GWSIG Monthly Meeting Minutes/Meeting26

International Game Developers Association

Tracy Seamster: Morning!
wendy despain: morning!
Table: Good morning to you both!
Tracy Seamster: A table? :)
wendy despain: table? I didn't know we got furniture in this meeting room
Tracy Seamster: This must be the upgraded room!
wendy despain: we should get a comfy couch too
wendy despain: and maybe a lamp
Tracy Seamster: At some point, we'll definitely have a "chair" ;)
wendy despain: woo!
Table: Indeed, Tracy, I am Table to emphasise that I am not a Chair. :)
wendy despain: btw, Andy will probably not be here, so I'm going to have to run this meeting
wendy despain: which is a little embarassing since I have most of the agenda items too
Tracy Seamster: heh
wendy despain: but I guess this is what I get for missing last meeting :-)
Tracy Seamster: I'll take the opposition view, to keep things interesting :)
Tracy Seamster: "What? Wendy, you can't do that! I vote nay!"
Tracy Seamster: let me macro that
wendy despain: excellent!
wendy despain: we'll definitely have a productive meeting then - even if this is all who shows :-)
Table: We've had apologies from most of the committee, I think, so it could be a light attendence.
Tracy Seamster: We did need a light to go with our Table and chair
Table: Hi Steve!
Steve Jacobs: yo
wendy despain: steve!
Tracy Seamster: Morning, Steve
wendy despain: well, now there are two of the board we can make any necessary decisions by fiat :-)
Steve Jacobs: i've always liked fiats, zippy little cars
wendy despain: i honestly don't think we have any important decisions today
wendy despain: but one never knows
Tracy Seamster: May we all take the day off of work, please?
wendy despain: i vote yes
Steve Jacobs: second
wendy despain: but only if you'll work on SIG projects instead ;-)
Tracy Seamster: I did have a question about the chapter outline.
Tracy Seamster: :D
Chris Pasley: Hello. Had a few minutes so I thought I'd stick my head in.
wendy despain: yeah, everyone seems to
wendy despain: hello Chris! welcome!
wendy despain: I'm digging up the agenda and we'll get started
wendy despain: oh! hey! Steve is here. Could you put it into the "Notes" window?
wendy despain: that's what all the cool kids are doing ;-)
Steve Jacobs: now you can I have given you the power
wendy despain: wow, I feel... different
wendy despain: can everyone see the agenda?
Chris Pasley: Yes. This is a cool little chat app.
Tracy Seamster: That's so cool.
wendy despain: excellent!
wendy despain: I officially bring this meeting to order
wendy despain: welcome everyone!
wendy despain: we're not quorate, but hopefully before the end of the meeting we will be
wendy despain: also, this is mostly informational, I believe, so it should work out okay in the end
Table: We usually get a few extra drop-ins as it goes.
wendy despain: first on the agenda: Write Club at FuturePlay
wendy despain: Kim isn't here (yet?) but I love that Write Club is living on
wendy despain: yay Kim!
Steve Jacobs: I will be helping out as long as it doesn't conflict with my panel
wendy despain: excellent!
wendy despain: yay Steve!
wendy despain: it's in November, as I recall, so everything is probably on track to make it happen :-)
wendy despain: we'll check in with Kim later
Steve Jacobs: Yah we've arranged for kim to get the banner from Rich
wendy despain: great
wendy despain: we can come back to this item if/when Kim arrives at the meeting
wendy despain: but I know there are lots of questions about the book(s) project, so let's move on
wendy despain: current status two publishers are expressing interest in both books
Tracy Seamster: yay!
wendy despain: so far, one of them is very serious
wendy despain: they're ready to draw up contracts and get us on track for our first book being ready for publishing at GDC in the spring
Steve Jacobs: what do we know about the current one in terms of actual # of volumes sold???
wendy despain: I am leaning towards this option, but no one's talking money yet, and I want to make sure we get everyone the best deal possible
wendy despain: Table - do you have any substantial numbers on that? I know it's in the third printing now, but that's all I know
Table: Hold on, I have a royalty statement somewhere *rumages*
Steve Jacobs: A royalty statement for our non-royalties :-)
Steve Jacobs: Actualy whould help to know what we would have earned had we gone with Royalties on the first one to guide these upcoming negotiations
wendy despain: in the interest of time, I'm going to keep reporting while they answer questions :-)
Table: Ok, as of December 2006 we had sold 1,760. That doesn't sound like much, but in technical publishing that's very respectable, especially in such a short time period.
wendy despain: good idea Steve
wendy despain: welcome, Mr. Dinehart!
Stephen E. Dinehart: Thanks!
Stephen E. Dinehart: Congrats on the respectable sales.
wendy despain: I apologize for being so incommunicative to all the people who have sent me emails about the books and/or their outlines
wendy despain: I keep thinking I'll have real answers to give them "any day now" and that stretch of time keeps getting longer and longer
Stephen E. Dinehart: So are we slated for both new titles to be released in by March?
wendy despain: I appreciate everyone who's been in touch
wendy despain: I think publisher A (which I'm leaning towards) could definitely have one book done by March - maybe 2 if they pay me enough to sacrifice my life to editing both at the same time :-)
Stephen E. Dinehart: hehehe
wendy despain: publisher B isn't talking timelines yet, and I doubt they would have either book done before Fall
wendy despain: my goal would be to have both books available for the start of school in the fall, for those interested in using them in the classroom
wendy despain: Steve - when do profs make their book lists?
Tracy Seamster: When I taught a class, I got to make the list the quarter before.
Steve Jacobs: If they want to use the school bookstore to sell them, ideally now for the fall :-)
Stephen E. Dinehart: the Second week in August! lol
Tracy Seamster: But it was community /jr college
wendy despain: so they would need to be sure they want to use the books by... mid summer? a year from now?
wendy despain: ok
Steve Jacobs: What with Amazon, and the fact that we're not talking traditioonal textbook publishers but trade books
Stephen E. Dinehart: The earliest I ever had to order was mid-summer, the school book stores tend to be pretty responsive
Steve Jacobs: If a prof wants it bad enough he'she'll just tell 'em to order it on-line the first week of class
Stephen E. Dinehart: true dat!
Tracy Seamster: They will all want this badly enough!
Stephen E. Dinehart: :)
wendy despain: i don't think it would be out of the question to have both books available in a timely manner for for fall semester 2008
Stephen E. Dinehart: Sounds good.
wendy despain: hang on - phone call I must take
Steve Jacobs: I personally have never felt the need to rely exclusively on the bookstore and have often told them just to get it on-line
Ben Serviss: howdy folks!
Tracy Seamster: Morning, Ben :)
Stephen E. Dinehart: hey Ben!
Steve Jacobs: HEy ben
wendy despain: back
wendy despain: ok, any other questions about the books?
Table: Hey Ben!
wendy despain: deadlines are going to slide
Tracy Seamster: which timeframe were we looking at for ... okay :D
wendy despain: hey Ben and Dean!
Stephen E. Dinehart: Are we clear on the subject matter for each?
Tracy Seamster: I haven't sent you our outline because I don't think it's robust enough.
Tracy Seamster: But I don't know how much info you need for a rough outline.
wendy despain: for those of you still working on outlines, there's still some time to work on it. nothing is set in stone with publishers yet
Tracy Seamster: ok, thanks
wendy despain: we need to be able to tell if there's overlap in any chapters
Chris Pasley: Which of the two books is being done first? The genre one?
wendy despain: right now, it looks like the technique book may be first
wendy despain: but deadlines for both will probably stay the same for now
wendy despain: it may come down to which one moves ahead fastest, organically
wendy despain: Tracy - we need to be able to tell if two authors think they both need to cover the same ground
wendy despain: that way we can tell one they don't have to
Tracy Seamster: Ok. I'll send you what it looks like now, once I get to the office.
wendy despain: or make sure they give it a fresh spin
wendy despain: that's cool
wendy despain: I'm 95% sure we'll have a contract signed before next meeting
wendy despain: any other book questions? if not, I'll move ahead to #3
wendy despain: ok
wendy despain: Initiative Update/Report
wendy despain: this is actually something we used to do way back when this SIG first started
wendy despain: we'd send out a monthly little newsletter thing updating everyone on the mailing list about what initiatives are in the works and what's happening with them
wendy despain: the reports went by the wayside when we started having these monthly meetings
wendy despain: but back then most of our active members attended the meetings - and that's not the case anymore
wendy despain: our general mailing list has more than 200 people on it
wendy despain: so this month after this meeting I'm going to write up a good old fashioned report
wendy despain: so it's clear what I'm thinking the plan should be
wendy despain: but I'd love it if someone else wanted to take over the writing of this report
Stephen E. Dinehart: I've often wondered what ears are out there just listening! A report would be great.
wendy despain: I think it will help new members and lurkers see when there's something they might want to get involved in
Table: It's definitely worth doing, but it would be good if Wendy didn't have to shoulder the duty. On the other hand, the SIG Exec are the ones who usually have to go the extra mile. :(
wendy despain: I don't mind doing the first one or two, but it's definitely an area where someone new can step up and shine. It's where I got my start, in fact. :-)
Tracy Seamster: I think Wendy will be spreading herself thin.
Tracy Seamster: Ok.
Stephen E. Dinehart: Yep, I know jus witnessing the orginization of the SIG @ the GDC was impressive, and gave me a greate desire to get involoved. I imagine the same might be true of the report.
Stephen E. Dinehart: Good call, Wendy don't you sleep?
Steve Jacobs: PErhaps the first one should include a..."Did you find this usefull? We need someone to do it!!" message
wendy despain: I'll sleep when I'm dead :-)
Steve Jacobs: Catchy, should be a song
wendy despain: excellent idea Steve
wendy despain: re: the pitch
wendy despain: not the song :-)
Steve Jacobs: I assumed as much :-)
wendy despain: moving right along?
Tracy Seamster: heh
wendy despain: next on the agenda it says, "Credits Committee Liason"
wendy despain: and here's what I'm thinking on that
wendy despain: writers care deeply about credits
wendy despain: I think it's in our DNA
wendy despain: it's definitely somewhere in our pay checks :-)
wendy despain: the IGDA has a formal credits committee
Steve Jacobs: I thought there wasn't enough of it in the paychecks :-)
wendy despain: I think the writers SIG should have a formal position of Credits Committee Liason
wendy despain: someone whose job it is to touch base with them regularly and advocate for us
Steve Jacobs: Makes sense
Table: It should be someone on the committee but not on the exec.
Table: (ideally)
wendy despain: one of the founders of the committee is on our mailing list, but he's far too busy to advocate for writers specifically
wendy despain: i agree, Table
wendy despain: any volunteers for this position?
Stephen E. Dinehart: Yep, I'm having to fight for contract writers to get credit, and it isn't fun :(
Stephen E. Dinehart: I'll take it
wendy despain: Woohoo!
Steve Jacobs: excellent
wendy despain: if this were a real meeting, Stephen would have just been pelted with chocolate
Kim: Hi. Sorry I'm late.
Stephen E. Dinehart: SO what do I have to do exactly?
wendy despain: it's how I run my rl staff meetings
Tracy Seamster: Hi, Kim
wendy despain: I think first step is to get in touch with the people on the committee - explain who you are, why you're there
wendy despain: and get caught up on what they're doing right now
Steve Jacobs: Maybe ping the chair first??
wendy despain: (Welcome, Kim!)
Stephen E. Dinehart: Ok, do you have contacts?
wendy despain: I think there's a lot of info about them on the IGDA website
Table: (Hi Kim!)
Stephen E. Dinehart: Welcome Kim!
wendy despain: but easiest would be to email our general mailing list and say, "wait - who said they were on that committee?" :-)
Kim: Hi. Just scanning above to figure out the Table thing. :)
wendy despain: Table is not Chair...
Steve Jacobs: Re Credits, this just popped up in e-mail, and I mean just...
wendy despain: as I am now Chairing
Steve Jacobs: CMP Game Group’s Game Developer Research division announces “Game Developer Census”; a major new study determining, for the first time, the number of people working within video game development and publishing in North America.
Kim: Ah.
wendy despain: interesting, Steve
Steve Jacobs: The key findings of the Census include the facts that there are more than 39,700 professionals developing or publishing games within the United States, with more than 8100 professionals doing so across Canada. More than 46% of all of those creating games within the United States (around 18,300 employees) are based in California, with Washington (11.63%) and Texas (7.37%) rounding out the top three states. In total, seven states (also including New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Florida) have more than 1,000 game professionals working in them. Not included in the current Census estimate are game tools companies, game contracting/ services companies, PR, marketing, legal, and other external business services, and liaison or licensing divisions at larger media companies. Game Developer Research putatively puts this figure at around 15,000 across North America, though it intends to research this part of the market in detail at a later date.
wendy despain: I think we can move on to the next item, feel free to continue to talk about previous ones though
wendy despain: item #5) Game Writing Contest
Stephen E. Dinehart: Looks like an awesome informative report Steve!
Steve Jacobs: I'm sure CMP will charge a horrendous amount for the full report :-)
wendy despain: In discussion about the five year plan, the idea was put forward to do a game writing contest, as that's one of the ways traditional forms of writing work to improve the state of the art
Steve Jacobs: YEs, game writing conteest!!!
Tracy Seamster: All submissions must be in limerick?
wendy despain: and we're an excellent home for that sort of thing
wendy despain: only if you want to be taken seriously, Tracy. :-)
Steve Jacobs: Blood alchohol # of the author must be submitted
Steve Jacobs: as part of registration
Tracy Seamster: :)
wendy despain: we've actually had a volunteer to "executive produce" this effort.
Steve Jacobs: cool
Stephen E. Dinehart: That might scare away some great drunks.
wendy despain: A former coworker of mine - Dean Wall. He's actually here today as dbwall
Steve Jacobs: no, disqualifies the sober ones :-)
dbwall: not if the prize is maker's mark
wendy despain: say Hi to the scary crowd, Dean. :-)
dbwall: hi scary crwod
dbwall: err crowd
Tracy Seamster: Hi, Dean
Stephen E. Dinehart: So what is the "contest" and "prize" ? HI!
Kim: Hi Dean.
wendy despain: we need to have time to get this planned, organized, promoted and then give people a bit of time to actually write the submissions
wendy despain: so I'm guessing we won't have any submissions arriving before Spring
Stephen E. Dinehart: Maybe we should look for a non-linear short story written for games.
wendy despain: I think we could have several categories
Stephen E. Dinehart: Coll
Stephen E. Dinehart: Cool
Stephen E. Dinehart: :P
wendy despain: and this will definitely take more than one person to make it happen
Steve Jacobs: I liked Bioware's format from a few years ago
wendy despain: so if you'd like to be involved, I'm sure Dean would love the help
Stephen E. Dinehart: Agreed, what kind of reach are we looking for? I this for SIG members?
wendy despain: personally, I think it should be open to anybody to enter
wendy despain: but probably SIG members will judge
Steve Jacobs: BioWare asks for writers to create a Neverwinter Nights module to tell their story using the Aurora Toolset. There are a lot of options to consider when creating a module in the Toolset, but it is important to remember that BioWare will only be interested in the writing.When hiring writers, BioWare looks only at your writing; not the areas, not the special scripting, and not the combat. We evaluate only the characters, the dialogue, the plot, the non-linear structure, and the flow and pace of the story. To be eligible for this contest, please submit a Neverwinter Nights module that follows these parameters:</b> * A maximum of four characters. One player character and a maximum of three non-playable characters. * A maximum of 3500 words in total including dialogue and setting. * You must tell a complete story in the form of a traditional BioWare side-quest and account for different endings/ multiple resolutions. * You are only allowed to use one 4x4 area in the Toolset to tell your whole story. * No
Kim: I think anyone should enter as well, and we'll prompt them to join the SIG.
dbwall: i would hope it'd help promote the sig; i'd open it up
Steve Jacobs: Wouldn't have to be a specific toolset, but a limited level to tell a story is a nice idea
wendy despain: I think in the interest of time, we should take most of the gritty details to discussion in the mailing list
Kim: Would we ask them to use this toolset? Why not just give them a format to follow and take submissions in Word or Final Draft?
Steve Jacobs: full info here http://www.bioware.com/biozone/articles/2005_11_30_WritingContest/ and now I'll stop madame chairwoman
wendy despain: or set up another online chat for contest discussion specifically
wendy despain: :-)
wendy despain: before we move on - anything you'd like to say Dean? I don't mean to be talking over you
dbwall: nah, you're good
wendy despain: great
wendy despain: item #6 is the five year plan
wendy despain: I know Andy is still working on this, but he just finished crunching on the latest Harry Potter game
wendy despain: so SIG stuff wasn't at the top of his todo list :-)
wendy despain: I'm sure he'll be in touch with more detail about it later
wendy despain: item #7 New IGDA web software heads-up
wendy despain: IGDA as a whole is looking to upgrade their website with some cool new Web 2.0 features
wendy despain: like a "linked-in" sort of networking tool
wendy despain: and some other stuff
wendy despain: but they haven't even decided on a vendor/software set yet
Stephen E. Dinehart: I saw that announcement, looks great for our networks, but could get a bit crazy!
wendy despain: they just know they need to upgrade big-time and they're working on it. Timeline.... nothing substantial will happen for at least 3 months
Stephen E. Dinehart: According to what I read, we are actually starting a Linkedin group
wendy despain: well, nothing is set in stone yet. they don't know if it will actually be LinkedIn or another option
wendy despain: I just talked with Jason about it this morning to see if anything has been settled, and it seems not
Stephen E. Dinehart: cool
wendy despain: but I wanted to give everyone a heads up
wendy despain: more info will be available as they make real decisions :-)
wendy despain: but basically the organization as a whole has outgrown the cobbled-together solutions they have now
wendy despain: he assures me we won't have to rebuild our wiki though
wendy despain: they'll probably upgrade that to a newer version of the wikimedia software
wendy despain: which means we can add some cool plug-ins
wendy despain: but I'm getting ahead of myself and we're running out of time
wendy despain: Matters Arising
wendy despain: Rich isn't here, but I recently hassled him about our survey results
Kim: I have info on Write Club at FuturePlay.
wendy despain: He thinks we should have something concrete by the Austin conference
wendy despain: go Kim!
Kim: I think it's a go, but they will send an e-mail to confirm.
Kim: Richard will be sending me the banner as well.
Kim: I'll put out a call for writing exercises. :)
wendy despain: and you've run it before, right?
Kim: Yes, at the last FuturePlay.
Kim: With the help of Steve and Beth and Clint Hocking.
wendy despain: you could probably put out a call for donations for prizes, too
wendy despain: CRM may be willing to donate one of our books, for instance
Kim: I had software from Inspiration (flowchart/mapping software), which I'm sure I could get again.
Kim: The book would be good.
wendy despain: Steve J. Did you set that up once before?
Table: (Sorry, I have to dash - have fun everyone!)
wendy despain: or was that you, Table?
Tracy Seamster: aloha, Table
wendy despain: ah, he's outta here. Bye Chris.
Table: *waves*
Kim: Bye, Chris.
Steve Jacobs: Yes wendy I didi
Table: Email me any queries! I doubt I'll have time to read the mintutes...
Table: *waves again*
Steve Jacobs: All you really need to do is just ask and they'll provide
Kim: Do we have a contact there that I could e-mail?
Steve Jacobs: Can probably get them to either ship to me and/or the hotel
Kim: That's better. :)
Steve Jacobs: Sure Kim. Will track it down for you or ask myself, whatever you want
wendy despain: I think we'll skip Andy's item about volunteers since he's not here
Kim: I don't mind contacting them.
wendy despain: Steve Jacobs - can you give us an update on the script library concept?
Steve Jacobs: Been waiting to hear from ed sig. Susan gold is changing jobs and being surrounded by the fire in tahoe at the moment so I haven't pushed :-)
wendy despain: ok
Steve Jacobs: Won't let it slide much longer though
wendy despain: at least one of the publishers I'm talking to has expressed interest in linking to the library from the book
wendy despain: er... pushing people to go to the script library
Steve Jacobs: Should have one by the time the publisher needs it
wendy despain: for more samples etc., which I think is a good idea
wendy despain: :-)
wendy despain: I think if we can get it started and show people it's not the end of the world to release the script, (or parts of it) we'll get more submissions
wendy despain: Moving right along - the date of the next meeting
wendy despain: is Thursday better than Wednesday?
wendy despain: July 25 or 26?
Steve Jacobs: either works
Steve Jacobs: gotte fly
Steve Jacobs: later
wendy despain: bye Steve
Steve Jacobs: ...poof
Tracy Seamster: You get more folks on Thurs, it seems
Kim: Either works.
wendy despain: I think you're right, Tracy
wendy despain: Let's call it the 26th and adjust the week before if necessary
wendy despain: ok. is there any other business?
Tracy Seamster: Nay!
wendy despain: heh
wendy despain: doesn't sound like it
wendy despain: I'll bang the gavel then - at 5 mins past the hour
wendy despain: not bad, considering how long the agenda was today!
Tracy Seamster: Great job :)
wendy despain: thanks everyone for coming
Kim: Thanks, Wendy.
Tracy Seamster: Have a nice day, all y'all!
Kim: See ya.
Stephen E. Dinehart: By!
wendy despain: see Dean? that wasn't so bad ;-)
dbwall: especially when multi-tasking
Stephen E. Dinehart: Great stuff, I'm glad I tuned in.