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September 26, 2005
Meeting Report: Thursday, September 15, 2005
Twenty-eight people attended the Albany IGDA meeting on the evening of September 15th, 2005 at DeJohn's Restaurant and Pub. Brenda Brathwaite gave a presentation entitled “Murder, Sex, Censorship (and why you should care,)”. Among the attendees were employees of Vicarious Visions, 1st Playable Productions, Eden Studios, and INDVFX; professors and students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Mildred Elley; and members of the RPI Game Development Club. Following is the full meeting report by Chapter Coordinator Jonathan Mintz.
As more people begin to play and pay attention to digital games, the industry occasionally experiences some growing pains. This summer, games made headlines as the Hot Coffee cheat for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was noticed by parents and politicians alike. In the wake of this, legislators around the country have been introducing laws intended to regulate the sale of games.
At the September 15, 2005 meeting of the Albany IGDA chapter, Brenda Brathwaite gave an excellent presentation exploring censorship and legislation of the game industry and what it means for developers. Her talk, entitled “Murder, Sex, Censorship (and why you should care,)” drew upon her experiences in developing the
Playboy: The Mansion title at Cyberlore as well as her work in coordinating the IGDA’s Sex SIG. A crowd of Albany-area game developers and students attended the meeting to hear Brenda’s thoughts on the subject and contribute their own.
In the spirit of self-regulation, Brenda opened her talk with a humorous series of disclaimers. This led into her discussion of her work on the Playboy project. She talked about the implications that a license can bring to your project, pointing out how even a Playboy-branded spreadsheet program wouldn’t be sold in Wal-Mart.
Making Playboy: The Mansion brought Brenda into conflict with one of the oldest fallacies of gaming, the assumption that games are just for kids. She used this as a springboard for discussing the history of sex and violence in video games, filling in the events leading from the Night Trap and Mortal Kombat debates of the 90s up to the Hot Coffee fiasco this summer. Going further back, she paralleled these events in gaming with regulation imposed on the comic and film industries. This led to one of her major points: almost every new form of media is perceived as dangerous at some point, even though the sex and violence in them is the same.
Having made this point, Brenda strove to get her audience to re-frame the debate over mature content in games. People in the industry may see the situation as an us vs. them battle with game developers fighting off ignorant politicians. But that’s really not the case. Everyone involved – politicians, parents, retailers, publishers, and developers – want the same thing: to protect kids from having access to mature content without parental consent. All of these groups need to work together, educating themselves and each other, to bring this about without unnecessary and problematic regulations.
Brenda summed up her talk with some suggestions for moving forward with these issues. She offered suggestions for strengthening the ESRB system and educating parents and politicians. And, in the interest of preventing another Hot Coffee incident, developers and publishers need to be careful about all game assets present in retail products.
Following Brenda’s talk, the evening concluded with a lively question and answer session.
The Albany IGDA chapter would like to thank Brenda Brathwaite for visiting us and giving a wonderful presentation. We’d also like to thank DeJohn’s Restaurant and Pub for hosting the meeting.
For more information on Brenda’s work with the IGDA Sex SIG, please visit her blog at: http://www.igda.org/sex
Brenda suggested the following links for learning more about the organizations involved in the issues she discussed:
Developers: http://www.igda.org
Publishers: http://www.theesa.com/
Retail: http://www.iema.org/
Brenda will presenting in October at Future Play at Michigan State University and in March at GDC 2006.
Posted by IanStead at 03:04 PM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2005
Photos from the September 2005 meeting
Photos from the September 15th meeting and presentation by Brenda Brathwaite on "Murder, Sex, Censorship (and why you should care), at DeJohns Restaurant & Pub, 288 Lark Street, Albany, NY. If you would like a larger copy of any of these images, please send a note to our chapter coordinators.
Jamey Stevenson - one of the chapter coordinators takes the floor.
Chapter Coordinator Ian M Stead is in the middle on the laptop and member Matt Ostrom is on the right.
Brenda with Evan from Vicarious Visions.
Members of the RPI Game Development club attended the meeting.
Photo credits: David Allen, Tobi Saulnier
Another page of pictures from the meeting taken by Matt Ostrom
Posted by IanStead at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2005
Meeting Announcement: Thursday, September 15th, 2005
Speaker: Brenda Brathwaite - Senior Designer, Cyberlore
Topic: Murder, Sex and Censorship (and Why You Should Care)
Location: 3rd floor of DeJohns Restaurant & Pub, 288 Lark Street, Albany, NY 12210
Date: September 15th, 6:00 PM (presentation starts at 6:30 PM)
Join us for our September meeting when Brenda Brathwaite, a Senior Designer from Cyberlore will be coming up to Albany to present on "Murder, Sex and Censorship (and Why You Should Care)".
Following is more detailed info on Brenda's presentation and her bio.
Murder, Sex and Censorship (and Why You Should Care)
In the last year, over a dozen bills targeting video games were put before state Assemblies and Senates throughout America. In other countries, video games were banned outright. Legislators seek to control their sale and their distribution while big box retailers indirectly influence their content. And all this before Hot Coffee. Now, we face irate politicians and the FTC... again.
What does this mean for us as game developers? What should we do? How will the legislation affect us? Who's calling the shots?
If you make or play video games, this meeting is a must for you. Find out:
* Who says The Sims is an 18+ violent video game
* Why sports games can't be sold to minors in Illinois
* What heroin has in common with Mario
* Why you only think you have creative control
As a 23-year veteran of the video games industry, Brenda Brathwaite is currently a senior designer at Cyberlore Studios. She has worked on 20 published titles including the award-winning Wizardry series of role playing games and the award-winning Jagged Alliance series of strategy role-playing games. Most recently, she was lead designer on Playboy: The Mansion for Cyberlore. Brenda was also a host of the "Sexuality in Games" Roundtable at the 2005 Game Developer's Conference, the founder and moderator of the IGDA Sexuality in Games mailing list, and the founder and chair of the IGDA Sex SIG. Brenda is also a member of the International Game Developers Association.
Posted by IanStead at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)
Meeting Report: Thursday, August 25, 2005
The Albany chapter of the IGDA held its August meeting at the conference room of the Social and Behavioral Research Laboratory at RPI. There were 33 attendees including individuals from local developers 1st Playable Productions, Vicarious Visions, Tubehead, Agora Studios and local schools RPI, Mildred Elley, Russel Sage and Oneonta. Chapter coordinators James Stevenson and Ian Stead opened the meeting by welcoming the chapter members and introducing the evening’s speaker, Katherine Isbister.
Katherine Isbister is an Associate Professor of Communication at RPI. Her presentation, “Better Game Characters by Design: A Psychological Approach,” was an introduction to material from her book of the same name and her GDC presentations. Her talk offered strategies for creating more engaging game characters by employing psychological techniques in game designs
Katherine explained how developers can take advantages of characters’ faces, body language, and voices to create more believable inhabitants of virtual worlds. She also discussed how characters’ relationship to players should give a sense of their social roles, demonstrating individual characters’ friendliness and dominance relative to the player character. Finally, she spoke on the importance of creating characters with the target audience in mind, testing character concepts with potential players early in development. You can view her slides here.
The talk was follow by a brief Q&A session. Afterwards, Ian polled the audience for their thoughts about potential locations for future meetings and suggestions for meeting topics. Following that discussion, the meeting adjourned. Attendees chatted amongst themselves and later made their way downtown for drinks and dining at Brown’s Brewing Co.
Thanks go out to Katherine for her excellent presentation, James Watt for reserving the conference room at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Social and Behavioral Research Laboratory, and to 1st Playable Productions for the pizza and drinks.
Also, thanks to Jonathan Mintz for writing up this meeting report.
Posted by IanStead at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)