Handy Vandal's Almanac

David Jaffe delivered the PAX Prime 2011 keynote address, recounting some of his experiences and sharing lessons learned in the game design industry.

He began gearing up for his next big thing, which was called Heartland. He described the game as Red Dawn meets Saving Private Ryan, and Jaffe said that he wanted it to serve as a political allegory while also achieving “the Holy Grail of game design,” which is to make players cry upon completion for the right reasons.

The problem with this game, Jaffe said, was that he was making it in order to chase after the next big thing, instead of following his passion. The game was eventually given the green light, but it didn’t take long for members of the team to be reassigned to work on Sony’s reboot of the Warhawk franchise. Jaffe said that if he were honestly in love with Heartland, he would have never let this happen to his team.

– Tom Magrino @ GameSpot

“Your life is going by so quick, the only thing you can do is the thing you have to do.”

– David Jaffe

Gaming is big business — bigger than movies, worldwide. Item, this recent business news:

Gameshastra opens 1000-seat facility in Hyderabad

Game outsourcing services provider Gameshastra on Tuesday opened a 1,000-seater game design studio in Hyderabad to cater to the growing demand for its services worldwide including from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

The 50,000-sft facility will focus on a full range of game development, game art, animation and quality assurance services for console, PC and online gaming platforms.

“We are currently 220-people strong and expect to reach 1,000 headcount by the end of this year to support new projects,” Prakash Ahuja, chief executive officer of Gameshastra, told mediapersons here.

Stating that Gameshastra had invested $7 million (approximately Rs 33 crore) in its operations over the last three years, Ahuja said the company was developing an Indian mythological game, Ekalavya, for Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation3 (PS3) platform.

- Business Standard: February 24, 2010

“Shastra is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘Science’, which also indicates specialized knowledge. And true to our name, we are specialists in the domain of game services.”
– Gameshastra.com.