This week, Brian and myself have been ensconced by the seaside in Brighton for the Develop 2009 conference. We spent three days inside a hotel, learning from others, talking about Quarrel, catching up with old friends and making new friends. Neither of us had attended the conference before (somewhat surprising given we’ve worked in the games industry for more than 25 years between us), and now we’re feeling like we’ve missed out a little bit in the past. Although, I’d be thankful to not stay in a room with windows that howl at night again.
From our point of view, the event seemed pretty well organised and the sessions were of a pretty high standard. The best bit for us though was that although the event was busy, it never felt overwhelming – and that made it much easier to find people we knew and also to meet interesting new people.
I had a couple of favourite sessions, one from the Evolve track on Tuesday and one from the main conference. The former was David Edery’s talk regarding the future digital distribution (slides available here), which was of course hugely relevant for us. I was also glad to see someone in games who’s actually read and understood the book The Long Tail correct a few myths! The other talk was the LEGO Design Keynote. This was particularly inspiring for me because it showed how LEGO, TT Games and NetDevil are working together and planning long-term success rather than just aiming for that short-term hit (which LEGO admitted didn’t work for them in the past).
Speaking of the Evolve track on Tuesday (which we were, if you look closely), I apparently urged a “ban” on the use of the word casual as it relates to games in my talk “A Game Is A Game Is A Game”. I don’t remember asking for a ‘ban’ in as many words, but I did say it was ill-defined and non-descriptive and that we shouldn’t use the word anymore… oh, I see how they may have gotten that idea. But, for me, the main point was about urging people to just focus on making great games, which I did, and we then had a good in-room discussion about that. I have to admit I’m surprised/delighted to see so much coverage across the web, but clearly what I said rings true one way or the other with the industry at large. Which was kind of the point. I do hope to be asked back, but time will tell!
Brian attended a few more sessions than I did at the conference, and I’m sure he’ll be on here soon to tell you about those.
-David
PS If there’s any interest, I can make the slides for my talk available Slides with notes for my talk are available here.
Please do make the slides available – I only saw your last one on Twitter but certainly looks like it would be something I’d like to see more of!
Seen the slideshow. Excellent slides.
I’ve been working in the “casual” market for quite some time now, and I’ve never been quite fond of that denomination… Specially when you end up seeing quite some games with very interesting mechanics and graphic detail. I’ll go as far as telling that many of these titles are up to pair of what was considered mainstream a few years ago, specially on the line of graphic adventures.
Last year I’ve read a very interesting article on this subject, very well written and developed (I think I still have it in my favorites list). I can post the link here if you wish. They chose as a better definition of terms, the concept of “low-end games” and “high-end games”, using the time/budget development ratio charts as a reference for the denominations, since the premise was that they were all games… Which to me makes much more sense.
I’ve come to consider “low-end games” as a very interesting experience lab, where you can test different ideas, and commercialize them, without as many of the constraints and risks of a AAA title production, and people tend to react positively to good ideas.
So, I recommend a hour per day, skimming through the best “casual” portals and look up the new additions! There are sure to be lots of little inspiration boosters there!
Slides now available! See link above.
@Badger: please do provide the link to the article here, we (by which I mean me personally) loves to receive more reading material!
-D