I saw some truly impressive Unreal Engine tech demos and received reassurance on the future of AAA gaming from Epic's Mark Rein (despite the concerted attempts of social gaming venture capitalists to discourage me) ; I heard wonderfully wacky Metroid and Wario Ware visionary Yoshio Sakamoto discussing his creative strategy, and I was refreshed to learn that at ThatGameCompany, development process actually comprehends that game developers are human beings and not design robots that produce when crunched upon.
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It's amazing what happy people who work well together can create, isn't it? One of the highlights of my GDC was meeting many of the members of the team at Naughty Dog, who swept the Game Developers' Choice awards (which I also attended, enjoying the hosting talents of Kyle Gabler and Erin Robinson). Friend and awesome person Andy Schatz won the IGF with Monaco!
To be quite honest, I have never been a big fan of the Uncharted games; when people ask me what I think of Uncharted 2, I use words like "impressive" "an achievement" "a beautiful game" and "very well done." I mean all those words, of course, but when I'm writing criticism I tend to prize other traits. And I always like to root for underdogs; while I knew there was no chance whatsoever that Demon's Souls would beat Uncharted 2 as Game of the Year at the Choice awards, I selfishly wanted to see it happen! I also would have preferred to see Brutal Legend recognized for writing, but hey.
However, having met a handful of the team's senior members during GDC, I've gotta say I've never met a nicer or more humble group of game developers, and can't help but feel that nobody deserves the recognition more. They are the kind of people who, when you ask them what they do while chatting at the bar, are humble to the max --you have to push to even get them to admit they made the Game of the Year, and they all seem thrilled and bewildered by the recognition.
(Leaders on a certain couple of 2009's other major game successes often do not deign to socialize with us commonfolk, and if they did they would come in all popped collars, snakeskin boots and chest pounding over what they developed.)
The Dogs told me they feel like a family and love working together. I think that makes a difference. I would love it if more publishers got the idea that the way to get developers to make excellent games is to allow them to work according to their own internal culture (provided it's a positive one).
These are the kinds of people and ideas that inspire me most when I am at GDC, although the indies tend to be my very most favorite. The Los Angeles Times has just run an article by me on the constituency of the Experimental Gameplay Project, many of whom I got to say hello to at the event this year. While at GDC I also heard 2DBoy's Ron Carmel explain how a group of indie "angels" hopes to support independent designers in self-publishing.
I spoke on a panel, too. Mia Consalvo, Manveer Heir, Jamin Brophy-Warren and I discussed issues of diversity and race both within video games and on the development side. My friend Michael Abbott of Brainy Gamer fame (who is so warm and nice I cannot quite believe he is From The Internet, and who as usual I did not get to see enough of!) did an excellent write-up of our discussion. There seemed to be a great response to the discussion in general, and Cliff Bleszinski said it gave him ideas and "white man's guilt"!!
Friend and fellow Kotaku columnist Tim Rogers completed a speaker evaluation of my panel that indicates he would not recommend it to others out of the desire to "keep it as a secret weapon," that all speakers received zeroes except for I who received a rare "heart" ranking, and that "Bikini" is required to improve the panel. This was my favorite GDC Souvenir:
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(courtesy of Tim, the high-res version of his speaker evaluation is here.)
The combination of hard work and hard drinking killed many of my brain cells, I'm sure -- it was a whirlwind time and I'm glad to be back bumming around in Brooklyn with my snobby cat and not-snobby friends, but there's nothing like GDC. I had a wonderful time, and to those of you who did come up and say hello to me, it was nice to meet you!
Don't forget, you can find all of my GDC coverage, as well as the fine and excellent work of my colleagues, at Gamasutra's designated GDC 2010 landing page.
