Game Developer December Issue Carves Up Pac-Man

The latest issue of Game Developer magazine, the sister print publication to Gamasutra.com, and the leading U.S. trade publication for the video game industry, has now shipped to subscribers and is available from the Game Developer Digital service in both subscription and a new single-issue formats. The cover feature for the December 2005 issue is a postmortem of Namco's seminal arcade game Pac-Man. Twenty-five years have passed since the series' genesis, and it seemed an appropriate time to catch up with Toru Iwatani, Pac-Man's father, to get a long-overdue postmortem of the original game written by its creator. As a bonus, Game Developer's editors have written a third-party postmortem of the entire franchise, trying to pin down Pac-Man's continuing struggles and appeal in the myriad of games developed since then. Another major feature for the issue is "Rated And Willing" by Paul Hyman, which deals with video game rating boards. As video game violence turns more and more heads as a hot-button issue, it has become clear that the majority of the anti-video game lobby, and indeed a portion of the development community, is under-informed about just how the ratings systems work for games. In this feature, we dissect the ratings systems across four major territories—the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and Australia —to give a better impression of how the ratings board work to keep games in the right hands. Alongside this, ex-BioWare and Atari artist Rod Green presents "Art Pipeline Philosophies For The Next Generation: A Technical Art Director's Perspective", outlineing some techniques for next generation art pipelines that could save time and money as your team takes that big step into the next generation, and a business column by Mastiff's Bill Swartz discusses some of the misconceptions over doing business with Japanese game developers and publishers. In addition, Mick West takes on 'Practical Hash IDs', Steve Theodore looks at 'Anatomy for Animators Part II', Alexander Brandon critiques the audio for Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, and Noah Falstein runs down "Rules of Interest" in his regular design column. Worldwide paper-based subscriptions to Game Developer magazine are currently available at the official magazine website, and the new Game Developer Digital version of the issue is also now available, with the site offering six months and a year's subscriptions, alongside access to back issues, all for a reduced price. There is now also an opportunity to buy the digital version of December 2005's magazine as a single issue. Newsstand copies of the magazine will also shortly be available at North American outlets including Fry's Electronics and Barnes & Noble.