I wasn’t at GDC. I’ve been too busy being lazy, adolescent and bad at writing. I, like the entirety of the game’s industry, am a bastard and don’t deserve even an ounce of respect for my leeching, degrading, derogatory, un-skilled and bias work.

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[Cameron read an article on Kotaku titled "New Year's Resolutions For The Game Industry" by Leigh Alexander. Among the many points argued, she calls for more recognition of the people who actually make the games - Ed]

Among the resolutions Ms. Alexander discussed, the ever so hopeful “Value Your Talent” section caught my eye. I’ll just say that Marketing will never entertain the thought. The very last thing they would want is for someone in press to talk to a designer who’s been knee-deep in 65 hour-a-week shifts knowing all the things, good and bad, with the game’s development. It’s far more convenient and safe (for their own job security) to throw out the PR-spiel prepared Producer to the media. A producer won’t be disgruntled. A producer will want to protect his “project” just as much as the PR bum in charge. A producer is more refreshed than the drained, disgruntled designer.

Not saying all, but many producers don’t have to (nor want to) sit around in the office as long as the design team, and they don’t. They clock in their 30 hours for the week and maybe keep up with the team from the comfort of their office chair…at casa del producer. That’s not to say they aren’t team players, some will actually stick it through and kudos to them. However, from my experiences, unless they have to take on the final boss that is the almighty deadline, forget about it. Even in deadline, there’s no lingering issue that a “Will Not Fix, Legacy” tag won’t cure.

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Part 1 of Shawn Elliott’s review symposium has been available for a few days but as it’s around 3 miles long, it has taken an understandable number of hours for me to read through. To help you get the general ideas behind what was said, I’ve broken the whole thing into 3 separate posts.

In this first post, I will try to highlight all the off-topic, yet still very valuable things discussed. In part 2 I will go over the actually relevant areas of discussion (i.e. topics directly related to the idea of reviews having scores). In the final part I will try to respond to the on-topic questions and ideas raised, adding my own (completely correct and un-questionable) opinion to the mix.

As I said, this first part will cover all of the interesting parts I found in the symposium which are not directly related to the topic at hand. As with any attempt at re-wording and simplifying what other people have created, if you find yourself interested, you really should give the full symposium a read through.

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