GDC Day Three: Wednesday
Today was the first day of the regular GDC conference. The first two days are usually less populated, with the conference consisting of all-day seminars or tutorials. While these are very valuable, the last three days of the conference is when the bulk of the attendees arrive. At this point, GDC becomes a full-on carnival, with endless lines of people looking to be entertained while trying to learn how to entertain others.
Here’s the roundtables and tutorials I attended today:
User Interface Design Roundtable: Garner Halloran
Description: Developers getting together to talk about user interfaces and usability design.
What I expected: Some discussion on how to approach and design interfaces for games.
What I got: I was pretty dead this morning, and this time slot had more things I wanted to see than any other time slot during the conference. Luckily, I’m at a game conference. During breakfast in the speaker’s room, I asked the eight people who were also eating if anyone had a six-sided dice, and, wouldn’t you know, someone did. One roll later, and I’m going to the roundtable on User Interface. This ended up being a good thing, as the discussion woke me up, and reintroduced me to many of the Microsoft Usability team.
As an aside, one of the best things Microsoft has going for it in the game department is its usability team. Made of around 15 post-graduate psychologists, these guys make sure Microsoft’s games are user-friendly. This type of thing is absolutely necessary, in my mind, to give game developers a reality check when they try to produce games that only other game developers can understand.
As for the roundtable, it was pretty good. No epiphanies or really any new information, but it was good to see a packed room filled with people convinced that a good interface is necessary to make a good game.
Keynote: Microsoft XNA: J. Allard, Robbie Bach
Description: Microsoft making a mysterious, huge announcement.
What I expected: Nobody tells me nothin’, so I was successfully mystified.
What I got: Microsoft announced their new initiative to bring a bunch of new tools to help game developers build games faster and better. I think. It was technical and had a lot of an acronyms, and I get confused easily. Alex Pfaffe says it’s a good thing, so that’s good enough for me.
MMO Communities: Fans and Flames: Kevin O’Hara
Description: Roundtable discussing MMOGs and their relationships with the online communities that gather around them.
What I expected: A discussion about online communities.
What I got: This was a pretty good roundtable. Almost every MMOG was represented, from There.com to Pirates of the Burning Sea to Dark Age of Camelot to Star Wars Galaxies. And Mythica, of course. We talked about whether developers should be allowed to talk to the community (answer: most people think “no”, because some developers have given the rest of us a reputation for bad spelling, worse English, and a tendency to react poorly to flames) about how to deal with griefers (information gathering and banning) and about the development of the community from announcement to beta to live.
Overall, this was a fun roundtable. There’s a lot of thought going into this subject on the part of the developers, and it was good to share notes and discover we’re all pretty much on the same page.
Game Credits: Towards Industry Guidelines: Dave Weinstein, John Feil
Description: Dave and I are trying to get together a paper standardizing the titles and roles of who does what in the game industry.
What I expected: Dave to ask me to take notes.
What I got: I ended up having to take notes. We talked a lot about what merits a mention in a game’s credits and what title should be attributed to that work. We talked some about the actual roles, but, mostly, we talked about how to create the standards and what they might mean to the industry. The guys from Moby Games were there, and they’ll be a big help in getting this stuff standardized.
The Negotiation: Tom Buscaglia, Barry Friedman, Lee Jacobson
Description: Barry Friedman, a business manager who deals with publishers on the behalf of developers, and Lee Jacobson, a development manager for Midway Publishing, square off and roleplay a negotiation between a game studio and a publisher about retaining IP rights. This discussion is moderated by Tom Buscaglia, a lawyer who, I kid you not, takes no shit from anyone.
What I expected: I went in to this one blind. I met Tom a couple nights ago and found him to be a pretty entertaining fellow who is the exact stereotype of someone who doesn’t take shit from anyone. I figured it would be fun to see him speak.
What I got: This was the best thing I went to all day long. The discussion between Barry and Lee, once they got into their negotiation, was great! Filled with details about the contractual demands that publishers make of developers, and the demands that developers make of publishers, I came away from this event with tons more knowledge about the motivations of publishers and their relationships with their developers.
Some stuff to know: It’s very hard to retain the rights to your IP unless you, as a developer, come from a very strong position. The first contract a publisher gives you is always unfair. If you’ve never done anything like this before, you should hire Barry to do your deal for you, the guy is amazingly learned. The actual costs of a publisher are much higher than you really expect, but they stand to make a huge amount of money if your game succeeds.
10 Tricks From Psychology for Making Better Characters: Katherine Isbister
Description: A discussion on how to use tips from psychology to enhance your game’s characters.
What I expected: I met Katherine a few years ago at GDC, and she had a lot of good ideas to make games better through using psychological research. I wanted to see what she had to say.
What I got: This lecture did a good job at showing how people perceive the world and one another. If we can trick a player into seeing the psychological cues in a game character that they usually pick up on in other people, those characters will be more convincing, and, therefore, the game will become more immersive. Some of these methods include showing facial reactions and postures, establishing status in social situations, and testing for usability. I liked this lecture, but wished it could have covered how to adjust these tips to make sense in different cultures.
Here’s the roundtables and tutorials I attended today:
User Interface Design Roundtable: Garner Halloran
Description: Developers getting together to talk about user interfaces and usability design.
What I expected: Some discussion on how to approach and design interfaces for games.
What I got: I was pretty dead this morning, and this time slot had more things I wanted to see than any other time slot during the conference. Luckily, I’m at a game conference. During breakfast in the speaker’s room, I asked the eight people who were also eating if anyone had a six-sided dice, and, wouldn’t you know, someone did. One roll later, and I’m going to the roundtable on User Interface. This ended up being a good thing, as the discussion woke me up, and reintroduced me to many of the Microsoft Usability team.
As an aside, one of the best things Microsoft has going for it in the game department is its usability team. Made of around 15 post-graduate psychologists, these guys make sure Microsoft’s games are user-friendly. This type of thing is absolutely necessary, in my mind, to give game developers a reality check when they try to produce games that only other game developers can understand.
As for the roundtable, it was pretty good. No epiphanies or really any new information, but it was good to see a packed room filled with people convinced that a good interface is necessary to make a good game.
Keynote: Microsoft XNA: J. Allard, Robbie Bach
Description: Microsoft making a mysterious, huge announcement.
What I expected: Nobody tells me nothin’, so I was successfully mystified.
What I got: Microsoft announced their new initiative to bring a bunch of new tools to help game developers build games faster and better. I think. It was technical and had a lot of an acronyms, and I get confused easily. Alex Pfaffe says it’s a good thing, so that’s good enough for me.
MMO Communities: Fans and Flames: Kevin O’Hara
Description: Roundtable discussing MMOGs and their relationships with the online communities that gather around them.
What I expected: A discussion about online communities.
What I got: This was a pretty good roundtable. Almost every MMOG was represented, from There.com to Pirates of the Burning Sea to Dark Age of Camelot to Star Wars Galaxies. And Mythica, of course. We talked about whether developers should be allowed to talk to the community (answer: most people think “no”, because some developers have given the rest of us a reputation for bad spelling, worse English, and a tendency to react poorly to flames) about how to deal with griefers (information gathering and banning) and about the development of the community from announcement to beta to live.
Overall, this was a fun roundtable. There’s a lot of thought going into this subject on the part of the developers, and it was good to share notes and discover we’re all pretty much on the same page.
Game Credits: Towards Industry Guidelines: Dave Weinstein, John Feil
Description: Dave and I are trying to get together a paper standardizing the titles and roles of who does what in the game industry.
What I expected: Dave to ask me to take notes.
What I got: I ended up having to take notes. We talked a lot about what merits a mention in a game’s credits and what title should be attributed to that work. We talked some about the actual roles, but, mostly, we talked about how to create the standards and what they might mean to the industry. The guys from Moby Games were there, and they’ll be a big help in getting this stuff standardized.
The Negotiation: Tom Buscaglia, Barry Friedman, Lee Jacobson
Description: Barry Friedman, a business manager who deals with publishers on the behalf of developers, and Lee Jacobson, a development manager for Midway Publishing, square off and roleplay a negotiation between a game studio and a publisher about retaining IP rights. This discussion is moderated by Tom Buscaglia, a lawyer who, I kid you not, takes no shit from anyone.
What I expected: I went in to this one blind. I met Tom a couple nights ago and found him to be a pretty entertaining fellow who is the exact stereotype of someone who doesn’t take shit from anyone. I figured it would be fun to see him speak.
What I got: This was the best thing I went to all day long. The discussion between Barry and Lee, once they got into their negotiation, was great! Filled with details about the contractual demands that publishers make of developers, and the demands that developers make of publishers, I came away from this event with tons more knowledge about the motivations of publishers and their relationships with their developers.
Some stuff to know: It’s very hard to retain the rights to your IP unless you, as a developer, come from a very strong position. The first contract a publisher gives you is always unfair. If you’ve never done anything like this before, you should hire Barry to do your deal for you, the guy is amazingly learned. The actual costs of a publisher are much higher than you really expect, but they stand to make a huge amount of money if your game succeeds.
10 Tricks From Psychology for Making Better Characters: Katherine Isbister
Description: A discussion on how to use tips from psychology to enhance your game’s characters.
What I expected: I met Katherine a few years ago at GDC, and she had a lot of good ideas to make games better through using psychological research. I wanted to see what she had to say.
What I got: This lecture did a good job at showing how people perceive the world and one another. If we can trick a player into seeing the psychological cues in a game character that they usually pick up on in other people, those characters will be more convincing, and, therefore, the game will become more immersive. Some of these methods include showing facial reactions and postures, establishing status in social situations, and testing for usability. I liked this lecture, but wished it could have covered how to adjust these tips to make sense in different cultures.
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