The Game Developers Conference ended its six-year run in San Jose this week. The technology show for game makers will take place in San Francisco in 2005. Unlike a typical video game, however, the conference didn't end with a bang.
No new game consoles were announced, but the show was good for figuring out what the 10,000-plus attendees cared about as they grappled with everything from technology to their lack of public appreciation. Here are some highlights from the conference, which took place at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center from Monday through Friday.
NO NEW XBOX YET: Microsoft, which in 2000 unveiled its Xbox game console at the San Jose Civic Auditorium, didn't take the wraps off the next-generation Xbox. Instead it talked about how easy it would be for developers to make games that run on both the Xbox and the PC. Some developers were excited about this; others greeted it with a big yawn.
Even so, the company played to the mostly male crowd by showing demos that were originally intended to tout the Xbox Next, including a sexy noir siren named Eva animated by artist Paul Steed. The graphics aficionados in the crowd were impressed with Eva's 63,000 polygons -- the basic shapes a computer uses to create an animated figure -- far more than most characters in current Xbox games and enough to make her high-definition form come to life as she sat nursing a drink.
At one point J Allard, a Microsoft vice president, said it was time to turn off the demo because he was afraid it might lead to a ``wardrobe malfunction,'' a reference to the Janet Jackson Super Bowl uproar.
Elsewhere, another company showed off a female character behind closed doors that featured more than 500,000 polygons.
HUNG'S 16TH MINUTE: Sony has a knack for upstaging Microsoft. It did so again with its guest star, William Hung, the off-key singer of ``American Idol'' fame.
Hung, a University of California-Berkeley student, helped Sony show off a new game for the EyeToy, which enables someone to dance in front of a camera and see her own image inside the game on a TV set. Hung, who said he was a big video-game fan, belted out ``YMCA'' as he danced and the audience clapped to the beat.
PLAYSTATION 3 NOT IMMINENT: Andrew House, executive vice president at Sony, said his company was in no rush to talk about its upcoming PlayStation 3. He said its introduction would not be influenced by ``competitive moves,'' a sign Sony is comfortable with the sales lead of its PlayStation 2.
House and producers at Backbone Entertainment in Emeryville did show the first working version of a PlayStation Portable game. The PSP is Sony's attempt to take on Nintendo with a multifunction portable gaming machine due in the United States next year.
Dubbed ``Death Jr.,'' the game features graphics with sophisticated shadows and lighting that are close to the quality of PlayStation 2. That's far better than the current state of the art on Nintendo's GameBoy Advance SP, the most popular portable game machine.
NEW N-GAGE ON THE WAY: Nokia, which was laughed out of the arena when it launched its N-Gage game phone six months ago, confirmed that it was working on a second model. The N-Gage is selling in the thousands of units and received much derision for its taco-like design and weak graphics.
`DOOM 3' ON THE WAY: Even more popular than William Hung was John Carmack, the lead programmer at id Software and one of the gods of gaming. A visionary programmer who created the shooting-games genre and whose games have sold millions of units, Carmack said his company was laboring to finish ``Doom 3.'' Four years in the making, its graphics quality is near that of a horror movie.
Carmack said graphics had improved a millionfold since he started working on games a dozen years ago, and he thinks it will take only another hundredfold improvement to match the way the real world looks.
`UNREAL' QUALITY: Epic Games showed ``Unreal 3,'' which will launch in about two years and whose quality was even better than that of ``Doom 3.''
DEVELOPERS UNITE: The buzz in the bar conversations after hours focused on whether developers are treated fairly by the publishers who market, distribute and sell their games. Jason Rubin, a superstar developer whose games have sold millions of units, stirred this pot of discontent in a speech at the Dice Summit in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago.
``The message resonated with a lot of people,'' said Alan Yu, director of the Game Developers Conference. ``What's different is that the people talking about it are some of the most important people in the industry.''
Many speakers, such as David Perry of Shiny Entertainment and Ray Muzyka of Bioware, urged developers to do their best to get more credit, compensation and public recognition.
``You are literally being hidden!'' Perry said during a speech Thursday. ``You have to get your name out there.''
MOVING ON: Yu said there was no single reason the show will leave San Jose for the Moscone Center in San Francisco. He said San Jose would be considered for future conferences.
``Six years in one place is a long time,'' he said. ``We thought it was time for a change of pace.''
Tommy Tallarico, a game-sound expert and president of Tommy Tallarico Studios, said the San Jose convention center location helped him get more done. ``There wasn't that lure of going somewhere else for entertainment,'' he said. ``It will be harder to get work done in San Francisco.''
San Jose will miss the wacky moments of the GDC, which in 2000 included the Xbox team getting drunk in a restaurant, serenading the diners and then breaking an elevator by loading too many people into it.
This year, outside the convention center, attendees were greeted by hawkers who handed out promotional cards for Southern California's Encore Software that urged them to ``Practice Safe Publishing'' -- and had a condom package attached.
``Isn't it time you felt protected when getting in bed with a partner?'' asked Encore, a game publisher, as part of the business pitch on the card.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/8291508.htm
No new game consoles were announced, but the show was good for figuring out what the 10,000-plus attendees cared about as they grappled with everything from technology to their lack of public appreciation. Here are some highlights from the conference, which took place at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center from Monday through Friday.
NO NEW XBOX YET: Microsoft, which in 2000 unveiled its Xbox game console at the San Jose Civic Auditorium, didn't take the wraps off the next-generation Xbox. Instead it talked about how easy it would be for developers to make games that run on both the Xbox and the PC. Some developers were excited about this; others greeted it with a big yawn.
Even so, the company played to the mostly male crowd by showing demos that were originally intended to tout the Xbox Next, including a sexy noir siren named Eva animated by artist Paul Steed. The graphics aficionados in the crowd were impressed with Eva's 63,000 polygons -- the basic shapes a computer uses to create an animated figure -- far more than most characters in current Xbox games and enough to make her high-definition form come to life as she sat nursing a drink.
At one point J Allard, a Microsoft vice president, said it was time to turn off the demo because he was afraid it might lead to a ``wardrobe malfunction,'' a reference to the Janet Jackson Super Bowl uproar.
Elsewhere, another company showed off a female character behind closed doors that featured more than 500,000 polygons.
HUNG'S 16TH MINUTE: Sony has a knack for upstaging Microsoft. It did so again with its guest star, William Hung, the off-key singer of ``American Idol'' fame.
Hung, a University of California-Berkeley student, helped Sony show off a new game for the EyeToy, which enables someone to dance in front of a camera and see her own image inside the game on a TV set. Hung, who said he was a big video-game fan, belted out ``YMCA'' as he danced and the audience clapped to the beat.
PLAYSTATION 3 NOT IMMINENT: Andrew House, executive vice president at Sony, said his company was in no rush to talk about its upcoming PlayStation 3. He said its introduction would not be influenced by ``competitive moves,'' a sign Sony is comfortable with the sales lead of its PlayStation 2.
House and producers at Backbone Entertainment in Emeryville did show the first working version of a PlayStation Portable game. The PSP is Sony's attempt to take on Nintendo with a multifunction portable gaming machine due in the United States next year.
Dubbed ``Death Jr.,'' the game features graphics with sophisticated shadows and lighting that are close to the quality of PlayStation 2. That's far better than the current state of the art on Nintendo's GameBoy Advance SP, the most popular portable game machine.
NEW N-GAGE ON THE WAY: Nokia, which was laughed out of the arena when it launched its N-Gage game phone six months ago, confirmed that it was working on a second model. The N-Gage is selling in the thousands of units and received much derision for its taco-like design and weak graphics.
`DOOM 3' ON THE WAY: Even more popular than William Hung was John Carmack, the lead programmer at id Software and one of the gods of gaming. A visionary programmer who created the shooting-games genre and whose games have sold millions of units, Carmack said his company was laboring to finish ``Doom 3.'' Four years in the making, its graphics quality is near that of a horror movie.
Carmack said graphics had improved a millionfold since he started working on games a dozen years ago, and he thinks it will take only another hundredfold improvement to match the way the real world looks.
`UNREAL' QUALITY: Epic Games showed ``Unreal 3,'' which will launch in about two years and whose quality was even better than that of ``Doom 3.''
DEVELOPERS UNITE: The buzz in the bar conversations after hours focused on whether developers are treated fairly by the publishers who market, distribute and sell their games. Jason Rubin, a superstar developer whose games have sold millions of units, stirred this pot of discontent in a speech at the Dice Summit in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago.
``The message resonated with a lot of people,'' said Alan Yu, director of the Game Developers Conference. ``What's different is that the people talking about it are some of the most important people in the industry.''
Many speakers, such as David Perry of Shiny Entertainment and Ray Muzyka of Bioware, urged developers to do their best to get more credit, compensation and public recognition.
``You are literally being hidden!'' Perry said during a speech Thursday. ``You have to get your name out there.''
MOVING ON: Yu said there was no single reason the show will leave San Jose for the Moscone Center in San Francisco. He said San Jose would be considered for future conferences.
``Six years in one place is a long time,'' he said. ``We thought it was time for a change of pace.''
Tommy Tallarico, a game-sound expert and president of Tommy Tallarico Studios, said the San Jose convention center location helped him get more done. ``There wasn't that lure of going somewhere else for entertainment,'' he said. ``It will be harder to get work done in San Francisco.''
San Jose will miss the wacky moments of the GDC, which in 2000 included the Xbox team getting drunk in a restaurant, serenading the diners and then breaking an elevator by loading too many people into it.
This year, outside the convention center, attendees were greeted by hawkers who handed out promotional cards for Southern California's Encore Software that urged them to ``Practice Safe Publishing'' -- and had a condom package attached.
``Isn't it time you felt protected when getting in bed with a partner?'' asked Encore, a game publisher, as part of the business pitch on the card.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/8291508.htm
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