I think I need to train harder for GDC! I actually suffered my first conference injury, “hand shake pinky twist”, from shaking too many hands! (Actually, I aggravated an old rugby injury (ie, broken hand), but still). Anyway, another grueling week in California “working” the GDC. Aside from some room and a/v glitches, everyone seemed pretty jazzed about being in San Francisco - too bad we’re going back to San Jose next year (although, the Fairmont lobby was sorely missed).

Sadly, I only got to attend a handful of sessions. So, for an in depth look at the content of GDC I’ll punt you to the great coverage at Gamasutra, GameDev.net, GameSpot and GameSpy.

Quality of life was a major theme for the IGDA and we got a ton of press attention - I did about two dozen interviews covering QoL issues (with outlets like Wired, Wall Street Journal, SF Chronicle, Game Informer, Red Herring, GameDaily, etc). The QoL Summit that the IGDA hosted went over very well, with a ton of discussion over the issues and real answers. The McConnell keynote on the business case for QoL was truly enlightening and should be required consumption for everyone in the industry! So far, all the slides/materials have been posted online, with a more complete summary report and full video recordings to come online in the near future…

The Choice Awards were a bit of a bummer for me. I got too bogged down in the minutia of stage direction, worrying about long acceptance speeches and lame video interludes to truly appreciate the significance of what we’re doing. Case in point: I bumped into the Valve guys after the ceremony and they said how they were clutching their trophies, really proud/humbled by being recognized by their peers. Much better to hear that, than if they just tossed the awards into their big trophy pile. Also, seeing Katamari Damacy creator, Keita Takahashi take the stage for Game Design and Innovation awards was nice. And, if the system can recognize something like I Love Bees, I just know we’re doing something right…

Finally, our rant session was a blast. While there’s no real sense that anything will come of it (well, beyond the fact that the IGDA works on meta-level industry issues), it was just fun and cathartic to generally insult everyone and rip the industry to shreds. Alice’s live transcript is pretty accurate, but we’re working on a precise one from the recording…

Anyway, I’d say more, but I’ve got a mountain of work and follow-up to do - and a sprained pinky to nurse!

In closing, here’s a bunch a snaps I took during the week…


A room with a view: A shot from my hotel room at the Argent, looking down on the Moscone West (the yellow lighted chunk), the Metreon and the Yerbe Buena Gardens.

Never having met Toru Iwatani (Namco), I was a bit awestruck when he said, “I made Pac-Man”. Japan chapter coordinator Kiyoshi Shin jumps in on the right.

Sushi with Hiroko Osaka (Kellogg School of Business). Yummy!

Steve McConnell (Construx) basically calls us fools and lays down the gauntlet for getting our production act together.

New for GDC’05, poster sessions. Cool idea borrowed from the academic world. Sadly, no one was around at the time I swung by…

East meets West: Laura Fryer (Microsoft Game Studios) and Ryoichi Hasegawa (Sony Japan) chat during a GDC reception for Asian developers.

Zoe Flower, Hal Barwood (Finite Arts) and Dave Perry (Shiny) enjoy a cocktail.

Bruno Beusch and Tina Cassani, who ran the Game Hotel event last year chat with Julien Merceron (Ubisoft).

On our way to the W: Eric Zimmerman (gameLab), someone behind him who I can’t recall, Robin Hunicke (Northwestern U.) and Clint Hocking (Ubisoft Montreal) wait for the green light…

My view of the Microsoft keynote. Wasn’t compelling enough to fight for a seat so I bailed…

Clint Hocking (Ubisoft Montreal) presents his poetry symbolism game during the Game Design Challenge. He should have won!

IGDA volunteers and VIPs enjoy our special “thank you” lunch.

Mathilde Remy, ever the journalist, peppers Warren Spector with questions about his new studio.

Lifetime Achievement recipient, Eugene Jarvis, signs Defender and Robotron cabinet plaques for Nick Wiswell (Bizarre Creations).

Back stage at the Choice Awards. That big screen was pretty impressive.

The Jarvis family: Eugene’s mom, wife and kids in to see him get the big award. Nice :)

Jason Kingsley (Rebellion), Aleks Krotoski, Heather Kelley (Ubisoft Montreal), Max and Chris Kingsley (Rebellion) enjoy a cocktail before the awards ceremony.

Dave Ranyard (Sony London) DJ’s the awards’ after party.

Nice to see Sheri Graner Ray (Sony Online) getting props for all her hard work advocating for women games/developers. Morgan Webb from G4-TechTV can surely sympathize…

Not quite the spectacle that is the Sony E3 party, but still a good time…

George “The Fatman” Sanger whines about Dave Weinstein’s departure from the industry (another victim of poor QoL :(

Mark Bishop (Multimedia Victoria) leads a gathering for other government and support orgs. It was nice to finally connect with other people working to foster the industry.

The cards that killed me: I played as a “Giant Robot” monster during the conference-wide game deployed by gameLab. I was only killed once!

As always, the IGF pods were hopping and buzzing. They were out in the lobby area, which helped in terms of traffic.

Lot’s of women for the annual IGDA gathering. Male passers-by weren’t quite sure what to make of the enormous amount of female developers jammed into the IGDA booth ;)

Folks prep for the annual Experimental Gameplay showing. Joy!

Ted Castronova (Indiana University) stands to deliver his manifesto on why developers need to care about academic research. Essentially, he was asking for a bag full of cash to develop a cool/experimental MMO ;)

Jennifer Boespflug, Jennifer Christensen and Laura Fryer at the annual “celebrating women” reception they host on behalf of Microsoft Game Studios.

A fuzzy Jesper Juul (IT-Copenhagen) hangs out with IGDA board member Bob Bates at Carnegie Mellon’s awesome party (it was a pretty sweet event - better than most industry attempts at so-called parties).

David Thomas (buzzcut.com) sumons the demons of GDC past…

IGDA crew Sora Bai and Rudy Geronimo enjoy a drink with Jyri Ranki (Sumea) during the Level99 party.

Designer Geeks: Austin Grossman, Chaim Gingold (Maxis) and Randy Smith strike a pose in the neon lights of Level99.

Artsy Lara: There was a cool “Videogame Art Show” running in parallel with GDC at Start Soma. Sadly, I missed most of it…

Ciaran Rooney (Criterion), Mike Burrows (Microsoft) and Heather Kelley (Ubisoft Montreal) about to bail from the Xbox party. Man, was the music loud :(

The Will Wright keynote, not! Totally sucked that the room was not big enough. Hundreds of attendees got turned away. They tried to set up an ad hoc simulcast in the hallway (it didn’t work out, I bailed :(

Rich Amtower (Nintendo) hanging with the boys from Valve, Marc Laidlaw and Bill Van Buren, all smiles after their big night at the Choice Awards.

Thus witnesseth thy burning of thine house…