10 Snapshots of GDC '07

I don't really think an overall summary of the "themes" of GDC really makes sense, it's kind of like when reporters try to sum up billions of individual trades into how the stock market "feels" on any given day. So instead of trying to "sum up" the Game Developers Conference I figured I would just share some of the choice snippits from the week:

On changing the terminology from user generated content to player created content.

"Let’s kill 'user-generated content.' Are they a power source, are they generators, a battery? And even if they are junkies I don’t want to refer to them as such."
- Daniel James (Three Rings)

On how to measure if you have a hit.

"At Microsoft, we would sit down play testers with the game and a can of coke. When people hit a point of frustration, they would lean back in their chair and take a sip of the coke. We called it the "time-to-sip" and I would take a note of that moment and hammer away to fix it." - Mark Terrano (Hidden Path)

On why Media Molecule (who had one of the hotter demos of GDC) went after Sony as their publisher.

"At every GDC, Sony would throw some huge party that I wanted to go to but never got invited. So basically, we went to them first because they had the best parties." - Mark Healey (Media Molecule)

On how companies should communicate with their users about player created content:

"Be human! We don’t like being told we’re cogs, or numbers! You want to have a good relationship with your customers? Think of them as your wife, your husband, your boyfriend, your girlfriend… It’s easy!…It’s so fucking frustrating that we’re stuck in this stupid box of thinking of them as ‘them.’" - Raph (Areae)

On how to engage a community to create content.

"In retrospect, we made our tools too easy. We spent all this time trying to make it user friendly because we imagined that it would be a one-man as artist/engineer/designer. But they took their 10% of knowledge and formed with others who had 10% to get it done. Dumbing down the tools was a mistake." - Dr. Ray Muzyka (Bioware)

On Miyamoto

"People call him the Speilberg of the games industry. But I think that is not accurate. Is there anyone who has had such a consistent string of disruptive innovations in any industry? I think one day someone will be lucky enough to be called the Miyamoto of their field."

On how World of Warcraft has managed to be the only MMO to appeal to Western and Eastern audiences.

community-based (west) + leveling and combat (asian)

content heavy questing (west) + player-killing (asian)

party playing (west) + party & solo (asian) -

(He left out that it's the only international game brand to be made into a half-decent MMO) - Jong Hyun Wi

On making sure that Whirled has Ugly

"So kids can make their own animations and games, which is good, because if you look out there, it seems ugly is a key feature of rapid viral growth. So we have plenty of ugly." - Daniel James (Three Rings)

On whether people are willing to tolerate buying items in MMOs that effect gameplay

"People are fine with buying a better golf club to extend their drive 3 meters, but not to pay to drop it in the hole."

On the lessons and goals of their start-up

"My experience [with Rag-Doll Kung-Fu] taught me how important Producers are to keeping all the crap out. And that being a designer is not about coming up with ideas, everyone has ideas, but with being able to communicate them properly.

With that, we founded with four goals:
1) Be brutally honest with our publisher
2) explain visually, by doing not talking
3) have a great production staff
4) have a great team" - Mark Healey (Media Molecule)

There was also some great insights from Matt Mihaly, Daniel James, and others on the use of dual-currencies in an item-based revenue model to insure that you monetize your whole base. The general idea is that one currency is tied to money, the other to time, so if you are a 12 year old and have more time than money, you are in effect being supported by the older paying audience.

And lastly, some stats:

Most money spent by one player in an MMO - $50k (habbo), $15k (puzzle pirates), $15k (station exchange)
Bang Howdy: 60% of visitors to website click to play, 55% start java install, 20% actually get to playing after install. 8% of total audience actually play.
Freestyle [an asian basketball MMORPG with over 70k concurrent users] sold 45,000 pairs of Nike shoes, that wear out in 30 days, and don't even effect gameplay, for $1.50 a piece, in China!
Seafight [European MMO by Bigpoint] does over $14m annually in virtual item sales off of a relatively modest 800k registered user base. I thought Runescape wasn't getting enough press, who the hell are these guys!

If you want a more narrative style, try Joi Ito’s take on the conference as a whole.