I want to talk more about animation, so I have started a new column, Manga Miscellany; a series of posts dedicated to an assortment of manga and anime work. It features short profiles of filmmakers, series, features and techniques. These won’t be in any particular order, and are partly inspired by the work I [...]

Did you know that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has sold 6 million copies worldwide as of 2006? It’s impressive that a game made in 1992 would continue to sell over ten years later; most videogames only enjoy retail success in the fortnight honeymoon after launch. While classic film and music have an opportunity to sell [...]

One of the UK’s top publishers of games journalism, Future, has declined the opportunity to announce its 6-monthly circulation figures. In a story featured yesterday in the games biz publication MCV, it was noted that the consumer magazine market has suffered considerably over the economic downturn of the past 18 months. The opt-out marks a [...]

As I mentioned previously we are heavily involved in the fantastic international games festival GameCity; here’s a little update from the festival director Iain Simons:
This week has been an AWESOME week for the festival. We’ve hired not one but TWO brilliant people, and then had some brilliant news about a new event we hadn’t even [...]

I am hearing really good things about Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena from various quarters, if anyone has a personal opinion on this game, either good or bad, I would love to hear about it.

From this Spring we have been lucky enough to become an official part of the organisational team of Gamecity, the international festival of videogame design and culture. The festival has been running for 4 years now, and this year proves to be the biggest yet. I have been working closely with Geri McCabe, James Newman, [...]

We tend to think that the advergame is a relatively modern creature, connected to the bright lights and high speeds of contemporary internet culture. The relationship between advertising design and videogames is long and varied, perhaps as old as the medium itself, and this is a point I will come back to frequently on this blog. To best understand how games design and advertising have exchanged ideas and principles, you need to take a long term view.