MIGS 2011 Day 2

I woke up early in the morning for MIGS Day 2, all psyched for Jason Rohrer’s presentation. Unfortunately I didn’t get much sleep the night before, as I went to the MIGS party, but left early as it felt boring to my friends and I. Unfortunately we walked out when Richard Lemarchand walked in, as he was the life of the party, giving out free copies of Uncharted 3, and doing crazy dances. Tis’ a shame that I missed it. Afterward I went to a bar with my buddies, and had a couple of drinks. Suddenly a drunken hobo approached our table and asked if we were trying to look like the band Linkin Park. I thought this man was balls off the wall. Then he leaned closer to me and said that my hair looks just like some band member’s hair, as he touched it with his grimy dark hands. I knew it immediately, “Yep, I’m taking shower once I get home”. So one of the guys and I left the table and ran back to the hotel (while the others stayed back to drink some more I guess), I took a shower at 4:00AM, and then woke up at around 7:30AM. 3.5 hours of sleep, yay!

If this guy was the hobo, he'd be my best friend. Otherwise please don't touch my hair, kthnxdude.

Anyhow, my lack of sleep didn’t steer me away from my excitement to see Jason Rohrer, the first game developer to invoke an intense emotional response from me after finishing his game, Passage; and to boot, it’s only a five minute game! Passage was developed as an “art game”, and art games focus on conveying a message through the medium of interactivity. Many people (myself included) consider Passage, among many of his other games, to be works of art. I believe this ideology marks the beginning of a new era for games, where interactivity is used to express a story/message/experience/art/etc, setting it apart from other artistic mediums like film, music, novels, visual art, etc. Unfortunately the game industry today is culturally known as some niche market, somewhat like the comic book industry. Today's cultural stereotype of game culture is composed of nerdy white adolescent/adult men who like to sever their relationship with society and hide in a dark room to play games.

THIS IS AN OVERUSED GOOGLE IMAGE!!!

Although Jason Rohrer is a pioneer in the design shift, he too changed his outlook on game design once again, noting that a game must contain the right amount and degree of challenge to keep the end-user captivated in the game world, and then will the game have the capability of invoking a more profound emotional response.

Jason started off mentioning Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's enormous success, but illustrated on his presentation slide how it pales in comparison to blockbuster hits like James Cameron's Avatar. Then he brought up other films of the distant past (like Gone with the Wind), compensating inflation and world population, and found that Call of Duty looks even worse. His point was not to bog down the celebration of the industy's rise, but to tell everyone "not to celebrate our conquest of the mainstream just yet".

Apparently 1 billion viewers watched this movie when 2 billion people existed.

He then brought up the different game design critics. One of the people he mentioned was movie critic Roger Ebert, a man who initially believed that games can never be a work of art. However, as time went on, his opinion changed to the belief that it may be possible for games to be art, but still believes no games today can prove that. On an ironic note, Jason mentioned that before Ebert was a movie critic, he was a game reviewer. However, the primary individual he spoke of was Tom Bissell, as Tom recently confirmed that he will no longer play video games. Rohrer added that he currently knows no one (other than himself and his friends in the game industry) who plays games. "Why is that?", he asks. He then mentioned what he apparently normally states in his presentations; there’s a "cultural line in the sand", and some mediums fall above or below the bar. Above the bar are critically acclaimed movies, books, visual art, and even The Beatles representing rock and roll. Below the bar are video games, and other mediums that haven’t been universally accepted as a social norm. He hopes for the game industry to cross this line, but how? Perhaps creating more art games will do; he brought up how his game Passage caused some people to rethink the capabilities of game design. However, he quickly added that many critics stated that Passage is boring, and that it’s difficult to please everyone. To boot, he expressed a new belief in that the "art games movement" is dead, if not, dying. He believes that the art game movement (including his work and the work of Tale of Tales) is going about it the wrong way, as such games are boring.

Tom Bissell is not amused at the recent progress of video games.

So he took a dive into what constitutes boredom. He said plot is a good way to keep people interested in passive media like film, however we need more than just plot and interactivity to keep people entertained in active media like games. That's where challenge comes in, and as long as it's done right, it can push artistic boundaries. Then he explained today's paradox in the game industry, where games "need to be more accessible and easier", and brought up a picture of a female senior playing Wii. When there's no challenge, the game's tasks become "busy work"; a chore, if you will. He compared this paradox with the avante-garde filmmakers who resisted plot. Now those filmmakers embrace plot, and are experimental and expressive with it. The same scenario goes for games and challenge; "We need to be inventing new challenges that complement what we're trying to express."

I did nawt resist plot! I did nawt... o hai Mark.

However, he notices that game developers seem to have a broken approach to challenge; either making it feel like task-oriented chores, and/or repetitive. One example he brought up was Kane & Lynch 2 on the hardest mode. He would play through the same path, same cinematics, die and respawn at the beginning, etc. He tortured himself through this process ten times before switching to medium. Then he brought up how Bioshock creates a false veil of engagement though its Vita-Chamber system; if the player dies during the game, she'll warp back to the vita-chamber without enemies respawning. Personally, I figure that the challenge there would be to finish the game without using too much time. So Rohrer experimented by using the weakest weapon in the game (the wrench) to get through the first level and defeat the first boss. It took a while, and lots of respawns, but he made it. Jason added that although he played Bioshock before and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not having played Bioshock myself (as I plan to purchase a PlayStation 3 when my wallet can do so), I'll take Jason's word that it sports a false veil of engagement, but I have a hunch that its engagement holds true because of the aesthetics and theme of the game coupled with smooth non-tedious gameplay; like a fresh new roller-coaster. There's little true challenge, but it's fun as hell, and they managed to pull it off.

Apparently this eliminates challenge, but it allows Bioshock to be a fun roller-coaster ride!

Afterward he went over games that handled challenge properly, like Far Cry 2, Demon's Souls, and most important (to me anyway), Minecraft. I must say that although I'm not an avid Minecraft player, I find its mechanics, and more particularly its dynamics, incredibly intriguing from a game design standpoint; and to wrap it all up, its aesthetics naturally compliment its system. Anyway, what these games share in common is the "freedom of approach" method, where players create their own path to accomplishing a certain goal.

You can make pretty much anything in Minecraft, thanks to its genius mechanics.

Another batch of games include Super Meat Boy, and Flywrench, which Rohrer deemed as "microchallenge games". Their challenges, albeit difficult, are broken up into tiny chunks, no lives limit, and respawn the player right before the challenge at hand. "That allows you to have this tight, rhythmic loop... as a result, you become so good at controlling these games". It gives the player a great sense of accomplishment. Now give it a sound jingle, and it all comes full circle.

The "World's Hardest Game" also fits into the microchallenge category. It's a very fun game, and that wouldn't be true if you had to start the game all over again when you lose all your lives. The Green spaces are checkpoints throughout the level. It gives the player a great sense of achievement when she reaches the checkpoints, and especially when she completes each level.

To be honest at this point, I've been looking at the Gamasutra article for reference of this blog post, however I noticed that it didn't cover everything. So I'll mention the rest that I remember.

The final batch of games he mentioned were ones I couldn't remember, but I think one of them was VVVVVV (a game I haven't played yet, yes I'm terrible). Anyway, he called them "renegade games", where their levels change every time the player starts the game up. It actually reminds me of a game made by a group of fellow classmates of mine called "When You Wish Upon A*" back in second-year; a racing game where the race track would be completely different every time the player restarts the game, thanks to the A* pathfinding algorithm. Very creative way of using a pathfinding algorithm, and their game kicked ass, unlike my crapsterpeice Desert Racer, which you can see in my earlier blog posts.

My second-year GDW project Desert Racer.
...
At least it's better than E.T. the video game!! :)

Finally he ended off on a somewhat pessimistic note. He went back to comic books, stating how their apparent challenge is to figure how to read it, especially if you're reading it to child; linearizing a somewhat nonlinear layout, if you will. This is what makes comics somewhat frustrating to get through, and is not as passive as watching a movie, or near-effortlessly reading the visibly-pleasing words of a novel. Perhaps this is what is keeping even the most critically-acclaimed active media below the cultural line in the sand, while keeping many passive works above. He said something like that I think, and that was it. I honestly felt that he ended off his presentation on some sort of cliffhanger, but remember that he too is currently in the pursuit of bringing the game industry above the cultural line. So I guess it would only make sense not to come to conclusions as of yet, as he has only given us his hypotheses of what may help us achieve our goal - hypotheses which root from his recent analysis of game design, and built upon his previous beliefs.

Speaking of cliffhangers, this is the last frame of Reboot.
I still hate you, Megabyte.

Oh yeah, and I lied; I also looked at this article for recap. Hopefully the video of Jason's presentation will be posted up on YouTube soon. If it also contains my embarrassing question at the end, I'll definitely post a comment on the video admitting that I was the dumbass who asked that question. What was the question? Well I deleted it off my phone, but it went something like "How do you find the most effective blend between art games and traditional games?" He responded with, "Did you not just listen to the entire presentation I just gave?" Then I oops-ed. I then asked him another question about his thoughts on the Legend of Zelda franchise (My favourite game series). From what I remember him telling me, he told me that it's a great series, and does what every typical major franchise does, more of it is made and released; as Nintendo is already releasing its 15th installment, Skyward Sword. He then said that if he did what Nintendo did and make Passage 2, he'd also be rolling in it. Personally I can't really visualize Passage 2. Hmm...

Snapshot of the action. I added the speech bubbles.
Photo credits go to Daniel Buckstein.

Following Jason's keynote was Alain Tascan's presentation. Alain basically went over how trends in the game industry are tending to move toward smartphone and tablet devices, and are slowly moving away from mainstream consoles. He then mentioned how his company "SAVA Transmedia" is working toward hiring more female workers. This really sparked my interest, since I feel that in order for this industry to progress, it must include people who don't normally play games to make games. This includes women in particular, because they can be found all over the world in all cultures and backgrounds, and ultimately hold different mindframes, perspectives, and thinking skills from men. In order to reach true success, both men and women must be on the team. So far we've got the male part, now we need females. So I asked Alian how to attract females to joining the industry like he has. Then a troll from the back shouted "Just look at him, he's a sexy man!", and the crowd chuckled. Then Alian explained that most of his female workers work in the arts and animations section, since all companies have to do is look at schools like Sheridan College, and pick up artists/animators from there. Since those types of schools are balanced male and female, it's easy to pick up female artists/animators to work on games, since their expertise is versatile; it can work for games, 3D animated movies, 2D animated movies, etc. However, the real challenge is to convince women to become games designers, as that's where the real crux of the game is created. I thanked him for his helpful information. It makes sense, we can't really expect women to jump on board the programming bandwagon as most females dislike math and programming (Though there are some girls who are totally skilled at it no doubt! But not many.), however they totally would suit being game designers, allowing their creative minds to have near-total freedom in the realm of interactive worlds... well as they long as the programmers are able to code their ideas. Constraints are always involved.

What if these girls made games? I know some of you guys may cringe at the thought,
but think, when have they ever been given the chance?

Afterward was Alex Parizeau's experience with managing "Monster Teams" on projects like Splinter Cell and Rainbow 6. I remember him mentioning setting tiers for project managers, all managing different aspects of each project, with a head manager on top; sort of like a basic project management grid. Then he went over that culture is very important, and zzz...

Yep, I dozed off. Was it because it was boring? HELL NO! It's because my lack of sleep from the night before caught up to me. I was so embarrassed and disappointed that I moved to the back of the audience, and continued dozing off there. I didn't even approach Alex for his business card at the end of his presentation out of sheer embarrassment on my part; and to boot, he's even from Ubisoft Toronto, which is probably the closest game studio there is to where I live. There goes my chance of getting my name known at Ubisoft Toronto. Plus, his presentation was very informative and interesting. Curse you sleep deprivation!!! Well at least I asked a classmate of mine if she could upload the notes she took of that presentation so that I could see them. One other thing I remember Alex mentioning as a strong point was "NOT to execute the plan until the design has been fully completed and agreed upon by all members of the project!".

I, among many students, lack sleep.

After Alex's presentation, I went to see David Anfossi's presentation on how he managed his team to create Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It's important to mention that this was Eidos Montreal's launch project! Making a high-scale game as their first game project was no easy feat, and David's postmortem exemplified that. It took his team four years to make the game, and in the beginning, the team only consisted of himself and a few other core members. He admitted it was his most challenging project. His team decided to make Deus Ex as a means to build an instant reputation for their team across the industry, and to attract talented game developers to join the project. It started from the team, he said. They know how they work best, they are the experts, so there's no need to force them to work in a specific pattern that may be detrimental to their production. Rather than delegate tasks to each member in a "do this, do that" fashion, they collectively worked on defining the theme and ambition of the game, which motivated team members. They didn't strive to make "an action RPG", their main goal was to "revive Deus Ex". The studio then played its previous installments in order to increase their familiarity with the essence of the series. They also used other works for inspiration, including Ghost in the Shell, and Bladerunner. With that, they analyzed what worked/what didn't, and set out to fix the percieved flaws that may have prevented the series from gaining a wider audience.

The Eidos Montreal team played the first two Deus Ex games, and watched sci-fi movies like Ghost in the Shell for inspiration. This was to ensure consistency with the theme of the series, and to build upon it.

Before the project was executed, David opened a forum to fans of Deus Ex for feedback, and many of them said things like, "Don't &%#@ it up!", and "Warren Spector's not on the team? No thanks!". With that, he chuckled that it was difficult to get constructive feedback from gamers. Although it's good to keep in touch with your consumer base, there's a particular time for it. He also stressed pre-produciton iteration, and that it's best to perfect them before integrating them on "the big machine". They also made three vertical slices to test the production pipelines before actual production. This was all done to ensure minimization of future error by the time production rolled out.

The protagonist of Deus Ex went through  many many iterations before his final look.
Eidos Montreal ensured this before project execution.

During production, David stressed that frequent meetings with team members were crucial, as it fostered stronger communication and ultimately ensured that the vision was consistent between members. When playtesting came around, he strongly advised his subordinates to "Listen to gamers. At the end, they are the final consumer." One of the most important parts of building a project is continuing to keep a positive relationship with the publisher. Picking a good team will generate results that gain a publisher's respect. However nothing is perfect, so the developer MUST be completely honest with the publisher. "No bullshit" he said. If the team cannot meet a deadline, the project manager must immediately let the publisher know, and "fight for the team" if needed. Finally he left with courage, team-spirit, and passion; as that will make the difference between an 85 and 90 rating. His team's game in the end achieved an 89. Wow!

Thank you Gamasutra again for the recap!

Congratulations, Eidos Montreal!!

Second last presentation was by Nels Anderson, who is pushing for 2D game popularity, especially among breakout designers. He mentioned mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics, and how they all need to compliment each other. Mechanics are the hard-coded gameplay. Dynamics are the way the player uses the mechanics to express herself. Aesthetics are the game's visual and auditory theme. The game's mechanics invoke player dynamics, dynamics work within the aesthetics, and finally the aesthetics compliment the mechanics. He then went over how in a world of 3D games, 2D games made today have a different reception than they did back when 2D was the norm. Today, people don't know what to expect from 2D games, and now they can be used as a means to create new experiments - since the expectations of high-end graphics doesn't exist for 2D games anymore. 2D games are a wonderful medium for indie developers to start on. To add to Nels' information, I can easily see 2D games to fit in with the triple constraint (time, scope, cost), and will exude the game's design as the primary focal point - not its graphics or other high-end technology. I also remember Jason Rohrer mentioning that 3D is just a presentation choice, and doesn't constrain or enable particular game mechanics. "3D means you need to develop about 6x as much content (instead of one visible surface on a tile, a cube has six visible surfaces)". Thanks Jason, and thanks Nels!

Cave Story came out during the so-called HD-era of gaming.
Does Cave Story represent that? Not at all. Is it a damn good game? HELL YES!!

Finally, the last keynote was done by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, who expressed his thoughts on the future of gaming. But in short, his primary message was to expand the social aspect to online gaming; more people will be interactive in helping each other achieve goals in games. The feat can be taken outside the console, an on mobile phones in a sort of cloud gaming feat. For example, if the player needs a particular sword for a game, she can ask all her friends on her phone if they have one to spare. Once she finds a friend willing to do so, she can download the sword's data onto her account, and then use it on the console. He also mentioned how the online system could work for Wii U. I then asked him if that is the true online system for Wii U that Nintendo is showing it around to developers, or if this is just a Ubisoft design rooted from the current knowledge we have of Wii U. He confirmed it was the latter. My friend Albert Milaim then asked, "Why has Ubisoft chosen to implement such a feature, when internet databases exist to help the player?" In response, Yves explained that the player can choose to do that, but he's certain that most players will instead talk to friends (given the implemented system of future social gaming) to work together in solving a problem. Although online databases will exists, as long as Ubisoft promotes social gaming on next-generation online systems (like Wii U), people will likely use the service. At least that's what I understood. The most prominent thing that occured that I last remembered was some snotty nerd who stood up and told Yves that his online system is "suspiciously similar to Team Fortress 2" or something like that. Everyone at MIGS groaned at the awkward scenario, and Yves started scratching his head. To be honest, I don't remember what he said, but I think it was along the lines of "we're not setting out to copy anyone, we're just creating designs from our house that will help catapult the game industry to new heights in the online sector". Honestly that guy was an ass for embarrassing Yves like that. He could have stated his thoughts is a more polite manner, saying something like "your concept seems similar to Team Fortress 2, is that one of the inspirations for the new online system Ubisoft wants to push?" That would have been much more appropriate.  Unfortunately I guess some people don't know how to properly conduct themselves in a socially sound manner. I know I've been socially eccentric in the past, and I've been trying to overcome it. But I guess such a goal isn't apparent in some people. I'm sure he didn't think of himself as an ass, but as a hero, however his comment unfortunately caused other people to think otherwise. I was about to ask Yves another question, but time went up even though crowd focus was on me. I was just going to ask if there's a future possibility of seeing Ubisoft characters like Rayman on the next Super Smash Bros. Oh well.

And to end it off, a picture with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot himself!!

Photo credits again goes to Daniel Buckstein. Thanks bud, you're awesome!

Anyway that was MIGS 2011! It was a blast, met so many amazing people, and learned so much. Now I have to focus on doing my part for my GDW group assignment for school, and I have about three weeks to accomplish that. Not to mention other school work I have to do too. Oh joy. Anyway, until my next post, see 'yall!! :)