Reality Panic

Ugh! GDC is just too damn big. I started to piece together my schedule for the week of GDC - working to balance meetings, lectures, press interview and of course, parties. Going over the conference content, I highlighted over 75 sessions that I’d like to attend. And, the schedule grid only has about 15 slots to work with! Aaargh….

And, to top it all off, the censorship panel I’m on with Assemblymember Leland Yee has been scheduled against Eric Zimmerman’s Game Design Challenge. Not only will it be the first time I miss the Challenge (arguably one of the best recurring sessions of the GDC), but it pretty much guarantees we’ll have an empty room. Mind you, I shouldn’t complain too too much, as we were originally scheduled against Will Wright’s keynote. Luckily, we got moved away from that audience blackhole…

At least I have no conflict with this year’s rant session. Chris Crawford on a soapbox?! Should be fun.

The nominees for the 6th annual Game Developers Choice Awards have just been announced. Congrats and good luck to all those nominated.

I’ve certainly been vocal in the past about how great the Choice Awards are, and at times, how crap other game awards have been. Of note, is the Choice Awards’ focus on the people behind the games. I do believe the Choice Awards is the only awards program that actually names the people responsible for the work behind a game’s nomination. In fact, not providing attributions will get a game disqualified (as happened with one high-profile game last year).

While this has not gone over so while with some corporate muckymucks (who want to invariably push the company brand instead and not divulge the names of their best people), the more interesting aspect has been the reaction from developers themselves. For many it is a non-issue. We request the names and the names are provided. In other cases, it is the developers who are hesitant to take credit for work done via team effort (ie, like the Oscars, only four names can be attributed for each nomination, usually team leads/directors, and so not everyone can be listed). This is commendable, but sometimes it goes to the extent of not taking any credit at all (in case of not providing any attributions and forfeiting the nomination altogether)… Luckily, that didn’t happen this year.

Over the past six years, we’ve seen much less resistance to this approach. And, in fact, more and more studios are taking great care to ensure all the right folks are appropriately attributed.

Overall, I like to think this is a good thing. Perhaps if David Jaffe wins a few awards, he’ll get paid more ;)

Last week, I drove over to Ottawa (during crazy winter storm action) to speak on a panel at “Prime Time“, the annual conference for the Canadian Film and Television Production Association. Our panel was moderated by Warren Currell of game agency Sherpa, Marks Skaggs of Trilogy, Genevieve Lord (an ex-Ubisoft producer) and Michael McGuigan, head of games for Breakthrough Films and Television.

As it turns out, film and TV folks are wrestling with the same topics as game industry folks: funding, distribution, IP rights, convergence, high-def content, etc. That said, the game panel I was on was a bit of an anomaly as it was the only session that covered any of the above topics in relation to games. No big surprise, but most film and TV folks are simply not attuned to the potential and significance of games. To date, they are still having a tough time understanding how games can extend the universe of their IP… There are exceptions, of course.

Much of the funding discussion focused on the various government related support programs (eg, Canadian Television Fund, Telefilm). As one producer described it, the Canadian sector’s reliance on government hand-outs has lead to a steady stream of (mostly) solid content that is “not overly market/hit driven”. On one hand, this implies that content (perhaps too innovative or risky) that would not be supported “by the market” gets made. It also means that a lot boring stuff gets made simply because the creators can file for the right production grants… Standard double-edged sword challenge…

Admittedly, one of the main reasons I agreed to speak was to attend the keynote speech by the new chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Dan Glickman. What was billed as the “future of content delivery”, sadly turned into “let’s fight the hell against piracy so we can ensure we preserve the same old forms of content delivery”. Of course, no one in the room full of movie/TV producers disagreed with the piracy is bad message, it was just a big waste of a keynote speech and lost opportunity for Glickman to demonstrate some greater vision. Oh well.

Here are a few quick pics from the trip:

Ian Kelso (New Media Business Alliance), Mark Skaggs (Trilogy Studios) and Warren Currell (Sherpa Games) chatting right before the break for…
Official “candy story” break. Wow, I can only imagine the hysteria a big trough of candy would create at GDC ;)

Production Financing Panel: moderator Ira Levy (Breakthrough Films and Television), Stephen Stohn (Epitome Pictures), Norm Bolen (Alliance Atlantis Communications), Andra Sheffer (Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund), Scott Garvie (Shaftesbury Film), Daniel McMullen (Royal Bank).

Someone I have not seen since playing rugby at Concordia University, Emmanuel Evdemon is now practicing entertaiment law.

Steven DeNure (Decode Entertainment) and Michael McGuigan (Breakthrough Films and Television) reach for their… business cards. I was worried for moment that I said something to upset them…

Even in the glitzy biz of film and television, most folks just want to schmooze. Somehow, I didn’t think the dance floor would be as barren as at game conferences.

This past xmas, I received a DVD of the cult classic The Warriors. For a 25 year old movie, it is still a good watch - and, was wrapped up in its own set of controversies when it was first released in theaters…

Anyway, after watching the DVD, I picked up the recently released The Warriors game. Overall and enjoyable gaming experience that got pretty good reviews.

I hadn’t read the reviews ahead of time, so I didn’t realize that the game was mostly a prequel to the movie - or rather, you do missions and get into a bunch of mischief as a build up to the events in the movie. Playing the before-the-movie-events type missions are pretty engaging, and immerses you in the unique gang culture universe that’s created by the movie itself.

However, once the game gets into the missions that parallel the events in the movie, the game starts to suck. What was previously a compelling experience in an engaging universe becomes a game-on-rails experience constrained by the narrative path of the movie (eg, some levels had more cut-scenes than gameplay).

I’ve always taken the position that a game based on a film license should be more about interacting within the world/fiction as opposed to recreating the unique linear progression of the movie itself.

Recent remarks from film legend James Cameron are encouraging. He plans to create a joint game/movie project where the movie is single narrative thread based in the universe/fiction of the game…

Bloomberg needs to chill out. Is he so driven by the Puritan work ethic (ie, not working is the primordial sin) that the sight of a game would force him to fire an office worker over Solitaire?!

This sad story pins together several threads from books I’ve been reading… In Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age the argument is made that “play” (along with stuff like storytelling, empathy, symphony, etc) will be a critical attribute as we move toward a society driven more by right-brained sensibilities. Both, taking the time to play as a means to rejuvenate and as a means to gain new experiences/skills. Pink suggests that those who can master the sense of play will get ahead of those who don’t.

Further, in Work to Live: The Guide to Getting a Life, there’s extensive discussion of productivity myths and the need to get away from the mentality that working hard means you are suffering (like one Ford assembly line worker from the ’30s getting fired because he smiled)…

Finally, while I’ve yet to read it, I’m sure The Play Ethic: A Manifesto for a Different Way of Living will have a few interesting points to make on this topic…

Appropriately enough, I read Jesper Juul’s Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds while on my way to academic/game conference.

I quite enjoyed the book. In part because it was nice and short (and not a massive verbose academic tome) and because it was very well structured. In short, Jesper attempts to define what a video games is, and is not. I particularly liked the thread about how folks place too much emphasis on the “video” aspects far beyond the “game” aspects of video games (which have a much broader and historical grounding in play/games in general). Then he goes on to discuss the game-ness of games (ie, the “rules” part of things) and then onto the story/narrative aspect of many games (ie, the fictional part).

Coincidentally enough, I was able to leverage some of the book’s logic during a conference dinner discussion when someone stated “games are all about the narrative”… Also, it is a good book to read in light of some of the industry listserv reactions to the debate between cinematics ruining games and captivating gamers.

Anyway, there’s more/better info on Half-Real via GTxA.