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Lecturer: David Ryan Hunt, Flying Lab Software
Based on over two years of beta and live balancing, Lessons from Pirates is thematically similar to a postmortem with a dash of game philosophy in the mix. Pirates posed a variety of interesting and unique balance problems, and it provides educational lessons as a result. This lecture focuses on game balance, complete with a discussion of the balancing process in Pirates, what balance problems we encountered, how we solved them and what problems we still face today.
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Wednesday, May 13, 5:00 PM,
Room: Harbor
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Lecturer: Craig Alexander, Turbine, Inc.
Given the processing power and connectivity of console game systems, the opportunity to transition massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) to the console platform is enormous. This session will discuss, in detail, this exciting industry-altering transition giving attendees an overview of the state of the console market vs. the PC/MMO market as it relates to the development and management of console MMO titles. In addition, attendees will walk away with a better understanding of the specific technical, creative, and management/ business opportunities (and challenges) of creating a console MMO.
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Thursday, May 14, 2:00 PM,
Room: Salon EF
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Lecturer: Jess Lebow
Your IP is the heart and soul of your game. It's your brand, your vision -- what your game is about. Long before players ever get to see trailers or footage or even try out the mechanics, they have already started to formulate an opinion of your game. That initial impression is based solely on what they think of your IP. Come learn what a successful IP looks like, how to build one, maximize it, and then manage it once you've given it life.
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Thursday, May 14, 10:30 AM,
Room: Salon EF
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Lecturer: Sam Lewis, ZeniMax Online Studios
“Lets do that, but make it for 12 year old boys!” That is how it starts. So what are designers to do? They know how to keep an 18+ white male engaged. But how do you make an MMORPG for an 11 year old boy? How do you teach a player a new RPG when they don’t understand skill points or character classes. How do you get them into the game fast when they find “WASD/Mouse Look” a un-natural position for their hands ? This session studies how the FusionFall design team approached their new market
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Wednesday, May 13, 10:30 AM,
Room: Salon EF
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Lecturer: Brian Green, Near Death Studios, Inc.
Cheaters are the scourge of online games. How can you design your game to minimize the impact that cheaters have? Get practical examples of how your game design can avoid the traps that let cheaters get an upper hand. Learn how a small team running a classic PvP-focused game worked to keep cheaters at a disadvantage.
Format: Mini Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Tuesday, May 12, 3:30 PM,
Room: Seaport
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Lecturer: Kevin Maginn, Flying Lab Software
What, ultimately, is the goal of including an economy in an MMO? Using real-world examples from Pirates of the Burning Sea's dynamic economy, we'll discuss pitfalls of practical economic design. We'll talk about the role scarcity plays in designing a game economy, and the role it plays in the larger scope of a game's systems. Ultimately, we'll challenge artificial scarcity as a useful idea for game design, and explore some alternative value systems we can use to motivate players.
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Wednesday, May 13, 9:00 AM,
Room: Salon EF
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Lecturer: Nick Fortugno, Rebel Monkey
This lecture is a discussion of the launch of the casual MMO CampFu, and Rebel Monkey's drive to carve out a new kind of gameplay: casual co-op. Nick Fortugno, CCO of Rebel Monkey, explains the process of inspiration and experimentation that to this direction, and the challenges inherent in innovative game design.
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Wednesday, May 13, 2:00 PM,
Room: Salon EF
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Lecturer: Vicky Tamaru, Plexipixel, Inc.
The lack of documentation for developing social networking applications can be maddening. In this session, I’ll discuss how we’re able to roll out a robust SNS (Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Orkut and more) application or game in a week.
Format: Mini Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Tuesday, May 12, 4:00 PM,
Room: Seaport
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Lecturer: Darius Kazemi, Orbus Gameworks
In 2008, Orbus Gameworks carried out a study for IGN Entertainment where they investigated the metrics that IGN has collected on player behavior over hundreds of thousands of player hours in games such as Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and Unreal Tournament 3. This talk will cover some of their more interesting findings, and also go over best practices for gameplay metrics collection: in particular, what they wished they had collected in the first place!
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Tuesday, May 12, 10:30 AM,
Room: Harbor
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Lecturer: James Portnow, Divide by Zero Games
We all know that a game that is a runaway success as a subscription game might not make it as a microtransaction game or that a one shot box product might not be viable with a subscription tacked on… Why? Because designing a successful MMO requires more than simply great game design: it requires an understanding of how design and business fit together. In this lecture James Portnow will address how to integrate your monetization model into your game design to ensure the best experience for your customer and your bank account.
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Thursday, May 14, 3:30 PM,
Room: Salon AB
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Lecturer: Nicole Lazzaro, XEODesign, Inc.
There is more to social gaming than spamming your friends. Yet, the biggest opportunity in games is leveraging social networks to create a MSO, a Massively Social Online game. Players want to play with their friends especially when it deepens the connections between friends. Based on new XEODesign research of Facebook, Twitter, and iPhone games, the Keys to Social Play are an opportunity to create new forms of engagement that create tension and motivation through social interaction. Together we will explore what it takes to make a social game truly massive without relying on Spam.
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Tuesday, May 12, 2:00 PM,
Room: Harbor
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Lecturer: Scott Rigby, Immersyve, Inc
This session presents data from six different studies with over 2,000 gamers that parse the contribution of violent content to player enjoyment, immersion, purchase decisions, and overall value. Using examples from popular titles, we outline the specific motivational satisfactions that underlie the strong enjoyment of violent games and how data shows that those satisfactions can be distinguished from the violent content itself – thus enabling developers to more successfully adjust levels of violence without diminishing enjoyment (even in core audiences that value violent games). This in turn gives developers more options and precision when making choices about game violence as they seek to sustain engagement with core players while maximizing market potential.
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Thursday, May 14, 9:00 AM,
Room: Salon EF
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Lecturer: Quoc Tran, Gendai Games
The stage gate model provides a method by which developers can vet the strength of their ideas, by continually evaluating multiple concepts and killing any concepts that are unpromising. Developers can use the rapidly growing mod community as a way to evaluate the strength of their concepts, and take advantage of any changes as their game design evolve in the wild.
Format: Mini Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Thursday, May 14, 2:30 PM,
Room: Seaport
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Lecturer: Sean F. Kane, Esq., Drakeford & Kane LLC
Smart developers involve their counsel at the earliers stages of game development. Learned counsel can add significant value in early stage development by hightlighting potential issues and providing ideas and solutions. This can eliminate the need for costly last minute recording and production delays.
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Tuesday, May 12, 9:00 AM,
Room: Salon EF
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