GDC2010: A Wonderful Blur, Part 3.

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Friday was a blur.

I wake up in no condition to walk amongst the general public. Talk at 9? Skippable. What is important today is talking to people about game design. I decide to sleep in as much as I can.

I get up around 10, hit the shower and head to the Moscone center for some food. Being a creature of habit, I end up at the exact same place as the day before (some small food vendor within the conference center). Looking at and listening to people is tough at this point. The world around me is happening but I have no influence over it. I’m buying a sandwich and tea, fishing for my wallet all without thinking. Just going through the motions, everything is fuzzy and fast.

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GDC2010: A Wonderful Blur, Part 2.

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Like I said, the next day was bad.

Waking up happens like a shot at 8:30am, because God forbid I miss the latest and greatest on the four most important emotions of social gaming at 9am. My hotel roomie is already gone because he’s an early bird and didn’t stay out drinking all night. In fact, he doesn’t drink at all. Ever so wise. I hop in the shower without remembering how I got in there in the first place when it hits me: I’m probably still drunk.

No worries, I planned well the day before, so my stuff is already in order. I get changed, get my phone, my laptop, wallet, badge, triple check that I have my room key and head directly to the talk from my hotel. Luckily the Marriott is a block and a half away so, it only takes five minutes to walk there.

The sun hits me like a ton of bricks. My entire body is barely functional from last nights intake of beer. I pass by an outdoor coffee and tea stand and I strongly consider getting some Earl Gray, as is the usual morning tradition for yours truly. However, the thought of eating or drinking anything makes me physically ill so I pass by begrudgingly. I know I need it but my body just won’t accept any new guests at the moment. No vacancy.

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GDC2010: A Wonderful Blur, Part 1.

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The Game Developer Conference is like college. If you’re not going to awesome parties or meeting great people, you’re learning something that should stay with you the rest of your life.

GDC is hard to hate. I make a point to go every year. I love catching up with my buddies, seeing how things are going in the rest of the industry and so on.

I get in early the day before so I can take in the day and not feel rushed. Any GDC veteran will tell you, there’s a lot that will be happening in your life in a short amount a time, so it’s best to take it easy while you can. People start rolling in3-5pm the day before GDC, after a trip on Virgin and a pleasant conversation with a cabbie who is having problems with the police. The best thing to do upon arrival is chill out for a sec, get your stuff in order at the hotel then go grab some cheap beers. My new favorite spot this year was The Chieftain, a little Irish pub with a surfboard shaped counter, perfect for a pitcher of some local San Fransisco beer and catching up on the good old days. Also, they put eggs on the burger so you know it’s good.

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Twitter

Game Development, Gaming 4 Comments

Oh, I’m trying the twitter thing now. You can find me at twitter.com/thejessesnyder. I’m sure I’ll be posting there a lot more than here. The blog will be the economy size version while twitter will be more the like mini-fun size.

Pennies for Points

Game Development, Games for Fun, Games for Points, Gaming No Comments

This year, on New Years day, I made the resolution to donate a penny for every point I earned getting achievements on Xbox Live. I really want to do some charity work, but I’m busy with games day and night. I’m in a fairly time demanding line of work, believe it or not. However, I feel pretty lucky, so why not do something nice for everyone while doing something I love?

So, Pennies for Points. Eventually I’ll get a more proper site up and running so people can track my effort a little better. Maybe I can get a few other people to join in. For now, you can check the side of my blog and watch the number get bigger.

I started at a gamer score of 101,467. Now I’m at 106,952. The months not over but the total gamer score increase since Jan 1st is 5,485. That means $54.85 in total donations thus far. Did I mention I’ll donate through Microsoft near the end of the year so they match my donation? One more cool thing about working for MS is that they’re pretty good about charity donations and giving back to the community.

Where does all this go? Most likely Child’s Play since it’s one of the best charities for gamers I could find.

So that’s it! I set up a new years goal and it’ll be fun to stick to it.

Billy vs. Steve

Gaming 1 Comment

This isn’t about Microsoft vs. Apple.

I just finished watching King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a documentary about the crazy culture of professional arcade gaming. If you haven’t seen it, stop reading, because I’m going to spoil a lot. It’s a great documentary, so go check it out.

Anyway, the plot revolves around a guy name Billy Mitchel, who set a bunch of arcade records in the 80’s. 20 years later, a guy named Steve Weibe (pronounced Wee-bee) decides, “Hey I can beat Billy’s score in Donkey Kong,” buys a Donkey Kong cabinet and plays in his garage. Eventually he beats Billy’s score.

If only it were that easy. His 1,000,000+ score (something like 150k higher than Billy’s score) must be verified by the officials of “Twin Galaxies” who are the self appointed refs for classic arcade games. The rfefs end up coming to Steve’s house when only his wife is home and start ripping his cabinet apart to verify it. At this point, these guys sound officially insane.

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You Down With 343? Yeah You Know Me!

Game Development, Gaming 3 Comments

The Chief.I’ve been quiet for a while. Too quiet. The truth is I was deathly scared I’d accidentally post something about the team I work with and get fired over it. Man, these Microsoft guys are serious business!

As it turns out, I can now say I work for 343 Industries. Haven’t heard of em’? Soon you will. I have the privilege of working with some of the top talent in the industry, across the board.

Microsoft recently announced 343i’s existence at ComicCon ’09. They also announced some of the stuff we’re working on, like an anime series and something called “Waypoint.” They revolve around a popular intellectual property you may have heard about.

So in short, I got to work on Call of Duty and Nazi Zombies and now I get to work within the Halo IP. Not many people get to say that in their lifetimes.

E3 ’09 Roundup

Game Development 2 Comments

Microsoft Media Briefing

Ahhh… E3 is finally over. It was a huge E3 this year which was great. I missed the classic pig party feel of E3 and I’m glad it was back. Anyway, here’s how my week went.

I flew in on Virgin since it was the cheapest fare a week before the beginning of E3. Now I’m officially a Virgin convert. It felt like flying on a limo and the price was right. Very choice. I caught “Slumdog Millionaire” on the way down from Seattle, which was a bomb-ass movie.

I met up with my buddy who lives in downtown LA. He does contract art from home in his sweet loft apartment. Ahhh, the good life. It’s also great because he lives within walking distance to the convention center, near great places to eat, and near lots cool hangouts. If you’re hungry, I highly recommend Bottega Louise (7th and Grand). It feels like you’re walking into an elegant European restaurant. The place has amazing food and it isn’t pricey.

I got my sweet all access pass for the Microsoft media briefing on Sunday then headed over to the Kotaku Party at the Golden Gopher with some Activision friends. We hung out there for a few hours, even after the free drinks dried up. I got a chance to meet some of the Kotaku guys as well. Mike Fahey was sitting in the back of the bar like the Godfather of the joint. He was super cool and always gave fair reporting on Treyarch, which I appreciate a lot. Good times were had by all, even if I was getting drilled about what I was working on and what Microsoft was up to. No about of alcohol will make me spill the beans though, I’m a human lock box! Although they knew about “Reach” the day before the briefing… hmm.

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Seven Steps to Boost Your Gamerscore

Games for Fun, Games for Points 2 Comments

Points are fun too!

Last time I wrote about why I like getting achievements. This time, I want to give some insight on how I go about getting those ‘cheeves. A few people I know keep prodding me to write about this, so here we go!

1. Play games you enjoy – This probably sounds dumb or obvious, but you shouldn’t play games you don’t really like. You’ll notice I have some games like Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2009 (that’s everyone’s favorite to pick on so I point it out in particular) that I’ve 1000pted. Guess what? I actually like playing those games… rag-dolling animals is fun for me and I don’t get to do that in any other game. By contrast, I wasn’t feeling the recent Harry Potter game (too long and involved), Deadliest Catch (too repetitive), or Dead Rising (terrible save system) so I stopped playing them. I will admit I will put up with a mediocre game just to get achievements though, since playing a bad game is more fun for me than watching a decent TV show. I think it’s really up to the individual player, but as long as there is enough “fun” to keep me interested I’ll stick with the game.

2. Find the fast points – This goes against #1 in someways. You’ll see I’ve 1000pted a hockey game which honestly I didn’t think was that fun (I’m not a big fan of hockey in general, nothing against the game itself). However, early sports games for the 360 are some of the easiest to get achievement points in. Avatar: The Last Air Bender is everyone favorite example of quick points. You can get all 1000 points in under three minutes. For someone who is into getting achievements, getting fast points is fun by itself. If I can play one game of NHL 07 and get 1000 points, it’s pretty freaking fun to see that you’ve unlocked 26 achievements for 1000 points in a match or two. Getting back to Harry Potter; I wasn’t having a ton of fun playing the game and it was long, so the investment in time for points wasn’t worth it.

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A Treatise on Achievements

Games for Fun, Games for Points, Gaming 3 Comments

Achievements!

I get a lot of flak for having a huge gamer score. Part of the problem people have is that I play games to “boost” the score; games I probably wouldn’t play otherwise. For example, I probably wouldn’t be playing Lost, the Cabela series, and a few other games if it weren’t purely for achievements. Also, those people never look at all the AAA games I’ve played, or point out that I’ve played the same or more (both in amount of games and achievements in any particular game) of any game they’ve touched. Haters!

However, here is where I take a stand. On the Internet! Every game I’ve played, even Cabelas, I’ve been able to take something away from. Before achievements, I’d stand around a Best Buy, look at the back of the box and laugh at the value games, then buy my copy of Halo, Gears, whatever.  I was a game snob. Now that I play these kinds of games, in addition to the AAA titles, I fully appreciate a good game when I see it. The difference is huge. I remember growing up, when I thought all games were good, mainly because I could only get one a year.

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