Gamasutra Member Blogs: From Brisbane's Collapse To Surprising Gameplay

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Member Blogs, our bloggers write about diverse topics, such as the slow downfall of Brisbane's games industry, an interview with Bethesda producer Jason Bergman, defending surprising gameplay, and more.] Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. We hope that our blog sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information, check out the official posting guidelines. This Week's Standout Member Blogs A Failure, Of Sorts (Personal Commentary On The Brisbane Collapse) (Leanne Taylor) Leanne Taylor looks at the closures Krome, Pandemic, and most recently THQ Australia, and offers her take on the slow downfall of Brisbane's games industry, from the point of view of a freelance games writer. In Defense Of Surprising Gameplay (Bart Stewart) Game developers often try to find and remove all unexpected interactions in the belief that anything not intended is likely to be a bug. But Bart Stewart says this may be unnecessarily preventing the development of games in which surprise is a necessary feature. Unmasking The Gamers: Jason Bergman – Bethesda Game Producer, Father, And Superman Fan (Will Ooi) In the latest interview from his Unmasking the Gamers series, Will Ooi talks with Bethesda producer Jason Bergman about his role in liaising with Obsidian for Fallout: New Vegas, promoting the title and its DLCs, along with his thoughts on family and Superman. Post-Mortem: Lair of the Evildoer (Ben Kane) Another Xbox Live Indie Games release, another flop. Going Loud Studios' Ben Kane looks at what went right and wrong with Lair of the Evildoer, which he's now polishing up for a PC release. Copying Mechanics is Not Theft, Nor is it Infringement (Ephriam Knight) Ephraim Knight looks at Gamenauts' recent cloning of Vlambeer's Ridiculous/Radical Fishing with its own Ninja Fishing iOS release, and argues that what Gamenauts did to Vlambeer is not only ethical, but expected in game design.