GDC 2007 - March 9th, 2007 - The Final Leg of the Adventure

Day three kicked a lot of ass, but was scheduled a lot lighter than the other days, with only two lectures scheduled.

The Light and Dark Sides of 2D Gaming

The first was one that struck a particular chord with me due to the fact that I love 2D game design. It's what I grew up doing and it's my specialty, so I am much more at home in that field.

The lecture was given by famed Castlevania creator Koji Igarishi, in his first ever public speaking session. That being said, he did a great job. He spoke about how he develops for 2D and how there are pros and cons to these type of games. He focused solely on action games.

Of the more interesting things he said, he mentioned that the reason Castlevania is still thriving is because of the North American market. Aonuma-san said something similar the day before, stating that the reason a realistic Zelda was made was because sales were poor (by comparison) in North America.

Igarishi-san chats it up.

Afterwards, he was kind enough to talk with a few people, including myself (via translator, of course). I told him that I was behind him 110 percent and thanked him for being the front-man in keeping 2D games alive. Igarishi-san was very humble and graciously bowed his head at every little thing anyone did or said. I got him to sign the notes I took during his lecture. "Arigato, Igarishi-san," I spoke as he returned the pad and pen to me. He bowed his head again and thanked me as well, and then said something in Japanese which I will just assume was 'you're welcome'.

Badassery.

Next up was Killer7 and Contact creator, the founder of Grasshopper Manufacture, Goichi Suda. Goichi is very much a man who paves his own paths. He is good friends with Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami and spoke a lot about his relationship with such an important producer in Japan.

I commend Suda-san for attempting to look ultra badass in pink. And also for not knowing how to stare into a camera.

He also spoke a lot about 'Punk' games, which was something he himself coined. Punk games are games that stray from the beaten path and aren't afraid to be different.

"Hello i made killer7 lol look at my pink shirt"

It was cool hearing him talk. Afterwards, I asked him (via translator) about where he got the funding for founding his company. He said that surprisingly, it doesn't cost as much money to open your own development studio as I may think. He told me that if that was my goal, to start at it while working professionally. Sneaky!

Does anyone know what this says? Anyone at all?

With the last of my lectures done, I spent the next two hours relaxing before hitting up Video Games Live. I unfortunately have no pictures from this night because cameras were not allowed.

The show itself was spectacular. There were special guests abound, from Kondo-san, the Video Game Pianist (yes, THE Video Game Pianist), to the reunited Lucasarts music team (they fucking played Monkey Island). It was a hell of a show with four encore performances. Koji Kondo himself got up on stage and played the Super Mario Brothers theme on piano. It was like seeing Beethoven perform.

Afterwards was a place where people could mingle with sound designers and other people in the industry. I actually wound up doing a lot of networking and I even made a few new friends. I met the people behind the soundtrack for God of War I + II, along with the man behind the WoW soundtracks. I got to shake the hands of the Lucasarts music team and even signed the backstage pass of one of them at his request.

I also was very lucky to meet SEGA's Jun Senoue, who is the creator of the music for most of the newer Sonic games. He wrote and performed most of the music for the Sonic Adventure series, and was the guitarist in Sonic Adventure's theme song "Open Up Your Heart". The dude can shred pretty hardcore. Senoue-san and I hit it off, so much so that he gave me one of his actual guitar picks, a business card, and a CD with his signature on it. (Oh, he speaks English by the way). It was really cool getting to hang with him.

There was one man I recognized but couldn't put my finger on. I approached him and said so. When I asked him who he was, his reply was "It'sa me, Mariooo!". And then I proceeded to laugh my ass off. I KNEW I recognized that face. It was Charles Martinet, the voice actor for the Super Mario Brothers series. He was very kind and very awesome. It was great hearing him do some of his stuff in person.

I got to talk with conductor Jack Wall and Tommy Tallarico for a few minutes - they're the co-founders of Video Games Live - and I thanked them for putting together such a great show. It is the perfect way to get game music to the masses, where it belongs.

I also met Stephen, who is a sound designer right here in New York. He met Virt the day before and I guess Virt mentioned me because once I said 'Gameloft', he said 'Oh, you must be the guy Virt was talking about. He said I had to meet you at some point during the week'. So we wound up hitting it off, being from New York and all, and he said we had to stay in touch and get together sometime back in NY. This shouldn't be hard, as I'm moving to Brooklyn sometime in August and he happens to live in Brooklyn.

I met Ken Lobb as well. He used to compose all of the music for Rare before he left. He was such an asset to the company that they named a gun in Goldeneye after him. I had a big piece of paper that I was getting everyone to sign as I met them, and I had him write 'They named the Klobb after me'. He was happy that I knew that. He was very cool, too.

Ken and I wound up taking a walk while looking for taxis to get us to our respective hotels. On the way, we spoke about which conference was better - GDC or the Dice Summit. I was saying GDC because of the amount of information you can get out of it, and Ken said that he preferred the Dice Summit because there was one track, so everyone wound up getting the same information. We wound up disagreeing on that topic, but strongly agreeing on how much ass Goldeneye kicked.

I didn't get home until close to two. Yesterday was spent being jet-lagged out of my mind thanks to Daylight Savings Time and the 3 hour difference. Imagine getting on a plane at 1:30 and landing at close to 10 at night. It was ridiculous. I didn't go to sleep until six in the morning and didn't wake up until 3. Something tells me getting adjusted is going to be a pain in my ass.

But let me talk in conclusion here. Simply put, the Game Developer's Conference is the single most important conference in our industry (even if Lobb disagrees, sorry Ken!). The wealth of knowledge an the way that professionals reach out to other professionals in such an environment is invaluable. It's really the best place we have to put our heads together to better the gaming industry. It needs a lot of work, but I believe that we're headed in the right direction.