Wayne makes the leap to Pixelmatic after having spent nearly 12 years as a Technical Artist and Technical Art Director at Relic Entertainment. He worked as a Principal Technical Artist on both the Company of Heroes and Dawn of War franchises, before leading technical art direction on the highly anticipated upcoming blockbuster, Age of Empires IV.
Wayne’s journey into game art actually started in the AutoCAD labs of the Vancouver Lower Mainland, where he studied CAD architecture. Following his passion for gaming and feature films, he soon decided to switch from architecture to 3D animation, graduating from the famed Vancouver Film School. After cutting his teeth working on numerous 3D animated TV series, Wayne took on more art supervision roles in TV and film, before finally entering the game industry in 2005 as a Technical Artist on FIFA at EA Sports. Enticed by his love for Homeworld, Wayne took the opportunity to join Relic when it came along, and went on to spend a very productive decade there.
Having had shipped multiple AAA titles at Relic, why was Wayne attracted to an up-and-coming studio such as Pixelmatic? In his own words, Wayne claims that, “games are evolving and need to evolve to effectively compete for players’ precious spare time. Longevity and success of large games need the support of tech carefully planned into the game design. The core creative team on Infinite Fleet, led by Jason Lee and Damon Gauthier, understand this and it's our number one focus to create a game where the marriage between game design and tech is meaningful, not to mention achievable.”
Pixelmatic, being the nimble and innovative studio that it is, is well positioned to be adaptive and address the changing landscape of games. It is exactly this willingness to be flexible and embrace innovation that has attracted a talent like Wayne who brings with him his unique art vision as well as his immense pedigree.
On his vision for Infinite Fleet, Wayne said, “Pixelmatic and myself, we love both fictional and non-fictional science. We also love anime. My vision for Infinite Fleet is to create a colorful nostalgic universe where players can engage in over the top anime-esk battles, or friends can simply explore beautiful vistas together while they forge their fleets. Infinite Fleet will have a deep lore rooted in the goals and challenges that the human race are faced with today. We want the world we are creating to spark conversation about technology and what the future holds for us as a species. I’ll be referencing and imbuing the franchise with shapes, colors, and motion familiar to anime fans, and I’m excited to share this vision in the coming months with Infinite Fleet’s growing community.”
Besides the new ideas Wayne is bringing to Infinite Fleet, he is also excited about existing innovations that the Pixelmatic team is already implementing. “The cryptographic game money of Infinite Fleet, INF, is cutting edge and is designed to power player agency both in and out of session by being portable and easily fungible with other cryptocurrencies. We are also exploring machine learning, leveraging HDRP in Unity, and experimenting with Houdini FX. The art team is taking full advantage of all the latest techniques in Substance Painter/Designer, harnessing the power of Blender 2.8, and much more. It's an exciting time at Pixelmatic.”
The entire Pixelmatic team is excited to officially have Wayne Wong-Chong onboard, and we look forward to accomplishing great things with Infinite Fleet.
ANNOUNCING KEY NEW HIRES TO SPEARHEAD INFINITE FLEET DEVELOPMENT:
JUNE 20, 2019
https://www.pixelmatic.com/news/jason-damon-hired
2019 is going to be a big year, and Pixelmatic is excited to announce the expansion of its team with two major hires to spearhead the development of Infinite Fleet.
The company’s new Chief Creative Officer, Jason Lee, joins as an acclaimed game systems designer from Relic Entertainment. Having spent 13 productive years at Relic, Jason most recently led game design on the Age of Empires 4 project -- a major upcoming title in the monumental Age of Empires series published by Microsoft. Previously, he had worked on the highly acclaimed strategy game Company of Heroes 2, as well as having been part of the game balance team of the original Company of Heroes game.
Looking back on what he learned through his time at Relic, Jason mentions the importance of synergizing good gameplay mechanics with a rich game story/lore. “Building gameplay that helps tell the narrative,” Jason said, “this is probably the greatest lesson I take from Relic and bring to Infinite Fleet -- to have gameplay and story support each other to lead the player through a truly immersive, epic sci-fi adventure.”
Another specialty that Jason brings is his expertise on the art of gameplay balance -- a tricky yet crucial component of any multiplayer game. For any game to be successful, it is absolutely vital that a fine balance is achieved in terms of game dynamics and win rates between different characters and factions.
Pixelmatic also brought in veteran game designer Damon Gauthier, who joins from famed Canadian games studio BioWare, the company behind the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series. Previously, Damon was a member of the original Homeworld team at Relic -- Homeworld being one of the most innovative and highly acclaimed titles of all time in the real-time strategy (RTS) game genre. In his career, Damon has worked on over 10 shipped titles, with most of them being huge successes.
Damon brings with him a wealth of experience in multiplayer gameplay and 3D RTS combat game design. He takes particular pride in his work on Homeworld 2, where he was able to work with lead designer Josh Mosqueira on the complex multiplayer 3D space battles associated with a game like Homeworld.
On how he plans to translate his experience from Homeworld to Infinite Fleet, Damon said, “from a players perspective managing a fleet in 3D space, sending out scouts, planning where to attack and micromanaging your units in full 3D isn’t simple. The experience of working on Homeworld 2 has made me look carefully at the barrier to entry on a full 3D RTS. I have a lot of ideas on how to tackle these problems and I will be using that knowledge here on Infinite Fleet.”
Jason, Damon, and Pixelmatic CEO Samson Mow were all previously colleagues at Relic. This close relationship and chemistry of having worked together bodes well for the development of Infinite Fleet, as the three friends seek to create a masterpiece out of their dream project.
Let's give a shout out for all the other casters who pitched in their efforts with all the games going on!
Yall have our thanks for providing us with great content.
Also the players for death matching each other
+1
I love the passion the casters/streamers have put into this franchise. It's one of CoH's core strength.
As for AE's mixed popularity, the core community is still divided between the "Old Guard/CoH1" and "New Guard/CoH2". I'm not blaming AE/Stormless for this schism, but Relic needs to take this into account.
CoH3 likely will be Relic's last chance reaching out to CoH1 fans.
The Starcraft community had similar problems as when SC2 launched South Korea was still predominant "Old Guard//StarCraft: Brood War" etc..
As a result of StarCraft’s unparalleled popularity in the country, South Korean pros dominated the scene throughout Brood War’s entire lifespan. Few non-Korean players could even come close to keeping up with the best that South Korea had to offer. This did not discourage many from trying, and StarCraft remained popular as a spectator esport in the West.
By the time that StarCraft II came out in 2010, Brood War was an institution. Diehards were reluctant to move on to the new game, especially many of the established Korean professionals who continued to play Brood War, and thus a schism formed in the scene. This was further exacerbated in 2010 when a match-fixing scandal involving 11 players (Including Ma ‘Savior’ Jae Yoon, one of the most famous names in Brood War’s history) rocked the integrity of the professional scene. This incident, along with other external factors and the pre-existing schism, are widely credited for the decline of Brood War.
For CoH3 I hope the community can put aside their differences and focus on building one RTS community that all fans can be proud of.
Say hello to the Goldman Sachs of the game industry, EA and Activision execs.
How Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Made MILLIONS By Lying To Investors:
Lying and manipulating players is something that we’re all used to from the big gaming publishers. But reportedly, Bobby Kotick didn’t stop there. According to the Washington Post, he's reached a whole new level of greed and manipulation, this time at the expense of investors.
"Generally speaking, the longer a genre exists, the games that are responsible for taking it forward tend to make it more complicated. With Age of Empires 4, it was important for us to be like, 'okay, how do we back away from that?'. We do not want to take on all of the complexity that we see in RTS games today," Isgreen explains. "This is a fresh start for us. We want to modernise the series and that means we are going to do things differently."
*SNIP*
What is Relic's role in development? They doing gameplay design or just art assets?
Confirmed | 3 game studios to be involved with AoE4 development.
I think it's easier to tell what the other two studios do and Relic do the rest.
1) World's Edge studio
New studio is being built by Microsoft. So far the primary focus seems to be marketing, community management (with help from https://modsquad.com/) and final word in game design (Adam Isgreen) + Narrative design (Noble Smith internal promotion to Franchise Narrative Director).
2) Sperasoft (AoE4 art service)
Relic & Sperasoft Partnership Announcement
Working in cooperation for over a year, Sperasoft provides art services for Relic and is regarded as a trustworthy and flexible partner.
Confirmed - another game studio to be involved with AoE4 development.
Connecting dots and reported on this intel 1 year ago.
Reddit/CoH2.org exclusive news story related to AoE4 art (Sperasoft) and future Relic games. Sperasoft and d3t are owned by Keywords international.
New modding tools from Relic/Keywords international not announced yet but likely teased in the last CoH2 roadmap (2015/2016).
https://community.companyofheroes.com/discussion/243407/coh2-the-road-ahead
New Content (UGC)
Although we plan to continue releasing new in-game content in future updates, we will now be leveraging UGC such as vehicle skins and maps to help offer new gameplay experiences to the community. We hope that advances to COH2’s modding tools will also take place in the coming months, allowing additional forms of content to be created by the community as well - however this is still to be confirmed.
Relic Entertainment is a Canadian video game developer based in Vancouver. For over 20 years they have specialized in award-winning real-time strategy games, and are known around the world for franchises such as Company of Heroes, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, and the upcoming Age of Empires IV. When working on these games, Relic uses its proprietary Essence Engine, developed in-house. The Essence Engine utilizes the Havok middleware physics engine and enables many next-generation features to help push their titles forward. Relic’s desire to innovate in the real-time strategy genre has led to numerous awards and accolades, and they’re bringing that same innovation to their next title, Age of Empires IV.
Being part of SEGA, Relic Entertainment strives to create rich, thoughtful strategy games that people love to play. Working in cooperation for over a year, Sperasoft provides art services for Relic and is regarded as a trustworthy and flexible partner.
Sperasoft is an old hand at game development, showing the studio’s true colors in its work with partners and clients, providing all the necessary resources and completing tasks of any complexity on time. Such a foundation allows us to build long-term relationships with our co-development partners.
“Sperasoft is a big fan of Relic Entertainments games and the RTS genre as a whole” – comments Denis Larkin, Chief Commercial Officer at Sperasoft – “it has allowed us to quickly find a rapport and hopefully, successfully gratify RTS fans everywhere”.
“Relic is excited to work with a trusted partner who shares our values of meaningful collaboration, transparency, creative problem solving, and learning from the experts around us.” – Heidi Eaves, Chief Operating Officer at Relic
About Sperasoft
Sperasoft is a leading game development company headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley with development centers in the USA, Poland and Russia. We offer full development capabilities with comprehensive professional teams that are built upon the best producers, engineers, game designers and artists in the industry. During 15 years of existence, Sperasoft studio has not only grown to 500 people and has opened 5 offices around the world, but also moved to a new level of cooperation with customers – becoming a co-developer of the world’s most famous publishers.
To help ramp up content production in art and engineering/programming Relic is working with two studios now owned by Keywords international. https://www.keywordsstudios.com
Keywords international are a growing services provider to the global video games industry.
Microsoft Studios and Relic/Sega are involved with this.
1) Sperasoft Studios
Client source: https://sperasoft.com/about/ (see Relic in the client list)
A big international studio.
Keywords International are connected to Vancouver based XDSummit which Relic/The Coalition has been involved with for years.
Microsoft currently has 3 people on the XDS advisory committee: http://xdsummit.com/about/advisory-committee/
Below is Relic's XDS presentation in 2014 by Dilber Mann. XDS committee member 2014-2018.
Relic Development Director, External.
Removal of ALL unofficial community managers, who have access to Relic only because their friendship with Relic workers, not because merit or knowledge or community long term compromisses.
I agree (balance that is). Access and/or friendship with Relic can have unintended consequences.
Example non-bias;
From my POV Luvnest (maybe) and Callum McCole (@GGTheMachine) has lead by example with non-biased balance analysis.
Many if not most players have bias/fanboism and that's OK. At very least, remember to include both axis/allies fanboys in balance leadership.
IMO Relic can't be trusted to be non-biased so it's up to the fan community sorting this out..GL.
Relic Entertainment's Company of Heroes 2 "Grand Finals Weekend" finishes today. I love this franchise, working on it with Rob Cunningham, Josh Mosqueira, Owen Hurley, Adrian Vershinin, Quinn Duffy, the late Brian Wood and so many more amazing people as the first Narrative Designer was truly one of the greatest honors of my career. I grew up loving wargames and RTS. I've played more hours of this game than I care to admit, but it was work right? Right? No, I still play. It's just a passion. You can get COH2 free this weekend on Steam as well! https://bit.ly/37cWJFs While I didn't work on COH2, much of the speech that my writing team created remains when you use the four armies from the original COH, especially the Panzer Elite and British. It's always fun to hear those lines. Watch some of the best competitive players live now at the link below! hashtag#games hashtag#esports hashtag#wargames hashtag#gamewriting
Denmark
SturmTigerCobra
ihitto(wwU)
PanzerGrenadierAngreifen
TheMachine
Relic Entertainment
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