Game Developers Give Great Five

The Austin arm of the International Game Developers Association had a brilliant idea. Developers love to share their knowledge of the business, and they love to drink. But when a speaker goes on too long, the risk of alcohol poisoning increases exponentially. The solution? Limit the speakers (nine altogether) to five minutes and cross your fingers.

And so it was. The majority of the PowerPoint presentations at Buffalo Billiards were finished in fewer than five minutes, and the crowd remained largely upright.

In this spirit of boiling things down to their essences I decided to summarize these five-minute talks down to five words. A cheap way to keep my word count down? You bet, but here it goes.

Kain Shin, special events coordinator for the IGDA-Austin and self-proclaimed boring jerk:
Austin is relevant ... for now.

Trent Polack, designer at LightBox Interactive:
Cut scenes are no fun.

Joe Houston, programmer at Arkane Studios:
Marxist theory of gaming evolution.

Raphael Colantonio, founder of Arkane Studios:
Every failure leads to success.

Matt Piersall, sound and music designer at Gl33k, we interviewed him once:
No PowerPoint but much love.

Jon Jones, artist outsourcer extraordinaire:
Good money means good art.

Brandon Boyer, founder of Offworld, chairman of the Independent Games Festival, and man crush:
No more Caucasians with guns.

Damien DiFede, Kokoromi Collective co-founder and programmer at Red Fly Studios:
Audio experimentation is a bitch.

Harvey Smith, creative director at Arkane Studios:
Good weed makes Austin attractive.

These incomplete thoughts really tell you nothing about what was actually said, but let me assure you that the mini-talks were largely compelling. And that's impressive for a professional meet-up. Cheers to Kain Shin and the IGDA for a successful evening. Although I left before the band started, and the alcohol consumption ramped up. For all I know there are still a few drooling game developers passed out on the floor.