Notes from GDC, Thursday
Some brief notes from the Game Developers Conference two weeks ago in California. Apologies for how late these are, and for the formatting.
episodic content in mmos
- new content often too expensive
- go back to existing places and spice them up
- nerfing does not statistically affect player retention
- updates do reacquire players
- create systems that are easy to update
- be sure your world can easily accomodate new areas, worlds, content
- most mmos dont get market research before launch
- every game has its weaknesses; just accept it and move on
Ray Kurzweil, keynote
- games are cutting edge of virtul reality
- tools of creativity have been democratized
- tools or production will be too with nanotechnology
- 1b x increase in computing in the last 40 yrs
- 25yrs for next 1b x increase
- exponential growth surprises people
- tech evolution is accelerating
- showed numerous examples of tech exponential growth curves and how they are all predictable
- we already spend most of our time creating knowledge and collaborating
streaming open world pathfinding, Quinn Dunki pandemic studios
- streaming challenges
- data chunks streamed randomly in any order
- has to be cheap and robust
- talked about streaming locally from media
Future of mmos
- mmos will be cross-platform
- console install base bigger than pc game market
- but look at your market first
- mmorpgs dont all agree that microtransactions are the future
- big disagreements about subscriptions vs microtransactions
sex in videogames
- m or ao rating means forget retail
- vws have most emergent sex practices
- someone released restrained life bdsm sl client
- igda now has a sex s.i.g.
- Ao and m ratings are relatively to define but it is hard to know where to draw the line for teen rating
- casual sex games exist like strip poker and catch the sperm
- rules are very diff in u.s. & elsewhere
copyright session, Sean Kane
- streaming music even in private spaces may be infringement
- for fanfic and fan sites and machinima you should set rules and guidelines if you want to allow and protect your rights
- for ugc start with eulas that indemnify you and gice you recourse against the infinging customer and have a dmca takedown procedure
My fist MMO, Dave Jones, Realtime Worlds
- most are not massive
- good in mmos: persistence, community, aspiration
- mmo is just infrastructure
- dedicated servers are an asset to a game designer
- go contemporary
- change geek to chic
showed their avatar creation tools
showed prim creation system
goal is high quality ugc
building large open persistent dynamic cities
apb has no grinding or levelling
