GDC 2010

Post date: Apr 07, 2010 4:37:32 PM

Game Developers Conference 2010 was an onslaught of game industry techniques and "How we did this" lectures. There was great insight to be found. These are the notes that I found most likely to be useful to us here at Ringling (slides from some of the lectures can be found at the bottom of this page).

Eric's Notes

by Eric Gingrich

Concept Share

According to the Concept Share team, there may be other ways for us to organize how we use Concept share here at Ringling. For example, Full Sail gives each student a share that follows them through their career as a student. This way faculty members can look at the students body of work for evaluation. They also go with the approach of using a lot of different shares for different uses: Private for a student and faculty member vs. "Mosh Pit" for a class or class project, etc.

Next version of Concept Share comes out this summer. Marty may remember what the details of the new features are, but it seemed like we should upgrade if possible.

The complex Challenges of Intuitive Design - Peter Molyneux (Lionhead), Josh Atkins (Microsoft)

Peter Molyneux speaking at GDC.

They hired a film studio and actors to act out the entire story. This was not mo-capped. Just filmed roughly so that they could understand the story and improve on it.

With Fable III, they are pushing towards Action Adventure rather than RPG because Action Adventures sell more than RPGs. They are simplifying their interface because %60 of Fable audience understood less than %50 of the features.

Fable III Character Interaction.

Fable II was "too easy" on purpose. They feel that traditional game balance is rooted in the arcades where the purpose is to get more quarters. Fable's balance is to aimed to create an emotional experience.

This was something I saw throughout GDC. The general industry trend is to simplify games and try to appeal to a broader audience. Hard core gamers are considered a small audience and are not being catered to as much as they once were.

Creating Successful Social Games - Mark Skaggs (Zynga)

Most people never make it to the end of the games they play. This is a waste of effort. You want people to play your game again and again - to the end - so that they will tell people about it and more people will play it and buy it.

Design gets easier with a Metric mindset: "Lets test it!" "What do the numbers say?" rather than subjective questions.

"What do players enjoy doing?" Is a better question than, "What's fun?" Set up a testing scheme that measures what the player is doing again and again.

Mark Skaggs speaking at GDC

Instead of getting feedback from other designers, which is subjective, just track what the player is doing. See the patterns then ask, "When were you having fun?" Designers can do this themselves first by tracking what they are doing and thinking about when they are enjoying what they are doing. Example given was C&C Generals. Answer to what is the secret to RTS fun? Too much to do in too little time.

These are they guys everyone in the industry is paying attention to right now because they are making bucketloads of money with very little development time. Apparently Farmville was made in 6 weeks(!).

One Page Designs - Stone Librande (EA/Maxis)

The Power Point for this lecture is very informative. It is attached at the bottom of this page. It is also available from the speaker's website at www.stonetronix.com.

"The act of creating the design document is the act of creating the game."

Problem: No one will read past the first page of your design doc. Solution: Make your document only page long.

Use Adobe Illustrator to get clean vector lines that look smooth when printed.

Start with something like this.

Try to get the time element in there, "We want our game to take 1 hour..."

Must have a "hypno-wheel" to attract people in, then they start reading the details.

Benefits:

• 1. Forces complete understanding.

  2. Forces concise design.

  3. Highlights relationships.

  4. Aids problem solving.

You personally need to print them out and hand them to people on the team. Bring pencils to meetings. Encourage people to write on them.

Example from Diablo.

What Happened Here? Environmental Storytelling - Harvey Smith (Arcane Studios), Mathias Worch (Visceral Games)

"Environmental storytelling fundamentally integrates player perception and active problem solving, which

builds investment.“

Associate elements in a scene to create subtext. Create the chain of events that lead to the scene portrayed. The player is involved in active problem solving which creates and maintains interest. It is ok that the player does not quite "get it."

Why is player interpretation so compelling?

• 1. Player is involved in ACTIVE interpretation.

  2. Player brings own experiences.

  3. Player pulls narrative rather than being fed.

In comics: What's important is what happens BETWEEN the panels.

Always reinforce the theme of your game.

It's memorable to come back and see your impact on the world: decals and damage left behind. Check out the iPhone game "Spider, The Secret of Bryce Manor" for an example of this.

Slides from the lecture with notes can be found here, and at www.witchboy.net

Creating the Active Cinematic Experience of UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES - Neil Druckmann (Naughty Dog), Bruce Straley (Naughty Dog)

Narrative drives the game play. The story people ARE the game people.

The GAP between expectation & results creates surprises and new challenges for the player. Lead the player to think they are going to be doing one thing, then surprise them with a twist.

Don't pay off action moments in cut scenes! The player must experience the story rather than being shown.

Nice to hear this from them! As a game developer and cut scene creator, this is one of my core beliefs.

Designing Assassin's Creed 2 (or: Dodging a Curveball from Upper Management) - Patrick Plourde (Ubisoft)

The current motto of game design is, "Fail early, fail often." This didn't work for them. Because of time constraints the design had to work right on the first pass(!). There was no time for iteration in the schedule. Therefore a strong documentation process was important.

Benifits of strong documentation  =

• 1. Designer is forced to figure out how the mechanic will work at the document stage.

  2. Helps keep track of the game design.

  3. Reduces questions to the designer.

  4. Costs less to fail on documentation.

Designer must however create documents that are relevant. The main audience for the docs were programmers who were implementing the features.

• 1. Not a powerpoint. Good for managers, not programmers.

  2. Not a design bible.

What do programmers understand? Programmers like to make lists! They created their design documents in Excel with [brackets] around [variables].

Downside to this kind of detail is that is can be very time consuming to create and approve the documents. There were 2 - 3 hours of approval meetings each day minimum for 6 months. Over 200 documents were produced. Only one feature had a second pass(!).

Playtesting was the main tool for polishing levels. Must track

• 1. Quantitative -  Concrete info: Data not opinions

  2. Qualitative - Was it fun? Give context to the data - Having both provides perspective.

For more details, here is a link to an article on the presentation at Joystiq.com. Here is a link to the powerpoint for this presentation.

Conclusion

GDC is obviously useful to game developers, but because of my new perspective as a teacher, I found just as much value in what people were saying as in the way that they presented the information. Some of this will definitely influence the courses I teach here at Ringling.

• • Free slides for all the presentations from GDC 2010 can be found here in the GDC Vault.

  • The schedule for GDC 2010: http://schedule.gdconf.com/

  • An informative and concise summary of the entire conference can be found here: http://mytwosenses.com/2010/03/gdc-2010-summary/

  • GDC 2011 will be February 28th - March 4th!

GDC 2010 – Murphy's Observations and Thoughts

Sunday, April 4, 2010 - Martin Murphy

This was the first year I have been able to attend GDC without having to be involved with recruiting or talking with vendors in five years.  It was a real joy to be able to attend over a dozen talks discussing the cutting edge topics of the games industry while still squirreling away a few moments to catch up with friends and colleagues from the industry.

This year’s game conference I walked away with confidence that our fledgling game program at Ringling College is heading in the right direction.  None of the artwork seen by competing schools in the independent games section was anything close or radically better than our students, many of the hottest talks of the conference were centered on environmental and cinematic storytelling  (topics we focus on in class) as well as the few students who were able to attend received positive responses on their portfolios from recruiters at the Career Expo.  Many of the students felt even more confident of the program’s direction based on the warm response to their work as well as the over all zeitgeist of the conference related to topics that are being actively taught in class.

I particularly enjoyed two talks, one about "How Games could make you Cry." by a dear friend and Narrative Game Designer at Ubisoft, Richard Rouse, and "Rapid Prototyping." by a long time connection at Epic Games, Lee Perry.  Richard does an amazing job researching his topics in what I assume would be considered a very scholarly fashion while distilling his points of view in an appealing and easily accessible manner.  A method I hope to emulate in my instructional efforts.  Richard discussed how media and entertainment typically pulls on our heartstrings through melodrama and self-pity.  He provided relevant examples from other media and then discussed several techniques on how melodrama could be employed in games with some relevant examples.  He absolutely hit the mark with his examples as I needed to hold back tears during the examples he shared in the talk.

This methodology of “tell and then show” with "proof in the pudding" examples was repeated by Lee Perry.  Lee has a tremendous background in games, first entering the industry on the art side eventually becoming an art director than switching completely to game design.  He knows the capabilities of the Unreal engine like know one else and has experience to know where to cut the corners and get straight to the most critical and relevant aspects of a game design mechanic or feature to see if it will the intended impact to the game play experience.  His wife and him have recently started learning Kite Surfing, which Robert and I told them that has become increasingly popular in the Southwest Florida area in efforts to lure them to visit.

One of the topics of Lee’s lecture portion of his talk was about the bad habits some game designers have gotten into about being "Food Critics" instead of being "Cooks".  Cooks get into the mix and make things happens, critics wait for others to produce something for them to critique, almost like armchair quarterbacking.  Lee professed this is back-ass-ward and if you really want to be designer worth your salt and save your project money … rapidly prototype your proof of concepts to solidify design direction.  Seems like common sense, but its surprising how often this model is not followed in the industry due to pressures of marketing and  development funding.  Despite Epic Game being a financially healthy and a premiere development studio even they succumbed to the pressures of development and Lee revealed only he and a programmer were allocated to a critical sequel game during the project’s inception while all remaining hands were jamming to get another game out the door.   Lee seemed to revel in the freedom of being the only available design resource and then demonstrated several key mechanics for Gears of War 2 that he alone rapidly prototyped in a convincing manner to inform the game team and management if they should pursue certain design direction.  His proofs of concepts were definitely not pretty but they had all the relevant bits of information that would allow reasonable people to make a decision.  In addition the proofs of concepts of known ideas the process also spawned several happy accidents that led to features in the game.  Lee showed about ten examples of crude hackery in rapid order that he came up with which translated easily into final shipping product; from a riot shield, riding a dragon while shooting, creating new class of enemies to heighten the player experience.  He proved these concepts were worth investing time and energy before making the feature look pretty.  The coolest thing about this was sitting next to Robert who has just completed a Sophomore assignment that effectively used prototyping in a similar manner. Very encouraging.

Games is a great field chock full of creative, brilliant minds.  All aggressively trying to push the medium and to get a larger portion of the media and entertainment market.  The industry is highly adaptive and it was great to be able to see evolution first hand from the focus last year on high-end console games to overwhelming hype of social gaming.  Going to these conferences are great way to stay informed.  The biggest thing I learned from the experience is that more than ever the industry needs strong visual communicators who know how to create compelling experiences.  Visuals that arrest the audience’s attention, visuals that stand out in heavily saturated market and scream how their experience will keep them wanting more and worth their time and money. 

The biggest challenge facing visual communicators will be keeping up with changing technology and delivery platforms.  This challenge of uncertainty and having to adapt is probably skill/experience we should prepare our students for as they enter the industry.   Thankfully, our game program has had lot new variables thrown into it this past year.  This amount change, will likely serve our students well in their careers.  The same amount of tech upheaval and program direction happened when I went to Ringling and I believe it helped me cope and ride the storm of several console generations and corporate redirections.  Going forward we may have too keep an eye on ways to introduce “change” to help graduates cope with change and technological churn in the industry.  That said, the technology may change but the fundamentals and aesthetic perspective we are pushing onto the students will carry them through as long they continue to reinvest in their tech skills.

In reflection, I think there are two key insights that came to me from the trip that could be long-term benefit to Ringling College and to its community.  One, that there more than probably an audience / fund raising opportunity for the board games the Sophomores create in their first game design class and two, graduates would likely appreciate and pay for an opportunity to get the equivalent of technology tune up during our academic breaks.  Many schools may teach the technology, I believe an offering that is consistent with the aesthetic fundamentals emphasized in the program will likely have more value and interest to them.  A “Technology Tune Up” leveraging the advancing curriculum and techniques taught in the Game Program as well as tapping into ever evolving industry trends and new expertise requirements.

The board game idea came from previous discussion with Robert and was echoed at a conference session on "Art History for Game Developers" by John Sharp, an instructor at Savannah College.  Professor Sharp stated at the session that game's beginnings started at the same time "art" did.  This comparison struck me as another sign pointing to the potential of packaged product Ringling College could offer to the community and leverage for fund raising.  It seems to me, we have a large pool of patrons who may enjoy a slower pace game especially if the published game was a limited run product (maybe dollied up with Design Center’s help) and directly went to sponsoring the creators’ education at Ringling College.  I could see Ringling College offering a “Game Night” to test the waters with the community and the students could get an opportunity to have a play test with an underserved audience in the games market.   Based on the number of Adult Arcades (Mini Casinos) popping up in the area there seems to be some folks who like to play, who knows it might be worth a gamble.

Thanks again for the opportunity.  The experience has made a positive impression about being employed at Ringling College, it will improve the quality of educational experience its students receive and has stimulated my mind on how games can be a bigger part of the larger Sarasota community.

Cooksey's Reflections on GDC 2010

by Robert Cooksey - April 2010

Summary

This year's Game Developer Conference reinforced some of the choices we've made in our program over the past few years. This is particularly so in the ideas that artist's need to understand their role in a pipeline better, be able to think and create in ways that are ever more demanding and diverse, and that a one man team with a specialized skill set is extremely desirable. The directions were quite varied overall, but the over-arching themes were change and intensification, simultaneous specialization and diversification in the same human being. In the following paragraphs, I hope that these are discernible while communicating the diversity of voices that they represent.

Molineux: A Compulsive Story Allowing for Choice

Peter Molineux's grandiose visions are legendary. It is telling that the designer famous for promising the moon gave a talk with themes of simplicity and a drive toward reaching a larger audience. In his talk, Molineux discussed his team's drive toward simplification. He mentioned that there is a pressure  by publishers for AAA games to sell >5 million units, and this demands simpler interfaces that are appealing to larger audiences. His team aimed to accomplish this by moving much of the 2D interface into the 3D world, replacing the HUD with in-world interactions. Am example of a way his team is attempting to accomplish this is using the environment to display health (for instance, coloring cameras to indicate dangerous health levels). In addition, the team seeks to reduce the player complexity by being able to accomplish more with a single mechanic. His example of this was the new touch mechanic being implemented. When triggering touch, the player can indicate an emotional modifier with the direction pads resulting in various interactions with non-player characters.

More in Molineux's style, he also discussed meaningfulness of player interactions. Ways that he was seeking to do this using the principles above were by removing abstract measures such as experience, and replacing them with followers. He also discussed the use of actors as a method of exploring meaningful player choices and behaviors. These could be used to intensify the meaningful motivations for struggle, basically, providing a reason for the player to engage in a struggle that is compelling. Along these lines, one of the notes from his talk that left me most intrigued and has stuck with me is the notion that game balance, one of the untouchable laws of game design, is rooted in the arcade experience. He posits that Fable is easy on purpose. It is designed to be an emotional experience rather than an arcade-like experience. With this concept, questions of how make a character feel powerful and issues of enemy design that includes character as well as behaviors become key. This is critical to our artist students in that one way that this is acheived is by visually communicating development of a character through progressive visual change that reflects player experiences.

Procedural Buildings in UDK

I also attended a skills based talk concerning the procedural building capabilities of Unreal Development Kit. These skills are the kinds of systems/tool based thinking that I teach in GA240: Programming for Artists. I wanted to develop a rudimentary understanding that I might bring back to the group. This tool set is designed so that teh design team can continuously scale and adjust architectural elements for game and level design requirements while still allowing an artist to  control the visual style and look of a piece of game architecture.

This is handled via rule sets. Basically, simple units of rules as to how a building face appears are combined into complex relationships that can generate new buildings as the geometry is scaled. Examples of the rule sets involve repetition, alteration, corner features, central decorative elements, capstone fr the tops of sections, and ground based store fronts. The can all be paramterized in way that as the geometry is scaled, the building re-evaluates the rules for generating it's facade and adjusts accordingly. The rules are extremely simple, but in combination can accomplish immense complexity. It is basically an artist's automata set for systematic adaptation of buildings on the fly. The ability to think as an artist in this constructivist fashion that gives up absolute control while freeing the artist to write rules for generating varying buildings from the same rule set is incredible. This is an area where I believe our particular recruitment method captures us a subset of artists who could excel at this sort of artistry.

One Page Designs

This talk focused on how we represent what a game will come to be. Traditionally, this was done with Game Bibles, giant design documents, far too thick and complex for anyone to read and thus barely useful outside demonstrating why something is wrong or as a reference for the specifics of your own work in isolation. This gave way in many quarters toward wikis, like this one, wherein several folks could collaborate and capture iterations on the fly and keep the team abreast of changes. The problem with these is, that it is easy for wikis to become disorganized, and for team members to fall out of the loop and lose the big picture. What wikis do well is rapid informarion capture and adaptation and archiving history and information, what they do badly is allow a rapid overview. This is where one page designs come in. A couple examples of one-page designs with which one might already be familiar are flowcharts and storyboards. They communicate relationships between modular units. 

Some of the benefits offered by these one-page design, is that they allow for a quick understanding of the relationship of parts to the whole. This is invaluable for team members to understand how their current work relates to the finished product. It's easy to share these across a team. Because of their simplicity, they can be printed and posted in one's work area. People can make notes on them that can be captured later for iteration. Due to their simplicity, they can steer a project toward concise design while requiring a designer to have a complete understanding of the project as a whole. These documents are also handy visual references for highlighting relationships in a system which can aid in problem solving.

I was quite enamored with this method of design. It encourages a sense of care toward keeping the vision of the project in the forefront of the mind even while working on obscure details. These could serve as valuable assignment requirements in several of my classes (and in my own professional work in both media design and in curriculum and course design). They seem a visually rich tool for efficiently communicating ideas and information. The take-away principle concerning these, if you can't fit it into a one-page design, it's probably too complex.

Game Environment as Narrative Device

This talk was invaluable to our current course developments and the development of our curriculum. While we have already been engaged in this activity, this talk provided each of us with take-aways that we can put to work to strengthen and extend our own work. As a summary, one might encapsulate this talk and its content in this way: A game environment constrains the player through physical constraints and ecology using familiar reference points to reinforce player identity while supplying context for action. We should have interesting decisions that reflect meaningful choices within the simulation's boundaries.

While games have often looked to film for inspiration and solutions for narrative solutions (seeing as how both media have traditionally used moving images in a frame), our speakers posit that some past failings of these technique translations may be due to the lack of a directed gaze in games. They offer an alternative set of techniques that we collectively describe as environmental storytelling.

Environmental storytelling involves active engagement in problem solving which builds investment. This means that the images are open to interpretation. While modernistic narrative involves an obsession with the intent of the work, Smith and Worch posit that the authors intent is not problematic when the audience reads otherwise. In fact, they argue, the player is constantly filling gaps in the narrative content with their own context and experience and that this assists in building personal investment in the experience. It is not a problem of narrative ideology so much as one of practical construction. At times, the author desires this melding of player's memory and game narrative, while at others, the creator seeks to overcome this ambiguity in order to communicate critical information.

In order to accomplish such storytelling without control, the artist can telegraph by leading the player and assisting in navigation to prepare the player for approaching events. The active interpretation of the player involves the player (a la Piaget) and allows the player to pull the narrative beats through their actions in the world. The narrative begins to weave into the individual player experience in order to become a hybrid of motivated and self-paced discovery of meaningful events. The Law of Closure that Scott McCloud references in his Understanding Comics is an illustration of gestalt principles that we can use in our storytelling. The game narrative provides cues with the space for the player to imagine how they relate. This builds investment through the compelling practice of interpretation.

These can be supported by systems design. Some specific techniques to achieve this sort of investment were outlined:

• 1. Establish a discernible chain of events

     • To accomplish this, the designer must establish a structure of causality. The design should encourage players by promoting a sense that they are smart enough to "figure things out." By setting up puzzle structures that the player can unravel, the player can discover the cause and effect structure of the world. This requires a conscious and careful set of set-ups including set dressing and a conscious design of the relations between items in the environment.

  2. Ensure the event engages the player

  3. Echo the world at large

     • This can be accomplished through self reinforcing loops. The premise spawns events, events remind the player of the premise

  4. Avoid disconnects

     • Minimize disconnects between the player's possible actions and the scripted events that call for actions. Don't create situations that lead players to seek solutions outside their ability to act within the game world. Don't create situations that clearly highlight the limitations of the player while creating a desire to commit those actions.

  5. Reflect player agency, allow the storytelling to be driven by the player, allowing the player to pull the beats with their actions.

  6. The player should be involved in making the history of the game world.

  7. History-making should be dynamic.

  8. Players get value from seeing their actions affect the world. Provide them opportunities to see heir impact on the world.

  9. Be aware of the challenges of technical constraints v. design choices.

  10. Let players fill in the gaps. 

  11. Create structures that allow players to revisit spaces.

  12. Aim for player-centric thinking and design.

  13. Stage player space with environmental elements that develop and can be witnessed upon revisiting spaces.

More information and material concerning these is available at:

• http://witchboy.net

• http://worch.com

Achieving Active Cinematic Experiences

Uncharted 2 was a major hit, winning game of the year awards. This was largely due to the quality experience that the game produced for players. In a reflective talk about the process used to achieve this, Naughty Dog provided some powerful insights into achieving this sort of active cinematic experience. 

For Uncharted 2, the designers allowed narrative to drive gameplay. The tendency has been to design gameplay, and write story, and to only connect them almost as an afterthought in realization. Naughty Dog echoed our own curriculum design in that they sought an iterative loop f gameplay and narrative elements, each influencing and changing the other. Their leading note was that story cannot be retrofitted to the game design and that the game team and the story team should be the same team. They divided their talk into various areas of which game creators should be aware and conscious.

Grounding Your World

To ground the world, one needs to set constraints that are constructed to achieve a believable world.  To do this, they insisted upon consciously remaining true to the character. In Uncharted, they chose to do this by constructing supporting characters that reflect singular aspects of the character. While this preserves the experience, it can feel limiting and frustrating to the player. The challenge is to do this in ways that achieve the experience desired. This requires enough story to support the entire game.

Pacing

To achieve an effective pacing is challenging in games. The story beats are needed, but the player should feel as if they are motivating these beats through their actions. This can be accomplished by doling out core mechanics in a way that effects the possibility of pacing changes. This can be strengthened through using set-ups that combine core mechanics for powerful narrative effect. Too many cut-scenes wear way the attention of the player.

Gap

Gaps are a traditional element of storytelling. In games, their realization is manifested in ways unique to the medium and the game in question. The creator must construct believable and compelling gaps between expectation and result, hero and gal in order to motivate the player to tell/experience the story through their actions. Predictability leads to a stale experience. To avoid this, we must vary timing and intensity and reset the hook periodically to draw the player back into an immersive and motivated experience.

Contrast

Contrast is the difference engine of memorable experience. The speakers promoted constant evaluation of the creators' achievement of contrast in all of the following areas:

• • Story

  • Relationships

  • Beats

  • Visual material

  • Play

  • Climax

Cut Scenes

Cut scenes are a constant point of contention in game design. The speakers outlined the following areas that should be considerations for a cut scene:

• • Character moments used to develop the character and emotional content

    • Dramatic editing that draws upon the strengths of film to stage powerful moments. This should be weighed against the cost of taking away control from the player.

  • Smooth transitions between cut scenes and game play

    • Physical continuity must be maintained throughout such transitions. There is always a danger of jump cuts in these transitions.

    • Maintaining tonal, character, and player continuity is crucial.

  • Initiate on action

    • Cut scene transitions can be motivated by pinch points wherein the player is steered toward limited choices that force specific player actions that motivate a smooth transition. Herding pressure can be used through effective design.

    • External actions beyond the player's control can become shocking moments used to intiate a transition to cut scenes.

Scenes

As an organizational method, the game creator can further breakdown the game design ->level design breakdown by further breaking down level design into scene design. These scenes can be further broken down into sequences. This requires a constant attention to the challenges of maintaining a consistent relationship between game tone and narrative tone. Narrative contrast can be achieved by opening a scene with one emotional state and then opening a gap that requires player action. This can lead to contrasting story emotion. To maintain believability, character states need to be related to the narrative tone and the context of the experienced moment. The tempo of the scene should match the story and the rhythm of action. The scene climax then is constructed to tear the player emotionally, thereby increasing investment through the weight of their decisions and choice actions. Maintaining an awareness of the scene's relation to the overarching arc is key.

Conflict

To achieve the richest experience for the player, several levels of conflict require constant attention. Extra-personal conflict, personal conflict between the player and characters close to him, and internal conflict within the player are used to provide a rich experience that layers the meaning of player decision. 

Wrap-Up

The wrap-up in this talk addressed a short-hand set of considerations and suggested readings.

• • In game dialogue can assist story, but it must be contextual and engaging.

  • Contextual behaviors can leverage the non-sense of players.

  • Load the experience with powerful character moments.

  • Keep it core when play is intense. When play is at its most challenging, avoid subtlety and detailed information.

  • Structure foreshadowing with set-ups and payoffs.

  • Story, gameplay, art, and music must come together to create a powerful and meaningful experience. Experience is the sum of all parts of a game as received and engaged by the player.

Readings:

• • The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell

  • Story by Robert McKee

  • Save the Cat by Blake Snyder

  • The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egr

  • Design of Everyday Things  by Donald Norman

Summary Reflections

This GDC reinforced many of the choices we have made in our curriculum design while providing an array of specific considerations for principles and techniques to further develop a curriculum that can achieve our goals of producing the next generation of visionary and effective game artists. I have come away with a set of tools that further our opportunities for developing a cohesive grammar for our emerging medium. This might be the most valuable experience I have yet garnered from a conference. We are already implementing significant alterations and fine tuning of already existing elements of the curriculum in general and specific courses.

Notes from GDC 2010 – Art Culture Roundtable

by Keith Self-Ballard

Studio Art Director

Volition Inc.

Day One:

The first question posed to the roundtable was what companies come to mind when you think of “great art culture.”  Several studios were named, among them Naughty Dog, Blizzard, LucasArts, Double Fine and Insomniac.  One of the most telling revelations of the three-day roundtable was uncovered when employees from many of the listed companies proceeded to pose their own questions and discuss problems with their own studios’ art culture.  While many of these individuals also had positive experiences to share, it became clear that no one studio has “figured it out.”

The next stage of conversation transitioned into an exploration of traits that are thought to be indicative a strong art culture.  While many traits were identified, here are the ones that represented the most significant impact and generated the most conversation

• Artists want to possess a reasonable degree of ownership of their work.  They shouldn’t expect to have complete artistic license within their work; however, they do want to understand the value and context behind their work rather than plow through a list of asset. 

• Artists also desire opportunities for growth both inside and outside of the company.  Learning opportunities and training within the organization are difficult, but that time away from the project is essential in the continued growth of your employees’ talents. 

• Learning opportunities can take on myriad forms and are frequently the most identifiable aspects of a strong art culture.  These not only help the culture of your studio but also assist with recruiting talent.  Many of these derive from a sense of community, which means that it is largely employee-driven rather than management directed.  Art challenges.  Tutorial sessions.  Side projects or small lunch-hour workshops.  These all provide opportunities for the art staff to engage in artistic efforts outside the confines of the project. 

• Artists want to feel that they are supported.  They want managers who direct them toward training opportunities and provide career guidance.  In addition, they want peers who are willing to critique, assist, share their best tips and techniques and treat them as if their opinions are valid, in turn.  In a word, they want trust.

• Lastly, the workplace needs to be the kind of environment in which the artists are excited.  That can be the art style of the project, the management style of the studio or the communication between the artists themselves.  Ultimately, this may be the most critical factor, and the one that is the most subjective from one employee to the next.

However, the roundtable also discussed several challenges which make this difficult to accomplish.

• During the evolution of the discussion, the group contemplated the value of ego.  Ego can inspire an artist to learn from others, to challenge themselves and to grow their skills.  The potential downside is that ego may blind an artist to self-awareness – ego can turn into pride and the inevitable loss of one’s ability to solicit or even accept critique of his or her work.

• In some cases, this ability to share techniques and provide constructive criticism is the direct result of the individual’s training.  There are some schools which encourage students to compete, to hide the techniques they develop.  When this mentality translates to the working environment, it can have a negative impact on the work environment.  As sharing is core to the continued growth and development of the culture, the individual will require re-training at the hands of leads and/or managers.

• Obviously, constructive criticism is crucial to the continuing growth of any talent.  However, it’s very difficult for artists to accept criticism if it is targeted at the artist rather than the artwork.  Constructive critique is a skill like any other.  Critique must be targeted in the interest of improving the art and the artist, not the art at the expense of the artist.

• Ultimately, artist-to-artist communication, like that between any two individuals, must be catered to the audience.  Communication is critical to growth and development, but communication should always be respectful, collaborative and effective.  To those ends, one item that was discussed amongst the group was the idea that difficult conversations be conducted in person rather than through e-mail.

A handful of concrete techniques for improving your studio’s art culture were also discussed in our first session.  They may not all be practical for your studio, but are worthy of consideration regardless.

• First among these was granting individuals the responsibility to establish their own deadline.  To many, this may seem like an obvious idea.  However, many studios establish general guidelines for content development tasks, frequently at the cost of not recognizing unexpected yet necessary work.  This idea, therefore, is to give the employee the authority to define how quickly they can respond to this need.  This may be more effective and grant the employee more ownership of the work than stopping to introduce the individual’s lead and/or manager into the conversation.

• When needing to communicate with a large group of individuals and solicit feedback, e-mail can be more productive than breaking everyone’s concentration and pulling together an ad hoc meeting.  Unfortunately, the risk to sending a mass e-mail is the recipient mindset of “waiting to see how everyone else responds.”  If direct feedback is important, it is often more effective (though slower on the part of the sender) to send individual e-mails to each person in your audience.

• Find a way for your studio to support the hobbies of the art department.  Photography, sculpture, painting and other artistic media are equally valuable, and in many ways contribute to the foundational skills of all artists.  Try to find ways to provide resources for the artists to gather, share their passion and learn from one another.

• Something that can be crucial in multi-project studios is making artists aware of what is being accomplished on the other projects.  The simplest means is to get the artwork in front of everyone.  Some methods included:

  • Weekly work in progress e-mails / blogs / newsletters

  • Displaying work on the walls of the studio.

  • Needs to be kept active, frequent updates

  • Put it “in their face,” make the work almost impossible to avoid.

• If your studio can accommodate, try to find physical spaces in which artists can meet and collaborate.  A learning lab.  A studio area perhaps, where a little mess is no big deal.  This comment came from one attendee who mentioned the working environment of Pixar and that they build out their work spaces to accommodate lots and lots of small meeting spaces.  Move away from the conference and toward a conversation area – someplace comfortable.

Day Two:

We started day two by briefly reviewing the notes and assertions from the previous day’s session.  The first topic we discussed was the fact that the companies that were listed on the first day, while creating games with fantastic art, by no means automatically indicates that they have a strong art culture.

I used my own past experience as an example.  While working at Sunstorm Interactive, we created games that were largely dismissed and the artwork in our games was mass market produced as quickly as possible.  However, I felt that we had a strong, collaborative art culture where people were active on developer forums as well as constantly sharing tips and techniques.

We continued our discussion into factors that potentially impact the development of a strong art culture.

• One clear example has been the specialization of art departments in studios.  Having many different types of artists (and an office structure which lumps similar groups together) often makes it difficult for different types of artists to exchange ideas.  For example, character artists and environment artists may have a lot to learn from one another, but their differentiation may make that engagement difficult to achieve naturally or organically.

• A by-product of the above is the forming of cliques or groups of artists who share a similar opinion on tools, the art direction or the project itself.  In a supportive environment, the cliques can be helpful and transformative, but they can also have a strong negative impact as well if they are dissatisfied with choices they feel they have no control over.

Afterwards, a great topic was proposed to the group.  What do you do when you have many talented artists, but no strong art culture?

• A “leader” is key to this type of transformation.  This doesn’t have to be a director or lead in the traditional sense.  However, someone who can be a champion, whom artists naturally rally behind, can infuse a department with a stronger sense of culture.  It takes a strong character to frequently initiate these kinds of efforts.

• There was also the comment that change of this type is gradual.  Even with a strong leader, it may take time to build an art culture to a level of self-sufficiency.

• Another comment, related to the strong leader, was the issue of age gap.  Traditionally, your strong leaders will come from your seasoned veterans – those with experience and knowledge to share.  However, for many veterans, the age gap can also represent a liability.

  • While it’s important to develop an after-work relationship with others, veterans may have more responsibilities outside of work (i.e. family)

  • Bonding is also a necessary part of a strong leader, but that bonding can be difficult for the seasoned veteran for reasons similar to those listed above.

• Finding activities within the workspace can counteract some of these problems.  Naturally, this requires setting aside some dedicated time during the workday or during the lunch hour.  Suggestions included:

  • Watch DVD (movies or training materials or other forms of inspiration) together

  • Mini-conferences (Tips ‘n Tricks)

• However, this does not always resolve the problem that just getting people together to do things is hard.  When deadlines are looming and all of your peers are working hard to finish the current milestone, it’s difficult to organize groups (regardless of size) to take a break and think beyond the immediacy.  So, we spent time thinking about ways that would facilitate this type of engagement during these periods

  • Open office floor plan is preferable to cubicle farm.  Keeps peers and colleagues within sight.

  • Find ways to ensure that critique and collaboration is happening regularly (build it into the schedule if need be).  This should be happening at least once every other week at a minimum.

  • The comment was thrown out that, ultimately, motivation lies with the artists themselves.  It is an intrinsic value, and the best you can hope for is to create an environment which encourages motivation.  Motivation cannot be forced or hyper-managed in a way that will be beneficial.

• Finally, the strong art culture can develop organically from those who are most aggressively championing and invested in the project.  A studio can look to those individuals as the “tent poles” around which a strong art culture can be encouraged.

From that point, the group transitioned into a discussion of the benefits and challenges in getting the artists’ personal and on-project work visible to a wider audience.

• If you have the space, make a concerted effort to hang up wall art.  Provides quick and easy topics for engagement and discussion.  Also, can be an impressive when guests tour the studio or during interviews.

  • As an aside, one attendant commented that this can be difficult in studios who funnel print requests through a single individual or small group.  The bottleneck can be a problem, but equally the problem can derive from the perception that the work will be pre-judged as to whether or not it is “worthy.”

  • Another comment was that the expectations can (and probably should) be kept lower.  Not everything that needs to be printed should be on high-gloss photo paper and framed before it hits the wall.

• One frustration expressed was that sometimes the approval process was too stringent, especially in cases where the art director wanted final call beforehand.

• Another challenge was the requisite that any work publically displayed would also necessitate that visitors sign NDA’s prior to entering or touring the open development spaces.  As an alternative, the studio will have to develop a quick and relatively painless process for covering artwork that cannot be displayed publically.

• In the end, it was suggested that the Art Lead or sub-Lead take the initiative and pushing the artwork for display that is most representative of the work their team is creating (project side, of course).

  • He or she should manage and approve submissions that the artists would like to see publically displayed

  • The lead should also ensure that the work is consistent with the established direction from the style guide so as to not lead to confusion or a sense of conflicting direction.

• One interesting interjection was on the topic of animation, and how it could be displayed.  An attendee commented on the fact that Pixar has LCD screens for displaying trailers, storyboards and multiple forms of animation.  Naturally, this is something that is going to be cost prohibitive to the majority of developers out there.

• A great idea came in the form that wall displays of work should contain the names and e-mail addresses of contributing artists should anyone choose to send feedback.  While this comes naturally to any online gallery that a studio may build, I agree that the inclusion of this information is a great way to recognize individual contributors and encourage discussion within a team.

The next topic we discussed in terms of promoting art culture was the idea of Art Challenges or building other mechanisms for friendly competition and critique.  This too posed a number of organizational challenges, which were discussed:

• The challenges should have some form of reward.  Attendants seemed to agree that it shouldn’t be monetary or any reward where the risk is that the reward itself is greater prize than the interaction the challenge is meant to encourage.  As such, the rewards should be kept small and fun.  I don’t recall all of the suggestions, but most recommended small toys or gift cards to the local café / coffee house.

• There was also the question as to who should (or should not) be permitted to participate.  Can designers submit work?  Programmers?  Project managers?  I think the natural response was that they are welcome, but we also recognized the risk presented by an overabundance of people submitting below par work in an attempt to collect the reward.  Obviously, keeping the reward low is the first barrier to this situation arising.  At the same time, you don’t want to raise the bar so high that you’re rarifying the collaboration and critique.  I think the final gauge that was thrown out was, “show some effort.”

• The final challenge discussed was how time to participate in this challenge is secured.  Some attendants suggested a couple of hours on one particular day (i.e. Friday afternoons) whereas others suggested “do anything you want days” that might happen once a month or at the end of a given milestone.  While each studio would obviously have to find the time and manner that best suits its needs, all attendants agreed that this time should be considered precious and worth supporting and protecting.

Miscellaneous other topics of discussion included:

• In an era where art groups are “hyper-specialized,” you should welcome those individuals who want to switch into a different department or discipline.  However, these types of switches can be unproductive from the project’s perspective, so you should expect some resistance.

• Can art culture help bridge the gap between artists and programmers.  Many pointed to technical artists or other forms of tools programmers as the key individuals who are needed to “bridge the gap.”    It was pointed out that frequently this division can be resolved by pointedly addressing miscommunication or the overuse of technical jargon by either group.  In some ways, the art culture can help diffuse the jargon amongst the programmers if they too are willing to participate and learn the language.

• Another suggestion was the development of small strike teams who attempt to resolve technical problems using visual tools.  Again, this is yet another example of work that can be difficult to achieve when facing the realities of production pressure.  However, a small group who set aside an hour a day or a few hours per week, could work together to experiment and explore different approaches. The key to making this team successful is that it should be dynamic and inclusive to others who see the experiments in progress and are willing to contribute their own ideas.

• A good question came in the form of how to transmit an art culture if a studio has team members off location.  This may be outsourcer groups or series of individuals who are contractors.  The recommendations we heard were that face time was critical in the early stages of development.  Getting individuals on site for a few weeks or a month can help build a strong community and secure an understanding of the vision even when they transfer back offsite.  However, proper support from art direction to technical limitations is still critical, and no art culture will offset failings in those areas.

• Lastly, we discussed mentoring and education programs as a way to build art culture and company culture as well.  Mentoring can be cross-disciplinary, and therefore provides an opportunity for people to learn how others work and what other artists value.

Day Three:

The primary focus of the third day’s session was to discuss concrete practices in improving art culture, as well as the risks and challenges inherent within some of these tools.

Successes

• Art Newsletter – what’s going on, projects, current events

• Art Challenges / Competitions

• “Freedom Friday” – work on anything that helps develop your company’s skills (split into bonding time and dev test)

• E-mail showcase

• Food + talk + art (new theme every week)

• Galleries to showcase the awesome work employees are creating

Failures:

• Newsletter – may not be read

• Art Challenges – takes time out of work or personal time

• "Freedom Friday" – The reality of production kills it

The group then posed practical things they have used in their own studios to improve the environment, creating one in which art culture can hopefully thrive.

• We discussed practical means by which work could be displayed.  One studio painted their walls with a “whiteboard” surface paint, thereby allowing people to draw directly on the walls.  This could be used for both productive work (ideation) and just plain fun.  However, they commented that the paint fumes were a downside for a short period of time.  Another studio used magnetic walls, so they didn’t have to worry about push pins, although it sounded as if pieces might fall more frequently.  Another studio uses hanging corkboards that can be taken off the walls and pulled into meetings or presentations with more ease.  This addressed the issues of dealing with the slow dismantling of permanent corkboards to take pieces to a different location.

• Aside from posting work physically, the topic of posting electronic versions was also touched upon.  Blogs, internal websites or shared directory structures all provide options for a studio to get the work visible with less effort.  However, that effort saved is then transferred to the viewer who must take the time to visit the site to see the work that has been posted.  This problem is the same inherent in any “pull mechanism” vs. “push mechanism” argument.  In short, people may get out of the habit of visiting the site and thereby miss out on important ideas or discussions.

• It should also be noted that there was agreement that space should be set aside for displaying work that individuals are creating outside of the projects.  Artists take a lot of pride in their personal work, and appreciate constructive criticism.

• Another topic of interest was artist workshops – specifically, figure drawing.  Multiple studios commented on the fact that figure drawing sessions were offered, but that frequently interest or attendance would dwindle.  Here were some of the ideas encouraged to help continue these types of workshops:

  • The studio provides free art supplies to the attendees.

  • Work with local art studios or colleges, if you prefer a space offsite.

  • Build workshop funds into your studio’s budget.  However, this budget may be cut during lean periods – as many studios are experiencing.

  • Develop an informal buddy system – each attendee has someone who provides periodic critique on the artwork.

• Educational reimbursement was also briefly discussed.  This can be a means by which the employer supports the employees continued development.  In turn, the employee should be encouraged to take what they’ve learned and bring that knowledge internally through either lessons or workshops of their own.

• Field trips were another idea proposed.  Obviously, this is dependent on availability – the distance you have to travel or the more you have to spend will function as barriers to getting approval from projects or studio budgets.

  • Bodyworks Exhibit

  • Zoo

  • Local galleries (event displays)

    • Side Note:  It can also help to try to get your studio’s artist’s work displayed in galleries as well.  Likely, many of your artists possess fine arts skills as well.  If so, this is an opportunity to promote their talents as well as your studio’s involvement in the community.

  • Movies?

  • Dr. Sketchy - http://www.drsketchy.com/

Past this point, the attendees spent time discussing a studio’s structure and how that may impact the development of art culture.

• In a multi-project studio, employees can be organized by team.  This great for building a sense of team cohesion and facilitates greater communication within the team.  However, there is the risk of an Us vs. Them mentality developing between the projects.  Naturally, competitiveness can be welcome, but it can also turn sour.

• One alternative is to organize by artist discipline, functioning as a service group.  This will build stronger communication within the discipline, but may stagnate interaction between different types of artists.

• Another alternative is organization by team function.  For example, level artist – level designer – gameplay programmer as a single unit.  Again, good for the team.  However, this is probably the most challenging setup for developing a stronger art culture.  In this situation, a lot of the responsibility for interaction beyond this small strike team falls to the individuals rather than occurring naturally due to seating proximity.  Regardless, there is real benefit in having artists interacting regularly with designers to avoid the “short-order cook” problem with artists being the last link the iteration chain.

• Many challenges arise simply from the state of being a multi-project studio.  It can be difficult to unite artists across projects when there are wildly different workflows, art styles and production pipelines.  In many ways, this can make a single studio feel like multiple isolated mini-studios.  Efforts to alleviate these problems include items listed above such as artist lunches and workshops.

• In addition, physically moving artists around in a large studio can be a daunting task an impact art culture negatively.  Individual offices may isolate employees and create a seemingly inflexible workspace.  An open layout is great for communication, but introduces distractions for those who require more concentration (notably programmers).  A semi-open structure with large, multi-purpose offices bridges the two extremes, but carries its own challenges.  Moving employees will still be necessary from time to time; will likely need to be organized by managers and with oversight from IT.

• It was also suggested during this session, that communication problems stem largely from people more than where their desk is placed.  While various organizational choices can impact the environment of communication, the responsibility to communicate lie with the individual.  This is something that should be reinforced by the project leads – they must be able to demonstrate and practice open communication to set the proper example.

Finally, the attendees spent our few remaining minutes discussing communication and how it can impact morale.  This naturally transitioned from the final point on the last topic.  I don’t remember how the specific question was phrased, but the challenge was put forth of how to deal with art direction that is put forth without complete context.

• Attendees seemed to agree that context is crucial for creating art.  True, some assets are a grind list.  However, providing proper context is paramount in order for the artist to make their own informed and intelligent decisions.  An artist can create the asset, but the context is necessary for knowing how the asset will be used in the game or experienced by the player.

  • One comment interjected is that this can happen when there is friction at the lead level.  Perhaps the asset(s) is being requested, and the lead does not understand why or may not agree with how it was proposed.  This lack of context may then mask some underlying apathy.

  • To counter this scenario, the group felt that open discussion and debate on the topic is the best way to resolve the problem.  The artist creating the asset would rather be part of that discussion and inject his or her own ideas, rather than experience a lead coming out of a closed-door meeting and getting an e-mail.

  • This manner, while challenging when opinions get heated, can also help to build trust and bring a sense of transparency to the decision making process.  Even if someone ultimately disagrees with the final decision, they should feel better having had the opportunity to voice their concerns.

• One of the last questions was along the lines of, “How do you protect artists from idiots?”  Speaking for myself, I’m willing to bet that many different people interpreted the word “idiot” as a variety of different people and positions within a studio.  Regardless of who the “idiot” may be, there was some general consensus on how this may be addressed.

  • Keep expectations clear

  • The differences between work orders and opinions are defined and delineated

  • Art leads should verify changes (especially those derived from peer feedback or “drive-by comments”).  This may disrupt some of the horizontal communication, but ultimately may save someone from a lot of lost time and effort.

  • As above, open brainstorming can increase ownership while avoiding “design by committee”

In conclusion, I want to take a moment to thank all of the attendees who participated in the Art Culture Roundtable.  It would not have been a success without your shared questions, ideas and experience.  Special thanks also to these individuals:  Deanna Nygren, Sindy Limin and Melody Lu for volunteering to take such excellent notes during our sessions.