The Miyamoto Keynote, Or, Why I Needed A Better Pass

The GDC has one stark contrast from the usual, big gaming expos. Mainly that the "C" stands for Conference as opposed to Convention. Two words, significant different meanings. The latter implies an unstructured gathering, or a social event, while the latter, the one in question, is a little more uniformed than that. Essentially, it means big business is supposed to go down. Obviously, you don't want any faceless person from the street invading your company's (or in this case, companies') space with their own ideas on why your corporate culture could use a little shaking. So what does the GDC do to filter out the less privilege?

They set the cost exponentially high.

Being one of the more meager individuals myself, I missed out on a lot of opportunities... but the trip was short notice, and I'm surprised I was able to gather up the 1000+ dollars it took just to go, so I'm a little less bitter about not affording to see the unsung heroes talk about things that interest me that would bore anyone outside of our industry. That's fine, I suppose, I understand what geekdom of any sort does to the ones who "don't get it." What concerns me are the ones who really should.

I don't need to go in depth about who Miyamoto is, so I won't. I know the lot of you know about the Keynote, so I won't go into much about that, but I do want to touch on the coverage it's gotten, pointing a finger mostly at the usually great 1up.com. Generally, every where else, the coverage was alright, merely word for word accounts, but in an entirely journalistic fashion, the 1up article features joke after insult after slam between every comment the legendary designer had to say... The driving point for 1up: Get to the announcements. And it's not just them, they were the only ones being blatant about it. Pretty much every journalistic blog and site made at least one mention, comment, or inquiry to Reggie on if there would be any big news, announcements or anything worth being genuinely excited about with the Miyamoto keynote, which begs the question: When did his keynote have anything to do with announcements?

The GDC, as previously mentioned, is a conference. It's a business meeting. Miyamoto's keynote was never about any E3 sized epic announcement. It was about laying out Nintendo's business strategy in hopes of educating others within there industry, and what it means to their collective futures, and for the most part, that's exactly what was delivered.

There's been a lot of other press lately on developer's worried about the GDC becoming to mainstream. With E3 gone, It's no longer their safe haven from the gaming paparazzi, and the flat out disrespectful treatment the Miyamoto keynote receive is proof of that. Penny-Arcade's Jerry "Tycho" Holkin's made some great points on the issue as well, but that's for him to tell you. I'm not saying the GDC should be barred from the media, but we have to remember the purpose of the show... It's not 'for' us, it's for them. It's ok that we're there, and it's nice of them to have us, but we need to be quiet and let them talk.

First Entry; Back from the GDC

Hello.

Consider this the welcome mat to The Digital Relay. That warm, fuzzy thing beneath your feet that tells you of the certain kind of class that exists beyond the door infront of you... upscale, yet comfortable and familiar. With a refresh feeling of confidence you go to turn the knob... and see that you're locked out.

Seriously, this is a pretty sad attempt to reassure you of the great things that are coming in the future, yet reminding you that the road is still pretty bumpy. I set up the domain and hosting rather hastily before leaving for the conference, so I only have a few articles to show off my writing finesse, if you will, before posting up my more serious workings, listings of the projects I've worked on, and various other tidbits. The site should be taking on a little more shape in the coming week, seeing as the GDC was, conviently enough, scheduled the week before my spring break. While I'm doing things behind the curtain, be sure to look back here for random musings about the trip, my experiences, and other thoughts on the gaming industry.

Just sit back folks, our reguarly scheduled programming will begin momentarily.