Geek Gestalt

For years, Will Wright has been just about the biggest name in video game development. It's hardly necessary to recite his resume, but just in case you haven't been paying attention, he's the creator of SimCity and its many direct spinoffs, The Sims franchise--which long ago surpassed 100 million units sold--and most, recently, Spore.

But last spring, not long after Spore's much-anticipated release, Wright announced he was leaving Electronic Arts, the game's publisher, for the greener pastures of a start-up called Stupid Fun Club. Though the new venture is backed by EA, it is independent. And Wright, for the first time since he sold Maxis (the developer of Spore, The Sims, and SimCity) to EA, is out on his own.

Will Wright recently left EA for his start-up, Stupid Fun Club. He is now talking for the first time about what the new company will be working on.

(Credit: Electronic Arts)

For months, Stupid Fun Club's mission as a company has been all but a mystery. And only now are details emerging about what the small company, most of whose employees have worked with Wright for years, is up to.

However, as Wright told CNET News' sister site GameSpot in April, "This started many years ago actually, with friends I met doing Robot Wars together. That's when we originally coined the name, because it's kind of ridiculous to invest hundreds of hours building these things and then destroy them. But it's great fun, and it's really stupid."

On its Web site, the 12-person company is still cryptic, saying only that, "The Stupid Fun Club is an entertainment development studio. The ideas developed here can be manifested in video games, online environments, storytelling media, and fine home care products."

But it is becoming clear that Wright is looking to branch out beyond games. For example, in a press release that went out Wednesday morning, it was announced that Wright will be in New York keynoting next February at the online games-oriented conference, the Engage Expo, which will run concurrently with the world famous Toy Fair. Indeed, Wright's presentation will be titled, "The Evolution of Entertainment, A Toy's Place," and is expected to examine "toys, play, and the product development process from a new perspective."

On Tuesday, over at VentureBeat, Dean Takahashi caught up with Wright for a Q&A, and got the master designer to spill some of the beans about the company's projects, at least two of which Wright said will be games.

VentureBeat: How do you like getting out on your own?

Will Wright: It's fun. I'm able to work on projects that are much broader than I could at Electronic Arts.

VB: What have you said about them so far. Are they toy related?

WW: One of them is toy related. The others aren't. We are looking at a lot of different industries. There's the web. Toys. We're not restricted to one type of entertainment. We're kind of looking for ideas that cross a lot of different boundaries.

VB: Are you thinking of products like Webkinz, where there's a plush toy and then a code to go to a Web site?

WW: Every product that we are working on has a web component. The web is like the connective tissue in entertainment today....

...VB: What are some examples of things you like now that point in this direction of a new kind of entertainment? I've mentioned Webkinz. What appeals to you?

WW: It's interesting to look at media. I have my Tivo at home. I have my Amazon account. I download video on demand. At the same time, there are all of these huge interesting web communities forming around traditional properties. I am interested in the online communities around popular TV shows. The stuff the participants are doing are very extraordinary. The community around The Lost show on TV is one of my favorites. It's awe inspiring.

For some of the folks at Havok, playing Left 4 Dead together is a great way of team-building and bonding, and all without alcohol. Increasingly, companies are encouraging their employees to play games together as a way of bonding.

(Credit: Valve)

To thank him for letting them spend the last two hours of their workweek playing video games on the company dime, Kevin Grinnell's employees often single him out and shoot him in the head.

To be fair, the employees at Grinnell Computers aren't firing real weapons at their boss but are instead releasing the stresses of their week in a multiplayer online game known as Combat Arms.

Most Fridays for the last couple of months, the six employees of the Beaumont, Texas-based company have been encouraged to spend from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. blasting away at the online first-person shooter from Nexon as a team-building exercise.

It's about "bonding," Grinnell said, when asked what the benefit to his company is of paying his team to play games. "We laugh until we cry when we play these games. We can do the thing where we have company dinners, and company functions, but those really aren't stress relief. At times, they can be more stress than they're worth."

Added employee Lee Mims, "You don't get to shoot your boss very much. It's kind of nice when you get a head shot on your boss."

At Grinnell Computers in Beaumont, Texas, employees play Combat Arms, from Nexon, with their boss, and even with clients.

(Credit: Nexon)

Fans of the hit NBC show "The Office" may well remember an episode from season three called "The coup." In that episode, one of the main characters, Jim Halpert, had recently joined a different office of the paper supplies company he works for, only to fall haplessly into the branch's regular team-building sessions of the war game Call of Duty.

The scene may have been cooked up for its comedic effect, but it's no fiction that companies are turning more and more to video games as a way of building bridges between employees, or even between employees and management. And while there may be hierarchies to follow during the workday, it seems like chains of command often go out the window once co-workers get their game on.

That's a sentiment very familiar to Ross O'Dwyer, who runs the professional services group at the games middleware company, Havok, where for the last seven months or so, employees and management alike are engaging in regular evening games of the cooperative first-person shooter game Left 4 Dead.

Riffing on the famous Las Vegas marketing term, O'Dwyer said that, "I'm managing the guys, but at the same time, all bets are off when playing Left 4 Dead...What's said and done when playing Left 4 Dead is left in the game."

O'Dwyer said that after an employee started espousing the virtues of Left 4 Dead, several people in his office began playing the game using a single account that was "floating around."

Soon, though, as many as 12 employees had their own fully licensed copies of the game and now, many evenings are spent in the office with the team deep into Left 4 Dead sessions. And despite his status as their boss, during those sessions, O'Dwyer has found none of the respect he gets during the work day. Nor does he expect it.

"There's absolutely no lines of authority there," he said. "If I'm crap, if I'm the worst player on the team, that's the way it is. I will bow down to the...IT guy, who may be the best Left 4 Dead player on the team. We'll all fall in line, and I think that's great."

To O'Dwyer, the benefits of gathering his team for evenings of video gaming are clear: it's a great way of building cohesion.

"The CEO was in and he thought it was great to see so many people playing games," O'Dwyer said, "and actually spending more time together, and letting the barriers down a little bit."

Of course, while the folks at Havok are getting their game on in the evenings, at Grinnell Computers, it's a Friday afternoon thing.

Company owner Grinnell said that he offers his employees a choice: spend the last two hours of each Friday--when things are slow at his network installation and repair firm and the phones aren't ringing--playing Combat Arms on the clock, or take those same two hours off, unpaid.

And while he said he doesn't twist anyone's arm to play, there's no doubt that employees are going to want to get paid for their time.

Eating their own dog food
As one might expect, examples of companies in the video game business encouraging employees to play games together are easy to find. But while it may be a relatively new dynamic for colleagues to play multiplayer games as team building, there's long been a tradition of game playing in the office, said Min Kim, the vice president of marketing at Combat Arms publisher Nexon.

"People have been playing games in the office for years, with (single-player) Flash games and fantasy football," Kim said. "Games like Combat Arms are very social in that people are playing together--(which) builds team morale."

And Kim added that he thinks of multiplayer video games like Combat Arms as akin to playing basketball or golf, or even going out for a drink, as a way for colleagues to learn more about each other. But Combat Arms, for one, costs nothing, he pointed out, so properly managed, it is nothing but a net positive for companies.

To Kim Pallister, the director of content planning at Intel's visual computing group, it's a matter of getting more employees to take part in the very genre that pays the group's bills.

"We do quarterly gaming nights where we'll...get over a hundred people participating," Pallister said. "We'll set up...high-end PC gaming rigs for multiplayer, and we'll have consoles set up for things like Wii Sports, Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, etc. It's not only good for team-building, it gives everyone a chance to 'eat our own dog food' and see how games play on our hardware."

At the giant video game publisher Electronic Arts, a similar scene played out as a way of getting an in-development game closer to completion.

According to Robin Hunicke, then a senior member of the team making EA's Boom Blox, "The Boom Blox and Boom Blox Bash Party teams did round-robin tournaments with their QA teams during development to encourage playing the game."

Hunicke said that one purpose was to look for bugs in the games specific to multiplayer sessions, but another was to "improve cross-team communication."

The lead designer won both tournaments, Hunicke said.

No alcohol needed
In a recent advice column in The New York Times, Eilene Zimmerman addressed the question of whether it's a good idea for co-workers to drink alcohol if everyone else, including their boss, is imbibing.

Zimmerman's conclusion: Be very wary of mixing work and alcohol, even after-hours.

To O'Dwyer, playing video games with colleagues after work is a much better--and quicker--way to go, particularly because of the bonding that comes with trying to go after a common enemy the way he and his employees do in Left 4 Dead.

"You don't have to spend hours, and you don't need alcohol," O'Dwyer said. "You don't need to be half-twisted (drunk) before people let their guards down."

And that's important in an environment where every time the phone rings, it means trouble is calling.

"It's great stress relief," said Grinnell of Grinnell Computers. "Our business is incredibly stressful. People don't call us unless something bad has happened."

But Grinnell added that his company's Friday afternoon Combat Arms games have grown to include both the firm's outside lawyer and even one of its clients. And while the company already had a strong relationship with the client, Grinnell said playing the game together has only enhanced the mutual understanding.

"Yeah, we've gotten to know them better," Grinnell joked, "especially when they talk smack and you get to give them a head shot."

At GDC Thursday, Kristian Segerstrale, CEO of PlayFish, one of the most successful publishers of games for Facebook and MySpace, talked about five lessons he thinks the mainstream games industry can learn from social games.

(Credit: PlayFish)

SAN FRANCISCO--While Nintendo's Wii continues to outpace expectations and certain games are making fortunes for their publishers, a strong argument can be made that the hottest segment of the video games industry is one that is still in its infancy: social games.

These titles, which are popping up by the bushelful on platforms like Facebook and MySpace, as well as on Apple's iPhone, are garnering user numbers that would previously have been thought impossible. And in a deep recession, when even the strongest console manufacturers and biggest game publishers are being forced to shut down projects and lay off workers, people have no choice but to sit up and take notice.

At the Game Developers Conference on Thursday, Kristian Segerstrale, the CEO and co-founder of PlayFish, one of the most successful publishers of social games, upped the ante, stating his case for how the mainstream video games industry can learn from his side of the business.

In his talk, "Five lessons from social games that matter to the rest of the games industry," Segerstrale argued that while the nature of the social games business differs significantly from that followed for many years by the more traditional, retail-oriented publishers, times are changing, customers' behaviors and expectations are shifting rapidly, and the winning model may well be the new one.

PlayFish's roster of games, including the mega-hit Who Has the Biggest Brain is illustrative of the popularity games can achieve on services like Facebook. Segerstrale said PlayFish has had 60 million players, averages about 25 million monthly users and 5 million daily players, and currently has 5 of the 10 most popular applications on Facebook. And by itself, Who Has the Biggest Brain has been played a total of 500 million times by 15 million people, he said.

With numbers like that, it's clear why Segerstrale feels he has some lessons to teach the rest of the games industry. And while the traditional retail games model has been relatively unchanged for decades and remains strong today, he said he sees signs that the Electronic Arts, Activisions, and Take-Twos of the world, not to mention the countless other game developers and publishers out there, may need to rethink their methodology.

One harbinger of that need for change is evident even within the traditional games business itself, he pointed out. He said that Nintendo established the Wii as a sleeper hit by exploiting a wide range of people's desire to be social with friends and family. And he explained that Nintendo itself is well aware of this, as evinced by ads for the Wii that show groups of friends playing gleefully. Yet the real estate in the ads devoted to showing the games themselves is minimal; it's the image of the social activity that sells the Wii.

"This is about you and your real-world relationships," Segerstrale said, "which is ultimately much more important than anything that happens between you and your screen...That's why you're playing. You're playing together, not because you're trying to beat the boss in level 10."

The OnLive system will be shown with 16 games from a series of major publishers during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week. OnLive is aiming to upset the traditional video game business model.

(Credit: OnLive)

SAN FRANCISCO--Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, look out. Your traditional video game console business model may be in danger.

It's too early to tell how much danger, of course, but a start-up called OnLive announced a brand-new game distribution system Monday night that, if it works as planned, could change the games game forever.

OnLive, which was started by WebTV founder Steve Perlman and former Eidos CEO Mike McGarvey, is aiming to launch a system--seven years in the works--that will digitally distribute first-run, AAA games from publishers like Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Atari, and others, all at the same time as those titles are released into retail channels. The system is designed to allow players to stream on-demand games at the highest quality onto any Intel-based Mac or PC running XP or Vista, regardless of how powerful the computer.

The system will also stream games directly to a TV via a small plug-in device, and players can use a custom wireless controller as well as VoIP headsets in conjunction with it.

The OnLive system includes the ability to use wireless controllers similar to those available for standard console systems like the Xbox or PS3. It also has a small micro-console that will allow games to be streamed directly to a TV.

(Credit: OnLive)

Based here in San Francisco, OnLive timed its formal unveiling to this week's Game Developers Conference, where it will be showcasing the technology and 16 initial games it will launch with.

The service is currently in a closed beta, but is expected to go into a public beta this summer, and to launch this winter.

According to Perlman, OnLive's technology will make it possible to stream the games in such a manner--high quality, no matter what kind of system the user has--by virtue of a series of patented and patent-pending compression technologies. And instead of requiring users to download the games, OnLive will host them all and stream them from a series of the highest-end servers. Users will have only to download a 1MB plug-in to get the service up and running.

OnLive is hoping to capture a significant portion of the video game market share. In February, the industry posted one of its strongest months ever, with total sales of $1.47 billion, up 10 percent from a year ago. And in February, the Xbox, PS3 and Wii accounted for total sales of 1.42 million units.

The OnLive system aims to bring cost-efficient instant and high-quality video games streamed to Macs and PCs.

(Credit: OnLive)

An intended benefit of this infrastructure, Perlman and McGarvey explained, is that users will be able to play streamed games via OnLive with no lag, so long as their Internet connections meet minimum thresholds. For standard-definition play, that would mean a minimum 1.5 Mbps connection, and for high-def, 5 Mbps.

That's obviously an essential feature, as it's hard to imagine anyone paying for a service like OnLive, no matter what games are on offer, if the user experience is inadequate. But the company promises that as long as users have the requisite minimum hardware, operating systems, and Internet connections, they should be able to have seamless play.

The upshot of this infrastructure model, Perlman said, is that OnLive is somewhat future-proof, meaning that players won't have to upgrade anything to keep on playing games on the system years into the future. Instead, the upgrades will happen on the back-end, with the company regularly boosting the power of the servers it uses to host and stream the games.

And while demos always have to be taken with a grain of salt, CNET News did see a real-time presentation of OnLive on at least two different computers and on a HD TV. Game play was as smooth and lag-free as advertised

So far, OnLive has yet to make its business model public, but what seems likely is some form of subscription service, where players will pay a monthly access fee and then pay additional costs, depending on whether they want to play games once, or buy them for permanent play.

The company also said that it will probably offer free trials of some or all of the games it offers, allowing consumers to decide whether they want to buy. OnLive recognizes that some players may use those trials as a way of deciding whether to buy such games from traditional retail stores, but Perlman and McGarvey suggested that as long as people are interacting with the OnLive system, they'll be happy.

It's clear that OnLive is modeling its system at least somewhat after Microsoft's hit Xbox Live service. So fans of multiplayer games won't be on their own. Rather, they'll have full access to multiplayer features of games built for them. And another interesting social feature is one that will allow users to digitally watch others play games in real time. The company thinks that users will find it exciting to watch the best players in action, even if they themselves are only kibitzing.

Perlman said that the concept of spectating in online game systems is, in and of itself, not new, but that OnLive presents the first time players will be able to look in on what others are playing without owning the games themselves.

Another social feature in the Xbox Live mold is what are called "brag clips." These are essentially 15-second replays of game action that players can share with friends if they want to show off their prowess. This is possible, Perlman said, because OnLive is continually recording the last 15 seconds of action.

The OnLive system includes social features such as 'brag clips,' which allow players to share 15-second videos of game action they want to brag about.

(Credit: OnLive)

All told, McGarvey said, OnLive offers a full suite of standard social features including friends, clans, rankings, leader boards, tournaments and more.

From the outset, OnLive isn't partnering with any of the first-party publishers--Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, meaning that franchises like "Halo" or "Zelda" won't be available. And that makes sense, since those companies are hardly likely to want to sign up with a company whose very technology may obviate their longstanding business models.

That means, Perlman and McGarvey acknowledged, that many players who sign up for OnLive's service will still maintain their consoles, and continue to buy games for them. At least for the rest of the current generation of machines, they said. But come the next generation, all bets are off, they said.

And for the nine--to date--third-party publishers who have committed to being involved, McGarvey said, OnLive presents a much more efficient and profitable distribution model than the standard retail structure. That's because the system is all digital, cutting down on physical distribution costs, and because it is designed to eradicate piracy and second-hand sales, both of which are banes of the publishers' existence.

Indeed, McGarvey said that OnLive has gotten strong commitments of titles from the nine publishers. That means, added Perlman, that the planned launch this winter could be accompanied by the most titles of any new gaming system launch in history.

In addition, McGarvey said publishers are eager for the kind of raw data that OnLive can provide about players' usage of the games, including whether they like or dislike games, how much they play, how they play and so on. That data is hard for publishers to collect with traditional consoles, he argued.

Clearly, OnLive has set an ambitious goal: dethroning the console makers as the game industry's kings. And as is always the case with brand-new and publicly unavailable technology, it is far too early to know whether the company or the service can live up to that goal. But if its demo is any indication, OnLive is definitely onto something, and given that the company has been in stealth mode for so many years, it's possible that the console makers will be caught off guard.

Love "Spore" but wish you had more creative control than just being able to make your own creatures, spaceships, buildings and other objects? Well, now you can.

Electronic Arts has released a "Spore" API, which for the first time will make it possible for fans of the hit evolution game from legendary game designer Will Wright to create their own applications.

Maxis has released the 'Spore' API, making it possible for the games community to create their own applications.

(Credit: Electronic Arts/Maxis)

"We're working on some features to help the community create their own 'Spore' applications," EA's Maxis studio--which made "Spore"--wrote on a new site, Sporeapi.com, aimed at developers. "We're collecting these features into a web-based 'Spore' API. Using simple web services, you can access our huge database of creations and creators."

As a way to help inspire people to begin using the API, Maxis has also announced a contest to see what the best creations might be. Maxis said on its site that a few examples of what people might come up with are a "display of your own creations;" a "trophy case of challenge winners;" a "visualization of current most popular new creations;" and a "scenic diorama of Sporecast creations."

We're interested in seeing what kind of application or widget you can develop, utilizing our massive database of creations, Sporecasts, and player information.

Create your app from scratch, or download the source code from one of the sample apps we've posted on the API page. You can use this source as a reference or template. Head over to our forum to discuss ideas!

Winners of the contest could score an Nvidia graphics cars, a copy of both "Spore" and its recent "Galactic Adventures" expansion.

And while those prizes may not be worth all that much, Maxis is likely betting that fans of the game will participate in the contest for the simple pleasure of seeing what they can build with the API and in the hope of being recognized by the "Spore" community for their creativity.

InstantAction is a new service launching Tuesday that offers publishers and game developers a new model for getting their work in front of players, all without having to go through retail outlets. The service is starting with nine games, but it can support nearly any game.

(Credit: InstantAction.com)

Game developers looking for a new way to get their work in front of large audiences may soon have a new tool that could allow them to bypass the restrictive and risk-averse world of retailers.

A new service, known as InstantAction, is set to officially launch Tuesday. It aims to free developers, both inside and outside big publishers, from the traditional distribution constraints of selling PC- or console-based games.

The idea behind InstantAction is to provide developers with an end-to-end process for putting their games online, making them browser-based and making it possible for players to easily join their friends' games at any time, without the need for a proprietary service like Microsoft's Xbox Live.

And unlike the growing number of casual games, 2D virtual worlds, and Flash-based virtual-world platforms, InstantAction promises to support complete versions of just about any full-scale, or AAA, game a publisher wants to make available online. Brett Sayler, vice president of technology for InstantAction, said the service offers the first high-quality 3D games on the Web.

While the service's technology could, in theory, support a game like "World of Warcraft" or any number of titles from a publisher like Electronic Arts, it's more likely that, in the early going, at least, the service would be utilized by less-established publishers.

"The people this would likely appeal to are major publishers and game developers who," said Sayler, "are unsatisfied with the gaming-(distribution) options available right now."

Good match for Atari?
As a hypothetical example, Sayler pointed to Atari, which, in its current iteration--wholly owned by Infogrames, it is not the high-flying company it once was--has struggled to find substantial traction with retailers and consumers.

"Atari is a well-known brand with good (titles)," Sayler said, "fighting a losing battle at retail."

Working with InstantAction, Sayler said, still speaking hypothetically, Atari could make some or all of its games available to consumers via the Web in a matter of months, bypassing big-box retailers and game-centric franchises in the process and, therefore, being able to concentrate more on building its games.

Another advantage that InstantAction offers its partners, Sayler said, is browser-based. Because the games are played--and authenticated--through a Web browser, they are intended to be much harder, if not impossible, to pirate, meaning that publishers can stop worrying about digital rights management. That, said Sayler, is something that has bedeviled PC game makers.

On March 23, thousands of video game developers will stream into San Francisco's Moscone Center for the 2009 Game Developers Conference.

This annual gathering brings together the people who make the games that have been so entertaining to millions of people--the Rock Bands, Grand Theft Autos, World of Warcrafts and so on. But as the leading developers conference in the world, it doesn't just focus on $60 games for the Xbox, PlayStation 3, or Wii. It also has summits that delve deep into the issues involved in making games for mobile devices, in creating virtual worlds, casual games, independent games, and more.

For the last few years, GDC was run by Jamil Moledina, who has now moved on to EA Partners, an arm of Electronic Arts. This year, for the first time, the conference will be run by its new director, Meggan Scavio.

For Scavio, her first time running GDC comes just as the general economy is nose-diving, presenting her and the conference itself with the challenge of staying relevant even as budgets are tightening and people are losing their jobs.

Yet, the video games industry has so far managed to stay strong, with companies like Microsoft and Nintendo, as well as some publishers, showing impressive holiday sales results, even as the rest of the retail economy suffered.

Meggan Scavio is the new director of the Game Developers Conference.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

Now, with GDC just six weeks away, Scavio sat down with CNET News to talk about how she'll run the conference, about the state of the video games industry, and how GDC can keep its lofty position as perhaps the world's most important games confab.

Disclaimer: I am on the advisory board of the Worlds in Motion summit, one of the one-day events taking place at GDC this year.

Q: How do you expect that GDC 09 will be different than in previous years?
Meggan Scavio: I'm calling it a back to basics year. I want to return the focus to the developers. I want people to continue to find value in it, so we've made a couple of changes this year. We had a new process for submissions, where the GDC advisory board used a two-phase process. That made it a lot more difficult to get sessions approved, which hopefully improved the quality. We're also reducing the number of sessions a bit to create a shared experience for the community, so more people are attending the same sessions. Hopefully they'll be talking about the sessions, and feel that they've all experienced somewhat of the same thing at GDC. We're also adding meeting rooms where after each session is over, if they want to continue the conversation, they can move to this other room and they can keep talking. That just keeps building a community and making it feel smaller than it actually is, because GDC has gotten so much bigger over the years.

What has the attendance been?
Scavio: It was 18,000 last year, and we're hoping for 18,000 again this year. And all signs point to that. It's a little early to tell, and I'm not going to get too excited, and I'm going to knock on wood, but so far so good.

You're the first new official director after Jamil Moledina, who was in that role for several years. How do you imagine that you'll run GDC differently?
Scavio: I don't think I will, really. This is my 10th year working on GDC and there's a core GDC value that follows all of us. I believe in that, and I've seen it work, and I'll continue that. It really is about the attendees and the audience, and the advisory board, and I don't plan on changing that.

For the last couple years, GDC has been the biggest video game event in the U.S, because E3 reduced its size so dramatically. Now E3 is going back to a much larger format, so what does that mean for GDC?
Scavio: I don't think it's going to change. When E3 changed to its smaller format, some people gravitated towards GDC to continue that business here, but that business took place outside of the GDC campus. It was like they were satellite events that took place in hotels. But it didn't really change the format of GDC, or how GDC operated in any way, and the return of E3 as a large show shouldn't change that, either.

So you think there's still room for these two shows to stay independent?
Scavio: Absolutely. We operated independently before, and we'll continue to do so. There's definitely room. We have different audiences, and different agendas.

Can you define what those different audiences and agendas are?
Scavio: Ours is a developer audience, and E3 is more of a press and retail event. And they're showing games. E3 is what's happening now, and GDC is what's happening in two to three years.

But when E3 shrank, didn't GDC pick up some of the content?
Scavio: Not intentionally. We didn't seek anything out. We didn't change our format at all. I think the best example of how it affected GDC, more than attendance, was our business track, which got a lot more submissions, which meant a lot more business types were attending GDC.

So has that dropped off now that E3 is coming back?
Scavio: It has not.

Given the state of the economy today, can you imagine GDC growing?
Scavio: I would find it hard to believe that there would be growth this year. It's not to say that there won't be, since we've said that every single year since I've been here, and there's been growth every single year. But I remain optimistic, and by optimistic, I expect it to be very similar to last year. I don't anticipate a lot of growth, not with what's happening.

Have there been budget cuts or layoffs within your own organization?
Scavio: There haven't been any layoffs, and we've maintained the same budget as last year. The problem that I have with cutting budgets for GDC is that I still need to provide the same value to the attendees that we always have and I will fight for that as long as possible. So, so far, we've had no cuts.

Will you be addressing the recession at all at GDC?
Scavio: There's a new session on how to raise money in a recession and there's a start-up checklist, all the things that you have to pay attention to when you're starting up a new company. And there's a couple other funding talks. We definitely address it in the content.

People talk about the video game industry maybe being recession-proof, and while it does seem to be doing better than most other industries, there have been layoffs and studio closings. What do you see ahead for the industry, your constituency?
Scavio: I see the game industry reacting positively to all of these issues. They turn around and find innovations to get around the economy. So they start developing iPhone games, or they start developing Flash games. They find a way to get out of the hole and to succeed. I think they'll pick themselves up and succeed.

EA said recently that it was going to lay off 1,100 people. But is this going to be a situation where the strongest survive, and the small players don't make it?
Scavio: I'm not sure that's what we're seeing. I think EA's the strongest, and they're suffering. I think everyone's suffering equally right now, and I think the people who are able to manage their budgets and their teams and just ride through it and continue to find new ways to prosper, I think they'll succeed.

How far ahead do you start planning the next GDC? Are you already planning 2010?
Scavio: We have the venue through 2015. But we'll start really nailing down GDC 2010 in the summer, with our first board meeting, where we get together with the advisory board, and they talk about what the trends are for the following year, and where the industry is heading, and the things that they want to see addressed. And then we will call for papers in July. It all happens very quickly, starting about May.

Is it too early to know what might be different in structure, or in content, or theme, for future GDCs?
Scavio: It's definitely too early to say. I do know in 2010, we're changing our format, for one year, to Tuesday through Saturday, instead of Monday through Friday, because the venue is booked. There may be changes in the summits, but as far as our six main tracks, nothing should change.

What's the benchmark for you for success in your job?
Scavio: It depends, really, on whether you want the corporate answer or my personal answer. The corporate answer would be attendance. The personal answer would be attendee evaluations. So the attendees, they fill out the evaluation forms at every session, and we pay very close attention to everything they say, and everything that they grade. And we've had an average session rating of 4.1, out of 5, for a few years. Last year it was 4.2. So I always like to see that increase. That's my goal, to see the quality of the GDC content increase.

That's pretty good, though, 4.1.
Scavio: It can be better, and there's room for improvement. There's several points left that I can get it up.

That higher rating, would seem to be a function of really good screening of submissions?
Scavio: Yeah. The advisory board, these guys are insane. There were 800 submissions this year. They read every single one. They commented on every single one. And graded every single one. And this year, there was a second phase, where people had to submit actual PowerPoint submissions, and they had to read and grade and comment on every single one. It's a lot of work, and they're very passionate about it, and they argue about it. They debate, and they're very invested in GDC and I think they want that quality increasing even more than I do. Because they feel it all rests on their shoulders. I love the advisory board. They're a great group, and they're inspiring.

EA's 'The Sims 3' is scheduled for a June 2 release on the PC. Versions for the Mac, iPhone and iPod Touch will come later in the summer.

(Credit: Electronic Arts)

Electronic Arts said on Tuesday that The Sims 3, the third full iteration of one of the most successful video game franchises of all time, will hit store shelves on June 2.

The game will be released for PCs first, and versions for the Mac, iPhone, and iPod Touch should come later in the summer, EA said.

The original version of The Sims, which launched in 2000, quickly became the best-selling PC game of all time. In the years since, the franchise has surpassed 100 million total units sold, counting The Sims 2 and all of the expansions for both full iterations.

Originally developed by legendary game designer Will Wright's Maxis studio--which is now focused on Spore--The Sims has since become its own division within EA. As such, it is run out of the company's Redwood Shores, Calif., headquarters, while Maxis is based in Emeryville, Calif.

On Tuesday, EA also announced its third-quarter earnings and said it would be laying off about 1,100 employees--about 11 percent of its total staff--and closing 12 facilities worldwide.

Electronic Arts on Tuesday said it would be laying off about 1,100 employees, or about 11 percent of its workforce, in order to cut costs.

The news came as part of EA's third-quarter earnings announcement, and could be the final word on a set of staff reductions it has been talking about since October. Then, EA said it would be letting go about 6 percent, and that number jumped to 10 percent, or about 1,000 people, in December.

Now, the world's largest publisher of video games said it will close down 12 facilities as part of the cost-cutting, and will likely incur restructuring charges of between $65 million and $75 million.

Previously, the company had said the layoffs and studio closings should be complete by March 31.

Overall, EA said it expects to reduce operating expenses in fiscal 2010 by about $500 million.

While the video game industry as a whole has performed better than most others, and has been seen by some as recession-proof, there is little doubt that in order to stay competitive, most companies in the games business are going to have to streamline. Among those who have had to slash staff are Microsoft Game Studios, which was hit hard by Microsoft's recent announcement of about 5,000 layoffs, and Avalanche Studios, which cut nearly half of its 160 employees in October.