This is a pretty amazing story: 3 years ago, 2 graduates from Teeside University set up 3rd Dimension Creations because they couldn’t get jobs at existing studios. After a while doing outsourcing work, they have now been commissioned by Blitz to create an XBLA title for, apparently, six figures.

On show at GDC next week, Boom Blox is a newly revealed collaboration with Steven Spielberg. There’s also a small screenshot gallery here.

Good post on the Skillset blog about post-production, with this part applicable to game development:
<blockquote>Now, we need to forget the demarcations of “post”, “tv”, “animation” etc, and start instilling the concept that where ever you sit in the industry, you are part of a value-added chain: the ‘creatives’ come up with the concept, the ‘production [...]

ELSPA have put out a breakdown of the ratings assigned to games in 2007, and found that games rated M are declining:
The E category saw the largest increase over last year, accounting for nearly 60% of ratings assigned overall. The M (Mature 17+) category represented 6% of the overall ratings assigned, down from 8% in [...]

Nick Burton, Senior Software Engineer for Rare, has a piece up on Gamasutra about the way games companies treat graduates. There’s plenty of good advice in there, for graduates and games companies alike:
I guess what I’m getting at is that you can train a graduate to become a key part of your studio, in our [...]

Derby based Emote Games have been working in secret for quite a while on cross-platform game technology. Develop have news that they’ll be unveiling it in just a few weeks at GDC:
The technology integrates with any game engine to socially enable games and allow cross-platform access, ‘allowing every user to be a participant and not [...]

Industry fears grow that Gordon Brown could use report to introduce an aggressive ‘crackdown’ on games.
A Whitehall leak to Scotland On Sunday last week suggested that Brown was ready to introduce an aggressive ‘crackdown’ on violent video games in the wake of the Byron Review, which will recommend the introduction of BBFC ratings for all [...]

We were very pleased to see the box art for the recently released Burnout Paradise. When compared to the old box art, it’s much a more grown-up and aesthetically pleasing cover.
At least in part, it’s probable that the choice was made because burnout has attracted so much controversy before, to the point of having ads [...]