The following is a contribution from The New Gamer guest contributor SirMuffinMan. If you missed his Day One report, you can find it right here.

Saturday

A solemn reminder of careers passed.

Ready for another exciting day, I entered the same room that I was seated in last night for the panel named "The State of Game Journalism". Needless to say, since I'm writing an article at this very moment this was arguably the event I most anticipated. After last night's crushing realisation that I'm not a programmer, I was ready to be brainwashed into following almost any career path. So, obtaining a seat at the front of the dojo/lecture theatre (I had to maul a small child to get that seat I assure you), the panellists were introduced. They were all from a variety of backgrounds and different variations of journalists. One wrote game articles for a nationally-syndicated newspaper. Another was deputy editor at Hyper Magazine, Australia's largest multi-platform gaming magazine. The two remaining men were both freelance writers who were published almost exclusively on the Internet. Unfortunately, I can't remember their names, so you'll have to push down the sadness of not knowing that for now.

In a nutshell, the content was about the various streams of journalism and how to get into them if you have an interest. I learnt that it is fairly simple to submit things that you have written to various editors, if only to get standard freelance positions. I was very excited at the conclusion of the panel, and that journalism seemed like an especially promising career, though not exactly profitable. The panellists went through about their standard procedures for reviewing a game, like how long they usually played it and how it was scored. A unanimous acknowledgement by the panel was something in reviewing society called the '7 out of 10' mentality, in which an average game is given 7 out of 10 or 70% etc, instead of the truly average value of 5/50%. There was even some discussion on the value of "scores" on games. It turns out that most reviewers find them redundant, and that they are only put in to appease the people who read the media. In fact, one of the freelance journalists recalled an incident in which a few of his articles had to have scores added to them when they were picked up by another site, because people refused to read them without a nice, neat score at the end.

Teaching a writer about games = games journalist.
Teaching a gamer about writing = fansite.
Just so you know.

There were a few "secrets" revealed regarding the industry. Being the gossiping, intelligence-gathering, excitable teen I am, I picked up on all of this. Standard practices, like the selling of magazine covers (with a particular game on the front) to the highest bidder is standard practice. I also learnt that Microsoft sponsored a lot of people to go to E3, airfares included. A few doubts were raised at why they would do this (as though to try to get a positive word from the journalists being "sponsored"), but it was assured to us that it was done by Microsoft simply to raise awareness of their numerous products at E3. The amount of international material in "Official Australian" <insert console here> magazines was staggering, with the panellists declaring that the Official Australian Playstation Magazine is about 70% UK content and only 30% Australian, and this is apparently to reduce both cost and risk. I was amazed at the amount of things I learnt about the industry, but I found it to interest me greatly also. I even got the courage to ask a question about what editors like in their reviews, so as to increase my chances the next time I submit some work to a deputy editor and such. They were very helpful, and game especially interesting feedback in this regard. Definitely one of the better events, especially when US gaming magazines were referred to as "cheerleaders for the [gaming] industry"!

Following this was the case study of an educational, non-commercial game (work in progress) about homelessness. Essentially, the game was shown and professional developers offered their suggestions on improvement. Needless to say, the dreams of the conceptual designer clashed with the no-bullshit logic of the developers, and with extremely amusing results. Though she (the designer) had been constantly brought back to reality in terms of the limits one has when creating a game, she still had all these absurd ideas, like a linear game with a non-linear environment, things like that. This session was heavily based on game structure, and the task of trying to make a game educational and... well, educational (because since when is a game about the horrors of homelessness going to try to be entertaining?!), as well as being reasonably well-structured seemed very difficult. Regardless, not much progress was made by the entire panel and I don't think us non-homeless people will be playing this game when it is released by the government.

Sunday

I was extremely eager for the first section of the day in which I hoped to gain some real insight into the industry. The title "Game Dev Grads Tell All" sounded suspiciously like a talk show, but I battled with my fears of fat transsexual strippers, and attended the (you guessed it) panel.

I honestly hoped to get some positive news from this panel and I wasn't really given that. Of the four people on the panel, only one had followed the "traditional" method of education: "School, University, Job". The others had attended short courses or even switched from multiple institutions which focused on specialisation. Once again, I had my childhood dreams shattered as I sat there, dejectedly, listening to all the things needed to even have a chance at getting a career in the gaming industry. Things like "hard work" and "dedication" were enough to scare me, but the phrases "teach yourself" and "make a good demo" almost sent me screaming out of the room. Honestly, the only thing I learnt from that panel was that if I wanted to get a career programming games, I'd have to get transferred to a specialised institution and excel while there, and that's definitely not me. However, there was a lot of interesting information being passed around, which meant that there was one guy constantly bitching about one of these "specialised institutions" and informing the audience that he has harmful information that he "could not divulge". As you can tell, I was getting a little pessimistic about the whole thing, especially when a boy in the audience asked a question, and it was revealed that he was a map designer for Epic Games for Unreal Tournament 2K4! I felt completely out of place in these situations, like a spectator who is in too deep.

Since the next two workshops were dull and uneventful, I'll be brief. The first workshop was an introduction to console hacking. The first half of this workshop honestly felt like a university lecture. I learnt the basic electronics and methods of a modchip, and that was about it. Thankfully, the second half was much more entertaining. This guy had modified a Commodore 64 and its synth chip to play beats of music, using the keys as you would a normal keyboard. This was followed by showing a program he made which performs a similar task on the GameBoy Advance. If anyone out there is interested in the program, you can check it out at http://looper.mccormick.cx/, though keep in mind that it's pretty technical, and you'll need to either burn it as a ROM onto a GBA cartridge, or use a GBA emulator of some sort.

The final seminar of the weekend was one based on artificial intelligence. Once again, it felt like a lecture of some sort. I mean, even though it was broken up by showing basic AI programs as well as a discussion on how little progress has been made in the field of AI in the past fifty years, I didn't need this kind of stuff pounded into my head, especially on a Sunday! I will admit, though, that it was pretty interesting, if not revolutionary or mind-blowing.

Poor Harvey Smith.

Finally, E3.1b! Largely a collection of the games and concepts displayed over the past three days (many of which I missed since multiple events and demos ran at the same time during the course of the weekend), it was pretty interesting. A lot of work was obviously put into this, with some of the demos available looking very slick indeed. The ps2dev.org guys were there, uploading exploits onto people's memory cards, the C64 guy was playing speedcore on a large set of speakers. Nobody was playing the game about the homeless girl, and everyone was harassing Harvey Smith. Oh yes, the past three days compacted into one big nostalgic moment. I admit that I became a little teary-eyed as I watched this lovely melting-pot of developers, both professional and amateur, coming together to bitch about the industry.

So, I've been through what were possibly the three most enlightening days of my life. While I was trying to take off the Red Band from Hell with a nearby chainsaw, I began to think about how much I had learnt in the past few days. Underneath the layer of innocence, the videogames industry is full of life. I learnt a great deal about the inner workings of the industry, as well as a lot of harsh truths. In a way, I would say that conferences like these are far superior to events like E3, because E3 is simply mass-marketing with no discussion. Sure, you can go to these events and see a lot of pretty games and get free t-shirts, but what does that mean when you don't even know how the industry operates? There is a whole world of developers out there who are always thinking of new things and pushing the boundaries of game design, and independent conferences just like these are a perfect way for them to be heard. As games come to be more widely accepted in the community as a medium that's not "just for kids", the industry will definitely be going places within the next few years, and I am eager to see what innovations will be brought to us during this time.

If you really are interested in one or more specific fields of game development, these conferences would be perfect for you to attend. There is so much you can learn about, even if you do have to tolerate a few bigheaded idiots in the audience running their mouths about their trips to Hong Kong and about how the industry is so different in other places, as though we weren't already aware. If you're a developer, if you're interested in any part of the industry other than the polished product which reaches your local EBGames, or even if you'd rather talk to an actual programmer instead of Vicki from Public Relations at Bungie, these events are just your kind of thing.

Oh, and make sure that when you go and see a little kid eating an ice cream and whining about his hands being sticky during a seminar, don't treat him as an inferior being. He's probably a developer.