The quality of speakers was second to none for this part of the world, with senior representatives from Pandemic, Irrational Studios, Konami, Sony, Microsoft, Tantalus, Epic Games, and 2K Games presenting on a variety of different topics. With sessions appealing to designers, managers, producers, artists, programmers, leads, composers, and students, there was something for every aspiring and existing industry participant. Topics covered included how to develop the “hero character” via good writing, a postmortem on BioShock, difficulties in drawing, right through to MMO business models and the dangers of the current “gold rush”. The three day conference was also complemented by various workshops to help students develop skills, help developers obtain investment, and help everyone get a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t. Representing local homegrown talent were a variety of students from various Australian universities pimping their hard fought work (the winning entry apparently took approximately a year and half of working days to complete). Rounding out the local presence were a wide variety of booths supported by everyone from IBM to Auran to the Academy of Interactive Entertainment.
'Straylians represent.
The conference wrapped up with something near and dear to your average gamer’s heart – a debate on which console will deliver the great games of this generation. Tony Albrecht (Senior Engine Programmer at Pandemic Studios), Cameron Dunn (Chief Technical Officer at IR Gurus), and David Hewitt (Creative Director at Tantalus) drew guns at twenty paces, so to speak, arguing for the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, and the Wii respectively.
Starting out with some creative applications of logic (and fascinating examples of how to use statistics to get rid of everything that doesn’t remotely support your argument), Albrecht argued that what’s important isn’t overall sales, but what the future holds. While the best selling games of the last few generations have been titles such as Pokemon and Super Mario Brothers, quite a few people would argue that these aren’t “great” games in the sense of Half Life, Ocarina of Time, and Metal Gear Solid. Firing the opening salvo, Albrecht let rip with a classic, “Handhelds aren’t really consoles. Developers that write games for handhelds aren’t really developers,” much to the crowd’s amusement.
However, by that token, sales have no true correlation to what makes a “great” game (citing the Dreamcast as a poignant example). And, accordingly, what’s more important is how long a console is made available, as it takes time for developers to create new IP, refine core mechanics, and polish the game through subsequent sequels. Sony’s commitment to ensuring console longevity combined with the high level of hardware capabilities in the PlayStation 3 therefore meant that the PlayStation 3 is the only console that will grow with time while surviving long enough to give developers the chance to really exploit the hardware. By comparison, the Wii is too underpowered and too weak online, and while the 360 is basically the same as the last generation with a little extra graphical oomph, the last generation Xbox didn’t really have the number of great games the PlayStation 2 managed to capture.
PlayStation 2 ... get it?
Starting from the back foot, Hewitt immediately tried to resolve the Wii’s well-known inadequacies in computational and graphical power by pointing out that highly detailed Vaseline-smeared dogshit complemented with a horrendously complex control scheme is still fundamentally dogshit. What’s far more important is fun, and judging by the sales figures, a lot of people are apparently having fun with the Wii. While Hewitt acknowledged that sales alone have little to do with whether or not a console becomes home to great games, Hewitt also pointed out that the truly great games tend to be created through taking risks and originally appealing to niche markets. And, without a sufficiently large consumer base and low development costs, those niches just aren’t big enough to justify the risk of investing in a wildly different type of game. Only the Wii has the momentum and familiarity at this point to generate the level of penetration required to support these new, fertile areas of crazed developers’ minds. And, while the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 may be more powerful consoles, they just don’t have the penetration or ease of development to allow developers to take risks.
'Wiir' too sexy for this console, too sexy by far ...
Dunn’s argument was far simpler. There are already great games on the Xbox 360, and there will continue to be more great games. Even if future games are only 30% better than what’s already available, 30% better than BioShock, Halo 3, and The Orange Box is “even more awesome”. The 360 therefore doesn’t need to prove anything at this point – it already has the great games, and it’ll continue to get them. And, more importantly, it also has the graphical and computational power to continue to deliver new experiences. Neither the Wii, which will run out of steam in a hardware sense, nor the PlayStation 3, which is too hard to develop for and won’t generate sufficient momentum, will therefore become home to the truly great games of this generation.
Xbawks for teh win!
While the debate was very firmly tongue-in-cheek (sprinkled with various photos of Fabio, and canine fecal deposits), quite a few good points were made. And, not surprisingly, the three participants eventually fell back on the standard arguments. However, in what most would consider quite a surprising outcome, the audience fairly overwhelmingly supported the Wii as the winner. Persuasion through humour and rhetoric? Possibly. However, given the Wii was originally excluded from being a contender in debate for “the next generation” of gaming (saved through a last-minute decision by Hewitt to argue in favour for it), such an upset makes one pause and wonder where we’ll be in another year.
As Morgan Jaffit, Lead Designer at Pandemic Studios said during his talk, “And I was reading about the Gizmodo … in the end, the owner ended up driving a sports car at 200 miles per hour, crashed, stumbled out of the wreckage, flashed a homeland security badge, and runs off into the hills. That’s the industry I want to be part of. I want to be in the place where the crazy things are happening. I want to be in the place where we don’t know what’s coming tomorrow. And there’s no doubt we don’t know what’s coming tomorrow. Even the best analysts … just as the PS3 was launching, the best analysts in the business tried their hand at working out how the split was going to be a year out. And I don’t think any of them came even close to getting an understanding of the numbers that are out there today with the Wii exploding, and the PS3 mainly faltering. We have no idea what’s around the corner. And that’s hugely exciting.”
Quite possibly, the same could be said about the Australian games development industry. One can only wonder where we'll be this time next year.
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