Thoughts from GDC 2012
by: Patricia Pizer As another GDC begins to fade into the haze, I find myself poring over things I was exposed to during the conference, as usual. I know it was a good conference when I come away from it hungry to do research into some new area of knowledge or some new idea that hadn't come my way before. Of course the parties were fun (if over-visited by scantily clad gymnastic women). Of course it was great to visit with old friends and colleagues. I found the Expo floor to be more like Epcot with banners for Newfoundland, Scotland, Norway and Germany among others. It seemed like it should have been Beers of the World more than the place to get great swag for coworkers and kids alike. As for the sessions, ostensibly one of the reasons why we go the GDC, I attended some very interesting ones this year. I was unsurprised to see a wealth of sessions on the workings of Social Network games in many different aspects of them. There were also some notable sessions on story, including a good session on narrative and an excellent one by Richard Rouse on using classic cinematic techniques for developing characters (I always applaud his exhaustive research to find examples of games that employ the techniques he discusses). For me, however, this year's banner session was Jason VandenBerghe's session on the 5 Domains of Play. Using O.C.E.A.N. modeling, he equated the motivational aspects of this model to gaming, realizing in his research that he could predict player's preferences of games based on their personality profiles according to the Big 5 model. While this is not necessarily revolutionary material, especially if you were previously acquainted with the Big 5, it is another great tool to put into my game design toolkit, something I always appreciate. So, as I pore over my notes and work my way through my stack of collected business cards, I will ponder the latest ideas about the games I'm working on and how I can make my games better. And anticipate next year's GDC.