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In highlights from Gamasutra's <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/expert/">Expert Blogs</a>, industry notables write about the tumultuous relationship between story design and gameplay design, replayability, and how game companies encourage piracy.

February 11, 2010

2 Min Read

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. In this latest round-up, industry notables write about the tumultuous relationship between story design and gameplay design, replayability, and how game companies encourage piracy. Here are the top blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Expert Blogs - Swashbuckling for Landlubbers: Why you may already be encouraging piracy! (Alan Youngblood) DRM, "stupid marketing moves," and high prices: are game makers "encouraging" piracy with these tactics? Indie game developer Alan Youngblood believes they are. "Piracy is impossible to stop altogether, but please don't encourage it!" he says. - Gamma IV Sets Up Kickstarter Appeal To Finish Funding GDC Event (Simon Carless) Think Services' own Simon Carless brings attention to Gamma IV's one button games event next month. While some indies have helped sponsor the event, they need a bit more help with funding. Find out how you can help. - The Economic Challenges (and opportunities) of Developing Games for the iPhone and iPad (David Wesley) The iPhone has a massive install base, a growing market, accessible development tools, and inexpensive distribution -- all things that make it an ideal target platform for games. But significant challenges come with iPhone development, and they could manifest in the iPad as well. - Story Telling vs Game Playing (Eduardo Hulshof) For Lionhead Studios' Eduardo Hulshof, "story design and gameplay design are two processes that are incredibly disconnected, yet intrinsically interdependent." Here he explores the oft-discussed relationship between two key elements of modern day interactive entertainment. - Narrative Replayability (Taekwan Kim) Taekwan Kim also takes a close look at the relationship between narrative and gameplay. He determines that while a gamer can often find ludic replayability "extensive," narrative replayability is typically inherently limited.

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