DEVELOP CONFERENCE: SOCIAL RETARD WATCH

[Salka]

It's only day 1 of Develop Conference. So far I've been approached by two social retards within the space of one hour. Sadly I did not have my camera with me, however I will go prepared for day 2 and 3.

That I did not have my camera could in fact be a good thing, as taking a picture of either social retard could have encouraged them to think I had some kind of crush on them. These type of people are easily misled.

[Roderick]

I think you're doing them a favour by not leading them on by any means. Once ensnared in your psychic tendrils, there's no telling what mindboggling horrors one must endure. Of course, I'm not telling you anything new

[Salka]

THERE ARE SO MANY! God! My office is just a minute away from where the conference is being held, and it overlooks the seafront where many of the social retards are walking to and fro at this very minute! They are immediately identifiable, even from 6 storeys up!!

[Salka]

The Social Retard watch took a more sinister turn today.

I had just settled myself down happily to watch the keynote, "The Making of Loco Roco". There was a real good atmosphere in the air, like cherries or something.

Then ONE OF THE SOCIAL RETARDS FROM TUESDAY (or Wednesday or whenever it was) sat down in front of me.

Was he going to stab me? Rape me? Had he sat there on purpose? Had he seen me and purposely sat there to try to start a conversation? Or was it a coincidence? Was he going to sense me sitting behind him? Was he going to try and speak to me? He smelled of ham. I slid down further into my seat, and prayed that he would not see me. Ever.

He didn't, but that didn't stop my life from flashing before my eyes several times before the end of the keynote.

[Roderick]

Well, woman?! I've been waiting for those elusive photographs for two days now! I want to actually see the social retards, the people who shouldn't be there, Peter Molyneux in an embarrassing position with his mouth agape and other frightful things!

[Marek]

"The Making of Loco Roco".

I saw this at Nordic Game. It is awesome. Kuono-san rules.

[Wrestlevania]

He didn't, but that didn't stop my life from flashing before my eyes several times before the end of the keynote.

As well as a lot of dandruff. Probably. You need to stay in more.

And, to echo Rodi's sentiments:

[Salka]

I saw this at Nordic Game. It is awesome. Kuono-san rules.

I got to touch him! I touched him!!!!!

[Ginger]

He didn't, but that didn't stop my life from flashing before my eyes several times before the end of the keynote.

U is all lies, I bet u were gutted that he didn't in someway acknowledge he remembered you, that way it would help you feel smug and supiroir. Someone who didn't want social retards harrassing her would not go to the develop conference wearing a cute japanease bunny jumper. The only thing that would get more attention from the gamer freaks would be if I went down in my soo nto be ordered japanease school girl outfit or Snowy

[Marek]

I got to touch him! I touched him!!!!!

Pff. I have a photograph of his autograph!!!

Also I touched him.

[vimes]

Did you both touch him or ... touch him ? In both case, poor Uono.

And why add the san at the end ? Do you say Monsieur Chahi or Herr Uwe Boll or for that matter, mister Molyneux ?

[Roderick]

The only relevant question is, of course, did you touch him Solid Snake crotch-grab style?

[Marek]

And why add the san at the end ? Do you say Monsieur Chahi or Herr Uwe Boll or for that matter, mister Molyneux ?

Yeah sorry about that. I know it's retarded and I didn't use to do it, but it's unintentionally crept into my conciousness due to a friend of mine who, despite knowing some of these people personally, still refers to them by their last name-san.

Just pretend I'm doing it ironically.

[n0wak]

Meanwhile, at the other side of the world, Kuono-san is posting to a forum complaining about weird women nerds touching him.

[SpiderMonkey]

I've got two entries for the Watch ...

The first was from "A New Common Game Design Methodology" at the end of the day. These two guys presented an incredibly academic notation system for game design, and it was a really poor presentation (seriously lacking in clarity and detail, and overhyped by the introduction they gave it).

But that didn't excuse the first "questioner" in the Q&A afterwards. His hand shot straight up even before they finished saying "any questions". Then he gave a two minute long ramble that could basically be summed up as "your talk was shit and your idea is shit". It was delivered with a complete lack of grace or respect, which just made it so incredibly socially awkward. You can think that stuff, you can say it to your friends in the corridor outside, but it's really totally unnecessary to say it straight to the face of the speakers. My favourite part of it was when the guy, who looked barely 20 years old, started telling the speakers - with over 20 years of games industry experience between them - that they clearly had no comprehension of how the games industry works.

My second was David Braben, who was kind of a meta-entry. He was parroting standard dross about the challenge of crossing the Uncanny Valley. Then he started talking about the need to widen the pool of developer backgrounds, saying that too many developers are "socially inept". Then he dropped a real zinger - "how can our games cross the uncanny valley when so many of our developers haven't managed to do that themselves". Ouch. If he was my boss, I'm not sure what I'd be thinking right now.

(As an aside, I thought he was then going to provide some substance beyond this, but that seemed to be the core of his point - 'you guys are socially inept, the only hope for solving these problems is to hire someone else'. Pretty dumb for a conference where companies have paid hundreds of pounds for people to actually come and learn something.)

[Roderick]

You know what? I'm getting pretty goddamned tired of the uncanny valley. It's totally overhyped, a buzz-word and its effects are hardly academically proven. It's just a really nice-sounding theory from a Japanese professor and we all latched onto it because we vaguely felt our own feelings corresponded to it.

Speaking of which, I was watching the trailer for Beowulf the other day, and for the life of me I couldn't decide whether it was live-action or some sort of weird hyper-realistic but-not-quite-there 3D animation. Check it out: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/beowulf/

[DanJW]

Hey, the uncanny valley is a nice theory. The problem is that no-one has any idea what to do about it right now. It will only be crossed slowly and incremementally and it will likely be in another 10 years or so.

[Roderick]

Perhaps. But I still say it's hugely overhyped (and used way too much by would-be academics and journalists in articles about games in situations that have only marginally to do with it) and I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing was overblown and the effect turned out to be disappointingly small.

[Nachimir]

A little, though apparently box office revenues have been tied to it enough for Pixar to swear off visual realism.

I thought David Braben was stretching the definition a little too far, as he said he thought it applied to more than just visual realism then glossed over why without seeming to provide much in the way of reasoning or examples.

On topic, there were a few people there who were so bad that even a fair description feels mean. One man in particular didn't make social gaffes, he was one. I'm pretty loaded up with aspergers traits and can be an obsessive bore; sometimes I feel bad about this, but holy fuck did a couple of people there make me thankful

[vimes]

I don't really see the point of trying to go pass the Uncanny Valley... let's pretend reaching ultimate realism is possible, what then ? What are people going to do with it ? When I watch Beowulf's trailer, I really don't understand why the hell they chose complete CGI : the actors look the same, their performance were captured, CGI isn't enabling anything in terms of visual (as some would argue it did for Polar Express), and I can't see a single shot that couldn't have been achieved in a physical setting.

[SpiderMonkey]

I thought David Braben was stretching the definition a little too far, as he said he thought it applied to more than just visual realism then glossed over why without seeming to provide much in the way of reasoning or examples.

Yeah I would definitely agree with you here. He didn't seem to have a particularly good grasp of what the concept actually says. It seemed more like he'd got a third-hand chinese whispers version that he was working from. He seemed to say some pretty strange stuff like "Gromit has crossed the uncanny valley but he doesn't even look realistic" at one point? And I also agree that it's really over-hyped and over-discussed at this point.

[Nachimir]

Yeah, he just waffled about the Pixar lamp a bit without seeming to say much.

[Wormsie]

Uncanny valley?

I'm off to play Psychonauts.

[JoannaDark]

stop it now, you're giving me that nauseous feeling that i'm wasting three years of my life researching this valley when no one cares.

[Roderick]

It's not that we don't care, but I get sick of all the people using it abundantly without knowing exactly what it is. Worse, presenting it as a fact where it is just a theory that has *some* research behind it, but certainly not enough to demonstrate its truth beyond doubt. Perhaps you are doing exactly this?