Random GDCA notes

 Posted by (Visited 5050 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Sep 162009
 

I got to my hotel and there was a cowboy boot made of chocolate, with bonbons inside, waiting on the table. Ah, Austin.

The speaker’s gift is an ice cube tray that makes Space Invaders.

Have not yet had Rudy’s. This is a crime.

Told a lot of UO stories! Sort of weird how much it came up today.

A few folks from Korea asked for my autograph. They say everyone there still reads A Theory of Fun. Hurray!

Learned that lots of scripts I wrote for UO are still used in their original form.

Watched a bunch of famous game designers whose names I shall not drop play Family Business. They affected terrible Joisey and Brooklyn accents as they played.

Was able to answer John Romero’s trivia questions about old Epyx games. Was able to stump him on the name of the third Apshai game. I told him I didn’t tweet that fact. I didn’t promise not to blog it!

Here’s one for the Twitter followers of #designshoefetish or whatever the tag is: a pic of me and Brenda Brathwaite.

My talk is not until Friday,and I still have slides to prep. But it is almost 1am here… sigh.

IndustryGamers interview

 Posted by (Visited 6481 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Sep 112009
 

Matt Firor and I gave interviews to IndustryGamers for the run-up to GDCAustin, and the interviews are up now. Interesting to compare and contrast our answers, given that they are presented side by side (we did the interviews by email). Here’s one, follow the link for more!

IG: The MMO space is still largely controlled by fantasy games. Is this all gamers want, or are developers just unsure of what kinds of new genres to bring to the MMO sector?

Koster: This is just a symptom of the constrained market that AAA MMOs have been operating in. If you look at the MMO-like social games, we see a far broader array of genres being used quite successfully, and I would expect that trend to continue. Fantasy as a genre is a lot more mainstream than it used to be a decade or two ago, but I don’t think it is an accident that we see Mafia, farming, and restaurants as top genres in social games.

Firor: Fantasy games have one unique feature that has not yet been duplicated in other genres: they are approachable and easily understood by the player base. If you say a game is “fantasy,” then you know it’s going to be roughly based on medieval technology, with some magic, probably some elves, and monsters to slay. This is because fantasy games are based on legends and fables that we’ve been telling/reading to our children for hundreds of years. Fantasy stories are part of our culture, and just about everyone has been exposed to them. Because of this, fantasy games are easily understood by the player base.

— An evolving world – Feature: The State of the MMO Business – IndustryGamers.

A really old game design essay

 Posted by (Visited 13337 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Sep 112009
 

Cory Doctorow’s next book has all sorts of interesting editions, including one with endpapers made from ephemera from friends of his. I went looking for papers to send him. Flipping through old notebooks and scratch pads, I found a 2000 word essay-cum-manifesto-cum-tirade that I do not recall writing. It’s fiery and jejune and I can tell I was in my early twenties.

So I am sending the five pages of legal pad, scribbled frantically and passionately on both sides. I barely remember being the guy who wrote it, at a time before the World of Warcraft mentions on TV and the casual games on the web, at a time when it seemed like the corporations were already plenty big, back when “designer” was not even a title you saw, or if it was seen it was not accorded much respect. I don’t even know if it was written for an audience or not. At times it seems to speak to listeners, and at times it sounds like I was talking to myself.

I’m also posting it here, not because I agree with everything that I thought all those years ago, and not because it’s deathless insight deserving of being brought into the light. No, I post it because I just turned 38 on Monday, and it seemed worth remembering that passion; because even though many of the problems the essay discussed have changed, and times have moved on, there are always plenty of folks who are in their early twenties themselves and are railing away, and maybe they could use the fiery jejune kindred spirit of the past to keep them company.

“The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games.”

— Eugene Jarvis

Game design is an art and a craft. From the craft aspect of it we know that it involves predictable patterns, specific elements and tools that are common; in a word, we learn that it is to an extent quantifiable. It is not alchemical and mysterious. It obeys principles which may or may not be articulated or understood by its practitioners.

It is also an art – and there are no arts that are not also crafts. That means that it also strives to bottle lightning, to capture Lorca’s duende; it strives to shatter barriers and to communicate, provide venues of discussion and new contexts, enlighten, or even merely entertain. It must innovate (even if only in the creators’ eyes) or it is not worthy of the name.

Continue reading »

Let the Children Play on NYT.com

 Posted by (Visited 5165 times)  Game talk  Tagged with:
Sep 092009
 

There’s an editorial by Stuart Brown in the NYT advocating for more play time — physical, unstructured play time — during the school year for kids. Much of the argument is right in line with “theory of fun” principles…

For most American children in the not-so-distant past, “going out to play” was the norm. Today, according to a University of Michigan study, children spend 50 percent less time outside than they did just 20 years ago — and the 6.5 hours a day they spend with electronic media means that sitting in front of a screen has replaced going out.

Let the Children Play (Some More) – Happy Days Blog – NYTimes.com

Tossed in amidst the article is the quote

Physically engaging play is actually more fun than the virtual sort, and the enlivenment one gets from it can transcend the allure of sedentary life in a two-dimensional, electronic world.

which I don’t think is really clear from the science — our brains seem to regularly get fooled into thinking that the screen is a real world. That said, assertion or not, I think it is fair to say that the many other benefits of physical play outweigh the quibble.

The real entertainment, however, comes in the 9 pages (!) of comments, full of childhood reminiscences from people from all walks of life describing their playtime — stickball, bikes, splashing in creeks, roleplay, swings — and debate on “stranger danger.”

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