This wasn’t one that I’d planned on going to. I had plans to attend another programming lecture but decided I needed something lighter. I’m certainly glad I did because this talk had some very memorable moments. Every year they hold a rant. Most famous was Chris Hecker’s rant from last year where he called the Wii two GameCubes stuck together with duct tape. This caused a huge backlash and a lot of noise on the internets, including an apology. Well, this year we were treated to not just new rants, but a follow up from Hecker which was highly entertaining.
It started out with a rant from Clint Hocking, who is Creative Director of Ubisoft. I’ve seen him speak before and he’s always witty, entertaining and enlightening. He didn’t let me down this time either. His talk was fast-paced with excellent slides. I probably missed taking down the bulk of what he said, so excuse the incompleteness!
He started out by saying he wanted to rant about creative stagnation in the game industry and then decided it was a tired topic. Then he thought we might not actually have it, pound for pound we are the most creative industry in the world. He told us to look at movies and threw up a slide with movie posters for many franchises that have gone on for way too long: Rocky, Rambo, Die Hard, Alien vs Predator, Saw IV. Then was a slide with creative games (I missed a bunch of these, here’s what I got down) Psychonauts, Rez HD, Indigo Prophecy.
I don’t quite recall the story behind this quote, but I think it says enough as it is:
“Dude it’s code… we can do anything.”
We make movies and songs and books that challenge people. Why not games? There are games that can make you cry. These are mostly smaller games made by independents not the big games. Not Call of Duty, Halo 3, shooters about mapping one pixel over another and pulling the trigger - these are good games but they don’t challenge you.
Why isn’t Call of Duty about duty, Medal of Honor about honor? What if you could put honor in a box and sell it? Not Tom Cruise’s face on a box and sell that (last samurai). Imagine if you had to play through time and again to get 5 stars of honor, not fire&theflame. He was talking about the way people practice on Guitar Hero over and over to master these insanely difficult songs, so what if they played over and over to actually become more honorable? For real?
The Marriage and Passage were coded up on the weekend. It sucks that 2 guys toiling away in their spare time have done more in the spare time then the rest of us working 50 hour weeks.
Clint likes making AAA titles. Not talking about taking the action out of Halo. Using proven techniques for creating emotional attachment
Halo has reached 6 million, the Lord of the Rings movies have reached 60 million. People don’t care about a dagger that glows when evil is near or a +5 rope. They care about the relationship between Frodo and Sam.
Our infatuation with objects means he’s not surprised that the most important emotional attachment in this year’s games is with a cube (portal). We lack the courage to show that we care about real stuff, lack the courage to be seen crying in the movie theater when Frodo says thank you to Sam (hey, I don’t, I cry at movies all the time!) Every time we make a game that fails to be about something real humans care about we’re letting ourselves down.
And he ended with his quote again “Dude it’s code… we can do anything.” I don’t think I’ve managed to convey how funny his talk actually was, but I think I hit most of the points.
Next was Jonathan Mak, creator of Everyday Shooter (which I first saw at GDC back in 2006). He didn’t actually rant. He had us all stand up and they started up some music and tossed balloons out into the crowd for us to keep in the air. They had stuff written on them such as “This balloon changes your gender, sorry” “Flawless Victory” “Girl” “Boy” “This is an illusion” “I’m a misunderstood robot” and “Weighted companion balloon”. Then they dragged Kim Swift (of Portal fame) up there and she had no idea what she was supposed to do. She said she had nothing to rant about (and well she shouldn’t!). Strange one.
I’ll continue with the rest of the rants tomorrow.
4 Responses to “GDC: Game Designers Rant Part 1”
Neat writeup, I should have done one considering I had made a (cough) video of it (/cough), which would have made remembering some bits a little easier, it was pretty inventive the balloon thing I think
but you really had to see it.
I enjoyed Clint’s rant, and he even put in a comment that yes, his current game doesn’t exactly fulfil his own rant yet, which was amusing
but I agree; I want to buy honour in a box, dammit! Less with the fixation on ropes and swords 
Meaningful games: Meh. I totally disagree.
Clint is from Ubi. Wanting more meaningful game is a very Ubisoft desire, and it comes across anytime you talk to their development guys. They really want the story to be meaningful.
But I don’t care about that. I want games to be fun, and games that take themselves too serious are doomed for me. I don’t want to play a WWII game which has realism, I want to be entertained and directed away from the real world.
Trying too hard to be about honor or duty would, for me, inevitably fail. Games aren’t movies. Movies are passive, you can be immersed in them and buy into a detailed, moralistic story. I don’t think that games can ever compete with movies on that front, because you are sitting with controller in your hand.
Nord, I think you’re selling games short. The more I see the industry change the more I realize the potential it has. Some movies *are* popcorn and have their place. In the same vein, there will always be light fluffy games that are about fun and nothing more. But the more games can touch your heart and affect your emotions, the more they can reach a broader audience.
Plus, I don’t think you’ll always *have* a controller in your hand.
Sometime soon we’re going to be using cameras to watch us and control the games with nothing more than our bodies.
[...] my notes from the other day, the next up to rant was Jane McGonigal. She’s a senior research at the [...]