But we quickly found a much more interesting subject matter…

Our Doodle Jump champion for the day!

A couple of observations:

- I was struck by how easily the young monks shared the game. Doodle Jump is addictive and it is very tempting to try “just one more time”. But they would naturally pass the device around without being asked. I’m willing to bet the behavior in a French primary school would be quite different! I attribute the cultural difference to the constant social reinforcement on collaboration, most notably through legends such as the Four Harmonious friends (Thuenpa Puen Shi).

It goes like this: “There were once four friends, an elephant, a monkey, a peacock and a rabbit who wished to have a constant supply of the fruit they all loved to eat. After some deliberation, they decided that through cooperation they could achieve this. So, the peacock found the seed and planted it in the ground. The rabbit then watered it and the monkey fertilized it. The elephant, being the largest of the four guarded it day and night. The seed germinated and grew and grew until it became a mature tree and produced the longed for fruit. When it was ripe, none of the animals could reach up to harvest it, so they made a tower by climbing on each other’s backs; first the elephant, then the monkey, the rabbit and finally the peacock. Through their friendship and cooperation the four were able to share in their favorite fruit.”

- Some of the monks had their own cellphones. Although nothing as fancy as iPhones (yet), they would still watch short music videos on it and I suddenly realized how profoundly mobile internet will change the world. As in many poor countries, access to knowledge has historically been very difficult in the remote kingdom of Bhutan. Getting up-to-date manuals and good teachers in the country is expensive and hard. Today they struggle to find teachers. Tomorrow they’ll have access to Khan’s Academy, Wikipedia and many other sources of useful knowledge. Even if only 0.01% take advantage of it, it will impact society massively. We should push hard to give internet access everywhere.

- Iwata-san gave a depressingly sad Keynote. Sad in the sense that I admire many things about Nintendo but can’t help feeling they are in complete denial. My friend Dustin Clingman may disagree but I’m afraid Nicholas Lovell nailed it exactly right.

- Hazard didn’t win the IGF Nuovo award. But *it should have*.

- Frank Lantz gave a really good talk entitled “Life and Death and Middle Pair: Go, Poker and the Sublime”. It is a clear articulation of where the peculiar beauty of these games resides. Don’t miss it if you have access to GDC Vault.

- On the other hand, Brian Moriarty’s talk – though brilliantly delivered, as always – was nothing more at its core than an appeal to authority. He was basically arguing that his definition of art is the valid one and everything else is kitsch. Isn’t it funny how these conversations about art always end the same way?

- Consoles are nowhere, metrics are everywhere! It was impressive to see how many talks were dedicated to metrics and how few about console development compared to previous years. This phenomenon is well illustrated by Jesper Juul’s twitter tag cloud analysis. Also, it was interesting to hear that the most metrics oriented developers are now using the gambling industry’s term for “high wield clients”: whales. They obsess about attracting and retaining them.

- Many indies claimed they would join our GDC surfing session, but in the end they all chickened out and it was just Mike, Jason and myself again! :)

- Last but not least, we had a couple of successful tests of our upcoming game in the Yerba Buena Gardens…

Global Game Jam 2011 was the biggest so far with 169 sites in 44 countries or 6580 jammers making 1481 games in total.

This year’s theme was “Extinction”. We were 70 in Paris (hitting our site’s security limit). See all the pictures here. After 48 feverish hours, we ended up with 14 games – doubling last year’s number!

- Appetite for Extinction
- Colors War
- Dark Naze
- Decline
- Don’t Win!
- Extinction des feux
- Follow the White Light
- Game Extinction
- KAZZ.ED
- Light Cylinders
- Light Extinction
- Master Beer
- Tweet Uranus
- VR Escape

The Paris event was also well covered by the media: lemonde.fr, Nolife, Canard PC, Gameblog, Jeuxvideo.com, jvn.com, Canal+, Le journal des jeux vidéo, 3DVF, AFJV, 20 Minutes, Console + and PC Jeux.

Thanks to all who participated and see you all next year for GGJ 2012!

Un post pour signaler la sortie en français aux éditions Pearson de “L’Art du Game Design“, le livre de Jesse Schell.

Avec “Game Design Workshop” de Tracy Fullerton et le faussement naïf “A Theory of Fun” de Raph Koster – qui restent à traduire – ce sont les trois livres qui me semblent indispensables dans la trousse à outil de tout apprenti game designer. Des livres clairs et pratiques qui distillent l’essentiel de ce qu’il vaut mieux savoir avant de se lancer.

En toute transparence : si j’ai eu le plaisir de participer à la relecture technique de la traduction française, je ne l’ai pas fait contre rémunération mais simplement pour la satisfaction que cet excellent ouvrage soit publié en français. C’est donc en parfaite indépendance que je vous en recommande la lecture. Pour l’amour de l’art !

Of course it is supposed to be the world’s biggest board game fair, but in all my years going there I’ve simply never seen that many people. Games seem to clearly increase in popularity. This was also noticeable from the publishing side as there seems to be more games available every year. The production values have also considerably increased these past two years: many games are now beautifully illustrated and some even have exquisitely carved figurines – such as Funforge’s Isla Dorada. It’s becoming harder for amateurish looking games to come out.

I got to play Richard “Magic: the gathering” Garfield’s upcoming game King of Tokyo. Although I loved the concept and the illustrations, I found the game itself a bit unsatisfying. Not that it’s bad – it’s a clever mix of card drafting, king of the hill and push your luck mechanics – but, for me, it didn’t really translate the awesomeness of huge creatures battling over Tokyo.

So this year’s Essen left me with a fear of the “looks over game-design” syndrome. Maybe the board games industry is taking a (bad) hint from the video games industry? Let’s hope not!

We’re talking about Ryzom of course, the science-fantasy world I helped create 10 years ago with my previous game company, Nevrax. Our original intention at the time was to release all the code we were building as Free Software. Unfortunately things don’t always go according to plan and I left the company in disagreement before the MMO was even finished.

Many years and many owners later, it is my immense pleasure to announce that Ryzom is finally Free-as-in-Freedom. And not just the code in its entirety (server+client+tools under the AGPL) but also the complete datas (under Creative Commons by-sa).

As far as I know, this is the first time in game history that a *complete* commercial MMO that cost many millions to make is released for all to use and tinker with. For this, we must of course thank Winch Gate Properties Ltd – the current owner – but also Vianney Lecroart, one of the first programmers at Nevrax, whom I know first hand was instrumental in making this happen. During all these years he never stopped caring about Ryzom and the ideals that founded it and for this he has my deepest gratitude.

This is an event that has been 10 years in the making.
The game might be old and have many flaws nevertheless I feel great pride and joy today.
To me, this counts as a dream come true and I hope it helps spawn many new dreams and creations.

Long live Ryzom !

Sounds like the pitch for a bad cyberpunk novel, right?

Except the story is true. The big corporation is Yamaha and the software – known as Vocaloid – is licensed to smaller corporations who then sell it as “voice packs”, complete with a name and a face such as Hatsune Miku – from Hatsu (初, first), Ne (音, sound), and Miku (未来, future) thus meaning “the first sound to the future.”

Listen to her launch single (warning: J-Pop inside!), or her greatest accidental hit the “Levan Polkka” (fan made) or even the theme song from Mario Bros or Tetris.

Decent singing for a computer – it holds a lot of promise for the future indeed – but nothing really earth shattering yet…
So all of this would only be mildly interesting if it were not for this surprising fact: Miku is a huge hit here in Japan!

It really dawned on me while walking around Akihabara (the otaku district in Tokyo) this evening. Around 08:00pm, after work, grown men and women waiting in a queue to play the recently released “Project Diva Arcade”…

…look closely: these are not kids nor crazed teenagers. They are well behaved, twenty to thirty, salary men and women…

…who just desperately want to play the arcade version of a PSP game featuring Miku Hatsune and her songs!
In fact she’s all over the place. In the streets, in the stores, from the anime shops to the UFO catchers:

It’s Miku everywhere!

But I don’t really understand why… As a singer she’s barely decent, as an anime character she’s nothing out of the ordinary and the game is just an average rhythm game. So why? If anyone reading is well versed in otaku culture, I would love to hear a coherent explanation for this surprising popularity.

So far the only theory I could come up with is that her success is largely due to the fact that people can make her sing whatever they want. Fans can create their own songs with her voice and share it all over the internet. This gives them a sense of ownership over their idol that might justify her meteoric rise.

Hatsune Miku, future of the music industry and first UGC star?

EDIT (11/10/10) – This story keeps getting better: Miku now goes on live tours!

Why do we innovate ?

- Because First comers own their space. At least recognized first comers.
- Markets evolve as users get sophisticated and jaded.

Nick shows the evolution of game genres over time from 2003 on real Arcade.
By 2007, in only four years, all the dominants genre of 2003 were completely replaced by new genres that didn’t exist at the time.

When the games form becomes stagnant the audience moves. Which is why innovation is important for everybody.

Some advice for innovating:

- Point 1: Start from known places.
Example Luxor. When it came out Zuma and Ricochet where really popular. It took the two key mechanics of both games and combined them: a casual hit is born!

- Point 2: Be inspired by other game media
Example Plant vs Zombies. Start with a very successful game type (Desktop Tower defense) and bring it to the casual audience by making enemy movement simpler, making the end condition more comprehensible, make units more knowable, change narrative + polish, polish, polish.

- Point 3: build new mechanics around proven desires.
Example Restaurant City. Slow growth models (because they work) + restaurant are fun places + Pet Society + friends (like all Facebook games)

- Point 4: Go big or go home
…if you’re small and want to innovate. Anything easy to make is easy to steal. The big guys have much more money than you to market the game. Make something so far crazy that you’re going to be hard to catch up with. So do something hard that will be difficult to replicate : complex mechanics under the hood, high production values, Next level technology.

- Point 5: Don’t assume your audience is solved.
Example from movies: District9 , Paranormal activities…
The movie industry is older, has more money and know their audience better and they still get it wrong regularly. So don’t assume we know better in the games industry. Try things out: testing should be your guide.

Right after Nick, Kenny Shea Dinkin gave a fantastic talk which went way too fast for me to take notes other than the money quote: “Emotional connection breeds irrational loyalty”. Point well taken!

- Just like nobody agrees on a universal definition of art, nobody can agree on a universal definition of games. But a lot of people pretend otherwise…

- On one side you have those arguing for “purity” as Jesper Juul would say. People focusing on the gameplay, the system, the rules. People who passionately believe the soul of games resides in their systemic heart, on the processing side, and that all the other elements attached to it are negligible, uninteresting fluff. Jason Rohrer is a good representative of people trying to define games this way (check out his latest manifesto in my previous post!), but really most of the indies fall in this camp. This explains why their games all look and sound like crap, stuck in 8 bit land (with the occasional exception): because to them it’s not interesting, it’s not what games are about. Fantastic gameplay, poor aesthetics. All substance, no form.

- On the other side you have people defending a formalist view of games. People mainly concerned about the aesthetics of games in a broad sense (visuals and sounds but also theme or story) and what happens there. Ideally, they would like to rid video games of their “gameness”, hoping to find something new if only they could manage to free them of the tyranny of rules. Tale of Tales (ToT) are the perfect representatives for this side of the argument. It’s a very minority view in the landscape but an interesting one as it’s the polar opposite of the first one. All about the form, not the substance.

- In the middle, you have the folks working on the big AAA blockbusters (or enjoying them) who don’t really seem to be questioning what they are doing: no deep reflection on substance (as to them it’s simply about entertainment) and mostly a “more is better” approach to form. Since that’s what has been working in the marketplace and raking in the money, it’s good enough for them.

- So all these people are coming up with definitions of games that fit their beliefs and they often aggressively attack people not working from the same set of assumptions. For proof, just look at the flack ToT or Jason are receiving from some quarters…

- There also seems to be a lot of confusion from everyone between two conversations: “what is a game” and “what tends to make a *good* game”.

- Of course both the “games as substance” and the “games as form” sides are wrong, or rather, they are both right. You cannot separate a game from its form: even something as abstract as “The Marriage” has a form (if only its title), and that form builds meaning for the player just like the system does. You also cannot separate a game from its rules, even if these rules are minimalistic or changing. And the interaction with those rules is really what makes games unique. However, the aesthetics are really what hooks most people in and what they respond to on an emotional level: by now one would think that the AAA industry has amply proven this point…

So in conclusion, I will argue that the focus of games should be the subjective experience they induce in the player and that many things contribute to that experience: the system *and* its form (which are inseparable), the player’s subjectivity, the (optional) other player’s actions, the context in which they approach the game…
Which is why I can’t agree with games being defined as objects excluding the player.
Which is why I can only come up with a very loose definition of games and I think that’s okay.

There’s a lot of dogmatism going around right now and we seem to be short on tolerance. Let’s just hope this situation reverts itself soon so we can go back to exploring the full range of what games could be. Peacefully and without prejudice.

It all starts with Jason Rohrer handing me his “New Gamist Manifesto” February 3, 2010. It goes like this:

1- Games do not have spoilers.
2- Games cannot be finished.
3- Games do not have characters, except for the characters who play them.
4- Games do not have stories, except for the stories that players tell through them.
5-Playing a new game is less like reading a new story, hearing a new song, or seeing a new film.
6- Playing a new game is more like learning a new language.
7- Games are interfaces, not between minds and content, but between minds.

John Sharp, Ian Bogost, and Michael Nitsche then open the conference by asking a number of questions:

- Is the art of games found in the visual elements?
Colecovision, Boxing ; 2K Boston Bioshock ; Tale of Tales, The Path ; That Game Company, Flower

- Is the art of games in their worlds?
Otto Brückwald, Bayreuth Theater ; Square Enix, Final Fantasy IX ; Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto IV ; Valve, Counter Strike

- Is the art of games found in the creative exploitation of technology?
Id, Doom ; Julian Olivier ioq3apaint ; Natal ; David Crane, Grand Prix

- Is the art of games found in the game design?
Nintendo, Wii Sports Tennis ; NCAA basketball court specifications ; Jason Rohrer Gravitation ; Rod Humble, The Marriage

- Is the art of games found in player activity?
Namco, Pac-Man ; Ali-Frazier ; Robbie Cooper, “Gamer Faces” ; Ubisoft Montreal, Far Cry 2

Then they looked at the issues related to the historical response to games:

- How are games treated as historical artifacts?
Lewis Chess set ; Senet (the ancient egyptian game which no ones know how to play anymore) ; Katsushika Oi, Operating on Guanyu’s Arm

- How do Games as digital Artifacts fit into the traditional art world? (hint bad)
Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds ; Mark Essen, Flywrench ; Brenda Brathwaite, Train ; The E.T / Superman cartridge graveyard

- What problems does the marketplace create for games as art?
Ian Bogost, Guru Meditation ; Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds ; Mark Essen, The thrill of Combat ; Number None, Inc, Braid ; Jason Rohrer, Passage

John Romero’s then takes the stage for his talk: Masters Among Us (italics are mine)

“We unfortunately have only 10% of Mozart’s output. Imagine if Mozart was alive now and we could talk to him. In the games industry, our masters walk among us…

Nasir Gebelli: he was instrumental in Gorgon, Space Eggs and Phantoms Five. At the time, he had to keep the entire game in his head: no source code, written directly in assembly. The slowness of the machine dictated that you had to come up with a lots of tricks to make your games. Then he became the only programmer on Final Fantasy 1, 2 and 3 and then went on to make Secret of Mana. But now he’s gone, left the Games industry.

Bill Budge: originally he played around with early 3D programming but more importantly created pinball construction set in 1982. He now works at Sony in San Mateo and works mainly on tools.

Mark Turmell: Started on the Apple II, then to Atari 2600 than to Midway where he did NBA Jam, Total Carnage, and then created the franchise Ballers. Last year Midway went over after 30 years and Mark had worked there for 20.

But some of our legends and masters have already passed on:

Dan Bunten: The creator of M.U.L.E – which was the refinement of 3 of his earlier game.

James Nitchals: early Apple II programmer. Brilliant sound programmer Bug Attack and Micro Wave and Zany Golf. (I loved Zany Golf as a kid!)

Bill Williams: Great game designer that made games for synapse. Alley Cat, Necromancer, Pioneer Plague…

Gunpei Yokoi: Was the inspiration for Shigeru Miyamoto. The Game & Watch. The D-pad. His theory of design was that great games don’t have to come from the technology they have to come from the design. What have we learned from his philosophy? Farmville, Wii Fit…

Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson: creators of D&D in 1974

Sid Sackson: very prolific board game designer. Made Acquire! His family didn’t recognize his genius and auctioned all of his designs & prototypes. They belonged in museums but now they’re lost.

Then there’s the hardware.

The Atari 2600 was made for Combat & Pong. Originally it was made for nothing else. And from the little tweaks the engineers found, they built the foundations of the games industry.

The Apple II had to be programmed in assembly, it had a lot of limitation but people found ways to break through them.

Today’s designers are far more constrained now than we were 20 years ago because at the time we had complete access to the hardware. Not only did we have the wide open frame buffer but we had the arcades to show us so many design patterns. Dig Dug, Robotron, Pac man…

First there was an incredible diversity of design and then there was Genre-ification.
Wolfenstein, with its gun in front of the screen, was what ignited the FPS genre. Then Doom. Then everything caught fire and lots of clones where being made. Then Quake with full 3D and internet multiplayer. When Quake came out, it was like a nuke and suddenly everything was 3D. The entire game industry turned to 3D. So we created a genre but it became stifling. And that’s not just for FPS but also true for RPGs, MMOs, Tycoons, RTS… If you don’t have a design that fit the genres, it’s not going to get funded. Genre explodes and replicate: just like Farmville is exploding and replicating.

Another limitation we have now is APIs. APIs save you plenty of time because there’s lots you don’t have to do. But they also limit you in your expression. They come with their own limitations.

So Priority number 1 is to go back to the founders of our industry, talk to them and ask them where their ideas came from. Not just interviews but graduate student thesis. We need to go back to the beginning.

We are much more constrained today than we were before. By Technology, by genre-ification, etc… We need to go back to our masters who found ways to innovate and inspire us. Who tackled every subject. Who worried more about play than polygons. And we need to do it before this knowledge is lost.

We don’t want what happened to Mozart to happen to our masters.

My design decisions. When I think about them, I ask myself what would the masters decide? What would they do next?”