Another interesting session (which also got a lot of press, but for all the wrong reasons) was the Game Publishers Rant session. It was one of the opening sessions of GDC on Wednesday morning, a variation on a theme that has become quite popular the last few years: the Game Developers Rant. This year, organizers decided to make things a bit different by allowing people from the other side of the fence (namely publishers) to rant on whichever subjects they chose.

We won’t cover in detail what every speaker said. A few went on about the need for leadership, and some of the shady things some developers try to pull on publishers. IGDA executive director Jason Della Rocca pleaded with developers to play less games, and read more books as a means to expand the creativity in the industry — Jason also has a great GDC roundup with dozens of photos at his site. You can find a much more in depth coverage of each speaker here.

Chris Hecker was the subject of most of the controversy emerging from that session. He spoke as one of the brief developer rant interludes between various publisher rants. His comments on the Wii caused quite the firestorm. Unfortunately, while he was taken mostly out of context, it didn’t stop most of the gaming press from creating a sensationalist story where there was none. In a session where fiery rants are the norm, Mr. Hecker’s comment ruffled a few feathers, yet left most of the audience laughing. Mr. Hecker attacked the Wii for being woefully underpowered compared to the other consoles (which is true), and accused Nintendo of not caring enough about video games as art.

What is excruciatingly annoying is how the gaming media picked up on this and tried to make an issue out of nothing. The situation got so out of hand, that Mr. Hecker was pressured into apologizing for his comments. Such blatant attempt at censorship in a creative field is unacceptable. GDC having become such a significant yearly industry event, some announcements can be expected to aim beyond the immediate game developer community (like the Sony keynote), hence the media coverage. But the presence of journalists in sessions such as this one is sure to stifle the open communication that the game developer’s conference is supposed to engender.

The media was out of line in this situation. In addition to sensationalizing the story, they failed to publicize that when Chris Hecker was pressed during the Q & A session about Nintendo not doing enough to push video games as art compared to the likes of Sony and Microsoft, he admitted that he was only joking. Mr. Hecker’s rant served two purposes: First, that sometimes, extra power can be a good thing, and that the Wii doesn’t meet his computational needs for some of the AI problems he is trying to solve. Second, that he wishes that Nintendo would do more to leverage their position as innovators in the industry to push video games as an art form.

Even worse, this entire situation overshadowed the most inspiring talkof the session, and perhaps all the lectures at GDC. Nicole Bradford’s impassioned rant actually gave this developer chills. Essentially, Ms. Bradford argued (very fervently) that game developers can do a lot more to leverage their technical knowledge to encourage young children to focus more on sciences and math.

It is no secret that the number of engineers graduating from universities in the US has been slipping for the past few years. The study of more technical subjects such as sciences and math has also been decreasing at all levels of US education. Ms. Bradford suggested that as game developers, we should leverage our technical skills, and the apparent allure of our profession (a “computer related” profession is apparently the third most popular career for middle and high school students) in this critical area. We should mobilize to get involved with young school kids and motivate them from an early age to orientate themselves towards technical studies.

Ms. Bradford followed up her speech by announcing the creation of a Game Developer Speaker Bureau. It’ll serve as a central point to organize a database of volunteer speakers from the industry, and a support system for speakers (to provide them with the support and materials they will need to address schools and the media). Joystiq has conducted an in-depth interview with Ms. Nichols following her announcement detailing her plans extensively. We urge all game developers to have a read.

The potential for this program is very large. We have gone back to universities and spoken to students who were looking to get into the games industry, and given advice on the best paths to follow. However, we never considered addressing much younger students, some who may never have considered game development at all. We’ve all been talking to the choir, in other words, and need to reach out to a much younger crowd, in a more determined way.. The potential positive influence such a program could have on young students (and our education system) is staggering.

If you are interested in becoming a speaker, or helping with the creation of such a program, please send an email to SpeakOutforGames@gmail.com or visit http://www.igda.org/speakers.

Posted by Raoul on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 8:54 pm.