Thursday, April 09, 2009

GDC 2009: The aftermath

An extended outage has delayed my GDC 2009 recap, but here's the short and sweet version.

We launched Gamebryo LightSpeed, and it has been received incredibly well.

Launching a new product is always dicey -- am I going to hear crickets? Boos? Hurrahs?

Fortunately, people were incredibly stoked by LightSpeed, which builds on top of the multiplatform runtime, top-tier DCC exporters, and foundational technology of Gamebryo, and adds new gameplay logic systems, non-proprietary script integration, a new world / level / placement editor, and tools for designers of all types (gameplay, level, system, etc.).

I was running pretty much 24/7 while in Latte Land, but it was incredibly productive, well worth it, and I so enjoy syncing up with Partners and colleagues in person as we all try to do big things for the industry.

Outside of Emergent, Crytek and Epic showcased some good tech, and I had some great conversations with folks from those companies.

There was some other stuff. and some other stuff I can't talk about. Yet.

And there there was OnLive, which got a lot of buzz at the show. I think I'll wait and see if I can free myself to do a separate post on the challenges and opportunities inherent with that proposed product. Not that I have any particular insight, other than doing something similar in the enterprise space, with very parallel infrastructure problems to solve.

Oh, and since I was going nutzoid at the show (and since on the personal front), I barely made a dent in my media list. Basically, I worked through a chunk of DragonBall Origins for the Nintendo DS (freaking huge game with good fan service, and required use of the stylus that I'm trying to decide is good or irritating), listened to a ton of this year's South by Southwest tunes (since I missed the show), and a few more chapters of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know -- a book I can only read through a bit at a time, because it's hard reading for me as a dad, and wicked important.

More later ...

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