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At Austin, I saw some really stand-out presentations and some really horrible ones. For most of ION, it was all middle-of-the-road. There wasn’t much that was just awful, and there wasn’t anything that stood out as being exceptional.

Part of the problem comes from there being so many panels. Frankly, panels just aren’t that interesting compared to lectures. They usually rehash the same subjects, and they just don’t get into enough depth or detail. I talked to some other people about this and we had a general consensus: people who are preparing lectures spend a lot of time preparing. Panelists usually don’t spend much time preparing, and often there isn’t much they can even do to prepare. The effort that people put into lectures shows, and it’s much more useful when you’re presented with a coherent package of information.

I also thought the design track was pretty weak this year. There weren’t many design lectures that I cared to attend. I missed several of the design lectures, so it’s possible that those were was some good content hidden away. I also missed a lecture I wanted to see because I slept in. Actually, my own lecture is the only 9am time slot I made it to, and that’s only because I had to be there!

In hindsight, I missed a couple of the lectures that might have been interesting. Because I went to way too many panels and none of them were useful. It’s not that they were bad and not entertaining. It’s just that panels seem to plateau at a level well below what lectures can achieve, even with a collection of panelists that all give awesome lectures. Maybe I just haven’t been to that really enlightening panel, but I’m doubtful.

Sara Jensen Schubert’s lecture about game balance tools and longevity was fine, but it’s hard to judge I was really the wrong audience. Since I’ve basically lived in the whole MMO balancing and tool scene, I already knew all the issues and what we really need. Joe’s postpartum presents a similar problem, especially since I already saw the lecture! I wasn’t fond of the Stargate talk.

And then there was this boring keynote by Alex St. John about The PC Gaming Comeback. Or, that’s what I thought. Then I went there and it blew me away. It’s the best keynote I’ve seen. Usually, keynotes are so drab, uninformative, safe and fond of telling the audience thing they heard ten times before. This one was different. His presentation style turned away some viewers, but it didn’t bother me. He started off pretty much by trying to stir up controversy in a way that could upset people to get them to pay attention. But he backed up everything he said - including the controversial statements - with math. The presentation was filled with charts, numbers and graphs. It was worth the price of admission alone. I might talk about the actual presentation, but there’s probably a much better write-up elsewhere.

Up until that point, Brandon Reinhart’s mini-lecture on narrative design was my favorite talk. Joe claims that’s just because I want design to have our own personal concept artist to use to communicate our ideas.

Overall, it was a really valuable conference. I just wished I saw a few more substantial lectures.

ION’s all over for this year, and it was a good experience. I did a lot more networking than I did at AGDC ‘07 - that speaker’s badge helps.

I’ll be making a series of posts about ION, including my lecture slides (probably tonight), chunks from the lecture (more detailed than the slides) and conference/lecture impressions.

When it comes to doing my job, there are really two things that I want. These are more logistical concerns, as opposed to the things I want in order for my job to be fulfilling.

#1: Iteration

Every design task should include a degree of iteration. Code shouldn’t get released without thorough testing and debugging. Design shouldn’t be any different, it just requires a different kind of testing. In some ways, design is like trying to predict the future, but with far fewer variables. While designers try to account for everything that’s going to happen with a system, it’s simply unfeasible to expect to get it perfect the first time. And that’s assuming that the system design can be implemented to the letter of the design - in reality, the design is likely to change as it gets implemented and it’ll need adjustments as a result.

#2: Tools

Given enough time, a skilled carpenter could build a house without any of his specialized tools. The finished product might be acceptable, but it’d be inferior to the alternative - and it’d cost more to build. Tools are a vital part of most game development jobs, and design is no exception. There should always be a robust process for creating and maintaining tools. While it’s possible to designers to build many of the tools they need on their own (albeit typically slower than with developer support), that requires allotting extra time for the creation of said tools. I’ve done some crazy stuff in Excel - Kevin teases me for building an artificial file diff in Excel, although that wasn’t very complex. Still, there are tons of cool things I could do with the resources that are already at my fingertips - Excel, SQL, etc - with sufficient staging time and no developer support. Most of my spreadsheets are hastily created to be functional, but not elegant. Tools should be elegant.

There was a time when I would have been willing to do that all in my free time. That time died a gruesome death after I got tired of working myself into the ground (~80hrs/wk avg for 3 years) and decided that had to stop. While I still spend a lot of my spare time researching design-related topics, I consider that more of a general-purpose study that’s pertinent to my career. Perhaps it’s a fine line, but the same doesn’t apply to learning how to do a particularly awkward function combination in Excel to target a specific math problem.

It’s all the same

It’s easy to succinctly summarize the preceding paragraphs: I want the time to do things right. Really, that’s all that my mini-list needs. And what’s the one thing you don’t have in game development? Sufficient time. This isn’t a knock against my employer or any of the companies I know, it’s just something that I consider to be an unpleasant reality in the games industry.

My lecture, Retention Mechanisms in MMORPGs, is scheduled for 9:00am - 10:00am on Tuesday, May 13.

That’s probably the first time slot of the conference. Will anyone be awake?

This is a subject I’ve seen come up on and off over the years, and it always fills me with a mixture of intrigue and bewilderment. This isn’t in response to any specific event… it’s just my rambling thoughts.

It’s difficult for me to relate to apathetic development in the games industry, and it’s something that really shouldn’t exist. A few things to begin with:

1) There should be no such thing as an apathetic game designer. Simply put, if you are getting into game design for any reason other than because it’s something you love to do, then you’re making a bad decision. It’s like becoming a painter when you don’t like art. The reason to become a painter is because of a love for the craft, not because you need a job. Ten years from now, I expect that I’ll still be making less money as a designer than I did at my last job. And I’ll b e working longer hours. And I won’t get to work from home. And I’ll be spending my weekends researching other games, reading design books and trolling design blogs.

2) If you don’t love the job, then it’s probably going to burn you out.

3) If you don’t care about the projects you’re working on, then your work won’t be as good.

4) Creative work requires inspiration. It’s hard to be inspired if you aren’t emotionally invested in your work.

Apathy in other positions isn’t as big of a leap for me, because most of those positions involve skill sets that can be applied to other fields. A programmer can get a job at any range of companies. Artists are needed at all types of multimedia and advertising companies. Testers are needed in all software development. Management is management. But what about a game system designer? What kind of job do I get with that skill set? In my case, I’d just fall back to architecture.

In some twisted reality, if someone’s lucky enough to get a job as a game designer just because they think it’s a cakewalk and they don’t really care, it shouldn’t take long for them to slam into the brick wall known as reality. Design isn’t an easy job. Chances are, you’ll be overworked (especially if you’re new) , underpaid (especially if you’re new), required to do tons of boring, menial tasks (especially if you’re new) and mistreated (especially if you have forums). It’s a job, and the workload mirrors that fact. The industry’s status quo treatment of new designers also backs up the assertion that the games industry cannibalizes its young (I wish I remembered where that originated). However, we become designers because of the 5-10% of the job that involves doing what we love. That’s the biggest benefit we get. If there’s no passion for that portion of the job, then I don’t understand why anyone would seek to continue this line of work.

Basically, the real benefit of working on games is having a job that you care about. Even the people with skills that translate into other jobs aren’t going to earn as much money working on games as they would elsewhere. The supply of people who want to work on games is greater than the demand, and the new ones are often willing to kill themselves for the opportunity.

Witnessing or hearing about apathetic development confuses me, but then I’ve never worked on a dreary project. Everything I’ve worked on was either of my own choosing or a huge opportunity. I didn’t have to work my way up by designing Barbie games or struggling through other games industry positions in the hopes of getting a spot as a designer.

Has the games industry become big enough that we should expect - or accept - apathetic development? I say no.

It was a memorable day at the FLS offices, as John Scott Tynes logged his last day as the producer for Pirates of the Burning Sea. John’s been a monument at FLS since long before I knew the company existed. While I’m sad to see such a well-respected colleague and friend leave the company, this is an exciting opportunity for John. I learned a lot working with him and I wish him the best at his new job.

As cliche as it is, this place won’t be the same without him. Quite appropriately, our day ended at 7:00pm and there was a lunar eclipse at 7:01pm.

ION has announced its first round of speakers and their lecture descriptions.

I got off my lazy butt and setup a LinkedIn profile.

My lecture proposal for the ION Game Conference (formerly OGDC) just got approved. My design-track session is titled, “Retention Mechanisms in MMORPGs.” Here’s the summary:

“A discussion of over a dozen different systems common to many MMORPGs and how they improve long-term player retention. This covers design elements that are both old and new, with discussion of how they relate to the presenter’s experiences in game design. The areas discussed include task expansion, game balance, rewarding all activities, group gameplay, sustainable content, identifying with your character and more.

Throughout the presentation , there will be examples of what worked and what problems rose to the surface during the development of an independent Multi-User Dungeon. The completed product proved to be exceptionally strong at longer-term player retention.”

 I’ll also be talking about Pirates and how it took a different approach.

We banned our first gold farmers last night.