds
Q: Brian, your keynote address at GDC Online looked at the launch of "FrontierVille" and the process of designing innovative gameplay. For readers who may not have attended, what was the main takeaway?
Brian Reynolds: I talked about the approach we took to pitching "FrontierVille" within Zynga, and then the process we used to design it. We had a fairly conservative pitch ("FarmVille" plus more game) and set out to take the best from "FarmVille" and the best from "Mafia Wars" and put them together on the frontier. Maybe the most interesting part was showing how many of our original pitch slides made it into the game but then noticing that largely those original ideas weren't the things that people now identify as what makes "FrontierVille" a great social game. The real innovations in "FrontierVille" weren't in the pitch; they were things we found along the way, things we found by playing and improving and playing and scrapping. So it was a talk about "here's a good process to design innovative gameplay."
Q: That talk is currently being featured on GDC Vault and is available for free. What is your take on the value of streaming event content to the industry?
Reynolds: I think it's great – and I see colleagues talking about this-or-that-presentation on GDC Vault all the time. It certainly seems to broaden the reach of giving talks at GDC.
Q: Who or what inspired you to be a game designer? And what games – past or present – do you consider excellent from a game-design perspective?
Reynolds: I sold my first game when I was 13 years old–for one hundred dollars [gives Dr. Evil hand gesture]. So I've always been interested in game design and programming.
The first game that made me want to do this for a living was probably "Ultima VI." I remember thinking "Wow, this is a really big and open world" and, at the same time, "Hey, I could totally have written this!" Some of the other games that most appealed to me as both a player and a designer over the years include "Civilization" (amazing open world plus lots of simple mechanics that interact in complex ways), "Starcraft" (great combo of sharp asymmetry and near-perfect game balance), "Half Life 2" (my favorite story ever combined with terrific game detail and balance), "Gears Of War" (the most fun pure shooting experience and such innovative game craft), and "Bioshock" (great passive-listening story-telling technique).
Q: The social game space is becoming increasingly crowded and competitive. How does Zynga plan to keep the attention of players in this rapidly expanding market?
Reynolds: Like any entertainment business, we have to keep delivering new content. By way of analogy, even the best hit TV shows only run for so many seasons. So you've got to keep making more pilots to find the new hits. Multi-platform content is definitely part of our strategy (we've recently released "FarmVille" for iPad, for example). The best multi-platform strategy for us is one that increases the number of their real friends that a player can play with.
Q: What's your take on 3-D social games? What are some of the ways you would use that technology to engage players?
Reynolds: I think it's still a bit early for 3D in the social space. Navigating in 3D makes for difficult UI decisions that are hard to teach to the mass market, and the quality of the pure graphics isn't high enough yet for the mass market to get attracted to the potential immersiveness of it. So I don't see it happening yet.
Q: Lastly, hey, what's up next for Brian Reynolds? Care to share?
Reynolds: Right now I'm largely focused on "FrontierVille." Our success with the title means I need to help the team feed the continuing hunger for more frontier content and features. Eventually I'm sure I'll want to get going on a new franchise, but right now the frontier seems pretty big and friendly! |
Source http://www.jointhegamenetwork.com/thismonth/111610.html#vault
Background info on Brian Reynolds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Reynolds
The man who designed Civilization II, Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri and Rise of Nations.
Fuck this shit to hell. 
We are all fucking then
/leaves pc gaming |
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| Posted: Wed, 17th Nov 2010 20:45 Post subject: |
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| Posted: Wed, 17th Nov 2010 20:55 Post subject: |
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Why are casual PC games a problem of PC gaming? They absolutely aren't.
The fact that nobody wants to develop "hardcore" (by hardcore I mean not casual/facebook/popcap/etc) PC games, instead they see the PC as the third HD console and they'll simply port their console games to it, definitely is. And that's not going to change.
TWIN PEAKS is "something of a miracle."
"...like nothing else on television."
"a phenomenon."
"A tangled tale of sex, violence, power, junk food..."
"Like Nothing On Earth"
~ WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO SAY CAN ONLY BE SEEN ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTUOgYNRzY
Last edited by consolitis on Wed, 17th Nov 2010 21:04; edited 1 time in total
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Doh!
Posts: 1361
Location: Wellhigh DK
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| Posted: Wed, 17th Nov 2010 21:02 Post subject: |
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One of us need to become insanely rich and give these people some proper money for making great games - ill volunter!
There are two kinds of people I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch.
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Lutzifer
Modzilla
Posts: 12740
Location: ____________________ **** vegan zombie **** GRRAAIIINNSS _______
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| Posted: Wed, 17th Nov 2010 22:12 Post subject: |
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| Doh! wrote: | | One of us need to become insanely rich and give these people some proper money for making great games - ill volunter! |
make it a game, call it VolunteerVille!  |
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| Posted: Thu, 18th Nov 2010 08:16 Post subject: |
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Shittyfacebookgamecompanyville
e: and the ultimate edition: TycoonVille
I like men now
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| Posted: Thu, 18th Nov 2010 08:52 Post subject: |
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Zynga was raking in $1 mil a day at one point. Those people don't care about innovative games (lol they monetize via incent essays), just profits. More power to them I say. If it works for them, cheers. If you don't like their products, avoid them.
Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly
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