When the online magazine Salon.com recently ran a slew of quotes from nearly 20 industry experts for its year-end wrap-up on gaming, a lot of great content was left on the cutting room floor--much of it discarded due to its esoteric nature and "inside" voice.

Through negotiations that pale next to what ESPN and EA just went through, GameSpot has obtained the best of these "basement tapes"--nearly 8,000 words from the best and brightest in games on the highs and lows of gaming for 2004, with some predictions and speculation aimed at what's to come in 2005.

Representing game developers are Ion Storm Austin founder Warren Spector, current Sony Online Entertainment chief creative officer Raph Koster, respected developer Doug Church (now at Crystal Dynamics), Deus Ex: Invisible War director Harvey Smith (now at Midway Studio Austin), Bungie and Wideload Studios founder Alex Seropian, Valve writer/designer Marc Laidlaw, multiplatform developer Greg Costikyan, and Matrix Online associate designer Brian Yeung.

They are joined by Maarten Goldstein, a reporter from Shack News, and Major Jason Amerine, a technical advisor for America's Army. There's even a niche here for gaming academics, and analyses from the business and legal sides of the industry--Kurt Squire and Robin Hunicke are on hand for the former, Schelley Olhava and Alan Behr are present for the latter. Finally, from the world of real journalism, there's Clive Thompson, New York Times contributor and Slate.com gaming columnist.

The text comes from Wagner James Au, a Bay Area writer who covers the game industry for Salon and also writes for Second Life, a user-created MMO (for which he publishes New World Notes, a weekly blog documenting the society written from the perspective of "embedded journalist" Hamlet Linden).

Part one of our two-part series on the Salon sessions follows. Part two is due later this week.

Alex Seropian

His pet peeve for the year:

How many times do we have to win World War II?

On leaving Bungie, the studio he helped found, to create Wideload in 2004:

It wasn't easy to leave Bungie; they do great work and have a lot of fun, and it's hard to leave that kind of situation behind. I moved back to Chicago for personal reasons--family trumps career. And Bungie seems to have done OK for itself in the interim, so everyone's happy. Wideload is an opportunity to return to a small creative group, which is where all the cool action is in development, without falling victim to the traps that plagued Bungie when it was small. Our sole ambition is to develop fun games on our own terms. Isn't that enough?

His thoughts on Bungie's Halo 2, and the work he put into it:

I think my main contribution was helping to construct an environment where a game like that could happen. I like Halo 2 a lot. It's very beautiful, very fun, very ambitious, and very Bungie.

Alex Seropian's new studio, Wideload, is now developing Rebel Without a Pulse, a PC/Xbox title starring Stubbs the Zombie.

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Kurt Squire

His favorite games from 2004:

Half-Life 2: I am a total sucker for this series. The perfect pacing, mood, blend of action-oriented gaming and problem-solving--I could go on.

Lineage II: Ultimately the grind got to me, but I really appreciate the uncompromising nature of the game and its player vs. player.

Sid Meier's Pirates!: A brilliant remake--almost 20 years later, they nailed what makes pirates fun. In particular, the way the world is constructed around everything you do. They knew just what to update (enemy pirate AI, for example) and what not to add.

Katamari Damacy: Reminds you of why games are fun. The interface is brilliant--reminds you of old arcade games the way that everything is crafted and the way it coheres.

World of Warcraft: Lovingly crafted environments and quests. Still not bored after many, many hours. A fun and not punishing MMORPG.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door: I also love the way that Paper Mario constructs around your actions--the fights, for example, the way that the crowd comes to visit. Livens up an otherwise monotonous mechanic.

Halo 2: I was a little disappointed by the game, but the cooperative mode is fantastic. We need more of this, definitely. Without co-op, I'm not sure if I'd finish it.

Doom 3: I know that it wasn't revolutionary, but I thought that the use of light and shadow was amazing. Very aesthetic experience.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Full Spectrum Warrior: This, to me, pointed to the future of games and training, although I had some issues with how they implemented some specific things. I think that making you "follow directions" was an interesting violation of game rules for (perhaps) aesthetic ends.

His top trend of 2004:

For me, the biggest was that many games really took to heart the idea that the game is constructed around the player's experience. From Fable to Pirates, we saw a lot of games very creatively tracking what the user is doing and trying to respond intelligently.

His pet peeves for the year:

Oh, basically knockoff after knockoff. Taking the same game mechanic and dressing it up in new clothes is not innovation in my mind. Second, the little attention the industry has gotten seems to make many think that it's actually a mainstream phenomenon. It's still largely boys making games for boys. There is a paucity of diversity in game titles and themes. We need more co-op games, for example.

A personal highlight in gaming from 2004:

Seeing the "serious games" movement really take off. Between the education arcade and serious games, it's clear that games are starting to make more of a global social impact.

Kurt Squire is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a participant in the upcoming GAPPS initiative (games and professional practice simulations research group).

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Clive Thompson

His top five favorite games from 2004:

Halo 2: Sure, it's a sequel, but it had enough smart new tweaks--such as double-handed gun wielding, and the [protagonist] point-of-view reversal--to make it fresh.

Ninja Gaiden

City of Heroes: I generally avoid massively multiplayer online role-playing games, because I get too sucked in, and the constant leveling is a massive time suck. City of Heroes is the first MMORPG that avoids the nightmare hamster wheel of leveling, and makes the game fun no matter what skill level you're at. Brilliantly executed.

JFK Reloaded

I'm going to leave my fifth choice unfulfilled, because I left for vacation a week ago and haven't yet had a chance to fully play many of the year's most highly touted games--including the new Grand Theft Auto, the new Metroid Prime, and the new Half-Life. That's because the damn game companies are all obsessed with hitting the holiday season at precisely the same time, and they all released their games within a few weeks of one another. Gah! It'll take me well into February to devote as much time to each of these games as I'd like.

Clive Thompson writes for The New York Times Magazine, Wired, and New York Magazine, and has a video game column for Slate.com. His blog, Collision Detection, is devoted to interesting trends in science and tech.

* * *

Harvey Smith

His favorite games from 2004:

City of Heroes was a surprise for me, and one of the first MMOs I really loved. I enjoyed The Suffering a lot. Half-Life 2 is, of course, really cool and is taking up some of my limited free time. Psi-Ops had some interesting gameplay features.

His top trends of 2004:

I like the focus on tactical AI; Halo 2 features amazing enemy tactics. But I also like the focus on character quality, as in Half-life 2's emotionally compelling characters. These are two areas where we all need to follow those leads, where gameplay and narrative can be dramatically improved if more designers think about the problems and take advantage of the potential features that are just waiting to be discovered (or, more accurately, waiting to be prototyped, implemented, and tuned). My hope is that we're about to move into an age of development where pretty graphics aren't enough--where developers have to provide something more powerful in terms of player experience.

His take on leaving Ion Storm Austin, where he was project director of Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003) and lead designer of Deus Ex (2000):

I just felt like I needed a change. After six years, I was exhausted, and there's something weird about feeling like you don't need to prove yourself anymore. I was in a comfort zone, working with a bunch of allies. I needed to take a risk, so I did. I planned for a while, then just jumped. I spent eight months consulting, slacking, and trying to figure out what would make me happiest, what would keep me the most tuned in and turned on.

His highlights from his 2004 at Ion Storm Austin:

Working professionally with supercreative people, like the Deus Ex and Thief teams, was definitely a lifelong highlight. I feel like we did a lot, learned a lot, and helped each other grow in terms of knowledge and skill sets.

Second, we were also connected socially--part of a subculture. We grew together personally--embracing a mandate of helping each other reach the next level--and had fun while we were doing it. Late-night design meetings over pizza, all-night conference-room D&D games, seeing team members bring children into the world or conquer personal problems--what else is there in life that is better?

Lastly, the impact of Deus Ex on players and people interested in interactive narrative was very gratifying. Whether they loved us or hated us, we heard from everyone. [Ion studio head] Warren [Spector] and I would talk, once in a while, of being humbled and excited about the fact that so many people had paid attention to this one video game we, along with a bunch of talented team members, made together, at this one point in time.

His greatest anticipations and predictions for 2005:

Right now, I am really excited about GTA: San Andreas for the Xbox. I am also looking forward to City of Villains. I would like to actually find more time to play more World of Warcraft. And, of course, I want to see a ton of games influenced by Half-Life 2. I love the way the world reacted to Valve's first release--the quality bar went up. Also, I hope that Arkane Studios releases its next game soon, because I really want to play it.

In general, I think over the next few years, the general quality of games will rise, because people are running out of room to wow players graphically--we have to do more in terms of emotional content and innovation. Multiplayer console will continue to grow. Handhelds will be huge.

Harvey Smith is now the studio creative director for Midway Studios Austin, "a company that is about to set out to become a superpowerful game-creation nexus."

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Warren Spector

His favorite games for 2004, in no particular order:

Half Life 2: Great graphics, cool physics, intriguing story, great characters, a city that looks like a city, action that's intense. Everything I loved about Half Life but to the 10th power. Just a ton of fun and totally worth the wait.

City of Heroes

Fable: OK, so it wasn't everything we all hoped it would be, but it was still entertaining and, once in a while, made me stop and think about the ethical consequences of what I was doing. And it proved that fantasy games don't require a licensed world to be successful.

Katamari Damacy: The ultimate palate-cleanser game. Tired of wanton destruction? Ten minutes of Katamari and you're set. What a wonderfully wacky game.

His reasons for leaving Ion Storm Austin, the game development studio he founded, this year:

You know, it was just time to move on. I'm kind of driven by the "seven-year itch" and I'd done my seven years with Ion and Eidos. (Look at my resume--I spent seven years in grad school, six and a half in paper games with Steve Jackson Games and TSR, six and a half with Origin. It's a pattern!) I wanted to try new things, with new people, under different circumstances. And, frankly, Ion had gotten big enough that I was spending too much of my time running the studio and too little actually thinking about the games. Just time for a change.

How do I feel? Weird, a little sad, and a little scared. The sad is because of all the great friends I'm leaving behind. The weird and scared? Well, that's exactly what I wanted to feel again, so it's all good.

His personal game-development highlights from 2004:

The clear highlight was the final months of frenetic activity bringing Thief: Deadly Shadows to closure. The team worked a miracle in the last three months, going from a game that needed a lot of work to one of which I'm immensely proud. It was great being a part of that effort.

Reflections on his talk at the 2004 Game Developers Conference in which he argued that the centrality of open-ended, emergent gameplay had flattened out the overall experience of his own Deus Ex: Invisible War, and that it could have used more pre-scripted moments. Did that mean he'd reconsidered his design principles?

There are two ways to approach the "flatness" I associated with emergent gameplay in the talk. First, you can just put your nose to the grindstone and solve the damn problem. I can't say, categorically, that "games of emergent gameplay must be emotionally less satisfying than more traditionally scripted games." I don't believe that and think there's a lot of work we can do to up the emotional content of player-driven experiences. The second way to approach the issue is, simply, to strive for a better balance between developer-driven, scripted events and player-driven emergent events. I think we must do this--seek a better balance. That seems clear. But I still believe that players should be in charge and that too much scripting, too much linearity, too much developer-driven design is a bad thing for games. I haven't moved one inch from that position.

His greatest anticipations for 2005:

Well, I sure want a Nintendo DS and a Sony PSP. I'd love some more information about the PS3. Oh, and I can't wait to be able to tell people what I'm doing next! Speed the day!

Warren Spector is the former studio director of Ion Storm. He is "currently working on setting up a new gig, but nothing to announce just yet."