Just wrapped up a great few days at the Canadian Games Conference in Vancouver. The session I was giving with Simon Ludgate (who writes at Soulrift.com and Gamasutra.) covered our thoughts on how business models are being incorporated in MMOs. It was great to have a partner for the talk, and having a more academic opinion to provide background to my more practical insight made for a great session. It went tremendously well, and seemed to go down well..it was also fun to get to meet so many people afterwards. You can also read what Simon though over on his site here. It definitely gives you a little bit of a personal lift as well when people appreciate what you are sharing. We idled behind and chatted with folks for an hour or so after the session.
It was an interesting show, and there are a lot of passionate people looking to get into the industry. The growth of the indie scene was evident, and it's great to see people trying to learn how to build, market and publish their own games. The industry is once again in a state of flux, with both casual gaming and the indie scene changing what it means to be a game designer these days. Some of that might indeed be out of necessity, due to the number of jobs lost in the industry over the last two years, but it's also because games are also getting smaller and nimbler while the blockbusters get bigger and bigger, both in budget and team size. That makes for an interesting mix of people and projects, with very different needs, desires and ambitions.
I also really enjoyed getting to go and sit in on many of the other sessions. All too often things like GDC are full of business meeting and press engagements, so I end up not getting to actually attend sessions, so it was nice to not have anything other to do this time than attend those other sessions.
Great few days!
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