The best of GDC 2013: a preview of gaming’s future – The Verge

Interview: ‘Minecraft’ creator Markus Persson wants you to ‘just make games for yourself’

2013-04-05T12:50:03-04:00

Notch

Despite big-budget distractions like EA's Battlefield 4 reveal, the story of the 2013 Game Developers Conference was really about indie games and experimental game design: a realm Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson is intimately familiar with. And at GDC, The Verge had the chance to sit down with Persson for an interview about his company Mojang, the new consoles on the block, and the future of game development.

Note: this segment originally aired as part of April 4th's Top Shelf: the underdogs of gaming - watch here!

When asked about GDC's rising focus on indie games, Persson said "it gives me hope for the future. Gaming goes in tren …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Swords and cyberpunk: ‘Transistor’ is a darker, grittier take on ‘Bastion’

2013-04-01T09:56:03-04:00

Transistor

Transistor doesn't stray too far from the roots laid down by Supergiant Games' excellent debut title Bastion. It's an action role playing game full of vivid colors, a gravelly-voiced narrator, and very satisfying combat. All of these things were apparent during the all-too-brief demo I played at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week. But there are differences, and in some ways they make the game slicker and more appealing. There's the cyberpunk-esque setting, for one, which replaces the fantasy-meets-Western world of Bastion. Perhaps more important are the changes to the combat, which let you attack enemies in both real t …

Read the full story at The Verge.

90 Seconds on The Verge: Facebook’s Android event, Oculus Rift, and HBO Go

2013-03-29T20:04:42-04:00

90sotv Bryan TC

Mission. Market. Leavenworth. Lombard. Fillmore. Folsom. Kearny. Kamille. Hyde. Harrison. Battery. Broadway. Divisadero. Dolores. Potrero. Pine.

Stories of the day:

Thanks for watching - you're basically our favorite person. Watch more 90 Seconds on The Verge at 9 …

Read the full story at The Verge.

PlayStation and indie games: a love story

2013-03-29T16:58:13-04:00

PlayStation 3 DualShock 3 controller (STOCK)

When Sony announced the PlayStation 4 on February 20th, it was amidst the sounds of explosions and dubstep. Games like Killzone: Shadow Fall, Destiny, and Watch Dogs were on display - titles made with big teams and even bigger budgets. But amongst all of the gunfire was an example of what seems to be a shift in Sony's priorities. Braid creator Jonathan Blow took the stage to show off The Witness, an upcoming indie adventure game. "I really don't know what I'm going to do to follow all those explosions," he said. While Blow was the lone indie developer on stage during the reveal, since that time Sony has made a concerted effort to emphasize i …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Epic shows off ‘Infiltrator,’ a tech demo for Unreal Engine 4 at GDC

2013-03-29T13:57:09-04:00

via cdn1.sbnation.com

Epic Games, the maker of highly-regarded franchises like Gears of War and Infinity Blade, is probably equally well-known for its Unreal Engine. While Unreal Engine 3 still looks great, it's starting to show its age a bit - so Epic has finally given the gaming world a look at Unreal Engine 4. According to Polygon, the company is giving a closed-doors demo of Infiltrator, the first tech demo running Unreal Engine 4 at the 2013 Game Developers Conference. Judging from the screenshots Polygon posted, it's a pretty impressive step forward, and the hardware requirements aren't even that outrageous. Epic VP Mark Rein tweeted earlier that the demo w …

Read the full story at The Verge.

As the Ouya ships to backers, can a $99 console bring players and developers together?

2013-03-28T23:00:04-04:00

Ouya hero shot

GDC 2013 is full of big-name Kickstarter projects waiting to launch. Oculus VR has sprinkled presentations throughout the week, while Gamestick is showing off an early version of its portable Android-based console. And the tiny Ouya gaming machine has started shipping to its early Kickstarter backers. Set for a retail launch on June 4th, the Ouya promises to be a super-cheap, moddable game platform, combining the ease of mobile development with the fun of living room play. But now that players are getting their first real look at the console, can it carve out a niche in a hardware industry dominated by giants?

Though a quick look at the Ouy …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Bungie melds fantasy, Tarkovsky, and space wizards in ‘Destiny’ concept art

2013-03-28T22:09:54-04:00

Destiny Concept Art

After moving on from the Halo franchise, studio Bungie announced a new project in February of this year. Called Destiny, it combines first-person shooter mechanics with more MMO-like qualities, asking players to help protect the last remaining city on Earth in the far future. While we've already seen a little of the world and gameplay in Bungie's previous announcements, the creative team behind Destiny has taken to GDC to reveal a little more about the world they hope players will want to inhabit over the coming decade.

"A dark army dreams of conquest and corruption - but I'm not allowed to talk about that."

The overwhelming feeling you get …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Humanity’s Final Game: a titanium board game buried in the Nevada desert

2013-03-28T20:28:05-04:00

Gallery Photo:

Now in its 10th and final year, the Game Design Challenge here at GDC is a competition that pits gaming's most innovative minds against each other to come up with a game based upon a particular theme or concept - and this year developer Jason Rohrer won for creating a game that he hopes people won't play for over 2,000 years. Put together by designer Eric Zimmerman, the theme of this year's contest was "Humanity's Final Game," a concept that could be interpreted in any way the participants saw fit - and the results were compelling and hilarious.

Luminaries like Steve Meretzky and Will Wright were among the six contestants, but it was Rohrer …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Turning the tables on trolls: ‘Tropes vs. Women’ creator talks harassment at GDC

2013-03-28T18:05:42-04:00

Anita Sarkeesian

Anita Sarkeesian recently released the first episode of "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games," a web series critiquing "damsels in distress" and other stereotypes. But its success on Kickstarter and now YouTube has come at a heavy price: not long after launching the Kickstarter, she became the target of an uncommonly focused and vitriolic backlash from people who took her website offline, flooded the internet with obscene or violent photoshops of her, and repeatedly threatened to kill or rape her. Almost a year later, she's had to scrub almost her entire personal online presence, and she continues to receive threats from angry trolls. In a talk …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Death is dead: how modern video game designers killed danger

2013-03-28T15:56:04-04:00

Spec Ops: The Line

"The word 'Newtown' is something we need to be thinking about and having conversations about."

It's a jarring moment at GDC 2013's Narrative Summit, where writers gather to swap tips on everything from creating relatable characters to finding freelance work. Debates over gaming violence have been particularly active in the past year: a blood-soaked set of E3 2012 presentations left even fans of shooters uncomfortable, and the killings in Newtown, Connecticut led the NRA to blame Mortal Kombat and Bulletstorm while gamers discussed the implications of fictional violence. Last month, auteur David Cage told the industry to "grow up" and wean i …

Read the full story at The Verge.