Austin Game Conference :: Day 1
I write by the glowing light of my laptop from the Austin Game Conference. Ryan, Gary and Todd are all snuggled into their bedrolls, hunkered down after a couple of long days of travel, networking and then drinking in Austin, TX. Ryan is dodging crickets. Yes. Crickets. Apparently, it rained a few days ago and that somehow released a shit ton of mating crickets into the air. Believe me, I wish I was kidding.
To paraphrase John McClean, “Yipee-kai-yay motherfuckers! We in Texas!”
The conference has been great so far. Travel hiccups and work IRL made me miss most of the formal events of today. However, G, R n’ T all had great things to say about the first day of the con. I’ll let them explain in further detail on subsequent posts. For the moment, I’ll leave you with a few general impressions.
1. Per Ryan, the guys at Bioware are all the content geniuses we’ve known they were all along. Only now, having seen them talk in person, there is no question. These guys know how to craft, deep, rich, engaging stories. Though not an MMO, Mass Effect looks to be one seriously rich RPG … and there are no elves or orcs! BONUS!
2. Everyone has a hard-on for WOW. No big surprise here. The world loves WOW. What is sort of surprising is how many folks seem reluctant to to do anything ground-breaking to surpass WOW. They all want WOW’s numbers, but they are not sure how to get there.
3. While it may seem that I just capped on game devs, that was more of a shot at “the suits”. We’ve had the great fortune of hanging with several core devs working on major titles. So far, they are all cool, regular guys with a passion for the art and craft of game development.
Before you ask … no inside scoop gathered thus far.
But then again, that is not really our objective. We simply want to get to know the landscape of game development and come to understand what drives the industry so we can produce a better show for all of you.
For those of you working in web and other non-gaming software development, you might be interested to know that game development is not all parties, hookers and blow.
Most of these folks work their asses off. They deal with corporate politics and have PHBs just like the rest of us. At the end of the day, game devs put their pants on and go to work, just like everyone else.
That said, there are a lot of interesting observations to be had. I’ll leave you with this quote … intentionally unattributed …
Game studios now are a lot like film studios during the Golden Age of Cinema. There are lots of brilliant people working really hard to produce great creative works within the confines of corporate structure. We have yet to have our “1970′s”, when Scorcese, Coppala, Spielberg, and Peckinpah broke the industry mold and introduced the world to truly visionary, independent film.
Sound like a war cry for third generation gaming? It does to me. And, I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Uuuh-rah!
Peace,
DD
