1. Democratizing
Game
Development
Mark DeLoura

2. Democratizing
Game Development

3. Democratizing
Game Development
What does THAT mean?

4. Democratizing
Game Development
What does THAT mean?

5. Democratizing
Game Development
Democratize: to make democratic

6. Democratizing
Game Development
Democratize: to make democratic
Democratic: of, relating to, or favoring
government by the people, rule of the
majority

7. Democratizing
Game Development
Democratize: to make democratic
Democratic: of, relating to, or favoring
government by the people, rule of the
majority

8. Democratizing
Game Development
Democratize: to make democratic
Democratic: of, relating to, or favoring
government by the people, rule of the
majority

9. Democratizing
Game Development
Democratize: to make democratic
Democratic: of or relating to the Democratic
party in the United States

10. Democratizing
Game Development
Democratize: to make democratic
Democratic: of or relating to the Democratic
party in the United States

11. Democratizing
Game Development
Democratize: to make democratic
Democratic: of or relating to the Democratic
party in the United States

12. Democratizing
Game Development
Democratize: to make democratic
Democratic: relating to, appealing to, or
available to broad masses of people

13. Democratizing
Game Development
Democratize: to make democratic
Democratic: relating to, appealing to, or
available to broad masses of people

14. Democratizing
Game Development
Democratize: to make democratic
Democratic: relating to, appealing to, or
available to broad masses of people
Democratic: favoring social equality, not
snobbish

15. Democratizing
Game Development
Democratize: to make democratic
Democratic: relating to, appealing to, or
available to broad masses of people
Democratic: favoring social equality, not
snobbish

16. Making game development
“available to broad masses of
people” while “favoring social
equality”
Democratize: to make democratic
Democratic: relating to, appealing to, or
available to broad masses of people
Democratic: favoring social equality, not
snobbish

17. Making game
development
available to
broad masses
of people while
favoring social
equality
Mark DeLoura

18. Making game
development
available to
broad masses
of people while
favoring social
equality
Mark DeLoura

19. • Making game development available!

20. • Making game development available!
• What about distribution?

21. • Making game development available!
• What about distribution?
• We want development AND distribution

22. Making game development AND
DISTRIBUTION “available to
broad masses of people” while
“favoring social equality”

23. Making game development AND
DISTRIBUTION “available to
broad masses of people” while
“favoring social equality”

24. Giving
Everyone the
Ability to Make
and Share
Games
Mark DeLoura

25. Giving
Everyone the
Ability to Make
and Share
Games
Mark DeLoura

26. Who is Mark?

27. Geek

28. Nintendo

29. Game Developer Magazine

30. Sony

31. Ubisoft

32. Independent

33. Game Programming Gems

34. Other roles
• Game Developers Conference
• Independent Games Festival
• Siggraph Sandbox
• Journal of Game Development

35. • Sharing information
• Making game development easier
• Keeping people from recreating the same
work

36. • Why do we keep recreating everything?
• What if we could make game development
easier?

37. What if?

38. What if it were easy?

39. What if it were easy?

43. Why not??

45. For that matter, why??
• Should it BE easy?

46. Why games?
• Why is this important?

47. The Newest Communication
Medium
• They have infused into all parts of our culture,
and our world

48. The Newest Communication
Medium
• For many people, games have always
been a part of their lives
– These people are used to seeing games
around, they are part of their vocabulary

49. The Newest Communication
Medium
• Games aren’t solely for kids

50. The Newest Communication
Medium
• Games aren’t just for entertainment

51. Games = Entertainment + ...
• Games can make learning more fun

52. Games = Entertainment + ...
• When something is made fun through a
game, it can also be used to educate,
inform, tell stories

53. For Good…

54. For Bad…

55. Games = Entertainment + ...
• But really, games are neither “good” nor
“bad” – they simply are a medium for a
message
• And the message... can be whatever you
want!

56. Games CAN Convey Messages
• Games tell a story through an experience
– Player gets engaged, immersed
– And player then controls the outcome, so can
learn from mistakes and successes

57. Games Can Convey Messages
• Games are the best way to EXPERIENCE
someone else’s world or viewpoint

58. Games Can Convey Messages
• And most importantly
– Games are fun! So the player wants to keep
playing!

59. Games Can Convey Messages
• And most importantly
– Games are fun! So the player wants to keep
playing!

60. Darfur is Dying

61. Howard Dean for Iowa

62. Food Force

63. September 12th

64. Tetris

65. Messages
• Modern games increasingly carry
messages
• Whereas older games did not
• Evolution of game as media

66. Why everyone?
• Getting many perspectives can be very
valuable
• You can EXPERIENCE another person’s
viewpoint

67. Kenya: Adventures of Nyangi

68. Iran: Special Operations 85

69. Lebanon: Special Forces 2

70. Who else?

71. The Participatory Culture
• The new phenomenon on the Internet
– Web 2.0
– Everyone is sampling their world and sharing
their viewpoint
• Blogs, flickr, youtube, facebook, etc

72. Blogging – Thought sharing

73. Flickr – Picture sharing

74. Youtube – Video sharing

75. Facebook – Friend sharing

76. Game sharing?
• Why shouldn’t we all make and share
games, too?

77. “Web 2.0 for Games”
• Like Rock’n’Roll was in the 1960’s,
videogames are this generation’s media

78. Web 2.0 – it’s hot!
• Old media are evolving
• New media are expanding
• Fewer mainstream media outlets, more
new media
– New media gaining more attention

79. More Voices
• If we can enable many voices, we can
experience many perspectives
• When it is easy to create the media,
everyone can share their perspective

80. Game Development for Everyone
• It sounds like a good idea! But what do
we get out of it?

81. Old Media Today
• TV today: mainstream
– CNN
– Fox News
– NHK
• Publicly supported channels
– PBS
• And then...
– 500 other channels!

82. Games Today
• Games today: mainstream publisher titles
– Big budget, big reach
• And... And...
• Well, we have a small hobbyist community
– Flash games

83. Media Comparison
• Some of the nice things we get on U.S. TV
– Comedy Central, with Jon Stewart and Steven
Colbert
– LinkTV
– Current
• What about in games?

84. Social Commentary
• Popular in many art forms
• Old graffiti: AD 79
• Books: “Animal Farm”, AD 1945
• Music: Rock music, AD 1960’s
• Comics: “Maus”, AD 1973
• Movies: Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”
• Games

85. Social Commentary
• Why use games?
– Games are the new media for our generation
– The most immersive and educational form
– You can gain understanding of other people’s worlds
by EXPERIENCING them
– Of course, they can be used for “good” and “bad”...
• So they are the best media format to use!
– But games are hard to make…

86. How Do We Do It?
• How do we enable everyone to make
games? How do we actually do it?
– Make games as easy to create as possible
– Game development must be made less
expensive

88. Giving Everyone the Ability to Make
and Share Games
• Making the creating and sharing of games
simpler, and less expensive!

89. How?
• How can we make games simple to create
and share?
– Technology
• Tools and Game Engines
– Distribution
• Platforms

90. Important Technology
• What is important in technology to make
games easy to create and share?
– Simple to use tools, game engines, and
development environments
– Inexpensive – free is good
• What do other media forms use?

91. Movie Technology
• Professional
– Avid Media Composer, Media 100 HD Suite

92. Movie Technology
• Mid-range
– Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro

93. Movie Technology
• Hobbyist
– Windows Movie Maker, iMovie

94. Music Technology
• Professional
– Music: Avid ProTools|HD, Cakewalk Sonar

95. Music Technology
• Mid-range
– Music: Cakewalk Music Creator, Encore

96. Music Technology
• Hobbyist
– Music: GarageBand, Band in a Box

97. Game Technology
• We use a LOT of tools
– Programming tools
• Game engines and libraries
• Development environments
– Art tools
• 2D art
• 3D modeling
– Video tools
– Audio tools

98. Game Engines
• Professional
– Unreal Engine 3, Id Tech 5, CryEngine 2

99. Game Engines
• Hobbyist
– Garage Games’ Torque, PopCap Games
Framework, OGRE 3D, and a lot of freeware
libraries

100. Development Environments
• Professional
– MS Visual Studio (C/C++/C#)
• Hobbyist
– MS Visual Studio Express (C/C++/C#)
– Flash
– Silverlight

101. Hobbyist Environments
• Multimedia Fusion 2
– Pretty interesting, designed mostly for 2D
– Interface still a little complex

102. Hobbyist Environments
• Scratch
– MIT research

103. 3D Art Tools
• Professional
– 3DS Max, Maya, Softimage, Lightwave

104. 3D Art Tools
• Hobbyist
– Blender, Wings3D

105. Hobbyist 3D Art Tools
• Google Sketchup

106. Hobbyist 3D Art Tools
• Google Sketchup

107. 2D Art Tools
• Professional
– Photoshop, ZBrush, Deep Paint

108. 2D Art Tools
• Hobbyist
– GIMP, Paint Shop Pro

109. Free Art
• Asset libraries
– Google 3D
Warehouse

110. Free Tools
• Environments
– MS Visual Studio Express
• Video Editing
– VirtualDub
• Audio Editing
– Audacity

111. Game Technology
• What we need:
– Easy to use game engines and environments
– Free and simple tools
• Draw art and go
• Sample or create audio and go
– More art asset libraries
• Upload and download capability
• What we have:
– Hmmm…

112. What about distribution?

113. Movie Distribution
• Old style
– Videotapes, DVDs
• New style
– AVI, Flash, streaming
• Professional channels and hobbyist
channels
– All formats can be created and shared by
everyone!

114. Music Distribution
• Old style
– Records, CDs, tapes
• New style
– MP3, iTunes, streaming
• Professional channels and hobbyist
channels
– All formats can be created and shared by
everyone!

115. Game Distribution
• PC / Mac Games
– Create whatever you want!
– Distribution
• Via Media or Internet, easy
– Installation
• Hard for grandma!
• People should just be able to click and play

116. Game Distribution
• Console Games
– Xbox360: XNA Creators Club.
– PS3: No access. Little Big Planet? Home?
– Wii: No access. WiiWare?
– Distribution
• Hard! Expensive!
• XNA Creators Club only good for people in the club.
– Installation
• Easy via disc, harder via download
• Ideally we want a clickable site to download from (youtube)

117. Game Distribution
• Handheld Games
– Sony PSP: Nothing
– Nintendo DS: Nothing
• Mobile Games
– Varies significantly by region
– Variable handset capabilities
– Java applications
– Distribution, Installation: Hard

118. Game Distribution
• PC / Mac is the easiest format right now
– Distribution easy
– Installation hard
• Web-based Flash games make it easier
• Consoles
– Still hard, but some progress (X360)
• Others
–

119. Web Flash Games
• Sites
– www.jayisgames.com
– MSN Games, Oberon Games, Real Arcade,
etc
• User-created games
– www.kongregate.com
• Engines, tools?
• Nothing complete… lots of little sites.

120. How do you make a game?
• One final area we haven’t touched on is
education

121. Game Design Education
• 496 schools worldwide
• http://www.gamecareerguide.com/schools
• Lots of books are available (unlike ten
years ago)

122. Game Design Education
• Borrow ideas from others!

123. In Conclusion
• Games can communicate messages as
experiences
– They are excellent for education and information
sharing, in a fun way
– Games are difficult to make, distribute, and install
– Current game development tools and technology are
too complex for hobbyists
– Web Flash games are the best option at the moment
• It is slowly improving; please try to make your
own games to share!

124. Thanks!
• Resources in the translated handout
• Contact information
– Email: mdeloura@satori.org
– Blog: http://www.satori.org
– LinkedIn, Facebook
• Thanks to camstudio, audacity, virtualdub, media-convert.com, K-
Lite Codec Pack