Sony has had its share of troubles over the last year or so, ranging from sagging sales to being upstaged at last year’s E3 by Project Natal (now known as Kinect.) But you’d never know it at their press conference, which was a rousing two hours of whooping and cheering from the Sony faithful as they outlined their plans for the next year. But while there were a few surprises during the press conference, most notably the appearance of  a Portal 2 trailer and the resurgence of the classic Twisted Metal franchise, most of Sony’s presentation was dedicated to refinement of their announcements at previous E3s. 

 Sony’s Move motion controller was shown in great detail, with demonstrations of the “wand” at work in Sorcery, a game where you literally wave a magic wand to affect the environment. Many different movements, from drinking potions to besting enemies using spells can all be accomplished using Sony’s Move controller, which they stressed is the most accurate controller of its type. And at a $50 starting price, it’s also one of the most cheap. Sony also introduced PSN Plus, a for-charge layer on top of their already free Playstation Network service. Of particular interest to gamers north of the border, Sony will finally make their video content available to PSN users in Canada. 

 Sony also put a big emphasis on 3D gaming. The Playstation 3 is capable of pumping out 3D content with a simple firmware upgrade (and the purchase of a 3D TV), so the company was eager to show off 3D content like Killzone 3, which did have an impressive amount of bullets flying into the audience and guns seemingly being held in your own hands, once you donned the magic glasses. 

 While the new titles were impressive and the 3D content is pretty eye-popping, this was more of a “business as usual” conference for Sony. One hopes they’re saving the real surprises for the Xmas season. 

David Whatley, President of Critical Thought Games, implored indie developers attending his “From Zero to Time Magazine: App Success”  that if they want to make a “big pile of money,” this was the session to listen to. Whatley developed the runaway hit "Geodefense" for the iPhone, and explained to developers at GDC Canada how they could do the same thing. 

The opportunity to make millions, or at least hundreds of thousands of dollars, is definitely there, though many people are making tens of thousands of dollars. Some will make hundreds of bucks, and many will make next to nothing. Whatley said he wants to tip the odds in their favour. 

Basically, it breaks down to cost vs. revenue. Keep costs really low, by constraining your scope, finding game designers who can wear multiple hats, and use existing resources.Whatley followed his own advice by “borrowing” the art style of Geometry Wars, and stuck to what he knew by building a game in the tower defense genre. 

Ads are a waste of time in the iPhone space, Whatley said, but public relations is a good way to get the word out about your game. So Whatley farmed out the PR work to a firm, then concentrated on developing the game. 

Keeping costs low also meant higher margins, and Whatley was able to get his product to market relatively fast, even though it was a “nights and weekends” project.

Another important point is to not just think of the usual game media, but to target places like Inc, Maxim and Time, because more people will pay attention to your product. 

The end result is that since Geodefense made money, Whatley then had leverage to use for his second game, Geodefense Swarm. He decided to reuse 90 percent of his work, such as the art, sound and code. The tradeoff was using the saved time to promote the game. That promotion paid off, since once the PR firm went to work, downloads of the game skyrocketed. Interestingly, downloads of Geodefense also picked up. 

But the key is to have a fun, compelling game. If you have a terrible game with awesome PR you have nothing, and if you have a great game with little PR, you’re in the same boat. YOu have to clearly establish your business goals, by assessing your skills, your resources and critically, your weaknesses. You want to constrain your product goals, focus on your audience, and importantly, use other people’s code. Write less code, and design more. “Reinventing the wheel is for wheel inventors,” he said. 

Finally, any indie developer can make games from anywhere, something that has up to now been impossible. Indie developers can now compete with big companies like EA, with products that are sitting right next to them on the virtual shelf. So do so, Whatley implored. 

Farmville and Mafia Wars have consumed the waking hours of many, many Facebook users, and in the process made Zynga a lot of money with 27 million people playing their games and trading virtual goods for real cash. Bill Mooney of Zynga presented “Building Social Games: Gaming at the Speed of Light” at the Game Developers Conference Canada keynote today. 

Mooney started by pointing out that social gaming has grown 324 per cent in the last year, and not only on Facebook but on other platforms. But what’s interesting, Zynga said, is that a lot of the people playing social games have never played the game before, and are also turning into a form of hardcore gamer. 

This model has been seen before around the world in games such as Maple Story, but now the same phenomenon is repeating itself in North America. 

The value of the game increases as more friends join the game, and interestingly people will also pay for virtual goods, a behaviour that was not expected to occur in North America. 

Social interactions are key to the game. Though people sometimes complain about requests to play games, it is in fact an important part of growing the game. But Mooney said they wanted to find deeper ways for people to connect, such as requests for help. Gifting is another way to bring people into the game, though Mooney stressed there’s more to learn on that front. People will also use interactive components, such as Facebook chat or simply calling up friends to trade in-game items.

“Go Fast” is another key feature of the Zynga approach. New features are rolled out on a weekly basis, and “social gaming lives in dog years”, Mooney said. 

This is still a market where “8 smart guys out of nowhere” can rise to the top, Mooney said. The uptake for Zynga is that they had to get better, faster. He said this event marked the second generation of social games.

Measuring user behaviour is key to success, he said. Finding out how many people like cows vs. how many like sheep may seem trivial, but delving into users preferences and continuous testing means you cna constantly tweak the game without betting on huge risks, as big console games often do. 

Creating “user delight” is very important. Making the users happy is key to continued success, but the audience will tell you what they think, either by you asking or by voting with their feet. People will also pitch ideas, and “a lot of people are smarter than just a couple of people,” Mooney said. 

Social gaming can be broken down into a mantra: play, invest, and express. People have to enjoy the game, but they also have to put in their own sweat equity, in ways such as forming their own "Farmville groups" or extending the game's reach on their own. People also need to express their own creativity within the game through customization.  

The Canadian Videogame Awards kicked off their inaugural ceremony last night in high style with the complete history of pixelated awesomeness encapsulated within ten minutes by Video Games Live, a symphonic rendition of game music from the past three decades.

And the enthusiasm didn't wane as tr awards were handed out to Canada's best and brightest game creators. Produced by Greedy Productions president and Electric Playground host Victor Lucas, who also hosted the event, the CVGAs highlighted the cream of the Canadian game developing crop. Amongst the winners were Ubisoft Montreal, who swept the Best Visual Arts, Best Game Design, Best Technology and Best Console Game of 2009 categories for Assassins Creed II. Edmonton-based Bioware wasn't far behind with awards for Best Writing and Game of the Year for Dragon Age: Origins. Toronto's Cabybara Games saw Critter Crunch win for Best Downloadable Game and also took home an award for their work on MIght and Magic: Clash of Heroes, which won Best Handheld Game. Vancouver-based Relic Entertainment's Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 won for Best Audio, and Vancouver was also represented by Rainmaker, who won for Best In-Game Cinematic Sequence for their work on Ghostbusters: The Video Game. Finally, Yaletown's own United Front Games won Most Promising Game for Modnation Racers.