Joystick Junkies interview Chris Birch

For the people following us here longer than 5 years you might remember that nisute and joystick junkies have gone a long way. And since we’re into gaming lifestyle, we figured it would be nice to pay our friends at Joystick Junkies, one of the ground-breaking game T-shirt designers of europe, a second visit. Chris Birch owner and Founder of JJ will be answering our burning questions today. Have fun reading!

NiSuTe: Hey Chris.
Chris Birch: Hi mate.

NiSuTe: Can you tell us something about the company and the start of it all?
Chris Birch: Back in 1999 I was wondering why no one was selling cool tees based on video games. It was strange that with such cool graphics no one had taken advantage of the imagery to design tees. Finally after talking about it for maybe a year, people got fed up of me dreaming and I decided to just do it. I drew the logo in a bar on a napkin one night, walked in to the office the next day and said: “Hey we’re starting Joystick Junkies”.

NiSuTe: Did you start on your own, or did you have a partner?
Chris Birch: Back then I had a public relations company working with a lot of games companies. So I got some friends at the trade paper CTW to sponsor us with some advertising. We invited everyone in the industry to a launch party including people from TV, film, model agencies, advertising and other PR companies. Then we designed some cool clubbing style t-shirts based on some classic gaming graphics. And our first party was a roadblock. 30 arcade machines on free play, marshall jefferson the godfather of house music DJ-ing and a self confessed gaming addict. I dreampt up the idea and started it with a couple of other guys – one who did the t-shirt production for us- another who owned the arcade machines we used for the parties. But we re-launched the company with new partners a few years later.

NiSuTe: Wow that is really cool. So JJ is more like a hybrid between the gaming industry and the fasion industry?
Chris Birch: My challenge to myself was to make gaming so cool that non-gamers would want to wear the designs. I loved the idea that I could bring together to different industries that at the time were so far apart. While gaming parties were traditionally full of guys, we threw the hottest parties in london with a nice mix of girls and guys, great music, arcade games, 80′s vibe. Read more

IGAD Breda Is A Game Design School Like No Other

Today Kevin and I (Maikel) traveled to Breda, an old town in the Netherlands; we had been invited by a teacher from a school there to have a look around. After battling a windy and rainy day on my motorbike with Kevin holding on for dear life, we arrived at the NHTV International University of Applied Sciences. A branch of this University is called IGAD, which stands for International Game Architecture and Design, and it is at this department of the NHTV that the teacher Stefano Gualeni lectures. When we arrived,  Stefano was eagerly waiting to give us our tour of the faculty.

Read more

NiSuTe special: Kalydo

At the Gamescom a few months ago, Kenneth and I walked humbly over the “Holland Pavillion” at the business area where all dutch gamedevelopers could have a word with each other, and have their business appointments. Chris van der Linden, Creative Director at Kalydo, approached us, and we had a great conversation. If all this went past you, click here for a refresh!  The conversation wasn’t that long, so we decided to pay them a visit. After all, Eindhoven is very close to NiSuTe’s office!

Kalydo is a young development company settled in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Starting out with a small group of friends, the company has been growing ever since. Chris is one of those founders: “We started with 4 people to develop in 2005. In the beginning we were all volunteers, we had a lot of part-timers and interns so we have seen a lot of people come and go. At this point we have 20 people working here.” Read more

Gamasutra Interview: Ankama Talks Dofus, Animation, Subscribers

by Brandon Sheffield

French indie MMO Dofus began when some web developers got together to make a game. With its charming graphical style and free to play area (a small percentage of the full game), Dofus has gained favor with players and critics, propelling the company from a small indie to a larger player.

Ankama was formed in 2001 by Camille Chafer, Emmanuel Darras, and Anthony Roux, and has since grown stealthily to 400 employees, including a new studio in Japan, focusing on animation and manga extensions of the company’s properties. The original game was done entirely in Flash, well before it became a popular platform for games.

As the company rolls out Dofus 2.0 and a new game called Wakfu, we spoke with CTO Camille Chafer and international marketing manager Cedric Gerard about Ankama’s past and future, including the new animation studio, the ups and downs of working in Flash, and player/subscriber numbers.

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SPECIAL: An Interview with Ryota Niitsuma

So back at Gamescom Maikel and I got the exclusive opportunity to have an interview with the producer of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Ryota Niitsuma, as well as Mao Sugiyama who translated for us and provided us with information regarding the game. We just have to say right now, this interview was awesome. Great experience unlike any we’ve had before, and was a lot of fun.

Read all about it -> here <-

An Interview with Ryota Niitsuma: Producer of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom

So back at Gamescom Maikel and I got the exclusive opportunity to have an interview with the producer of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Ryota Niitsuma, as well as Mao Sugiyama who translated for us and provided us with information regarding the game. We just have to say right now, this interview was awesome. Great experience unlike any we’ve had before, and was a lot of fun. Read more

Gamescom: Ankama part 2

Well, Ankama gave us the oppurtunity to answer some of the dofus-community questions. Have fun reading!!!

1) Ankama is now putting a lot of effort into “class balancing”, which raises a lot of concern from players whose builds get heavily modified. Why is 1vs1 PvP the main source for the balancing? Ankama has long emphesized team play (dungeons, prospecting locks, etc), so shouldn’t the usefullness of classes in all sorts of fights, such as group PvM and team PvP, be considered? Read more

ForeGames opening in Breda

Saterday at 10 in the morning. Dragan, Daniel and Patt are putting the final touches to the new shop in Breda the Netherlands. A swift look around the shop and Dragan makes the call. It’s time to open up! Patt rounds up the kids and hands out the succors here they go. In front of the shop a pretty orange ribbon hangs from one to the other end of the shop’s doorway. Several cameras (including that of NiSuTe Europe) film and photograph the event of cutting the ribbon!

Although the weather is acting up on it all there are still several customers that found their way in to the shop (and after a bit of a slow start and when the sun started to shine it filled up rather fast. Daniel who gave me a tour true the huge gameshop told me they were extremely proud on their retro corner where a huge DK wall painting could be seen. The shop isn’t fully filled yet he told me and there will be much more coming soon.

As the time past by and I was finished with drooling all over the incredible looking new floor it was time for me to say bye and good luck. As I did I saw everyone were hard at work to keep up with the demand. And to me that looks like this shop will be a huge success like the one they have in Tilburg!

Once again NiSuTe Europe wishes ForeGames (our local provider for all our games, hardware and other software) all the best and good luck with the great new shop!!