Reality Panic

Wow, that was a pretty intense GDC. Maybe I’m just getting slower as I age, but by all counts this year’s GDC was bursting at the seams: largest attendence ever (about 2000 more than in SF last year!), so many great sessions, a full expo floor, the most parties/receptions in a long while, etc. Also, I’d say there was a more upbeat vibe than last year. Perhaps I was too stuck in the quality of life sucks corner of the room while in SF, but generally, I felt there was more enthusiasm and less an attitude of doom/gloom than in years past… Not sure if others would agree.

The IGDA had a good overall showing, too. We almost broke the 10k members mark while at the show (due in no small part to the funky t-shirt design by Secret Level art director Chris Bretz). Our curriculum workshop had over 350 folks pre-registered, we packed the house for our annual meeting, the rant session was another huge success (there’s even a bootleg style highlights vid up already) and the censorship debate with Assemblymember Leland Yee was a landmark for GDC (despite personal frustrations in forcing myself to remain civilized ;)

The Game Developers Choice Awards were particularly satisfying - arguably the best ceremony we’ve run to date. Kudos to the GDC/CMP folks to addressing concerns raised from last year’s less-than-stellar showing… Also, I thought that the complete domination of Shadow of the Colossus was interesting - especially when you consider that the IGDA has almost no members from Sony… Indeed, it was the choice of developers.

For those wanting more complete coverage of GDC, check out the following:

• Gamasutra - Game Developers Conference 2006 Live Coverage
• GameDev.Net - Inside the GDC 2006
• GameSpot - GDC:06 - The Game Developers Conference 2006

Anyway, onto the pics!

Lasse Seppänen (Remedy Entertainment) chats with George Georgeadis (Dreamgazers Interactive) during the IGDA chapter coordinators dinner.

Board member Tom Buscaglia chats with board hopeful Rodney Gibbs (Amaze Entertainment) during the chapter dinner.

Justin Hall sporting his new doo in the Fairmont lobby.

Mother Would Be Proud: Scylla Costa (Jynx Playware) and Mike Sweeney (Slingo) prove that “spring break” isn’t the only place to have fun in March. Drinks/party courtesy of Infospace.

Over the shoulder of Warren Spector (Junction Point), before the opening of the very well attended curriculum workshop.

Aaron Walker (Retro Studios) with old school buddy Kyle Machulis (Nonpolynomial Labs).

Members milling about before the start of the IGDA’s Annual Meeting and Member Reception.

Accessibility SIG chairperson Michelle Hinn mentored IGDA scholarship recipient Robert Florio (a blurry Mrs. Florio got caught in the middle).

At the East Meets West reception: Hiroshi Yamaguchi (Japan Center for International Finance), Itoh Masatoshi and Kiyoshi Shin (IGDA Japan Chapter) enjoy a drink and make funny faces…

The gameLab crew is in the house!

Ubisoft Montreal’s Yannis Mallat, Charles Jacobs and Ben Mattes lining up for drinks.

GDC oldtimers Bob Bates and Noah Falstein :)

Seamus Blackley (CAA) checking into to the Fairmont with his ever so cute son Max.

…a jealous CliffyB (Epic Games) showing off his baby, ahem, puppy dog…

Will Wright (Maxis) and Eric Zimmerman (gameLab) certainly chatting about game design.

Jamil Moledina (CMP) and Tommy Tallarico rock out with Guitar Hero!

Brenda’s sex lecture was informative and entertaining. I snapped this shot right after Brenda said “no one is going to believe I showed these slides at GDC” ;)

IGDA volunteers and various other VIPs enjoying good lunch/conversation during the IGDA’s “VIP Luncheon”.

Long-tim VIP-ers Robin Hunicke (Maxis) and Alison Kelly (ATI).

Heather Kelley (Ubisoft), Damian Isla (Bungie) and Clint Hocking (Ubisoft) also part of the VIP crowd.

Chris Bateman (International Hobo) leads the writers group gathering at the IGDA booth.

Steve Meretzky (Floodgate Entertainment) and Bob Bates practice their lines during the Choice Awards dress rehearsal.

An ever so dapper Richard Garriott during the pre-ceremony reception. Not pictured: matching cowboy boots.

The Sony Japan crew before their avalanche of awards…

Erik Robson and Tim Schafer of Double Fine settle in before the show.

Louis Castle (EA), Alan Yu (EA) and Marty O’Donnell (Bungie) get comfortable for the (actually not so) long ceremony.

The Dave and Tommy Show: Dave Perry (Shiny) and Tommy Tallarico were quite entertaining and kept the show moving at a nice brisk pace :)

The Double Fine crew up to collect their New Studio award. Kudos!

Chris Hecker (Maxis) recieves his well deserved award for Community Contribution, and uses it as an opportnuity to rant and rave about the games industry…

Kenji Kaido accepts the award for Best Game along with other Shadow of the Collosus team members. (I was actually waiting in the wings back stage as I was up next to close the show.)

Shuhei Yoshida (SCEA), Phil Harrison (Sony Europe), Shannon Studstill (Sony Santa Monica) and David Jaffe (Sony Santa Monica) at the end of the ceremony. Jaffe gave a very diplomatic “I really enjoyed the show” response…

The goofy Mega64 guys pleased with the response to their vids.

Some of the Introversion Software guys chilling after the big IGF wins for Darwinia.

The RobotWars action during the Sony party was an unexpected treat!

Douglas Tronsgard (Next Level Games) and Dylan Miklashek (Pandemic Studios Australia) discussing the quality of their lives…

The IGF pavillion is always a popular destination.

Longest line I’ve ever seen: The queue for questions during the censorship debate with Leland Yee nearly went out the door at the back of the room. Sadly, we only got to the third person.

Chris Crawford at the podium during the rant session, gesturing for his now infamous “food goes in, shit comes out” line…

LOL, I couldn’t resist. Ironically, this was an invite someone handed to a developer from Microsoft!

Academic at large: David Thomas (CU Denvery) and Dmitri Williams (U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) at the speakers’ party.

100 Hot Developers my ass! These ladies should be on any top list: Tracy Rosenthal-Newsom (Harmonix Music Systems), Kristine Coco (Midway Austin) and Heather Kelley (Ubisoft).

Joseph Saulter (Entertainment Arts Research) talks during the workforce diversity panel.

Nice… assets. The heavy pin-up influence of the Graphic Impact gallery elicited quite a response from some (eg, Robin’s “what’s next? Hot chics” rant…)

John Bird (CRI) flips the bird to an unsespecting Ernest Adams.

Sony was showing off lots of PS3 stuff on the expo floor and during Phil’s keynote…

Cool flatpanel/table style game playing device thing.

The job fair area was jammed throughout the conference. Much more so than in years past.

An unexpected full house for the game studies download session. Very encouraging!

Tommy welcomes the crowd to the Video Games Live show. It was very cool/fun.

After Chris Melissinos (Sun) was done mobbing CliffyB during the intermission, it was fun to watch fanboys line up to take photos with their Unreal idol.

Video game pianist Martin Leung in action as a special guest performer during Video Games Live.

Can’t wait until next year!

While I am still working on my full post/summary/pics from last week’s GDC, I thought I’d post on a small “experiment” I ran during the conference.

I’ve always (kinda) joked that GDC is like a marathon - in part due to the intense physical/mental nature of the event itself and the extent of preparation (aka “training”) that goes into it. Like many, I’m quite a busy body during GDC running between lectures, meetings, interviews and receptions/parties, etc, from early morning to late at night. So, I brought along a pedometer to measure my steps. The results are as follows:

10k steps is a good target to hit for an active daily routine. On a regular day, I’ll usually hit 9 or 10k if I go to the gym for a run (FYI, a 5km run is about 6500 steps). So, aside from Wednesday (which was busy with awards and several receptions (including the Minna Mingle which was way far away)), most of the days were kinda average, if even underwhelming. Before the week started, I was guessing I’d hit at least 20k steps each day.

From this, I realized that I was measuring the wrong thing. I’m guessing that the physical fatigue has much less to do with steps, but more so with the amount of time just standing up. Alas, I can’t think of a smart way to measure that ;) Also, the feeling of marathon-like exertion is probably compounded by the lack of sleep (I averaged a pretty decent 6-hrs per night), lack of good/consistent food and the fact that the whole thing lasts 5 days.

In conclusion: metrics are great, but you gotta measure the right thing - and, I bet I’ll average 20k steps at E3!

Wow, what an inspiring book. I just finished reading “Work to Live - The Guide to Getting a Life“. It is chock full of important info regarding worker productivity, overtime, labor laws and just general wisdom on overcoming the pitfalls of overwork. I highly recommend it for all those who want to find more balance in their life. I wish I could give a copy to everyone who attends the IGDA QoL roundtable at GDC next week.

On a somewhat related note, it is encouraging to witness a large-scale publisher like Take-Two proclaiming the importance of holding onto key creative talent. Let’s hope they realize that it is not just about the money…

Two great announcements coming out of Europe recently:

1. Miyamoto, Ancel, Raynal to be knighted in France next week
2. BAFTA elevates games to same status as film and TV

Meanwhile, the war rages back in America…

If you are going to GDC or E3, you must buy some SportShield anti blister/chafing roll-on liquid. No joke. It will save your feet and related high friction zones that take a beating from all the standing, walking and running at the big industry events.

I came across SportShield because I do a lot of running (my exercise of choice). And, on one trip I thought what the hell, and used it to help ease my usual tradeshow suffering.

Stop laughing and just go buy the stuff. You’ll thank me for it. Oh, and I’m not an investor or anything, the stuff just works.

Overall, a fun Oscars ceremony (gotta love Jon Stewart subtle humor ;) and was happy to see Crash win for Best Picture. In watching the show, two themes were really obvious…

First, the pride and bravado of tackling serious issues. Kudos to Hollywood for exploring all aspects of the human conditions and the issues that plague society. More so than in past years, they really played up the power of film as a medium of expression important idea. (Turning to games, sadly, I can’t see that level of significance/recognition happening for a long time - both in terms of the content of the majority of games being produced and in terms of what we as a community appreciate…)

Second, the “big screen is the only REAL place to watch a movie” undertone was kinda strange. An odd push to protect their turf and a plea to stave off the sinking box-office revenues. Weird since revenue from big screens is really only a tiny fraction of the overall economics of a film’s release…