Denis Dyack bei der DIG in London:
1. Give us history of the company:
Talked about how he started. Mentioned some things like the 10 year swords, great relationship with Nintendo.
2. Denis' mentions that he refuses to do outsourcing, see it as a problem that hurts quality in the industry. [The conference is about promoting the industry in Ontario, so this felt like an statement of support].
3. excited about government work.... can't recall exactly was being discussed when I wrote that. I think they were talking about tax credits.
4. How did you get into the industry:
- Recalls playing Ultima 3 for hours and hours and always trying to avoid the whirlpool. During an all-nighter he got 'sucked in' and found a whole new world in the whirlpool. This led to a fascination that's survived to this day.
5. This led to a talk about not neglecting studies playing video games all night. Mentions his degree(s). Computer Science is an important field.
6. What do you think makes a successful game?
- Everyone has a different idea on this (beings up his controversial status)
Used the Ultima 3 story to lead into Engagement Theory. Key concept: being able to lose yourself in the game, much like what happened to him in Ultima.
7. Is there any specific component?
- Vision, Process, Pipeline. Sorry, that's all I wrote down.
8. Is there anything you do different than other studios?
- Try to achieve a balance of the different components that make an engaging game. Gameplay Audio Art Story etc...
9. Are there any titles in the last year you really liked?
- Thought Uncharted was a phenomenal game
What do you think they did well?
- I thought that Levine had great vision... He caught himself at this point and realizied he was talking about Ken Levine and the Bioshock IP! Audience laughed along with him. reiterates that Bioshock is engaging, and so is Uncharted!
10. Which SK game are you most proud of?
- "That's like choosing your favourite child!"
- Mentions Legacy of Kain first (hmmmm). Points out that the game had no text in it at all. Used pro voice actors.
- Eternal Darkness. He mentions that this was a time when the industry was under media attack in the years after Columbine, and the talking heads on tv were saying video games were messing with kids' minds, when we all know this is not the case. So he thought it was great that they made a game to challenge that notion, and they really did try to mess with people's minds in ED, but there was no controversy there.
- On Too Human, this is a direct quote: "This story is far from over"
11. Tell us about the 8th Art
- same stuff we've heard before on this topic. The idea of film as the 7th, and now VG are the 8th.
- Brought up that he's a big believer in academic collaboration. Mentions Brock again, his alma mater.
12. What do you say to detractors that VG are not the 8th Art
- "Clearly Wrong"
- Producing a video game as the field has grown now has a process and theory to it and requires creativity. It's not just people blinded by rockstar personalities.
- Thinks critics are having trouble seeing beyond the tech aspect of games, that they're seeing machine not medium.
13. Tell us about the One Console Future
- this is often misquoted. Draws a direct analogy to cell phones to illustrate his ideas on this. At first, owning a cell phone at all was itself the big deal. Now they are so cheap and ubiquitous that the individual hardware itself is open standard and unimportant, now it's about what you can do on any phone.
- Commoditization; Consoles will get so good individually that they aren't worth anything. Cells phones are given away now, you're buying the service.
- It's not about one console 'winning'
- Tech will still continue to advance
- Not talking about a monopoly, more like a collaboration. Think of the DVD consortium for example
14. What do you think of the Free2Play model? It's working well in Asia
- Piracy remains a huge problem. F2P only works in Asia because the culture there is to not pay for software. Ever.
15. Talk about OnLive and the idea of Cloud Gaming
- inevitable as a response to piracy. You can't pirate the video stream
- Everyone harps on the lag issue. Doesn't think this is much an issue if you don't assume that the service is centralized. Distribute the service in data centres in major cities.
16 Your thoughts on the recession and the VG industry
- Everyone says we're coming out of it. I missed the memo there.
17. Can you tell us anything about current projects?
- They're awesome! But they're still secret. Sorry!
- You'll hear something.... in the future.
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- On Too Human, this is a direct quote: "This story is far from over"
Ich bin weiterhin gespannt!
