Jeff Gerstmann is Still Alive

So apparently Gears of War 2 (a sequel to a popular shooting video game) was finally officialized today for a November release on the ol’ Xbox 360. Good to finally get that out of the way. I haven’t seen the teaser trailer yet.

What else happened at the Game Developers Conference? Well, let’s see…Ryan, Alex, and I recorded some videos using Ryan’s laptop, but he didn’t have the sound configured correctly. That means you can make up your own words! You can see the videos on Ryan’s media outlet.

Went and saw a couple of interesting talks. Rob Pardo of Blizzard had some interesting things to say about how to balance a game and, generally speaking, the important pieces of designing a multiplayer game.

Also caught a Q&A session with Sid Meier that was pretty cool, but it was a bit more focused on the past than the future. I think most people going to see Sid Meier speak are probably at least reasonably familiar with his work, and I guess I would have rather hear him talk more about theory and how he approaches game design. The parts of the session that delved into that (like the bit about how he feels that designers should know how to program and how that lets him implement wild, untested ideas without burning up anyone else’s time) were the most interesting to me.

But neither talk was exactly newsworthy, in case you were looking for some big revelation to cause controversy and light up the message boards. That’s fine. By and large, GDC isn’t supposed to be a hugely newsworthy show in the traditional sense, because it’s supposed to be a place for developers to talk to other developers about developing the games we play. So I couldn’t help but feel slightly out of place, even though I do like to know more about what goes into making games from the people that make them, rather than hearing carefully spun PR stories about the process. With more and more media showing up at this thing and taping or broadcasting their shows from GDC, I fear that it all loses a bit of its original meaning.

Then again, if all goes according to plan I’ll get to see Street Fighter IV tomorrow, making GDC one of the most important gaming trade shows in North America in my book. And on top of that, it was great to get out and see folks that I haven’t seen very much of in the past few months or meet new people and just, like, talk about games. In the past, those conversations went more like this:

Someone: Hey man, what’s up?
Me: Not much, hey I need to go write something!
Someone: …

The new editorial thing for 2008 (for me, anyway… I freely admit that some people have been doing this for awhile now) is taking a breath, deciding what the most important and most relevant stuff is for your audience, and then presenting that info in a way that’s meaningful to your readers, rather than bombarding them with as much stuff as you can possibly get your hands on and making them sort through it themselves. That’s not editorializing. That’s an assembly line. Perhaps the print mentality of filling a limited space with the most important stuff possible isn’t quite as dead as I previously thought. Though, obviously, the print delivery mechanism is still totally played.

Except similar “GDC related” updates tomorrow, only maybe the videos will have sound this time. Or not, I don’t know.

PS: Congratulations are due to Jason Ocampo, who mentioned that he bought a new car and will be picking it up this week. I’ve been in the market for a new ride for some time, but I can’t quite pull the trigger on one because I rarely see cars that I like enough to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on them. Take me for a spin in it someday, and if I break down and buy a Lexus IS-F (my current favorite even though it’s probably going to cost more than I want to spend on a car), we’re racing.