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Civilization designer and veteran god game developer Sid Meier gave one of the final keynote speeches at this years’ Games Developers Conference in San Francisco, explaining his thoughts on what drives his players and how his thinking on player psychology has changed over time. Meier talked of the “unholy alliance” between the player’s suspension of disbelief and the designer’s willingness to defy both logic and the laws of maths to satisfy the player’s expectations. “A lot of what I thought I knew was wrong,” said the Civilization designer. “And the reason was because I really hadn’t taken into account what really happens in the player’s game.” Can’t reward the player enough Meier, the Director of Creative Development at Firaxis Games, stressed that it is crucial to give players the feeling of winning and to make the first 15 minutes “really compelling, really fun – almost a foreshadowing of all the cool stuff that’s going to happen later in the game

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Want to take a trip down memory lane with old school DOS games?

AMD really is kicking sand in their competitor’s face in the graphics business, but they dipped into their marketing bag for an old trick at the annual Game Developer Conference: developing a vague branding strategy, complete with logo. At a presentation where the company featured guest speakers from leading game companies, AMD discussed its commitment to developer relations. At the end, they rolled out a new brand: AMD Gaming Evolved. “AMD Gaming Evolved” is a catch-all brand that is “a reflection of our ongoing commitment to gamers.” It’s as if AMD’s eventual goal is to cover the entire surface of your PC with stickers with AMD logos. The 90-minute presentation wasn’t entirely bereft of content, however

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While there is currently a cool 32 million people regularly playing FarmVille on a daily basis on Facebook, the social network has made a plea to games developers to create ‘iconic games’ such as Mario, Halo or Sonic for the platform. Facebook Platform Manager, Gareth Davis, speaking at this week’s Games Developers Conference in San Francisco, reminded devs that the next killer game was out there and that Facebook was ready to help to host it and popularise it. Research suggests around three quarters of Facebook’s 400m users regularly play social games on the site. “The next killer game is still out there and this game will come from you,” Gareth Davis told a room of designers in San Francisco. “When we look at every major game platform, we see that there is an iconic defining game on that platform whether it’s Sonic or Mario or Halo.

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The first game containing Ubisoft’s massively controversial new digital rights system, which kicks players out of the game if they lose their internet connection for any reason, shipped last week. Silent Hunter V is just the first of many planned titles to include this ‘feature’, though a recent revelation that it’s already been cracked may throw a spanner in the works. Nonetheless, gamers hate it with righteous passion, while the publisher thinks it’s safeguarding PC gaming.

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The Mozilla Foundation has outlined its long-term mission for developing the online web experience and user control of the internet over the next century, claiming that Firefox is just the start. Mozilla Foundation head Mitchell Baker told the Register recently that the open source group’s mission was “to build certain qualities into the human experience of the internet” and that while Firefox was “important for the immediate future” Mozilla has “barely started in user control.” According to executive director Mark Surman is leading a Mozilla project called Drumbeat , which uses a new set of independent programs in open-web technologies like HTML 5 “where students’ work is rated and scored using a peer-rating system designed to go beyond the standard Microsoft or Cisco certifications.” Humanising technology Surman outlined Drumbeat’s objectives as follows: “Clearly, the goal is to get out to a new circle of people who care about the web already but who don’t have a way to participate. “We don’t know what the market will be 100 years from now, but we do know that a dramatic increase in levels of ownership and participation in the web will be critical.” Surman wants to see university courses in HTML 5, Cascading Style Sheets and JavaScript and courses that promote Mozilla’s Canvas .

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We’ve tossed around some pretty harsh criticisms of Ubisoft’s new PC DRM approach, and it’s very much deserved. Piracy is a tricky issue to combat, we get it, but we also know that no amount of DRM will ever stop the dedicated few kleptomaniacs who for one reason or another, simply refuse to pay for software. The only truth when it comes to copy protection is that the stronger it is, the more honest customers you will accidentally burn with it. This isn’t anything we haven’t said before , but it is ironic how all of our predictions seem to be coming true.

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Nintendo releases the new Nintendo DSi XL in the UK this month, featuring a notably bigger screen and a wider viewing angle than 2009’s version of its popular handheld gaming console, the DSi. The Japanese gaming giant’s top brass – CEO Satoru Iwata and game design genius Shigeru Miyamoto – have made a lot of noise in Japan about how the new extra-large DS should appeal to older gamers in particular. Especially those consumers that buy up the latest brain-training games and are more likely to spend money on ebooks and other types of non-gaming software for the device. But all of that marketing strategy talk aside, the true Nintendo fan really only wants to know one thing: “Is this sufficiently better than the handheld I bought last year to enjoy Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Wario and all the other classic first party Nintendo games that gamers buy DSs for?” COMPARE: A comparison of the DSi XL with the DSi After all we, most probably like you, have spent a good wedge over the last five years on DS consoles, from that first ‘phat’ grey Nintendo DS that launched (to widespread confusion on the part of Nintendo fans at the time) at E3 way back in June 2004 through to last year’s DSi

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Fantasy role-playing games, bow before your new king Dragon Age: Origins is the first in a new franchise from role-playing powerhouse BioWare, and while its swords ‘n’ sorcery setting may, at first glance, appear to be the result of an especially fruitful attempt at robbing J.R.R. Tolkien’s grave, don’t let that fool you. Dragon Age may very well contain one of the finest, most compelling videogame worlds ever created. But that on its own isn’t what makes Dragon Age great. Rather, the game’s heart lies smack-dab at the intersection between setting and character development

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Napoleon: Total War is the new chapter in the Total War series, where you assume the role of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, tactically assemble armies together and get to battle it out in real-time all across the world. Critically acclaimed and only on PC, the game is a must-have for strategists and also for those who like a bit of multi-player action – as Napoleon: Total War has a new ‘drop-in’ multiplayer campaign mode. To celebrate its release we are giving away, in association with Intel, a limited edition PC, equipped with an Intel Core i7-860 processor. Not only that, five runners-up will receive a copy of the game and an Intel Core i7-860 processor

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