Influential names check into GDC's Game Hotel

SAN JOSE--Last night's Game Hotel event was hard to define. The Game Hotel Web site describes it as "a series of international events on games and digital pop culture." It might be more enlightening to say that it was a pretty good talk show accompanied by a sometimes distracting multimedia presentation. The event benefited from the appearance of some key speakers, including SCE Europe executive Phil Harrison, Parappa the Rapper creator Matsuya Matsuura, and Tetsuya Mizuguchi, of Space Channel 5 and Rez. However, in the end, despite the polished presentation of the MC, the event failed to create synergy between its various guests and became merely a series of interviews--some more interesting than others.

The show's thesis is that games are now part of pop culture. The organizers drove this point home by inviting people who were not connected with gaming to the stage, a group that mainly consisted of designers and dealers of "urban vinyl"--whimsical action figures and dolls now gaining popularity among chic adults. Apparently, the Game Hotel organizers wanted to promote the idea of games as a key part of a hip lifestyle, but they were more effective at drawing attention to the schism between console games (with their broad appeal) and PC games (that target the hardcore). Game Hotel showed a clear preference for the console side of the industry by leaving PC gamers out in the cold by failing to bring even one PC developer to the stage.

Still, the guests that checked into the Game Hotel during the two-hour event had some interesting insights to share. Phil Harrison is the man that greenlighted Sony's EyeToy, and he has a clear understanding of the target market. According to him, Sony has sold 2.5 million EyeToys in Europe since the product launched last year by targeting the mainstream. In fact, much to Harrison's surprise, even his mother plays with the EyeToy. One key factor in this success was the last-minute decision to unlock all the levels in EyeToy: Play at purchase. The game initially featured unlockable levels that had to be played in sequence, but Harrison realized that this approach would alienate the nongamers that he hoped would buy the EyeToy. "In play testing, they didn't understand this mechanic," said Harrison, who concluded by saying, "Games aren't one homogenous market but more like 30 different markets. It's important to understand this [and target each appropriately]."

The next interesting guest was Matsuya Matsuura, the creator of the innovative music games Parappa the Rapper, Vib Ribbon, and Mojiribbon. He brought a playable demo of his newest effort, a PS2 game which he described with a mischievous smile as a "picture-trampoline action game."

This game continues Matsuura's theme of including external data in his games. In this one, that data is photographs, which users can load from either a digital camera or a phonecam. This photograph becomes the game board, and the colors in the original picture determine the number, type, and location of enemies. The board is springy, and with good timing and repeated jumps, the player character jumps higher and higher, thus sending vibrations through the board that eventually destroy the enemies. When enemies disappear, they emit a cloud of poisonous gas. Landing on these or on the enemies will cause the player to take damage. Matsuura got laughs not just for the well-executed and intriguing demo but also by choosing to demonstrate the game with a portrait of Phil Harrison, commenting, "This is a really difficult board."

Mizuguchi was the last guest for the evening. Unfortunately, he declined questions about his current projects, saying only that he might be in a position to make an announcement at E3 or maybe toward the end of 2004. But he did admit that he's very interested in the PSP, especially the rumored headphones, and Nintendo's DS. Asked for words of wisdom for young developers just entering the industry, he laughed and said, "Give advice? I need someone to give me advice!"

As a chance to sit in on interviews with some of the most innovative people in games, the Game Hotel was a success. But in order to become the artistic happening or cultural commentary that its organizers seem to want, this hotel may need some renovations.