I Tivo’d/watched the recent episode of CSI: Miami that featured Tony Hawk and video games (check out “case” 82).
I must say that I was really impressed with the extent of research that was done by the show to make things appear relatively authentic. From an actual Vicon mo-cap set up, to defining a tester as someone who tries to crash the game and find bugs, to modern looking games (instead of the usual Goraud shaded sims normally used on TV to represented a video game), etc.
The scariest part, however, was the extent by which they “recreated” the often extreme working conditions of game development. A few things:
- A tester had callouses from playing games so much (made it tough to finger print him…)
- The receptionist sending flowers home to loved ones as consolation for long hours at the office
- Programmers checking in code at 1am
- Staff not seeing the “light of day for 2 weeks” and being told by the boss to “suck it up”
- Coder saying it would be nice to get a raise and a bit of time off (instead of an employee of the month style award)
- Same coder saying he’s been fixing bugs for 72 hours straight…
- etc, etc, etc
Scarier still, the murderer blamed his fouls deed, in part on the fact that he was so stressed out from work. Hmm, I didn’t check the credits, but I wonder if ea_spouse was a consultant on the show…
So, not only are games seen as the cause for all youth based crime, but now we are corrupting ourselves into death-dealing zombies.
Nice grave we’ve dug ourselves into…
A backhanded complement from X-Men movie director Bryan Singer on why he, and other movie directors, are now into making games:
“I think games today are what merchandising was after the first Star Wars film - a chance for filmmakers and studios (and fans) to further control the destiny of their favorite characters.“
Hmm, I think I get what he’s trying to say, but it still feels like an insult. I’m getting flashbacks to Seamus Blackley stating “we are Hollywood’s bitch”… (Ironic aside: googling for “Seamus Blackley”+bitch brings up another Wired mini-piece on why video games based on movies suck (including a quote from myself).)
On a personal note, just found out today that my second child will be a girl!!! The perfect addition to my current child collection of one boy.
I just hope the industry has figured things out in time for when she hits video gaming age ;)
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…
Just like 12000+ other game developers and industry folks, I’m heading over to San Francisco for the annual Game Developers Conference. Always an enjoyable/rewarding, yet extremely exhausting, experience. This year, my schedule seems especially tight (see my prelim schedule below (and, I’ve still got a handful of other media interviews to slot in and other meetings needing some time)).
I am super excited for the Quality of Life Summit the IGDA is running. I do believe it will be a productive day - but I have no doubt that some sparks will fly. Rumor has it that ea_spouse will be attending, as well as folks from the various large publishers and dev studios. Tons of other great content, as usual, but my personal fav is the Choice Awards. Ugh, I still have to write up my intro - damn, it’s hard trying to come up with something hip and witty to say in front of 2000 people ;)
Ahhh, my insane GDC schedule - so far…
I did a quick trip down to New York City last week for the “game profitability” conference. I was on the Hollywood panel to discuss how film has effected games and the game industry, and the growing parallels (and problems) between the two industries…
This was actually my first time to NYC, which by all means is just a massive never-ending city. I was only in town for about 48 hours, but did get to see Central Park (and The Gates), Times Square, Union Square and Grand Central Station. I also got to hang out with my buddy Eric Zimmerman, see a Cory Arcangel installation and attend the NY/NJ chapter demo night event. The chapter had an impressive turn out of ~100 local developers to check out six different game demos…
The conference itself was a bit spotty as a first attempt by the Wall Street Transcript team. There was some good content, but with only panel discussions it is hard to present meaningful data and best practices. Rather, it became a day full of sharing opinions along with some debate. Debate is good, but my sense was that most folks in the room were new to games and really didn’t get into the issues that were being argued. Seemed like they were hungry for raw data and case studies, etc. Still, I had fun disagreeing with most of the suits on hand ;)
Here are some photos from the quick trip (people listed left-to-right):
A look inside the amazing
gameLab.
Of all things, Eric Zimmerman (gameLab) was doing some accounting chores before we ran off to the IGDA chapter event.
A portion of the 100+ crowd within chapter hosts
Large Animal Games. Local member Bill Folsom in checked shirt.
Producer from Majesco demoing the zany Tim Schaefer creation,
Psychonauts.
Mandatory shot of Times Square.
Hollywood Reporter
game columnist Paul Hyman hanging out in the lobby area of the somewhat stuffy Harvard Club, where the biz conference was held.
The ever-brooding
Greg Costikyan…
A lot of suits in the room… IGDA member and IP Rights Committee contributor, Greg Boyd (front, blond, glasses) looks on.
The lively advergaming panel. Was interesting to hear the pro-advertising claim how gamers want “real ads in games to make their games more real”…
Eric made sure I didn’t get lost in the cavernous Grand Central Station!
Some cool urban freestyle subway dancing. Most amazing move: not smashing their heads on the low ceiling…
Eric cuts a deal with John Welch (Play First) over smoked pastrami sandwiches at the famous 2nd Avenue Deli - all kindly sponsored by John’s expense account!
Game hacker/artsy type Cory Arcangel was putting on a
show/installation at Deitch. Here he’s seen inserting Paris into a Doom mod. I must say it is really hard to explain/express what this form of fringe game culture activity is all about…
Source Art: all the source code to Cory’s Mario movie hack was pasted on the walls of the gallery.
And, these are some of Cory’s
German buddies who were rapping/singing to self-compiled 8-bit music.
Orange gates everywhere…
Gates around the Central Park skating rink…
Gates by the duckies in the pond…
OK, OK, I admit to being an Apprentice fan :)
