But First, Rambling

In my post-Red Steel 2-launch phase, I have found myself short on topics rampaging through my mind that I can discuss freely on these, them thar Webs.

There’s been a lot of activity, to be sure: the first sales figures have been being discussed widely, there have been several marvelously supportive articles written by journalists who seem to be ‘in our corner’, so to speak, and in general the “what’s next” question has been foremost in many minds.

Alas, all of those topics fall under the “not in my job description to broadcast” category.

That is to say, were I to share all my personal reflections on the sales figures, it would (as I have learned) likely be quoted as a “statement from Ubisoft” – and that likelihood means that I can’t talk about such things here.

Now, don’t get all weird on me. I’m not complaining about that. Sit down, sit down. It’s okay. I actually think it’s awesome that people are so interested in these topics, and I very much enjoy talking with the press about just about anything they wanna discuss. However, as we all understand, the nature the relationship itself coupled with my role as a Ubisoft Dude means that I gotta watch what I say, man.

So, I’m left to sit and stew silently on these topics, while the world races by.

…

That is not my style.

The previous post was one attempt to overcome that void. Discussing other people’s games is always fun, in particular when they are destroying my mind. Ultimately, though, it has proven to be not terribly satisfying.

So. Right here, I’m going to try a different tact. One that, hopefully, will both bore and confuse you. Simultaneously!

Ian Bogost Is Persuasive

One of the things I do “between projects”, seemingly, is to immerse myself in the literature, media, and whatever, surrounding the topic I hope to address next.

Now is no exception. At the GDC this year, I picked up a book called “Persuasive Games” by one Ian Bogost.

If you aren’t aware of it, there is something like an early renaissance (a “naissance”, perhaps?) in the intellectual discussions surrounding video games. For many, many (many, many, oh god, it was so long) years, the writing on games and their meaning was pretty thin. Recently, however, things have improved, and quite measurably!

Even so, it’s still sort of sketchy territory out there. We don’t have anything like a common grammar yet, and the academics in the field who are considered the go-to people have often been in their role for less than 10 years… often less. We’re young, people.

So, then, Mr. Bogost, and his Persuasive Games. This is a book about meaning.

Red Steel 2 was a success in many ways, but the, er, ‘polemic’ aspect of the title was, perhaps, not our primary focus. Ahem.

In fact, if there was “meaning” to be taken from Red Steel 2, it was probably something like “whacking bad guys with a sword is good fun!” Perhaps this was not the most high-falutin’ message ever presented… but when laid against the backdrop of the work(s) we were inspired by, it seems fitting.

Even so… it’s something I’m thinking about a great deal, now, ‘between projects’: games and meaning.

Mr. Bogost has titled his book “Persuasive Games”, and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s primarily a step-by-step breakdown of how a series of games that operate in the “persuasive” zones (politics, advertisements, satire, others) make their case – the structure of how meaning is made in an interactive work, and how audiences respond to that meaning. It’s fascinating shit – if you can handle academic writing, of course. The book does not pretend to be a ‘page turner’ – he’s making a point, man, and intends to back it the fuck up. With, like, facts.

While this is great stuff, at the end it is not the distinction between “persuasive” and “non-persuasive” games that has made a lasting impression on me.

Uh, did I mention that the book has made a lasting impression? It has. It’s (in fact) messing with my head, quite nicely.

What I found interesting in this book is not that Ian (if I may call him Ian – we both have beards, after all) has laid out how to make more persuasive games. Rather, it is that he has, through implication, laid out a quite convincing structure for the method by which games construct meaning in their audience (re: Holy Grail).

And, people? It’s fucking weird.

Weird, like, throw out all your ideas of interpretation of meaning from cinema, TV, and books, weird. Like, time to start over in having a common language.

However, he’s right. That’s the problem.

[ASIDE] For the record, he’s not necessarily the first dude to pull this off – he’s just the one I have read the most recently, and he made a particularly good case. There’s lots of other folks out there doing great work in this domain. Just so y’all know. And so that y’all know that I know. And, etcetera.

…

But, hey, Bogost has a beard, man.[/ASIDE]

Hmm. Tell you what. Let’s see if the darklorde can actually illustrate what the fuck he’s talking about, and demonstrate that he has actually learned something from this here book thing.

EXAMPLE! James Bond.

In Casino Royale The Movie (and, arguably, in every Bond movie ever made) one can say that the “message” or the “meaning” comes from the struggles the character(s) undergo, and their various relationships to each other.

The chain of events that transpire in a Bond file generally reinforce an idea that is something like “Villains will be punished, the weak should be defended, and heroism should be rewarded.” With Bond, there’s also something in there about how a mix of danger and sophistication is appealing in a man… but let’s just pick one example for now.

Does that make sense to you? Bond’s enemies are bad, bad dudes – and they always (always) meet an untimely end. In fact, we know this will be true before we enter the movie. It’s sort of one reason why many of us go in the first place – to see Bond bring the Hammer O’ Justice down on those vile fellows.

So, it follows that some part of the “meaning” in the film is that “villains will be punished.” We see bad dudes doing bad stuff, and then Bond comes and kills them.

Similar logic applies to the other ideas (“the weak” is whatever starlet Bond is tasked with protecting/saving/being saved by – and he *always* defends them, even if he fails in the end and they die… he still tries).

See? Make sense? Kinda?

It’s a little bit of a mind bender, but I hope so. If not, uh…

…well, keep trying. It’s tricky.

Okay, now let’s look at Goldeneye The Game.

Extracting “meaning” from such an experience is tricky – at least with the language we have from the movies. I mean, who am I, really? There are ‘villains’, sure, but the story in this kind of game is a thin veneer at best.

The game’s meaning is defined by what I (the player) can do in it. Primarily, this means shooting dudes, opening doors, and completing misssions – the amount of personal interaction I have with characters in that game is almost zero (as it is in most shooters).

So, to generate “meaning”, what we do is this: we imagine the game world as meaning.

It’s a world in which hundreds of bad guys are trying to kill me, and I mow my way through them victoriously, all falling before my gunfire, ultimately confronting (and killing) the Big Bad in the last level. What does a world like that mean for it’s protagonist (the player)?

From what I took from this “Persuasive” book, blended mercilessly with My Way Of Thinking™, the ‘meaning’ behind a game like Goldeneye can be described as something like “You can be an action hero.” (There’s also a lot of detailed meaning in there that focuses on gun tactics and the use of space in combat – which, perhaps, is the *actual* ‘meaning’ of a game like this – but again, let’s just pick one thing and move on.)

In fact, this particular ‘meaning’ is common to probably 50% of the games out there. Maybe more. As an example, I interpret the ‘meaning’ of Zelda to be “You can save the princess, and the world!” (in addition to the manipulation of space, doors, keys, and the other ‘puzzle’ elements).

Okay, does that make sense?

It’s tricky. Tricky, for many reasons:

• It’s tempting to look beyond such simple ‘meanings’, and look for something more related to morality or ethics. Personally, I don’t see that in most games today – and hallelujah to that.
• We’re used to “meaning” being expressed in absolute, third-person terms. Games must, by their nature, have meanings that are somehow related to the primary actor – and thus are probably better expressed in second person. Weird.
• Looking at a game system and leaping up to what that system, with all it’s possible variables, “means” is a big leap. It’s doable, but… ya better bring a trampoline or something.

In essence, what I have taken away from The Bogost-inator’s book, and ultimately what I want to share with you today, is that meaning does exist in games – it exists in every game, in fact, just as it exists in every other expressive medium.

Now, many high-minded people, when confronted with a ‘meaning’ phrase like “You can be a hero!”, may take it up themselves to shake their head sadly, and make wise-sounding statements about how we “should be aiming higher than that” – that our culture is suffering under the weight of such pap, and that such ‘low-brow’ concepts are devoid of cultural value.

To all the people who feel that way: Blow me.

With that problem nicely out of the way, I can share with you the Big Thought that I’m chewing on here.

What I have derived from this Book O’ Bogost-ity (see what I did there?) is that, as creators, we can choose what meaning we want our games to have, by reverse-engineering our system of meaning.

Today, this is something we often do without thinking about. With Red Steel 2, as an example, I think I chose a meaning for our game that was something like “hitting bad guys is fun!”… but it wasn’t so much a ‘choice’ as it was a natural outcome from a whole variety of choices we made along the way.

I think I’d enjoy being able to exert more deliberate control over the “meaning” of my games than I have in the past, and Ian’s book has handed me one big, bright, shiny key to help me out with that endeavor.

Mr. Bogost: gracias. I hope to live up to the aspirations your work implies to me – even if, ultimately, the result is still “pure entertainment”, it will be hopefully better and more intentional because of your writing.

So, at the moment, all of my attention is focused on holding my breath while the initial run of Red Steel 2 makes its way through the long, torturous path that ends in your livingroom (if you own a Wii). As much as I’d love to wax poetic about the progress of the game, that will have to wait for now. This is the “baited breath” period, as I mentioned.

In the meantime, though, I have some stuff completely unrelated to Red Steel 2 to discuss. If that’s of no interest, you may consider yourself warned.

Actually, it’s not completely unrelated. There’s swords in this topic, too. No guns, though.

I want to talk to you about

Heard of it? If you have, or if you’ve played it, you have my condolences. You know the pain of which I speak… glorious though it may be.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Wayyyy back in the never-never of, uh, well, a while ago anyway, an import review popped up on Eurogamer for a then-somewhat-unknown-in-the-states Japanese import with the nearly-unpronounceable title of “Demon’s Souls”.

The game sported armored knights, undead hordes, and general smashery. It looked slow and dark and, uh, kinda boring, actually.

It was the actual words in the review that got our attention:

The game’s five worlds – all massive – are split into four different sections, each guarded by a horribly large and hardcore boss monster. Everything in the entire world is designed to kill you, quickly and often without warning.

When you die in Demon’s Souls – and you will die, a lot – you lose your physical body, becoming a soul with half a health bar (although in practice it’s more like a three quarters, as there’s a ring in the very first world that lets you cling a little closer to life). The only way to get it back is to kill a boss monster.

To summarise, you end up playing the vast majority of Demon’s Souls as either a dead person or a dead person with no money. Every time you die, you start again at the beginning, with all the enemies you just struggled to overcome back where they were. There is no compromise. There’s not even a pause button. You get better, or you get nowhere.

Precisely because the odds are so stacked against you, precisely because the game sometimes seems to hate you with every fibre of its being, when you do finally kill the bastard f***-off enormous boss monster that ended you within half a minute the first time you approached it, the resulting heart-in-mouth euphoria is the purest kind of gaming thrill. Demon’s Souls is about facing up to the impossible, and winning.

That kind of print will have one of two kinds of effects: either you’ll wisely nod, frown, and turn the page, wondering what kind of damn fool would want to abuse him/herself so badly as to endure such suffering…

…or, you tilt your head slightly forward, glare at your screen from under dark eyebrows, half-raise one eyebrow, and smile. That wicked, knowing kind of smile. A smile that will raise the hairs on the back of nervous men. A smile that speaks words. “Oh yes,” this smile says, “they will fall. They… will… fall.”

Two guesses which response I had.

Wait, actually, just one guess. With two, you could just guess both, and since there’s only two answers, uh. Wait.

Anyway, shut up! The point is that I had to clean the drool off of my goddamn keyboard, okay?? I literally ran into my buddy’s office (the one who had sent me the link to the preview) and insisted – nay, DEMANDED – that he explain himself further.

We learned everything we could about it, and confirmed to my satisfaction that the initial presentations were not fabricated. The game, it seemed, would kill the shit out of you.

It wasn’t available for sale anywhere but Asia at the time, and so I didn’t press the point much further in the months to come, other than to tell myself “next time I’m in Asia, I’ll be sure to pick that up” – this led to some confusion, actually. Uh. Maybe we should skip this part.

…

Listen, the eventual and inevitable “North American version” was announced after I stopped digging up data, okay? So I didn’t personally even know that there was an English version other than the Chinese one, see. And, I managed to switch the Chinese version and the Japanese version in my head, so…

Anyway. I bought the Japanese version when I was in Tokyo for TGS, not realizing that:

• the North American (English) version was coming, and soon.
• contrary to what I had come to believe, the Japanese version had no English menus in it – it was the Chinese version that had those, apparently.

I didn’t have the Chinese version. I had the Japanese version.

So, for a great long while, what I had at home was a game that I desperately wanted to play, but in fact could not actually bring myself to boot, knowing the unending frustration that waited within, given that every piece of displayed text in it would be in freaking Japanese. As fascinated as I am by that language, I do not read or speak it, not even a little bit.

Okay, okay, so that by itself would have been fine – I could maybe have eBayed the damn thing, and replaced it, or something along those lines. But…

…see, my son started playing it (the Japanese version). Beyond the profound shame I experienced at being out-hardcore’d by my own son, the fact was that when he got totally into it that “replace the version with another version” door sort of swung close with a malignant click.

“Just buy another copy!” the Japanese version would taunt, lying there on the shelf beside the plastic black monolith that is the PS3. “It’ll be worth it!”

Grit teeth. Snarl at world.

So, it wasn’t until my recent trip to the GDC in San Francisco that I managed to work up the gumption to go ahead and drop another $60 on the damn thing. But I did. Yes, people – I have spent approximated $120 on Demon’s Souls. Yes, I did.

You know what? They deserve it. You know why?

That’s why. This is my Demon’s Souls character profile. Yes, that is play time, and yes, that’s hours and minutes. I’ve logged that much time in…

(…don’t want to do this math…)

…just under two weeks.

Those of you who don’t know me may not have experience with this behavior. Ideally, as I am probably speaking mostly to gamers at this point, those numbers might not have the kind of effect on you that they have on, say, my mom.

Although supportive of my endeavors to date (thanks, mom!), she, along with many of my friends, utterly fail to comprehend that I could spend what amounts to a full-time job’s amount of time on something quite like this.

…57 hours!! And I’m still not even done with the first run-through!

This is, perhaps, because I am a little bit of a grinder when I play. Some. Kinda. Okay, actually, I often play games as an excuse to grind. Sick, right? This, by the way, is why I can’t play Pokémon any more, or ever again. That damn game eats my life in the same way that tsunamis eat coastal villages. There is little left behind to rebuild from, you see.

Whatever. What is my point here? What in the hell am I talking about? I wanted to tell you about Demon’s Souls, and I’ve run off into the Navel Gazing Highlands again. Ye gods, man.

Let me abruptly, and without much of a transition save for this uncomfortable sentence, get to the point.

Demon’s Souls is incredibly compelling, for all the reasons that much better writers than Yours Truly have already laid out. You don’t need me to explain to you how the structure of the game is well-conceived, how the open-ended system is empowering, blah dee blah blah blah – let’s leave that to the professionals, shall we? What I wanted to share with you was my enthusiasm for the game, first and foremost, and secondly, this:

Playing Demon’s Souls is, strangely, the most like being in a real sword fight than any experience I’ve had since playing Bushido Blade.

The actual motions that the weapons you choose make vary quite a bit, and the exact paths of those motions are crucial to your very survival. Mis-judge the length of your swing the tiniest bit, and often you’ll be contemplating your failure before a screen that reads plainly “YOU DIED”. Each weapon type has it’s own style, and often the reach of your weapon is a huge factor in choosing which one to go galavanting around with. Shield and sword? Two-hander with a parry? Two blades, perhaps? The devotion to realizing something like true combat is palpable here – it exudes from the very disc itself.

The cover of the game is just a dude in armor with a sword, man. Just sayin’.

I’m on the record as having some interest in this kind of gameplay. For that reason alone, Demon’s Souls would be inspiring and rewarding for me to play. That it then heaps so much more awesomeness on top of that, and then actively punishes you for trying to play it… but juuuuuuuuuust enough so that when you do overcome those astounding odds and finally drop that metal-shield-wielding forty-foot-tall mechanistic automaton who killed you fifteen goddamn times previously, the temptation is to shout “YEAH! TAKE THAT!”, and jump around like a loon…

…well, you really can’t beat that, IMHO. Not even with a stick.

(Original post)

When you release any kind of product, there is almost always uncertainty about how it will be received. Unless you can hop into your time machine and check out the day of your release, you really are never guaranteed that things will go smoothly.

This is why, for me, as the release date loom-eth, the Terror simply cannot be abated. It can be controlled, redirected, endured… but I’ve… I’ve seen… too much… The eyes, they–they haunt me…

/shudder

Anyway, if you’ve been following along, you’ve heard about all this crap before from me, and now Red Steel 2 is out, man! So? Now? How is it going??

[diplomatic answer]
Well, I still haven’t seen any actual sales numbers. Any conclusion at this point remains a speculative guess at best. Honestly, who knows?
[/diplomatic answer]

…

Actually, we have a LOT of feedback. The press embargo is good-and-over, and the fans in all territories (save Japan) have been playing it with unfettered abandon for a few days. The message boards have lit up, there are fan reviews appearing all over the place. Exciting! And, on the whole, people seem…

…well, they seem pretty damn enthusiastic.

In fact, there’s something that I think I am seeing bubbling up in the reviews & the fan responses that is an honest-to-golly “new thing”, at least to me as a developer. It’s something I want to try and point out to you – right here, in this little blog post.

It’s a little slippery, though, this thing – elusive. You might even call it “ephemeral”.

As in, it might not exist. My ego is a gigantic, looming thing, and it clouds my perspective in a horribly world-warping way – I might just be making it up to seem more important to myself. Or, what I’m noticing might just be too subtle to have any real relevance. You might well get through this post without actually seeing the thing I hope to point you at – either because I do a bad job of laying it out… or, uh, because it’s not there.

If that turns out to be the case, then my bad. But what the hell: let’s make a go at it anyway.

Let’s start here: if you clicked that Metacritic link back there, you know that (as of this writing) our average rating is hanging out at a solid 81%.[*]

I’ve released a few games in the past, and spent a good chunk of my life reading game reviews. My experience tells me that normally, in this types of case, you can expect a kind of “good job, buuuuuuuuut coulda been better” kind of response from the media.

Here’s the thing, though. Maybe it’s just me, and maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much of my life making mediocre movie games and reading pissed-off reviews about them… but…

…

Screw it. How about I just try to show you what I mean?

I’m gonna pull some quotes from a bunch of the major reviews we’ve seen so far for the game. And, I’m going to quote full sentences, so that I can fool you into thinking that I’m not manipulating you by being overly-selective. Ain’t I clever?

As you read these, keep in your head the idea that what I am used to hearing with an 81% is stuff like “an excellent example of this kind of game”, “good stuff”, and “a lot of fun”.

Nintendo World Report (90%):

“Plain and simple, this is one of the finest games to grace the Wii console.”

GamingNexus (A+):

“Are you a gamer? Do you own a Wii? Then you need Red Steel 2. In fact, this game is a reason to own a Wii all by itself.”

IGN (86%):

“There are still some issues, both in game balance as well as wishy-washy motion sensing control, but the awesome style and energetic gameplay are enough to make this one of the top titles on Wii.”

GameZone (8.5/10):

“While there are some lingering control issues and a linear feel, this is one of the best shooters you can find on the Wii.”

GameShark (A-):

“The sword fighting works well at first but it isn’t until you start unlocking the various special moves where the system really opens up into one of the most thrilling and visceral combat experiences on any console.”

Cubed3 (9/10):

“Ubisoft have created an amazing adventure.”

GamesRadar (90%):

“But that’s exactly why you should forget the first, as this completely overhauled sequel is easily the best FPS on Wii and a wonderfully shocking example of how damn good a Wii-exclusive shooter can be.”

GamesTrailers (86%):

“Red Steel 2 has it where it counts, with a deep combat system that continuously improves as the game progresses. It could do with more interesting tasks outside of battle, but it nails the swordplay like no game before it.”

GamerVision (8.5/10):

“It single handedly proves the Wii MotionPlus’s value for adventure games, while providing one of the best action experiences on the system.”

VideoGamer.com (80%):

“Despite its flaws, Red Steel 2 is one of the best action games on the Wii.”

VideoGamesDaily (8/10):

“Red Steel 2 is complex without being incoherent, innovative without being off-putting, and one of the finest brawlers we’ve played full stop.”

Game Informer (80%):

“Red Steel 2: Stellar Swordplay Overcomes A Few Dull Edges”

Even Eurogamer (who gave us a 70%) had lots of nice things to say, like:

“In the end, you’ll likely forgive Ubisoft’s game its shortcomings on the strength of its energy, obvious good will, and deep sense of craft.”

Do you hear it? I hope you do. I’m taking up your precious time with what amounts to intellectualized bragging, and I appreciate you hanging out with it for this long, but I really do have a point I want to make, personal, tiny, simple though it is.

Ready?

When we sat down to design this game, the core concept we began with was “hitting things is fun”. Now, that statement is true, in this weird, visceral way that not everyone understands… but that a lot of people do.

It was scary, hanging our hat on this bizarre idea: could you construct a video game that is basically a whack-’em-up? I’m going to put you in a room and let you beat the shit out of a bunch of virtual dummies. That’s it! That’s the whole concept!

We wanted to do a lot more, of course, but given the time frame and what we knew at the time…

We committed – committed ourselves to the belief that even just that, just whacking and stabbing and bashing your enemies, but for real this time – just that might be enough. And, on a more personal level, that the power of that experience might just make the whole damn endeavor worth our while.

There would need to be more, of course, a lot more, but if we could bring something really cool and new…

That “something” might justify the years of effort from over a hundred people, all the blood, sweat, tears, effort, tragedy, difficulty, pain, frustration… and all of that hope would hang on this bizarre idea represented in an image we found of two young boys whacking each other with branches in their backyard – an image that, for me , summed up the idea of the fantasy we were building.

My core belief, and, I think, the belief of many of the other folks in the company that got behind the project, was that yes, this would be enough. Yes, this could be satisfying. Yes, people wanted this, and yes, people had never experienced this kind of thing before.

But, it was a gamble. It always is.

Now, looking at the response, I see the enthusiasm, I see the heart-felt excitement, I see the fans writing long, passionate reviews in the comments sections of other sites, I see people talking about how much their arms hurt from playing for all this time… and, notably (for me anyway) absent are the detractors: absent are the criticisms of combat, absent are the folks who couldn’t figure it out, absent are the cries of general displeasure that comes from an accumulation of negatives with no redeeming value.

…

Hmmm. I seem to have no idea how to phrase my conclusion.

…

Honestly, though, I think it’s not even really for me to make a conclusion about this state of affairs. I wanted to show you guys something I thought was cool, something that is, for me, exciting, confusing, satisfying, and a little scary. From the inside, it’s beginning to look like the game is working, that the message has been received…

…and that some people really like it. Quite a lot, in some cases.

That is an amazing feeling.

[*] EDIT: Removed a paragraph about my perception of how good or bad the overall score is – seems that lots of folks got the impression I was actually complaining about the score, when in fact that was not my intention at all – I’m quite happy with the score, in fact.

If you dig the Swordsman from Red Steel 2, I’ve got a (image-heavy) treat for ya.

One of the projects that our illustrious in-team marketing peeps have worked on over the course of Red Steel 2 (thanks, Olivier!!!) has been getting a statuette of the Swordsman put together.

He’s about 18″ tall.

I think it goes without saying that I’m jumping-up-and-down ecstatic about this model. Even so, I think I’ll go ahead and say it anyway: I just about lost my shit when I first saw this guy “in the flesh”. I’ve had models and ‘maquettes’ made for games I’ve worked on before, but nothing even approaching this level of awesome.

Your mileage may vary – not everyone thinks that big resin dollies are the coolest thing in the world. Me, though? I’m in the “yes, please, and lost more of that” camp.

Thanks again, guys. Outstanding job.

The Game Developer’s Conference.

Lo, it is a time when all who follow the Way of the Developer, yea, unto, even from the very small to the very large, from the greenest n00b to the most wither’ed old geezer, makers from every stripe of the field (yea, the testers, the artists, lo, the programmers, the designers, forsooth, the audio folk, and even, dare we speak their name, they who know the lore of the darkest of evil… the producers) gathereth in a single location, and speak the words that have been spoken among our kind for nigh unto dozens of years:

“Dude! Great to see ya! So, like, where are you working now?”

I arrived last Tuesday (the… uh… the 9th of March). The show “proper” (there are pre-show tutorials and other “opening band”-style events in the days before) began in earnest Thursday (the 11th), and ran through Saturday (the 13th).

Here’s what a day at the GDC is like for yours truly:

• 6:00am
  Wake up. Because, see, I’m still adjusting to the 9-hour time difference. Experience gladness that I’m not waking up at 3 or 4am instead, like I was during the first few days.
• 6:03am
  Turn on laptop, and log on to the Internets. (I’m not an addict. I can quit any time.)
• 6:07am
  Pour the water into the weird “one-cup-at-a-time” style coffee makers they have in hotel rooms, unseal the “one-shot” pre-packaged coffee filter thing, put it in the little weird plastic tray, and hit “brew”. (I can quit any time. But I’m not going to.)
• 6:08am Realize that I forgot to charge my stupid cell phone again. Plug cell phone into charger.
• 6:09am – 8:00am
  Be consumed by the Web.
• 8:01am – 8:15am
  Extract self from the Web, shower, and assemble “conference gear”: comfortable shoulder bag with conference guide and lots of extra space (for books and swag), pocket full of business cards, cell phone, room key (crucial, that), camera, notebook with pen(cil), wallet. Everything else stays in the hotel. Walking all day with heavy stuff that I probably won’t need or use? Not a plan for success.
• 8:15am – 8:30am
  Breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Buffet-style – granola and yogurt, some fruit, and LOTS and LOTS of coffee. This only takes 15 minutes at the most. I am the fastest eater you will ever meet. Yes, even faster than that one friend of yours.
• 8:31am :
  Start walking to the Moscone Center. While walking, review the “GDC-at-a-Glance” brochure to make sure I know where in the hell I’m going for my 9:00am talk.
• 8:34am
  Smile at, and then try to ignore, the crazy dude on Fifth and Market who wants to explain to me that the most recent Robin Williams movie was actually all about him. (I am not making this up.)
• 8:45am
  Slip into the Starbucks next to the convention center, buy a big ol’ cup of coffee. This brings my consumption for the day up to about 2 pints.
• 8:50am
  Stroll into the Moscone Center.
• 8:51am – 9:10am
  Meet someone I used to work with, but haven’t seen in 12-24 months. Hoot, smile, shake hands and/or hug, chat, share personal details. Then run, because now we’re both late for our talks. Jog (with the cane) to the talk.
• 9:11am
  Tweet that I am entering the talk. Yes, on Twitter.
• 9:12am – 9:55am
  Sit in a lecture, feeling vaguely superior to the speaker when s/he says something I disagree with, and vaguely impressed when s/he says something I agree with. If they say something I haven’t ever considered before, feel both impressed at how clever the speaker is, and satisfied that I was smart enough to come to the show. (Sometimes, write down and/or tweet this little gems.)
• 10:00am
  Grab a cup of coffee from one of the buffet-style tables they have in the hall. Have my badge examined to be sure I am allowed this cup of coffee. I am.
• 10:05am – 10:15am
  Meet with Ubisoft PR dude somwhere bright and sunny. Give a quick on-camera interview on Red Steel 2. Be entertaining! Wii Motion Plus, first person swordfighting, new cell-shaded graphics, new world, new hero, best swordfighting game you’ll ever play, Wii exclusive, yes the other motion control systems are exciting. Done!
• 10:16am
  Wander over to the GDC bookstore, because there’s nothing really interesting going on at 10:30am.
• 10:30am…
  Still browsing game development books.
• 10:45am…
  Still browsing. What. Leave me alone.
• 10:55am…
  Buy a book. Grab a cup of coffee, then go sit down at a chair to wait for a friend to arrive at our previously arranged location.
• 11:03am
  Friend arrives! Conversational mayhem ensues. I tell the story of how Paris is (this has been done over 500 times now – I think I should get an Achievement for that). My friend shares their recent history as well.
• 11:35am
  Another friend (maybe more of an ex-colleague, but close enough) spots us, and joins us! More mayhem. I repeat an abbreviate version of the Paris story (still sans achievement).
• 11:45am
  Friend(s) become sick of me. Friend(s) make various goodbyes, and wander off.
• 11:47am
  Well, crap. I’ve got 45 minutes to kill before I meet my lunch date. Look down the escalator. At the bottom, the doors to the GDC Convention Floor are gleaming enticingly.

Now, beyond those portals, I know, lie riches and wonders beyond count. All our dreams are contained in that room.

The booths at the front are huge, glorious, imposing monoliths of technological wizardry.

On the right side of the chamber, rows and rows of hiring booths have sprung up: black plastic walls bearing the familiar names and logos we all have come to appreciate and/or distrust, through their products. Blizzard, Activision, Ubisoft, Naughty Dog, THQ, Lucasarts, Traveller’s Tales… all of them, big and small, all with desks ready to receive resumes, and often bearing mini-treasures: swag.

And, beyond, in the back of the hall, lay the mini-booths of the hopeful: the up-and-comers, the book publishers, the experimental-controller-developers, the representatives from countries who want you to open up a studio inside their boundaries…

And, lo, there, nestled between the food court and the Hall of Meeting Rooms, lies the open battefield of the Independent Game Festival: the greatest icon of game development hope ever constructed. We, the developers of the world, wander through the black plastic towers of the IGF every year, completing our annual pilgrimage, imagining, silently, that, were we also independent, that we, too, could demonstrate creative ingenuity and plucky resolve, like those we see gathered around us. We imagine, sometimes, that we might even win a prize, and be able to count ourselves among them: the independent developers.

The hall doors beckon. The guardians standing watch at the gate will yield to my badge, I know, for it says “MAIN CONVENTION”, and thus allows me to participate in the great GDC feeding frenzy: the Booth Crawl.

• 11:48am
  Still staring at the Convention Floor doors, begin to move, unconsciously, as if in a dream, towards the escalator that will convey me slowly down to them.
• 11:49am
  Enter the Convention Floor.
• 11:50pm – 12:27pm
  Crawl the booths. (What transpires there will remain forever between me and those I encountered. This is as it should be.)
• 12:28pm
  Stagger out of the Convention Floor, laden with the fruits of my adventures. No, you can’t have any: they are for my kids.
• 12:39pm – 1:55pm
  Lunch! Mmmmm, Chevy’s. Give apologies to colleagues, for I am late. Be slightly annoyed that they expected this. Have two or three Diet Cokes, and end with a cup of coffee.
• 2:00pm
  Arrive at second interesting talk of the day. Realize that the talk actually started at 1:30pm, and I have missed half of it already. How in the hell did this happen? Did everyone at lunch also not know the schedule?? Think about this, and realize that only 1 out of 10 of my friends and/or colleagues actually attend the talks at GDC. None of those were at lunch. Curse their names.
• 2:01pm – 2:30pm
  Attend second half of the talk. A friend is there! Sit next to friend. Be quiet, respectful, and sarcastic at the same time during the remainder of the talk. Tweet.
• 2:33pm
  Emerge from the talk, and nab a cup o’ joe from the tables.
• 2:35pm – 2:45pm
  Second interview time! Repeat _exact same script_, but in a new, fresh way. Be fun.
• 2:46pm – 2:55pm
  Browse books. What.
• 2:56pm
  Buy a book that I couldn’t quite get myself to justify buying earlier this morning. But, see, NOW it’s okay.
• 3:00pm – 4:00pm
  Skip the talk I was going to attend because I learned that another talk is better, and then on the way get totally shanghai’d by running into another friend who I haven’t seen in forever. Find a chair somewhere and sit and compare notes about our various companies. Realize that we can help each other out in our projects. Exchange business cards, email addresses, phone numbers, and make a date to complete this conversation in more detail tomorrow night after the show, okay? That work for you? Cool. Enter new date into calendar, say goodbye, watch them walk away, and realize that I have no clue what I’m doing next.
• 4:01pm
  Flip through the GDC-at-a-Glance brochure. Find nothing I want to attend. Damn.
• 4:02pm
  Grab a cup of coffee.
• 4:04pm
  Pass through the doors to the Convention Floor.
• 4:05pm – 5:30pm
  Crawl the booths. Gloriousness abounds. Both sadness and joy, hope and abandon, envy and respect, useful products and those that are clearly doomed… all this and more, spread out across a carpeted warehouse whose painted-white cement arches fairly drip with distilled possibility, the air is so thick with anticipation and promise. Witness wonders and horrors.
• 5:31pm
  Exit Moscone, and emerge into the twilight of downtown San Francisco. Wow, my feet are sore. Start walking to the hotel anyway. Window shop on the way there. Buy nothing, as I am already feeling guilty about over-spending at the bookstore.
• 5:45pm
  Return to my hotel.
• 5:46pm – 8:30pm
  Ignore any request to try and coax me to come out to a party, gathering, festival, drink, pub crawl, or other evening-themed activity. Instead, have dinner with one of the many folks who are gathered here who I would gladly leap at a chance to hire and/or work with again, if it were ever to arise. I have excellent taste in friends, and these evening conversations are the reward at the end of a challenging day. Have at least three Diet Cokes, and end with a coffee.
• 9:02pm
  Collapse into my hotel room. Peel off the gear, drop off any new-found treasure, don the jammies. I’m so tired. My feet are killing me, and my head is throbbing from over stimulation. What I need now is sleep.
• 9:03pm
  Log on to the Internet.
• 12:03am
  One bye one, desperately rip the long, gelatinous tendrils of cyber-interactivity from where they have attached themselves to my flesh, as if to feed on my very soul. Ignore the cries of the Beast as, denied its victim, it is forced to withdraw back into the screen. Stab my laptop power button in a final act of glorious defiance. YOU WILL NOT FEAST THIS NIGHT!
• 12:04am
  Stare at the screen. Look at the clock. Do the math. Six hours of sleep is what I will get, at best. Try not to hate self, but do not entirely succeed.
• 12:15am
  Sleep.

Rinse… and repeat.

It’s a hell of a good time, frankly.