March 4th, 2010 @ Sway Bar, London
UK studios converge to battle over who's the cleverest - have you booked your place yet?
Thursday April 22nd, 2009 @ The Brewery, London
The countdown to the MCV Awards 2010 has begun – with date, venue and categories announced.
July 14th, 2010 @ The Hilton Metropole, Brighton
The Develop Industry Excellence Awards is the only event which rewards the work done by Europe’s leading games development companies.
Microsoft DreamSpark provides Visual Studio and XNA bundle at no charge
Chairman of Microsoft Bill Gates will today unveil a new free software scheme for students that gives them development tools as is designed to 'unlock their creative potential and set them on the path to academic and career success'.
Called Microsoft DreamSpark, the student program makes a range of development and design tools available for free. Microsoft said that software is available to 35 million students studying around the world in 10 countries (Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the US). More territories will be added throughout the year.
Gates will formally unveil the scheme at Standford University later today.
DreamSpark is available to all students whose studies touch on technology, design, math, science and engineering.
Specifically for game development, the developer tools available are Visual Studio 2005 Pro and Visual Studio 2008 Pro, plus XNA Game Studio 2.0. Students also get a free Acadamic membership for the XNA Creators Club. Microsoft said this move meant students would "be able to invent compelling new gaming content and make their dream game a reality by porting their creations to their Xbox 360 console".
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Microsoft's Expression Studio and platform resources SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and Windows Server are also available for download.
"We want to do everything we can to equip a new generation of technology leaders with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software to improve lives, solve problems and catalyze economic growth," Gates said.
"Microsoft DreamSpark provides professional-level tools that we hope will inspire students to explore the power of software and encourage them to forge the next wave of software-driven breakthroughs."
This is really good news for students, the express editions are solid applications and I use them for work.
It really makes me want to be a student again, there seems to be more and more free software for them all the time, I wish I had those kind of advantages when I was studying.
When I was a student we had to make do with Boreland Turbo C++. It was ****py and we had to pay for it.
Today so many students can get a world class IDE & development tools free with Linux. Microsoft must realize that they need to give away their tools for free if their platform is to stay relevant.
When I was a student we had to make do with Boreland Turbo C++. It was ****py and we had to pay for it.
Today so many students can get a world class IDE & development tools free with Linux. Microsoft must realize that they need to give away their tools for free if their platform is to stay relevant.
Actually, I wonder if the free Game Creators Club membership isn't the biggest draw - it is for me. Most students will already be able to get access to the software mentioned (or certainly older versions) via their institution, and MS themselves already have partnerships with affiliated institutions to give full.Pro versions of their software away - the MSDN Alliance for one - so getting the tools out to the "next generation of games developers" (or somesuch title) is largely already done.
I've long thought that the original dream for the Creators Club (cheap PC and 360 crossplatform indie development) died the second professional companies set comparatively huge budgets for commercial 360 Live games. Perhaps this is a way to start enticing amateurs and indie groups to better engage with the platform... I, for one, will now be it checking in much greater detail.
Good to see from MS anyway - free stuff is always nice. And ignore the pro-Linux rant above me because it's irrelevant ;-)
Hmm, when I was a student (admittedly quite a long time ago now), we didn't have time to make games - they must have cut down on coursework :)
I think you'll find that the universities are becoming less stuffy (very slowly, but it's happening) and various courseworks, final year projects and entire modules are based on developing games. It really is an excellent way of getting a number of disciplines to work as a team to produce a product that is relevant to the students, rather than a traffic light or airport simulation!
Express Editions and XNA is already free to everyone. This gives the students access to VS.2008 Pro, which may is a little bonus, but does it really give you much more than the Express Edition? Also, as Daniel already mentioned, many universities already provide access to VS Pro through one scheme or another.
Importantly, is the Creator's Club Academic License. Unless you're really dedicated, why would you pay £50 a year in case you're going to port a game. It should be free during development, and then some charge to publish the game on the "YouTube of Games" that Microsoft so publically announced XNA to be.
But how about XBox Live? Will there be an Academic License for this? And when will people be able to publish them for the game playing public to play and rate them?
Why does this have to happen only months after I stop being a student? :D
But seriously, this is a brilliant move. I only wi**** had been around while I was studying!
Universities aren't making students work less, the coursework they are doing "IS" making games. There is an incredible market for video games, and universities understand that educational training is necessary in order to attract those students and keep up with the market demand.
And to all of you wishing to be a student again, what is stopping you? It is never too late, or early for that matter, to improve your education.
Solid move by Mr. Gates, whatever his intentions may be.
It seems Sony is releasing soon a complete SDK solution (full docs and even lots of sample assets) for the PS3... for free! I still like their approach a lot more than Microsoft's.
