Digested SIEGE Follow-up

I knew I had some additional thoughts to share post-SIEGE, but they hadn’t all percolated up yet. Nor have I had the chance to sit back and record a video of the Unity 3D demo that I did. That should be coming soon. But not yet. In the mean time, Jason Della Rocca wrote up a nice post and in usual form uploaded some photos. It was nice to see Jason again at the event, making it feel a bit more like the game industry center rather than the periphery. Georgia and Atlanta have come a long way in the last year. Even Athens has a couple of fledgling businesses attempting to get things going. Furthermore, I suspect that Osy and all the work that has been going on with recent efforts at UGA may be spun off, so all in all, things seem good, despite the economic situation.

Jason’s talk, as he says in his post, focused on 10 things that don’t suck:

For my keynote, I gave an updated version of my “10 things that don’t suck” presentation. Also, did a more niche panel on economic development type stuff, and a separate lecture on failure as the path to success/innovation.

The list I walked away with was as follows:

1. New Interfaces
2. New Players and Broadening Demographics
3. Usability Metrics and Metrics in General
4. Closer Ties to Academia and Growth of Game Studies
5. Production Sophistication with Agile Development and Scrum
6. Progress in QoL
7. Tools and “Democratization”
8. Managing Risk with Real-Time Management and Release Early/Often Models
9. Shifting Innovation “S” Curves
10. Impact – Games for Change and Serious Games

Now, of course I have to convince Jason that though my PhD says “Science and Technology Studies,” I am one of those Dr. people who “do games.” It may not say game studies, but I wrote my dissertation about work and creative practice in the game industry. Of course I don’t have any snazzy photos of me and Warren Spector, so that may ultimately be my problem. But maybe that makes sense, instead you’ll find pictures of me like this one, hanging out with developers rather than the folks at the top:

GDC 2007 Photo Jog

All-in-all, the event was a delight, save one presentation that simply rubbed me the wrong way. Typically I’m not one to get up and leave a presentation, but I was frustrated enough ten minutes into the talk that I decided having my blood pressure elevated for another 50 minutes was simply not something I was interested in. Upon returning to my notes I realized that what ticked me off was a definition of “risk” that doesn’t include human time/labor as having value (“The square root of bugger-all” to be precise). Tell that to MMOs attempting to battle World of Warcraft for the time of users. Sorry. No cookie.

There was a significant call for “internship” opportunities by students present at the end of the weekend town hall meeting. I’m actually not sure that the different definitions of “internship” are the same for what students are asking for and what industry is hearing. What many of the students seem to be asking for are unpaid internships for credit to gain experience. What industry typically has are paid internships for in-school or just-out-of-school folks hoping to demonstrate and hone skills prior to entering the workforce. There is also a significant difference in these two definitions in terms of time over head (there it is again, time, sheesh!) on the part of the internship offering company as well as expected output from the intern. What may very well be the “answer” for this is to create a kind of incubation/training system where students can work with other independent developers for free/credit, rather than asking/hoping the local industry do something time demanding and different than what they have become used to. Several times I heard students say when asked about a reel or portfolio, that they simply “don’t have time.” Make time. I did. Party less. Get lower grades. Do something different, because I don’t accept that answer. I see what you do on the weekends and weeknights. I have visited the bars and I know your WoW avatar names.

Perhaps the coolest part (besides the parties, which in GDC style were “off the hook”) was that The University of Georgia was graciously provided a space at the job and education hall for having rounded up so many attendees. Having never done this before, and not really asked permission, things were a bit sparse, but I feel we did well with a budget of $0.00 and the impressive efforts of folks like Josh Marsh who posted our running trailer, available for your viewing pleasure here:

UGA SIEGECon Promo video from krash nburn on Vimeo.