IDC "Marketing Through Games" report:

#1 They're looking to get more companies to subsidize games with their marketing budget. I'm all for that - that's how we have television and radio, after all.

Another aspect of this that should be considered is cross-promotion. While no money necessarily changes hands, the two products can help promote each other. This happened with us on a game called Jet Moto for the Playstation. I don't know if having Jet Moto advertised on Butterfinger wrappers really helped sales or not, but it sure didn't hurt! Since indie game developers in particular struggle for marketing more than anything else, this could be an interesting opportunity. And if WildTangent's hope for the future pays off, it could be an additional funding avenue. Shoot, I wouldn't mind making a few "free download" games for someone's web site for hire.

#2 Omfg! Dude you worked on Jet Moto! I have all 3 copies still for PS. That game was hands down one of my favorite games of all time. After me and a friend had played it to death we would look for things to do with the cool hover physics. A kind of freestyle thing if you will. In one of the black water tracks and some of the snow tracks you could get the bike to land on billboard struts or the blocks on the dam, just balance for a few minutes them try and do a flip when you fall off.

There was another spot where we could hit the side of this big rock in the water and turbo boost until it was gone. You would fly so high in the air that you would see nothing but blue screen. After that got boring we would try and launch off of that rock and aim for something by turning while we truboed. You could land half way across the track on the other side of the mountain and get max turbo again. lmao.

I just want to say thanks for making a game that made my head spin with ideas.

That game had me hooked as soon as I cranked a huge air off of the submerged bridge.

Back to your subject though, adveractive is pretty cool. My company just got our first start in game dev for ESPN.com - Take a look at the Hershey's Quartback challenge. I know it fairly simple but it was fun to do and we got paid to do it : )

Ironically, I was doing some research for an upcomming indy game we are starting for ourselves and saw WildTangent all over shockwave.com. I was only aware of skyworks interactive I am not a big fan of their work.

Anyway the Jet moto thing came up today when I was telling my team something about our game. Weird how things work sometimes.

thanks for the .pdf I will chew through it soon.

#3 Wow... that's cool to hear, Shay!

I guess the thread is getting derailed here... ah, well. Jet Moto was a difficult project... we had a few competing ideas within the team of what the game should be about. Our lead modeler was really into "crotch rocket" speed bikes, and thought the game should be more along the lines of Wipeout (even though Wipeout hadn't been released at that point, IIRC)... just intense speed. So our first track was really not appropriate for the type of game we were doing... big and flat, with a couple of ramps for jumps.

Eventually, the designer stepped in, some decisions were made, and we decided to go back to the Motocross style of game, which was more appropriate to the particle physics engine the lead game programmer, Travis, was building. Unfortunately, the engine in JM 1 was something of a pig, leaving almost no time for the AI to work... which was my job. Quite frankly, we could only afford 3 bikes running at even 20 fps with his physics. So I had to create a completely different, very simplified physics system for the AI, including a simplified collision system, and get 19 bikes running inside of about 9 ms.

Of course, we could have chickened out, run the other bikes on rails like virtually every other racing game out there. They all spread out the vehicles, had them run a more-or-less constant time and act as little more than moving milestones and obstacles. We were going for something that felt more like a "real" motocross race... LOTS of bikes, lots of collision opportunities within that crowded "pack," and lots of mayhem.

I was only peripherally involved in JM2 (a "consultant" for that team). They were able to optimize the heck out of the physics engine... which meant they could have the AI use the same physics as the player IF they dropped the number of bikes in half. I think it was a good trade-off in the end. I can't say I was ever really proud of my AI code in JM1, other than the fact that I made them WORK under extremely tight limitations.

SingleTrac had nothing to do with JM3... but if you like the series, I recommend trying to find a copy of "STREAK" for the PS1 somewhere. This was one of the best games nobody played, IMO. I was not on the team that made it, so I think I can say that without too much bias. It was basically taking the Jet Moto concept to the next level... with hoverboards instead of bikes, and gameplay mechanics that ENCOURAGED you to do stunts instead of just allowing you to do it.

The game was largely ignored, and a year later a similar game came out from another studio and was much lauded for its originality. Ah, well. Life in the big city. Another interesting note was that one magazine thoroughly SLAMMED Jet Moto when it was first released. HATED it. Ripped on every aspect of the game. A year later, after Jet Moto sold a million copies and Jet Moto 2 was released, the same magazine was commenting on how well the sequel managed to preserve the "magic" of the original "classic."

Okay, hijack done. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

#4 Haha. The mags are likehigh school girls, they only like some one or some thing if its cool with everyone else first.

Ultimately their opinion cannot over ride a $82,734,587,623,874 marketing budget tho. Case in point, They all tea bagged Enter the Matrix and TR: AOD (which did suck badly) but every 11 years kid in america still thinks they are "kick ass" and not "gay."

Props either way on JM1! It was awesome.

I am curious if you are interested in a very cool project. We need a very good lead programmer and are willing to give up a 1/6 ownership of the profits. We are going to be shopping publishers in the summer when we get our demo together. Once the project is sold we will only be looking for employees.

I know you are currently working on Void Wars, but I think your abilities would fit perfect with the kind of game that we are trying to make. Just post back here if you would like me to email you some more info. Plz consider it. You can check out our website to some of what we do already.

http://www.l4b3l.com/

peace
shay

#5 I'm going to be up to my eyeballs getting Void War done for the next three months, which would interfere with getting your demo done in your time frame. If you could still use some support come June, drop me a line. If nothing else, I can dispense useless advice.