After having read (by proxy) pretty much everything that came from the AGC I have to say that Raph’s and Ubiq’s speeches were the best. I’m quite impressed in fact, lots of very good stuff and not all that obvious as many other things that were said.

With Ubiq I agree pretty much on everything. Both the overall idea (innovate for a reason, not for the sake of it) and the smaller details.

I’d try to quote, but there aren’t best parts. It’s all just very, very good. And it doesn’t happen often that I agree so much with him, on every single point. Instead of quoting concepts I could take out particular aspects:

there’s a lot of bad innovation from people trying to solve these five problems.

Actually listening to the customers and understanding their needs is a core function of game design.

system design that is more interesting to watch than to play

Smart innovation. Which is what WoW did.

videogames are a good medium for a visceral experience

Our games teach you how to play gradually and you forget how much you have learned. Combat scales very gracefully.

You don t need classes, but you do need to allow making character choices without fear. People will spend all day customizing their appearance with no fear. People like that. But people agonize over choices that matter. Players have been trained that choices are irrevocable.

This last is part of the concept I define “permeable barriers”. If you are designing a new game this should be in the top five principles. Imho.

Our business model as it stands right now depends on devotion.

Threshold advancement is even better when they are not levels

You build use based systems to be more realistic, but if they cause spastic behavior, then…

but don’t confuse the delivery mechanism with the reward

You don’t need fantasy but you do need a fiction with resonance.

And that covers also licensing.

You don’t need fantasy, but you do need a setting that is doublecoded. This is Rob pardo’s donut concept. You need both codings for a successful game.

And this is what I was saying when at WoW’s release I continued to repeat that the key was the accessibility. The problem isn’t the “hardcore”, the problem is about ferrying players to that point. Which also translated to the Blizzard’s philosophy of “easy to learn, hard to master”.

But it is also the core concept of games in general. Learning stuff. The game is a bridge.

It’s not about whether the license is hardcore and casual, it is whether it has a hardcore and a casual component.

You don’t need fantasy but you need an inviting world. People want to spend their spare time here. This is their corner bar. You don’t need fantasy, but you need a world where the player starts out larger than life.

Fantasy encompasses lots.

Make a world, but protect your young. The gamey games are fanatical about protecting newbies.

Make a world, but don’t depend on players finding their own fun. You don’t want users to wade through crap.

Don’t over innovate, but be sure you improve the player experience. And when in doubt, be true to the Vision.

Identifying innovation is hard.

Always be true to yourself. This is the important thing. Eve and Earth and Beyond came out at the same time. If you were a betting man, you would have been an idiot to bet on EvE. E&B had a great team, money, marketing. Eve had a dedication to a vision. Eve kept to their mantra, and they won.

A lot of times people confuse bad execution with concluding something is a bad idea.

Success confers virtue. When EQ was out, it was grind, group. Now it’s woW and it’s solo and so on. When things are successful, we say that there must be something about that.

It only takes one person to come along and change the rules.

The only part I don’t completely agree with is when he says that classes help players to “easily find each other”. It’s not inherently true and there are better ways possible (“better way possible” is the kind of “smart innovation” he is demanding, after all). In particular I like the concept of “participation” in a game, but I don’t like “requirement”.

From a design perpective I’d try to build a game where you can participate, but where you don’t need to go past a selection. So to the “requirement” of a particular class in a group I would prefer another concept: adaptability. And if you think at the concept of “permeable barriers” here above, maybe, you’ll see where I’m going.

Raph speech is also kind of great and very enlightening, even if I’m not too friendly toward it as there are a couple of concepts that I just cannot digest. So while I quoted the best from Ubiq, I’m going to quote the worst from Raph (which doesn’t make it “false”, but just that I don’t like to hear it):

Since consumers are less willing to pay for content, publishers are turning to advertising.

Content: aim at different markets. Designed to be consumable and disposable.

Revenue: not driven by sales to consumers. Merch, sell shares in future content, use advertising as a major driver.

Web-based MMOs (Neopets).

Media companies merging online world elements into their content.

Fewer artist jobs, but more procedural content jobs.

Celebrity (reputation) will matter more than eyeballs.

And one “good” quote because, like it or not, I think it is true:

WoW is the last gasp of the dinosaurs – not because WoW is going to die off any time soon, or because nothing can follow WoW, but because nothing can do to WoW what WoW did to Everquest.

So while reading Ubiq’s speech I nodded the whole time and liked it a whole lot, Raph’s one less so as I don’t like eniterly his “Vision”, but it said things not so obvious to me and made me think more.

Imagine the ideal designer as a trinity: Ubiq has the gamey core, Raph has the unique perspective and Lum has the clarity.

I know that I try to borrow from all three :)