Monthly Archive for March, 2006

The last 1.5 days at GDC have been quite fantastic. It started a bit slow, with the Foundation 9 party Tuesday night. Not that I’m complaining about free drinks and food, but aside from that it was just a typical visit to a loud, crowded bar. Met some interesting people, but it was too loud to carry on a conversation without difficulty. Several people (not me!) got riotously drunk.

After some debate and driving around, I crashed for the night with Thomas and Yuki. (Thanks! =) When we got to the Conference on Wednesday at 9, I grabbed a bagel and headed for a roundtable discussion on improving the QA process. There were some interesting ideas here about automating the test process, as well as the social aspect of testing (for multiplayer games) but it got kind of sidetracked at times by some cell-phone game developers talking about how impossible it is to test across multiple handsets / carriers. Still, it was a promising start. (Another, slightly more interesting digression concerned the testing process for casino games e.g. video poker, slots, etc. I don’t suppose it will shock anyone to hear that those fuckers are pretty hard core. Hard core as in: “After the game console was subjected to a high-voltage electro-magnetic frequency beam, it restarted and failed to return to the prior game state. This is unacceptable. Please rectify immediately!”)

After the QA session, I met up with Mike and Sirlin and went across the street to Sony’s big PS3 presentation. That was pretty underwhelming, but I wouldn’t have expected anything less from the world’s leading proprietor of overly-restrictive DRM, dumb-ass non-standard media formats and other thrilling adventures in playing it safe.

The next session was probably the most interesting one of the day. Daniel James (of Puzzle Pirates fame) led a discussion of item-based economies in Multiplayer games. (In other words, games which don’t charge a monthly subscription fee to play, but instead make money by selling individual game items to players) This is hardly a new idea, as several old-school game designers in the room (Steve Jackson as well as some folks from Magic: The Gathering) were quick to remind us. It is a hotly-debated area of online gaming however, and the debate is really all about one thing: money.

Subscription-based games deliver a consistent and predictable amount of revenue per user per month, but don’t offer players the opportunity to spend *more* than the standard monthly fee on the game, if they so choose. Often, this just leads to the creation of external or black market economies (on eBay and etc.) where players with deeper pockets can spend as much as they like on in-game items and upgrades, whether developers like it or not. Of course, this type of trading can lead to allegations of “cheating” or “unfairness” from players, and many developers are quick to agree with them. “After all, where is the fun in playing a game where victory always goes to the richest player?” they ask, “Shouldn’t skill be the determining factor instead?”

While these are, of course, valid questions, the proponents of item-based games choose to look at the issue from a different perspective. Instead of limiting the amount of money players can spend on the game via “official” channels (and creating a huge demand that can only be serviced by the black market), why not make the buying and selling of items for “real” currency an integral part of your game (e.g. accept the inevitable) and find *other* ways to ensure that more affluent players don’t dominate the competition? An added benefit of going this route, of course, is that developers/publishers are now able to reap the financial rewards of letting players spend as much as they want on items, instead of watching from the sidelines as these transactions take place!

Of course, there are dozens if not hundreds of related issues and fine points that complicate the discussion, and many of these were brought up at today’s event. I guess it will suffice to say: “Whenever large amounts of money are transacted, lawyers (and complexity) will follow.” =)

Oh, also… There was a guy from Perplex City / MindCandy there, and he brought up a kind of interesting point, with regards to item-based games. In a game like Perplex City (or Magic: The Gathering or whatever) where the “items” are real-world, physical cards, it’s super-easy for existing players to “hook” new players by just giving them some cards for free and showing them how the game works. Sure, it diverts a little bit of revenue that might otherwise have gone to the publisher/developer, but this is just a drop in the bucket compared to what a new player will most likely end up spending if they do start playing the game seriously. It’s just like those drug “pushers” they always warned us about at school: “The first hit is *always* free…” =)

So anyway, the afternoon was a bit less exciting. Some cool stuff was presented at the “Experimental Gaming Workshop” session (Guitar Hero, this weird web-based Dance Dance Revolution style game that some dude was making for VH1, etc.) but I had to leave early to go work the Backbone / Foundation 9 booth at the Expo. Basically my job there was to tell people that, “Yes, we are hiring” and “Thank you for your resume / demo reel / business card.” Still, it was a pretty fun time and I got to practice “schmoozing” or whatever, which I am often frightened to remember how competent I am at doing. =)

After the Expo I was going to go to the Game Awards with the guys but I forgot that I needed an Expo badge to get into that so I went and got an In’n'Out Burger instead and then hung out at the Linden Labs / Second Life party for a bit where I got to talk to Steve Jackson and Daniel James a little bit more about MMO economies and so on. This party was a bit nicer than Backbone’s because it was at the San Jose Art Museum, and they weren’t playing the music so loud that I needed to shout at everybody.

Finally, I drove back to Oakland. That was a much more pleasant drive at 9 PM than it was a 5 PM yesterday. Rush hour sucks. But my rental car is pretty sweet. I know it looks boring, but it accelerates much faster than you would expect. Also it is not ridiculously huge like some rental cars I have driven lately. Anybody want to buy me one?? =)

ADDENDUM: Oh yeah, btw… pix!

The headline for this article seems all well and good, until you realize it’s not this CDC that’s referenced, but this one… Once again, I am proud to be in the forefront of “ruining the youth.” As long as people keep saying that, I’ll know I’ve made the right career choice. =)

(via Games * Design * Art * Culture)