tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61829872011-12-13T19:58:11.900-08:00Thoughts from ex-Blizzard guy Mike on Game Developmentmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comBlogger201100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1133717776617130412005-12-04T09:35:00.000-08:002005-12-04T09:36:16.616-08:00

I moved my blog over to my own server. http://www.mikehuang.com/blog is the new home. See you all there!

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1097090550380466542004-10-06T11:03:00.000-07:002004-10-06T12:22:30.380-07:00

My game of choice lately has been Burnout 3: Takedown. They've done good with this game, making a driving game where crashing is actually fun.

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1076723492135968752004-02-13T17:51:00.000-08:002004-02-13T17:54:32.450-08:00

This week, Castaway Entertainment was interviewed by both The Hollywood Reporter and Gamespot.

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1076361936111398442004-02-09T13:25:00.000-08:002004-02-09T13:31:41.420-08:00

On Friday I attended a conference at Stanford on Storytelling in Games. Will Wright, the creator/designer of SimCity, giving a lecture on why he hates stories within games. Gamespot also covered the Stanford Conference.

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1074902701882945562004-01-23T16:05:00.000-08:002004-01-23T16:07:06.343-08:00

Preparing for your career in games

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1074641925310204492004-01-20T15:38:00.000-08:002004-01-20T15:40:45.153-08:00

Wire's Vaporware Awards

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1074132612319368142004-01-14T18:10:00.000-08:002004-01-14T18:12:04.530-08:00

Warner Bros. To Start a Game Unit This ought to be interesting... On one hand, I only know of one games studio that has managed to make good on studio licenses -- Akklaim. Almost every other studio has botched it, although EA is doing very well with the Lord of the Rings license.

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1074131987879462882004-01-14T17:59:00.000-08:002004-01-14T18:05:28.123-08:00

The How To Break Into The Game Industry Mini-Conference, Resume Workshop in San Francisco is happening in a few weeks. I generally don't like these things, because, having already been in the industry for a while, I don't think they benefit the attendees a whole lot. I think you get a lot more out of just talking to guys already in the industry, who can do a lot more for you than some speakers

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1073959756975412312004-01-12T18:09:00.000-08:002004-01-12T18:09:38.196-08:00

This weekend, I thought about playing Everquest again. Then I started looking at the websites to try and figure out what's changed, and then I thought back about what really made EQ playing, and I came to the conclusion that it wasn't the endless level grind, but rather the social environment of the game. I think one of the things about EQ is that the players at the top end are all hardcore

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1073957472270291122004-01-12T17:31:00.000-08:002004-01-12T17:31:33.163-08:00

Items currently for sale Everytime I clean my apartment, I find more and more Blizzard stuff. Tucked away in a forgotten box, or sitting in a bag on a closet... I guess that after working for a while there, just like how games get in your blood, Blizzard gets in your stuff...

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1073590491750116832004-01-08T11:34:00.000-08:002004-01-08T11:35:11.486-08:00

Blizzplanet had an interview with me the other day, regarding the auction and about life at Blizzard and Castaway. Interview Since someone asked, my main motivation for selling this stuff is to get these items out of my apartment and into the hands of fans who will appreciate them.

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1073234243336770352004-01-04T08:26:00.000-08:002004-01-04T08:37:42.046-08:00

Link to my EBay Auction of Blizzard Stuff I posted more items on EBay, after discovering a box in my closet containing a bunch of promo posters. These are nice posters and I hope they find a good home. I put some other video/computer game related stuff up there as well. There's a lot of Blizzard stuff though. Lots. It seems that everytime I turn around, I find even more stuff. There's 50 items

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1073126392558717592004-01-03T01:40:00.000-08:002004-01-03T02:40:10.896-08:00

One of the things I hear most when I tell people what I do for a living is "I want to do games. How do I get into the business? I don't have any experience." How do you get experience when every developer in the world seems to want experience? Seems like a chicken and the egg kind of thing, doesn't it? It is, and it isn't. There are a few opportunities out there for finding jobs that don't

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1071270178186693462004-01-02T11:04:00.000-08:002004-01-02T11:19:19.883-08:00

MMORPGs - What Players Really Want The article above is definitely written by a rabid UO player. I, on the other hand, was once a fairly devoted Evercrack addict. My opinions differ from his, in that I do not perceive UO as being a great game. UO was definitely innovative, and needs to be credited for being the first truly mainstream MMORPG, however, it had problems. Massive problems

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1072816533815767542004-01-01T00:35:00.000-08:002004-01-02T11:05:02.896-08:00

I'm planning to auction off my rather large lot of Blizzard stuff on E-Bay. My UserID is ex-blizzardguy. I imagine I'll send Flux and Elly a quick little e-mail, since some fans of Diablo II might be interested in the items. I'll send 'em a link to this as well ;) All my stuff from Blizzard pretty much takes up a bedroom in my place, so living in my place was pretty cramped for a while.

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1071098869316056952003-12-10T20:00:00.000-08:002004-01-02T11:00:04.243-08:00

Peter Hu, another of the ex-Blizzard Northers, called us (us being the ex-Blizzard portion of the office) up out of the blue last week to go to lunch with him. He's currently working for Flagship Studios, the other game development company that was born out of the great Blizzard departure. One of the things we talked about was the game development process. Often, people will compare making

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1070994443099512302003-12-09T22:27:00.000-08:002004-01-01T22:48:06.400-08:00

U.S. Programmers at Overseas Salaries Even though this doesn't directly impact the games industry, it does impact the hi-tech industry, which is where many of the game programmers and artists come from. A lot of the best game artists and programmers didn't start off as being game artists and programmers. They learned their trade either from other programming occupations or from other

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1070993520969488942003-12-09T22:12:00.000-08:002004-01-01T22:38:48.623-08:00

CNN: Group warns parents about 'killographic' games I guess the term "killographic" is defined as the "graphic depiction of brutal violence." This is where all the super-realistic or gory portrayals of death and violence is clumped in. Games like "Mortal Kombat" or "Carmaggedon", I assume would fit into this category.

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1070949417612715782003-12-08T20:26:00.000-08:002003-12-09T10:48:02.090-08:00

One of the problems I commonly experience in my dealings in the games industry is that job titles are not standardized. For instance, the title "Senior Artist" can mean two different things: either the "Senior Artist" is someone with years of industry experience or an artist who has responsibilities above that of, say a "Artist". The title "Producer" is also a nebulous one. I've seen "Producers

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6182987.post-1070934862736195342003-12-08T06:54:00.000-08:002004-01-01T22:48:42.680-08:00

Who are you? My name is Michael Huang, and I've been in the games industry for as long as I can remember. When I was going through high school and college, I was part of a game development group which created some minor shareware games. I even wrote a few games of my own. Thankfully, these rather embarassing pieces of code have been lost in the vast sea of the internet. Upon graduating

mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13319477917557395483noreply@blogger.com