Posted by ASandoval on February 27, 2008 under Features, Games | 
Wow, this is way late, sorry about that guys. My time back home has been more or less crazy. I left so much work behind…
But yes, the last day of the convention. Well, first of all, I began the day excited to see Dave Jaffe who… Also wasn’t there. But I didn’t fret as Paul Steed was there to save the day. Yes, his name doesn’t resound across the gaming culture, but the idea isn’t to listen to someone famous for the fact that they are, it’s because assume they have something interesting to say. And Steed, a former art director for the likes of Origin and iD, now working on his own terms, didn’t disappoint. About half way in I forgot who Dave Jaffe was, let alone my disappoint in not getting to see him speak.
After that was a panel on when to ditch your job and go indie. Aside from the fact that the three speaking seemed absolutely petrified to be in a room with more than 10 people, it went alright. Made me feel a little more comfortable about playing it safe and pushing carts at retail while I await the company I have now going anywhere.
Then there was All About Art… which also happened to end at the same time the portal event BEGAN. Not being as art saavy as my girlfriend, I made sure to ditch out early and get us both seats. Lucky I did too because I was 2nd in line. 2nd of… well, I’ll let a better blog do the talking.
So yes! the one thing I got to do this year that wasn’t a disappointment (Aside from win free games and meet cool people), Portal event was interesting AND informative, two things that don’t generally go hand in hand. The hard part was being told by storytellers of one of the best stories on the console market that a lot of the games I love do things the wrong way. I don’t assume that it will change my outlook any time soon, but still it was awesome hearing how they made portal a personal success by following their own philosophy. I assume artsy wordy types like me will have to go cry in the same corner as Dennis Dyack.
Anyway, that’s the skinny, really. I had a great time, but right now, I’m beat. I wanted to finish this, not just to get it out of the way, but to fulfill my promise to you guys… not that you exist yet, but I assume my assured future readership will eventually make it this far and see that I did indeed finish my travelogue. I want to have something cool for you guys by the end of the week to really wrap this up, but no promises. Stay tuned to this place for awesome features regardless of my bonus content pulling through or not. This blog is just getting started.
Posted by ASandoval on February 24, 2008 under Features, Games |
Currently stuck in Las Vegas. Last day log will be delayed slightly longer. By slightly, I probably mean Sunday night. Maybe Monday afternoon. Who knows. It’s a secret to everybody, much like my departure times.
Posted by ASandoval on February 22, 2008 under Features, Games |
I actually got a lot more to say about today then I realized, so please bare with me.
It was a slightly later start today, as there were really not many conferences worth going to, so we kicked things off with a final spin around the expo crawl before heading back up to continue business card rounds for the Destroy all Developers game. I noticed sometime around then I had locked myself a pretty healthy spot in second place for the production team, but I’ll get back to that in a minute.
So around 5:30 we hit up Darius’ seminar on networking once inside the corporate culture. This only pertains to me somewhat, since we don’t have that kind of structure within my company. It might develop sometime around when we get an office, but whatever. Darius was as always passionate and informative, traits that help catch my seemingly lopsided attention span and keep it focused.
6:30 rolls around, and all that time wasted looking at my pile of business cards without actually networking paid off in the form of free games and such. I don’t want to make it seem like it was a complete waste of time professionally, I made a lot of fellow contacts actually playing the game. At one point, I started conspiring with the head of my team, who was also a journalist. I ran into him later, but not at the prize give away. I’ll have to get in touch with him about that later.
So after a brief stint with West Coast exclusive fast good, I ran over to the hotel where another party was supposed to be held… And was quickly shunned away when the bouncers took a look at my expo pass. Once again, I was turned away from an event that multiple places said all conference attendees were welcome, that several people asked if I was going to. However, can’t say I’m very sore about it. I still got to network with fellow rejects, all very interesting people, and had more than one person tell me the party was kind of no good anyway. So cheers for that.
Finally, I want to throw this off course a little to rant on something that struck me both this and last year: being at a business environment with people who, in any other part of the world, would be nobodies, but for me and other starting developers and students, are Gods among man. For the second year in a row, I was within arms length of Reggie Phils-Aime of Nintendo, had multiple run ins with various G4 personalities, and even crossed paths with Peter Molyneux… twice. You know, there are people you genuinely want to talk to, or may have some interesting comment or question you want to ask (I DID pass Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Crowshaw on the street, who I’ve been a fan of since BEFORE Zero Punctuation) and then the ones I mostly see. The people who the only real motivation to talk to comes from the incessant nagging child in your head who comes out in public as a creepy stalker type. Needless to say, I rarely took action on these and just decided to pass, just happy to be sharing the same breathing space as them. (There’s that creepy stalker talk!) Although I do think Adam Sessler is probably considering a restraining order at this point if he ever learns my name. Another story for another time.
Posted by ASandoval on February 21, 2008 under Features, Games |
Before I begin, I think I need to get something off my chest first
God $@!%ing damn those $@^!s for not $^^&#ing letting us know the $%&@ing expo pass wouldn’t get you into the awards ceremony this year! I got in LAST year, the website still says all passes were invited, and I’m still %$@!ing turned away. If it weren’t a business conference and that kind of $@^! didn’t follow you, I woulda had someone’s %#!^ing neck. %#^!
I feel better.
In all seriousness, the day was full of ups and downs like this, and while I’m tempted to say mostly downs in a solemn, bitter tone, I still had a good time. We woke up extra early so my girlfriend (A character artist/animator, for those who don’t know) and I could catch our first free expo session, which had something to do with artwork and pipelines and such… it didn’t apply to me so much, but hell, with the Expo pass, you don’t get much as is. We made it with about 10 minutes to spare, seemed like a lot of people were hanging out there too, but then the disheartening announcement was slammed on us: the speaker had caught pneumonia and wouldn’t be attending. As compensation for expo pass attendees such as ourselves, we were allowed into any other session with in that time block.
Instantly, my eyes jumped right to a session over in the other building…. Kevin Levine discussing story and gameplay integration as he had in Bioshock. The problem was now it was already 9:30. In the 90% likely event that the session was filled, we’d miss our chance on any session. Begrudgingly, I shrugged and we headed to a different session, one that had something to do with managing an art team… The details are boring, but it was helpful to me as a product manager… a position that I’m proud of, though not one that I particularly am passionate about. The irony of course is that I missed out on a session I was passionate about, but so it goes. When traveling with another, you have to be considerate for the decisions for the two of you, and not just yourself. I suppose that’s the leader in me talking.
So from then until the awards show (In our blissful ignorance assuming we would actually be attending), we checked out the career pavilion, grabbed more awesome swag than I could possibly post here (Pictures after the trip!) and talked to some people inside of big companies like Bioware and insomniac. Right now I’m not ready to jump aboard a big ship like that, but it’s good to know what I should be focusing my efforts on now for that near future endeavor.
The second part of the day was spent downstairs, where companies were showing off all the new technology you could outsource for your company and apply it to your game. There’s a lot of neat stuff there, like actual hands on motion capture and engine (such as Unreal, Torque, etc.) try outs, but for the most part, it’s gimmicky technology that doesn’t have much real world practicality or is already being done much better on the Wii.
The highlight of this portion was hands on with some hot new games at the Nintendo booth. No, I was unable to locate Too Human and Street Fighter IV, but I did get some time in with Smash Bros., Wii Fit, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for DS and Ninja Gaiden for DS. I’ll save hands on impressions of those for later, as this post is already reaching near epic lengths, but don’t worry, I got plenty of mental notes.
So yes, some ups, some downs, and tomorrow doesn’t hold much for the cheapo pass as well. Hopefully I’ll still find something good to post about, else I’ll have to give the hands on impressions tomorrow for added content. Until then.
Posted by ASandoval on February 20, 2008 under Features, Games |
The idea was to throw this up last night while the party was still fresh in my mind, but someone in the hotel decided stealing all the bandwidth for himself was a good idea. Probably playing WoW or something.
Better late than never then, right?
So immediately the first major difference I noticed walking into the hotel (Aside from the lack of a line) were that my ears were not being consistently assaulted by loud music. I’m assuming someone made some kind of request, because at an event that’s mostly geared around talking to other people, the concept of actually being able to hear becomes rather ideal. The other big difference was rather than having several rooms, they basically threw us in one big room and said have at it. Awesome in some aspects, but the lack of any kind of seating started to wear on me later in the night.
These parties are always so interesting for me because I’m not much of a social butterfly. I’m a thousand times better when talking to new people now than I was say three years ago, but the actual idea of making conversation is still a bit of a trifle. Luckily my previous strategy worked better this year than last; Randomly walking about, stalking the food trays, and waiting for someone to say something to me. Not even 10 minutes walking into the door was I pulled to a table of about 5 people and started yammering away. Big bonus there was assisting them complete the networking game, where we had to trade cards of colors and various points amount with others at the party to score free drink coupons. Within 10 minutes of walking in the door, I already had three and would go on to make 2 more, even with the lack of game cards.
All in all, great time. Met some good people, whom I hope are reading this now out of curiosity, and got to hang out with some old friends from last year. Stay tuned tonight, as with any luck I’ll be posting my impressions of Too Human and Street Fighter IV along with the normal log.
Posted by ASandoval on February 19, 2008 under Features, Games |
Living a mere 20 minutes or so from Philly, sometimes it’s hard to remember the problems with cities when you’re visiting one as clean as San Francisco. I often times fancy the idea of actually staying here. Indeed, if I were to pursue journalism, my options pretty much solely reside within the Bay area. Reality came crashing down in the form of seeing cops questioning a man who had obviously had the ever loving shit beat out of him on the sidewalk today. A harsh reminder that cleanliness and safety are not interchangeable even though it’s easy to assume otherwise.
It didn’t stop me from making the obligatory tourist detour I planned, however, to waste time while I wait on the IGDA party. Japantown is thankfully a short walk down the same street as my hotel, so there was something of a convenience factor there.
I’m not a Japanophile, even though I hang out in those circles, but I’m still a big fan of the culture. Still, I feel a little like a tool sometimes being generally interested in bookstores with products that I could never hope to read and trying to find the least offensive food choices for my limited dumb American palette. On that note though, I did get to try some Milk Cream Bread and WCC Coffee in a can. I’m deeply considering finding a way to import them in bulk to my Apartment.
I didn’t bring the cord for my camera to show the pictures now, but I’ll be sure to post a gallery as soon as I’m back home. Unfortunately I didn’t get the picture I wanted of a little Japanese boy browsing the Yaoi section, but so it goes. I’ll be sure to update the travelogue tonight when I get back from the party.
Posted by ASandoval on February 18, 2008 under Features, Games |
Well, so much for updating as soon as I got in the hotel.
I made it to San Francisco alright. A little rough getting situated, getting off at the wrong stop on the subway and all, but thankfully it’s not a hard city to navigate. The post’s a little late due to some work-away-from-home things I had to take care of, but this is my first time really trying, and I’m still not even used to the concept of a ‘laptop’ period.
After setting things up, I promptly headed straight for the Moscone center to get my badge. I feel important this year, having an actual company name attached to my badge other than the name of my college. Now if only I were actual press or a lot more rich, I’d have something a bit more fancy than an expo pass badge, but what’re you going to do?
They’re still a ways off from preparing the convention hall, so it’s mostly empty space, trucks and boxes. G4 has a little corner studio set up in the main entrance of the North hall. It’s funny because it’s like they’re trying to make the GDC look more exciting than it actually is, but I suppose the idea of G4 putting way too much emphasis on anything is probably no big shock.
I’ll have to get back to you guys tomorrow sometime after the only real event of the day, the IGDA party. This will be where I’m going to have to pretend I have a little bit of charisma in order to get my name out there, and maybe even add to this at the moment non-existent community. More on that tomorrow.
Posted by ASandoval on February 17, 2008 under Features, Games |
Hi, my name’s Adrian Sandoval, and this is the first entry in the long over due Digital Relay. My main purpose is, primarily, to give me a journalistic outlet for my feelings on the electronic entertainment industry. If you’re reading this, it more than likely means one of two things; you’re one of the poor saps I had to beg to check this website out on its debut post or you’re a potential employer who, for some reason, found me amusing enough to get this far in my logs. (I’m hoping for the unlikely latter, of course)
Either way, it’d be uncharacteristically pretentious of me to assume you’ll listen without a little background information. As of this writing, I’m a college student enrolled at Camden County College, majoring for an Associate’s degree in Computer Graphics/Game Design. I’ve been at this college going on 3 years now, planning to finish my degree the semester as of this writing before moving on to a bachelor’s degree in journalism, though the ultimate goal is game design. While being involved in numerous related side projects, my main focus, unfortunately and regrettably, is within the common pre-career workforce known as retail. I would really enjoy putting the majority of time to where my passion lies, but currently my passion cannot pay the bills. That’s another plug to why you (assuming you’re a potential employer) should give me a job. Sorry, just seeing if you’re paying attention.
My plan is to up date this blog at least once a week, but to kick things off properly I’m planning to do something a little bit more special. Tomorrow I’ll be catching a flight into San Francisco for my second Game Developer’s Conference. It’s looking to be an exciting trip this time around, with chances of checking out Street Fighter IV and Too Human, getting to listen to Dave Jaffe and the Portal team deliver keynotes, networking opportunities, so I’m hoping to at least share those experiences with those interested. So please check back, maybe even attach me to your feed so I can share some of my experiences with you each day for the week, and maybe even share pictures and possibly video (!) as well. I’ll kick things off as soon as I’m situated in my hotel tomorrow, so check back tomorrow. Also, keep watching the Digital Relay as I slowly construct my portfolio and the forums for you to check out as well. Maybe, some day, we may have a little community growing over here.
