Archives for June 2011

We're rounding off our trip to the E3 video game conference with the story of Garry Newman from Walsall. He created something called Garry's Mod.

Mod is short for "modification" and it's a sandbox game. There's no real objective, people can just use it to manipulate a 3d world and create whatever they want.

Garry has sold almost a million copies of his game and he says that's generated about $13m. Mind you he has to pay tax on that and also pay royalties to a company called Valve as he uses their original resources for his game.

Valve encourage people to get creative with their content and even help distribute the results themselves via the internet.

But what I really like about all this is that it's all about being creative. It might be because I'm a bit jet lagged, but I think some of the uses of Garry's Mod are more art than game. That and I can't get the BananaPhone song out of my head.

Here are some of Garry's favourites that he emailed to us with the following comment;

There's so much good stuff people have made.. but they probably won't make sense to regular folk.

Heavy's Birthday

This guy is a teacher - he used gmod to teach his students about chemistry

Bananaphone

Dance club - nearly 2 million views

Please note some strong language. And bananas.

Update; In an earlier version of this post I added an extra two million dollars to the amount Garry's Mod has grossed. I've corrected that. Apologies.

There were long lines at E3 for those wanting to try out Nintendo's new console. Easily the longest for any console or game on show. Fortunately the magic initials BBC allowed myself and Kevin-the-cameraman to be ushered into a relatively quiet, secret space to try out the new Wii U console.

First impressions are that the graphics on the technical demos are easily comparable to the PS3 and Xbox 360. In fact since nobody has programmed a full game for the Wii U yet the "sizzle reel" shown by Nintendo used footage from Xbox and PS3 games. Nintendo argue there will be no difference.

Second thing you notice is that people were using exiting Wii controllers with the new system. It appears Nintendo are looking to keep the cost of the Wii U down and allowing customers to reuse controllers is one way to achieve this. You do get one new tablet-style controller with the Wii U though.

This controller is one of the big selling points for the system. The screen is bright and the controller comfortable to hold, much lighter that I was expecting. Unlike an expensive table computer this touch screen can't pick up multi-touch gestures, but this will make it more affordable. The controller also has a small front facing camera and movement control.

You could surf the web using this new controller, but it must stay linked wirelessly to the main console. So no taking this controller on your commute and reading an e-book.

As I said there aren't any full games as such for the system yet, only technical demos. The one we played was basically hide-and-seek. I had to hide from the other players in a typically Mario-esqe landscape. But I had the advantage that the controller screen showed me a map of where the other players were. Something those watching the picture on the television didn't have. It was actually much more exciting than you might expect. Kevin-the-cameraman was crowned Wii U hide-and-seek champion.

Unveiling the system at E3 gives Nintendo a massive audience of developers who will now spend the next twelve months thinking about games that will take full advantage of the new controller.

As one developer said to me, the controller and backwards Wii compatability will encourage casual gamers to upgrade while the improved graphics will tempt hardcore gamers to look again at Nintendo.

Here's a video of me trying the new system out.

If you crunch the numbers things look good for the video game industry here in the Midlands. It's a little back of the envelope but if you take the figures from trade body Tiga then in the West Midlands more than 2000 people work in the industry and they contribute a quarter of a billion pounds towards UK GDP.

But the industry in the UK has been shrinking as countries like South Korea and Canada use incentives and tax-breaks to aggressively attract game studios to set up shop there. And while jobs in the UK are often highly-skilled with plenty of innovation much of the funding comes from outside the UK and so the profits flow back to foreign companies too.

That said with Codemasters, Rare, Blitz and many others the Midlands has about 25% of the UK game production industry based here. It's an industry with a very healthy export market too. I've even heard it described as a "low-carbon" industry as there are few emissions associated with a product that is designed, made and even sold via computer.

All this week we're at E3 in Los Angeles. It's a trade fair for the video game industry, closed to the public, where we get to see the latest developments and announcements from all the big players. Given the time difference this blog and my twitter account will be a useful place for the early scoop. But we'll have reports every night on Midlands Today too.

Get in touch and let us know what you think of the state of the industry. Leave a comment, email me david.gregory@bbc.co.uk or send me a tweet www.twitter.com/davidacgregory