Report: Worlds.com Hits NCsoft With Patent Infringement Suit

Virtual world company Worlds.com filed suit against City Of Heroes publisher NCsoft on Christmas Eve, claiming infringement on its MMO technology patent.

The main patent referenced in the suit is a “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space.”

According to the lawsuit, obtained by the Virtual Worlds News website, Worlds.com alleges that NCsoft’s online games, including Dungeon Runners, City of Heroes/Villains and Lineage II, among others, are in violation.

Earlier this month, Worlds.com, which launched in 1994, referenced its holding of patents for two technologies common in virtual worlds and MMOs: scalable chat and user interaction in a virtual space.

As MMO site Massively reported at the time, this theoretically gives Worlds.com enforcement power over just about any online game that lets users talk and interact in a game world — and the ability to collect financial damages.

Massively’s report noted that Worlds.com’s interaction patent was filed in 2000 — after the launch of other games such as Habitat or Ultima Online, which appear to include some reasonably similar features.

The complaint, filed in NCsoft’s home ground of the Eastern District of Texas, seeks a permanent injunction against NCSoft operating games covered under the patent, plus damages for the alleged infringement, “in no event less than a reasonable royalty”, as well as lawyers’ fees.

Worlds.com’s second patent, unreferenced in this particular legal claim, is ‘Scalable virtual world chat client-server system’, which was filed in 1996 and granted in 2001.

2008 In Review: July-Sept: Major Deals, Xbox Steals, EA Yields

Over the holiday and into the new year, we’ll be rounding up a news summary aimed at providing a solid look back on 2008’s memorable events.

Following our round-up of January to March and April to June, we look at July through September 2008.

This packed quarter that saw a couple of large announcements from a very sparse E3, one successful merger (and one major failed one), some significant publishing deals, and the high-profile disbarment of controversial attorney Jack Thompson.

July 2008

Electronic Arts’ partnership with Hasbro produced their own official Scrabble game, which would prove to have legal implications for popular Facebook Scrabble clone Scrabulous. In other Web issues, Google announced it was throwing its hat into the online worlds ring with Lively, an effort that would prove short-lived.

Those weren’t the only eyes shifting Web-ward, as a matter of fact; The Witcher creator CD-Projekt launched its Good Old Games online portal for DRM-free classics.

2008’s muted E3 Business Summit got a tepid reception, and the scaled-down show had few major announcements of note were made there, but there were a couple of kickers. Electronic Arts revealed it was partnering with id Software to publish the Doom and Quake creator’s next game, Rage, via its EA Partners label. John Carmack talked about overcoming “outdated prejudices” to sign the deal with EA.

Even more spectacularly, Square Enix apparently also overcame its old allegiances with the biggest surprise to come out of E3: Final Fantasy XIII would release on Xbox 360 in the U.S.

August 2008

Following a summer plagued by questions about the Entertainment Software Association’s usefulness amid publisher exits and a widely-criticized E3, the ESA went to bat against the state of California regarding its unconstitutional anti-game law. The ESA collected some $282,794 in attorneys fees from the state once the law was overturned.

Problems continued for Midway, as its losses continued to mount. Several high-ranking employees, including Chicago studio head Mike Bilder and marketing VP Mona Hamilton, resigned from the company.

Elsewhere, GameTap parent Turner revealed its wish to pull out of the subscription gaming space, as the company said it was seeking a buyer for its GameTap digital distribution service.

Struggles in the Austin development scene also became evident with layoffs at NCsoft’s offices there and significant” staff reductions at Midway Austin.

EA Partners continued its high-profile streak with the announcement of a Grasshopper Manufacture publishing relationship for a horror title produced by Resident Evil’s Shinji Mikami — alongside a publishing deal with Epic for a new multiplatform title by Painkiller devs People Can Fly.

As for its ongoing Take-Two acquisition bid, EA finally let the long-standing, oft-renewed offer lapse. This move was in order to talk behind closed doors with Take-Two and hash things out, as the FTC gave the increasingly unlikely merger the thumbs-up.

Microsoft began to gain some much-needed traction in Japan with the release of Tales of Vesperia, which sold out console stock across the nation. The company would soon follow up in the beginning of September with a price cut for Japan — a prelude to U.S. reductions.

September 2008

Just a few days after the Japanese price reductions, Microsoft applied similar reductions across all of its SKUs in North America, which meant its family-oriented Arcade SKU was now less expensive than the Wii.

The move would prove to be a major boon to the company, as the economic downturn spread potential shadows ahead of the key holiday shopping season.

Tecmo settled the overtime lawsuit brought by some of its employees earlier in the year, and revealed itself to be in merger talks with Koei — snubbing a bid from Square Enix, in favor of joining with a company closer to its own size and philosophy.

This month also saw the news that, after nearly a year’s worth of attempts, there would be no EA-Take-Two merger after all. After examining Take-Two’s due diligence and failing to negotiate for an agreeable per-share price, EA at last surrendered on a quiet Sunday evening just before the Austin Game Developers Conference kicked off.

During the event itself, three principal devs on the Metroid Prime series revealed they had formed a new studio, Armature, and scored a publishing deal with EA.

Toward the end of the month, longtime anti-game attorney Jack Thompson, a wildly popular target for controversy, was permanently disbarred by the Florida courts largely as penalty for his barrage of illustrated correspondence to the court and his general conduct.

POSTED: 05.21AM PST, 12/30/08 – Leigh Alexander

Sonic’s Naka: Why I Left Sega, Formed Prope

Yuji Naka is best known for his role in the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog. His programming skill allowed for Sonic’s iconic speed, as well as the multitude of ring sprites he got the Genesis console to push in its early days — alongside the impressive-for-the-time parallax scrolling.

After also helping to create classic titles such as Nights and Chu Chu Rocket, Naka more recently left Sega to form his own studio called Prope, and is now developing two games, Let’s Tap and Let’s Catch, for the Wii. Sega remains publisher and partial owner of his company.

Let’s Tap is unique in that it’s played without touching the controller — the Wii remote sits on top of the provided box, and you actually tap the box to make characters move and jump and run, or complete other actions.

Lately, I feel that Naka has been overly marginalized by press and developers alike. He is often described as unfriendly and reclusive, and overly-controlling of projects with which he’s associated.

I would like to provide a counterpoint here. The only times I’ve met him, he was walking around the show floor of the Tokyo Game Show, seeing how people liked his games, or at E3 social events. Without a translator, without anyone to curb his speech, he’s approachable, candid, and well-spoken.

There is an unconfirmed anecdote that circulated around the Western press which states that when he left to build Prope, he offered any Sonic Team member the opportunity to go with him, and almost no one did. This was used to prove his lack of relevance in the current industry. I could see this anecdote being true — but I would see it from another perspective.

He left to do his own thing, in a regional industry that is very reluctant to change, or to challenge the status-quo. Further, Naka’s reasons for trying to control projects related to Sonic become clear once you read just a few paragraphs into this interview.

Sega/Prope’s Let’s Tap

Though the article is brief, I find Yuji Naka to be thoughtful and driven, not arrogant, and he left Sega because he still wanted to make games, not just manage them. It’s my hope that this interview will increase understanding both of Naka, and the constraints of the Japanese industry.

Where did the idea for Let’s Tap come from?

Yuji Naka: It was something I came up with while we were working on another action game. I had noticed around that time that the Wii controller was a remarkably precise device, capable of detecting even very small, faint vibrations.

We did a bit of a test where we placed the controller on a desk and started tapping on the desktop around it.

Not only did the Wiimote detect that, but it also detected when we tapped on a desk placed adjacent to the one it was lying on.

Looking at that, I thought that it was pretty neat, that maybe we could do something with this.

From there, I thought about how up to now, rhythm games have been largely digital in nature — made up of 0s and 1s representing “off” and “on” — but this controller could measure more gradual levels of input in between those two extremes.

So it was a process of discovery that ultimately led to the idea, the idea to take a digital game and make it analog and able to accept a wider range of input.

Was it difficult to find the “fun” of such a simple interaction as this?

YN: Well, think about it — sometimes, do you find yourself just idly tapping on something during the day? I know I do it pretty much all the time, and I think everybody else does too. So I thought about making that into a game somehow. That’s what makes this game fun, I think — the fact that it’s something everybody does now and again.

Now, of course, there are other music and rhythm games, titles where you’re matching some kind of rhythm onscreen. But even in the case of Guitar Hero, it’s still a matter of “on” or “off,” 0 or 1. There isn’t any measure of strength.

Meanwhile, with this there’s a whole spectrum of strength to the tapping. It’s something that’s really pretty innovative even within the field of rhythm games.

With a lot of Wii games, my wrists end up hurting from all the flailing of the controller I’m doing.

YN: Yeah, they sure do.

Is this game different? Any concerns about finger fatigue?

YN: Well, your fingers are going to be tired here either way. It’s a music game, after all! It’s all a matter of moderation. I’m used to it so my fingers don’t bother me at all, but when you begin, you might deal with that a bit. I think it’s a pretty easy process.

What made you decide to quit Sega, or at least no longer work under the name Sega?

YN: Well, I could have stayed under Sega itself, but I already had a very high position there.

The game industry has a very short history behind it, and as a result, the more games you make, the further you work your way up the company ladder, until you become one of the heads of the whole outfit. Once that happens, you start running out of time to actually make games.

It’s better to keep yourself directly involved with the actual game process, you know? Directors are pretty high up the job ladder in the movie industry, but they’re still involved with every aspect of the film they’re working on; they’re still making movies their entire careers.

The game industry isn’t quite like that, and I think that’s a lost opportunity for a lot of people.

YN: Before I left Sega, I was high enough up that I was looking at every game the company was developing.

Once I was in that position, though, I found that I wanted to get into the nitty-gritty details instead with the games, including Sonic — the whole “it’d be better if this bit were like this instead of that” type of thing. There was a lot I wanted to do that I couldn’t gauge until someone actually tried making it.

So, at the age of 40, I convinced Sega to let me build a company — since it’s Sega that’s behind the company, they’re the one publishing the games.

Really, if you’re a game creator, no matter how high a position you have in the industry, you need to keep creating.

It’s better for the industry, and it’s more fun for everybody involved.

How many people are in Prope right now?

YN: Right now it’s about 40 staff members.

Will the “Let’s” lineup become a series of games?

YN: If it sells well enough, sure. Of course, you can’t really say how well it’ll sell at this point, but if it does great — if we can get a lot of people to play it and enjoy it — I’d love to make another one.

Is Prope focused on these types of simpler games?

YN: We’re actually planning on making a game like Sonic right now. We want to keep trying to make various kinds of games.

Character games and so on?

YN: Yes, that’s what we’re making now.

I noticed the penguin on the promotional page [one of the slogans for this game is "The world's first game that even a penguin can play!"] — you see them on Suica [mass transit] cards too. What is with Japanese people and their fascination with penguins?

YN: You’re right! Well, I like them! I always have. And, you know, it’s true that even a penguin can play this.

The stand over there, showing the visualizer — all you do in that game is tap away, and there really isn’t anything more to it.

Anyone from a one-year-old to some 80-year-old man can enjoy that mode; it’s the sort of thing you can see for yourself when you try it out.

In fact, the controller’s so good at detecting the tapping that you can play it with your feet, if you actually wanted to try that.

I’d like to see some penguin playtesting.

YN: I sure would too!

For that matter, this is a game that people who are missing limbs could potentially play. Did you think about that as well?

YN: I can’t say I was thinking about that in particular, but it always makes me happy to see a large variety of people enjoying our work.

There’s a site called AbleGamers, a site written for disabled video game fans. This is certainly a project they would find interesting.

YN: I can definitely see that, because they wouldn’t have any problem playing this, certainly. You can play the game with a single finger, even.

Have you ever considered giving a talk about your ideas at GDC?

YN: I’d certainly like to go again, but if I do, I definitely want to get the First Penguin Award. (laughs) That’s part of the reason why I’m making new games like this one.

It’s really a shame that they changed the name of it to the Pioneer Award. If I had the choice, I’d much rather have the “First Penguin” one someday! Even if it takes me another 10 or 20 years!

POSTED: 06.00AM PST, 12/30/08

Iran Sets Up ESRA Game Ratings, ESRB Denies Link

Tehran-based National Foundation for Computer Games (NFCG), a non-profit group working under the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance’s supervision, has announced that it has instituted an ‘ESRA’ ratings model for Iran with full government support, with Iranian media reports claiming the country would be “joining the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB)”.

“This plan will help families get better ideas about selecting games for their children and can set a good example for cinematic and television productions,” said NFCG’s managing director Behruz Minaii, according to a report from Iranian English-language newspaper Tehran Times. “It also helps support our domestic producers and gives better assistance to the distributors.”

Minaii said that the group enlisted 20 experts from different religious, psychological, social, and media organizations in the past year for this initiative. The managing director also claimed that the first part of the group’s unspecified plan is now ready, and the next parts will be completed through establishing this partnership.

The North America-based ESRB, however, denies that it is working with NFCG or any other organization. “We have not had any discussions with Iran about adopting our rating system,” ESRB’s assistant director of communications Eliot Mizrachi told game weblog Kotaku.

Further complicating matters, NCFG held a ceremony celebrating its ratings introduction and honoring the experts heading the project, according to the Tehran Times. The function was attended by game producers and officials from the country’s ministries of culture and education.

Iranian deputy culture minister for Cinematic Affairs, Mohammadreza Jafari-Jelveh, said in the event’s opening speech, “If we think a bit, we will find out that the major goal of computer games is to create heroes. And we can revive the culture of Persian championship with all its Iranian and Islamic elements through national computer games.”

A troupe of actors gave a performance incorporating ratings symbols, but photos from the ceremony reveal that the letters used actually spelled out ESRA, leading to speculation that Iran and NFCG have formed a different group with a name and charter mimicking the ESRB’s.

Established in 2007, the NFCG is designed to help promote “cultural principles and Islamic-Iranian identity” through the video game industry, and to support local video game companies. In October of this year, the group held an exhibit at a week-long police expo inviting families to learn about selecting appropriate and safe games for their children.

Iran’s locally supported PC games include Save the Port, a real-time strategy title from the Multimedia Office in Tebyan; and Rescue the Nuke Scientist, a first-person shooter produced by the Union of Students Islamic Association. The latter has players recovering scientists captured by the U.S. military and held in Iraq and Israel.

Analysis: Minotaur China Shop’s Opposing Design Goals

[Goals are an essential part of almost any video game -- but they necessitate difficulty, and difficulty often breeds frustration. GameSetWatch columnist Gregory Weir examines how acclaimed web game Minotaur China Shop turns frustration into an alternate goal, and how its game mechanics make it a more effective twist.]

Virtually all digital games provide goals. It’s a defining feature of the medium. Even games often described as “toys,” such as The Sims or Tamagotchi, provide implicit goals that players can choose between. It’s through the pursuit of these goals that players experience challenge and interactivity.

When a goal is difficult to achieve, it creates challenge. A game is interesting because of the challenge, but if a game is too hard, it becomes frustrating. Frustration is the enemy of fun and engagement. It makes players detach from the game, and possibly quit altogether.

If a game is too easy, however, it can become boring, which also causes the player to give up. Even worse, different players have different difficulty sweet spots; some players want hard games, and some want easy ones.

There are several solutions to this problem. Selectable or adaptive difficulty allows the player to customize the game, and RPG-like experience mechanics allow the player to adjust their character’s strength.

However, there is another way to address frustration and boredom: offer more goals to the player, in the form of side quests or alternate play modes. That way, when a player becomes frustrated or bored with one goal, she can switch to another.

Flashbang Studios has taken this one step further. In their latest free web game, Minotaur China Shop, they have created a game mechanic that channels the player’s frustration and boredom and uses it to add sympathy for the player character and transition smoothly into an alternative, opposing goal.

Customer Service

In Minotaur China Shop, the player controls the Minotaur, who has finally achieved his lifelong dream of selling fine china. At first play, the game comes across as a simple time-management simulation, where the player must fulfill orders for china by fetching them from the shelves of the shop. However, the Minotaur can accidentally knock inventory off of the shelves, and lose money from breakage.

The twist comes with the introduction of Minotaur Rage. The more damage the Minotaur causes, the angrier he gets. At a certain rage level, Minotaur Rage Insurance kicks in. Suddenly, the player is compensated for any broken china. The game’s goal is flipped on its head, and the player is trying to break things to make money on insurance.

The cleverness in this approach is how the Minotaur’s emotions mirror the player’s own. The controls are deliberately clumsy, and the player is bound to knock a plate or two off of a shelf eventually.

If the player becomes frustrated with the difficulty, she can decide to toss away caution and take out her frustration by breaking things. Instead of giving up on the game due to difficulty, the player channels her rage through her character, turning failure into success.

The concept of an alternate goal that is the opposite of the primary one has appeared before. Katamari Damacy had the fiendish Cow Level, where instead of picking up every object, the player must avoid the great majority of things in the level.

Messiah incorporates bodily possession as a primary gameplay mechanic, which allows the player to eliminate a powerful enemy by committing suicide. However, these and similar mechanics don’t have the perfect balance of Minotaur’s opposing goals.

Minotaur’s effectiveness is helped along by the simplicity of the game. The game takes place in a limited space, with simple physics-based gameplay. The player can purchase new moves and attributes, but each of applies directly to the primary goals of caution and damage. These opposing goals could easily lose their impact in a more complex game.

Complete Destruction

There’s a broader lesson to take from Minotaur’s design, though. The opposing goals work so well because the gameplay is tied to the feelings of the player and the player character. Developers would do well to consider this tie when developing gameplay.

When the interaction method supports the setting and story of the game events, players feel more immersed in the game and identify more strongly with their characters.

In the case of Minotaur, the developers recognized the clumsiness and frustration inherent in their physics-based gameplay, and chose to turn it from an annoyance to a feature. When the player is frustrated with her own ham-handedness, so is the Minotaur. When the Minotaur bursts into a rage, the player feels free to cut loose.

The trick is to identify a possible source of frustration, and embrace the player’s feelings by flipping the goal around. If the player is having trouble achieving a certain goal, she might prefer achieving the opposite.

Because this transition point between goals is different for each player depending on their preferred difficulty, it’s a clever way to resolve the issue of differing player skill.

[Gregory Weir is a writer, game developer, and software programmer. He maintains Ludus Novus, a podcast and accompanying blog dedicated to the art of interaction. He can be reached at Gregory.Weir@gmail.com.]

Best of FingerGaming: From Crystal Defenders to Passage

This week’s notable items in the iPhone gaming space, as covered by FingerGaming, include Square Enix’s Crystal Defenders, a port of Jason Rohrer’s Passage, and the upcoming release of IGF-winner Crayon Physics for Apple’s portable.

Here are the top stories:

Crayon Physics Gets iPhone Port in 2009
“Hudson Entertainment will be bringing the Independent Games Festival Grand Prize-winning Crayon Physics to the iPhone and iPod Touch. The title is scheduled to hit the App Store in early January, and possibly as soon as next week.”

Passage Debuts in iPhone App Store
“Previously available as a PC freeware title, Passage comes to the iPhone this week as a direct port with a new touch-based control interface.”

Radio Flare Makes Intriguing App Store Appearance
“Radio Flare takes the lock-on shooting mechanic found in console games like Rez and Panzer Dragoon and adapts it to fit the context of a touch-based shooter — one finger moves your ship, while another can be used to target multiple enemies in a single swipe.”

Square Enix’s Crystal Defenders Makes iPhone Debut
“Console RPG publisher Square Enix has released Crystal Defenders, a Tower Defense-styled strategy game featuring character classes from the Nintendo DS SRPG title Final Fantasy Tactics A2.”

i Love Katamari Patched, Features Improved Performance
“The patch arrives in response to widespread reports of sluggish performance and unresponsive controls, which many buyers noted after the title’s release last week.”

MSX’s Aleste Downloadable Now
“The release is significant, as this new version of Aleste appears to be running via emulation software. All original aspects of the game are preserved — including the original MSX BIOS bootup screen — with an iPod/iPhone-specific control overlay added to the bottom of the gameplay screen.”

GDC’s 2009 Experimental Gameplay Sessions Calls For Submissions

The organizers of the Experimental Gameplay Sessions lecture at the 2009 Game Developers Conference are calling for submissions for their yearly showcase of innovative games.

This regular extended GDC lecture, which has taken place since 2002, is organized by Braid designer Jonathan Blow and friends.

It’s notable for being an early showcase for a multitude of alternative games and game concepts, including a pre-launch Katamari Damacy and Portal.

As the official Experimental Gameplay Sessions website explains while issuing its call for submissions:

“The Experimental Gameplay Sessions are an annual gathering of innovation-minded game developers, hosted at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The EGW features many different kinds of games, including prototype demos (such as the Indie Game Jam games), [subsequenty] shipped products (such as Katamari Damacy and MojibRibbon), and student demos. There’s always a bit of lecturing and discussion as well.

If you’re pushing the boundaries of traditional gameplay, we encourage you to submit your work using the entry form. The submission deadline is Monday February 16, 2009.”

Other notable projects showcased in early stages at various iterations of the Experimental Gameplay Workshop include Jon Mak’s Everyday Shooter, Thatgamecompany’s fl0w, Media Molecule co-founder Mark Healey’s Rag Doll Kung Fu, Zoe Mode’s Crush, and Dylan Fitterer’s Audiosurf.

Interview: Sega’s Mitsuyoshi On Giving Voice To Arcade Classics

[Continuing a series of Japanese game music interviews, Gamasutra chats with classic Sega composer Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, with insight on his history in the game business and his contributions to the EXTRA Hyper game concert held just after Tokyo Game Show this year.]

Takenobu Mitsuyoshi has written music for such Sega arcade series as Daytona USA, Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter. He was also involved in composing music for the soundtrack to the acclaimed Sega Dreamcast title Shenmue.

In 2003, he created the album “From Loud 2 Low ~Takenobu Mitsuyoshi Works~.” Published by Hitmaker Records, the selections include arrangements from various Sega titles, featuring the musician’s participation as a composer and performer.

Mitsuyoshi has performed his video game music live on stage in various contexts. He performed at this year’s Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany and attended the Montreal Game Summit.

For the past two years, he has participated in both EXTRA Hyper Game Music events in Tokyo, hosted by 5pb Records. Singing vocals as part of the Sega Sound Team, dubbed “H.,” their set included rock remixes of classic Sega titles including Fantasy Zone and Space Harrier.

Following the game concert, we had the chance to hear from the musician on the challenges inherent in arranging Sega arcade songs for live rock and roll performances. The discussion offers some insights into Mitsuyoshi’s unique path in the video game industry and how it intersects with the Sega sound team’s enthusiasm for rock music.

First of all, congratulations on H.’s pulling out all the stops at this year’s EXTRA Hyper game concert.

Takenobu Mitsuyoshi: Thanks for mentioning it, on behalf of H.! This performance marks our second year at the EXTRA event, and it was a thrill to witness the excitement of the packed audience as we got up on stage to perform. The first song we played was from Space Harrier, the drummer keeping time without a click track, and I was impressed with how well it captured a genuine rock sound.

This is your second time performing at the concert. Do you find it useful to take a break from writing music every so often and sing for a crowd of pumped video game fans?

TM: Normally, I’m in front of my desk, typing away at my PC, so definitely yes! I work on songs and sound effects, so my work is related to music, but it’s a different kind of relationship. Our jobs at Sega allow us the time to really study music, and, to a certain extent, it enhances our motivation to work together to create something for a live event like this.

We spoke with composer Hip Tanaka after the show, and he said that his only qualms with the concert were the number of men there to see the 8Bit Idolm@sters perform.

TM: That’s Tanaka-san’s sense of humor. Truth be told, it’s men that make up a large percentage of video game music enthusiasts, for whatever reason. This is actually a really old discussion that goes at least as far as back as when I joined the SST Band.

The ratio of men to women hasn’t really changed much. In fact, this time around, the popularity of the Idolm@ster vocalists has led to the number of male fans multiplying out of control, I’m afraid. That’s just a given, considering the circumstances. Gender aside, we can in all honesty express our gratitude to the 2000 attendees who turned out to listen to our video game music.

Performers from the Famison 8-bit Idolm@sters series on stage at the 2008 EXTRA Hyper Game Music Event.

Last year was the first ever EXTRA. How did you and your fellow band members at Sega decide which songs to perform for the show?

TM: As with last year, the concept behind the EXTRA series was to summon up memories of the good old days of arcade music as an affirmation of its significance to us. With that premise in mind, H. was allotted the role of transforming slices of Sega’s classic game themes into a musical performance. We brought this combination of the established melodies and altogether new ideas, and the audience was genuinely delighted with the results.

It was all grounded on the basis that these were pieces of music that they remembered listening to in the arcades. To make it a novel experience, we have the live drums on hand, for instance, and all the music has been arranged once more from the ground up.

Do you find it difficult coming up with lyrics to games like Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone, seeing as dialogue is not a prominent aspect of the experience?

TM: Well, one of the songs features the refrain “YA-DA-YO!” (”What are you doing to me!”) I think this phrase pretty much sums up the player’s frustration when facing certain bosses. “Let’s Go Away!” is another one, which relates to the desire to lose yourself in the game world. You could say the lyrics change depending on the character of the game that is chosen as the subject of the arrangement.

Takenobu Mitsuyoshi and percussionist Rony Barrak riff on the theme from Daytona

When did you start working on the songs from for this year’s concert?

TM: We received word that we were invited to this year’s EXTRA about two months before the performance, though it took a month before we had arrived at all the particulars of our plan. We were fortunate enough to need less time to prepare, seeing as it was our second year in succession, though there were difficult passages, including a ten-minute medley, and the songs were new as well.

Are there any notable differences between this year’s selections and last year’s?

TM: I would have to say that the most significant change was having live drums. Last time, all the drums were recorded, which makes for a huge difference. There was a much stronger sound to the band this time around. You might have difficulty believing it, but our drummer was an 8th grader!

Our set was ten minutes shorter in duration than it was last year, so we were a little worried about that. We kept the idea of the medley, this time including one from Fantasy Zone, but had to cut the ballads from the set list out of consideration for the time constraints.

What would you say were some of the highlights of the show for you?

TM: I would have to go with the Korg DS Trio. The idea of performing live on a really practically priced piece of equipment has been something that people have talked about for awhile, but I think it was finally demonstrated on stage with tremendous impact. I thought, this surely was pure video game music, from the instrument down to the conception and composition.

Nobuyoshi Sano of the Korg DS Trio often goes by the name Sanodg. In terms of your own career as a video game composer, you are sometimes listed as R. Saburomaru. Is there a story behind the pseudonym?

TM: When I was first hired to write music for Sega, the company was working on a competitive bike racing game called “GP Rider.” At that time there was a dedicated cabinet released called the R360, which had both vertical and horizontal rotation. They created a game for the cabinet called G-LOC, which they asked me to write music for. After that, I became a member of the SST Band, and everyone there was named after a Sega title.

I had long hair in those days. Though it wasn’t like I wore it in a topknot like a samurai, I liked the idea of that kind of image. I took on the nickname R. Saburomaru (”三郎丸” being an antiquated way of saying “360″). At the time, Sega didn’t list the names of musicians on CD liner notes, so I was credited as “R.三郎丸.”

You come from Fukuoka originally. Was working for Sega something that you had always planned on doing, or did circumstances take you by surprise?

TM: It’s no mistake that I was born in Fukuoka, but at three years of age, my father, who was a businessman, was transferred to Chiba Prefecture, and our family changed residences. I have no trace of a Fukuoka dialect. In high school and college I worked hard to maintain my musical craft, majoring in economics before deciding to pursue a career in music.

I started learning classical piano when I was in my second year of high school. At that time, a friend of mine introduced me to Galaxy Force. I was surprised at how different the sound was from what I thought of as typical video game music. At that time, I was in a band, and I wondered whether this might be relevant experience to the video game music industry.

I eventually applied for a job at Sega, hoping that I would be chosen as a member of the SST BAND. While many things came about by happenstance rather than by design in my winding up applying for a job at Sega, since then, I can honestly say that my life has headed in a direction that I feel I have determined for myself.

You have participated in the development of some rather historic arcade game series. Were you always a fan of the arcades? What was it like making songs for Daytona USA?

TM: I am honored to be a part of the history of arcade music, knowing there are many others who have contributed to its development, so thank you for your mentioning that. My first encounter with a games was through the PC. I had an NEC PC-6001 mk2 when I was in high school, and I was into games like Mappy, Xevious, and Pac-Man. Space invaders was another favorite of mine.

In college I occasionally played the NES, but not so many arcade games. It was not until I entered the game industry that I discovered the arcade titles of Sega.

During the development of Daytona USA, Namco released Ridge Racer. We received executive orders from Sega that we had to make something better than Ridge Racer, so the team really hunkered down, taking on the spirit of a sports team, to create the best possible graphics and music.

I was working on sound for the game, so we put lyrics to the music, added the noise of a V8 engine, along with a CD quality audio system. Ridge Racer had none of these features. It was a big success.

How did you become involved in the Shenmue project?

TM: It took a long time to develop Shenmue. It was my tenth year at Sega when the game was released … but it didn’t feel that way because half of that time had been spent on the soundtrack to Shenmue. My job as a sound director was to give instructions to staff regarding the music, which required understanding the setting and scenario, avoiding the mistake of letting the soundtrack wander too far outside the thematic concept of the project.

I was involved in discussions with designers and programmers, while collaborating with [Sega game designer and producer] Yu Suzuki. It was more of a directorial approach than has been the case with other projects… and there were a lot of meetings.

This is a game series that many players look back on with great fondness. In terms of your own experience writing music for the game, what do you remember most vividly about the Yokosuka chapter of the series?

TM: The main theme of Shenmue stands out in my mind. You might have heard this already, but at first, Yu Suzuki gave me an overview of the storyline before asking me to start writing the music. I then proceeded to compose one song, purely based on my impressions. While it did not become the main theme for the game, that song has gone on to be played by many orchestras worldwide.

Another memorable musical theme from the game is Ryuji Iuchi’s “Earth and Sea”. This piece of music for me conjures up the “will to battle,” which I think is a significant motif of the game.

Another memorable music project that you participated in is the Street Fighter Tribute album. How did you become involved in the arranged music project, and what was your experience remixing the famous Ryu stage theme?

TM: When I was first asked to work on this arranged album, the video game industry was just beginning to experiment with venturing beyond the perimeters of individual companies on a given music project. I was really interested in the idea of [composer] Shinji Hosoe inviting many sound creators to work on it together. I had also spent a lot of time playing Street Fighter with my brother on the PC Engine, so I felt no hesitation in joining the team.

Working alongside so many well-known sound creators, my task was to make a remix that was unique, so I decided to incorporate a vocal track, knowing it was my particular strength. I also had the idea that since I was a member of the project, I had might as well work on a tune for a major character in the game.

I submitted my request, and, luckily, I was able to work on it. Initially, I had in mind that I would write English lyrics, so I chose an 80’s American pop style with a fast-pace. The only thing I regret is using the direct translation from an online service, so the words themselves do not quite manage to express what I had in mind.

We only had time to briefly touch upon your many original and arranged video game music projects, but is there anything you would like to say to those in English-language territories who enjoy your music?

TM: Recently I have had many chances to visit other countries, meeting listeners in person to hear their feedback. It has been a chance to discover directly that there are a lot of people who enjoy my work. I’m touched by the enthusiasm of gamers, and the particulars of their language, ethnicity, age and gender are not an issue.

Because my music uses the game as a medium to connect with the player, the experience is universal. Right now, I am thinking about game players outside of Japan more than ever, and I feel more motivated to do good work. Following the experience I had with Daytona, I hope that when people hear the name “Mitsuyoshi” they will think of the drive to make memorable music.

H. at the 2008 EXTRA Hyper Game Music Event in Shin-Kiba, Tokyo. From left to right: Mitsuharu Fukuyama, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, Takehiro Kai, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Eisei Kudoh, and Hidenori Shoji.

[This interview was conducted by Jeriaska, with translation by Ryojiro Sato. Images courtesy of Idolm@ster and EXTRA Official Compilation courtesy of 5pb Records. Photos of H. by Jeriaska. This article is available in Japanese at Game Design Current.]

Gamebryo Adds Illuminate Labs’ Beast System

As part of its Partner Program, Emergent will integrate Illuminate Labs’ Beast system into Gamebryo’s engine, adding the ability to create complex light maps with global illumination to Gamebryo’s game development platform.

Gamebryo, used in games including Fallout 3 and Warhammer Online, is intended to be a modular game engine framework that integrates the technologies of its partners, which in addition to Illuminate Labs also include Nvidia, Allegorithmic, NaturalMotion and others. It’s usable for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC titles.

The Beast system integration will allow light maps, shadow maps and point clouds to be applied directly to Gamebryo GSA files, with the aim of enabling rapid dynamic relighting for objects and characters.

Gamebryo says the integration complements its new animation system introduced earlier this year — the company claims that new system allows for 40 percent gains in memory and cache.

“Gamebryo’s widespread use in hundreds of projects on all the major platforms and genres makes Emergent a perfect strategic partner to help spread Beast’s adoption,” says Illuminate Labs CEO Magnus Wennerholm. “When Emergent says that they have a flexible development platform, they mean it. It took no time at all to have Gamebryo and Beast working together.”

An Internet of Senses

We need to build an integrated architecture that would enable organizations to share physical data collected by wireless sensor networks.

By Daeyoung Kim and Jongwoo Sung

Dec. 1, 2008—The EPCglobal network, often called the “Internet of Things,” was developed to allow companies to use Electronic Product Code standards to track goods in the supply chain with radio frequency identification and share related data over the Internet. Now that we can track objects, industry and research communities are interested in using wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to capture and process information about physical environments, such as temperature, humidity, pressure and vibration. But WSNs tend to be developed as isolated networks for individualized applications, and there is no way to share the collected sensory information.

Daeyoung Kim

At the Auto-ID Lab Korea, we believe the EPCglobal network provides the underlying infrastructure for an integrated sensor network. In addition, the two technologies—RFID and WSNs—would complement each other. But networking sensory data and EPC RFID data raises all levels of technical issues, such as architecture design, software, security and business models.

There are three main challenges: First, the current EPCglobal network does not support sensors in standardized ways. Second, sensor networks have unique characteristics, including time synchronization, energy-effective networking, energy-saving mechanisms and embedded middleware. It’s not easy to combine such complex technologies with standardized architecture. Finally, the EPCglobal network standards, including Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS), are too customized, especially for supply chains. Also, it’s difficult to support XML or similar higher-level languages popularly adopted for Internet computing in severely resource-constrained sensor nodes.

Jongwoo Sung

We have been working since 2005 to meet these challenges and build an EPC sensor network—a ubiquitous infrastructure with a standardized architecture operating on a global scale. It will enable sensor data collection, configuration, filtering, access and sharing among heterogeneous sensing sources. The real benefits of WSNs will be achieved when end users with appropriate authority can access sensor data using standard Internet interfaces.

Furthermore, combining the EPCglobal network with a sensor network will provide solutions for underlying challenges. We’ll see the development of more complex RFID tags that have networking and sensing abilities. The combined networks will open research and business opportunities and allow new services.

This is a long-term project that covers a broad range of technologies. We are actively working with other Auto-ID Labs, including Cambridge, and we expect to have a first prototype system for proof of concepts by the end of 2009.

Daeyoung Kim is associate research director of the Auto-ID Lab Korea and a professor of engineering at Korea’s Information and Communications University (ICU). Jongwoo Sung is a senior researcher at the Auto-ID Lab and a doctoral candidate in engineering at ICU.

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