Top 50 Developers

This list empirically ranks the top 50 developers in the world, which released games in 2007—no simple task. Ranking is based on game sales, review scores, and developer responses. This is the first in an annual series of rankings, but the top five indicate that it takes more than releasing the most titles to get into the top spots. Now fight on for 2008!

Postmortem: Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4

Call of Duty 4 is one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2007, and the authors make no secret of their pride in the product. Still, there are many important lessons in here, from sticking to your ideals for a game (even if you aren't completely in charge of the series), to maintaining focus when alluring new IPs loom.

Ambient Occlusive Crease Shading

Ambient occlusion can be expensive and artist-intensive. For their new MMO, the authors wanted a screen-based approach for whatever happened to be in the scene at the time, without additional artist input. Ambient occlusive crease shading is the result of their search, and winds up being a very cheap, but pleasant-looking alternative.