Game talk

World of Warcraft’s Rob Pardo, Michael Dell, and Hugo Winning Author Vernor Vinge Headline Austin Game Conference on September 6-7-8, 2006, says the press release. I’ll be there doing a couple of things — I believe I said yes to being on the “rant” panel, and I am also supposed to do a talk inspired by a lot of the discussions here, regarding dinosaurs in the industry and how shifting business models may result in everything changing.

The conference is smack on top of my birthday, so I hope that some of the attendees start planning a surprise party now, since my family won’t be with me…!

Morgan points us to a study done on improving game marketing (PDF) and the resultant Grimwell Online thread.

The highlights alone, as extracted by Morgan, are worth quoting in their entirety, so I shall shamelessly do so:

Read More “Improving Game Marketing”

The IGDA Casual Games SIG has just released its annual
whitepaper (PDF). The IGDA whitepapers are always a good read.

1. Thou shalt not mistake online worlds for games, for they encompass far more; nor shalt thou forget that play is noble, and game is no epithet.

Read More “The Commandments of Online Worlds”

Gamasutra reports that the GDC call for submissions is up. As usual, I have no idea what to talk about.