The weekly update rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games tackles GDC 2019, from Google announcements to sessio
[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from video game industry ‘watcher’ Simon Carless (GDC, Gamasutra co-runner), rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend.
Phew, am barely recovered from a GDC 2019 week in which Google & a bunch of other platforms talked about neat stuff (see below!), our Main Stage presentation produced a Media Molecule-created Dreams musical performance I’m still fanboying over, I profited handsomely from Gabe Newell memes on Twitter, and a mountain more besides.
Our GDC Flickr page gives a good idea of the creativity, general vibe (& fun!) at the show this time, & there will be 130+ free session videos zooming onto GDC Vault in a coupla weeks or so. This should give more insight into the talks (and Valve’s cranial stimulation device) to those who couldn’t make it. And I’m super proud to help put together the show. Onwards!
Until next time…
– Simon, curator.]
——————In this GDC space, a toilet plunger becomes your game controller (James Martin / CNET – ARTICLE / GALLERY)
“What happens when you mix one part hacker space with one part game developer community and throw in a pinch of bizarre? You get one of the most unique spaces at the Game Developers Conference, “alt.ctrl. GDC.” With wild alternative controllers that use movements, actions and some very interesting switches, visitors can play games in a whole new way. Valve Software dreams of analyzing your brainwaves to tailor in-game rewards (Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica – ARTICLE)
“Valve Software’s famously “flat” structure means most of its game-making staffers have vague titles. One of the few exceptions is its Principal Experimental Psychologist, who presented a futuristic gaming vision at this year’s Game Developers Conference—in particular, he made a few peculiar admissions about how Valve might one day study your brain activity in the middle of a game and what the company might do with it.”On birdwatching in video games (Ian Evenden / Eurogamer – ARTICLE)
“Sit near a yucca plant in Far Cry New Dawn’s verdant, strangely pink and only slightly scorched forests and you’ll see them: hummingbirds circling the flower spike, chirping away. Get too close and they vanish, the price you pay for crafting a medikit.”Road to GDC: Curating Video Games (Marie Foulston / Variety – ARTICLE)
“But do we really believe that a true appreciation of a creative work is intrinsically bound to, or heightened by an ignorance of the creative practice it is born from? For me, no, it is not; I want designers to tell me of the complexities, of the skill, the challenges and the constraints of their practice and when they do it can turn even the smallest detail of a game into an absolute miracle of craft and achievement.”Microsoft: “Our goal is to reach everyone on the planet” (Martin Robinson / Eurogamer – ARTICLE)
“At this year’s GDC, there’s one topic ruling the conversation; streaming services, and the arrival of Google as a player in what’s now become a very tangible space. How long ago it now seems from the comically messy launch of OnLive… Microsoft has already made its own motions, of course, with the announcement of its own xCloud service last year, headed up by corporate VP of gaming cloud Kareem Choudhry, who we got to catch up with on the eve of Google’s big show.”Valve’s (almost) ‘anything goes’ content policy devalues Steam and harms developers (Michael Futter / Polygon – ARTICLE)
“Valve’s recent brush with obscene and harmful content is the latest incident that exposes one of Steam’s key weaknesses. Abdicating its responsibility as a content host has led the market leader to alienate developers and damage its own brand. [SIMON’S NOTE: on the other hand, everyone is grumpy about different things with regard to the Epic Store.
