Game Developer April Issue Reveals Burger King Games, Salary Survey

Author: by Staff

The April 2007 issue of Game Developer magazine, the sister print publication to Gamasutra.com, and the leading U.S. trade publication for the video game industry, has shipped to subscribers and is available from the Game Developer Digital service in both subscription and single-issue formats. The cover feature for the April issue is Game Developer’s 6th Annual Salary Survey, the only in-depth public survey of game salary specifics for the North American market, and is described as follows: "Two mid-level game developers walk into a bar. One makes about $62,000 per year and the other cashes in only $53,000. Which one is the designer and which is the artist? If you’ve ever wanted to sneak a peek at your colleagues’ paychecks, now is your chance. In this sixth annual Salary Survey, Game Developer has collected and crunched the figures for you, comparing job titles, years of experience, education, location, bonuses, and other factors that affect a developer’s pay." The April issue also features a postmortem, 'Advent of Advergaming: Blitz Games’ Burger King Games', sketched out as follows: "In a mere seven months, Blitz Games produced three small titles across two platforms (Xbox and Xbox 360) for restaurant giant Burger King. Burger King had very specific ideas in mind for Big Bumpin’, Pocketbike Racer, and Sneak King, ideas that Blitz didn’t always agree would make for great gameplay. Senior designer Edward Linely shares how Blitz learned to work within some of these restrictions, while also learning a thing or two from the creative minds at Burger King." Another major feature is 'Optimizing Cell Code', which consists of the following: "The Xbox 360 has six hardware execution threads running on PPU architecture. On the PlayStation 3, the Cell processor has two PPU execution threads and eight symmetric processing elements. With advancements in hardware this dramatic, clearly game developers need to rethink how they optimize code. In this case study, Martin Linklater of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Liverpool gets close to the metal with the PlayStation 3 Cell processor, examining how to best exploit the power of this parallel hardware." The issue is rounded out by the customary in-depth news, code, art, audio, and design columns from Game Developer's veteran correspondents, as well as product reviews and game art features. Worldwide paper-based subscriptions to Game Developer magazine are currently available at the official magazine website, and the Game Developer Digital version of the issue is also now available, with the site offering six months and a year's subscriptions, alongside access to back issues, all for a reduced price. There is now also an opportunity to buy the digital version of April 2007's magazine as a single issue. Newsstand copies of the magazine are now available at North American outlets including Barnes & Noble and other specialty bookstores.