Ludology.org

Post-GDC

Wow, GDC was such an overwhelming experience! Keep in mind that I was absent for 4 years and, since then, it became even bigger than it was. I could not attend to many talks since I had quite a bunch of meetings with clients and publishers, but I was lucky enough to attend to pretty good ones.

I would highlight Jane McGonigal's rant, which deeply moved me. Unfortunately I think it did not get the reaction that it deserved but, at least for me, it was the first time that I heard a designer speaking straight from the heart about the importance of play itself in our everyday life. Kudos to Jane, you're my hero!

Margaret Robertson also gave an excellent talk. Her encyclopedic knowledge of games is simply amazing. She picked excellent examples to illustrate her main point, which was how designers must treat players: with love. And she did not mean this as a metaphor, but rather literally. A truly smart presentation, given in plain English and illustrated with right-on examples.

Rod Humble's presentation on The Sims Carnival was also one of the highlights of the conference. The site is still only accessible by invite only but keep an eye on it. It's an online community where players not only can create games but can also modify other people's games. I was delighted when I learned about it, since it's pretty much the same model that I proposed seven years ago in my dissertation Videogames of the Oppressed. At least at first sight, it seems like it would be a great environment for testing my theories on Boalian games (and it was developed on EA's money, which is even better :)

Raph Koster's keynote was a virtuoso technical demonstration of Metaplace. Certainly, it was much more technical than most people would have preferred, but it was amazing to see what the project is coming to: an elegant approach to MMO design where the client is designed using regular web technologies. Incidentally, Raph was one of the very few people who got a chance to take a look at my upcoming commercial project (sorry, it's still secret!) He seemed to have really liked what he played, since he even posted about it.

Overall, this GDC was particularly satisfying to me since I got the chance to meet again many friends that I had not seen for years. And I got a chance to bring Rock Band to my studio (which I'm starting to think it was not such a great idea, since I can hear now from my office some awful version of a Nirvana song... Oh, well, I guess it's just play after all :)

Tetris or Cubist art

You may remember that last September I was lucky enough to meet Toru Iwatani, the creator of a little game known as Pac-Man. He was very kind and he even draw me the game's main characters. Well, I guess I started a new collection, because today at GDC I met Alexey Pajitnov, creator of Tetris. He was part of the 2008 Game Design Challenge, which was about creating an inter-species game. Pajitnov suggested the creation of a game involving dolphins and paintball. Yes, it was as crazy as it sounds. However, it ended up in third place, even though that was not a problem at all, since the whole session was hilarious. Anyway, once the session was over he draw me this Tetris block that I am so glad to share with all of you.

Wii Fit

Hi from GDC! I haven't been at the conference in over 4 years, but I guess it feels as crazy and crowded as usual. So far, my best experience has been to try Nintendo's Wii Fit (which now has a US release date of May 19th according to the guy at the booth). I tried the skiing game and the soccer one. My first reaction: the board is incredibly sensitive, so it gets a while to get used to it. But once you do it, it works pretty well. I'm pretty sure the experience is close to using the wiimote the first time: it takes a few minutes to get used to it. I also was able to lift the mat itself and I'm happy to report that it's not heavy at all (I would say the same or less weight than your average scale). As you can see in the pic, players where required to take their shoes off, in the best Japanese tradition. Does it look like a killer app? It certainly does but, you never know. Nintendo has been on a roll lately and certainly can achieve another mass success with the Wii Fit, but of course we will need to wait and see what 3rd party developer come up with. Meanwhile, I'll definitively grab one as soon as they become available.

Digital Islam & Videogames

Digital Islam is a research project at the University of Prague which focuses on Middle East, Islam and Digital Media. It's run by Vit Sisler, who, luckily for us, is an expert both on Islam and videogames. If you are looking for information about videogames and the Islamic world, there is no better resource that I know on the net. The site includes many of Vit Sisler's own writings, which I have previously recommended before (1, 2), including a 2005 interview with Afkar Media's Radwan Kasmiya, the great pioneer of videogame documentary.

The Nordics get Serious

The Nordic Conference of Serious Games will take place on February 28-29, 2008 at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Here's the conference program.

The Game industry in South America

There's very little good info about the game industry in South America (probably because it's still quite small). I was happy to read this morning this article at Next Generation, which gives a very good panorama over the struggles of playing and making games in this part of the world. The article wonders if there are opportunites for larger companies to do development in South America and offers some points to give an affirmative answer to this question. The article is very thorough, mentioning not only examples for the two local giants (Brazil and Argentina) but also Chile, Perú and Uruguay (my studio gets a mention, too). Again, a very good article so go ahead and click the link.

iEnter, Barcelona

If you're not going to GDC, make the jump to Barcelona this February 28th and 29th for iEnter, an event about interactive entertainment (which I guess it's just an academic euphemism for videogames). Espen Aarseth, Miguel Sicart, Gordon Calleja & Aki Jarvinen will be there (in spite of what the program says, I won't be there. I'll be in GDC instead). But if you're around, it certainly looks like it'll be a great event.

Game-based Learning for History, Heritage and Politics

There's a minitrack on this subject at the 2nd European Conference on Games Based Learning, taking place in Barcelona on October 16-17, 2008. It's chaired by Tobias Bevc and Erik Champion.

See you at GDC

After 3 years without GDCing, I'm back to the event (even thought my real secret agenda is spending my savings at Kid Robot :) See you there!