GDC 2010: Day Two

Yes, I know this is a super-duper-mega delayed blog post about GDC! I was only able to post one blog article during the conference because I always ended up feeling incredibly tired at the end of the day. Then spring break happened and I basically just slept, so now I bring you the delayed blog posts about GDC and the rest of my experiences there. So, here we go!

Day Two:

After the morning meeting with Tim and Ian, I got to hang out in the CA lounge for a little while before my first shift at 10:30 for evaluation input. I thought this would be time well spent in figuring out what sessions I wanted to go to throughout the week. I actually ended up meeting two programming CAs who were former students of the famous DigiPen Institute of Technology. One of them had graduated while the other transfered to another school. It was interesting to hear a bit of the interworkings of that school from the opinions of actual students.

Evaluation input was almost exactly what I thought it would be, pure data entry. I used the tab button a LOT! What was unexpected about the evaluation input was how entertaining it would be. There's a section on each evaluation reserved for attendee comments, which the CAs also had to enter into the database. Some of them were rude beyond all belief while others wished that particular session had gone on for hours, it was just funny to read the comments and share them with the fellow CAs working with me.

Right after evaluation input I checked in for the mysterious Game Connection shift. It was located in the West Hall of Moscone center which was all the way across the street! Walking outside to the West Hall was the first time I had been outside in the middle of the day since Sunday, which I found to be mildly hilarious. Game Connection was not what I expected at all, there was one CA manning the greeting booth while the other three of us stood around the West Hall directing people where to go and making sure they had badges and were allowed in the center. I got to interact with some interesting people while I was working, so I'm definitely not complaining.

What happened after Game Connection definitely made my whole day, and it kicked my confidence up a notch for the rest of the conference. I attended a session entitled MMO Retention: Learning from the First 25 Years lead by Gordon Walton, who has worked at basically every major gaming company and currently works for BioWare, and Scott Hartsman, who worked on both EverQuest and EverQuest II. Both of these pros know a lot about MMOs and especially wha it takes to retain players month to month, not to mention they were both hilarious speakers. So, I'm just going to type out the notes I took during the session.

• They started by defining the word retention in terms of MMOs as how many players are returning on a month to month basis and how many months the game has kept those players there.
• MMOs are always losing customers, Gordon used a good analogy here with a bucket. He said to imagine you have a bucket with a small hole at the bottom and you're continually pouring water into it; the amount of water you're losing from the hole pales in comparison to the amount that you're continually pouring in. As long as the water, or the players, keep pouring in then the amount of players you're losing doesn't make too much of a dent. The best advice he could give for making that hole as small as possible is to not give players easy opportunities to leave.
• I believe Scott made the next point about the basics of how to attract players and keep them in the game. Your content has to be compelling, always available, a persistence of data, ongoing support and service, and gradually be evolving the play environment. This means creating a new and exciting experience for the players.
• Psychological Elements of MMOs: Finding the "horizon" of the experience or finding the edges of that experience. The value of "stuff" and other visible acheivements within gameplay. The comfort of the play experience, it must be rewarding. The repetition, or grind, and being rewarded for it. Giving people new reasons to be awesome! When it comes down to it, a lot of people enjoy MMOs when they know they're acheiving something and being recognized for it. Whether it be within their guild, group of friends, or even their entire server depending on what is acheived.
• They also spoke about masking the grind and how important that is to rentention of players. The more you cover up the grind with a good quest, excellent loot, or even a good story the more you can get players to repeat a gameplay mechanic without realising they're really doing the same thing over and over again.
• Strategies for retention: Record everything that's important like subscription data, etc. Developers taking part in the gameplay to learn what works and what doesn't as players. Learn to do it yourself and learn how to get the answers from the data you have and need. Find out what will increase retention and crank that variable to the max! With small tweaks and not pushing the players too hard, of course.
• This is what Scott and Gordon have discovered works: Reward systems such as rare items or even super rare items for long time subscribers. Looking at when people are leaving the game, and why. Rewards at every level. Rare special events, promoting involvment in the community. What makes people feel like they're winning. The ability for players to show off what they have. Make the game that you would want to play.
• What they discovered doesn't work: Changing the interface, this takes away the comfort of the player. Taking the sense of challenge too far, if it's too hard people will stop playing at that point. Creating new ways to play the game that radically change it too much.
  

After the session was over I actually went up to Gordon Walton and talked to him for a little bit, he was a really nice guy. At one point I asked him if he had any tips for aspiring game developers and he just said, "No, not really. Just go for it!" A simple, but inspiring response, haha. I also asked him about technical artists and what he thought about that field, he said they're always needing technical artists at BioWare so that inspired me even further to take a closer look at technical art. I also got his business card, yes!

After that I met up with my CABFF (yeah we called each other that, so what!) Lisa and we hit up the Super Street Fighter IV tournament which was hilarious and really awesome.

And so ended my second day! I'm going to be doing multiple, albeit delayed, blog posts about the rest of my GDC experiences so stay tuned if you're interested in all this junk! :P

GDC 2010 Update: Orientation and First Day!

So I was definitely going to write a post last night after the Conference Associate orientation, but I got back to the hotel quite late and just sort of fell asleep after grabbing a quick bite to eat! I'm going to break things down in this blog post so I can keep track of what I'm writing and make sure I don't miss anything.

The Drive:

It took us a little over six hours to drive from Medford to our hotel in San Francisco, yes I traveled with my parents and yes I'm hanging out with them this week when I'm not at GDC because they are awesome! Overall, the drive was actually really fun. My parents and I got to catch up and we made a stop at an In n' Out about fifty miles out of SF, if you haven't had a burger at In n' Out go now! One thing that struck me after we started driving further into California was the rolling green hills. I never thought they actually looked like that! They were so green and that in combination with the slopes made driving by them seem like a surreal experience.

The Arrival:

When we made it to SF around four there was a giant rain cloud over it, which was kind of funny because the drive there was mostly sunny. But, I didn't care. I was so excited to even remotely see the skyline of SF through the ominous cloud! Our hotel is near the airport so we got to (kind of) drive through SF and some of those buildings are amazing.

Orientation:

When my Dad and I finally found our way to the correct Moscone Center entrance, I walked in, turned right, and proceeded to step on the escalator. The only thing I could think while taking the steep trip to the lower level of the convention center was, "This place is HUGE!" I was in awe of how high the ceiling went, and I had only seen part of one building! Getting to the orientation room was actually quite easy though, the room numbers are really big. I probably could have found it without wearing my glasses, and that's saying something.

So, I turn in to room 135 and see two giant screens with the GDC logo projected on them and a room full of the magnificent people I was about to meet. Lime green shirts were everywhere! I felt a bit overwhelmed and started to head to the long line of CAs in the center of the room when I was redirected to have my picture taken. I put on a smile and received my two GDC t-shirts after making it through the line. After that we got some dinner and then (dun dun dun!) our official badges and work schedules! I actually think I got every job I wanted to, which is awesome, plus one that I wasn't to sure about at the time referred to only as "Game Connection" on my schedule. After a lovely PowerPoint presentation made by Tim and Ian (the awesome CA Managers), we were sent off into tour groups around the North and South buildings of Moscone Center.

My Jobs:

My first shifts, which were today, would both be working sessions. That means badge checking attendees to make sure they're in the right place, passing out/collecting evaluation sheets, making sure people are sitting in the allowed areas, approximating a head count, prepping the session speaker(s), and tidying up afterwords. Of course, I don't do all of these jobs individually but with the help of my amazing CA peers! One person will typically do the head count or prep the speaker(s) in addition to the rest of the duties, but we're all there to help!

Day two, Wednesday, will comprise of evaluation inputs and Game Connection. Evaluation inputs involve me diligently sitting at a desk with a computer, entering information into a database! Although it doesn't seem to be the most glamourous job to have at GDC, it's definitely important that the staff at GDC and the speakers know what's working for the attendees and what isn't. Game Connection seems to be a bit mysterious, if my knowledge is correct then a fellow CA should be training me when I arrive for my shift tomorrow. The Game Connection is a place at GDC for developers and publishers to meet up and make connections with each other. This job actually sounds like a great opportunity to meet some developers, as long as I don't get in their way or take up their time of course.

On Thursday it's back to working a session followed by a bit more evaluation input in the afternoon.

On Friday, however, I'll be a runner! This means I will be working quite closely with the staff of United Business Media (UBM, they run GDC) to help exhibitors get to their UBM appointments on-time and I'll get to relay messages via radio. Exciting, yes? I'm a bit nervous for that job, but as long as someone gives me some instructions on where to go and when to be there, I'll get it done! After my shift as a runner, I'll be finishing my last shift for the week at another session.

The First Day:

Today marked the true beginning of my CA duties! Before my shifts started all the CAs met at the daily 8:01 AM morning meeting, these meetings are where Tim and Ian cover an changes that have been made and important things that the CAs should know about, like D&D game sign ups! ;) My tour guide and "stuff box" buddy, Lisa, suggested we go to The 10th Annual Game Design Workshop. The workshop is considered a two-day tutorial, but we decided to get as much out of it as possible! The farthest I got into the tutorial before my first shift was playing a game that involved the word "sissy" with Lisa and some attendees, I wish I could have stayed around to edit the game! My first shift, as I said a bit earlier, was working at a session during the Social & Online Games Summit entitled What Virtual Worlds Can Learn from Social Games. This shift turned out to be a bit hectic because the previous session and the session I was supposed to be working at were basically back to back. The result of this was a lot of attendees zooming in and out of the lecture room, it made it a little more difficult to check badges but we managed and the two CAs working with me were vets so they were pretty calm and incredibly helpful! The fact that there wasn't a session after the one I was working made it a lot easier to clean up and straighten chairs so the room would be ready to go after lunch! Unfortunately, though, I wasn't able to hear much of what the speaker was saying during that particular session but what I saw on the PowerPoint seemed pretty interesting.

My second shift was when I started to feel more comfortable. Lisa accompanied me to originally just help me find the room I was supposed to be in, but then decided to help out for a bit before the workshop started up again! I actually ended up having to ask a few people to leave because they had the incorrect badge, but every attendee was very polite and understanding. This session was part of the iPhone Games Summit and was called New Dogs, New Tricks: Breeding Social Networking and Virtual Pets. Because the doors were closed for this session, I was able to hear what the speakers were saying! This session covered some of the pitfalls and tips to creating an iPhone game and, in this case, one centralized around virtual pets. Now, I'm going to be honest, I'm not too interested in iPhone games or application development but some of the general knowledge the speakers had to share was quite interesting. For example, the developers would create the game a certain way and with certain mechanics thinking that's what the consumer would want. But, after releasing the iPhone game, they found quite a few flaws in the game itself which were actually brought to their attention by mildly irritated consumers on the iTunes App Sore. I guess it was just interesting to hear about game development from an iPhone App developer's point of view, rather than from the views of a console or PC game developer.

So, after the successful second shift, I hung out in the CA lounge for a bit before heading over to the Social & Online Games Summit again for the Succeeding With Licensed Brands in MMOs & Virtual Worlds question panel. I didn't know what to expect from this panel at first, but it was really informative and an incredibly educational experience! For anyone who isn't sure what licensed brands are in reference to MMOs, it's franchises like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. On the panel was Bob Ferrari (Sanrio, Hello Kitty Online), James Jones (Hasbro), Fredrica Drotos (Middle-Earth Enterprises), and Mary Bihr (LucasArts, Star Wars: Galaxies/The Old Republic). The panel was incredibly knowledgeable of not only their target audiences and the differences between a hardcore and casual gamer within those target audiences, but also the lore. I actually approached Mary Bihr and asked her how they keep lore in check when carving out a spot in the Star Wars timeline for an MMO. She went on to say that there are a lot of checks and balances that attempts to keep the lore represented in the game parallel to the canon of the Star Wars universe. First, they basically have to decide what part of the timeline they can feasibly put an MMO which is determined by George Lucas and the "higher ups" saying, "Yes, you can go here, here, and here, but you cannot touch there, there, and there on the timeline." It was just a really interesting panel and I think I'll write separate post with the notes I took, they have the specific questions asked written down on them.

And, after the panel and I checked out the mini expo upstairs with playable versions of Bioshock2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on both Xbox and desktop computers. I also checked out the GDC store which has a TON of amazing art books, they were all out to view too! There just aren't any prices printed on them which makes me wonder if the prices are jacked up even higher than average.

Anyways, I need to head to sleep so I can wake up bright and early tomorrow! I have some pictures I've taken but haven't been able to take them off of my camera yet. If you want to see some official photos from GDC thus far, check out the GDC Flickr account! All the photo credits go to Vincent Diamante.

If you read this whole post, then congratulations!

The Business Cards

So my venture into the land of GDC 2010 begins with the printing of my business cards that I'll be handing out to people at the conference; given that they'll want one. :P

I read some excellent blog posts at Darius Kazemi's blog about the games industry. One of those posts was about business cards and making yourself memorable, so I decided to give it a shot and make my business card mildly humorous. :P