Plan for Davey Jackson

"So how was Burning Man?"-- Number one question in my life right now for people who know of my annual trek into Insanityville, NV each year. The challenge I face is that it takes pretty much half and hour to say anything meaningful about Burning Man. This year I went for the full 7 days, thinking I would be able to see a good majority of what was out there-- WRONG! I still only saw about %25 and I didn't even crack into the scheduled events.

For those of you who haven't been I highly recommend visiting www.burningman.com and looking through the pictures, history, and philosophy section. A new project launched this year, www.virtualplaya.org allows you to fly around a (gasp!) MS Flight Simulator model of The Man. Virtual Playa is kinda nice because it can help you top understand the scale of it all. The pictures, while detailed and unique, can't convey the enormity of the event. Burning Man is like Mad Max meets Carnival meets Girls Gone Wild meets the coolest rave you can imagine meets "What the h%$! am I doing and where AM I!?" In a review I read about Virtual Playa, Wired magazine said:

"Every year ... 30,000 artists, musicians, clowns, Santas and other counterculturalists converge on Nevada's Black Rock Desert for the annual Burning Man festival. To many of the people who attend the bacchanalia -- which takes place in the makeshift Black Rock City, replete with roads and complex infrastructure, full-scale pirate ships, 100-foot dragons, roving bunny slippers, 25-foot tall chandeliers fallen from the sky and people in costumery of all kinds -- there is no place like it on Earth."

A great description, filled with far better verbage than my feeble mind could accommodate. I especially like the term "bacchanalia". Yes that is right, lavish quaffing of intoxicants and total submission to hedonistic pleasures (accept of course the 100 degree weather, wind and dust). This is not to say that it is all about getting plastered off your a#! (or whatever your pleasure), but it kinda is about getting plastered off you're a$%! AND whatever your pleasure.

Take this cross section of freak show events you can enjoy: 10:00am wake-up hung over and watch 20 people running buck naked after a water tanker truck to catch their morning shower, laugh at them, then realize it is YOUR only chance for a shower as well, strip and chase after them; on your way back stop and dry off by jumping on the nearest trampoline; accept a burning man logo towel from a kind neighbor; hang out and drink their beer for breakfast; run back to your camp and get some sun tan lotion before you turn into baked good; eat a small rehydrated meal before mounting your fur covered bike and venturing towards Babylon; decline an offer to be cattle prodded (in the name of 'electro shock therapy'), smile and wave at every third cute girl wearing enough clothing that you can actually make eye contact with her (Note: VERY Difficult!)

This is a typical daytime routine.

Nighttime is more like FIRE!!!!!!!!!! Everywhere you look people have customized flamethrowers, fire staves, +5 flaming swords, and bullwhips that shoot (can you guess...?) FIRE!!! Fire dancers, fire jugglers, fire dervishes, lava mancers, crowns of flame and (oh yeah!) Fire Elementals (And yes, I do mean the busty 5/5 Magic the addiction card). The only thing that competes with the fire is the amount of neat things that go BLINK##Blink##BLINK. Think of your county or state fair on Bovine Growth Hormone... now think bigger. 36,000 crazy party people in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but compete for your limited attention span.

See, I kinda look a Burning Man as a place where production party companies, and dot.com millionaires vie for the best party. Its a no holds barred, my toys are cooler, bare chested brawl for your attention.

Have you ever seen a Tesla Coil!? (http://www.drmegavolt.com/ ) Have you ever seen a Tesla coil shoot a bolt of lighting at a drum set with the drummer still playing!? When I say it is a world class party I'm not blowing 50' smoke rings 500 feet up in the air (though there were TWO very cool machines out there doing just that). Paul Oakenfold and DJ Tiesto BOTH played sets out there and were just another act. In my humble oppinion the best DJs were at "House of Lotus" (http://www.houseoflotus.com/)

This is not to say that it is strictly about showing off. Quite the contrary. The mantra of Burning Man is "No Spectators". Participation is a central tenant of Burning Man. You may not just go our there to "watch the show." You have to BE the show, be in the show, and be an active player in the show. ALL art is participatory. If you take the part of the observer you are participating in limited extent. The TV, MTV, Brittany, and Teletubby generations are conditioned to participate in art in a passive manner. Burning Man is about Radical Self expression and breaking out of your mold. Playing WoW is cool; MAKING the next Genre defining game is even better.

The best projects at Burning Man break down the third wall and force you to take an active role in the project. Sure it's nice to look at a giant clock sculpture, but it is even better to climb inside it and play with the gears. Looking at a life-sized labyrinth is cool, but getting lost in it is way more fun (especially when the walls are covered with un-popped bubble wrap). There was a life-sized version of "Operation" out there (you know, that sadistic game that shocks you), but it wouldn't be any fun if no one played it.

Well, that's about all I have on Burning Man right now. I am hoping to upload some pictures of my killer level 3 raccoon costume as well as my Mr. T outfit (I pity tha fool!)

I did also want to talk about what I've been doing at GG. As I mentioned in my last posting, I was brought on to spearhead our Torque in Education initiative. We want universities and trade schools teaching with Torque because it is the best Game engine on the planet. (It also has the coolest community, and the best dev teams/co-workers you could ever hope to work for). Anyways, I was brought on because universities can't really manage themselves and buy though the website like normal Torque developers. They usually buy in bulk, and they usually buy off of a purchase order instead of a credit card. They also, categorically, want a discount and a step-by-step explanation of why Torque is better than just modding RE.

The community has done a great job of driving universities to our site and generating a buzz about Torque. Students who lobbied their school to adopt Torque generated many of our school sales. Student game clubs, grad student projects, and serious games designers have made up the bulk of our previous educational sales. Prior to my coming on board educational orders were processed mostly by force from the consumer end. (That is to say the persistence of our educational customers drove the sales) With the creation of my position we are seeking to take an active role in driving educational sales though outbound calls, trade shows, e-mails, and referrals.

Because, of the special needs of educational and commercial customers, GG now has a special set of "Managed Accounts" which I am mostly in charge of. For the past 2 months I have been entering our paper trail into our CRM database. I have also guided inbound inquiries into closeable sales. It has been a long process for two main reasons: 1, we haven't really done this before on this scale and 2, there are so many exciting projects and opportunities at GG it is REALLY hard to stay focused.

I'm feeling pretty good about what I've managed to get done so far though. All of our sold educational and many of our commercial accounts are now entered in our CRM database. Most have also, received a personal "Hi, hello, I the new guy hired to take care of you" e-mail. I've closed several new university accounts. I've help to draft a site license and student copy solution for TGE and the full tool set. With the help of Stephen and Jay we set up and booked our second commercial Torque Boot Camp. I relieved Jay of about 60+ e-mail inquires that had been sitting in various stages of development since 2004. I've hunted down some commercial studios who were breaking their EULA by running WAY to far off "indie" licenses (Yes, if you have 9 programmers working in Torque, you need 9 licenses. Yes, if you are successful midsized studio you need commercial licenses)

Oh, crud, my battery is about to die. Guess I'll have to cut the horn tooting session short.

Anyways, Burning Man was a blast you should definitely go. GG is kicking A@#! And we're going to be the educational standard for game courses. And YES, I do want any contact information you have at your current or previous school for game design.

Peace.

-d