Game Developers Conference

[Kzinti]

Anyone else heading for the GDC in San Francisco? ( http://www.gdconf.com ).

I'll be there from Tuesday night 'till the end.

[Kristof-PowerVR]

Might want to pop into this as well :



K-

[Conan]

It's a mistake Thierry, the tickets are for the non-troll in the next cubicle

seriously though have fun and pick up everything that's free.

[hm]

[Jaybot]

[Digby]

For those of you that attended GDC, anything interesting you could share with us? Thanks!

[sponge]

There's a transcript of one of the panels with Warren Spector, Brenda Laurel, Jason Della Rocca, and Chris Hecker. Posted it in the Anything forum if anyone lurks there too:

http://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderla ... ouse_.html

[rcp]

Uh... That was interesting, but I am not sure I 'get' it. I thought we were trying to make money?? Making games for the sake of art? Maybe I am just too old.

I do agree that the console market is pretty messed up, and that is the main reason we are focused on the mobile market. I am pretty sure that the console business model will not be used for mobile market. While carriers will try to control the content, it seems that enough alt distrubtions paths are available that this probably will not be a huge issue... although it does scare me some.

[sponge]

IIRC, all 4 of them started off just doing it for the fun, and will continue to if the entire industry collapses. No one expects 100% of sales to be from piracy, it's more of the how crappy DRM has gotten these days. StarForce anyone? It installs a driver that must be present to run, and won't if it detects Nero is running/installed.

[rcp]

ya Sponge, I am probably with you on DRM, it has gotten really bad and will probably get much worse. However, if you make something that people really want and make it easy to *buy* then people will buy it. Those that do steal it wouldn't have bought it anyway... what is important is to not make it difficult for someone that will buy it. Hopefully DRM will be such a big stink ball that it will fade away.
Put out good quality product for a reasonable cost and make it easy for people to get. Have good trials that show the game. Work hard at customer support. Talk to your customers and see your game from their eyes... make changes. I make games to make money for my family, but I get great satisfaction from knowing that other people enjoy my work.