“As online games increase in size, fraud through credit card chargebacks can cost MMO firms millions every month. Gamasutra talks to Gene Hoffman, CEO of billing and fraud management company Vindicia, about the issues MMO publishers such as Blizzard face, and what they can do to avoid fraud.”

A great interview (in my humble opinion, of course) on a generally unexplored factor of MMO games – fraud. Gene Hoffman’s insights are invaluable.

“If you didn’t know there’s a Portuguese games industry, you’d better learn, says Paulo Gomes, founder and CEO of upstart Portuguese publisher GameInvest. Now that the company’s just debuted its first U.S. title, Toy Shop, Gomes discusses GameInvest’s unique “clustering” approach to publisher-developer relations.”

This isn’t the kind of article that people would usually get excited about, really, but I think it’s really useful to read about the development communities in countries that you wouldn’t think of otherwise. The global view is important!

“Gamasutra attended a recent lecture that saw Bungie’s Damian Isla detail the ’30 seconds of fun’ approach to game AI in the Halo franchise – discussing the advantage to “territorial” enemies that make ‘smart mistakes’, giving the player opportunities to feel smart – many details within.”

By sheer happenstance, I went to Develop! Well – the last day of it, because I was visiting London, and thought a trip down to Brighton might be a pleasant way to spend a day. And it was!

While I was there I covered this session, because I thought I might as well give myself a reason to be there (other than “networking”) and I think I picked well, because there were a lot of good insights in this talk, I think.

“Indie developer NinjaBee has built up a major catalog of XBLA titles – from Cloning Clyde and Band of Bugs through the upcoming A Kingdom Of Keflings, and president Steve Taylor takes Gamasutra through the XBLA development process – from certification to user-generated content restraints – in this in-depth interview.”

Forgot to link this because it happened smack-bang in the middle of my time in LA covering E3. It’s a good interview, though.

“Los Angeles-based online game developer Riot Games has just announced a $7 million investment round – Gamasutra talks to president Marc Merrill about his admiration for Counter-Strike and the company’s plans to reach the “midcore” audience.”

I mentioned before my addiction to Team Fortress 2, and it’s gotten so bad that I’m randomly mentioning it in interviews, like this one.

“Indie developer Twisted Pixel has just announced action-adventure The Maw for Xbox Live Arcade, but also juggles contributions to larger console titles (NBA Ballers: Chosen One) with its original IP – Gamasutra talks to CEO Michael Wilford about the trials and tribulations of being an indie.”

Yep, I’ve been doing a lot of Q&As again!

“Game localization and QA firm Babel Media has been acquired by outsourcing company Quatrro, with former Electronic Arts VP Richard Leinfellner taking over as Babel CEO – Gamasutra talked to Leinfellner and Babel’s Algy Williams about their plans to expand into full outsourcing, and their beliefs on how the game-making model will change.”

Fun fact: I used to work for Babel’s direct competitor in the UK, Absolute Quality. I didn’t mention this during the interview.

“French development studio Cyanide have a surprisingly diverse product strategy, including cross-platform Games Workshop license Blood Bowl and free-to-play PC MMO Dungeon Party – CEO Patrick Pligersdorffer talks with Gamasutra about why Cyanide are proud to be seen as a PC developer, talks piracy and discusses the French development community.”

I was thrilled to do this interview, because I’ve been eagerly awaiting the video game version of Blood Bowl. I never actually tried Chaos League (though I can’t really remember why now) even though Blood Bowl is easily my favourite of Games Workshop’s oeuvre (well, of the stuff I’ve played, anyway.)

I actually have a painted Orc and Human team sitting at home in a box somewhere. It’s great, and on the basis of this interview I do think the video game is at least going to be authentic enough to please me, though whether that will translate to sales I don’t know.

“Developer Tilted Mill (SimCities Societies) has regained the rights to its 2004 PC strategy game Children of the Nile, and is preparing to self-publish an enhanced version – founder Chris Beatrice tells Gamasutra how he hopes indie distribution will work for them.”

Now available on Steam!

“Startup firm Aristen has revealed FxStudio Creativity Suite, a cross-platform special effects sequencing solution for games – Gamasutra talks to founder and ex-Monolith staffer Toby Gladwell about the tool’s mission and its first deal, an integration with the Gamebryo platform.”

I haven’t been updating this site properly because I accidentally installed Team Fortress 2 on my PC. Which is a bit like accidentally installing crack into a pipe, and then smoking it.