The plot of the film apparently called for Sandler's character to be more or less obsessed with a video game as a coping mechanism for dealing with his family's deaths... and Shadow of the Colossus was chosen for its particular gameplay and story, over some other more generic video game footage or MMO!

"You could see where someone who was dealing with 9/11 would be engrossed by a giant that keeps collapsing over and over again," he says. Charlie's therapy was Shadow of the Colossus ... As the game was demoed, the filmmaker saw how it worked thematically. And when Adam Sandler finally came on board, the script was changed so that it specifically mentioned the game's title and sent to Sony Computer Entertainment to get the game's lead designer, Fumito Ueda, to approve of Shadow's inclusion. Weeks later, his reply came through: Greenlight.

Full article here: The Colossus and the Comedian.

Three Wishes: Game Genie Grants Developers Their Hearts' Desires.

"Dear developer," our offer went, "if you could, at the wave of a magic wand, overcome some technological hurdle in game development, what would it be? And more important, what would it allow you to do that you can't do today? Ultimately, this is about you making the games you want to make. You can make one wish, or you can make three." Seventeen prominent gamemakers wished away, and in the process, revealed what troubles they face today as well as the trajectory the medium might take tomorrow.

[edit] Actually not as fantastic as I thought it would be, though still a decent read. Too many of the developers wanted brain-imaginings-to-reality tools (come on... who doesn't want that...).

But leave it up to Will Wright to want something as mundane (?) as perfect pathfinding. O.o

Now he just needs to build a big maze and fill it with glow in the dark dust-bunnies.

Creating objects that tell stories.

This one is from designer Yves Behar, who designed some stuff I don't recognize, but apparently are somewhat iconic in our new millenium... Leaf lamp, Jawbone headset. Okay, whatever.

But apparently he was also on the team for the XO laptop, aka the $100 laptop. Cool!

Plagiarism in Videogames?

I actually don't think it's that compelling an article... the example of Tetris Attack -> Bejeweled -> Puzzle Quest is about the extent of my interest in it (especially since I've played all three games!). But the topic itself bothers me, especially in light of all the game prototyping we did in 488, where we always seemed to meander back towards games we had previously played and I frequently felt the need to slam down on the brakes before our prototype became a complete clone of Settlers of Catan.

Combine this with all these students I encounter during the summer. There's always just a small handful, bright as they are, that feel the need to plagiarise code or visual layout ideas (mine, no less -- as if they think I wouldn't recognize it!) ... and the theft/usage/modification/whatnot of ideas or mechanics becomes fairly important to me.

It bothers me immensely when people use things that don't belong to them. So where do I stand with video game mechanics? I'm still not really sure. When is it "innovating upon" a previous game mechanic, or maybe just "polishing" up another game so that it's playable by the masses? Or how about Japanese games that are jacked and reskinned (and maybe we'll add a button or two...) and resold to fresh American audiences?

As a human being, it is in my nature to be inspired by things I discover around me. But as a creative person, I am reluctant to indulge in derivative material and experiences.

It never occurred to me to consider "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" to be a rip-off of "Sam and Max Hit the Road" (or vice versa, not sure which came first). They were made with the same game engine, so they play the exact same way... but no one would say one is a rip of another. Is it just because they're story-driven and therefore, the only thing that needs to be different is the story?

What if I took "Everyday Shooter" and just changed all the sound so that it was piano tracks and ... uh, riffs? (can pianos riff??)

At any rate, my brain is all over the place with this issue, so I'll stop before I get too muddled. Suffice to say I wonder if game mechanics are really something you can "plagiarise". Even if it does bother me that a large majority of Puzzle Quest's success is likely because it "borrowed" a mechanic from another game that is probably cited as the most addicting thus far ever made.

With web design, I run into this problem all the time. I see cool things made by other people and immediately want the same thing for my own (weblog/site/whatever). Instinctively I seem to understand where the boundaries lie. Copying this website's rotating banner image idea is okay, but hijacking the layout is not. I don't think the difference is just in how much you use, but more about how you use it. I can still be creative about what images I put in the banner rotation or where on the page I put it... but taking a layout is pretty much a one-step deal.

I guess what I would really like is a hard and fast rule about when something has been plagiarised in a "not okay" way. It seems like it might just have something to do with the amount of work you end up doing after the "copy" part has been done. But who knows.

I got the article from Kotaku... bunch of people left comments there that are more provocative than the article itself, frankly. Defining Plagiarism in Video Games.

I am moved to share it nonetheless.

You Have To Burn The Rope.