Quick list of links to (16) sessions I thought relevant (with video links if available). 5 day conference with over 750 sessions, 550 exibitors. 28,000 industry professionals attended this year.
* Here’s our route from hotel to venue.
* A fun montage of 360 video clips from various areas of the show (4 min.)
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Category Archives: GDC
GDC’18 talk: Improving critique of projects (Jessica Hammer, Martin Pichlmair)
i thought this was an excellent talk at GDC last month. It’s about the importance of critique, and how to do it. I think there’s a lot that applies to how our CDT team handles/offers criticisms, as well as a lot about how teachers can approach feedback for their students (so, applicable to Instructional Designers and Media Developers). Continue reading
Conferences to consider
Thought I should send a list of some of the options my team is weighing, in case it’s of interest:
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GDC 2015 rough notes (WIP)
Here is a quick dump of notes from GDC (for an afternoon chat with my team).
If you’re curious, i’d recommend waiting for a more polished and official presentation. this is just quick temp barf
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GDC 2011:Wed.06 – Designing LIMBO’s Puzzles
Jeppe Carlson (Playdead): 4:30pm
(official GDC brief) (note: I was 5 minutes late)
SUMMARY:
puzzle designer discusses his process for designing much-lauded physics puzzles in recent indie game hit, Limbo.
EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:
Mostly interesting to hear about the tools they used. One of their programmers created an AI element which automatically playtests the level every time you compile it (run the level, and instantly see what most players would do in it). I think this was a huge insight into why the game turned out so well. Ingenius idea (to simulate the average player). Continue reading
GDC 2011:Wed.05 – The Failure Workshop
Chris Hecker (definition six, inc.), Kyle Gabler (2D Boy), Matthew Wegner (Flashbang Studios), Kyle Gray (Tomorrow Corporation), George Fan (PopCap Games) and Brad Wardell (Stardock) : 3pm -4pm
(official GDC brief) (note: I was 5 minutes late)
SUMMARY:
Each speaker described a game they’d made (or prototyped) which they considered a complete failure. They went into detail about why they exactly they thought it failed.
EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:
Some very interesting stories about their quick prototypes (much like the exercise I’d quickly whip up for various instructors at OSU’s Ecampus), and a strong theme around “get to prototype asap, and start testing it.” Continue reading
GDC 2011:Wed.04 – Prototype Through Production: Pro Guitar in ROCK BAND 3
Jason Booth (Harmonix Music Systems) and Sylvain Dubrofsky (Harmonix Music Systems): 1:30am – 2:30am
(official GDC brief)
SUMMARY:
I went to this because I’m a big Rock Band fan. Was hoping they’d expose their development process, but they didn’t really go into useful detail.
EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:
Hard to say really. They have a lot of cooks. They made a lot of prototypes. They didn’t have time for a lot of careful testing. There are lessons to be learned, but this talk wasn’t as directly useful as others.
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GDC 2011:Wed.03 – microtalks : Say how you play
(many speakers) 12am – 1:00pm
(official GDC brief)
SUMMARY:
A series of respected speakers gave “5 minute/20 slides” mini-speeches, to explain “how they play.” They mostly offered personal philosophy and arty thoughts.
EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:
It is interesting to note that many of these game developers mentioned that they think the modern U.S. educational system is broken…
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GDC 2011:Wed.02 – Dynamics: The State of The Art
Clint Hocking (LucasArts): 10:30am – 11:30am
(official GDC brief)
SUMMARY:
This talk builds on Chris Hecker’s question “How Do Games Mean.” (which is a play on words. not “what do they mean,” but “how?”)
The gist of Hocking’s talk was to push for an answer to this question by studying the current dynamics that create meaning in games. He focused on the ways editing is known to create unique meaning in the medium of film, and suggested we need to find similar mechanisms for conveying meaning in gameplay.
EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: Continue reading
GDC 2011:Wed.01 – Iwata’s Show Opening Keynote
Satoru Iwata (Nintendo): 9am – 10am
(official GDC brief)
(it occured to me that from OSU’s perspective: my notes and personal perspective might seem useless. So I thought I should try to explain how this relates to the Ecampus perspective – which turned into a huge rant unto itself)
EDUCATION PERSPECTIVE:
1)It is interesting to consider Nintendo’s transition from old-hardware business models into modern-online territory (sort of like education’s transition from on-campus to online?). it’s fairly widely known that Nintendo built their legacy product by product, by re-purposing existing hardware components and then creating innovative games to make the hardware look good. Their games expertly engage the player, but the key to their success is that their hardware was cheaper to manufacture (existing calculator parts, cartidges from factories they owned, etc.). Competitors tend to gamble the farm on expensive (often unstable) innovations, and hope someone else can make nice software.
The key point for online learning is really: Engage your audience with expert experience design, if you want to sell them on whatever platform.
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