2010-03-10 01:12:25
GDC10 session 4 Why Game Veterans flocking into social gaming
Why Game Veterans flocking into social gaming? Speakers: Brenda Brathwaite, Noah Falstein, Steve Meretzky, Brian Reynolds
I tried to follow the conversation. So here it is more or less:
Steve since 28 years in games.
having casual game experience
wants to go back to smaller teams 4-5 in 4-5 weeks again.
Brenda boardgames first passion sticked into facebook games
small group develop a game in short time instead of marriages are going on babies born during game development
Brain a year was more enough to make a game he want to be the game designer and the lead programmer again. Production costs are frighten for AAA games. 10 million is called a medium budget.
Noah
pretty same kind of story. To big size teams to large budgets, but good experiences with collaborative work in smaller teams.
Lower costs frees you to take more risks in creativity.
You can try a lot of weird things.
This is the best time game developers ever had - the most variety of opportunities.
Steve:
never predicted farmville would be a big success.
Brain:
we reached the mass market which is bigger than ever thought.
But this kind of gamer does not see themselves as gamers.
Farmville is a kind of social interactivity.
Brenda:
Harvesting is a popular mechanic in german boardgames.
Discussion about games moved from violent games to would please squeeze my pet.
Noah:
Farmville the most aggressive move you can make is harvest a little faster.
This does not threading the social player. We have to give up the hardcore game mechanic to reach the mass market.
Brenda made that point clear.
Brian. Game mechanics is not longer king. We have to build the social interactivity first.
Noah:
The only survive in the game industry if you like the change. So you've love
to learn over and over again. He has recalibrate his game design skills
Steve:
New challenges make game development exciting.
Brenda:
game design become a game for game designers.
Metrics made it a game.
Noah:
... are we in trouble?
Steve:
we got 100 Million people playing a game for 5 minutes a day.
Noah: so the next big thing is to make them play the whole day.
...
Brian: Does this number is still growing?
...
it's a huge relief to game designer that a facebook game still does not depend on hardware.
Games will be more complicated in the future.
Brenda:
We again keep the level of complexity on growing.
Steve:
I completely disagree. It the simplicity that makes the game so accessibility.
I don't want to see us to make the same mistake.
Keep this kind of games close to the bottom.
Brain agrees.
Brenda: You guys are underestimating. ()
Brain: One of the big challenges in social games is not to fire and forget.
You've to put more constantly new content inside. Games start small and grow up complexity.
Noah:
If you clone, you may now profit from this. Less risk because you've two three months to do a game.
We can do things like Bejeweled Blitz which is a copy and again different.
We can iterate and innovate.
Steve:
500000 apps are made on facebook. It seems somebody thought of everything we can make. We still keep on innovating.
Brain: Add inherit new parts, but keep the whole game simple. he thought:If you want to go deeper you can deeper ends mostly with to much complexity.
Farmville is made in 4-5 weeks.
Noah said a fb game is easily made at low cost in short time. How much does it cost to keep it running? Steve: 5 times more, does not depend on if it is a success.
GDC10 session 4 Why Game Veterans flocking into social gaming
Why Game Veterans flocking into social gaming? Speakers: Brenda Brathwaite, Noah Falstein, Steve Meretzky, Brian Reynolds
I tried to follow the conversation. So here it is more or less:
Steve since 28 years in games.
having casual game experience
wants to go back to smaller teams 4-5 in 4-5 weeks again.
Brenda boardgames first passion sticked into facebook games
small group develop a game in short time instead of marriages are going on babies born during game development
Brain a year was more enough to make a game he want to be the game designer and the lead programmer again. Production costs are frighten for AAA games. 10 million is called a medium budget.
Noah
pretty same kind of story. To big size teams to large budgets, but good experiences with collaborative work in smaller teams.
Lower costs frees you to take more risks in creativity.
You can try a lot of weird things.
This is the best time game developers ever had - the most variety of opportunities.
Steve:
never predicted farmville would be a big success.
Brain:
we reached the mass market which is bigger than ever thought.
But this kind of gamer does not see themselves as gamers.
Farmville is a kind of social interactivity.
Brenda:
Harvesting is a popular mechanic in german boardgames.
Discussion about games moved from violent games to would please squeeze my pet.
Noah:
Farmville the most aggressive move you can make is harvest a little faster.
This does not threading the social player. We have to give up the hardcore game mechanic to reach the mass market.
Brenda made that point clear.
Brian. Game mechanics is not longer king. We have to build the social interactivity first.
Noah:
The only survive in the game industry if you like the change. So you've love
to learn over and over again. He has recalibrate his game design skills
Steve:
New challenges make game development exciting.
Brenda:
game design become a game for game designers.
Metrics made it a game.
Noah:
... are we in trouble?
Steve:
we got 100 Million people playing a game for 5 minutes a day.
Noah: so the next big thing is to make them play the whole day.
...
Brian: Does this number is still growing?
...
it's a huge relief to game designer that a facebook game still does not depend on hardware.
Games will be more complicated in the future.
Brenda:
We again keep the level of complexity on growing.
Steve:
I completely disagree. It the simplicity that makes the game so accessibility.
I don't want to see us to make the same mistake.
Keep this kind of games close to the bottom.
Brain agrees.
Brenda: You guys are underestimating. ()
Brain: One of the big challenges in social games is not to fire and forget.
You've to put more constantly new content inside. Games start small and grow up complexity.
Noah:
If you clone, you may now profit from this. Less risk because you've two three months to do a game.
We can do things like Bejeweled Blitz which is a copy and again different.
We can iterate and innovate.
Steve:
500000 apps are made on facebook. It seems somebody thought of everything we can make. We still keep on innovating.
Brain: Add inherit new parts, but keep the whole game simple. he thought:If you want to go deeper you can deeper ends mostly with to much complexity.
Farmville is made in 4-5 weeks.
Noah said a fb game is easily made at low cost in short time. How much does it cost to keep it running? Steve: 5 times more, does not depend on if it is a success.
