Cross-posted fromhttp://delsyn.wordpress.com/The Angry Bear

My first piece for Gamasutra, "Dungeons and Dragons Online: Switching Gears",just went up. As tough as it was to write, there's nothing i like better than delving into the guts of the game industry and figuring out what makes this stuff tick. DDO is a ****c example of a game hurt not so much by what was on the screen (I reviewed it over at GameSpy and while it was good then, it's gotten much better) but by the decision about what business model to put on it. It's amazing how sometimes the littlest thing can help or hurt a game — being in the right place at the right time, having a celebrity admit that they're a fan, putting the wrong artwork on the box… The bottom line, as with the movies, is that nobody really knows anything before a title launches. It's a lot of educated guesses and soothsaying. You can be smart and reduce the risk, but ultimately it's still a roll of the dice. Are you listening, Mr. Kotick?

In the mean time, I was once again impressed at the passion that goes into the people who work in the gaming industry. I'm not just talking about designers or producers like Fernando Paiz but also PR people like Adam Mersky and Atlus Online's Jaime Ortiz (who a business operations guy) struck me while talking to them as people who love what they do. It may be because this is still a relatively young and small industry where the first generation of pioneers is still around even as the third generation of money-men and MBA try to corporatize it, so enjoy it while it lasts. It's not often you get to be present at the settling of a new frontier and this is a time in gaming that will never come again.

Hey! I just got an idea for this week's Angry Bear column!

Read the story here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4136/dungeons__dragons_online_.phpat Gamasutra.