Developers, Academics, Gaming

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Developers, Academics, Gaming

• bloodshot pizza box
• caffiene overdrive sorrow
• embrace the chaos

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Section I Intro

• What is our Point?

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Our Point is.

• There is cool research being done in academia on
  many subjects which are related to gaming and
  interactive work. Often it ignores actual
  gaming, and vice versa.
• This is too bad.

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Background Who are we

• We have academic backgrounds
• We have game development backgrounds
• Predisposition towards analysis
• Interested in game design and technology
• Willing to push at current conventions

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So why are we frustrated

• Concern with what could be, not what is
• Very meta, its about what games are about
• Seems unaware of actual current market
• Lack of understanding of development
• Tech research tantalizingly close to relevant
• Maybe we are just missing the good stuff?

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Evolution of Industry is Slow

• New hires need extensive training
• Design evolves slowly, technology quickly
• Hard to take risks in commercial space
• Little analysis or understanding of history
• Little research or data on game players

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Goals

• Identify and examine interactive issues
• Involvement from non-commercial view
• Examine history/provide context for growth
• How to utilize academic work in gaming
• What can gaming provide to academia
• Better quality/range of experiences

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Section 2 Vocation

• What is the work we do

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The Industry

• PC, Console, Handheld, Internet
• on PC, 300K is a hit, on Console, 1M
• End-caps, circulars, shelf space paid for
• Publisher/Developer royalty deals
• Like book industry, but costs are 3-5M
• 80 of titles lose money

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Some Genres

• Fighting Games
• Sports Games
• Action/Shooters
• Driving Games
• Puzzle Games
• Role Playing Games
• Dance and Rhythm Games

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Summary of Markets

• Console sitting on the couch with friends
• Handheld solo gaming up close
• PC solo gaming in enclosed area
• Internet solo gamers connected

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The Development Process

• Write initial technical and design specs
• Get a publisher to agree, sign contract
• Finalize hiring of the initial dev team
• Turn out regular demoable milestones
• Reach alpha, begin serious test
• Reach beta, feature lockdown
• Gold master release candidates

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The Development Team

• Producer, represents publisher
• Project lead, builds common vision
• Designers, build levels, spec gameplay
• Programmers, build tools and game
• Artists, provide 2d, 3d, texture, models, etc
• Audio, records SFX, speech, music
• QA, tests the game, tracks/verifies bugs

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Realities of development

• The first design is never right
• Usability is more important than correctness
• Performance is essential
• Shipping is really hard
• Never enough time
• Creative collaboration is really hard
• Its just like any other design/tech job

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Who we want to hire

• Basic knowledge of all development aspects
• biz, design, art, code, producer, qa
• Have played a lot of games
• Significant work in creative teams
• Involvement in self-driven creative work
• Understanding of the platform
• Cross-disciplinary, ready to do random stuff

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Who we normally get

• People who run a DD Campaign
• who wrote a sci-fi novel in high school
• who want to play games
• who want unconditional creative control
• whove implemented Baraffs Papers
• who dont think it is hard to write games

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The problems

• Long training time
• Limited innovation
• Sloppy development process
• Many risks
• Expect player to do what I want
• Balkanized development community

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Section 3 Theory

• What we are
• (and should be)
• talking about

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Whats been done

• Meta-design unconcerned with real games (what
  interactivity should be)
• Social analysis (Barbie to Mortal Kombat)
• Technology research
• physics Baraff, Witkin, Lin
• Motion/controllers Hodgins
• rendering Teller

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Design issues to explore

• Impact of play style/environment on player
• What constructs engender interactivity?
• User-interfaces for actual gameplay
• I.e. fitting player desires onto a psx controller
• Interfaces which become transparent quickly
• Generalizable lessons from specific genres
• Semiotic analysis of interactivity

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Abstract Tools for interactivity

• Weve been using computers for gaming for a
  while, and certain things have proven to be
  effective in allowing an interactive designer to
  achieve a certain design vision. This is true
  across genres and technologies.
• What are these things, how and when are they
  effectively used.

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Technology we want to know about

• Better Characters/Motion
• Natural Language/Conversational Models
• World Representations (physics/rendering)
• Better creation tools for interactive spaces
• Tools for meaningful designer specification of
  behaviors and events in dynamic worlds
• Group AI, Tactics, Teamwork, Attitude

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Developers Never do This

• We are so busy shipping we dont think
• Infighting, secrecy, lack of journals
• Attempt to ride current wave, rarely push
• Spend pathetically small time on tools
• Evolving platforms force rewrites
• Less permanance/control over destiny

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Section 4 Exploration

• What directions might we go

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Academics have to play games

• It is hard to credibly expand on what games and
  interactivity can be without context
• Look at viable evolution to things people do
• Dont assume all games are beneath them
• Explore what it is players are responding to
• Need faith in the interactive environment

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Game Developers need to interact with Academics

• Have to check out and respond to research
• Establish forums where communities talk
• Accept and address complexity of current game
  development, and actually work at it
• Come up with some way to fund research and
  prototyping in university settings?

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Come join the fun

• The real market is big
• Many (most?) of them are annoying
• But, they are real users who really respond
• If you do an unreal mod, people will try it

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This is an opportunity

• If you want to explore interactive design, you
  can play existing games and do little demo games
  of your own.
• If you want to try new types of things, you can
  actually do them, and real people will play them,
  and give you real feedback.