Game Developer June/July Issue Looks At Quality Of Life, Catan

The June/July 2007 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 shipped to subscribers and is available from the Game Developer Digital service in both subscription and single-issue formats. The cover feature for the June/July issue is 'For Better or Worse: A Quality of Life Update,' taking a look at the effects EA_Spouse's anonymous letter has had on the industry as a whole, and is described as follows: "In 2004, a then-anonymous letter writer, “EA_Spouse,” penned an angry and outraged treatise to the game community chiding Electronic Arts for forcing employees to work egregious amounts of overtime. In the months that followed, development studios, the IGDA, and other outspoken individuals stood up and voiced their opinion of what it means to be in this obsessively dedicated line of work, with most of them calling for industrywide change, too. Nearly three years later, has any of it stuck? Or has the call to action petered out?" The major technical feature for the new issue is 'Inking the Cube: Edge Detection with Direct3D 10', by Intel's Joshua Doss: "Detecting outlines and edges is particularly useful when a video game uses cell-shaded characters. In this technical feature, Intel's Joshua Doss explains how Direct3D 10 allows programmers to shift the whole process over to the GPU." Finally, the June/July issue's postmortem takes an in-depth look at the development of Big Huge Games's Xbox Live Arcade boardgame conversion Catan: "The executive team at Big Huge Games had been dreaming for years of working in the triple-A console game market. Then one day Microsoft came along and offered the group an opportunity to develop an Xbox Live Arcade game, based on the Settlers of Catan license. Though traditionally a real-time strategy game maker, Big Huge jumped at the chance, viewing it as a low-cost way into the console world, where some of the risks could be mitigated. Read on to find out if the company got more than it bargained for!" The issue is rounded out by the customary in-depth news, code, art, audio, and design columns from Game Developer's veteran correspondents, as well as product reviews and editorial columns. Worldwide paper-based subscriptions to Game Developer magazine are currently available at the official magazine website, and the 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 June/July 2007's magazine as a single issue. Newsstand copies of the magazine are now available at North American outlets including Barnes & Noble and other specialty bookstores.