I just received word that I’m moderating a panel at PAX East! It’ll be Saturday, March 27th, at noon in the Wyvern Theatre. Right here in Boston. Aw yeah.

I HAVE A GREAT IDEA FOR A GAME!!

That’s great! We’re happy for you, we really are. But you know what? Our studio isn’t gonna help you realize your vision, and chances are no other company will either. I know it’s shocking, but the reason we dove headfirst into the start-up ocean full of shattered dreams and razor blades was because WE ACTUALLY HAVE A GREAT IDEA FOR A GAME TOO! So if you really feel passionately about your awesome idea and want nothing more than to see it live then go make it your own damn self, we’re busy. But we’ll throw you a bone with this helpful panel full of tasty tidbits on how to get started. Gaming entrepreneurs Chris Oltyan, Eitan Glinert, and Ichiro Lambe will regale you with tales of wonder and woe, led by our fearless moderator Darius Kazemi. Only the brave will survive, no refunds.

With participants:

• Chris Oltyan,  Director of Product Development, ZeeGee Games
• Eitan Glinert, President, Firehose Games
• Ichiro Lambe, President, Dejobaan Games
• Darius Kazemi, President, Orbus Gameworks (Moderator)

(Banner photo by the ever-excellent Vincent Diamante. I love how I can search Flickr for CC-licensed PAX photos and his are the first to come up.)

I’m giving a talk at Game Forum Germany (English translation, which for some reason breaks the page formatting) on January 29th, titled “Using Data to Argue Effectively in the Workplace.”

This session covers strategies for using empirical data from player behavior as a political tool in the workplace. Player data can be used to end arguments, or it can be used to refocus arguments on something worth discussing (i.e., the data itself). Developers have data they don´t even realize is useful; they can use that data to make convincing arguments and there is an effective way to make those arguments.

The first half of this talk will discuss different types of data that exist that developers may not even be aware they have at their disposal. The second half of the talk will cover practical tips gleaned from the long history of rhetorical studies, reinforced with personal experience using such rhetorical strategies in the workplace. After laying down the basics of presenting a persuasive argument, the rest of the talk will demonstrate how to use Stephen Toulmin´s model of argumentation to sidestep time-wasting theoretical arguments and craft clear, concise, persuasive arguments quickly and easily.

I’m excited because this is something I’ve wanted to talk about for quite some time. The most important part of doing gameplay metrics is not the actual collection of the data. While that is important, data does not exist in a vacuum — it’s only worth something if you know how to use it.

This is also exciting to me because it’s my first time giving a talk at a conference outside of North America!

I gave a lecture yesterday at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, my alma mater. The class I spoke to was IMGD 2001, Philosophy and Ethics of Computer Games. A little bit of background on that: during my senior year in college, WPI was still putting together its undergraduate video game development major. I took on a thesis project for Prof. John Sanbonmatsu where I essentially wrote a grab-bag paper on video games and critical theory. As John educated me in critical theory, I educated John in video games. The end result was not just my paper, but a framework which John applied to creating the IMGD 2001 class.

I bring up that background to highlight what a joy it is to speak to this particular class. I try to be a guest speaker every time it’s run.

Someone mentioned to me that I should probably try and post what I lectured about on my blog. So this is my attempt to cover some of my points. It was a pretty fragmented lecture, and I was responding in part to some of their reading (Marcuse on aggression in technological societies).

My Lecture

I framed my lecture by showing two videos: real footage of AC-130 combat from Afghanistan, and the AC-130 footage from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. I didn’t really comment on the footage except to remind them that in the real footage they are watching human beings die on camera. It is difficult to interpret the real footage as anything but a video game. Again, this was really just to set a mood and perhaps shock them into paying attention.

I wanted to show them that professional game developers do think about the philosophical issues that they cover in John’s class. My first stop was Clint Hocking’s blog. I told them to read his lecture transcripts, particularly the ones about intentional play, improvisational play, and the exploration of the self through systems.

I then went into a discussion of Far Cry 2 versus Halo (or most other FPS games). The basic argument I covered was that FC2 promotes improvisational play, whereas Halo promotes the play of dominance. Because of its game systems, in Halo you can find a dominant strategy and become a godlike slayer of baddies.  Halo is a game where you dominate the system. FC2 is a game where the system dominates you. Plans often do not work out as you expect. The game is often brutally difficult, but gives you a wide array of tools with which to mitigate that difficulty.  But the important thing is that the system dominates the player, and the best you can do is survive long enough to meet the end conditions of the game and “win.” Some gamers take FC2′s stance towards improvisation without domination as literally offensive: people claim that the game’s endlessly respawning enemy encampments never let you feel like you’ve “cleaned out” an area. You’re never safe. Ever.

I think this is fundamentally a good thing for a game system to present a player. By giving us a system that is stacked against us, where we need to be clever given our limited resources to survive, I feel like FC2 is doing a service by training our brains to perhaps be more receptive to those kinds of situations in the real world.

A feeling of progression is perhaps a way of forgetting about death for a while.

This led into a discussion of Ben Abraham’s FC2 permanent death experiment, and then the concept of permadeath in general, and discussing reasons why gamers might be as opposed to permadeath in games as they are. It was particularly interesting in light of the Marcuse essay they’d been assigned. Playing games and getting a feeling of progression is perhaps a way of forgetting about death for a while — the institution of permadeath flies in the face of forgetting the inevitable.

Progression-as-soma led to examining Facebook games. Farmville and Mafia Wars were brought up as prime examples of “spreadsheet games” that are about a feeling of progress towards who-knows-what… and not much more than that. Which then prompted me to bring up Jonathan Blow’s 2007 MIGS keynote, which is centered around this assertion/question:

When millions of people buy our game, we are pumping a (mental) substance into the (mental) environment.

This is a public mental health issue.

We have the power to shape humanity. How will we use it?

Other things were discussed in the 90 minutes I had to speak. The last half hour was Q&A. I spoke a little bit about what it’s like to work for a big game company, and the amount of creative freedom you have (or more accurately, do not have). I talked a little bit about Auntie Pixelante’s dissatisfaction with the Guildhall at SMU. I also discussed the indie game scene.

“Good games are made by interesting people.”

Probably the best question came from a student in the back, who said:

No offense to the professor, but in my other classes it seems like they’re encouraging us to make video games, and they talk about how video games are good things. This class is the opposite. It’s depressing, it’s almost like you don’t want us to make games at all. What’s the point of taking a class like this if what I want to do is make games?

My response came surprisingly easily:

If you look at the people who are at the vanguard of the game industry, the people who are pushing the form and helping video games become better than they ever have been, most of those people are reflective about the process of making games. The best game developers are the ones  who think about this stuff. So the answer is simple: if you want to make the best games in the world, you need to actively think about exactly the sorts of issues that are brought up in this class.

After class, I met with some of the IMGD faculty, one of whom is (I say with no small amount of pride) Brian Moriarty. I mentioned this last question/answer exchange to him and his response was: “Well, yes. Good games are made by interesting people.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I’m giving a talk at LOGIN in Seattle this week, called It’s 10pm: Do You Know Where Your Players Are?

In 2008, Orbus Gameworks carried out a study for IGN Entertainment where they investigated the metrics that IGN has collected on player behavior over hundreds of thousands of player hours in games such as Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and Unreal Tournament 3. This talk will cover some of their more interesting findings, and also go over best practices for gameplay metrics collection.

It’s Tuesday morning at 10:30am. Come heckle!

I’m happy to announce that I’m giving a talk at the Game Career Seminar at GDC this year! The date and time aren’t set yet, but if it’s anything like past years it’ll be on Thursday 3/26 or Friday 3/27. My talk is called “Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk” and the initial pitch was to go a little bit beyond the networking stuff and talk about how aspiring game developers can go about proving to the pros that they’ve got skills. Without, you know, seeming like an asshole about it.

At Austin GDC this September, the estimable Larry Mellon and I will be delivering a two-person rant titled “Wake Up and Smell the Metrics! A Rant on Metrics-Driven Development in Online Games.”

We’ll be covering business intelligence metrics, gameplay metrics, production metrics, all sorts of great things. My angle (and I’m pretty sure Larry shares the same view) is that if we’re going to be serious about treating games as services more than as goods, we need to get serious about metrics in every way.

It should be a fun session, too: Larry is a great presenter, and I’m no slouch either. We had a wonderful hour-long phone call just ranting at each other about this kind of stuff so I think there will be plenty of material for the actual talk!!

Not quite sure what day of the conference it’ll be held on, but signs point to September 15. No time slots have yet been allotted.

And of course, if you’re going to be at AGDC, please let me know!

I’ll be giving a talk as part of the Game Career Seminar at Austin GDC, called “It’s Who You Get to Know.” The title is based off of a quote from Chris Matthews that I first encountered in his book Hardball (which I highly recommend). He also mentions it in this commencement speech he gave at Holy Cross.

The talk will be largely about meeting people so that you can set yourself up for future success. The main Game Career Seminar will be held on September 17, but I believe my talk is part of an opening reception the evening of September 16. If it turns out I’m wrong about that, I’ll be sure to correct it here.

What is especially funny is that one of my fellow speakers at the Seminar is Ed Roman. I was introduced to Ed at my first GDC, in 2003. I remembered him precisely because when he found out that I lived in Worcester at the time, he told me that he won a video game competition at the Worcester Centrum back in the ’80s. Using this mnemonic, I managed to remember a whole bunch of other facts about him, even though we’ve only ever spoken one other time since then. (In fact, the second time I saw him, in 2005, he was very impressed that I remembered his video game victory.)

This week, Yahtzee succinctly encapsulated my feelings about gaming webcomics. I hate ‘em. They’re occasionally awesome, mostly just craptacular.

In other news, um, I’m speaking at Penny Arcade Expo in late August. I’ll be giving a talk called Breaking In: How to Get Your Foot in the Door. My session description:

So you’ve got skills and you’ve got passion, but you have no idea how you’re going to break into the game industry. You send out resumes, and nobody ever gets back to you. In this session, Darius Kazemi covers exactly how, even as a lowly student, you can make friends at game companies and eventually, maybe, turn those connections into a career.

I am actually incredibly excited about giving this talk. It’ll be the first really widely attended consumer show I’ve spoken at. Usually when I do a talk at a consumer show it’s part of CMP’s Game Career Seminar, but that’s a totally different audience: those attendees have to register way in advance to specifically see the career content. So they tend to be well-prepared, already in a game program at some school or another. I’m expecting a much more casual, “Hey, making games would be cool. I should go to this session” kind of crowd. It should be fun, and as usual I’ll be devoting at least 20 minutes to Q&A, because that’s what my audience usually finds most beneficial.

And if you’re a blog reader and attending PAX, track me down and say hi! You know how to find me.

So I’ll be in Seattle this week, Monday night to Thursday night, attending the ION Conference, which was called OGDC last year.

I’m going to be part of two panel discussions. The first is on Wednesday at 9AM, Changing a Live Game: Lessons Learned and Techniques Applied. I’ll be on the panel with Jason and Steve from 38 Studios, as well as Scott Hartsman who I met for the first time at IMGDC in March. Also on the panel is Osma Ahvenlampi, who I’ve never met before but is the CTO at Sulake (the Habbo Hotel guys). I’ll be talking about using metrics to inform your changes to a live game.

The second panel is about metrics, called Tuning the Money Funnel: Customer and Process Metrics in Online Games. Larry Mellon is moderating–if you didn’t know, he gave a seminal presentation on metrics for MMOs back at GDC 2003. He was pretty much the only name in metrics when I started doing that stuff. Also on the panel is Marty Poulin who I’ve known from GDC for a long time. This’ll be my first time doing something “official” with him. Brian Hafer is rounding it out, and I’ve never met him so I’m looking forward to meeting him as well.

If you’re in Seattle and want to meet up, drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do!

I’m going to be giving a talk on gameplay metrics in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan at the Saskatchewan Interactive Summit 2008. It’s going to be cold, but I’m looking forward to the trip and meeting all the folks there! The precise day and time of my talk have not been announced yet. Nor has the precise content. But it’ll be about metrics!