I had the chance and privilege to attend some conferences that were offered at this year’s MIGS and here is what I kept and learned from them.
Ed Fries Beauty, Constraint and the Atari 2600
To me, one of the best conferences of this year’s MIGS was definitely Ed Fries’. Surprisingly it was about coding. Coding? Like C# and such? Yes. Coding. You see, Fries brought a very cool point: if you have certain constraints, do you tend to create something more beautiful than if you had none? Ed Fries was VP of Game Publishing at Microsoft. He is basically the guy that made Bungie, Ensemble and Rare studios big names today. He was also involved in the startup of AGEIA the company that brought PhysX. He is also the guy that created Figure Prints where you can get your WoW character as a figurine.
However important Fries’ contributions to the game industry are he decided to educate us about the art of programming on the Atari 2600. You see, Ed Fries recently released a game on the Atari 2600 called Halo2600 and explained the constraints of coding on the Atari. This means you had to find out of the box solutions for common problems that seem easy to fix when you’re not limited by the Atari. What surprised me is how true this statement can actually be. I feel it is left to debate if it’s true for any genre of gaming but anyway he pointed out some interesting examples regarding Art such as the Impressionist painters; they constrained themselves to only paint impressions through shapes and little dots of an image instead of the exact replication. Fries then linked us to the video games we know demonstrating the constraints such as MadWorld that is limited to 3 colors only, Minecraft that is constrained to only blocks and Kirby’s Epic Yarn with textures only made out of fabric.
Interestingly enough, when one is limited he will use what he has at his disposition in a more creative way thus creating beauty. Does this apply everywhere in the gaming industry? I don’t know. I think that if we all try to limit ourselves we will not come out with anything good. Something is deemed beautiful based on many things and one of them is what surrounds them. Beautiful games will arise when there are normal and ugly games flooding our industry.
Chris Ferriera, The Art of the Sell: Pitching your ideas
Industry veteran Chris Ferriera who worked on notable franchises such as Godfather, Batman, Army of Two, Lord of the Rings and Spore Hero is now a Creative Director at Behavior and held a conference at the MIGS 2010 about the art of selling your ideas.
Using a very nicely crafted powerpoint presentation, Ferriera demonstrated the Elevator Pitch concept to the audience; You must sell your idea in 30 seconds to 2 minutes. It’s called the elevator pitch because you should be able to pitch your idea within an elevator ride. With a simple list of Do’s and Do Not’s Chris explained how you must always know your audience, adapt to them and make sure they are always feeling in control and happy about what they are hearing. Chris Ferriera has a way to explain something we always knew yet were never able to put in words and rationalize. Using his own skills of selling ideas he sold us to how to sell ideas. A very compelling Q&A followed where Chris really made sure to fully respond to each and every questions asked.
Alex Hutchinson, Michelle Hinn, David Edery, Dante Anderson, Genevieve Lord, Ann DeMarle – Positive Play Real World Gains.
This panel covered an important aspect of gaming: Positive Impact Games. This does not mean non-violent games; this means a Special Interest Group studying the impact video games have on our society and evaluating the positive aspect it has. The panel discussed about the possible danger of Crowdsourcing from multiple examples drawn from the book Changing the Game by David Edery.
For example the Google Image Labeler where you play for points in identifying images with an unknown partner on internet. You even get leaderboards for the points you make but the interesting thing is that this game is actually helping google identify its image database which means that through playing you are helping optimize google image search. As a contrast, a hacker created a game where players identify captcha words and the more they identify the more they see of an image of a nude woman. This can be compared to brute force hacking for the captcha system done through crowdsourcing. The panel focused on its positive effects versus its negative effects. As a moderator, Alex Hutchinson led the discussion in a captivating way involving the audience.
Rafael Chandler, The Narrative of Narrative
One very interesting conference was the one of Rafael Chandler, a freelance game writer who worked on amazing titles such as Deep Black(coming soon), SOCOM 4(coming soon), SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3, MAG, SOCOM: Confrontation, Ghost Recon 2, Ghost Recon 2: Summit strike and Rainbow Six: Lockdown. His conference starts out with: “It doesn’t matter what you think you’re writing; what’s important is how people interpret it”.
Chandler doesn’t actually talk about how to build a good story but more about what makes people like a good story based on the fact that a game writer is working with a team of designers, programmers, audio engineers, voice actors and animators who are all integrating the work in the game in a very technical way.
Rafael Chandler sees a project as a story and it is the way you work inside that story that will make sure what you are writing for the project makes a difference or not. He also adds that entering unknown territory by inputting personal and visceral stuff from your guts will set the story apart. He supports this point by mentioning that everything is worth justification or it really risks being cut.
Based on the theory of diminishing returns he states that, as a writer, every idea is valid yet the value of said ideas will diminish over time. What may seem like the best idea ever during pre-production may be the worse you can have if you try and input it when nearing the end of production.
Rafael Chandler also brought a very important point as he was concluding his conference, he says that “whenever you start at a new place, you have to come in very strong to make a good first impression”. I think those words are extremely meaningful for pretty much every profession in the industry.
Olivier Proulx and Ollie Sykes – Touchy, Feely: The pleasures and pitfalls of creating games for Apple devices
As we all know the Iphone and Ipad are now very important gaming devices and EA Mobile studio is proud to say they are accomplishing amazing feats on those devices. Olivier Proulx, producer and Ollie Sykes creative director constantly think outside the box to create top-rated Iphone and Ipad games such as the famous Scrabble that can be played with an Ipad and Iphone together. They also came up with the incredible Rock Band for Iphone and Ipod Touch.
The message is simple; the Iphone and Ipad are very powerful portable gaming device. In fact, they revealed that 60% of the people who bought an Ipad bought it for gaming purpose.
As we all know, there are thousands of applications and games on the App Store and the best way to stand out is really to have a “kickass game” said Olivier Proulx. A strong Brand and a good Publisher does help but the overall quality of the game is what makes the sell.
Hardcore games on mobile devices will peak and drop quickly when compared to more “casual” games where they will stay in the top sales and best rated for a long time.
The ratings on the App Store are given by users. This is great for developers because they really know where the problems are. On the other hand the critics, when user based, can be pretty vocal if there is something wrong about a product and even if the said product is free.
On devices such as the Ipad and Iphone, less is more. The interface and control scheme need to be minimal and natural. The devices use your fingers to work on iOS therefore using the same control scheme with your games will only make it natural for the players hence a better learning curve.
They explained the basic principles of a good Iphone/Ipad game; you need to grab the player with a simple concept, an easy entry and a quick sense of reward. You then need to hold the player by layering your mechanics, including a sense of discovery and placing a Eureka! moment.
Sykes summarized with Oooh!, Ah-ha!, Wheee! and RAWR! Oooh! stands for discovery, Ah-ha! stands for understanding, Wheee! stands for having fun and RAWR! stands for mastering the game.
They ended the conference with the challenges of developing on portable devices such as the Iphone and Ipad with the multiple constraints they have such as the different SKUs, QA, the rapidly evolving platform, the short development time, the tools needed to develop and playtest and finally the portability to other smartphones such as Android and Blackberry. I felt like buying an Ipad as I came out that conference.
Chris James, Notes about Level Design Prototyping and Practices
Chris James is a Lead Level Designer at Beenox. In the past he worked on games such as Full Auto, Army of Two, The Force Unleashed Sith Edition and The Force Unleashed 2. He gave the attendees a speak about what he learned as a level designer for aspiring and junior level designers.
The conference moves from definition of design and prototyping to basic do’s and do not’s of prototyping and practices within the industry.
This year’s MIGS had many students and Chris James’ conference was an excellent way for them to learn what it is to be a designer in the game industry. Chris’ experience and good games lineup brought the Q & A session to a whole new level where it lasted almost as long as its conference. Students had the perfect opportunity for them to get to know what it is like to be working in a development studio.
