Gamasutra Member Blogs: From Design Patterns to The Contract

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Member Blogs, our bloggers write about diverse topics, such as design patterns in game programming, whether Dark Souls will steal some of Skyrim's shine, an interview with Obsidian's JE Sawyer, and more.] Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. We hope that our blog sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information, check out the official posting guidelines. This Week's Standout Member Blogs An Interview With JE Sawyer - Game Developer, Biker, And Cat Lover (Will Ooi) As part of his Unmasking the Gamers series, Will Ooi chats with Obsidian project director J.E. Sawyer about getting into the industry, linking in-game worlds with real life, religion, overcoming game cancellation disappointment ... and cats. The Contract: Dark Souls vs. Skyrim (Joey Gibbs) Here Joey Gibbs discusses the experiential contract that players agree to when purchasing a new game, set against the backdrop of the upcoming releases of Dark Souls and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Translation: What's The Point When Localizing? (Volker Morbach) German localization freelancer Volker Morbach examines what would be an ideal scenario for the localization process from a translator's point of view, explaining why some video game projects are poorly translated. Will The Old Republic Be The Next World of Warcraft? (Gerald Belman) Gerald Belman asks if BioWare's Star Wars MMORPG The Old Republic will be the next World of Warcraft or the next Star Trek Online. If you know the answer to this question, you could potentially make alot of money. Design Patterns in Game Programming (Michael Haney) Game programming design patterns aren't well represented in literature or in a single place on the internet. In this blog post, Michael Haney talks about very common patterns and their motivations for use.