Lorne at GDC 2009

[Xavier]

Stretching Beyond Entertainment: The Role of Games in Personal and Social Change

Speakers:

• Rusel DeMaria (Author/Analyst, DeMaria Studio)
• Will Wright (Chief Designer, Maxis)
• Lorne Lanning (President, Oddworld Inhabitants)
• Peter Molyneux (Head of Studio, Lionhead Studios)
• Bing Gordon (Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)
• Ed Fries (CEO, FigurePrints)

Date/Time: Friday (March 27, 2009) 10:30am — 11:30am

Session Description
Last year we had a fantastic discussion about the potential of video games to influence people positively, looking at whether we believed that mainstream games could fill an educational and inspirational role in the lives of players. We looked at whether game designers and publishers had any responsibility to promote content that has a positive impact – if it was, ultimately, good for gaming, in general. This year we bring the discussion back with an all-star panel to look to the future of games, not in terms of technology, and not in terms of what’s the next hotness, but in terms of what we can do with the creativity of design to help inspire a better world. We will explore what it takes to create games that inspire and teach, while still entertaining millions of players. We will ask our panelists for concrete suggestions. What would they do to make games that leave people better off than they were before playing? We will ask our panelists if this sort of social responsibility is necessary, appropriate or even desirable in the world of commercial games. We will look for different points of view, creative suggestions and solutions, and a lively discussion.

https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp...&V=3&id=120798

[MoxCo. Executive]

Over 5 million Oddworld games sold? I find that hard to belive (in a good way)!

[Andrelvis]

There were four games, and Abe's Oddysee was popular in it's time, so it doesn't seem too strange to me.

[Zukan]

I hope there's some way to get a peak into this discussion. Think anyone would record and upload it somewhere?

[Xavier]

I'd keep an eye on kotaku, they seem to liveblog some conferences...

Gamasutra: http://gamasutra.com/gdc2009/
1up: http://www.1up.com/do/pubs?did=64
GameSpot: http://gdc.gamespot.com/
IGN: http://games.ign.com/index/gdc/2009/

[Zukan]

Here's a great writeup of most of the session http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1099

Lorne Lanning: I'll give you an example of something a publisher said to me. They said about a game we were proposing... "Man, it's just so dark." I said, "You're building games on war in Baghdad right now. This is dark? And they said, "Yeah, but we're not having the blown up babies or the medics." And I said, right. You're just distilling war to its fun parts.

I still wish I could've been there though. Games really have a great potential to inspire and educate people. It just hasn't been that big of a deal before, most adults just scoff it off as "simple entertainment" but really it's taken off in so many different directions lately. With an entire generation of kids growing up with games now, it's more important than ever that designers start to take responsibility of the content they create.

[Xavier]

Thanks for the link... I just saw the transcript over wonderland. I'm going to read it now.

[MoxCo. Executive]

Originally Posted by Xavier

Thanks for the link... I just saw the transcript over wonderland. I'm going to read it now.

Ooooh. Lorne said a naughty word. Not a good example for young gamers. wait isn't that wha this whole meeting is about

[Max the Mug]

Clearly you haven’t played Stranger’s Wrath or read a candid Lanning interview before. The guy swears like a cavalry soldier. When he talks about protecting children, he’s not referring to the childish censoring of words. He’s talking about sensitizing them to brutality and not pumping them full of drugs to solve socio-economic problems.

Whether you believe these are problems or not is irrelevant to this point.

[Mac Sirloin]

I wish I could meet Lorne.

That would be a caustic and intelligent conversation.