While in town, I took the opportunity to hook up with Heather Kelley, who has been a “visiting” professor at Carnegie Mellon over the past semester. It was a crazy art show week in Pittsburgh and Heather took me around to a few shows and related events. Also, I gave a lecture at the 8-Bit Poet Collective (a student group at CMU promoting indie game development).

Here are some photos from the trip:

Drew Davidson (CMU ETC) welcomes the SIGGRAPH committee members to the Entertainment Technology Center.

ETC student project Quasi.

The “lobby” area to the ETC.

Must be a lot of Star Wars nerds at the ETC…

University of Pittsburgh’s “tower of knowledge”, the tallest university building in the world (or so I was told by the taxi driver).

Playing some dodgeball after the 8-Bit Poet meeting.

Checked out the I-am-a-Heather art show at Future Tenant. Heather Kelley had an interactive/game piece.

A larger scale piece at the Pittsburgh Biennial art show.

More standard photos on a wall art at the Biennial.

Heather rides the rocket chair!

For example, in working to get all the achievement points in Assassin’s Creed, I spent some extra time just running around the cities and climbing all the high point towers. Since that involves no violence/etc, I allowed my son to watch me play (as a side note it was actually educational as we talked about the time period and the types of houses/buildings, and the fact there were no cars, etc).

Anyway, a few weeks later, out of the blue, he drew me the below rendition of Altair at the top of a tower and the two carts of hay to jump into.

• attending and moderating a session during “Playing to Win: The Business and Social Frontiers of Videogames” at Penn State University
• having dinner with new board chair Jen MacLean to discuss org strategy
• visiting the IGDA admin office in New Jersey to work on various operational stuffs, including a finance session with IGDA treasurer Tobi Saulnier
• dinner with the IGDA-Philly chapter coordinators
• attending and speaking at the IGDA-Philly chapter meeting

On the whole, a very productive, albeit exhausting week. Especially given late night college-style partying that took place during the Penn conference… But, I digress.

The Playing to Win conference was a good first effort, and really got going with a bang. The first several sessions focused on the “social” element of the conference sub-title, and featured some high-powered speakers. Though, after that initial set of sessions, many of the following panels lacked the same focus and firepower - though, there was certainly many nuggets of goodness interspersed. Would be excellent to see them focus solely on these “social” elements in the future.

Also, it was a real pleasure to finally meet GamePolitics’ Dennis McCauley, who was there to speak from the gamer’s perspective.

Presenting at the IGDA-Philly night a few days later was a treat, as I always appreciate the opportunity to sample different chapter cultures and styles. The meeting was well run and there was a good ~50 person crowd on hand. My lecture was a rehash of the “at least 10 reasons the game industry doesn’t suck” lecture I’ve done a few times before.

Anyway, here are some photos from the trip:

David Bickham (Center on Media and Child Health) gives a somewhat balanced opening keynote.

An amped up Clay Calvert (Penn State) gives a legal rundown on anti-game legislation failures.

Dennis McCauley (GamePolitics.com) presents the consumer perspective.

Adam Thierer (Center for Digital Media Freedom, The Progress & Freedom Foundation) discusses the role of parents.

Stevan Mitchell (ESA) covering the ESA’s roadmap for fighting piracy.

Amusingly, a “genuine software?” warning popped up during Stevan’s talk (it was a conference system, not his).

Jen McNamara (Breakaway Games) presents Pulse! as an example of the power of games for serious applications.

Brian Smith (Penn State) talks about fantasy sports leagues, a wildly successful form of digital games.

Jen MacLean (38 Studios) does a wonderful job of wrapping together all the disparate threads of the conference into her closing keynote.

John Demos (Three Rings Design), Jen MacLean (38 Studios) and Jason Coleman (Big Huge Games) out for some college-style partying in State College, PA!

The surprisingly good cover band, Spider Kelly, in action.

IGDA-Philly coordinator Daniel Hettrick munching some pre-meeting pizza with Steve Lane (U. of Penn).

Daniel kicks off the meeting.

Corvus Elrod (Zakelro Story Studio) gives a session on self-promotion.

Tom Bennett (Drexel University) and Vance Souders (Firewater Games) chowing down after the chapter meeting.

Alex Horn (Comcast) and Colin Campbell (Big Huge Games) at the post meeting watering whole.

In terms of being “part of the solution” a few recent examples crossed my path:

• Ruckus Nation: HopeLab’s global competition to get kids moving announced their award winners.
• Future of Interactive Technology for Peace Conference: CMU is using the event to determine if games can be used to enhance the peacemaking process.
• Games For Health Conference: Now in its fourth iteration is on for early May…
• ESA Foundation Scholarships: …with a focus on getting more women and minorities into game development.

Of course, we have the ever popular Child’s Play Charity raising millions to help sick children. As well as more novel efforts like OneBigGame to create unique games for the benefit of children’s charities.

And, that’s just off the top of my head. There’s a bunch more stuff like this going on that I’m barely aware of…

So, I’m doing a bit more research and prep, and trying to understand the core of the teachers’ concern/complaint. In reviewing the CTF’s official statement, they spend most of their words describing how problematic bullying is. OK, no debate there, bullying is a serious and complex issue that needs society’s ongoing attention.

But what about the game itself? It is quite evident that none of the teachers actually played the game or bothered to do much research on it - seemingly defaulting to their likely model of all games being bad. Not only do they misrepresent what the game is about (along with content that doesn’t actually exist), they miss the whole point about the player-character being a kind of anti-bully. That many of the missions are to protect the weaker characters, and connect with the various factions at school. That you need to attend (and excel at) class in order to get ahead. And that actually being a bully has negative repercussions that slow down your progress.

The saddest part of all this is that the teachers are missing a prime opportunity to make progress. Their statement laments that the game “undermine[s] efforts to create safe schools”. Whereas, I’d argue that teachers could have leveraged Bully to both better understand the social politics of high school (by embodying a troubled teen) and open a much needed dialog with students about bullying.

Can we blame them? While some argue that Bully could have been an even more scathing critique of school life, the challenge is that many simply do not look to games for meaningful social commentary (like The Breakfast Club, for example). The mental model (certainly for digital immigrant teachers) is still stuck in the realm of frivolous toy as opposed to valuable cultural artifact…

Update 1: Clint Hocking offers to play Bully with the CTF to understand/evaluate it (book club style). Also, after the TV debate I contacted the CTF to open discussion and find ways to work together… I’ll post updates if/as things develop…

Update 2: Had a nice chat with Mary-Lou Donnelly from the CTF. She’s going to put me in touch with the folks heading up their anti-cyberbullying efforts (which lead the charge to ban Bully). Ultimately, we all want to stop bullying and build safe/effective schools, and there’s no doubt that games can play an important role in that effort. We’ll see what happens next…

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…

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 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.

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?

Luckily, I was also able to coordinate a visit to IGDA-Toronto for their January meeting. I gave a presentation on positive trends in the industry, followed by brief sessions on One Laptop Per Child and TO Jam. (Check out Jason MacIsaac’s report for a more detailed summary.) I was impressed by the ~70 person turn-out and happy to experience the good developer community vibe in Toronto.

Overall, the GameOn:Finance conference was a well done niche event that did well to keep things focused on the dollars and cents of the game industry. Appropriately held in a refurbished bank, there were plenty of moneymen in the room, along with start up studios looking for advice.

Eric Zimmerman gave the opening keynote on the first night, and was engaging as always. Most of the sessions were good, though the overemphasis on the panel format did become exhausting after a while. The case study format was also a nice inclusion - sadly, not everyone prepared a classic “case”, instead opting to give their corporate biography. Anyway, was a good start and with a little tighter control over content/format things should be even better next year.

In terms of tourist fun, I was able to hit “The Spirit of Budo: The History of Japan’s Martial Arts” exhibition at the Japan Foundation before the conference action got started. Ya know, those in-room local highlights tourist magazines do come in handy every now and again…

Some photos from the quick trip:

The 70+ participants for the IGDA-Toronto meeting.

TO Jam produced game in action.

Trevor Fencott (Bedlam Games), Paul Forest (Ganz) and Alan Van Arden (Bedlam Games) at the bar.

Mike Fletcher shows off his prototype OLPC by running…

…a ported version of Doom. Just what kids in developing countries need…

A suite of samurai armor at the Budo exhibit.

A stylishly adorned katana.

Crazy samurai warlord helmet with stag antlers.

Interactive Ontario bossman, Ian Kelso, kicks off the conference.

Eric Zimmerman (Gamelab) delivers the opening keynote.

The five trends that Eric explored…

…and then had participants vote on for probability, goodness, desirability, etc.

Nathon Gunn provides a case study on Bitcasters’ financing.

Best slide bullet ever: Nathon reveals his secret to success…

Warren Currell (Sherpa Games) leads the informative “Right Money” panel, made up of Margaret Wallace (Rebel Monkey), Tom Frencel (Capybara Games), Trevor Fencott (Bedlam Games) and Randy Thompson (Argon Venture Partners).

Josh Druckman (Dark Matter) questions Asi Burak (ImpactGames) on “dark horse” strategies.

Asi with a boat load (literally) of sushi during post conference dinner.