Reality Panic

Seems like getting gamers off their butts is all the rage. In less than a week, I hear about the Gamebike Controller, the Kilowatt controller, and an endorsement for the Ignition Dance Pad. Interesting.

As noted in a Gamebike article, these types of game peripherals are being developed to “address the boredom of indoor exercise and the epidemic of childhood obesity.” The 95lbs success story of Tanya Jessen is certainly impressive, but almost too good to be true (in the “your results may vary with this product” category of disclaimer often seen in small print in weight-loss ads). Using games and game-tech in the area of health and wellness is an encouraging trend - not just for losing weight, but also as another indicator of gaming’s pervasive evolution…

Other recent myths that have been broken: Net users are all geeks, women don’t like tech/gadgets and girls aren’t interested in game development.

I went to a local EB over the weekend to pick up a copy of Need for Speed Underground. It was my brother-in-law’s birthday, and he likes racing games… Anyway, while I was there, I noticed a father with his young son (I’m guessing to be about 10 years old). He was buying copies of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and NFL Street.

The sales clerk didn’t mention a word, he just rang up the sales. Not one to usually interfere with other people’s business, I couldn’t help but mention to the father, “hey that game is rated M, meant for gamers over 17.” He quickly stated that he knew it was an M game, but didn’t think there was anything to worry about, that the game was just a game and that his kid knew what was reality versus fiction, etc. The kid, quick to ensure that he didn’t leave empty handed, said that the explosions weren’t that big, and the people you ran over didn’t look very real.

Hmm, either the kid had done some preemptive “brainwashing” on his dad, or the dad really felt that it was a non-issue. Afterwards, the clerk mentioned that if the kid had be alone, they would not have sold him the game.

It is at times like this that I like to recall that, according to the ESA, something like 85% of ALL game purchases are made by adults. For all of the recent attempts to boycott and regulate violent games, nothing can directly address the will of a parent - nor should!

It is nice to see some mention of efforts being made to educate parents on game ratings. On the whole, it would be great to see less paranoia, and more understanding of what games are…

As noted earlier, I travelled to Beijing, China for the ChinaJoy game expo and conference. Admittedly, this was one my most enjoyable trips I’ve taken in a long time. Despite the obvious language barrier, Chinese developers (and people in general) were extremely friendly and welcoming. Luckily, given the flight in/out times, I got some decent time to do some personal tourist action (see the shots/comments below). The event itself was only three days, consisting of three major overlapping events: E3-style game expo, a business forum and a mini developer conference. There was also a LAN tournament, some government related press events, and cosplay showings, etc.

(Continue reading about my trip to China, or jump straight to the fun pictures!)
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…believe it or not, that’s the tag line for the China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference (aka “ChinaJoy”). ChinaJoy is the first major game industry event taking place in mainland China. Despite half a day being taken up with welcome speeches from various government ministers (eg, the Director of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology Products of the Ministry of Information Industry of the People’s Republic of China (and, that’s just the first guy)), it looks to be a standard industry style confab.

I’ll be there to give two lectures: one in the business track on the learning potential of games and their use in “serious” applications; the other on game design basic in the tech track.

This will be my first time to China and I am very much looking forward to learning more about the culture and the game development scene. Luckily, I won’t be totally “alone” over there as industry buddies like Eric Zimmerman and Rob Huebner will be there to speak as well. Ditto for the IGDA’s Japanese chapter coordinator Kiyoshi Shin.

Should be interesting! And, thank goodness that the flight is not quite as long as the one to Australia ;)

Another new year, another round of nominations for the industry’s best and brightest. Nominations are now underway for the 4th annual Game Developers Choice Awards. I encourage all game developers to submit your nods before the January 23rd deadline.

I like to think that the Choice Awards are unique in that it is the developers doing the nominating/voting, and it is the developers that are receiving the awards. There’s no money involved; there’s no publisher/sales influence; there’s no genre or platform awards. It is about peer recognition and rewarding innovation and achievement in making great games.

There’s been a lot of discussion about game awards, in part brought on by the horror that was the SpikeTV awards. Aside from the fact that many of the attempts to put on game award shows are pretty hopeless, there seems to be this implied need to get them onto TV (like the Oscars). And, the single minded drive to get them aired motivates a lot of stupid and/or tasteless decisions…

With the Choice Awards, the focus was always on the industry and the actual people doing the hard, innovative work. In our mind, it is the developers that are the stars (not some rapper, skater or porn actress). At the Choice Awards, it is developers presenting the awards to other developers. If the media want to be there, do interviews, roll some cameras, fine, we’ll welcome them with open arms.

Bottom line, you need to establish the credibility and prestige within the community. The red carpet will come at some point down the road, but we’re not holding our breath for it…

Anyway, enough ranting. Get your butt over to the nominations page and play your part in honoring your peers!