"The attendance at the conference and packed sessions showed the clear value of the program to attendees," said Wolfgang Marzin, president and CEO of the Leipzig Trade Fair. "The conference was a major success."

GCDC 2007 CLOSES WITH RECORD PARTICIPATION

More than 900 Attendees from Over 35 Countries Make GCDC a Major Success

Tim Schafer's First Keynote in Europe Highlights GCDC's Final Day

Leipzig, Germany - August 22, 2007 - The GC Developers Conference (GCDC), Europe's leading developers conference, closed today with a record attendance of over 900 (650 delegates in 2006). Coming from over 35 countries, the attendees finished the final day with an inspiring keynote on creativity from Tim Schafer, information about creating international communities for games, and a post-mortem of the mega-hit TitanQuest.

Sixty percent of the attendees came from abroad to this year's GCDC, the majority of which came from North America and the UK, the leading countries in game development. The conference also included a significant number of developers from Eastern Europe demonstrating the conference's growing reach across Europe as well.

"The attendance at the conference and packed sessions showed the clear value of the program to attendees," said Wolfgang Marzin, president and CEO of the Leipzig Trade Fair. "The conference was a major success."

Frank Sliwka, project director of GCDC, explained, "GCDC's concept is to provide a forum for international experts and industry veterans to network and exchange knowledge. GCDC 2007 has clearly proven its status as Europe's leading developer conference."

Tim Schafer (DoubleFine), the creative mind behind such acclaimed hits as Psychonauts, Grim Fandango, and Full Throttle, spoke on the challenges and methods of interjecting creativity into modern game design. His keynote illustrated the need for new ways to bring creativity to the industry, while managing the risks of taking chances.

Brian Sullivan (Iron Lore) was quoted after his post-mortem presentation of TitanQuest saying, "For me, GCDC is the best conference in the world, and the fact that it is in Europe makes it even more exotic. I really liked the variety of speakers and feel GCDC is a very good platform for developers."

Peter Larsen (Electronic Arts), Teut Weidemann (Consultant Online Entertainment), Thomas Jansen (Turtle Entertainment), and Frederic Descamps (X-Fire), spoke on the topic of creating international communities. The panelists presented methods of building and maintaining communities and explained how to utilize fans to grow your company.

Among the speakers of GCDC this year were Michael Capps (USA, President, Epic Games), Julian Eggebrecht (USA, President & Lead Director/Producer, Factor 5), Noah Falstein (USA, President, The Inspiracy), Alexander Fernández (NL, CEO, Streamline Studios B.V.), Hector Fernández (NL, CEO, Streamline Studios B.V.), David S. Freeman (USA, President, Freeman Group), Megan Gaiser (President/CEO, Her Interactive Inc.), Tony Goodman (USA, General Manager, Ensemble Studios), Fred Hasson (UK, CEO, TIGA), Vlad Ihora (Sweden, Head of Gaming Community, TeliaSonera Internation Carrier), Jennifer MacLean (USA, Vice President/General Manager, Comcast Interactive Media), Mark Morris (UK, Managing Director, Introversion Software Ltd.), Mark Rein (USA, Vice President, Epic Games), Jeff Strain (USA, CEO, ArenaNet), Brian Sullivan (USA, Co-Founder and Creative Director, Iron Lore Entertainment), and Bob Wallace (USA, Principal, Strategic Alternatives).

The next GCDC will take place in Leipzig from 18th - 20th August, 2008.

Statements of Speakers at GCDC 2007

Julian Eggebrecht (USA, President & Lead Director, Factor 5)
"In just a few years, the GCDC has become one of the cornerstones of the games industry. I am delighted to return to Leipzig once more to share my own experiences, and learn from my peers as we grow an increasingly diverse and exciting form of entertainment into the defining art of the 21st century."

Bob Bates (USA, Freelancer)
"GCDC is a very friendly conference, where developers can meet and talk to each other freely. You can have conversations here that simply don't take place anywhere else. The level of speakers is outstanding, and the opportunity to interact with them informally is unparalleled."

Mark Rein (USA, Vice President, Epic Games)
"GCDC is a very nice conference, and Leipzig is an excellent location for this event because it is large enough to hold the event but small enough that it supports the social nature of game developer conferences. I hope GC and GCDC continue in this location."

Alexander L. Fernández (Netherlands, Chief Executive Officer, Streamline Studios)
"GCDC is very important because it brings the global developer community together. It's a great environment for doing business while catching up with friends and colleagues."

David S. Freeman (USA, President, Freeman Group)
"This event has an exceptionally big heart. Along with the professionalism, there are more smiles per square kilometer here than at any other game event in the world, and I should know - I have been to most of them."

Bruce Shelley (USA, Senior Game Designer, Ensemble Studios)
"GCDC is one of the world's best game development conferences. It offers a lot of networking and high-level meetings, plus a good mix of presentations for newcomers and veterans. The schedule is full, yet there is free time and space for quick discussions between developers, media, and other attendees."

Christopher Schmitz (Germany, Executive Producer, UBISOFT)
"GCDC is the most important developers' conference in Europe. I am here to meet a lot of people, learn new things and for networking. The concept of the fair is brilliant. Right from the first contact, the assistance from the GCDC team was great and I was always kept up-to-date with the latest developments."

###

Today, Rein underscored that claim with a clarification on Epic's engine building policy.

Mark Rein's answer to a moderator seeking examples of each panel members engine to meet developer's needs was that "We specifically don't do that. We feel that the best way to make an engine, and the fastest most productive way to get to a finished point— not that an engine is ever really finished, we're constantly improving on them—we feel that the way to do that is to make our game, to make the most optimized, best performing, best cross platform game you can possibly make using our technology and then licensees know exactly what they're going to get when we're done."

He added, "It's very important for us to stay focused, make the best game that we can, as soon as we can and make sure that every feature we do ship is of professional quality."

In case that wasn't clear enough, should you have a beef with the Unreal Engine's capabilities, Rein spoke directly to you, telling the crowd "We will not put your features in our engine. We're happy to advise you how to get those features in. Our door is always open, you can talk to us at any time. but we make a very clear distinction about, you know, we're making this engine for our game. Ultimately, that's what's best for us and best for our customers."

Unfortunately, it seems it might also be best served helping each party's legal team put a down payment on their new boats.

Capps was first to respond, saying "We absolutely love the press. Everything they say we immediately put into our game." Joking, of course, but it's actually not that far from the truth.

With the press, Capps revealed that they'll actively solicit their feedback because "the press knows games and they know what's gonna sell" with proposed changes being incorporated as late as six weeks before ship date.

Touching on the hardcore Unreal Tournament userbase, Capps revealed that the team at Epic read forums "all the time", saying "We take [their complaints] seriously because we need to keep those guys happy because they're the ones who are going to sell it to another one and a half million users who aren't so hardcore."

Backer theorized that the games industry has evolved faster than its Hollywood counterpart because of this interaction with its users.

Lair developer Eggebrecht suggested that developers take those suggestions from hardcore users "with a grain of salt" citing Factor 5's inference that the hardcore "seem to somehow resent the idea that motion control is the next evolution, or one of the evolutions, where video games will go." With the hardcore gamer "bashing in our heads" over the use of the SIXAXIS motion detection as the primary control method for the game's dragon flight, it might seem like Eggebrecht ignored player feedback.

Not so. The team did make motion control concessions based on vocal, negative opinions from the PLAYSTATION 3 game's Tokyo Game Show demo. Ripping out the motion control for on-foot segments, Eggebrecht called the earlier control scheme "quite frankly, horrible in hindsight" and that listening to hardcore opinions can often be "a blessing and a curse."

And while some game developers may have a bitter taste left in their mouths by a scathing preview or review of a game, Eggebrecht said "The press isn't the enemy. If anybody thinks the press is the enemy, that's stupid. These guys are usually as passionate, if not more so, than you yourself are so work with them."

Before starting Lair we said we would never use a licensed IP again, but now I'd pray to do one...[but] if you have a small idea...absolutely grab that opportunity.

But if Eggebrecht ships a million copies of Lair, we'll see if he changes his tune and dragons triumph over X-Wings once again.

OK, we went a little far with the behemoth. We got a little excited, our journalistic integrity went into the toilet and we're sorry—at gargantuan proportions.

While the name may not be immediately familiar, Daglow and Stormfront have developed a number of higher profile games and well-known licensed titles—games like The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the original Neverwinter Nights, Madden NFL and NASCAR titles.

While Daglow conceded that sometimes "next-gen" unfortunately meant the size of one's marketing budget, he defined the generational shift from a hardware point as "any platform that upon its introduction dramatically changes a players view of the potential for interactive entertainment." He spun stories of the next-gen leap at Intellivision where, prior to that console, developers dreamt of machines that could display 32 colors, properly capturing their artistic visions.

The same mostly held true for software but he noted that "unlike hardware, next-gen software is usually recognized in hindsight, not in advance."

Daglow chose a number of hardware platforms and less than original titles as hallmarks of next-gen releases. As the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 meet the hardware requirements that don't "hold developers back", he considers the casual-friendly Wii as next-gen, despite its underperforming hardware specs, mostly for its input device.

Games like Sim City, Guitar Hero, Geometry Wars and World of Warcraft are also worthy of the "next-gen" moniker. He called out Guitar Hero for its focus on in-person social multiplayer and Bizarre Creations' Geometry Wars as it "provide old games can be new again" but I suspect some of that had to do with its runaway Xbox Live Arcade success.

Perhaps the most distressing moment of Daglow's speech was his Oreo analogy. He worried of store shelves filled with not just a package of Oreo cookies, but shelves chock full of Oreos, Oreo Double Stuf, Mint Oreo, Reduced Fat Oreo, Chocolate-filled Oreo and, well, you get the idea. He lamented the missing presence of non-Oreo cookies from grocery store shelves. "Somebody went away," he said with a touch of developer nostalgia "Somebody has disappeared."

Of the handful of keynotes we sat in on today, Daglow's was the one of the most packed and one of the most warmly received. Regardless of what you think of his company's games, let's hope he and his team don't become just another variation on the Oreo cookie.

Ken vs. Bob on Dialogue
Ken: There's no chance I will ever be able to do without it, but I will spend every resource I have to not use dialogue...[and] I sneer patronizlingly at cut scenes.

Bob: Interactive dialogue...is incredible problematic from a player point of view. (players wonder if they should have gone another path).

Ken vs. Bob on Story
Ken: Almost all the games we do celebrate your adolescent and immature desire to be heroes...in direct conflict with having a more meaningful stories.

Bob: What passes for story in most games is just revealed backstory. And that is really bad. It's fundamentally uninteresting. What's interesting is seeing characters changing through time.

Ken vs. Bob on Ambiguity
Ken:Where I'd like to see more creativity is mini cut scenes when they're small dramatic scenes with no dialog...learning to use those tools to create ambiguity...

Bob: I think that the more specific you can be, the more that I can create in somebody's head that in my head, that's what's worth doing...ambiguity is not going to get that task done. Specificity will get that task done.

I was surprised at the somewhat fatalist response both writers had to the videogame medium. Uninspired by dialog trees and craving new interaction for players, it's tough to disagree with something becoming blatant in this generation: the stories of games need to improve.

Eggebrecht revealed his independent studio's difficulties trying to secure a Sony requested Teen rating for its PLAYSTATION 3 dragon game Lair. With a heavy amount of blood and gore, the game was altered to conform to the ESRB's sometimes impolitic ratings criteria. Even though the player can burn scores of human infantry to death, showing blood spraying from dragon wounds resulted in a Mature rating.

Similarly, gory moments of airborne creatures exploding in chunks was met with disapproval, forcing more compromising "hugely problematic" changes to Lair.

And while some violence may be okay for M-rated software, sex in games is a definite no-no. Eggebrecht longed for a time when games can be taken seriously as an art form, not a "corruptive" medium like cinema, comic books and rock and roll music.

Games with intense graphic sex scenes—sometimes mixed with intense violence—were more than acceptable in movies like Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers and Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut, clips from which Eggebrecht played on stage to underscore his point. But in games, portrayals of sex are strictly verboten. Eggebrecht said this policy "tends to show that games are not being seen even by our own ratings boards as an art form."

I later spoke to Eggebrecht and GDC president Jamil Moledina about Sin City and 300 creator Frank Miller's distaste for ratings systems, self-imposed or otherwise. He wrote in the early 90s that ratings systems inherently create restrictions on an artistic medium sometimes before any production on the work has even begun. While Miller's main concern at the time was for his medium, the comic book, it was becoming clear that his stance on the matter was becoming increasingly, and worryingly, appropriate for the gaming industry.

The Factor 5 president ended his keynote with a call for developers to push the genre's boundaries or suffer the consequences. He asked for his peers to "show me something that proves on all levels that games are indeed an artform . Push the violence, but also push the sex, and push it in an artistic way where it's not really gratuitous, but where it gets the brain going."

Watch for impressions on Halo 3: The Ride later this week.

In honor of the talk, were going to play a game called Spot the Evil Quote!

Is it...

a.) "WoW players shouldn't have to go to ebay to upgrade their armor."

b.) "I love playing games through Comcast!"

Note: I almost didn't post this story in fear that it might, in some way, legitimize Comcast's desperate grasp at competing with wireless content providers over the next decade. Please don't let it.

Stay tuned for more very large beers and a modicum of coverage from GCDC/GC. Beers (from Germany) after the jump.

Pilsners. Good.