E3 cancelled for next year and beyond [update 3] - Joystiq

Yes, I heard the news this morning. So in case you are the one person who has not called or texted me, then save it! E3 as we know it is no more. As a 6 year attendee, I will be sad as hell to see the one weekend where everyone came together and expensed the biggest week of debauchey ever. But to tell you the truth, I agree with the ESA that it is time to call it quits. The money could be much better spent, and I am sure publishers would enjoy getting rid of the once a year cry for demos regardless of where they are in the development cycle of the product. Sigh. I suppose it is only proper that the last E3 put the last booze nail in my coffin. More on this as I digest. [via: Joystiq]

Jaffe's Game Design: Changes

I love finding the little gem moments when game designers snap. Jaffe, Game Director of God of War, apparently has had a change of heart when it comes to game design. From the source of 2005's biggest epic action/adventure comes this:

"To me, most (all?) story based games are like taking a trumpet and playing it a little, but also using the brass exterior of the trumpet to carve a story onto a wall. Sure you can do it, and you may even have a nice story scratched onto the wall when you are done. But it’s not really what the trumpet is for and there are a hell of a lot easier ways to write a story. Plus, you’ve got this nice, shiny trumpet- which is now all scratched up- just sitting there, begging to be played, begging to be used as it was intended.

So this thinking is affecting my work, to be sure. I’m not telling the GOD OF WAR team to change things up or anything. As I said, I love single player games now more than ever.

But for the stuff I am directly working on, I am trying to take steps towards more pure game experiences and see what I can do with those."

Jaffe's Blog

It's official, EVB's done been bought

I think this is exciting news. You never really know, but for now, we will assume this is very good news. This at work have been exciting since I came back and took over as Producer for the adidas account. The creatives kick ass and now is our ramp up time for Basketball with some super cool shoots planned for July, which will be tricky but exciting. We were also mentioned on the HP of Adweek.com. From the NYT announcement: (registration required)

"The Omnicom Group in New York plans to announce today that it has bought a majority stake in EVB, an agency in San Francisco that specializes in interactive marketing. Financial terms were not disclosed.

EVB, with 50 employees, will operate as an autonomous unit of the Diversified Agency Services division of Omnicom. EVB will continue to be led by Daniel Stein, chief executive, and Jason Zada, executive creative director, who are retaining minority stakes. EVB works for advertisers like Kellogg's and LeapFrog and shares clients like Adidas and Wrigley with other Omnicom agencies."

[via: New York Times