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Austin Game Conference Wrap-Up

Posted by Zonk on from the lots-of-interesting-news-for-texas dept.

Thursday events were interesting enough, but now that everyone's had a chance to get home and relax there's news aplenty from this past weekend's MMOG industry event. For general first-hand impressions, we can turn to Greg Costikyan, Raph Koster, Lum, and Mirjam Eladhari, whose site is well worth looking at as it has liveblogging notes from many of the events. Speaking of events, the most popular session at the event seemed to be the MMOG industry Rant, a panel of big brains and angry thinkers. Reflections on the rant are available from Gamasutra, Psychochild, F13, and Next Generation. From the F13 write-up: "Jeff Hickman: Lum gave me ranting lessons. My rant is basically about (fist closed), as game developers - the fact we often make games - core pieces - it's a critical error in the things we do. As a player, it's effecting me in the game I play right now, damnit. As a developer, I've done this and made core changes and probably didn't achieve the goals I wanted to achieve. As I make these games, we attract a certain type of player. It's because of the things we put in - the gameplay - for whatever reason, we see another game that's cool, doing something better, or we want to change the billing process. For whatever reason, we make a change and it alienates people." There were other things to see and hear at the event. Zen of Design has notes on some panels, including Sex in Games, the aforementioned Casino Talk, Platformania, and Bleeding Customers is the Future. Gamasutra had two more postcards from Austin: East Meets West in MMOs, and Why the EFF is helping NCSoft. Finally, game impressions are available over at MMORPG.com, on Conan, Auto Assault, Dark Age of Camelot, and Pirates of the Burning Sea.

13 comments

  1. Hmmm by Otter · · Score: 1
    From one of the links:

    Forgot to mention: The guy from SlashDong was there. He brought... samples.

    Now, there is just no way I'm following that link while at work. Any of you students or unemployed want to tell me what it is? (...shudder...)

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    1. Re:Hmmm by wan-fu · · Score: 3, Informative
      Yeah, you don't want to follow that link at work. The title graphic has a phallus with circuit board texture on top. From their "About Slashdong":
      Slashdong is about the cominbation of sex and technology. I've been a geek since as long as I remember, and being male, I like teh sex0rz. I like them a lot. So I figured, why not combine the two? There's a vast amount of humor in the subject, as well as some places to actually teach people things about electronics, engineering, and pimpin' it both large and in charge.
      Essentially, it's about "porn in engineering" according to the sites creator.
  2. ESRB by tootired · · Score: 1
    <rant>

    Like MPAA ratings, ESRB ratings can be the kiss of death for a title.

    Not because people care one way or the other about purchasing/watching something rated for adults, but because stores and movie theaters simply refuse to carry the "offending" material.

    I'm all for protecting the young, but shouldn't that be a parent's job?

    I could be wrong, but the last time I checked, it wasn't the government's job to raise my kids.

    Parents have certain responsibilities to uphold-and censoring content, like it or not, is their job, not the government's.

    </rant>
    1. Re:ESRB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I could be wrong, but the last time I checked, it wasn't the government's job to raise my kids.

      Last I checked, stores and movie theaters weren't the government.

    2. Re:ESRB by tootired · · Score: 1

      With the latest "Hot Coffee" example, we had government intervention. And these rating systems are not being treated as guidelines by stores/theaters, but as more powerful, almost law-like rules which must be adhered to.

    3. Re:ESRB by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      Well, isn't it good that stores are taking the ratings seriously? After all, they're doing it out of their own free will so it's not really censorship.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    4. Re:ESRB by Taevin · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that here in Tennessee (and I'm sure other places too) it actually is law. It is against state law for movie theaters to sell a ticket for an 'R' rated movie to someone under 18, not 17 like the MPAA ratings suggest. I'm not sure if this is also part of the law, but no theater will sell more than one ticket for an 'R' rated show to someone under 21.

  3. Austin phlog by racarate · · Score: 1

    Some Atlantan cell-phone developers captured a good deal of the con on their phlog: http://www.jerknetwork.com/phlog.php

  4. The most popular part of the conference... by AvantLegion · · Score: 1
    ... was the free beer in the tech pavilion from 2-6pm each day.

  5. Another Winner From Zonk... by Bloodmoon1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    9 comments...

    Wow.

    Just as bad as this little gem from 3 months ago. Check out the only comment scored a 5...

    Man, how the fuck does this jive mother fucker stay employed? Seriously, I don't, for the life of me, get it. How? How, god damn it, how? I mean, at least frequent dupes by the other editors generate page hits. Zonk's shit can't even do that.

    Tomorrow, I'm deleting all of my old journal entries, just on the off chance someone may read them and give this place more hits than it deserves, which has been a number very, very close to 0 lately. Thanks again, Zonk, for causing me to lose even more faith in Slashdot than I already had, you worthless pile of crap.

    --

    Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.
    1. Re:Another Winner From Zonk... by nobodyman · · Score: 1


      Worse still is the fact that he forced you at gunpoint to read every last word, right? What nerve!

      Look. You see a site you like, go there. Otherwise, don't. The games section has only been around for a year or so, and if you filter out zonk's stories it'll be just like your slashdot of yesteryear and your faith will be restored.

      There are hundreds of video game websites and 99% of them just repost stories from other sites. I'm okay with that because it allows you to get multiple takes on the same story. Slashdot does alot of reposting,however, they also try post items that woudn't necessarily wind up in, say, Gamespot. The result of going outside of the mainstream is that you don't get as big of a response.

    2. Re:Another Winner From Zonk... by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 1

      It's the "Dumb Editor" theory.

      You see, Slashdot must always employ one dumb editor that everyone hates the most. I know, you think all of them are dumb, but this one is especially dumb. In the past, it was Jon Katz. Everyone hated Jon Katz. Katz left, and Michael came along. Everyone hated Michael. Michael was canned, and now we have Zonk. Everyone hates Zonk. I think they serve as a lightning rod of hate to draw attention away from the crumbling quality of the site.

      Behold...the Dumb Editor theory.

      --
      "Sufferin' succotash."
    3. Re:Another Winner From Zonk... by Bloodmoon1 · · Score: 1

      This was, easily, the single most intelligent thing I've read in a very, very long time around here.

      --

      Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.