Best Of Member Blogs: From Newbie Budgeting To Outgrowing Nintendo

In our weekly Best of Member Blogs column, we showcase notable pieces of writing from members of the game community who maintain Member Blogs on Gamasutra. Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. Our favorite blog post of the week will earn its author a lifetime subscription to Gamasutra's sister publication, Game Developer magazine. (All magazine recipients outside of the United States or Canada will receive lifetime electronic subscriptions.) We hope that our blog sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information, check out the official posting guidelines. This Week's Standout Member Blogs - Et Tu Nintendo? (Benjamin Quintero) Hardcore gamers give Nintendo a hard time for "abandoning" them, but Benjamin Quintero says that he came to the realization that "Nintendo hadn't abandoned its roots, I simply outgrew them." The NES and SNES generation continues to lament how their favorite game maker has left them by the wayside to attract a broader demographic -- but perhaps with the Wii, Nintendo has been truer to its fun-for-everyone roots more so than it has for the previous two hardware generations... For his effort, Benjamin will receive a lifetime subscription to Gamasutra sister publication Game Developer magazine. - Back To The Old School? (Ayushman Datta Gupta) A lot of time and money is spent on making games hyper realistic, or at least highly believable. Ayushman Datta Gupta revisits the idea that game creators are spending too much effort on chasing realism and believability. Using elaborate back-stories and hyper-realistic graphics and physics as examples, Gupta asks, “How fun is reality?” - Basic Game Budgeting For Newbs: Part One (Kimberly Unger) Kimberly Unger has posted some helpful tips for "newbs" who may have to present a budget as part of a pitch. "You know how to budget, you do it for school, you do it for your household finances," she says. Using that basic skillset as a starting point, she offers suggestions when designing a budget for a game. This is just part one... - Interviewing In A Skilled Labor Force Industry (Travis Johnston) Keeping your interviewing skills sharp is important, whether or not you're actually looking for a new job, says Travis Johnston. He suggests the controversial practice of attending job interviews even if you have no intention of taking the job, all for the sake of keeping interview skills in check. Regardless of whether or not you agree with that practice, he gives solid suggestions for interviews. For example: the more places you interview with doesn't necessarily increase your chances of landing an interview, so don't waste your time, he suggests. - Things Games "Must" Be (Adam Bishop) Adam Bishop feels that over-arching rules that some people try to apply to video games hinders creativity. In particular, Bishop takes issue with the ideas that games must be "fun", that games shouldn't talk about politics, and finally, that games must be completely and utterly interactive. What are some other self-imposed "rules" that game designers should consider throwing out?