BINGO! DEVELOP Magazine “30 under 30 Game Developer”

I am please to tell ya’ll Jeff have did it again. This got to be one of the best gift for me and defiantly a nice surprise to conclude my year 2009. To check the mention you can check this digital version of the magazine! Thanks for everyone who have supported me in my professional career! Check it out http://issuu.com/develop/docs/dev101_web/29 for the full magazine  OR you can just view it here!

iPhone App: iPhonics – Learn phonics in a fun way!

5 years ago, an Educational game will probably be the last thing I want to develop. Yet being with an educator my taste and likeness changed. After understanding the educational world and indulging myself to it, I will like to proudly present my newly develop and just release App: iPhonics. In iPhonics you will be learn how to pronounce over 100s of vocab and understanding which phonics does it belongs to but in a fun and challenging way! I will like to humbly invite you all to give it a try especially if you have a kid. Download it today! All comments welcome!

My new iPhone game Anna Montana

My new iPhone Game – Anna Montana is now in review process of Apple AppStore! Check the game on it’s official website or here is a Preview done by Slide to Play a caption of what Slide to Play said:

We thought Anna Montana’s concept and execution were pretty well done in this pre-release build, and we’re looking forward to seeing more houses and a better translation integrated into the game. The unique concept make Anna Montana one to consider, even if you hate doing housework in real life. – Andrew Podolsky, Slide to Play

Ironman PS3 and Superhero Games review

Ironman, my favorite Marvel hero of all time. Due to Ironman… I now love Maroon & Gold. I have toy figures of Ironman at home and work. No matter where you see me, I always carry something in Maroon and something in Gold! I play every game that have Ironman on it. I am crazy about Ironman! So Ironman PS3 everyone that knows me will think… Pointless to read a review by me since I am a fanboy and I will be blindly loving it for no reason… ANSWER WRONG! I am a fanboy but I am a professional game developer so I will be fair and pro on reviewing it… So let get started.

Ironman PS3: http://ps3.ign.com/objects/864/864868.html
IGN gave it a 3.8, that is a PRETTY FREAKING LOW SCORE! Average Press review is 4.3 and reader at 5.7… Compare to my favorite MGS 4’s IGN 10, Average Press 9.5 and Reader 8.9. Is it really that bad?

First one thing that is interesting to me is, it seems there aren’t any Super Hero base console game that got a great score. Hulk (PS3) is at 6, Ironman (PS3) is 3.8, Spiderman (PS3) is 5.5, Batman (PS2) is 6.8 and so on… Why? It seems Super Hero games are like Super Hero movies both DOOM by professional reviewer. Yet like this years Oscar, Super Hero Movie are BIG BUDGET production and have enormous captive audience! Well, for movie I don’t know why. However for games I have a pretty good idea… NONE OF THEM ARE DONE RIGHT!!! I play HULK, I sold it in 5 days. I play Ironman I want to kill myself but I will keep it because I am a fanboy. I play Spiderman, I sold in 3 days… NONE of the Super Hero game is made with passion or heart I must say.

All of them are just made with the SAME idea/gameplay. Big City like New York setting, Super hero runs around, throw bunch of enemy and let him destroy or kill. Seriously none of them have depth in it. Nothing is spectacular, almost is like no thought is put into it. Seriously if one put more thought into the product I believe any product can be great, now working on a “Super Hero” titles should even be easier as you have all the guide line you need already. Now lets go into the review of Ironman.

Ironman, if you have play the PSP and think it is “great” or “okay” stop right there. Why? PS3 is the same game just remapped the control and a “SLIGHT” enhance of art work. When I mean slight I really mean slight. Is almost like bumping up the texture and use automatic function to bump up polygon counts. The PSP is already kind of a let down but given the limitation of hardware I let it slide. PS3 is the most powerful machine, there should not be ANY limitation… I expect to see super HIGH res model with crazy texture detail… So here is what we got here:

CG cutscene 1:

CG Cutscene 2:

For a PS2 games I can accept this… for a PS3 game this is far off the mark. Especially when the developer claims they have help from ILM… The CG is crap and the graphical quality in game, when you fly into an object in HIGH speed. You actually see the object in low res model and pop into high res right in front of you on your big 40″ TV!

Gameplay, seriously the gameplay of PSP and PS3 is EXACTLY THE SAME !!! The hook, mechanic, excitement and everything is the SAME… The level design is also very lame, there are no thought or depth. Is just placing lots of enemy on the screen shooting at you in all direction. If I were the CD, I will fire the level designer the first day I saw something like that. The only way to play the game is hide and try to find way to lure enemy and kill them off slowly. THAT IS NOT IRONMAN… the essences should be your Ironman always have some sort of gadgets to counter this kind of circumstance? It should be matter of controlling the gadget to get into this hot situation but not sneaking in… that is more a Spiderman or Batman approach.

Lastly the Sound and Music… my god… I actually need to start a new paragraph for you guys… CRAP CRAP CRAP AND CRAP… in fact is not crap is just port from the PSP game right? it really sounds the same…

Bottom line, a game on PS3 should not remain anyone the experience he has on a PSP…

My view to Gold Farming A.K.A. R.M.T.

Gold Farming A.K.A. RMT (Real Money Trade), technically is my first job and my first business venture.

Back in my gaming days on UO, I have been doing gold farming, capturing prime estate location and selling it to player that want to build house on prime location. Later I also sell castles and other rare items for some quick cash. Yet back then I am just doing this for fun. Until Lineage 1/Diablo 2 at 2000 I start doing as a business, where sell on a daily basis and have gold farming operation set up. Frankly I make good money back then, 8-12 hours of work/playing I can make 50-100 USD per day, that is basically a 1,500-3,000 USD/month. For a 18/19 year old boy that is massive money! Yet that is seriously no life… hence I left a started my real career “Game Developer”.

My first business venture is a venture where I am invited to spear head after my days in En-Tranz. The venture is to set up a RMT facility at Shanghai China. The facility was set up at early 2004, I still remember back in those day there are merely less then a hundred RMT factory set up in China. I believe I was the first facility where our focus is not on brunt force farming but developing strategy on how to farm smarter and more efficiently. Also to form partnership with RMT factory by providing them strategy advice, optimization and business consultation in return for shares of their havest every month. After a few months of making crazy money I decided to leave the industry again and for the last time as I believe that is not what I am destine to do in my life.

Recently there are quite a handful of interviews, researches and articles on the RMT industry. Which makes me want to talk a little bit about RMT. So here it goes. In today’s MMO RMT is an inevitable, if the MMO is consider somewhat successful there will be RMT. Back in the days of Hong Kong Lineage Server, there are probably only 20-30k users in total and still there is RMT. The common practice publisher or developer use to stop gold farming are either: Doing it themself or Banning RMT.

Publisher selling items or even gold will not stop RMT in my opnion. Unless the publisher is willing to go all the way. By that I mean selling every possible levels and rare items of the game. As long as the game is successful and there are things player cannot get easily. RMT will exist in your game as there will be demand for it. Now lets look at the bad side of this approach. By selling items, golds or service yourself. You are actually helping RMT-er to set a pricing standard as you have draw the parrelle. For example, if publisher is selling “Flaming Sword” for 5 USD, then this becomes an index. RMT-er will then have a better reference how much they will charge the player. So how do they reference on it? So basically it will be… if Flaming sword is 5 USD, and in a normal rare getting it will take 5 hours of 1 person thats means whatever RMT-er produce should be rated at 1 USD/hour. Therefore if “Icy Sword” takes 10 hours to farm, then it should be 10 USD.

Banning account… it will only work for a “Short Moment” but at the end RMT will still be there. Look at FFXI, they banned heaps of RMT-ers few years ago, look at it now… No difference… Banning only do 1 thing good, is to make players feels the publisher is taking care of the issue. However in return banning accounts does a few bad things. First it will disturb the game economic which might piss off user. For example, if you banned 70% of the RMT accounts, the economic just suddenly have way less money hence item price will drop sharply. Tom is a normal player he is proud of himself because he got this uber gear that worth 20 million gold, because of the economic, now he only worth 5 millions. Most end game players stays in your game because they like to brag about their gears and fortune. Now they don’t and some will likely leave. Another bad effects is banning on mass like FFXI, even players that have brought gold or totally innocenet will get caught in the big net. Hence you are lost costumer. Plus if who you banned is someone reputatable in the game like a guildmaster or a power player, due to his banning you might lost even MORE player. Lastly RMT-er also pays for your service so you have less customer in ANY CASE.

So how can we stop RMT one might ask. The only way I see is to incorporate the RMT behavior into your game design. Let them exist, regulate them and even more tax them. RMT is like the gambling industry in every countries. Is there a country that manage to totally annaliate it? No, if you don’t allow any gambling it will only make illegal gambling operator makes more money. If one step back a little, if one can tap the gambling industry’s revenue it will actually be better then NONE. This is what most countries starts to realize. This is what I think most game publisher should do, instead of just keep banning and stopping it. Embrace it and make money out of it. Pending on the game type and your morale standard allow it in a certain extend will only do you more good then harm. If any publishers/developers who would like to know how to do it, I am happy to provide my consultation on their MMO designs.