Gamasutra Expert Blogs: From Farmville To Voice Acting Disputes

Author: by Staff

In our weekly Best of Expert Blogs column, we showcase notable pieces of writing from members of the game development community who maintain Expert Blogs on Gamasutra. Member Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while the invitation-only Expert Blogs are written by development professionals with a wealth of experience to share. We hope that both sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information about the blogs, check out the official posting guidelines. Here are the top blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Expert Blogs Creating A Website For A Game Development Studio Radek Koncewicz Incubator Games creative lead Radek Koncewicz gives a behind the scenes look at the relaunch of his studio's website, offering a nice guide for small game developers who want to get the most out their web presence. Voice Acting and Game Development Jeff Spock Professional writer Jeff Spock picks apart what he calls credibility issues with a recent L.A. Times article about the ongoing tension between video game companies and the Screen Actors Guild. "Games are software development projects, and the SAG seems to be pathologically incapable of understanding this," Spock says. Deadlight - Unsigned and Unseen Jonathan Biddle Jonathan Biddle, design director at UK-based Curve Studios, recounts some hard work that's "forever lost" -- a game called Deadlight that never saw the light of day. Here, Biddle explains what happened to the first-person shooter, which was set on an eerie cruise liner. MIGS: Day 1, 1:30pm: Grindhouse Presents: Landry's Eyes and Rocca's Legs Jim McGinley Canadian indie Jim McGinley with Big Pants Games was at the recent Montreal International Games Summit. This is his typically fast, loose, and ultimately entertaining event reportage. Farmville, Social Gaming, and Addiction Mark Newheiser IT pro and freelance writer Mark Newheiser thinks Zynga's popular social network game Farmville is "more addictive than it is fun." For whatever reason, people are still playing it, and come back over and over again to be virtual farmhands. Newheiser examines why…