GDC Day 1 – Raph’s talk, the IGDA and old friends

First stop of the day was at the Virtual World summit keynote given by Raph Koster.

Though Raph noted that he was being cynical in the earlier portions of the talk, I didn’t take that from it at all. His message, to me at least, was that there are still many real-world affecting things we can do with virtual worlds, and I am enough of an idealist to believe that and to hope for it. Like Raph, I’ve lived in very poor parts of the world, and have long believed that games can do magical things. I remember when Wizardry was being used by psychologist to help people with significant socialization issues and other disorders. That small experience affects me still. I am presently working with groups of at risk kids using game design as a medium to get them interested in and learning other subjects. So, I felt inspired by Raph’s talk, reaffirmed even.

Raph wrapped with a hope – that we will use games to empower each other.  It is a stretch now when we have the “game industry” as opposed to the “game movement”.  But a year from now? When worlds like Metaplace deliver on the promise of allowing people to make their own worlds for reasons other than money, what then?

Twitter-esque recap:

• Breakfast at Mel’s
• Coffee and board games with Ian (Teaching Game Design), Jeb (Maxis), Darius (Orbus Gameworks) and others
• Raph’s talk
• IGDA Education SIG impromptu discussion in the hall
• Great discussion with Susan Gold on some IGDA Edu SIG stuff
• Equally great discussion with Warren Spector about his history as a non-digital game designer
• Lunch meeting with VC
• IGDA SIG meeting
• IGDA dinner
• Read and responded to much backlash on my Simmbook post
• Prepped my talk for tomorrow