The chaps at GamesIndustry·biz recently cornered Splash Damage owner Paul Wedgwood and got at least one entire interview out of him. Paul discusses Splash Damage's relationship with its new partner Bethesda Softworks, life as an independent developer in the United Kingdom, and the recent calls for tax breaks to help the UK games industry. It's a very interesting read indeed.

Elsewhere on the internet, Spong teases their own upcoming interview with Paul by posting his (not very rosy) views on developers being acquired by publishers. Look for their full interview to be coming soon.

Out of the wondrous depths of the internet comes this piece of what some might consider to be pure awesomeness. Exactly how it came into being will forever remain a mystery, but when the end result is this magnificent, does it really matter?

The video stars Ben 'Randles' Hopkinson, Dave 'ducks' Johnston, Ed 'BongoBoy' Stern, Tim 'spacemonkey' Appleby, Tim 'Huntle' Rose in what is quite possible the finest performance of their lives. Look for an extended cut to come to a theater near you at a completely unspecified time in the far, far future.

With both Jared 'jRAD' Hefty and Dave 'ducks' Johnston out at QuakeCon 2008, we'll try and bring you regular coverage from the event in form of riveting and highly emotional blog updates and photo galleries. Find below the thrilling conclusion that was Day 3 of QuakeCon 2008!

It's all over!

In the morning, we stumbled over to the ET.tv guys, hoping they'd have found a spot in their busy schedule of shoutcasts and live matches to handle an interview they wanted to hold with us. Surprisingly, they were free, so off we all set back into the main hotel, found a spot, and spent about 45 minutes discussing aspects of ETQW, the console versions of the game, Splash Damage, our new partnership with Bethesda, and jRAD delivered an interesting analogy involving various kinds of fruit.

With both Jared 'jRAD' Hefty and Dave 'ducks' Johnston out at QuakeCon 2008, we'll try and bring you regular coverage from the event in form of riveting and highly emotional blog updates and photo galleries. Find below the shocking truth that lies beneath Day 2 of QuakeCon 2008!

The morning started with a quick wander around the BYOC area, in a hunt to find the finest PC cases and systems to ever exist. Amongst our favourites was the Spongebob Squarepants PC (it doesn't take much to entertain us SD staffers.) We also spotted a number of groups attending QuakeCon, from Something Awful goons to Shacknews shackers, each with their own enormous placards, tables, and pizzas visible from across the hall. By the afternoon, the BYOC area was practically full, awash with an even greater selection of games.

With both Jared 'jRAD' Hefty and Dave 'ducks' Johnston out at QuakeCon 2008, we'll try and bring you regular coverage from the event in form of riveting and highly emotional blog updates and photo galleries. Find below the pile of excitement that was Day 1 of QuakeCon 2008!

Captain ducks' log, stardate 123456789111!!11eleven. At about 08:20 GMT on Wednesday, myself and Jared 'jRad' Hefty left for Gatwick airport, and despite some attempted stunt-driving on the part of other road users (skilfully avoided by our cabbie), we got there in one piece and set off on our 16 hour journey to Dallas. We can only say one thing about it: discovering there's in-flight entertainment is the best news anyone boarding a 757 for a trans-atlantic 8-hour flight could possibly ask for.

The Develop Industry Excellence Awards 2008 took place earlier in the week and we're extremely pleased to announce that Splash Damage was named Best Independent Studio! The Develop Industry Excellence Awards are voted for by members of the UK development community and with Splash Damage originally coming from a modding background, winning this particular award is an especially exciting occasion for us. We're still on the hunt for a picture of the awards ceremony - we'll update this post as soon as we get ahold of one.

Admittedly we've been a tiny bit lax on the football update front, so we've got quite a bit of stuff packed into this final blog before the big Games 5s five a side football tournament. There's a sneak peek at the team strip design, and, at last, the reveal of the winning team name!

Over the past four weeks we've had a variety of training sessions to help us get ready for the inevitable and merciless crushing of our competition that's sure to take place tomorrow. Unfortunately, the injury count during practice was often quite high, which usually resulted in the office being half empty every Wednesday.

At this week's Develop 2008 in Brighton, videogaming247 quizzed Splash Damage owner Paul Wedgwood about the studio's next project with Bethesda Softworks. The resulting transcript comes in two parts (one, two) and is filled with quotes and tidbits about what gamers can expect from the new title.

QuakeCon 2008 is nearly here and with there being two Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars tournaments this year, we'll be dispatching a few guys there. Both long-time Splasher Jared 'jRad' Hefty and Dave 'ducks' Johnston (whom you might remember as the valiant leader of our ETQW Shackbattle squad) will be there to hang out with the community and hand out a few goodies here and there. If you're going to be at QuakeCon, look out for them and don't hesitate to say hello. If you'd like to arrange an interview with them at the event, drop us a line and we'll make time for you. See you at QuakeCon!

In our continued quest to make great games and multiplatform treehouses of exceptional build quality, we've hired a number of really talented folks to strengthen our development team. Joining Splash Damage's growing bee hive are Olivier Leonardi (Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones and Rainbow Six: Vegas) as Art Director, Chris Sweetman (Black, Burnout: Paradise) as Audio Director, Tim Appleby (Mass Effect) as Lead Character Artist, and Chris Dawson (Driver, Test Drive, Evil Genius) as Producer. You can find all the juicy details along with assorted quotes here in the official press release. We've got loads more job openings available across all major development disciplines - take a peek in the Jobs section.

Splash Damage's Lord of Software and Technology, Ben "Randles" Hopkinson, is the subject of this week's staff interview. Officially known as IT Manager, Ben came to us from popular Game Server Provider Rackage. He generally gets to buy lots of expensive things for the office and is often surrounded by open PC cases, random graphics cards, and stacks of DVDs. Ben also makes sure that Things Don't Break and can often be seen picnicking in our server room - machines have feelings too. :|

To find out more about Ben's work here at Splash Damage, his Rackage adventures, gaming exploits, and things he does to PC vendors, read the complete and riveting interview in his fully updated and virus-free staff profile.

We'll be extremely present at this year's Develop Conference and Expo taking place in Brighton, England from 29 - 31 July. Studio owner and Creative Director Paul Wedgwood is set to be part of a panel titled "Why We Sold Our Studio - And Why We Didn't" on Wednesday the 30th discussing exactly that, while newly crowned Audio Director Chris Sweetman will be giving a talk titled "Sonic Stories", dealing with the challenges of sound design for next generation games the day after. And if that wasn't enough, Splash Damage will also have a booth on the show floor itself (at C14) - if you're interested in working at Splash Damage or simply want to chat with us, don't hesitate to drop by.

With Metal Gear Solid 4 (mostly) behind us, we're slowly starting to feel the gaming lull of the Summer months. The appropriately named Buzz! probably made the biggest splash here in the office in these past two weeks with impromptu 8 player quizzing sessions spontaneously forming during lunch time and after hours. Aside from that there aren't that many new releases sprinkled throughout this update and if you ask anyone what releases they're looking forward to in the next four or so weeks, you'll usually be greeted with one or more shrugs and a distinct 'ummmm....'. On a side note, animator Chris 'Hauser' Bull untangled his hands recently and makes his first ever blog appearance in this update. Words:

At long last, the QuakeCon hive mind has announced this year's event line-up, including not one, but two Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars tournaments. Six player squads will get to battle it out on both the PC as well as the Xbox 360 for a total of $25,000 in prize money. Information on sign-ups and official tournament rules is said to be appearing soon, so keep an eye on the QuakeCon website.

This week's staff interview baton is passed to Senior Game Designer and Ed 'BongoBoy' Stern, who not only runs with it but also manages to knock over several pigeons in the process. Ed has been with Splash Damage since the early days of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and while coders code, modellers model, level designers design levels, and artists ... art, we're still not entirely sure what Ed does.

Luckily that very question is the opening volley in the full interview, which also covers how Ed ended up at Splash Damage in the first place, his tips for designery types wanting to break into the industry, and his very average musical skills.