GDC Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Reality is a Game

Sadly, I’m not going to GDC this year so to make up for it, I scoured the vault to find presentations I previously enjoyed as well as new ones (to me). I thought I’d share some of my favourite talks for other people who, like me, are missing out on this year’s fun.

The GDC Vault has a nearly every presentation and panel from previous GDC events. There is a ton of content within it which is really good and you should go through it to find stuff directly related to you. Below, are links to some choice GDC presentations from 2011 & 2012.

All the links are to free content in the vault (some presentations that have only slides below may have video for paid accounts).

From GDC 2011:

1-Hour Video Game MBA by Charlie Cleveland from Unknown World Entertainment
Beyond Horror: Art Directing Dead Space 2 Ian Milham.
Cash Flow for Keflings by Lane Kiriyama (Wahoo Studios, Inc.) This is great because it allows one to see actual numbers for a small studio. Slides only.
Ecommerece solutions: should you buy a ready-made service or roll-your-own? as explored by Michael Herndon. The answer is yes and he works for a company that sells ecommerce solutions.
Level Design in a Day: Best Practices from the Best in the Business by Matthias Worch (LucasArts) Slides only.
No Explanation Necessary: Minimizing Exposition in Games by Jeremy Bernstein (Electric Entertainment) Slides only.
Strategies for Firefighting Troubled Projects by Adrian Hawkins (Kuju Entertainment Ltd.) Slides only.
Turing Tantrums: AI Developers Rant! by Brian Schwab et al. (Blizzard Entertainment)

From GDC 2012

Spot the Difference: AAA vs Indie VO Techniques by Michael Csurics, David Gilbert. Slides only.
Small Steps in the Dark: Embracing the Continuous Prototyping Mindset by Tim Ambrogi (Final Form Games). Slides only.
Reaching Into the Toy-Chest: A Look into Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure’s… by Mike Stout (Activision Blizzard)
Postmortem Microtalks by Brandon Sheffield et al. talking about some great games.
Perfecting Pitchable Prototypes by Nathan Martz (Double Fine Productions)
Ownership – Dragon Age Style by Adriana Lopez (BioWare) Slides only.
Inspiration from the Trash: The TRS-80’s Lost Game Designs by Jim McGinley (Bigpants)
Free to Play Game Metrics for Beginners by Dan Fiden (Signia Ventures) Slides only.
Experimental Gameplay Sessions by Douglas Wilson (Die Gute Fabrik)

My last post on the need for the game industry to expand it’s storytelling skills and the stories themselves. Chris Crawford who made lots of early computer games (one game in particular I enjoyed was Balance of Power) and helped to found the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC).

In 1992 he gave a speech at GDC that went down in game designer history and in a meeting I was in this week somebody referenced it. Hearing it so casually mentioned made me actually want to watch it, and lo and behold it’s on YouTube. Crawford’s speech is referred to as the dragon speech and captured his enthusiasm for pushing the game industry into more exciting territory.