TALE OF TALES
SYMPOSIUM ON GAME DESIGN
SPRING 2004

Introduction

There are many conferences and trade fairs in the games industry but there is none that focusses solely on the design of games. And whenever the topic is addressed, it seems that commerce (in the industry) or definition (in academic circles) become the center of any discussion. Our symposium will focus on the art and craft of making games.
We do not, however want this to be a large event. A one day symposium with 50 to 70 people in a nice environment would be perfect for a good exchange of ideas. The format of the conference would be lectures and panel discussions with limited time for questions-and-answers during the event but with an organised informal meeting after.
We were thinking of having the symposium in the second half of April, so as to not overlap with other conferences. And we are considering Gent, Belgium, as a location because we think it is an attractive place for foreigners to visit and it is not as saturated with new media related events as Amsterdam. Also, the city has a giant university and two art schools, so there is bound to be some interest from that direction.

The conference will focus on two topics in particular: "game<->play" and "game<->art".

GAME<->PLAY
As game technology improves at a staggering rate, two directions are starting to become more and more apparent in game design. On the one side there is the "hard core" game designers who root their work in traditional analog games like sports and board games. And on the other, the "mature" designers who are starting to develop games as alternatives to books and movies. The first group is interested in the game as a system of rules that drives competition . The second is focussed on offering the user opportunities for play, often within a deeper narrative context. Currently these two paths are intertwined and very often the game prevents one for playing. We hope to address this conflict and sketch some outlines of the direction in which game design might evolve and how to get there.

GAME<->ART
In the game industry, art is often a matter of quantity, not quality and it usually means the amount of pretty models and textures that the budget will allow developers to put in. In general, game developers do not see the design and certainly not the programming of games as art. Nevertheless, there are many moments in many games that offer significantly deep "art experiences".
At this point in time, artists from the traditional world of fine arts are starting to develop an interest in games. Most often this is expressed in a more or less parodic form as a game modification of or level for an existing game. Very rarely do artists attempt to make a real game. It is still considered to be not elevated enough for the museum or simply too much work for any poor artist to get involved with. Despite the lack of technical knowledge and courage, some of the work that comes out of this group offers at least another way of thinking about game design.
Curiously, these two groups do not seem to know of each others existance. The game developers are too busy to know anything about anything but their games and the artists consider the game industry to be part of the evil military-economic complex that is making us all eat meat. We would like to confront these two groups with each other on the conference in the hope that they can learn from each other.

We already have a positive answer from Ernest Adams, Greg Coomer, Richard Evans and Matteo Bittanti to come and give a presentation. And Edwin Carels has shown interest as well.

Ernest Adams is a game designer and critical columnist. His Designer's Notebook series of columns, published at Gamasutra is an authoritative body of work on game design. Currently he seems to be very pre-occupied with the fact that game design is often a result of what the designers have not done rather than of conscious decisions.
http://www.designersnotebook.com

Greg Coomer is graphic designer at Valve Software. Valve Software is the developer of the action shooter game Half Life and it's well known multi-player mod Counterstrike. Despite of the typical violent nature of a game like Half Life, Greg Coomer has succeeded in giving the game an air of elegance with minimalist graphics and a spectacled main character modeled partly in his image. He got involved in the game industry in an attempt to make a game that has some similarities with our own but was never published.
http://valvesoftware.com

Richard Evans is head of Artificial Intelligence at Lionhead Studios, the makers of Black & White and other games in which the creation of a self-contained believable world is central. He shocked the sensitive when describing his C++ code for A.I. in Black&White as a translation of the theories of Wittgenstein.
http://lionhead.com

Edwin Carels is curator and writer mainly concerned with film and video and professor at Sint-Lukas College in Brussels. He may come and talk about early film industry as there are many parallels that can be drawn between it and the current game industry in terms of artistic appreciation.

Matteo Bittanti is a researcher into the social and cultural impact of video games and a strong advocate of serious criticism of games as artistic expression. He recently started the publication of a series of books entitled "Ludologica. Videogames d´autore" with each book dedicated to one game and its designer/author.
http://www.mattscape.com
http://www.ludologica.com
http://mbftoday.blogspot.com

We are also trying to get at least one Japanese designer (from Ico -Fumito Ueda- or Silent Hill -Masahiro Ito or Akira Yamaoka) as the Japanese games industry is fascinatingly isolated and the few games that do come through are often pearls of design.
From the art field, we are still thinking about whom would be the least destructive. There is probably not much point in asking Jodi, but f0am or Selectparks might be able to contribute in a constructive way. We are _not going to ask Natalie Bookchin to come and give yet another presentation of her vaporware but Anne-Marie Schleiner might be interesting. The latter has been involved with many projects researching the links between games and eroticism.

We have contacted the Belgian Chapter if the IGDA (International Game Developers Association) and they might be willing to coproduce the event with us in some way. This could help us contact some people from the industry and add some weight to the symposium.

The Belgian Initiatief Audiovisuele Kunsten is also showing interest. They may be able to help us acquire additional funding.

http://www.icothegame.com
http://www.konami.com/silenthill2
http://www.konami.com/silenthill3
http://www.lionhead.com
http://www.fablegame.com
http://www.jodi.org
http://www.f0.am
http://www.selectparks.net
http://www.calarts.edu/~bookchin/intruder
http://www.opensorcery.net
http://www.mattscape.com
http://www.ludology.org
http://www.igda.org
http://iak.be

http://tale-of-tales.com

Programme

09.00	Introduction
09.15	Panel 1: Desire: Greg, Anne-Marie?, Ernest
		3 presentations of 20 minutes
10.15	discussion
11.00	Coffee break
11.15	Video interview: Masahiro Ito or Akira Yamaoka or Video montage of Japanese game design: Auriea & Michael
12.00	lunch
13.30	Panel 2: Perception/Reception: Selectparks?, Matteo, Bill Viola??
		3 presentations of 20 minutes
14.30	discussion
15.15	coffee break
16.00	Panel 3: Technology/Culture/History/Memory: Edwin Carels, Richard Evans, X
		3 presentations of 15 minutes
17.00	discussion
17.45 	Final words: Michael & Auriea
18.00	Done

Diner

21.00	Party
	

Budget

We want to personally invite 70 people to take part in this event. After these places have been filled, registration will be open to the general public up until the 150 available places are taken. The symposium venue can cater to 180 people but we want this event to be a small-scale one with a high degree of concentration. Access to the event will cost 25 Euros for all but 20 VIP guests.
The symposium will consist of three panel discussions and a video projection. There will be three people per panel. Each discussion will be preceded by a short introduction by each of the panelists. The panels will be moderated by Michael & Auriea. During the day, there will not be much time for Q&A with the audience but in the evening, there will be an informal gathering at another location (party with some live acts). Confirmed speakers are Greg Coomer (US), Ernest Adams (UK), Matteo Bittanti (IT), Edwin Carels (BE), Rachel "SelectParks" (BE). Non-confirmed speakers: Anne-Marie Schleiner (US), Bill Viola (US), Fumito Ueda (JP), X (?). X is a speaker we still need to find. Who this will be, depends on confirmation of the others (in order to make good combinations for the panels). Formerly confirmed speaker Richard Evans (UK) apologises that he will not be able to make it after all.
We really want to present some concepts of game design done in Japan to the audience. Since it turns to be quite difficult to get Japanese designers to come present at our symposium, and we have been invited to interview the designers of Silent Hill at Konami, Tokyo, we would like to include a screening of a video with this interview as part of the symposium. We think we can find a seperate budget for the trip. If we fail to do the interview, we will make a video montage of found material to illustrate these concepts.
Next to the speakers, we have invited two organisations to contribute to the event in the form of art rather than text. F0.am (Maja Kuzmanovic et al, BE) will be creating the stage design and general atmosphere of the event location. And FutureFamers (Amy Franceschini et al, US/BE) will take care of the website and the online post-conference archive of presentations and reports. Filiep Tacq has expressed interest in turning this website into an issue of "Proceeding".
Overhead costs have been removed from the budget because the Jan Van Eyck academy already provides for that.