Austin Game Conference
Here I am, sitting on the floor at the end of the Austin Game Conference, waiting to see how our ride to the airport is going to be arranged. They’ve kicked me out of the comfy chairs in the exhibit hall, presumably so they don’t run over my feet with enormous boxes on wheels as Microsoft Casual Games packs up to leave.
High points so far: Damion’s talk on men in tights (I’d link it but he doesn’t have it online yet), Sam Lewis’s talk on the economy (more on this in a sec), Sara Jensen’s roundtable on balance (despite scheduling shenanigans), the keynote from Rob Pardo (VP of Game Design for Blizzard), the keynote from Vernor Vinge (although, having read Rainbows End the day it came out, much of it was familiar territory for me), and the eardrum-shattering SOE party last night.
Low points so far: getting brutally sick Wednesday afternoon (a combination of the heat and the funky food) and crashing on 2 hours of sleep; deciding to go out drinking that night anyway, and spending the rest of the night throwing up; being hungover the next day (this time with 4 hours of sleep).
Also, the sofa beds at the Embassy Suites are possibly the least comfortable surface I’ve ever laid on. I folded it back up and just slept on the couch after that first miserable night.
And dear god I don’t want barbecue for a long time. Austin’s got great food. I just wish I could come here and not get dragged to barbecue and tex-mex for every. goddamn. meal.
The economy talk was at once terrifying and validating. There are two ways in which a talk can feel relevant to you: it’s either a ringing condemnation of everything you’re trying to do in your game, or it’s a total validation of everything you’re doing. Even if the talk has both, you come away feeling like it was one or the other. The economy talk was the latter, but it’s kind of nerve wracking to be the guy who’s singled out as doing the crazy thing the speaker’s recommending.
And apparently, without realizing what was happening, I was giving an interview to someone from NPR. The scary thing is, he’s clearly there to talk to Mr. Lewis, who’s got an actual master’s degree in economics. So the reporter turns to me, starts asking me about my design, and says, ‘Do you have an economist on staff?’ Uh, no. It’s just me, former historian. And my qualifications are ‘reading a lot of books’ and ‘having big ideas’.
Overall a positive experience. Many things were discussed. Many NDAs were sort-of broken under the influence of beer. I’ll probably talk more about this in a future post when I’m not sitting on the floor as my butt goes numb, but while the conference was (as usual) full of doom and gloom about the state of the game industry, the takeaway for me was much more optimistic. These are some smart motherfuckers. Well, most of them.