Click Nothing

Click Nothing Tour 2009 - Part I

So for those who missed it in the microsecond that it flew past on Twitter, I will be keynoting the GameX Industry Summit conference taking place in Philadelphia on Oct 24-25. Here are the working title and summary of the talk I plan to give:

The Territory is not the Map: Hyper Realism and the New Immersion Paradigm

The games of today unsurprisingly strive to mimic the linear, authored structures of previous generations of media largely because gamers and game developers have grown up in a world where those media are culturally dominant. That is changing. As our media become more richly interactive and as our experience of the world becomes increasingly fragmented and parallelized, a new media culture is disintegrating the old. Games of the future will reflect this cultural shift by themselves becoming more fragmentary, more parallelized, and less focused on rich simulation and traditional notions of immersion.

This talk examines the potential long-term future of gaming by looking at the accelerating convergence between rising technologies and competing media from the internet, games, music and narrative media to augmented reality and the prominence of portable wireless devices.

Sorry that the summary sounds so brainy and cerebral - I promise it will be a talk about games and that it will be as chaotically poetic and filled with increasingly obsolete jokes about the first 8 seasons of The Simpsons as the rest of my recent talks.

But more than just announcing that I'm speaking at GIS, I wanted to announce that I am expanding the trip to do the talk in several other cities. I don't want to announce any places or dates yet, because I'm still putting it together, so I'll let those interested speculate away. I will admit that a part of planning this as a 'tour' was because I am a couple of trips 'in debt' following cancellations resulting from my injury - so if you had been hoping to see me talk a few months ago and were disappointed by a cancellation, odds are good you'll be getting a second chance.

For the subject of the talk - it spawns out of a lot of the thinking I have been doing recently. Needless to say once you come off a project and get some rest, your narrow, single-minded focus on closing and delivery opens up and you get to look at the big picture again... so that psychological shifting of gears definitely has inspired the core of the talk. Also, recent conversations online - particularly the discussion that evolved out of my debate with Manveer, and even yesterday's discussion on the nature and future of the expressive potential of games between David Jaffe and Anthony Burch (and others) (extended) are all topics that have been close to my heart lately and will be elementary to the talk. I'm hoping to be able to synthesize some of these ideas with my own recent talks about Immersion and Generational Shift. If you really want to get the most of the upcoming 'CN Tour 09' talk, you might want to refresh yourself on those two previous talks...but...

As an added bonus (and you get all this for free!) - I am also looking toward launching a few other special projects to 'celebrate' the tour that will hopefully increase the utility of Click Nothing as a whole and make the idea of reviewing those old talks a little easier.

So - to use the most ironic metaphor I can muster - stay tuned - if I can keep a modicum of focus, it's going to be an exciting post-midsummer.

Something on the RADAR

[UPDATE 03/16: RADAR INVISIBILITY - apparently the site was only live as a test - and will go up again early this week - perhaps Monday]

I don't normally post about business stuff, but a friend pointed me in the direction of Scott Miller's (of 3DRealms fame) new gig:

RADAR

Sounds like an interesting project - building creative with developer partners to retain IP ownership and leverage it across different media. If they can make that work it is obviously hugely profitable and also really good for the developers involved.

Normally I wouldn't pay much attention to a business announcement at all, but there are three things they seem to have going for them right out of the gate.

First - most new companies like this have a bunch of jargon designed to appeal to VC investors, and then their 'projects' page is blank. In this case, they already have listed not one, but three titles Earth No More, Prey 2, and another new IP I've never heard of called 'Incarnate'. Admittedly, I had thought 3DR was running Earth No More and Prey 2... but regardless, the fact that the page isn't blank means these guys are actually doing stuff.

The other two reasons are Raphael Van Lierop and Will Kerslake - two guys whose work I respect tremendously. If these two are heavily involved in the creative, the RADAR has the ball to run with.

Deus Triple Ex?

Will Deus Ex 3 be a loss leader for Eidos in the battle for Montreal?

So it's well known now that along with Ubisoft and EA, other major publishers have started to edge their way into Montreal to take advantage of the ever-expanding game development community here. Among them - Eidos, who historically have published many of my favorite games, but who in recent years seem to have had a hard time maintaining traction (in my humble opinion).

So the word on the street is that the new Eidos Montreal studio - headed by former Ubi VP Operations Stephane Dastous is starting to ramp up, and their first big title (or one of their first?) might be Deus Ex 3. Cool. I have no idea if this is true - I'm only getting 3rd or 4th hand rumours, but when I think about it, it makes sense.

Despite the fact that the DX series seems to have a hard time turning a buck, it is a game that has huge appeal for developers. Practically every developer I have ever met loved the original (though most seem to say they were disappointed with the sequel - but that's crazy-talk). I am pretty sure most developers would jump at the chance to work on a DX title... and maybe that's the Eidos strategy here.

They can use the title to attract developers to their studio to help them staff up to a couple hundred people - DX certainly has that kind of draw. Then, frankly, it doesn't much matter if the game makes money. Breaking even would be nice, and I'm sure that's what they want, but if what they really want is to aggressively recruit and establish a studio here, then leveraging the developer-draw of DX is a smart, smart move.

Of course, if they are starting work on DX3, awesome. I hope they aren't just using it for its draw but that they want to make an incredible game out of it. I'm certain the talent here can do it justice, and I look forward to finding out if the rumours are true.