I should have been a pair of ragged claws

After wrapping up core development a few months ago, Civilization Revolution (CivRev) is finally being released in the US this week on the Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo DS. I have been thrilled by the response to the demo on various message boards; CivRev is quite a different game than most console experiences and it was never completely clear to us how the public would respond. Thankfully, most have understood what we've tried to with the series and embrace it as its own thing rather than Civilization 5. I've been particularly proud of the responses of players who have never played a strategy game like this before. The sort of wide-eyed "there can be games like this?!" response makes me feel like we helped expand what people think of games by a little bit. Developing CivRev was quite a challenge for me because it was the first time that I was a lead in charge of other developers, the first time I developed a console title, and the first time we used Scaleform's GFX...

Sony's Game Developers Conference keynote had two memorable components: the introduction of Home , their Second Life-styled real world, and Little Big Planet , a game about users creating their own game levels and sharing it with others. The contrast between the two could not be greater. Home appears as a 21st century Microsoft Bob-style metaphor of all the functionality of the Playstation 3. Users can design and layout their realistic environment, and, as repeated multiple times during the presentation, players can purchase merchandise from the Sony store online to show to their friends. The question that comes to my mind when thinking about Sony's Home is "what's the point?" Second Life conjures up a similar question, but the level of flexibility and sharing is miles beyond anything Home offers. Little Big Planet approaches the "problem" of what to do with an internet connected console with an entirely different, more interesting and plausible approach...