High Moon Gets IT Innovation Award For Agile Use

High Moon Studios, developers of Old West vampire FPS game Darkwatch for Capcom, has been named one of IT Week Magazine's Top 50 Technology Innovators of 2005. The studio won the award, given to companies that make contributions to technological innovation, due to its adoption of the "Scrum method" for producing video games using agile development. The "Scrum method" is named for a rugby formation where players close in tightly to form a pack that moves the ball up the field. The analogy is carried through in video game development with small interdisciplinary teams who tackle discrete tasks in project development, producing concrete results that can be evaluated in 30-day cycles. "Scrum, one of the major agile management tools, promotes daily communication, team ownership and product value," said High Moon chief technical officer Clinton Keith. "The benefits to product quality and team productivity can be enormous. In this era of skyrocketing development costs across the industry, Agile Methodology is something we evangelize for the sake of the game development community.”