For my last two days of GDC, I went to a few very popular sessions and a couple of quiet ones. A few were development roundtables that prefer people not blog about their contents, but which were helpful to me as someone who is developing contents I’m not supposed to blog about.
Other things:
The Microtalks (I took notes like whoa during these, because I felt so privileged just to be there, but hopefully video will end up on the internet at some point because this was amazing kinetic energy)
Scott Phillips – Saints Row the Third Post-Mortem
Huge privilege to be there, as well, because the recap can’t show you the tone video and previsualization animatics that were shown during the talk. All I gotta say is, I think it would be impossible not to watch that tone video without smiling. At least, if you’re me.
Of course, being there means I missed the tease about a new Deadly Premonition HD, but this is why I need an extra me so that I can have every possible amazing experience.
Ray Mazza – Lessons Learned Bringing the Sims to Facebook
It looks like the write-ups on this talk are a little short, but, social games, amIrite? Anyway, this was a really great and useful talk about the power of human-to-human connection in social games. It really made me put my design brain on.
My final session on Friday was the “free to play” panel moderated by Tom Chick. It was a very energetic debate about the merits of and problems with free-to-play games in the current market. I think it is very interesting to have gone to the Sims talk, and also to this one. I am pro “free to play,” and pro “social game,” because I see these games’ potential to reach a broader audience that may not be interested in playing the same kinds of games. Matthias Worch, who was on the panel mostly as an anti-FTP-advocate, said that everyone in the room could easily afford paying at least a dollar for a game. And that, certainly, is true. But, everyone in that room was already bought in to the idea of even playing a video game in the first place. And for others that are not, well, I’d like to bring them around too.
Anyway, since I’m already committed, I heard some games may have come out this week while I was otherwise occupied? …Just a few. So, maybe some stuff about that, soon.
Thanks to everyone I got to hang out with at GDC this year, and those I had close misses with, let’s hang out in the future!
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