GDC Write-up 2016

Post date: Mar 24, 2016 5:7:11 PM

It's that time again! I went to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco for their 30th anniversary-- can you imagine? Apparently the first GDC was held in someone's living room. It's incredible to see how much the industry has grown.

And I think a significant theme for this year's GDC is growth, and in which directions; I've never seen more VR, AR, and mobile apps being presented in booths along the Expo floor. In fact, I think this is also the first time that GDC had a VR pass and track. I'm not sure how I feel about VR, though-- it strikes me as distinctly gimmicky, and a number of developers I've talked to have mentioned how hard it is to develop gameplay for. After all, a lot of the things we do to interface with games require quite precise camera movement that would cause serious motion sickness in VR. You could use things like treadmills or stationary bikes to simulate movement, but that's yet another periphery to add onto purchasing a VR headset. I know there's a lot of development going on to integrate hand movements into VR-- my personal favourite that I saw on the expo floor was just literally a Leap Motion taped onto a VR headset-- but, again, that's extra periphery and it turns out when we do things with our hands we tend to do them out of the frame of sight. Take talking, for instance: when you chat with someone and you gesture with your hands to emphasise a point, is that gesture being made right in front of your eyes? Is it kind of out of frame? How do we capture that hand movement and integrate it into a VR game when we're not even looking at what our hands do? Some solutions involve haptic feedback directly into the interfacing machines, but those are still pretty gimmicky. All in all, I can't imagine VR being anything more than a niche market, or used more for 360 theatrical movie experiences rather than games.

(That could be an Ozymandias statement, but I'm willing to let it stand.)

I did go to a bunch of talks, but I feel like there were fewer artist problem-solving talks than usual. There were some talks that were just tutorials about a specific programme a company used, but if you already know the programme then what's the point?

Levi Buchanan, representing Chillingo, had an interesting talk about developing mobile games. You can't just have a game be fun and expect it to sell anymore-- you have to have a very clear plan about why you're making a game and how. There needs to be a strategy for development and no weak links-- there's such a low barrier for exit and so many other options that you can't have anything that would make the person want to leave. Hope or goodwill don't apply in the mobile industry. You have to be super specific about your audience. There are three types of games you can develop for mobile: premium, free to play, or live-ops. Buchanan recommended live-ops as the best option for a mobile game-- it has the longest live-span, it's very sustained, PVP keeps things interesting, but you have to have 24/7 customer service, and while it's a big investment there's also big returns. The important part of a live-ops game is making it a hobby-- the gamer must want to visit it every day, so it must have progression and emotional investment and it must evolve with the player. The secret weapon is social, though, Buchanan postulates. If a player can collect skins and customizations and show it off to other players, they're more likely to pursue said customizations. Overall, four points can be gleaned from this talk: one, set expectations for your game. Two, have a strategy for updates. Three, know your player. And four, don't chase trends.

I went to a bunch of the Art Leadership round tables hosted by Keith Self-Ballard-- I missed the one on Wednesday because I was at the Blizzard University Relations panel, but I don't regret that because I got some great portfolio reviews from that. Nevertheless, I attended the ones on Thursday and Friday and learned some really interesting aspects of being an art director. For one, it's not just about making sure the art is consistent throughout the game-- it's about looking after and taking care of the artists that work underneath you. A significant amount of the time on Thursday was spent discussing art culture in a studio environment; how can a company ensure that the artists are kept interacting with one another and inspired? Some art directors can become more like producers if they're not careful-- they should stand to be a goal, not a taskmaster. Some of the suggested solutions to creating an art culture included game jams, off-sites, live drawing sessions, tech art newsletters, interdisciplinary events, and fostering a care in a discipline. The most important thing, most people agreed, is to get buy-in from senior management-- if they're willing to agree to let you take time out of the work schedule to arrange these kinds of events, then it'll be so much easier to get them done.

Friday was spent discussing how the hiring process went, which was an eye-opener for me especially since I'm on the receiving end of that right now. The portfolio is the most important aspect of an applicant, of course, but it's also really important to figure out whether or not they can work with other people. Riot, for example, has a seriously rigorous culture screening process with a series of interviews that can take days to complete. It's also really important to watch the team closely when a new hire comes in to make sure that the flow isn't disrupted. The most important part of a project is hiring and firing, the saying goes. Culture difference was brought up as an important factor as well-- there was a fellow there who works at a company in Korea and often found himself butting heads with HR over new hires. It's always best to figure out what aspects of a new hire they found important, he said, and to figure out where cultural misunderstandings can go awry. Beyond Culture by Edward T. Hall was suggested as a book to read before dealing with foreign companies. It's good to find data to back up your works, and ask follow-up questions about what they say-- "what skills were you expecting" is an important one.

Jess Loeb gave a talk about Overcoming Impostor Syndrome, which is something that I feel affects a lot of people especially in the art aspect of the games industry. The impostor syndrome is the sense that, despite evidence of accomplishments, you continually discount your success with a fear of being found out as a sham, an 'impostor.' Loeb says that impostor syndrome affects minorities and diverse groups more often, as we're seen far less in the industry and therefore have trouble seeking identity. Loeb uses the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid as an example- if we don't have a sense of belonging in our space, we feel isolated and the middle part of our pyramid gets blown out. We can address our own impostor syndromes by ourselves by approaching things with more optimism and assuming the best in a situation, but the industry can also help these by addressing the implicit biases of a workspace. For example, women tend to get interrupted more often in meetings-- making sure that everyone has their say and feels important in a space will help with impostor syndrome. While I do feel like Loeb was coming at this issue from a very specific place as a white woman, as she only really spoke of the issues primarily white women face in the workspace, this talk was really interesting in that it gave us tools to talk about impostor syndrome.

And then came my favourite part of GDC... the ♥♥MicroTalks♥♥. I love these especially because of the way they're presented-- you have to be really passionate about your subject to stand up there with only 320 seconds to encapsulate your mission statement. Richard Lemarchand once again chaired the discussion, and apparently he's got a game going on with his students at themeadowgame.tumblr.com, so check that out!

Bennett Foddy, developer of QWOP, spoke of optical illusions and how they could be used more in games-- for example, take Square of Two by R. Neat: that could easily be turned into a 3D maze game, right?

If things turn to face the player, they're seen as a threat and alive. We also don't notice things change if there's a flash in between them (which is why I'm particularly peeved about UE4's material change system, as it's really hard to see minute differences if the mesh turns grey as the shader loads...). Maybe game developers should play with the idea of intentionally making their players sick with optical illusions, perhaps as a punishment. Aleissa Laidacker of Ubisoft talked about how programmers don't like to play, but now our tools are mature enough that we can really focus on how to play. She mentions Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language, as well as Robert McKee's Story, Resistance the board game, using NPCs with hidden agendas, Sleep No More, and Deep Learning as ways that we can learn to play even more. AI is the future of play! Brian Allgeier of Insomniac Games talked about how not everyone loves how to play-- in fact, peak play happens before we turn 15. Insomniac were developing a game, Overstrike, which became Fuse and got skewered because in that development process the game lost a lot of its playfulness and Insomniac had to really push to gain back the trust of the gamers. There are three ghosts you should beat in order to get optimal play. Ghost ONE: the taskmaster-- believes playtime is a waste. Beat this by getting physical, do side quests, integrate flow. Ghost TWO: the plan prisoner-- stuck in planning ahead. Beat this by embracing the unknown and letting things unfurl organically. Ghost THREE: silent Abe-- speaking doubt is to fall victim to it. Beat this ghost by trusting your instincts! Christina Normal of Riot Games talked about how we play is related to what we play-- she references a lot of Asian MMOs when coming up with game designs. Each MMO offers a unique experience that can inform a lot of Western game design. As MMOs are transient, she recommends we play them now while they're still available! Steporu.com is a good resource for foreign MMOs. Matthew Kumar of everygame.tumblr.com talked about his perfect day experiencing Jeppe Hein's Please Touch The Art exhibit in New York, which featured a whole bunch of twisted park benches arranged in a specific order throughout a park. He contemplates how hard it must be to be a park designer-- you can't shape peoples experiences like you do in video games and you can't force people to interact with the exhibit like you'd want them to do.  Everyone was breaking the immersion! But maybe that's just how it is? Living is breaking immersion-- art of play is flow.

Henrike Lode of Logika is tired of making games for default humans-- you know, "normal" people. She did a game jam where she wanted to make a game about being a midwife at a birth, but it became a racing game where you're trying to get a pregnant woman to the hospital. She no longer wants to make a racing game. She wants to make games no one else wants to play-- a GTA mod where you're the prostitute, a Sims game with any gender and menstruation, games about pregnancy, a VR experience about breaking up with her boyfriend, a game with women with realistic body hair, a courier game where you're randomly assigned a race and experience the inherent prejudice linked to it, a game where you're a detective in a wheelchair... There were more games but I couldn't write fast enough to keep up. Basically, address and break taboos through games.

Robert Yang, creator of Hurt Me Plenty, thinks that the video games industry needs to get laid and chill already. Sex and intimacy are treated with such double standards on the internet-- he can't get paid for his games Shower Simulator or Cobra Club because PayPal has strict specifications about sexually explicit content, but in The Witcher you can have sex on a unicorn and still sell millions of copies. Twitch bans sexually explicit games, but not the Stick of Truth where you fight a giant ballsack. Why the inconsistencies? Don't ban video games about sex. Let's be mature about this.

Jenn Frank, a journalist and critic, did a performance art of sorts about making sacrifices for the one you love. Her husband got a job out in California and despite her misgivings she was willing to put his work before her comfort; relationships need this kind of flexibility if both members are part of the games industry. It's perhaps better, she suggests, to date someone in the games industry if you're in games-- that way, there's no hurt feelings or confusion when a job offer forces a big move out of the blue. The only mistake you can make is not to support each other.

Steve Gaynor of Fullbright talks about being "the best person for the job"-- how do you become that best person? Who will give you that first chance, who will open that door for you? 5/8 of the people who work at Fullbright are women, which breaks the self perpetuating cycle of men being the most suited for the job because they're the ones that are given more opportunities. So take a chance on someone! Give someone a chance to be the best person for the job.

So, what have I learned at GDC this year? It was suggested to me that I do a TL;DR, so here you go:

- I think VR is gimmicky and will only be available to a niche audience-- a high bar of entry and necessity for peripherals will make it a small market at best.

- Mobile games are wicked difficult to develop and you need to be extremely certain this is something you want to go into, because it's such an inundated market and players will be looking for any excuse not to play your game. You have to find a way to turn it into a habit.

- Customizations and PVP are the best way to get people hooked on a mobile game. That way, a lot of the reasons they play aren't even because of what you develop-- it's through how the players interact with each other. It's free content!

- Being an art director is more than just making sure the art style is cohesive throughout the game-- it's also about caring for your employees and balancing the art culture of the studio.

- When interacting with a foreign studio, communication is key-- you can never be sure how much culture can affect the kinds of games people want to develop and what sort of design choices need to be made. For example, Korea tends to have a lot of women characters in games that look very similar, whereas American games go for more novelty in their designs.

- Impostor syndrome is definitely a thing, and everyone experiences it once in a while. You can defeat it with optimism and faith in people, though (usually).

- Play is important! Take time out of your schedule to play and enjoy.

I also went to a whole bunch of parties, if that helps this excuse. The Bethesda one was strangely lacking in actual Bethesda employees, though.