So right now the gaming press intranet is fairly groaning under the weight of GDC coverage.  There have been updates from all of the major sites, and complete transcripts and recaps from just about every panel, as well as press releases and interviews and coverage of all of the major announcements.  So I’m not even going to attempt to provide any of that sort of coverage, because you’ll find much more of it in other places and done by people far more qualified than I.  I do, however, want to add some of my personal insight and comments on a few of the panels I did attend, and even on some I didn’t. 

Paul Burnett is not mad

So Paul Burnett, Creative Director at Mythic, gave a very blue sky presentation on game design.  He did not talk about MMO’s.  The fact the he didn’t seems to have annoyed some people, and the way he presented them seems to have annoyed even more.  When I read about the “controversy” I was both surprised and a little annoyed myself.  Were these people even at the same lecture that I was at?  Because whether you agree with his methods or his conclusions, he had some absolute gems.  These were the things that I took about of the lecture, and they seem to be some of the things other people missed.

 First, everyone has a “golden age”.  Its an age where you become completely obsessed by something — where you will skip classes or stay up way to late at night because you’re caught up in whatever it is.  I would add that it’s more likely everyone over the age of 30 has a golden age, because if you’re not yet 30, you’re probably living your golden age right now.  For me, I can tell you the day when my golden age started.  It started when I was 14 years old, and my mother gave me a game called Wizardry to play on my brand new Apple II Plus.  The game had just come out.  And it changed everything for me.  My golden age continued through high school and on into college, and was filled with games like Might and Magic, Ultima, Bards Tale, SSI’s gold box games, Eye of the Beholder, and Ultima Underworld.  I didn’t realize I even had a golden age until Mr. Burnett coined it, but he’s absolutely right — and that was mine.  And the thing is, it made me realize how different mine was than many of my contemporaries.  If you shift forward even five or 10 years, many of my friend’s golden age’s were typified by the likes of Final Fantasy, Zelda, Jak & Daxter, and Mario.  And once you realize you had a golden era, then you start to see how it shapes so many of your views on what is fun.  My golden era is why I will always be more comfortable sitting at a desk playing games on my computer than I ever will be on my couch in front of my tv.  It’s why my heart stirs a bit when I look at a character creation screen and I’m asked to decide to put points between strength and wisdom.   It’s why I have such a fondness for quest text and cutscenes and storytelling in games, even when it’s done poorly.  But the most important aspect of realizing you had a golden era.. is that your golden era is only special to you.  And other people, no matter how much they love playings games just as much as you do, have their own, and to them, yours will never be as good as theirs. 

I’m going to add to Mr. Burnett’s insight with one of my own, I came to realize during the many months we worked on game systems for Titan.  Mine is a little more abrupt, and not nearly as elegant as Mr. Burnett’s, but is still very much along the same lines.

No matter how utterly convinced you are of how fundamentally fun something is, there is always someone else whom is just as equally convinced it is the worst thing in the world.  And no matter how absolutely terrible you think something is, there will always be people that think it’s the best thing in existence.

As a game designer, this can be a really difficult truth to live with.  And it’s something you will have to struggle with every day.  And ultimately, as a game designer, this is your job, right?  To decide what is fun?  Mr. Burnett’s insight into your golden era is an invaluable tool in helping you in evaluating that decision.  Think about why you think something is fun.  Think about your golden era.  Realize that the person across the table from you is arguing vehemently from *his* golden era.  It may save you quite a bit of headache at some point in the future.

The second little gem from Mr. Burnett’s talk was also an excellent one.  It boils down to this:  Just because you’ve seen something a million times, that doesnt’ keep it from being fun for someone whom hasn’t ever seen it.  Remember how it was the first time you saw it.  This isn’t earth shattering, but it’s still a great little gem to keep in your pocket.  Dont rearrange something  just because you’re tired of looking at it.  As long as you have fresh eyes, it still has huge value.  As an MMO designer this is especially difficult to do, because there will be so much you’ve seen and done before.  The trick, especially from an MMO designer’s standpoint, is to make sure you keep having fresh eyes.  

Hmm, well I was going to go on about a few other sessions, but I’m already over a thousand words for this post, so I’ll rename this one retrospective (1), and go on and talk about the others in future posts.

The people that were characterizing Burnett’s talk as the rantings of someone out of touch with their profession are viewing game design through such closed shutters that I genuinely feel sorry for them.  It also scares me a little because some of those people are in positions to have influence in our industry.  But we need people like Paul Burnett.  We need hand waving thickly accented angry british blokes ranting about the evils of over thinking design and advising against the fun equation.  Because within those rants are wisdom, and we are fools not to at least listen.