Fuel Industries - Blogs

What’s new is old again…

Warren Tomlin — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:57:40 +0000

We spend our days building some pretty great interactive and Internet based sites, interactive experiences and games. So it’s pretty cool to see this execution of a piece we did for MSNBC with SS+K. They captured these people in Rockefeller Center soaking in their daily updates at one of the MSNBC NewsArcade machines featuring Fuel’s addictive Newsbreaker and Newsblaster games.

How do you get your news?

iPhone App Store Download Stats

Brian Robbins — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:13:30 +0000

One of the exciting things about getting to experiment with new platforms is getting to see just how well (or not) the platform is for getting your game or content out to people. When Spinner Prologue was included with the initial launch of the iTunes App Store we thought a few people would download it, but we weren’t sure exactly what to expect.

Today we know.

It looks like the stats are still being processed (since we don’t have numbers from countries like Canada or France), but from the US alone Spinner Prologue had almost 160,000 downloads, and when you add in Australia, Great Britain, Japan and a few other smaller markets, it is almost 200,000! Based on the daily stats that we’ve been getting since late July the US accounted for about 2/3rds of our downloads. If that holds through for the entire time since launch then when we finally have all of our stats we should see that Spinner Prologue reached almost 240,000 people.

We think these are great numbers, especially since we built the initial version of Spinner Prologue in just a couple weeks (thanks for the late approval Apple!). It also didn’t have any promotion, marketing support, or any other kind of hype beyond just being on the App Store.

Thank you to all the players who downloaded Spinner. We hope you enjoy our next games just as much!

Been the ball for a while, now…

Jeff Murray — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:46:36 +0000

Anyone who grew up in the 80s and has visited an amusement arcade recently would no doubt feel disappointed by the lack of progress arcade games have made. Back in the 1980s video game makers worked hard to find new and exciting ways to convince people to part with their quarters; controlling the in-game action with a steering wheel perhaps, or bike handlebars, maybe an entire racing car cockpit for players to sit inside! As the 90s approached it was almost as though arcade machine manufacturers said goodbye to the control race - most likely because of rising production costs and physical space limitations in decreasingly sized video game arcades.

The console boom certainly helped to kill off amusement arcades, but I would even go so far as to suggest that the console boom may have stalled commercial innovation within the field - right up until the last few years.

The recent commercial trend of finding new and wonderful control systems (largely thanks to Nintendo) is not very far removed from Atari’s own experiences during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Think Rockband was the first to have a drumkit hooked up to a computer game? Atari did it first with ‘Atari Jammin’. As far as I know, Jammin’ never actually made it out of the prototyping phase, sadly, and I’m sure someone is kicking themselves now for not letting it go out to the world. Jammin’ featured an 8-button drum pad on the front of the case that users could tap out a beat with and try to synch up to match the in-game beats. It even featured a record feature, which in my mind was quite a feat given the tech.

Steering wheels have been around for a long time, but how about the idea of an entire BMX bike? Atari prototyped it back in the 1980s… (photo courtesy of atarigames.com).

For more information on the incredible Atari story, the Atari History Museum website is a good start. For old game design documents, internal memos and technical notes be sure to visit Atarigames.com - an essential and inspiring time machine for anyone interested in games.

As some of you may already know, last week I was interviewed by a true gent; Gary Doyle on 570News radio about the launch of the iPhone and the possibilities it presents to game developers and game designers. One of Gary’s questions was ‘what’s so appealing about the iPhone to you guys?’ I answered with ‘the power of the little thing and opportunity for mobile entertainment with a whacky control system’ or words to that effect, though it crossed my mind that the iPhone accelerometers may be perceived as a bit of a gimmick - perhaps rightly so. Anyone can utilize accelerometers, but it takes a little more to actually utilize them in a meaningful way that isn’t expecting users to be contortionists. I fully expect to see all kinds of failing control methods as developers get used to it all…

As a case in point, I’ve been working on a game that seemed to be a perfect candidate for Wii remote control. Everything about the game screamed Wii and so I set to work on prototyping it out; It wasn’t until I’d built a playable version and used the controllers for the first time that I was able to establish just how badly the proposed control scheme was going to function. After trying out more than 5 completely different methods, the only one that worked was (suprise suprise!) the most basic. I’d approached the problem as an engineer trying to reproduce a real experience through an unreal interface - it just didn’t gel. The connection between player and game was disjointed and awkward until it was broken down to its most basic form; where natural body movements could synchronize with game mechanic.

I had experienced first-hand what Tony Walsh had commented about on my previous ‘Be the Ball’ blog post ‘The idea is that if we become familiar enough with an extension of our physical self, our brain’s interpretation of where our body is fills that extension.’ Essentially, we’re trying to engineer some kind of phantom limb syndrome. Perhaps an interesting - if not slightly disturbing - indication of where games may progress in the future and where amusement arcade game engineers tried to get to, some 20 years ago. Only now is the commercial interest and the technology strong enough to push forward.

As a final note, take a look at Julian Oliver’s Levelhead. It’s an “augmented-reality spatial-memory game” that blew everyones minds at the office this week. I have no idea as to whether or not this is real, though in this case I’m not even sure that it matters. The concept is incredible and perhaps a true glimpse into mobile entertainment of the future. Either that, or we could be looking at the next Rubik’s Cube craze!

And one more makes it a dozen… FWA Awards that is….

Warren Tomlin — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:06:48 +0000

Just a quick update….

Last week we won our second FWA site of the day award …….so far this year! for our sexy Subaru site we did with Tribal. Great site if we do say so ourselves! You can check it out here.

Sacred cows make the best hamburgers.

Warren Tomlin — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:54:11 +0000

I’m not entirely sure where this one is going to go - so please bear with me. Mike and I were recently on an academic panel presenting to some professors with some interesting and senior people from some of the more traditional channels (newspaper, television and radio) and it was an interesting discussion. As one of the “Internet guys” or “Online media experts” I was a bit shocked and saddened by the conversation.

I was shocked because, the conversation was…great! But at the same time very sad. It was great because we had some serious dialog on the strengths and shortcomings of a each particular medium/channel, and some fairly lengthy sparring over the what the future of each held. (During every break Mike kept whispering to me that he was going to say: “the only thing the newspaper will be used for in 5 years will be to start a fire”. While I didn’t necessarily disagree, it would have been too rude - and the guy was pretty big!)

What I was most sad about was the stickwithitness that all three of my panelists possessed. And not in a good way. While I commend and admire those proud of the company or industry they work for, these guys were just riding it out. So as to say: “Not on my watch.” “Not my problem.” “It’s all good.” “Not gonna happen.” Well, I’m here to say: “It will, and it is.” That’s where I became most concerned of a medium’s ability to overly fall in love with itself - to romanticize a position, to over assert a strength. It’s like a traditional channel’s variation on Barney’s. “I love you. You love me.” Except you don’t love me? Really? Ok. “I love me. I love me”.

And its where I came up with this. It is so painfully simple, and I suppose, simply painful to hear. CHANGE BEFORE YOU HAVE TO. It really is that simple. I wish it had a better hook, a better catch - but it really is that easy. I guess at the end of the day, Mark Twain had it right. Sacred cows make the best hamburgers!

For 40$ more, can I get some spare wings?

Nick Iannitti — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:34:55 +0000

We love it when our work is appreciated, so when consumers are moved into this kind of action just for our products, it must mean we’re doing something right. It’s not that we don’t feel Violet is worth 22 £ (which comes to about forty-four Canadian dollars), frankly we think she’s an absolute treasure (if a bit of a firecracker) and deserves every penny.

It’s that, with several boxes of our Fairies and Dragons toys currently sitting in a storage room at our studio, we may have to strengthen the lock simply to suppress our temptation to start a new and lucrative retail business on the side.

Thanks for helping make the F&D campaign a great success, Europe!

Spinner Prologue on the App Store!

Nick Iannitti — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:45:49 +0000

It’s good to be a part of something special right from the beginning. Just like being picked first for sports on the playground (something which I, sadly, never experienced), getting in on an industry movement from the ground floor is exciting.

With Apple’s App Store having launched today, we’re pleased to say Fuel Games is part of the first round of developers whose products are currently featured on the brand new online marketplace. The game is called Spinner Prologue, and it’s a simple and addictive title that makes great use of the iPhone’s accellerometer. And at a price point of $0.00, it can’t be beat! I’ll let Brian Robbins, the game’s creator, explain the details of the game on the quick demo video, which you can watch here.

To get your free download of Spinner Prologue, go straight to its App Store page. We’ve got a lot more planned for Spinner (hence the Prologue) so keep your eyes open for future updates!

Why Girl Gaming Matters

Nick Iannitti — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:52:26 +0000

Like most male gamers over 25 who live with their significant female, my opportunities for marathon game sessions are decidedly less frequent than they were ten years ago. Playing Ocarina of Time with a bellybutton full of Cheeto crumbs is but a sweet, distant memory now. While I do still manage to balance a respectable dose of gaming with my career, relationship and social habits, the grown-up in me regularly doles out ’shame hormones,’ which do a pretty good job of ensuring I don’t accidentally wake up with salty orange stains around my mouth and ‘Mission Failed’ hovering on-screen.

Having a partner who supports and tolerates my gamer tendencies is fantastic, but it’s even more fantastic when a game is able to draw us both in and bridge the presumed gap between gamers on opposite sides of the gender pole. Games that succeed in this often have one thing in common–they’ve gone beyond the confines of their genre to produce a unique entertainment experience, and not always in the most predictable ways.

Some games like The Longest Journey, Beyond Good and Evil and Heavenly Sword (which my girfriend and I have each gotten into to some degree) have done it through the use of a female protagonist, but this is simply one expected technique in bridging the divide. Other games that have seen us spending time behind the controller together are more artistic offerings like flOw, or games that have focused on atmosphere and subtlety like Assassin’s Creed.

Most recently, and altogether unexpectedly, it was Metal Gear Solid 4 that drew my partner’s attention. Never did I expect that one of the most fanboy heavy titles of all time would appeal to a relative newcomer, but she claims that the quality of the storytelling, and the deep focus on plot was immediately appealing. She “loves the long scenes”, and we found ourselves sitting together while the game combined our love for movies with the joy of videogames. While the debate over the MGS series’ cut-scene length won’t be resolved any time soon, the message is clear: game developers who go the distance in creating an experience that stands out in design, story, mechanics, and immersion will always succeed in bringing in new audiences, regardless of gender. And as gaming shifts away from being simply a male-oriented pastime, this is increasingly more important.

Recently, we’ve been getting the word out about our new web portal, AllGirlArcade.com. This site is dedicated to empowering girl gamers aged 7 and up—a market that, when I was growing up in the 80’s, was largely being ignored in the gaming sector. With the increased originality of console games like the Katamari series, along with the Wii, the DS, and online gaming filling in the options aimed toward female gamers, we’re helping create an extremely powerful new market of young girl videogame enthusiasts. The decades to come will see a new order of gender balance not present during the advent of gaming, and if this can tell us anything, it’s that developers will need to go the extra mile to maximize the popularity of their triple A titles across gender lines.

There’s biological reasoning too. According to Stanford researchers, men are genetically more susceptible to game addiction. Considering this, one could argue that the sheer chemical buzz men get from gaming has played a role in keeping the industry successful; however, as girl gamers become an increasingly heartier percentage of the customer base, this effect will wane. Women, who on average, according to the study, do not receive the same level of neurochemical reward for killing , gaining territory or achieving a high score in a game (though these girl gamers will likely tell you otherwise) have every reason to be more discerning of which games make their cut. No longer will advanced blood splatter effects and great pixel shading necessarily make a game worth playing.

Thanks to women’s more selective presence in both the developing and consumer sides, new titles will increasingly twist the rules to bring gamers of all shapes and sizes into stores. The result is a future where the most popular games won’t necessarily be defined by their ability to create realistic skin texture or beautiful plumes of smoke (though this kind of progress is definitely worth getting excited about) but by their ability to circumvent decades of preconceptions about male and female gamers to create the best entertainment possible.

I’ve gone on for a while…what do you think?

Think pennies are obsolete?

Nick Iannitti — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:27:29 +0000

If you are one of millions of people who feel that pennies no longer have a place in our society and should be removed from circulation, then I submit to you the following sum: $1,427.58. That sum, which you see cleanly laid out in the picture above, just so happens to be the amount of spare pennies Fuel employees had kicking around over the past few months.

The initiative was called “Penny Wars”, and the idea was to engage in a bit of healthy competition between departments to raise money for charity. While each team filled their jar with the ubiquitous copper coins, other teams could sabotage their opponents by dropping in other denominations of coins and bills, which would subtract their value from the total of pennies. The team who had the highest positive total would win a dinner out.

Now that everything’s all tallied up and the results are in, I’ll like to send a big congratulations to our Game Development/Back-end team who succeeded in staying 67$ into the positive, with a total of $144.87 in their jar. Honourable mention goes out to our audio and film divisions who, while not as far out of the red as our GameDev team, did managed to fill their jar with an impressive $286.55.

Of course, the real heroes were our fabulous tallying team who actually counted all the money. Thanks go out to you!

The next time your office is looking to raise money for a cause, why not give your changepurse a little shake and see what’s inside?

The Weekly Link Dump

Nick Iannitti — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:55:57 +0000

In our efforts to challenge and push ourselves to create new ways to entertain, we thrive on sharing new and original content. Here’s a look into what’s been inspiring our team this week:

-Today, the Web is a fantastically complex place. As such, it’s easy to forget its simple and unassuming origins. Vanity Fair, in an effort to let the story be told by the very people who wrote the web, takes us back to the Internet’s genesis with a handful of its original visionaries. From the Internet’s conception, to its going public, through the browser wars and beyond, “How the Web Was Won” is a deep and fascinating oral history that is a must-read for anyone who appreciates the power and promise of the Web, and especially for those who claim to understand it.

-Paul Curtis finds really dirty walls and cleans them. The result is a lot more aesthetic than you might expect. For a great video that shows how he completes his “reverse graffiti”, check out Juxtapoz here.

-While getting exposure might appear to be a difficult and costly process for most aspiring musicians, the reality is that modern society’s infrastructure has made it quite simple and inexpensive for those who are in the know. The Get Out Clause are clearly in the know, and have made use of the British Access to Information Act to collect footage from the dozens of surveillance cameras they stood in front of singing. The music video that resulted can be seen here on Overlay.tv (as well as a multitude of other places).

If you have any other inspirational links, or great examples of people reinventing the possibilities of the web, we’d love to see them.