[GCAP] A look at Game Connect Asia Pacific - Brisbane 2008
By Timmy Campbell - Mon Dec 1, 2008 7:15pm
Game Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP) returned to Brisbane this year to promote the international games industry, host a stack of seminars and bring people from all over the world to one place for one reason: Australian games. The Brisbane Hilton was packed full of people from all walks of life, there to be involved or hear different seminars, talks and panels as well as grabbing a great chance to network and check out some of the up-coming talent in the industry. GCAP also held their annual awards dinner which recognizes the hard work of Australian games companies.
This was the place for designers, developers, programmers, CEOs, students and anyone in - or looking to get into - the industry. It was a hub for some of the most well respected people in the industry and up and comers to talk and present their thoughts and ideas on a various amount of great topics.
Around the main foyer
It kicked off with a skills workshop and panel discussions on Wednesday. In a two-part session, attendees could gain some valuable knowledge in the film and games industry. The morning session looked at improvements in the film industry as well as discussions on topics at hand. There was also talk on a collaboration effort with the games industry. The afternoon session looked at what was coming up for the games industry as well as what skills are needed from graduates and how to improve them. These would have been more than beneficial to anyone who attended but it was only the start to GCAP.
Thursday was the first real day of the conference(the separate Wednesday session cost a little more), and it kicked off with a Conference Welcome as Tom Crago, President of Game Developers’ Association of Australia (GDAA) and CEO of Tantalus Media took the stage to greet everyone and thank all the guests and sponsors for their time and donations. It wouldn’t be the conference it was without these people! After Mr. Crago left the stage, the first guest and keynote speaker Zareh Nalbandian, Managing director of Animal Logic, presented a talk on convergence within the entertainment industries.
Independent games on display
Animal Logic was started around 18 years ago working in visual effects for film and television. Starting small with only 10 people they led with one motto: “Do great work and good things will come.” This has pushed the company along to now employ more than 500 people, working on big films like Happy Feet. Zareh also talked about a new subset of his company looking into the future and getting into the games industry, however he said this will come when the time is right and they have a project they can be passionate about.
His main talk was on convergence between the film and games industries, since both work on visual effects and animation and should be able to train and grow crossover talent. He explained that innovation and quality were the keys to the industries. He truly won the audience over when he mentioned that games to movie tie-ins (and vice versa) “equally suck”. These usually have some reasons that we, as gamers, aren’t aware of such as budget constraints, short time lines and the lack of unique ideas.
Zareh finished off his talk by showing the crowd some of what Animal Logic has done and how they did it. It all looked very impressive.
After a great opening, the conference opened up to hold three sessions at a time, split up into business development, design and art/production. It was good to see a separation of the different parts however it was a little annoying when you wanted to see two sessions both on at once! The conference gave many opportunities to talk to speakers as well as other attendees about the different programs.
The first I got to attend was with Penny Sweetser (senior designer at 2K Australia) on emergence on games. While this is not the be all and end all of emergence she talked about different elements of interaction within games. She explained the importance of improving player experience and how worlds just limit the player, so there needs to be more linkage of player and story. She says one of the most important things is when the players physically manifest impact within the world - such as when in-game characters remember the players’ actions within the world and later converse about those actions. We are starting to see this appear in games, but it is still very limited. She finished off her talk with a Q&A session, where someone asked her opinion on some good games which feature good emergence. Her answer didn’t surprise many when she explained that the Sims games were great and for first-person shooters, Half-Life 2. She explained that both provide an engaging world for the players to explore and build up in.
The next session I popped into Paul Callaghan’s talk on a theory of everything. He is the head of games design at AIE Melbourne and thought it would be interesting to find out a theory on everything. He was quite entertaining and talked about how a theory can be applied to all things of ‘play’ while he said play isn’t the correct word for it; it was the only thing he could think of that could be used to best describe it. He talked about that in almost everything we do we test the world, build a hypothesis, test this within the world and the re-evaluate and redefine the hypothesis. But in certain worlds there are rules we know and are aware of, or quickly learn, so we are always testing identities and ‘playing’. He mentions that we are still exploring the grammar behind the games design world and that his theory is evolving with that.
With a small break for lunch it gave attendees the chance to check out some of the booths, network and look at some of the games for the unsigned/indie competition. Most of these were from universities or colleges from around Australia and New Zealand. With eight games to check out ranging from a battle strategy game to what looked to be Metal Slug meets Left 4 Dead and a Wii shooter with a unique head lamp, there was certainly a lot of talented students getting some great feedback from the people in the industry. But time was up, as the next talks were beginning.
More people playing the independent games on display
When our very own Ignant managed to take some time out from behind the South Australian Games stand he attended the talk from Mary-Beth Haggerty (senior games industry manager at Autodesk) on game industry trends. I was lucky enough to have chatted to her earlier and we talked about where the last five years have taken the industry. She sees that that industry has grown and the demographic expanded and will continue to expand. While the casual games look like they have taken a stranglehold on the market, this isn’t the case. There is just a wider view of the gaming community now. She is currently looking to help push Autodesk into the future and with their “create, animate and integrate” approach. Mary-Beth also told me about her time working at Electronic Arts on The Sims 2 and other Sims games. She said she really enjoyed it and coming from also a film background she is looking to help to bring the industries together to help push them forward.
With this background, I really wanted to know her opinion - does she think gaming is an art form? It has been a much-discussed topic in the last few years and from her experience she would be one of the best people to ask. Mary-Beth mentioned that while there are new arty games coming out like Braid it has something that has always been around. It was great to chat with her and chat about some of the games we both felt really did prove that games are an art form.
Next I headed over to a design panel with David Hewett (Tantalus Media), Jared Pearson (Pandemic Studios) and Luis Gigliotti (Studio Oz). It was fantastic to get three brilliant games designers with different backgrounds, experience and different approaches to the industry. They talked about different market research they have undertaken for different projects and while designers have great ideas they might not suit the target audience. Luis also mentioned that “99% of ideas are crap, but there is always that 1% of brilliance” and this really does ring true. They all agreed that plans always change so designers shouldn’t be locked into them; however having good planning is valuable. They talked about how a good games designer needs to keep the games vision but also please the publisher and while this can be hard at times it is important to the direction of the game to maintain the vision.
David mentioned that he is always making mistakes as a designer, but that is something every designer needs to do. It is the good ones that learn from these mistakes and are able to not repeat them they strive forward. Luis said they usually have what he likes to call “dream crushing sessions” all the time. They mentioned the biggest thing a designer has to learn is that someone believed in your vision, so stick with it. Be honest and cut away what isn’t needed, you can always add things later but you don’t want to say “I wish I had more time to polish.”
Jared Pearson stuck around to deliver the next talk on his history as a designer and offering some analysis of being one. While he is currently working on the unannounced “project alpha” at Pandemic Studios, he talked about some of his experiences with the latest Spyro game. It was good to see some real world examples being used as well. He mentioned that sometimes colour needs to be used to help the player and having everything dull colours could bore or confuse the players. The prime example of this he used was the recent Diablo III trailer. While he didn’t work on that specific game, he did say that sometimes the art direction needed to be influenced by the designer in order to help identify units and objects necessary in the game.
Jared continued to use real world examples in his talk and pointed out the effects of Mario throughout time. The HUD got simpler from a basic piece on the top of the old SNES games to almost nothing in Mario 64 to pop up information in Galaxy. It was content-driven and provided the player with clear communication. However he did mention that consistency was the key and when Mario introduced that dreaded ‘death mushroom’, it didn’t keep the consistency that mushrooms are helpful in the game (which made a great reason why we haven’t seen it since). He concluded his talk on trying to keep balance and game play and reminded that we need to keep the focus on what is important to the player.
EPIC welcome night hosted by EPIC Games
The first day of talks at GCAP had come to an end however it wasn’t over for the day yet. Jay Wilbur (Vice President of Epic Games) had contacted the GDAA and talked to Tom Crago about what Epic could do to help out. In the end they decided to hold the EPIC welcome drinks night, which provided a great place for everyone to meet up, chat about the day’s events and network. I managed to chat more to some of the presenters I had seen during the day. We also got to show off what exactly a Brisbane storm can do when it hit the city an hour into the event.
Check out Page Two for Days 2 and 3!
This was the place for designers, developers, programmers, CEOs, students and anyone in - or looking to get into - the industry. It was a hub for some of the most well respected people in the industry and up and comers to talk and present their thoughts and ideas on a various amount of great topics.
)
)
Around the main foyer
It kicked off with a skills workshop and panel discussions on Wednesday. In a two-part session, attendees could gain some valuable knowledge in the film and games industry. The morning session looked at improvements in the film industry as well as discussions on topics at hand. There was also talk on a collaboration effort with the games industry. The afternoon session looked at what was coming up for the games industry as well as what skills are needed from graduates and how to improve them. These would have been more than beneficial to anyone who attended but it was only the start to GCAP.
Day 1
Thursday was the first real day of the conference(the separate Wednesday session cost a little more), and it kicked off with a Conference Welcome as Tom Crago, President of Game Developers’ Association of Australia (GDAA) and CEO of Tantalus Media took the stage to greet everyone and thank all the guests and sponsors for their time and donations. It wouldn’t be the conference it was without these people! After Mr. Crago left the stage, the first guest and keynote speaker Zareh Nalbandian, Managing director of Animal Logic, presented a talk on convergence within the entertainment industries.
)
)
Independent games on display
Animal Logic was started around 18 years ago working in visual effects for film and television. Starting small with only 10 people they led with one motto: “Do great work and good things will come.” This has pushed the company along to now employ more than 500 people, working on big films like Happy Feet. Zareh also talked about a new subset of his company looking into the future and getting into the games industry, however he said this will come when the time is right and they have a project they can be passionate about.
His main talk was on convergence between the film and games industries, since both work on visual effects and animation and should be able to train and grow crossover talent. He explained that innovation and quality were the keys to the industries. He truly won the audience over when he mentioned that games to movie tie-ins (and vice versa) “equally suck”. These usually have some reasons that we, as gamers, aren’t aware of such as budget constraints, short time lines and the lack of unique ideas.
Zareh finished off his talk by showing the crowd some of what Animal Logic has done and how they did it. It all looked very impressive.
) Penny Sweetser talking about emergence |
The first I got to attend was with Penny Sweetser (senior designer at 2K Australia) on emergence on games. While this is not the be all and end all of emergence she talked about different elements of interaction within games. She explained the importance of improving player experience and how worlds just limit the player, so there needs to be more linkage of player and story. She says one of the most important things is when the players physically manifest impact within the world - such as when in-game characters remember the players’ actions within the world and later converse about those actions. We are starting to see this appear in games, but it is still very limited. She finished off her talk with a Q&A session, where someone asked her opinion on some good games which feature good emergence. Her answer didn’t surprise many when she explained that the Sims games were great and for first-person shooters, Half-Life 2. She explained that both provide an engaging world for the players to explore and build up in.
) Paul Callaghan and his theory of everything |
With a small break for lunch it gave attendees the chance to check out some of the booths, network and look at some of the games for the unsigned/indie competition. Most of these were from universities or colleges from around Australia and New Zealand. With eight games to check out ranging from a battle strategy game to what looked to be Metal Slug meets Left 4 Dead and a Wii shooter with a unique head lamp, there was certainly a lot of talented students getting some great feedback from the people in the industry. But time was up, as the next talks were beginning.
)
)
More people playing the independent games on display
When our very own Ignant managed to take some time out from behind the South Australian Games stand he attended the talk from Mary-Beth Haggerty (senior games industry manager at Autodesk) on game industry trends. I was lucky enough to have chatted to her earlier and we talked about where the last five years have taken the industry. She sees that that industry has grown and the demographic expanded and will continue to expand. While the casual games look like they have taken a stranglehold on the market, this isn’t the case. There is just a wider view of the gaming community now. She is currently looking to help push Autodesk into the future and with their “create, animate and integrate” approach. Mary-Beth also told me about her time working at Electronic Arts on The Sims 2 and other Sims games. She said she really enjoyed it and coming from also a film background she is looking to help to bring the industries together to help push them forward.
With this background, I really wanted to know her opinion - does she think gaming is an art form? It has been a much-discussed topic in the last few years and from her experience she would be one of the best people to ask. Mary-Beth mentioned that while there are new arty games coming out like Braid it has something that has always been around. It was great to chat with her and chat about some of the games we both felt really did prove that games are an art form.
) The games designer panel |
David mentioned that he is always making mistakes as a designer, but that is something every designer needs to do. It is the good ones that learn from these mistakes and are able to not repeat them they strive forward. Luis said they usually have what he likes to call “dream crushing sessions” all the time. They mentioned the biggest thing a designer has to learn is that someone believed in your vision, so stick with it. Be honest and cut away what isn’t needed, you can always add things later but you don’t want to say “I wish I had more time to polish.”
) Jared Pearson talking more on games design |
Jared continued to use real world examples in his talk and pointed out the effects of Mario throughout time. The HUD got simpler from a basic piece on the top of the old SNES games to almost nothing in Mario 64 to pop up information in Galaxy. It was content-driven and provided the player with clear communication. However he did mention that consistency was the key and when Mario introduced that dreaded ‘death mushroom’, it didn’t keep the consistency that mushrooms are helpful in the game (which made a great reason why we haven’t seen it since). He concluded his talk on trying to keep balance and game play and reminded that we need to keep the focus on what is important to the player.
)
)
EPIC welcome night hosted by EPIC Games
The first day of talks at GCAP had come to an end however it wasn’t over for the day yet. Jay Wilbur (Vice President of Epic Games) had contacted the GDAA and talked to Tom Crago about what Epic could do to help out. In the end they decided to hold the EPIC welcome drinks night, which provided a great place for everyone to meet up, chat about the day’s events and network. I managed to chat more to some of the presenters I had seen during the day. We also got to show off what exactly a Brisbane storm can do when it hit the city an hour into the event.
Check out Page Two for Days 2 and 3!
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