[gameprogrammer] Austin Game Developers Conference Day 1, Thoughts?

Anyone else sign up for this?  Any opinions so far?

I'll probably write more on it later, after I collect my thoughts, but just 
off the top:  Lord British's IP talk was quite good... but essentially the 
same as last year's.  Since I missed it last year, it was good to 
catch.  Its very interesting to see how his design process works in his 
head.  A bit disappointed in the tech panels: DB challenges in multiplayer 
online games and multiplayer online games dev practices, though the 
database session was more informative.  Guys, the panel format just doesn't 
work for technical issues... its just too discombobulated on the 
whole.  And the dev practices session was very familiar territory (what, 
specs are good?  no way... ) so we bounced over to the Console track room 
where George "Fat Man" Sanger gave an inspired speech on taking risks, 
bravery, courage and originality.  Probably the best speech I've heard in 
this conference so far.  Not the most educational, but definitely the most 
passionate.  Then he played some of his stuff that was rejected for the 
mech game Cyberstrike and man.  It definitely shattered my image of what I 
think "video game music" should be, no questions there.  But it was so far 
away from that image that it just didn't work.  And you could pretty much 
read it on everyone elses faces.  Still... the man is an engaging 
character, someone that you wouldn't mind spending time with just to get 
some of that raw, aloof excitement to rub off.

Oh, and the keynote.  Almost unmentionable.  Except Microsoft has the 
online console market down, you can bank on it.  They're doing it right and 
sony isn't.  Mark my words, Xbox will basically own the online console 
gaming market until Sony and Nintendo follow suit.



---------------------
To unsubscribe go to http://gameprogrammer.com/mailinglist.html

Other related posts: