Last year's developer rant was highly entertaining as well as insightful, so there was no way I was missing this year's melting pot. Like last year the panel was moderated by Eric Zimmerman, and like last year each of the panelists brought their own unique perspectives to the podium. The room, although almost twice the size of last year's, was still packed to the max with eager developers waiting to hear what the latest rants were. However this raises an interesting issue, and it's definetly something I'm going to ask if I see this session in next year's conference: why are we having another rant session? This question isn't that relevant yet - there are a lot of things wrong with the game industry that will take time to fix, but if we're still back bitching next year then what's the point? Are we going to keep raving and not really do anything about it? This was actually something one of the panelists brought up, so I'll stop my own personal rant for now and get on with the report.

Disclaimer: strong language follows

After Eric introduced the panel and gave an overview of why everyone was there, he called up the first panelist, Frank Lantz. But before Frank spoke he gave up the podium to Robin Hunicke - she had a spontaneous rant entitled What's Next (aka WTF?) that was sparked by the art gallery on display out in the hall. So she starts off by saying how she was excited to be at GDC this year to discover what's next, and saw Iwata-san, Will Wright, the design challenge... but then she realized the truth - Hot babes! Hot babes are what's next!! At this point she threw up images from the art gallery - Sexy babes! Lesbian babes! Killer babes! "Thanks ATI and the Art Institute!" At this point she stormed off the stage with both birdies raised.

Well.

That was quite funny, but my only response to that is how two of the images she showcased, including the "lesbian babes", were drawn by a female artist. I guess the idea behind it is still valid - I'm just saying. So anyways after Robin stepped off the stage, Frank came back to give his rant, which was the immersive fallacy, or immersive fantasy, dilemma. Basically it's how games are perceived to be heading towards total reality, like a Star Trek holodeck. The truth is games aren't meant to be a direct take on reality, and whenever Frank hears the tagline of "go anywhere, do anything" it's like nails on a chalkboard to him. You have to keep this gap, this seperation, between games and reality. It's much like the way a model airplane wouldn't be better if it were full sized and a painting of an apple wouldn't be better if it was edible. Pretty soon, Frank fears, we'll be eating and shitting in our games. "There shouldn't be eating and shitting in games unless we find a way to make it fun". Another problem of course is when it gets so real all of the sudden we're playing games in our games. Now that's just sad.

So after Frank stepped down Eric introduced the next speaker, Seamus Blackley. Seamus didn't waste any time, he stepped up and referenced a comedian who he says once had a skit where she asked "have you ever had sex where you look up at the guy and go 'why are you fucking me? Stop fucking me!'" well, that was Seamus' message to the game industry - stop fucking us. This ire is mainly directed at the publishers strangling the industry by not allowing new and creative concepts to thrive in the marketplace. He also told the developers present to stop fucking themselves and to go out and work to build a better business around ideas that we want to make. He also called for our own version of the Oscars in order to recognize games that might otherwise never be found, like the recent success of Brokeback Mountain. "We need to give developers a reason to make games like fucked up independent films that everyone feels uncomfortable about". He used Brokeback references quite a bit actually, and got needled later on for it.

Next up after Seamus was Jonathan Blow, who threw up a slide with the title There's Not Enough Innovation in Games. Then he confessed that wasn't really what he was going to talk about. What he was really going to talk about was "There's Not Enough Innovation in Games!". After the laughter died down his next slide brought it back, where he compared original game ideas to fossil fuels. What if we're just running out? And like when we find a new oil field there's bursts of innovation in gaming that lasts for a while, some of which may be things like the Revolution controller, some sort of holo display, and NPCs that can actually pathfind. His solution was to start making games that players didn't want to stop playing. Sounds kind of "duh"-like but it's certainly something to aim for over making games you know will make money, like EA seems to enjoy doing.

Chris Crawford was next up. Before I go into his talk, which was relatively short, I think a little background would help. Chris, first off, is the original founder of the GDC, although it's a credit that's not widely applied to him anymore unfortunately. So he's been around for a while. The other thing to know is his take on something called interactive storytelling, which you can read about in my write up of a talk he gave back in 2002 (scroll down). That said, Chris came to the podium with the promise of not having anything to rant about. To rant, he said, you have to have something to rant about. By that, he means that there needs to be something to fix that could be made better by ranting about it. Not so with the games industry. The games industry is dead. Not completely dead. Just brain dead. "Rest in peace, game industry". What else is there? Why, interactive storytelling of course. Of course.

After Chris' short announcement, Jane Pinkler approached the podium, pinch hitting for Jessica Mulligan, who had to cancel. Jane's topic is what I was referring to earlier. She spoke about why we were still having sessions about attracting women to games, why we're stil talking about having our own oscars - why we're still talking about all this stuff. It's great to talk and get issues out to the rest of the community, but there;s a point at which you have to stop talking and start doing something! Jane also talked about the horrible state of game journalism, especially where journalists are interviewing the "face" of the game, or the one person on the development team that represents the game. What about the artists? The Q&A guys?

Finally, Jane called Chris Hecker up to the podium to give the speech he gave last night at the Choice Awards. Chris obliged, but was a little thrown off and went off on a few tangents while starting from his pre-written speech, which caused Seamus to comment "listening to Chris is like a lesson in nested loops" to which Chris shot back "Oh! Seamus remembers how to program!", which was rather stinging after Seamus' earlier remark to "not remembering anthing anymore". But Chris got back on track to his "rant", which was really a rave on how "fucking cool" it is to be part of a newly evolving art form, something which only happens once every few hundred years.

It was another great panel, and while I look forward to next years installment I also hope that there will be no reason next year to even have one. Hey I can dream right?

The full panel of speakers readies on stage	A packed ballroom
Jason Della Rocca	An animated Eric Zimmerman
Frank Lantz	Robin Hunicke
Lesbian babes!!	Seamus Blackley
Jonathan Blow	Chris Crawford
Jane Pinkler	Chris Hecker