GDC 2007 Overall

GDC 2007 has come and gone. And most of you have probably already read all the news coverage from the event- so I won’t even pretend to break anything new with this write-up. All I can do is provide a glimpse of the experience as a press attendee/graduate student/design intern and hopefully convey the madness in an entertaining and informative way.

I’ll start with the main keynotes. Throughout the week, I’ll post updates with in-depth write-ups of the sessions I attended. Also, I’ll have some postings from the various parties I was able to sneak my way into.

Phil Harrison Keynote: Gaming 3.0

HOME

My Opinion:

Nothing really too special here. It looks like second life within a digital world. The avatar creation was ugly- and most characters ended up looking the same. Felt very sterile, even though the environment was very pretty. The virtual room and trophy case display system was a cool feature, and it seems to be a step up above the similar system in the XBLA. However, I couldn’t help but feel that Sony was just trying to overcompensate for something- trying too hard.

Friend’s Opinions:

Producer friend brought up a great point: “it’s great that you can watch HD trailers at your friend’s virtual rooms. Let’s see how great the service works when you’re uploading/downloading at 1/kbs.”

Verdict:
M’yeh.

Little Big Planet

My Opinion

Holy moley! In 30 minutes, a relatively unknown developer studio became industry legends. At first, I was surprised that Sony would be showing off another avatar based creation game- but it soon proved to be much more than that. The level building, the cutesy British graphical style (reminiscent of Wallace and Grommet), the music, the slick interface and the physics were a tour de force. Everyone around me where wowed, by the presentation and the live demonstration of the game. The Web 2.0 features: user created content, sharing, community leaders hit the points that Phil Harrison was trying to make: that gamers should have ownership in what was being played. This game isn’t speculation- it’s real. They even used the British break-dance band: the Go-Team! as background music, which is sign of class..

Friend’s Opinions

HOLY CRAPOLA!!PWNZERS! “Sony pwned their own 1st party HOME with this game.”- Producer Friend

Verdict:

Sony’s Animal Crossing/Viva Pinata killer.

Nintendo Keynote- Shigeru Miyamoto: “Creative Vision”

I took crazy notes during this session. I will write this up thoroughly tommorow. This was an amazing talk.

Sessions Attended

1) Indie Prototyping, Braid, and Making Innovative Games

a. Speaker: Jonathon Blow

b. Points: Prototyping is key (software)

2) The Indie Bootstrap Kit

a. Speaker: Matt Wegner, Flashbang Studios

b. Form an LLC and make it happen

c. Be Honest with yourself- know your audience, your team, who is the leader and who is not, don’t sign your friends up

3) The Casual Cash Cow

a. Speaker: Eric Zimmerman, Gamelab

b. Research is the key to game innovation

4) Fostering an Experiment Student Project: How Cloud Got Made

a. Speaker: Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago, That Game Company

b. How Cloud got made- work.

5) The Game Design Challenge: The Needle and Thread Interface

a. Speakers: Zimmerman, David Jaffe, Alexy Pajitnov, Harvey Smith

b. Their Games SUCKED

6) Light and Darkness of 2D Gaming

a. Speakers: Koji Igarashi

b. 2-d Gaming will never die! Just needs to be handled correctly, new platforms will allow it to continue to strive

c. Solid Reasons for not having Pixel Art on Next Gen HD displays

7) Burning Mad: Game Publisher’s Rant

a. Speakers: Nichol Bradford, Greg Costikyan, Bing Gordan, Lee Jacobson, Alex St. John, Eric Zimmerman

i. Nichol Bradford: We need to inspire children to make games by revealing the process and showing them that skills learned in school are necessary to making games

ii. EA Guy; Good games comes from good leadership and communication

I walked out and threw up during this session because I had blacked out drinking the night before.

Parties Attended:

3 Rings (Puzzle Pirates)- Dressed in trench coat and drank Whiskey Sours. Intereting points included a DJ who mixed songs with a glove embued with magnets.
Linden Labs (Second Life)- I don’t remember going to this party, but apparently I was there, and I had a good time.
IGDA- Shmooze fest. I remember arriving, but I don’t remember leaving. See above section about throwing up during Game Publisher’s Rant. This is why.
Pandemic/BioWare- Pandemic throws a good party as usual. Free shot glasses!
Eidos- A low key affair highlighing Lara Croft. Easily the easiest party to get beer at for some strange reason.

none