Develop Conference
So got back from Develop and was slightly wiped out. So no podcast today, hoping to pipe one out on Monday. I apologise for the delay.
There is good covereage at Develop site and some funny and very good coverage at RPS.
Though I must caution that often the press cherry pick or focus on a tangent of a talk meaning you miss the real value of the talk. In Tim Schafer talk he noted rather amusingly at how Journalists pens work hard whenever he says a number. I do wish more analytical pieces were written and less "wire" pieces which try find facts and spew them out.
Went to two great talks about Technical Art which got my programming brain buzzing on topics of tools and tricks. One from Jolyon Webb from Blitz games, which really got me thinking more and more about doing more with less. The other from James Answer from Sony about EyePet. They had loads of small little tricks.
There was a fascinating talk about dramatic delivery from Georg Backer of Lionhead Studios. It really got me thinking about things in so many ways. It reminded me about the value of work-shopping. I work shopped scenes from all my plays, it was my key tool of refinement, but never have I used it in games. So that was great.
Mostly my mind was buzzing with Kinect, and the future. I've worked with phones, wii-motes and the move. The Wii initially got me super super excited, and to some extent it still does. Move does not, after it arrived a 2 minute play with a lightsaber sensor and I knew its insides and out. It still provides interesting opportunities, but is limited. Kinect is a whole new animal built from old tricks, software is the key.
The talks from Nick Burton, from Rare, and Andrew Oliver, from Blitz, both fired my brain with ideas. The key ingredient here is invention, stop thinking about how to make old games work with new controllers but instead think of games for the controller. I want to write a whole new article on this but yes Kinect is VERY exciting.
Both the Keynotes were brimming fill of good advice, and the other talks gave me a lot to think on. The talk on Business Intelligence from CCP was interesting but a little shallow, a taste of the interesting depths which they delve.
So more to come, but yes my head goes buzz buzz buzz.
Games Horizon Thoughts Day 2
Monetising Innovation
Peter Molyneux - Creative Director
Really enjoyed this talk, a real breath of fresh air. The press coverage of this has mostly been terrible focusing on sound bytes and out of context bits of information, ah well.
I really liked Peter drawing the similarities to the 80s, remember 1983 crash is a big reason we have gated submission.
I really enjoyed him talking about silly mistakes he made in his development career. Like doing Populous 2 in assembler to impress some other industry people. I've made similar mistakes and glad to see there is hope for me yet.
He talked about the sense of wonder that great experiences can provide, he also focused on the quality and innovation aspect. It's worth mentioning every successful title he has done has had friction from the publisher.
I was highly amused at how his sexual commentary and "cupping" technique made the audience nervous and uncomfortable. I really really like that Lionhead is willing to take on these topics, if we can have mini-guns we should have sex. Cause you may never fire a mini-gun but your almost certainly going to have sex.
He also talked about the more diverse audience and needing to serve that. When I asked him about that he responded that you need to make your studio more diverse, listing an impressive number of women in important positions in Lionhead. It really impressed me, no hedging or dodging, he plainly stated you needed a more diverse team to produce diverse products.
It great to see quality and innovation to be held up in their proper place.
Changing Games
Joseph Olin - President, Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences
Another REALLY great talk. Again focusing on quality and the fight for eyeballs.
He spoke about the positive state of games, the shift to digital and the lack of proper tracking.
A comment I think he made, may have been another speaker, was once you see the gold rush it's over. Which is so true. I'm really getting sick of all these business people trying to jump on bandwagons after they have left.
Marketing campaigns that punch above their weight and why
Tom Rothenberg – Managing Partner, McCann Erickson
An amazing talk, with a broad application. Talking about the 4th age of advertising being Dialogue. My favourite quote came from this talk, Digital Marketing is like sex everyone is talking about it, some people are doing it. Most do it badly*. That may be slightly misquoted but the strokes are there
The insight into the Halo 3 campaign and Pepsi sports programs were amazing. Turning your brand or product into an "IDEA". Really interesting approach.
Edit: A detailed write-up is now on Games Brief
Interactive Drumming
Mark Schulman
A fun talk from a famous drummer. Great for the spirits, nothing new. Ended in a fun way and there were tic tacs.
Six New Tricks to Teach Old Dogs
Darren Jobling - COO, Eutechnyx
Hmmm.... not a great talk.
The one good quote which I think is so true,
"You can't change a negative person but by hell they can change you."
I've always believed in giving your all to your craft. Don't be half there, if your unhappy then change damn it.
The Future: We're All (Still) Monkies
Scott Foe – Consultant
Really enjoyable talk which can be boiled down to it's title.
Sex is a big thing, why are we ignoring it? He pointed to dating games, where are they? I have to say that I think that Kinetics is a big option here, starting with avatars with the option of moving to camera. Bearing in mind that you can't lie about height and weight to the camera (for avatar data). Still the game space can be hostile to women, there is a reason my voice chat is off except with friends. Tele-dildonics or remote stimulation is an interesting field. Which is better a high score or an orgasm?
Also talking about the value of experience and focused practice, feeling like I'm misquoting there. Basically experience comes from hard focused training. Think how athletes train, he used some basketball examples. Many starting earlier. Experience matters!!!
He touched the importance of good education, some discussion about the great innovative from skill-set in the QA session. Also some back and forth about whether a degree is needed. Everyone who I respected was saying no, Mark Reign for instance said their head graphics programmer had no degree. Though it was acknowledge that good guidance can accelerate experience.
Some younger members of the audience squirmed a bit, but having worked with giants like Bruce there are no doubts in my mind. Also remember age does not equal experience, its the amount of focused training.
All in all a great conference which I was glad to attend. Loads bubbling away in my head and I look forward to exploring some of it at a later date.
Games Horizon Thoughts Day 1
So I just got back from Games Horizon at Sage in Gateshead. Really awesome small conference which lets you really network and connect with people and some great speakers. Most of the real buzz from the conference has already hit the web by more talented writers than me. Here is my personal run down.
Roadmap to the Gamepocalypse
Jesse Schell – CEO, Schell Games
Jesse is an amazing speaker with really intelligent and engaging things to say. I strongly encourage you to look at his DICE talk, viewable here.
He built on those ideas and asked how we were going to get to the Gamepocalypse. He also tried to see the positive side of it. A very optimistic and awesome talk, games will be everywhere.
The question the talk really stirred in me is should developers try become the nexus of these massive swarms of interactivity or just be a service provider.
Edge did a nice piece on his talk here.
Without a doubt the best talk of the conference and my head is still buzzing from it. Great way to open the conference.
Edit: Slides from Talk
Bigpoint Games
Nils Holger Henning - CCO Bigpoint Games
Not much to say other than the obvious, Bigpoint is raking in the money bigtime.
One interesting thing covered was why Germany?? The truth is not so long back web games were mostly numbers and static pages. As the euro boardgames movement proves, Europe and especially the Germans love number games. So they just had the knowledge and fan base to take advantage of web games improving and becoming more accessible.
Free versus paid – the best way to make money from your game
Nicholas Lovell – Gamesbrief, (Chairman of Panel)
Mark Rein - Vice President, Epic Games
Ian Baverstock - Consultant, Tenshi Ventures
James Brooksby – Studio Head, doublesix
Dylan Collins - CEO, Jolt Games
This panel wandered all about the place like a drunk monkey. Mark as always was an interesting point of action and spoke good common sense. The one real question on my mind was a long term one.
By fragmenting, slicing, and spreading our games are we not devaluing the cultural artefacts we create. I want to return to this thought a revisit it once I've had more time to think on it.
Lessons leaned building Moshi Monsters to 20 million users
Michael Acton Smith – CEO, Mind Candy.
The Moshi talk was fun and highlighted some interesting points. Nothing ground breaking, but good to see some numbers and methods.
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust: Reincarnation of the console games model
Yohei Ishii - Senior Director Business Development, CCP Games.
I've known about the Eve and Dust 514 for a while, but World of Darkness was news to me. The massive thing was the ambition of this company. The courage to press forward truly important gaming and the bravery not to be a nanny.
I've spoken and thought about Eve quite a bit. It's one of the most interesting things out there. If not for my tendency to get addicted to MMO I would be applying Eve right now. I have played briefly in the past.
I really hope the Dust 514 initiative gets past console gates. It would be a complete game changer no doubt. I wish all the best to them and cross my fingers.
Modern Technology will Kill Us All?
Todd Eckert – Director of North America, Eutechnyx (Chairman of Panel)
Steve Mayall – MD, MusicAlly
Duncan Smith - Music Supervisor, SCEE
Can't say I enjoyed this talk. It felt poorly targeted and did not flow. It left little time for questions.
The Games Industry v William Hogarth
Charles Cecil – CEO, Revolution.
A real education, I was hooked for the entire talk. Charles spoke about William Hogarth's creative endeavours in comparison to the modern environment. A real eye opener and educational talk, drawing some strong relations. Hogarth was keen on being direct to the consumer.
One thing which was really interesting is he spoke about subscription model that Hogarth used for his pressings. 50% upfront, and a further 50% on delivery. The initial money coming directly from customers on a basis of creative trust.
I immediatly thought of Frozen Synapse from Mode7. They offer you the chance to buy into the game now and take part in the beta and the development process. Getting the final game when it is released. It's a model I like and hope we see more.
A short write up is here
The rise and impact of social network games
Rick Gibson - Director, Games Investor Consulting. (Chairman of Panel)
Michael Acton Smith – CEO, Mind Candy
Seb Hayes - COO and Co-founder, Playfire
Not a great panel, a lot of people with gold rush in their eyes.
The real disappointment is I wanted to find out what they thought about OpenID and OAuth. Considering how much of a big quiet push its getting. How it can dissolve walls between networks. Well either I really badly phrased my question or the panel was not familiar with the topic. Too many people just see Facebook connect I think. Ah well.
I ended the day with a big social foobar and decided to skip the party.