Reality Panic

While Sony’s new EyeToy device has yet to hit North American stores, it is selling like hot cakes over in Europe. Why? Because it is cool, fun and truly innovative.

Despite looking a bit goofy while playing, you can’t deny that gamers are having fun with what is essentially a web-cam interface to your PS2. Traditionally, post-purchase peripherals have not done well in the market, but things could get really interesting if EyeToy reaches a critical mass - I hear the next Final Fantasy game will support it.

Great to see this cool new way to interact with games. Not sure how other such devices will do…

Nice to see Wired taking a serious look at game preservation. I’ve briefly covered history stuff in the past, but this is one of those problems that’s going to persist until we REALLY figure out what to do about it.

The Wired piece doesn’t really talk about solutions (but always nice to see what slashdotters think). And, I can’t say that I’d know where to start. While there’s certainly a ton of issues just from a tech point of view, as in many cases, it is the legal/copyright end that would be the real problem. Well, that and the whack of cash likely needed to really make any serious progress on preserving our history.

As the article suggests, we can’t just rely on the Classic Gaming Expo.

I am down in California again. This time for the GDC advisory board meeting. Can’t say much other than I’ll not likely be making many posts over the next few days… Sushi dinner with the truly inspiring developers on the advisory board is always a great start to what will surely be a very stimulating weekend :)

During a course on IP rights at SIGGRAPH, Bob Ellis (the org’s public policy program chair) commented on how many people perceive music (or more specifically MP3s) as a “public good“. That is, once a musician creates a piece of music, there is no additional effort spent as the amount of listeners increase (ie, the cost of creation is the same regardless of the amount of consumption). Interesting point of view…

Bob further went on to explain how this was relevant to those working in the digital/graphics worlds in terms of their IP rights and so on. This was a course at SIGGRAPH after all.

Anyway, I saw this as an interesting economic principle and in some way felt that this “public goods” problem might provide some insight as to why many developers are hesitant/resist becoming a member of the IGDA. In even just reading this simple definition one can get the sense that the IGDA is in many ways a public good. That is to say that EVERY developer benefits from the work we are doing to fight government regulation (as one example), regardless if they are a member or not. And so, why should they pay (ie, join) to receive a benefit they would receive anyway? Like, who ever pays for PBS?

Hmm, seems like the shame and guilt tactics alluded to have been our best bets so far ;)

Kinda sad.

Sorry to bore about internal IGDA challenges, but moral of the story is that there’s some really cool stuff to learn from economics. I can already see how this one principle can apply to both game design (especially in MMOs) and game business (think piracy issues)…

I had a good time in San Diego last week attending the big annual graphics conference known as SIGGRAPH. The weather was great and I kept myself busy running from meetings, courses, receptions and the expo floor. And, I was hosting three sessions myself. They all went relatively well: The Behind the Game "special session" panel attracted upwards of 1000 attendees. Our Game Developers Birds of Feather informal gathering session was jam packed, pulling in far more developers than anticipated. And finally, our game curriculum session was a nice Jerry Springer style discussion of challenges and opportunities facing academics teaching game development.

On the whole, SIGGRAPH 2003 was an enjoyable event and full of good content. Things did seem a bit busier all around, and rumor has it that their attendance numbers were considerably higher than last year (when it was in blistering hot San Antonio). In particular, I like all the crazy far out stuff on display. The Emerging Technologies section is filled to the brim with just cool stuff.

Anyway, I’ll be making several more S2003 inspired posts in the coming week. In the meantime, enjoy the following pics…
(more…)