Less than Impressed with Google's Game Pitch Kim Pallister took some notes at Casual Connect on the session led by Bernie Stolar featuring how Google Adsense can work with casual games.

Kim's first impression is, the audience expected something a little more... well, impressive, I guess! Integration with Google Earth! Search! I dunno, something more than Adsense...

His conclusions:

This from the company that only hires PHD's that know kung-fu and have x-ray vision? The fact that I work for MS isn't coloring my opinion here. I think this was an embarrassment to Google. Talk around the show seems to indicate that many share my opinion. The presentation was poor, the product was undefined and seems to be non-existant. Didn't help that one of the presenters sat down through the whole thing. "I'm really excited to be here" - yeah, right. How about standing up while you say that. The audience questions were mainly along the lines of trying to extract a little information about what exactly they might be doing. Answers were vague, and seemed to indicate that while they see an opportunity to take adsense to in-game ads, they've started to think about the sticky issues that come up when you try to do so, but haven't yet thought of answers to those questions. Oh, they did indicate web first (didn't say when), then download PC (didn't say when), then consoles (didn't say when but hinted that it's Sony that they are talking to).

Sounds like Google needs a little more help refining their conversations with casual games people. A potential consultant job for the right qualified person or persons?

When Audio IS the Experience As some of you might know, I've been working on the Austin GDC, helping to get content up as the Advisory Board sort through the hundreds of submissions to pick the best candidates. The Audio Board found a real gem that I wanted to highlight because it was added just last week; also, it revolves around a very interesting subject - increasing the accessibility of games.

The session, by Michelle Hinn and Richard van Tol, is When Audio IS the Experience: Games for the Visually Imparied. (See also my blog post about it for the Austin GDC website.)

I used to have an English teacher in high school who was legally blind. But ever majestic, she refused to carry a stick or keep a seeing-eye dog but instead navigated the campus by memory, sense of hearing, and a light touch on walls and banisters. She was tall, thin, and regal, with silver hair cut in a bob, looking always sleek and slightly rakish in oversized Jackie O sunglasses and soft neutral-colored suits. We submitted our papers to her by reading them out loud onto tape. You certainly notice overwrought turns of phrases when forced to read them out loud - I think it made me a better writer.

But it startled me that she knew so much about film, which she loved. And that she still went out, even when blind, to see new films that came out. I had always thought that films were primarily a visual delight. She taught me otherwise. She also attended all our high school drama efforts. I remember seeing her sitting alertly in her chair, leaning forward to catch all the words. Her fading sight didn't seem to dull her appetite for drama, nor impair her enjoyment of it. And in fact she had a memory like a steel trap, able to recall details of dialogue in the film, plots twists, emotional heights... she was remarkable.

That was a very long tangent to say simply that I'm glad Michelle and Richard are giving this talk; it should be very interesting; and to me, at least, a reminder that not everyone sees the world in the same way; and not everyone experiences art in the same way.

Will Wright's TED Talk This is the reason, partly, that Will Wright wasn't at GDC this year he was at the TED conference giving this talk!

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Austin GDC Call for Submissions

This is a bit self-serving, but the event I'm working on, the Austin GDC (formerly the Austin Game Conference) is now open to submissions from clever people like you.

Here's where you go do it: http://www.austingdc.net/conference/callforsubmissions.htm.

So gather your thoughts and submit something! You have until April 30th.

Games, Learning & Society Conference

I wish I had time to go to this - it's in July, though, and I think I might be too busy in July. I'll see what I can do. Anyway, looks interesting:

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Games, Learning & Society Conference 3.0 -- July 12-13, 2007

The third annual Games, Learning & Society (GLS) Conference will be held July 12-13, 2007 in Madison, Wisconsin. Sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education and the Academic ADL Co-Lab, the GLS Conference fosters substantive discussion and collaboration among academics, designers, and educators interested in how game technologies – commercial games and others – can enhance learning, culture, and education. Speakers, discussion groups, and interactive workshops will focus on game design, game culture, and games’ potential for learning.

For two years the GLS Conference has been the space for academics, industry leaders, educators, and policy makers to meet and to engage, not just in industry building, but in serious discussion about the current state of the field: where we ought to be headed, and what impact games can and ought to have on culture and society. We are planning the biggest and best year ever for this very important gathering, and we hope you will join us.
Confirmed presenters at GLS 3.0 include: Henry Jenkins, Jim Gee, Doug Church, Julian Dibbell, Elonka Dunin, Bob Gehorsam, Justin Hall, Yasmin Kafai, Eric Klopfer, Thomas Malaby, Andrew Phelps, Katie Salen, Lisa Galarneau, Ian Bogost, Ted Castronova, Kurt Squire and Constance Steinkuehler.

This two-day conference will be held at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Monona Terrace Convention Center, overlooking downtown Madison’s beautiful Lake Monona. Conference highlights include: a special session of hands-on workshops designed by and for videogame researchers and designers; a two-day lounge featuring Chat 'n' Frag sessions with key scholars and designers; fireside chats with industry leaders and special guests; a game room; webcasts of selected conference sessions; and our signature Thursday night dinner party.

From the PR Wire This Morning

Some interesting developments off the wires this morning.

Cartoon Network Announces MMO - in partnership with Korean MMO developer Grigon. Grigon's most well-known work is a game called Seal Online. The game will be aimed at kids and will incorporate Cartoon Network characters. Hm, okay. Well, if Toontown can do it, why not?

Absolute Poker Launches Poker Site for Women - called AP Lady. Don't click anything on the site, it'll trigger a download. What makes it different from regular poker? Well, apparently women aren't good at poker and this special site "is exploring partnerships with other relevant women's groups that will help to achieve the site's mission of helping women who want to get better at poker." Okay.

Women in Games International Conference Hosted By Microsoft - was announced today. The conference will happen on September 16th at Microsoft in Redmond, WA. Bonnie Ross, Director of Product Development for Microsoft Game Studios, will give the keynote address. The main topic addressed by the panels will be quality of life issues. I'm not sure I'll be able to attend, as it's a bit close to Tokyo Game Show, but I hope so.

Sex on the Second Day

This is a long overdue entry, but I've still been thinking about last week's Sex in Videogames Conference. My judgement in the last post was hasty - it was only the first day after all, and on the second day, the gathering seemed to hit its stride. The initial awkwardness faded, and a comfortable confidence set in. It was such a small group of people after all - we can talk intimately about intimate subjects that way, no?

The best talk of the second day was Sheri Graner Ray's lecture on designing adult-oriented videogames with a female audience in mind. Her point was about the different ways men and women receive physiological responses from stimuli: for most men, the visual image does the trick. For most women, an emotional connection does it. So you could effectively market BloodRayne to men by stripping her down in Playboy, but for women, Graner Ray suggested putting a profile of Prince of Persia in Seventeen alongside a picture of him walking his horse along a beach.

I thought this example was particularly pertinent because, well, the Prince is a hottie. And I've always loved him. And I got a thrill out of the fact that he was talking to me, in the game. "Shall I go on?" he would say softly, so concerned and mindful of my needs. How often does that happen in a videogame?

Anyway, I'm working on a video report of the conference that should be up in the next few days. Um, when I have time to finish it!

Spores of Creation

Damn, I'm really unhappy I missed this talk. (I was interviewing Peter Molyneux at the time, however, which I guess is a pretty good excuse.)

Going Techno

This year at GDC, the theme was "future vision", but the underlying subtext was the meaning of user-created and user-owned content. Microsoft's keynote was characteristicly slick and PRed: "Customization!" crowed J Allen. But "customization", for Microsoft, means skins and the ability to find your friends online - great features, but shallow ones. The stress was on technology - according to Allard, we're in the "HD era". And that means Hi-Def content and Hi-Def services. Several game developers in the audience blanched at this, as it also means even bigger budgets and bigger teams. Is that really what drives great games?

I [heart] Nintendo

Nintendo took a different tack: capture the "heart of a gamer", and you will have brand loyalty. But more than that, Iwata spoke about fun. Fun is not dependent on technology. The console should exist to entertain, to provide the most fun as it possibly can. And the new games Nintendo unveiled for both DS and Gamecube look to be packed full of fun. I can't wait for Animal Crossing DS.

That's my preliminary GDC report. What about you?

GDC Grinding

Sorry I haven't been able to post this week - the Game Developer's Conference has taken up a lot of my time. Today is the last day, and then I'm off to wrap-up parties and then a quick jaunt to SXSW Interactive for a talk on Monday morning. If you're in Austin around then, come and say hello.

Maybe my favorite part of any gaming conference is seeing friends - or in some cases, meeting friends for the first time. Babsi, whose survey I put up a little while ago, was there, as was Carol Chung wearing her NES controller necklace. Hot! Galen, who was a TA with Henry Lowood at Stanford now works there full time. Harvey Smith's at Midway. Warren Spector has his own studio in the works. Katherine Isbister, who wrote the excellent article about artist Becky Schaefer, I'll meet tomorrow for a cup of tea.

AND I got to play with Nintendo toys. They have some great stuff coming out for DS which I'll talk about next week.

But now, it's off to interview Molyneux! More later.

xoxo

-jane

The Title Pretty Much Says it All

Whle doing a random google search for games and female-related stuff, I came across Women in Games a little while ago. They didn't have anything posted on it besides the tagline "A voice for women in games." BUT apparently they are going to have a conference this August, and they are still accepting papers.

So what are you waiting for! Don't you want to go to Dundee this summer? Want to co-chair a panel with me? Come on, it'll be fun! And after the conference we can go to my boyfriend's parents' summer home in the south of France and kick it over a bottle of rosé. God I miss the summer.

Doesn't that sound good? Who's in?
[via my friend Ludology].

The Woman Track GDC 2005

This year there are a LOT of panels and roundtables that will be of interest to women in the industry. I've gone through the conference catalogue to pick out the ones that jumped out at me.

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GDC 2005 - Namedropping

Only geeks care that you stood next to WILL WRIGHT at an afterparty, but boy will they care. That's another way to see GDC - as GGA Guide to GDC continues - follow the big names! Smart people are just smart, and sometimes the topic of the panel doesn't even matter. Here are some of those speakers who have inspired me in the past.

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Why You Need to Go to GDC 2005

The Game Developer's Conference is coming up - March 7-11 in San Francisco, California. You still have a chance to register early for the special deal.

The GDC is one of my favorite events. It's an actual conference, unlike E3, which is more of a buzzbath and industry hoopla. The focus of GDC is, as the name suggests, game development - from design to production to marketing and selling. For the next week or so I and my cohorts will be writing about the highlights of this year's GDC and why you need to be there. Call it the GGA Guide to GDC 2005.

The most unpredictable - and thereby the most exciting - event is always the Experimental Gameplay demo, run by Jonathan Blow. It's a free-for-all of risky games, games that were developed with little commericalism in mind, all to test out a new mechanic or to make use of an interesting interface or just for the hell of it. It's open to everyone from game veterans to absolute beginners. It's exhilerating, fascinating, and totally impractical. I never miss it.

And, needless to say, I also never miss any time Will Wright speaks. He'll be talking this year about the Future of Content. It doesn't matter what he talks about, his lectures will always leave your mind spinning with about a billion ideas. You could write a book on every "talking point" he introduces.

And then there's Ernest Adams, iconoclast, rebel, free-wheeling intellectual. Some would add, crazy old coot (I mean that in the most affectionate possible sense, Ernest). He often relates videogame thematically to literary tropes or mytho-psychological undercurrents. You'll hate him or love him, but his remarks will always stimulate hours of relection or debate during the afterparties.

Tomorrow: Guide to GDC 2005 continues. Games, sex, and rock and roll!

Girly Pictures and the True Meaning of E3

(Thanks to Evil Avatar for digging this up.)

Every year around E3 gaming journos like to ponder the question of the booth babe. While research informs us that these women are hardly being exploited, there's always a certain uneasiness around the idea of using beautiful women to sell products that honestly have little to do with beautiful women. Booth babes are a ploy held over from back when videogames were just a boys' club.

Now while some of us ponder whether the booth babe will sunset as the game industry population diversifies, others have different ideas. E3girls.com, a website devoted to E3 booth babes year-round, has released a DVD of nothing but video footage of E3 2004 booth babes. The Home LAN Federation & Alliance has a review. The footage is amateurish at best, and honestly I can't imagine why anybody would think this would be worth $24-plus-shipping, but then I've never really been one for booth babes.

E3girls.com's obligatory tagline, "It's not about the games," begs the question, "So what is it about then?" I know a lot of people who sort of shake their heads at E3, but feel obligated to go. The most positive assessment I've heard from devs is that it gives us one last big weekend of parties before coming back to crunch for the holiday releases; something like a midwinter's feast. So I put it to you as Charlie Brown once famously asked Linus VanPelt: What is the true meaning of E3?

GGA Game-Nation Panel at SXSW

I was on a panel at South by Southwest Interactive: The State of the Game Nation, with Sheri Graner Ray and Wagner James Au.

There are some notes from Joho the blog and from Molly Steenson.

The panel discussed three question, rather broadly. First, how do game designers shape communities and societies in online communities? Second, how do players or users respond to developer's programmatic guidance? And finally, what's in the future for virtual societies?

We only had a hour, so we glossed over these questions, but I think it went well and a surprising number of people were there for a Tuesday morning session!

Thanks again to James and Sheri for being so generous with their time and expertise.

Psst... Hey, Buddy, Augment Your Reality?

So, how about that Augmented Reality?

I recently attended The 2nd International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality in Tokyo, Japan. From my time hobnobbing with other presenters at ISMAR03 and the related Augmented Reality Toolkit Workshop, I can say that this is a technology that gamers would do themselves a favor to get aquainted with. Currently, the Sony EyeToy is the only real forray into commercial use of (limited) AR tech for entertainment applications, although non-commercial explorations exist. ISMAR03 Keynote speaker Nassir Navab, of Siemens Corporate Research, centered his entire speech on getting the AR development community used to the idea that the technology is ready for prime time in the industrial sector, and that means its time for the game developer to raise her groggy head, get a web cam, and start hacking.

The simple truth is that, right now, there isn't that much to be said for AR entertainment. The BBC's R&D department has some interesting stuff for adding bits of AR to a news broadcast, and a few groups have done stuff for edutainment, but when it comes down to it, AR is an awesome, approachable technology with a high wow-factor and a vertible forest of low-hanging fruit. I say, time to start picking.

Gamers and Goths

As many of you already know, White Wolf is suing Sony over its new Underworld movie for copyright infringement, claiming that Underworld's characters, theme and setting are based on White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade® and Werewolf: The Apocalypse™ roleplaying game series. While the lawsuit itself is rather ridiculous, it did make me think about the intersection of goth culture and gaming.

During the Austin Game Conference last week, I went with some friends to the Elysium Nightclub to see the Crüxshadows perform. I had never been to a goth concert before but I had nothing better to do and was desperate for entertainment. Surprisingly, I rather enjoyed it and will mostly likely be attending their next show in SF. Upon entering the club, I was immediately impressed by the amount of games they had. In addition to the pool tables you would expect in most bars, there were two pinball tables (with the suitably gothy themes of Dracula and the Adams Family) and a whole section devoted to classic arcade games (which were not noticeably gothy at all unless you consider Joust somewhat intimidating). Who knew gaming was so prevalent in the goth scene?

After a little digging around, I was able to find official Sims skins for the Crüxshadows' lead singer and a full featured Underworld Half-life Mod. Anyone else know of other examples of goth gaming?

Austin Game Conference: An Ongoing Report

I'm at the Austin Game Conference right now, typing up this entry thanks to the free wireless access they'll have available during the entire two days that I'll be attending. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting for me to report about the conference proceedings as they occur by appending them to this post. According to the schedule posted, the first speaker will be Mark Jacobs, the CEO and President of Mythic Entertainment. No idea what he's going to be speaking about, but I hope to hear something about their upcoming scifi-alternate-history MMPOG Imperator.

Please discuss the conference here. And if you're also attending, feel free to post up your own reports here. Since there's six different conference tracks (and I plan on attending mostly online design sessions), I'll only be able to report on 1/6th of the proceedings.