Blood on the Floor...
by Ted Southard · 03/28/2009 (12:30 pm) · 7 comments
I'm relaxing at a friend's house until my flight back to New York tomorrow night, and figured I should take some time to write up the last blog from me for my adventures at GDC.
Overall, I think the conference was what I would term as a wild success. Here's a brief list of what's going on with DigitalFlux Entertainment and Epic Frontiers:
Interrogative for Everyone: Having seen someone trying to market a hum-drum NPC chat middleware that doesn't do half of what Interrogative can do currently, I've decided to package mine up as a middleware as well. As I said in the last blog, I haven't done any thinking about release dates or price points, but it will definitely be rolled into a DLL rather than having source sold.
More Interrogative Stuff: I went to an AI dinner thingy last night and talked with a lot of interesting people. Several things have come from these conversations, and one of them is a third demo for Interrogative that I will be trying to ready before IMGDC in a couple of weeks. I won't give too much away, but let's just say that the conversation and trivia quiz demos will look like nothing once this demo is done...
For the sake of all Indiekind: Another fruit of the AI dinner was talking with a certain gentleman in the IGDA who wants to use my project as a guinea pig for trying to create an "indie development process". The purpose of this is to try and create a process that indies can use to increase the odds of their projects' survival. This grew out of a conversation where we talked about how most indies make the same mistakes as their predecessors- mistakes that tend to destroy teams. Since indie game development is an entrepreneurial activity, once a team is destroyed, there is no entity left behind to learn from the failure, and so indies do not reap the benefits of learning from failure in the same way as larger companies do when projects or teams within them fail. This is intended as a way to see if that can be changed. There are a lot of ideas flying around on this subject, and it's still very much up in the air, but if this works out, it can help everyone.
Your Virtual World Sucks: I found it exceedingly interesting that many of the veteran game developers as well as some pretty big names in AI gave Interrogative and Epic Frontiers high marks for innovation and potential, while a certain developer from a VW-that-must-not-be-named tried to convince me that design decisions should be made by consensus of marketing focus groups exposed to features. Maybe if it had been towards the beginning of the conference rather than the end, the conversation would not have deteriorated, but we basically agreed to disagree on the two ways to design virtual worlds. Still, it should be said that the main thrust of "virtual worlds" (as opposed to MMOs) is to monetize teens and tweens rather than present a world containing content and providing abilities to interact (even the worst MMO has more interactivity than your average and even above-average virtual world). So, despite the fact that you can trick kids into giving you money for so slim a service as simply allowing them to chat and display stuff they buy from you, your virtual world sucks. Sorry, but it's true and this is honestly as nice as I can be about it, considering the smug look you had on your face...
Numbers: For those looking for numbers, I still have ten business cards left, out of 260 that I had brought. Not bad at all. I have about 130 cards given to me- a marathon LinkedIn invite-sending session waiting to happen. I have also obtained several leads on resources to help the project along, thanks to Ed Maurina (ever-helpful guy that he is), Broke Ass Games, and others. Countless conversations with developers ranging from us indies to several senior engineers from Blizzard (yes, WoW people) to people whose AI books I've bought, has given me an even broader and deeper view of what is possible both in general as well as with my own technology. You can't develop in a vacuum, and the exchange of information and ideas is crucial for true innovation (despite what all the "my game is so great I can't share the idea"-types say).
So, with all that said, I'd like to thank Garage Games for helping me to come out to GDC, and hopefully I'll be able to make it back out here next year. Especially Deborah and Michael Perry, who both were extremely accommodating with my real estate and PR needs. It's too bad I didn't get to hang out at the suite, but by the time that was starting up, I was pooped...
It was great seeing all the other people I've met before at other conventions (Mike Worth, Paul Dana, Sande Chen, Jim from Obsidian, Jenna, the Pushbutton Labs crew, and others), as well as those I've met face to face for the first time, even though we'd been talking here on the forums for a while (Ross Pawley, Ari, Ken Holst, Brett Seyler, Jon, the guys from Sickhead and Perfect Dork, and others), and even a lot of the people I was newly introduced to. All of these connections and relationships are what makes us indies so flexible and powerful a force, and all of us need to work harder at strengthening these connections and helping each other along.
Oh yeah, and the blood on the floor? Still ain't mine. Two out of three ain't bad at all ;)
Overall, I think the conference was what I would term as a wild success. Here's a brief list of what's going on with DigitalFlux Entertainment and Epic Frontiers:
Interrogative for Everyone: Having seen someone trying to market a hum-drum NPC chat middleware that doesn't do half of what Interrogative can do currently, I've decided to package mine up as a middleware as well. As I said in the last blog, I haven't done any thinking about release dates or price points, but it will definitely be rolled into a DLL rather than having source sold.
More Interrogative Stuff: I went to an AI dinner thingy last night and talked with a lot of interesting people. Several things have come from these conversations, and one of them is a third demo for Interrogative that I will be trying to ready before IMGDC in a couple of weeks. I won't give too much away, but let's just say that the conversation and trivia quiz demos will look like nothing once this demo is done...
For the sake of all Indiekind: Another fruit of the AI dinner was talking with a certain gentleman in the IGDA who wants to use my project as a guinea pig for trying to create an "indie development process". The purpose of this is to try and create a process that indies can use to increase the odds of their projects' survival. This grew out of a conversation where we talked about how most indies make the same mistakes as their predecessors- mistakes that tend to destroy teams. Since indie game development is an entrepreneurial activity, once a team is destroyed, there is no entity left behind to learn from the failure, and so indies do not reap the benefits of learning from failure in the same way as larger companies do when projects or teams within them fail. This is intended as a way to see if that can be changed. There are a lot of ideas flying around on this subject, and it's still very much up in the air, but if this works out, it can help everyone.
Your Virtual World Sucks: I found it exceedingly interesting that many of the veteran game developers as well as some pretty big names in AI gave Interrogative and Epic Frontiers high marks for innovation and potential, while a certain developer from a VW-that-must-not-be-named tried to convince me that design decisions should be made by consensus of marketing focus groups exposed to features. Maybe if it had been towards the beginning of the conference rather than the end, the conversation would not have deteriorated, but we basically agreed to disagree on the two ways to design virtual worlds. Still, it should be said that the main thrust of "virtual worlds" (as opposed to MMOs) is to monetize teens and tweens rather than present a world containing content and providing abilities to interact (even the worst MMO has more interactivity than your average and even above-average virtual world). So, despite the fact that you can trick kids into giving you money for so slim a service as simply allowing them to chat and display stuff they buy from you, your virtual world sucks. Sorry, but it's true and this is honestly as nice as I can be about it, considering the smug look you had on your face...
Numbers: For those looking for numbers, I still have ten business cards left, out of 260 that I had brought. Not bad at all. I have about 130 cards given to me- a marathon LinkedIn invite-sending session waiting to happen. I have also obtained several leads on resources to help the project along, thanks to Ed Maurina (ever-helpful guy that he is), Broke Ass Games, and others. Countless conversations with developers ranging from us indies to several senior engineers from Blizzard (yes, WoW people) to people whose AI books I've bought, has given me an even broader and deeper view of what is possible both in general as well as with my own technology. You can't develop in a vacuum, and the exchange of information and ideas is crucial for true innovation (despite what all the "my game is so great I can't share the idea"-types say).
So, with all that said, I'd like to thank Garage Games for helping me to come out to GDC, and hopefully I'll be able to make it back out here next year. Especially Deborah and Michael Perry, who both were extremely accommodating with my real estate and PR needs. It's too bad I didn't get to hang out at the suite, but by the time that was starting up, I was pooped...
It was great seeing all the other people I've met before at other conventions (Mike Worth, Paul Dana, Sande Chen, Jim from Obsidian, Jenna, the Pushbutton Labs crew, and others), as well as those I've met face to face for the first time, even though we'd been talking here on the forums for a while (Ross Pawley, Ari, Ken Holst, Brett Seyler, Jon, the guys from Sickhead and Perfect Dork, and others), and even a lot of the people I was newly introduced to. All of these connections and relationships are what makes us indies so flexible and powerful a force, and all of us need to work harder at strengthening these connections and helping each other along.
Oh yeah, and the blood on the floor? Still ain't mine. Two out of three ain't bad at all ;)
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#2
03/28/2009 (3:08 pm)
Thanks. I was hoping that you and/or Orion would have been around as well (though I did get to meet some of the other vSide guys, who were pretty cool), so we could have done some mutual brain-picking. Next time though :) 
#3
03/28/2009 (4:18 pm)
man ...i realy wish you could share the censored names with us. 
#4
Words cannot describe my feelings...
Great blogs, Ted. Informative and amusing. :)
03/28/2009 (5:03 pm)
Quote:design decisions should be made by consensus of marketing focus groups
Words cannot describe my feelings...Great blogs, Ted. Informative and amusing. :)
#5
@Steve: That's the first time it was put as succinctly as that (and kudos to the guy for distilling it to a technical process), but far from the first time that that sort of gist has been put across me. If it weren't for the attitude that accompanied the Kool-Aid talk, it would've been fine.
As far as VWs go, I think that the real problem isn't even having a chat/social VW as opposed to an MMO. What I think the problem is is that people are jumping onto that as a simple way to make money, and not even as a way to try and give people a way to socialize. In that view, monetizing the users is the primary focus, followed pretty far behind by content or interactivity. Engage! Expo had quite a few of those people, though there were a few that wanted to use it to do things like raise awareness and help teach things- but they get drowned out by the garbage.
And the fact that teens and tweens are looked at in strictly monetary terms doesn't sit well with me, but that's a personal decision. My problem with it is that if you're doing a social VW, make an effort at it. There was a VW in a "future of narrative" session there that had as an example a VW which was basically a concert hall where users would chat while a screen pumped in TV clips, music videos, or YouTube, and that was considered "the future of narrative in virtual worlds". Most of the session revolved around ways to monetize users, not even about ways to provide content. It was totally ridiculous.
So yeah, as you can see, it's pretty easy to push that button with me, lol...
03/28/2009 (6:09 pm)
@Mikael: That would do no one any good. People change their minds, and if that guy or his company changes his or theirs for whatever reason, then the fact that I mentioned his or their name would then be not so good a thing. Plus, anecdotes that go with names don't always turn out so well for those relating them (read my first GDC blog). So if you're going to talk about things in the industry that you have a strong opinion against, it's best if you keep the names anonymous both for them, as well as yourself (just in case you turn out to be wrong).@Steve: That's the first time it was put as succinctly as that (and kudos to the guy for distilling it to a technical process), but far from the first time that that sort of gist has been put across me. If it weren't for the attitude that accompanied the Kool-Aid talk, it would've been fine.
As far as VWs go, I think that the real problem isn't even having a chat/social VW as opposed to an MMO. What I think the problem is is that people are jumping onto that as a simple way to make money, and not even as a way to try and give people a way to socialize. In that view, monetizing the users is the primary focus, followed pretty far behind by content or interactivity. Engage! Expo had quite a few of those people, though there were a few that wanted to use it to do things like raise awareness and help teach things- but they get drowned out by the garbage.
And the fact that teens and tweens are looked at in strictly monetary terms doesn't sit well with me, but that's a personal decision. My problem with it is that if you're doing a social VW, make an effort at it. There was a VW in a "future of narrative" session there that had as an example a VW which was basically a concert hall where users would chat while a screen pumped in TV clips, music videos, or YouTube, and that was considered "the future of narrative in virtual worlds". Most of the session revolved around ways to monetize users, not even about ways to provide content. It was totally ridiculous.
So yeah, as you can see, it's pretty easy to push that button with me, lol...
#6
03/30/2009 (11:59 am)
Really great meeting you at the booth, Ted! I'm not sure if you met Derek, but if you're interested in selling Interrogative on the GG site, make sure to get in contact with him: derekb@garagegames.com.
#7
03/30/2009 (1:38 pm)
@Deborah: It'll take a bit of time to get it all fancy for general consumption (it's going from script to DLL form), but I'll definitely be contacting you guys about it. Thanks again for bringing me out, I had a great time!
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