A week of hardcore GDC action can really break you. Man, do I feel old. And, I’m very jealous of the IGDA student scholars who seemed to be out every night until 4am, but in lecture sessions for 9am! Though, I must say that this GDC did feel more intense than in past years. Perhaps the focus on the summits got more people over to GDC sooner in the week than usual. All I know is that my plane landed at noon on Sunday, and my first meeting was at 1pm - and the action didn’t let up until Saturday.
Overall, it was another great GDC. Though, sadly, I didn’t make it to as many actual conference sessions as I would have liked. There’s just always so much going on… Unfortunately, I did make it to the Microsoft “keynote”, which was one big brainwashing pitch. Even though some of the specific announcements were cool/worthwhile (like the XNA community portal), it all felt so forced and manufactured. GDC should stop calling these sessions keynotes and just label them as platform announcement hours or whatever. The Ray Kurzweil session is more along the lines of an actual real keynote…
Also, this was a special year for me personally in receiving the inaugural Ambassador Award. At the ceremony, I was fortunate enough to sit with Ralph Baer, though, you could tell he was a little dismayed with the heavy-metal gag video that opened the ceremony…
To save myself from rambling, I’ll use these photos to jog my GDC08 memories.
Gordon Walton (BioWare Austin) and Aaron Thibault (Gearbox Software) participate in the IGDA’s first ever Government+Association Summit.
Asante Bradford (Georgia Department of Economic Development) presents a case blast on the new Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act.
IGDA chapter and SIG leaders out for dinner after some behind-the-scenes workshops.
The 2008 IGDA Student Scholarship recipients.
The scholars take a tour of the snazzy Three Rings Design offices.
“Lite” reading in the Three Rings toilet stall.
Ian Baverstock (Kuju) welcomes delegates to the UK luncheon - one of many such government driven events at GDC.
Poster session during the IGDA’s Education Summit.
Petri Purho (Kloonigames) presents an IGF student postmortem during the Education Summit. His game, Crayon Physis Deluxe went on to win the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.
IGDA Party: The small line up for the IGDA members-only party. The ~10-minute wait time was way better than last year’s 1-hour+!
IGDA Party: We packed over 2000 members into the Westin ballroom.
IGDA Party: Patric Palm (Hansoft), Drew Johnston (Microsoft) and Mike Cornford (IGDA scholar).
IGDA Party: James Everett, Heather Kelley and ?.
IGDA Party: Brenda Brathwaite rewards members (?, Catherine Herdlick and Greg Trefry of Gamelab, Sofia Battegazzore and Gonzalo Frasca of Powerful Robot) with free drink tickets for a successful game pitch (ie, putting together a winning hand in the Writers SIG social card game).
IGDA Party: Jesse Schell (CMU), Tobi Saulnier (1st Playable) and Justin Berenbaum (EmSense) make their way into the party.
IGDA Party: Tracy Kobeda Brown (PMS Clan - Ticorah / CMU ETC) and Jill Duffy (CMP) connect.
IGDA Party: Bill Fulton (Ronin User Experience), Gaurav Mathur (Factor5) and Marty O’Donnell (Bungie).
IGDA Party: Can’t be a real party without Scott’s in kilts: ? and Paul Rylance of Wyte Dragon.
IGDA Party: ?, ?, Luna Cruz (Anino Games), ?, ? and Gabby Dizon (Flipside Games).
IGDA Party: Brian Robbins (Fuel Industries) and Bob Bates.
The ever popular discussion on games, violence, censorship, etc, hosted by the IGDA.
John Schapert delivers the Microsoft “keynote”.
Backstage during the Choice Awards rehearsal.
StrategyLegends: Brian Reynolds (Big Huge Games) and Sid Meier (Firaxis).
Heather Kelley, Jenova Chen (thatgamecompany) and Phil Fish liquor up before the ceremony starts.
Phil Fish collects his IGF award for excellence in visual arts in Fez.
Realm Lovejoy and Kim Swift grab the Best Game Design award for Portal.
Ralph Baer gets a standing ovation for his Pioneer Award. Best line: “I’m still cranking out stuff”.
Joe McDonagh and Ken Levine caught without a written speech for winning the Best Writing award with BioShock.
Bob Bates, myself and Ralph Baer post-ceremony.
A make-shift barber shop at the Sony party. Now I’ve really seen everything…
Q-Tip entertains at the Sony party. But, was mostly just noise preventing good networking…
The Moscone West escalator: A good problem for AI pathfinding/flocking researchers ;)
Clint Hocking (Ubisoft) delivers an awesome/beautiful lecture on immersion. Wow!
Steampunk is always hip: Cosplayers promoting Recoil: Retrograd at the Nordic pavilion.
Laura Fryer (Microsoft) and Noel Llopis (Power of Two Games) checking out the IGF games.
Pleo. Weirdly cool.
Steve Meretzky (Blue Fang Games) dons his winning rabbit ears after the Game Design Challenge. Alexey Pajitnov, Brenda Brathwaite and Eric Zimmerman partake in the silliness.
Tough Crowd: Jade Raymond tries to give a lecture during Ubisoft’s party.
Daneil James (center) welcomes Kellee Santiago (thatgamecompany) and Brian Robbins (Fuel Industries) to Three Rings for the after-after party.
Dr. Babsi Lippe (Avaloop) welcomes women to the IGDA booth for the annual Women’s Group Gathering.
Packed house for the annual rant session. Inspiring stuff!
Jon Mak’s performative non-verbal rant.
Our attempt at a katamari, which seemed to be quite popular (@Joystiq, @IGN, @YouTube). It never got big enough to actually stick a person to it (which was the original plan/hope).
Post-Party: Jane Pinckard (F9) and Robin Hunicke (EA) at the annual day-after GDC party…
Post-Party: Poor R.O.B. looking a little lonely :(
Post-Party: Jon Blow, simply wiped out from a busy week at GDC working to change the world…
Wow, what a night. The combo IGF and Game Developer Choice Awards ceremony was a blast (and ended ahead of schedule). I had the honor of sitting at the same table as Ralph Baer, chatting him up ahead of the show.
Might heart was pounding by the time they got to my bit. Big Huge Games’ Brian Reynolds (a previous chairman of the IGDA) did a wonderful intro/presentation and then I went into auto-pilot. No joke, it was hard to sense my limbs or actually hear anything as I made my way to the stage. Weird.
Anyway, here’s the script that I worked from for my acceptance speech - I didn’t quite nail it, but close enough.
And, I thought being called a jackass and idiot on national TV by Jack Thompson was reward enough!
OK, more seriously, this is a huge and unexpected honor. Thanks. This is indeed a role reversal for me as I’m normally the one giving out the awards. I often tease that I use awards to guilt developers into doing more volunteer work and pay their member dues on time. So, I’m not sure what that means in this context…
This award was really a surprise. Really. When I got the call, I was asked if I was sitting down. First thing that came to mind was that I was in trouble for something! I mostly see myself as a steward of the IGDA and its mission, more so giving others the platform and opportunity to be ambassadors themselves. I suppose I didn’t even see myself as being eligible for this award. I mean, this is my job. I get paid to do this kind of work. So, I kinda have an advantage over mostly everyone else. I certainly wouldn’t have picked me.
I see those that go above and beyond their “day job” to push the industry and society forward as being most deserving. Someone like Henry Jenkins of MIT comes to mind. Or, the awesome Penny-Arcade guys with their Childs’Play Charity raising millions of dollars for sick children. Or, even someone like Danny Ledonne, hated by many for creating the Columbine game, yet is one of the most articulate and outspoken people on games as an expressive medium of cultural significance. Nevermind, the sheer weight of Will Wright’s brain should net him an Ambassador Award ahead of me!
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful for this award, this is truly a wonderful honor. But, I’m just one person. What the industry needs now is for each one of you to get out there and be an ambassador for games, for game culture, for the profession of game development.
Apathy is for losers. Fine, you don’t have time to start a charity or fight Jack, then let your work do the talking. Your collective creative output is the real ambassador that touches millions on a global basis. Games have the ability to transform the world. Don’t lose sight of that. You create culture. We ARE culture.
Like it or not, you are all already ambassadors for games. So, better make the most of that responsibility! Award or not, I can’t ever do that for you.
To close up, I’d just like to say a special thanks to Chris Hecker and Jennifer Pahlka. About 7.5 year ago, Chris forwarded my “looking for a new opportunity” email to Jen. Jen and the IGDA board at the time were desperate just enough to give this caveman from Montreal a shot. And, I’m the first to admit that I had no freaking clue what I was doing – and I’m still learning every day. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to grow and to continue to serve you.
Thanks!
The Video Games Live! concert tour finally made it up to Montreal for a two-night performance. VGL front-man Tommy Tallarico was kind enough to invite me (along with my wife) to attend.
The performance of the orchestra and singers/choir was even better than I remember it from the the show I saw in San Jose a couple of years back. Hmm, must be the awesomeness of local Montreal talent ;)
Anyway, the best part was that my wife - a total non-gamer - really enjoyed the show. She didn’t care much for the geeky cosplay portions or the big video screen with game clips. She just thought the music was enjoyable and well performed.
After the show, Tommy was curious to get suggestions from my wife on how to attract more non-gamers to the show. Despite her praise, she quickly admitted that there’s no way she ever would have come if I hadn’t dragged her along. I don’t think Tommy can really hope for more than that - at least not for a long while…
Anyway, some quick shots from the show:
Cosplayers vying for audience appreciate (and cool prizes).
Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall pump up the audience.
Martin Leung, the Video Game Pianist, was impressive and got a standing ovation.
Tommy, Jack, two “roadies” and Martin hanging out backstage.
TED seems like such a cool conference. No doubt, they are doing something right when they sell out a year in advance of each conference! In an interesting twist, releasing much of their session content as free online videos has done nothing but drive further interest in the live event.
Anyway, there’s a ton of great presentations archived at the TED site (including one by game design guru Will Wright) and I’ve made it a personal mini-goal to watch a bunch of them. Browsing the archive, I caught myself bookmarking all the speakers/topics I was already familiar with.
So what? There’s gotta be some research out there already regarding the “magnetism” of the familiar. Well, the irony here is that TED is explicitly designed to cross-pollinate topics/speakers/areas of knowledge via their single track approach (and of course, very careful curation over the sessions) and their vetted attendee list.
And, now that I think about it, I often do this at bigger multi-track conferences. Rather than looking for new stuff, I always go to see the topic I already know a lot about (ya know, so I can “compare notes” or more successfully heckle).
Would be nifty to put on a game industry conference on all the stuff we don’t know much about (aka, “The Stuff You Should Know, But Have No Clue You Should Know Conference”). Would anyone actually show up?
