junction-point-studios posts

Forbes's newest look at games takes a gander at the whole "hardcore vs casual" games debate, arguing that while hardcore gamers spend more per person the rise of the casual gamer may become more important to the games industry. The article contains some quotes from legendary game designer Warren Spector who has been working in near secrecy for the past few years at Austin based Junction Point Studios.

The dev studio was bought over a year ago by Disney Interactive and while the Forbes article doesn't reveal details, Spector seems to believe their first game under their new owners could make fans of his previous titles like System Shock, Deus Ex and Thief upset. Spector states, "I'm sure a lot of the hardcore folks are going to be up in arms and I'm really looking forward to getting into that discussion with them. I don't believe I'm compromising on my gameplay ideals at all. [But] any artist who doesn't want his or her work in front of the largest audience possible is nuts."

In the PC game industry there are really only two types of games; those that are announced and those that are being developed currently in secret. These titles are what we are calling "black ops games". These are the titles that we know are in development but at the moment there's very little info on what these titles are even like, much less any word on a release date.

We have seen an example of this type of game earlier this week when it was revealed that Ensemble Studios was working on a planned MMO based on the Halo franchise. That game was canceled before the title was even announced and history is full of similar games that were being worked on but were canceled before they were officially revealed (of course there's also been a ton of games that were fully revealed but then canceled before their planned release...but that's another feature story)

So are there such black ops titles currently being made right now? You betcha. They are being created by the top developers in the business and range from first person shooter titles to RTS games to MMO projects. In this feature article, Big Download will take a look at a number of these games, some of which you may note even be aware of. However this is only the tip of the iceberg as many other PC games that we know nothing about are currently being developed as we speak...unannounced and still in the dark.

It was a huge shock when it was announced at E3 last year that Junction Point Studios, the Austin, Texas based game development studios formed by legendary designer Warren Spector, was purchased by Disney Interactive. Since then there's been little word on what Spector and Junction Point have been working on for Disney but in a new post on his personal blog site Spector reveals a tiny bit more about the project.

According to Spector, "My team and I have been working hard on our own and (get ready for the cool factor to go way up) in collaboration with folks from Disney Feature Animation and Pixar. If I say anymore, I'll get in trouble, so let's just leave it at that." Hmmm . . . that would suggest that Junction Point might be working on an adaptation of an upcoming Pixar film. Or something based on a previous Pixar movie. Or something totally original. Hmmm . . come to thing of it we don't really know much more than we did already. Oh well. Spector also talks about his current Facebook obsession and playing Guitar Hero: On Tour.

[Via Joystiq]