Did anyone catch the latest episode of Gamespot.com’s “On the Spot”? Sega’s own Ken Balough was there to show more of Sonic’s first adventure in the RPG genre: Sonic Chronicles for the Nintendo DS. He brought his DS along to demonstrate some of the puzzle and combat elements of the game so you know a little bit more of what to expect when Sept. 30 rolls around. Ken also has a special announcement for all you Sonic fans out there that can’t wait to play this game. Watch the video to find out more…

http://www.gamespot.com/shows/on-the-spot/?tag=hotslot;img;3#archive

Hey Sonic fans, we’ve got a special treat for you – a fanart contest that will put your art in a Sonic game!

That’s right, we’re picking the top 20 fanart submissions and adding it to the Sonic and the Black Knight game, plus the winners will receive the game itself (once it’s released of course)!  We’re looking for artwork that best shows Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Amy, Shadow, Blaze and other characters (or any combination of one or more of them together) in your favorite scene from your favorite Sonic game.

Submitting is easy!  Simply head over to our Sonic Fan Art Game Gallery Contest page and sign up.  We do have some restrictions, so please read carefully to be sure you meet the requirements:

- You must be 13 or older to enter; we cannot accept any younger artists.

- You must also have a SEGA Pass account to log in and submit with, if you don’t have an account the process for setting one up is extremely easy.

- You must live in the US or Canada to submit on the North America contest page. Do keep an eye out for the European page updates, as this is a worldwide contest.

- We cannot accept any art that contains characters that do not exist in the Sonic universe. If you are having trouble thinking of what to draw, pick up your favorite Sonic game and draw your favorite moment!

If you think you’ve got what it takes, head over to the contest page and submit your masterpiece!

Best of Luck!

The next interview in the series is Demetrius G. He is a QA Supervisor here at Sega and has worked here for about seven years. Here is what we talked about:

Q: How do you define a gamer?

A: A real gamer is that guy that knows about a game’s release date way before it comes out.  They are very informed when it comes to release dates, schedule slippage, features that a new game is going to have. They are very knowledgeable about franchises. Someone who is at work all day thinking about going home so they can power up their system and beat the next level of the game they are playing.

Q: Are you a gamer yourself?

A: I would consider myself a gamer although I’m not as hardcore as I used to be. There will be some stretches where I go home and not play any games at all. But I try my best to stay as in tune with the industry and all the happenings of the industry as possible whether it’s by reading magazines, or electronic media I’m really big on forums and stuff. It’s really interesting seeing what everyone is talking about and what titles people are anticipating. I try to stay as plugged in as much as possible: I subscribe to a lot of publications and try to read them as much as I can.

Q: What kind of games have you been playing lately?

A:  Recently I’ve been playing a lot of Soul Calibur IV. It’s weird because if I stop and try to think of my favorite game is it’s difficult for me to do so I break it down into genre. Soul Calibur IV is definitely my favorite fighting game. It has come a long way from the Playstation. The latest edition really just blew me away on how much they can improve it yet not make it feel foreign to people who have been playing the game for a while. I think Namco did a really good job.

Q: Are there any games in particular that you are looking forward to?

A: It’s kind of hard to pick out of all the different ones that are coming out. But the Bionic commando upgrade is intriguing to me. Just because they’re basically reimagining the whole thing you know that’s like a twenty year old game. So I’m curious to see what changes that make to it to try and keep it fresh but at the same time, like I said with Soul Calibur, don’t alienate those people that played the old one; and not only that but it opens that franchise up to a new generation that have never even played the original one. I think that along with the remade version they just released on Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network will get them set for this new one.

Q: Do you think that there are too many sequels these days?

A: That’s always an interesting thing to think about because you know if something is popular and makes a lot of money then from a business perspective obviously they would make a sequel.

But my thoughts on it are again, I hate to keep going back to Soul Calibur but that’s pretty much the only thing I’m playing right now. I think that sequels are fine as long as you don’t keep coming out with the same game over and over again but don’t make it too radically different so that the hardcore guys who have been playing it since day one feel alienated like “What did you do to my Soul Calibur?!”

There’s definitely good things and bad things about sequels but I think that if an intellectual property is popular and the company stands to make money from it then it’s a no brainer to make sequels but if you’re just turning out games every nine months then it kind of just loses its impact.

Q: So what is your job here at Sega?

A: I am a QA supervisor now. So that basically entails any supervisory role you know things like: look after our employees, generate reports for my boss, make sure we have enough people here to test our stuff, make sure we have the right people here to test our stuff. We have to work with our production department a lot so we make sure that we have the latest milestone dates for games so that we can plan accordingly, and just deal with day to day office stuff like meetings and sending a lot of emails.

Q: How long have been working here?

A: I’ve been with Sega permanently for I would say about six years. And I did one year as a temporary employee so seven years total roughly. When I got here I started off as just a regular tester and just kind of worked my way up to where I am now.

Q: How did you get the job as a tester?

A: Ok well once upon a time way back in the day, I was sitting at home and I wasn’t working because I had just lost the job that I had. So I was looking through the newspaper you know, job hunting and then I saw this ad for game testers. It turned out it was for Sony so I gave them a call and went in for an interview and then I got the job. I thought it would have been more complex than what it really was. I mean literally all I had to do was send them in my resume along with a list of all  the games I’ve played and then go in for an interview and give them a writing sample and then I was working there like probably the next week. It was awesome because it was the last thing I was expecting to see in the newspaper.

These days they actually blast it out a lot more. You would be able to find some on craigslist or even some other temp agencies use facebook and other social networks. So it’s really out there now but back when I got into it, with the exception of that rare ad in the newspaper, it was usually just by word of mouth or if you knew someone that could get you in touch with the right people. So I think it’s a lot easier to break into now just because it’s like everywhere. I mean I think it was just recently they did a study and found out that people are spending more money on videogames than any other form of entertainment so it just kind of blew up. I bet you if we go to craigslist right now we would find postings for it.

Q: What other jobs did you have before you were a tester?

A: I did security. You know just like a variety of security jobs like for an office building or something. I used to work for Southwestern Bell the phone company. I was an installation and repair technician for about a year. And I did a ton of customer service for SBC before that. I was also a freight conductor for Union Pacific. And that’s about it.

Q: So what kind of projects are you working on right now?

A: We’re testing all kinds of stuff. We’re working on Golden Axe for Xbox 360 and PS3. That’s going really well. We’re working on Valkyria Chronicles for PS3. It’s kind of hard to say what that game is. I mean it’s just amazing. Its different I mean it’s a little bit of all those different types of games but it doesn’t hit you over the head with just one of those things like it really balances it out and has a good story. To be quite honest I really think we have something with that. It’s just such a rich game. I think I played it maybe about twenty hours and I was shocked I was like “Wow there’s more?!” so I’m actually looking forward to how that is received.

FEARMYSKILL: Yeah I didn’t really think I would get into it when I saw it but once I got my hands on it I got way more interested and I can’t wait for it to come out.

Demetrius: Yeah when I first saw it I was like what kind of game is it? And when they said” it’s like a real time strategy” I was like “OHHH GOD” because I’m not a fan of that genre, but then I was thinking okay I’ll give it a try and then I was like “oh… Okay I can do this I like it!

Q: Is there anything in the past that you worked on that you are particularly proud of?

A: This is going to sound really corny and cheesy but I’m proud of everything I’ve worked on. I mean regardless of what I think personally quality wise about it I think that the fact that myself, along with a group of other people were able to achieve a common goal is great. It’s not like winning the Superbowl or anything but I think it’s probably the closest thing a normal person like me will get to that feeling. It’s a good feeling sitting down with a finished, retail version of something that you are working on and saying “we’re done”. I’m a big fan of teamwork and just working together with other people to accomplish something because a game can’t make it out of QA with just one person. It’s usually with a team of like a dozen people, if not more depending on the project.

Q: What is the testing process like?

A: Well depending on the game we will generate a test cases document which could be as simple as “complete level 1” but then there’s sub objects as well that could be like “complete level 1 without getting hit, complete level 1 without killing any enemies, complete level 1 killing every enemy, let every enemy hit you”. So it really goes beyond how you would normally play a game. Let’s take Super Mario Brothers  for example. It’s a left to right side scroller and you can’t go back. The average consumer would just be going to the right jumping over stuff getting mushrooms and the usual thing. But us, its our duty to make sure that you can’t go back at any time and make sure that each one of those destructible bricks that are on screen at any given time can be destroyed. And if they can’t be then we have to write a bug about it.

You know you look at a game and it has to be tested out in certain areas. It’s not like just “Hey I beat the game I’m done”. Now you have to go back and beat it again. And do it faster. And then the next time do it slower. Spend all your time running against every solid object to make sure a character can’t go out of world or anything like that. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of creative thinking. As a test lead you have to kind of guide your guys encourage them to think creatively as well because a test lead is not going to be able to come up with every scenario. And even sometimes I will have a tester find something that we didn’t have on our test plan and say that’s going to be in our test plan from now on. It’s good to see people thinking outside of the box and going beyond the basic instructions they are given.

Q: What is your favorite part of your job?

A: To be honest I like it when someone starts off in QA because QA is really a springboard for any job in the industry. To see people start of as a tester and then branch off into production or people who are art students that want to get into graphic design or something like that. So to see people branch off from this into something they want to get into and taking this opportunity. And it’s always better when I can kind of guide them in that direction like I may hear about an opening in graphic design and go and say to them “hey I know you are into graphic design. There’s an internship available over there you might want to check it out.” So for me it goes beyond just testing games.

Yea we test games that’s our job but I’m more into the people aspect of it as well because these are people who may want to branch off into something else, all types of people, like even musicians and people who want to do 3D modeling. For me the best part is finding out what these people want to do here and ask them “why are you here?” it’s a pretty straight forward question and I think everyone should ask themselves that  with any job. And on the flipside you have those people that just want to be here. We mentor them and maybe give them a little more responsibility over time like we have squad leads and assistant leads and things like that. The happiest moments for me are these. We have like three or four leads here now that were my testers at one point. To see them progress along with me is just awesome.

Q: If you could change one thing about the videogame industry what would it be?

A: Good games that don’t receive proper marketing support. A lot of times I play a good game and ask other people if they’ve played it they’re like “huh? I’ve never even heard of that.” Games like Beyond Good & Evil; there’s a whole bunch of games out there that are like what you would call hidden gems you know: Games that you and your homeboy know about but the majority of the gaming population is kind of just like “Huh?!”

Q: What kinds of things do you like to do outside of gaming?

A: This is going to kind of help perpetuate the whole “videogamers don’t do anything”. For one I’ve been working six days a week probably for the past year or so just because we have been doing a lot of weekend work. But when I’m at home I just like to watch TV, I know exciting, I play videogames every so often, but I like to watch movies and hang out with my kids when I can. Stuff like that. Nothing too exciting, no skydiving or anything like that. I’m pretty laid back and I think the reason I’m so chill is because we have fun here. You know some people have those jobs that just kind of stress them out so when they aren’t at work they are doing things like: jet skiing, and parasailing but it’s so exciting here that I just kind of look at being at home as a break from this. It’s like a zoo here and definitely not in a bad way it’s in a good way.

Q: Do you have advice for anyone that would like to get into the videogame industry?

A: Play tons of videogames. Play the ones that you don’t even like that much. Read every videogame magazine that you can get your hands on. Visit videogame sites frequently. And just be informed about stuff. Don’t worry too much about the technical side about it but also try to get a feel about marketing and things like that and franchises. Be able to call those things out and identify them. If someone came up to me and asked how to get into the industry, like I mentioned earlier, I would just tell them to check craigslist and job forums. And when they find them apply for them. And even if you don’t get it you’ll probably find more because, especially here in this area of California, there are a high percentage of game developers around. So there are tons of opportunities. You just have to be looking in the right place. And once you do get in there, your brain needs to be a sponge because there will be a lot of information, very fast. So try to absorb it all. And also don’t be afraid to ask questions!

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is almost here! To whet your appetite for the upcoming DS release, BioWare and SEGA have cooked up some fun videos that you’ll see coming out every week, leading to the release! To get the jump on the new releases, you’ll want to head over to BioWare’s community website.

Personally, I’m quite excited to see everyone’s reaction to the game. I think we have a real winner, and I think when Sonic fans get their hands on it, they’ll feel the same way too. The videos coming out are great, they give everyone a chance to see what we’ve been saying all along and now you can see it in action to judge for yourself. I welcome everyone to continue this discussion on our forums and let us know what they are most excited about for the newest Sonic release!

Three videos have already been released, if you haven’t seen them, do check them out below:

Episode 1: A taste of things to come

Episode 2: A deeper look at the RPG elements of Sonic Chronicles

Episode 3: Take a look at the Combat in Sonic Chronicles!

There’s more on the way, so stay tuned to the blogs and as always, let us know what you think!

The phrase “you are only as weak as your opponent” came to mind when I first selected versus mode on BLEACH: Dark Souls. After relative success in arcade and story mode, I naturally felt my next test would be in versus mode. But who would I challenge? Who would I pit my newly acquired skills against? I knew I wanted the best opponent within the office, the one who would push my fighting to the limit, attempt to break my spirits and punish my thumbs. I knew there was only one place to go: Product Development. With DS in hand, I went to find the man responsible for BLEACH: Dark Souls — Keith Dwyer. It is here where I honed the same skill set I used to destroy my fellow intern as well as our community manager.

Keith was my Mr. Miyagi, giving me insight into the game as well as constantly letting me know he was better — way better. We started off with a casual battle; obviously it was a warm up for him and my best effort of the afternoon. I inexplicably won the first match and things were looking up from there. Little did I know that this was the last time I would be able to say that.

Our matches would go back and forth, game after game, each time choosing different characters. Dark Souls’ massive amount of optional characters to choose from, 44 to be exact, makes versus mode both engaging and entertaining. Keith instilled in me that each character had an array of strengths as well as weaknesses, and that choosing the right one is key in victory. I obviously wasn’t choosing the right character seeing that I was consistently defeated. Utilizing high flying attacks, combined with specials and spells, I still did not seem to make much of a dent in Keith’s health bar. Ultimately, challenging Keith was a great experience. Not only did it give me a more detailed look into the game, but it also helped me beat my next series of opponents.

My fellow intern, FEARMYSKILL is a seasoned vet when it comes to video games, and he won’t let you forget that. However, he met his match in me when it came to our “friendly” battles with Dark Souls. My thumbs were in prime fighting shape and my combos were a force to be reckoned with. I harnessed all of the knowledge Keith gave me in my training and used it to overpower and defeat FEARMYSKILL. Although he may claim I cheated, he fell victim to my Zanpaku-to nonetheless.

After heated battles with highs and lows, my Quest to reign supreme in the Dark Souls arena is questionable at best. BLEACH: Dark Souls is an expansive game and I have merely seen the tip of the iceberg.

As part of a continued look at Samba de Amigo, enjoy the next Developer Diary straight from Allison Berryman, Community Manager at Gearbox Software!

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If you read the last Samba de Amigo developer’s diary, you know how the idea to put the game on the Wii went from being just a gleam in Gearbox’s eye to development reality. What does it take to capture the fun of a game like Samba and transfer the magic to a new console and audience? In this diary, we’ll talk about how Gearbox and Sega worked together to bring Samba into the next generation!

A Fresh Look

Samba de Amigo for the Wii is much more than just a port of the Dreamcast original. After spending countless hours shaking maracas to the original Samba and the Japanese-only Ver. 2000 (a follow-up game that added several new features and songs), the team enjoyed some well-deserved arm resting and sat down to plan. “We built a giant wishlist of features we wanted to add based on the opinions of our team and original Samba players,” describes Tom Mustaine, Producer on the project. “We then worked with Sega to determine which features would be the best for the game and came up with a list that felt good.” It must have been an enormous list, because the amount of features that ended up in the game is impressive!

What’s New?

So, what features and updates did the team create for Samba? As more than just a port and even more than a hybrid of the earlier Samba releases, you can expect to see tons of new features along with recognizable Samba standbys.

First off, all of the art in the game has been re-visualized and updated from its Dreamcast source. This means smoother, prettier, and even more vibrant environments and characters! All of the original stages we re-built from the ground up, re-lit, and re-animated, so expect your favorite locations to be back and livelier than ever! The artists also remodeled all of the characters, who are now higher-poly and much better-looking. The entire game has received a graphical facelift for its new home on the Wii.

On the gameplay front, there’s a balanced mix of classic Samba and new additions. There are more than 40 songs in the game, of which more than half are brand new. All the game modes are back; Original, Hustle, and Volleyball are all available. We’ve even added a new career mode where players progress through and unlock new game elements and a training mode where new players and veterans alike can learn everything from the basics of playing Samba to advanced techniques. There are three completely new stages, two new characters for you to meet, and two new minigames to play!

We’re very proud to be the first game officially offering downloadable content on the Wii – rhythm games have become increasingly popular and we know how important it is that new content is available to players. It’s exciting to be able to offer the Wii audience new songs to keep the Samba experience fresh and fun. You’ll also notice that even though Samba is a third-party title, we were allowed to use Nintendo’s Miis in the game. Most third-party games aren’t able to, but Samba fits the Wii so perfectly that Nintendo gave us the go ahead! The game will also take advantage of the Friend Roster and Leaderboards, using everything the console has to offer.

Oh, and not to mention the brand new Wii controls – but I’ll save that for its own article!

Fun Factor

Yes, it’s an impressive list of features and updates, but is the game fun? Do all those features come together the right way to deliver the Samba experience of a vibrant, eccentric, and entertaining rhythm game? These thoughts were always on the team’s mind as they set to work creating the game. “We had people constantly playing the game from the moment it was up and running on the Wii,” Tom Mustaine emphasizes heavily how important playtesting was to the process of creating the game. “To gauge the opinions about the Wii version, we created playtesting sessions that included folks who had played the original games only a few times alongside hardcore Samba fans that had mastered the original. Using the data from these different types of players, we were able to make sure the game felt rock solid for the new player and hardcore Samba fan alike.”

The teams at Sega of America, Europe, and Japan were also crucial to ensuring the game was perfect. SEGA of America and SEGA Europe helped ensure that the game would be fresh, fun, and accessible to new players, and that the music selection was enjoyable and a good fit for the game. The Japanese team included many individuals who had worked on the Dreamcast games from Sonic Team who were absolutely essential in ensuring that the Wii game lived up to the original’s standard. Everyone involved really cared about bringing the game up-to-date and keeping it fun, and their efforts really show.

Controls?

In the next dev diary, we’ll discuss one of our biggest concerns (and probably yours, too) during development: the controls! Learn how the dev team rose to the challenge of translating maracas to Wii Remotes, the challenges of motion-based control, and how success was finally met!

The next interview I did was with Martin C. He is in Product Development at Sega and has worked there for about four years. Here is what we talked about.

Q: What is your job here at Sega?

A: I’m an Associate Producer. So my job is to crack the whip over every part of the development process. I basically work with external and internal teams to make sure that a project gets shipped on time, on budget, and to high quality.

Q: How long have you worked at Sega?

A: I’ve worked here for about 4 years now. And Sega has changed a lot. I used to be a localization producer and that’s pretty much all that we did back when I started. We just took Japanese games and localized them. Now we have a whole western development department that is doing great work.

Q: What other jobs have you had prior to this one?

A: Prior to this one I was working for government intelligence agencies designing games for them, so kind of more serious games. I had security clearance and all that. I can’t really talk much more about it but it was a very interesting job. And before that I was in the first dotcom boom and then bomb. I worked for Netscape when they started and then I worked at AOL. I worked for a company called WAIS which was the first text search for the web that got bought by AOL and then made out like a bandit and then spent it all so now… . You know honestly that wasn’t really my thing. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve wanted to work with videogames so now I’m in my dream job.

Q: What kind of educational background do you have?

A: I have a college degree in creative writing and studio art so I was a painter and a writer. And then I got into computers, kind of before it was possible to get a career dong computer work. This was back when you had to use PPP to get onto the internet and the only browser was Mosaic. But it’s really just my passion for games of all kinds. I created a role playing game with my friends and published a bunch of books with White Wolf and that’s what really got me in the door. So it was really about being an entrepreneur, creating games not even on the computer and just having a driving passion for games. If you really want to get in the game industry it’s really about who you know. You can be really skilled and have lots of good ideas, but you really need to be able to play well with others both on a collaborative and business sense. I mean I knocked on the door of the industry trying to get in for a long time. Probably six years. And I finally got my break so Sega ain’t getting rid of me any time soon.

Q: What kind of projects are you working on?

A: I just finished Happy Tree Friends on XBOX Live Arcade. Sega’s first game made exclusively for XBOX Live Arcade: a mature title with very interesting development. It was with a company in the Isle of Wight. So I got to travel to the southern most portion of England a couple times travelling by train, plane, ferry, automobile, and taxi. Good guys there at Stainless Games. So that’s pretty exciting, it was kind of one of my first games that I did from start to finish. Right now I’m working on Golden Axe: Beast Rider on XBOX 360 and PS3 and that is with our first party studio Secret Level. That one is nearing completion.

Now is kind of an interesting time though because most of the things I have been working on are done or almost done. So now we are going through this process called A&R or artists and repertoire. So basically we have folks that take pitches from game studios. And the thing is a lot of people, since I’m a producer, come up and say to me “Hey I got this great idea for a game!” Well, that’s not good enough. You need to have more than just an idea. You need to have a prototype that you have spent 3 months to 2 years making with a team and then you can come to us. And if it is really fun to play and it fits in the market and the time frame and you can make it come out on time; that is when you get a deal signed and get millions of dollars to make a game. You don’t just come with an idea. You have to have people together, you have to have the game together, and you have to have a prototype. So that you can demonstrate that you are a team that can make a game that’s fun, on time, and to high quality. It kind of makes me feel bad to tell people that. But we aren’t just going to sign a deal with someone who’s just got an idea. It’s really one of the more fun parts of the job. You get to see a lot of different games, meet a lot of different teams and travel. It’s really an interesting part of things, the A&R process.

Q: Do you have any projects that you are particularly proud of?

A: Yeah definitely! Condemned 2 is probably the best game that I’ve worked on. I was the associate producer on that from start to finish under my current boss, Constantine Hantzopolous, a senior producer who is just amazing. And then we had an amazing team working with Monolith in Seattle that worked on Condemned 1 which I also worked on. But Condemned 2 was the one we really wanted to make. We had all the time we needed, the money we needed, and the team which was dedicated to quality and really good at what they did most of them having five to ten years of experience. We made a game that was really scary and we reinvented 1^st person melee combat and did it in a way that nobody else had done it and did it right. So it just felt brutally awesome to brutally beat down monsters and homeless people. I learned a lot working on that one and it’s one of the highest rated Sega games probably in the last few years.

Q: How would you define a gamer?

A: A gamer is a person who’s tuned into the future of entertainment.

Q: Are you a gamer yourself? What kind of games have you been playing?

A: Yes very much so. Lately I have been playing a lot of prototypes stuff that your readers probably aren’t going see for a few years. I can’t really talk about them but at home I actually played a lot of Braid this weekend which I really liked because of its sensibility. Obviously the tone and style was very well thought out. And the feeling of the gameplay reflected the overall creative vision of the game. So it’s like the idea of moving time forward and backward and having regrets and what happens in a relationship was great and interesting and I would really love to see more games like this. That sort of takes on more then just, although it’s fun, just going around killing some fools. It’s definitely a plus to have games that sort of contemplate the human experience in different ways.

I also like playing a lot of board games and table top role playing games. I’ve been playing a lot of fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons with a group. It’s a pretty big change from D&D I mean I have been playing since I was nine way back in the 70’s. It’s interesting because it’s a much more tactical game now. I’ve been playing some GTA IV and some Call of Duty 4 multiplayer. I’m a big Warhammer 40k tabletop gamer.

Q: Do you have a favorite game of all time?

A: That’s hard I mean I could give you my favorite new school and old school games and the ones that are pushing things that I would like to see more of. I had an amazing experience with Mario 64. That’s when 3D really worked well. Props to Shiggy! More recently a lot of the hits have been justifiably great. You know Bioshock was weak in some areas, it got 10’s across the board but it did have a lot of weaknesses, but the things it did get right it got really right. Things like making you feel really immersed in the world and making you want to explore and the story it’s just fantastic. They did a good job with Bioshock it’s definitely one of my favorites over the last few years. But I would have to say Warhammer 40k, tabletop miniatures because I’ve spent way more money on those than I have on videogames. I need to justify my expense by saying it’s one of my favorite games *lol*.

Q: Do you have a favorite platform?

A: Well as part of my very important job related research I need to have all of the platforms and be able to play all of the games. As an overall philosophy I don’t think that platform is important. I mean there are fanboys for every platform of course. But the important thing for me is “does the game deliver an amazing experience?” It could be played on a rubber band and some bubblegum and if the game is amazing then that’s all that matters.

Q: What is your favorite part of your job?

A: The paycheck *lol*. Well aside from that I would say that it’s really the people that I work with. I feel very fortunate to be a part of the PD department at Sega. It’s really unusual that there is no backstabbing or corporate (nonsense). It’s really just a bunch of people who love games and are just dedicated to making good games and also mentoring people. It’s a really good environment to do good work in. Also I would say the important research that I do…playing a bunch of games and downloading a bunch of Rock Band songs *lol*.

Q: If you could change one thing about the videogame industry what would it be?

A: I wish that there was an unlimited amount of processing power. So the idea would be that there is just one gaming machine.

Q: What do you like to do outside of videogames?

A: I like hanging out around San Francisco; just going around to different places. I like traveling and going to beaches and watching movies. I also like to do video editing, that’s always a lot of fun. I love to go to underground parties and just hang out with friends.

Q: Do you have any advice for people that would like to get into the videogame industry?

A: Make a board game. Nothing is easier because you can do it with paper. You don’t need any kind of crazy computer. You will learn a lot about what it takes to make a good game if you make a board game prototype and play with your friends and they say that it’s good. Otherwise, just keep knocking on the industry’s door – look online for entry-level QA or Marketing positions at publishers and developers and eventually you’ll get your shot. Just don’t screw it up once you get it!

Samba de Amigo is shaking it’s way to shelves in September, and we’ve been given some insider developer diaries straight from Gearbox, care of their community manager, Allison Berryman.

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Some of you have probably wondered how an eccentric arcade-turned-Dreamcast maraca-shaking rhythm game featuring a monkey named Amigo managed to make its way into the hands of Gearbox Software and Wii owners everywhere. Wonder no more! This series of diaries takes you behind the scenes and into the offices of Gearbox Software, where you’ll learn more about the game’s development than you can shake two Wii remotes at. Let’s start at the beginning:

Securing Samba

In mid-2007, Gearbox was having a brainstorming session to come up with ideas for games we’d want to make for the Wii. As gamers and developers both, we saw tons of potential for fun and had been attracted to the idea of creating something for the console since we’d heard about it. We wanted to make a game that would let us whet our appetite for Wii development – something that gamers would love and that our developers would get excited about making.

Among the many ideas tossed around in that session, Marc Tardif, now Executive Producer on the project, suggested the somewhat-obscure Dreamcast game. Exclamations of “I love Samba!” and “What a great fit for the Wii!” were countered with “There’s no way Sega isn’t already working on that!” The session moved on, assuming that Sega did indeed have Wii plans for Amigo and his friends.

The next time we were on the phone with Sega, Marc asked, “Hey, when are you guys shipping Samba for the Wii?” To our great surprise, they weren’t working on it yet, and were extremely open to the opportunity to bring Samba back to the gamers! With all the excitement the idea generated when we brainstormed, there was no way we could let the opportunity go to waste. We told Sega, “We want to do this, and we’re not taking ‘no’ for an answer!” The deal wasn’t done right there and then, of course – they kept us in mind and Marc called them day and night until they finally gave in. They probably just agreed so that they’d be able to sleep through a night in peace!

Games by Gamers

Gearbox is widely known for our work with FPS games, from working with Valve’s Half-Life to our own Brothers in Arms (a WWII series). Why, then, were we so set on Samba for our Wii foray?

We don’t see ourselves as pigeonholed into just one genre. Stephen Palmer, Samba Producer, reminds us that the PC version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 was one of Gearbox’s early projects. Whether we’re making tactical WWII shooters or maraca-shaking monkeyshines, Gearbox strives to make games that are fun and that our developers have a passion for making, regardless of genre.

From top to bottom at Gearbox, we’re all gamers. When we’re not making games, we’re playing them, and we have a variety of tastes and passions when it comes to gaming. As a group of creative individuals, we value the chance to expand our scope and to have opportunities to create all kinds of games! Samba de Amigo represented a great chance for us to flex our creative muscles and work on something different that would bring new creative challenges to the table.

There’s a lot of love for Samba at Gearbox. We’re enthusiastic gamers who play everything we can get our hands on, and something like Samba stands out. It’s physically impossible to watch or play the game without smiling, and we’ve got great respect for Sonic Team and Sega for creating something so unique and fun. Randy Pitchford, president of the company, is probably the biggest Samba fan we’ve got. He can seriously tear it up in the Dreamcast original, and he’s been very close to the project from the beginning, making sure we spare no detail in reproducing the controls and fun!

Onward, to Development!

Excitement grew in the studio as we assembled a team and prepared to enter production. We looked forward to the unique challenges of getting Samba exactly right on the Wii, to SEGA’s PR and marketing push (we have a commercial with a live monkey!), and obviously to getting to play the game as it came along. The announcement was a source of happiness for us; we got a kick out of the fanbase’s response to it and can’t wait to get it into players’ hands.

During the early stages of the game, we worked very closely with the folks over at Sonic Team to create the vision for the game. We wanted to faithfully re-introduce the game to gamers on the Wii platform, recreating the colorful, fun, engaging experience for old fans of the series and people who had never heard the title alike. From the get-go, controls were a central focus in development – there’s enough material on that subject to cover in an upcoming diary!

Originally, we thought of the project as a fairly straightforward conversion, but we quickly realized that we needed to go the extra mile and take advantage of everything the Wii had to offer us. Of course our main goal was to bring all the fun of the original to the Wii, and that never changed, but we found many ways to take it even further. Samba is one of only a very few 3^rd party titles to integrate Mii characters, and it’s the very first disc that supports DLC on the platform!

This attitude of always pushing for the best experience we can deliver is something Gearbox always brings to any project, and we can’t wait for you to see the result of our efforts!

Stay Tuned!

Now you know the story of how Samba de Amigo for the Wii came to be – well, the first chapter at least. Stay tuned for the upcoming developer diaries, where we’ll explore how we brought Samba up-to-date, challenges in development, and chat more closely with the developers in the trenches! Thanks to Stephen Palmer and Marc Tardif for lending their time for this article – see you soon!

When I first started here at SEGA as an intern for the summer my hopes and dreams of playing video games all day disappeared as fast as Sonic hitting hyper mode while snatching up rings. Little did I know that one day during the course of my internship I would actually be assigned to occupy part of my day playing video games. At last my dream became a reality all of which has led me to writing this upcoming series of blogs.

The mission bestowed upon me is to document my trials and tribulations of playing the upcoming SEGA title BLEACH: Dark Souls for the Nintendo DS. The game’s story is based off the popular anime series and stays true to the style and feeling of the original manga series.

With little experience in anime style fighting games I found myself starting off in the training mode. It is in this dojo much like Daniel of The Karate Kid that I learned the art of fighting. I trained laboriously with main character Ichigo Kurosaki, with his natural orange hair and powerful sword I honed my skills while harnessing my special moves complete with an arsenal of high-flying kicks, punches and thunderous strikes. After mastering the training and arcade arenas I knew my next step was to conquer the illustrious story mode.

Much like the manga and anime series, the story is deep and captivating. Gamers will face a variety of opponents playing as one of the 44 highly-stylized characters engaging in intense action-packed battles. Having an engaging story intertwined with fierce 2D battles makes Dark Souls an all-around addicting game. My journey led me down many paths, facing daunting opponents along the way in dire pursuit of Spirit Cards and power-enhancing Reiju Crystals which I quickly learned were very useful in boosting my character’s health, strength and defense power.  Story mode provides you with an array of options and gives you the ability to completely customize your character.

One key feature of the game that will lend a hand in my series of blogs is the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, ultimately allowing me to engage in multiplayer battles. After diving into story and arcade mode, my next quest is to enter the versus mode. My plan is to challenge various SEGA employees who all have ties to the game, from production and design to marketing and testing, everyone is a potential opponent. So stay tuned to hear more about my adventures with BLEACH: Dark Souls and see if my training has paid off in my next blog: the challenges.

For the next few blog entries I am going to be interviewing some of the employees here at SEGA. I have scheduled meetings with them throughout the week and will be asking them a few questions about working in the gaming industry. My goal with these blogs is to get people that are interested in working in the videogame industry some info about different types of jobs available in the industry and how to get there.

Today I interviewed Mike D. He is the Manager of Web Design here at SEGA and his job is to manage the web design projects and some flash design for the various Sega websites. He has worked at Sega for about 10 years with some work at Konami and EA in between. Here are some of the things I got to talk to him about.

Q: How do you define a gamer?

A: I would say a gamer is someone who plays games on a consistent basis. It doesn’t have to be everyday. For instance, I wouldn’t consider someone who bought a Wii and played Wii Sports for a week and then stopped, to be a gamer. But if they bought it and continue to play it regularly and buy new games regularly, they are a gamer.

Q: Are you a gamer? If so, what are the last three games you played?

A: Well my wife uses the term “addict.” So that’s a yes.

1.      Soul Calibur IV

2.      Gears of War

3.      Ninja Gaiden II

Q: What is your favorite game of all time? Current favorite?

A: My favorite series is the Final Fantasy series and my favorite game in the series is FFXII. I love other franchises also, such as the Resident Evil and Metal Gear games, among others. The current game taking up most of my time is Gears of War because it is so intense, tight and generally polished. I try to play online as much as I can.

Note: (but he usually finds himself getting cut down by my chainsaw. Haha.)

Q: Any games in particular that you are looking forward to?

A: I’m most looking forward to Gears of War 2. Ever since the launch of the first game I have been playing online with friends. When new games like Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 came out, I played them through single player and a little bit of the online multiplayer but always end up going back to Gears pretty quickly. I like the fact that getting killed in that game impacts the rest of your team rather than being killed again and immediately respawning every 20 seconds.

Q: Do you have a favorite console? Of all time? Currently? Why?

A: My favorite console right now, and maybe of all time, would have to be the XBOX 360 mostly because of the online aspects.  It’s also because it has such a solid lineup of games that have come out.

Q: What other jobs (even not game related) have you had prior to this one?

A: While in high school, I worked odd jobs until I landed a position at a video game retail store. While working at that store, one of our customers was a game tester at Sega and gave me the inside scoop on how to get a job there. Within weeks I started my career in the gaming industry as a tester. I briefly left testing for a job at Interact Accessories where I worked as a product designer but later came back to Sega and worked my way into the web team.

Q: How did you make the transition from testing to web design?

A: While I was testing I was also going to school for multimedia. The web team at Sega was very small (about three people at the time). There was an opening for a programmer that came up and I applied for the position. The rest is history.  Being a tester really helped me in getting this job – if gave me the foot in the door. I’d recommend it to anyone trying to get into the industry. Even if you only work as a tester for a few months before moving on, it really gives you an insight to how a video game company works.

Q: What School did you go to?

A: To learn about building stuff for the web, I went to a multimedia tech school. I attended school 4 nights a week for 18 months while working by day as a tester at SEGA. Most of the things I do in my job today are self taught, but the schooling helped with learning all the basics for the tools and programs I use.

Q: What kinds of projects are you working on right now? Any you are particularly proud of?

A: Sonic Unleashed is the current project I am working on as well as some other Sonic titles. I guess I am most proud of the Sonic Chronicles microsite that I recently finished. It was an idea I’ve had for a website for a long time and I really enjoyed working closely with the developers.

Q: What is your favorite part of your job and why?

A: My favorite part of working here is seeing everything about games that I was always curious about as a gamer, the behind the scenes kind of stuff. I like seeing everything from the other side of gaming that not everyone gets to see.

Q: What is your least favorite part of your job and why?

A: Shifting schedules. It’s frustrating for me as both a gamer and a worker in the game industry. As a gamer, there is nothing worse than hearing that the game you are most excited for just got pushed out another 6 months.  And as an industry worker, things are on such a tight schedule that if one thing changes it can easily interfere with other things on the agenda.

Q: What kinds of things do you like to do outside of gaming?

A: I love having fun with my family, be it going to the park or just relaxing at home. I also love building games in Flash for fun.  It’s a good way to practice what I do while making fun and interesting things for others to play with.

Q: Do you have any advice for people that would like to get a job in the gaming industry?

A: Start at the bottom and work your way up. Working as a tester or an intern is a great start for anyone that wants to work in the gaming industry. Just being around everything in the company can help a lot. Getting the most experience you can starting from the bottom and moving up is easier than trying to come into the industry in the middle somewhere. It is generally easier for a company to hire someone from within that already knows how everything works. Almost everyone I know working as a Game Producer started out as a tester. But working in test is not what everyone thinks it is. While testing a video game, you do things like jump into a pit for 8 hours or drive along a wall for 8 hours. It’s not always the exciting position one may think it is.  It is also pretty important that you play games, and not just one type but a wide variety of genres and are tolerant of working on those genres you may not like.

Some people think that working at a videogame store like EBgames or Gamestop will guarantee them a job at a videogame company.  In my case, a customer of ours kindly gave me the information I needed to apply for a job as a tester, but most people I know working at retail have been there for years and are still waiting.  And some of those that have made it end up in customer service as that most closely translates to the experience they had at retail .But it would be a good alternative for people that don’t live somewhere near a videogame company and would like to work with games without moving.