Eight cool things from PAX and GDC that deserve attention (and number six WILL shock you): Video Games Industry Memo, 28/03/2024
Guest Editor Lucy James leads this week's dis-PAX
Eight sights, sounds, games and, erm, smells from PAX and GDC
GTA 6 release date may be slipping, according to the rumour mill
Cult classic Dragon’s Dogma sequel finally launches
Hello VGIM-ers,
As promised last week, this edition of the newsletter will be a little different as George has passed me the baton while he’s (hopefully) still enjoying his holiday in sunny San Francisco. As a fellow reader and avid enjoyer of VGIM, I promise not to move things around too much and I’ll make sure to take the bins out before I go home.
But who am I? Well, in my best Troy McClure voice, I’m Lucy James! You may know me from GameSpot, Giant Bomb, or the Friends Per Second podcast. I’ve been working in video games media for over 12 years and it’s a career that’s brought me to San Francisco, where I’m unfortunately very used to a Guinness costing over ten bucks.
I used to make a show on GameSpot called Good News Gaming where I’d highlight fun, feel good stories from the world of video games, and given the last few months we’ve all had, I’d like to take the opportunity to do the same here.
I’ve just finished the PAX (formerly the Penny Arcade Expo) and Game Developers Conference (GDC) gauntlet and I’ve seen some really cool and exciting things on both coasts that I’d love to talk about and celebrate.
So this week’s Big Read won’t be an in-depth commentary on industry trends. Instead, it’ll be an overview of some things I saw that excited me from the last week (and no, the sight of my bed after working two conventions in a row isn’t one of them).
Huge thank you to George again for giving me the keys to the kingdom. I hope I put enough puns in here to make you proud.
The big read - Eight cool things from PAX and GDC that deserve attention (And number six WILL shock you)
PAX may be a consumer expo and GDC may be an industry-focused networking event, but both have one thing in common: celebrating video games and the people who make them. There was plenty to get my teeth into at both shows, so here’s a list of my highlights.
1) We need to talk about video games
Well, what else could I possibly kick off with? Across PAX, GDC and Day of the Devs, there were plenty of exciting and creative games to check out and wishlist. Here’s a brief rundown of some of my favourites.
(Day of the Devs is a non-profit run by DoubleFine and iam8bit that champions and spotlights games through in-person events and showcases. As a show, it’s one of my absolute favourites to attend: the vibes are always chill and there’s always an eclectic mix of games on show that I’d totally miss otherwise. This year’s Spring event was no different, but it truly was a case of so many games, so little time.)
Horses was certainly not the cheery easy-going farming game I’d expected, but instead a creepy horror game that has you play as a farm hand, only the horses you’re looking after are naked humans. And yes, you ride them. Heed the content warnings at the start of this one, folks.
Wildwood Down is a point and click adventure about a high schooler with Down Syndrome who must get to the bottom of a murder investigation. The main character is voiced by and based on the developers’ childhood best friend and “brother from another mother” Daniel. I’ve got the demo of this one ready to replay on my home PC, and I can’t wait to rewatch the opening movie, which was so packed full of jokes it had me belly laughing on the show floor.
alt.ctrl.GDC is a special area of the GDC show floor dedicated to alternative controllers. This year I saw Mosquito Escape, where you flap a pair of costume mosquito wings to fly around. Bib Goes Home is a playable pop-up book where turning the page pushes the game’s story forward. This one had a huge crowd every time I walked past it. And of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention 996 Tech, the racing game that you play on a toilet.
Technically cheating as this one wasn’t on the show floor, but I did see a behind closed doors presentation of Dune: Awakening at PAX. I’m neither an MMO nor a survival game gal, but I am decidedly Dune-pilled at the moment, and this one has piqued my interest way more than I thought it would.
2) Gongs galore
A lot of capital D Discourse has been had about video game award ceremonies in recent months, and while I’m not going to dwell on all that here, I did want to give a shout out to the two awards ceremonies at GDC.
Wednesday evening kicked off with the IGF Awards Ceremony, which celebrates independent games. Venba, a beautiful game about food and cultural identity, and one of my favourites from last year, walked away with the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and pretty much every game nominated had me reaching for my Notes app so I’d remember to check them out when I got home.
The GDC Awards followed, with Baldur’s Gate 3 taking home the most gongs on the night, and Larian head Swen Vincke offering an impassioned speech against industry greed, and imploring those in charge to take care of their staff instead of chasing numbers.
Layoffs, industry woes, and calls for a ceasefire were far from the elephants in the room at this year’s ceremony, with host Alanah Pearce and many others on stage bringing up the topics in their speeches. In a year that’s seen many in our industry and those worldwide suffer, it was heartening to see humanity and compassion on full display on stage.
3) Accessibility win for PAX
Now my information on this next point comes from this fantastic and enlightening thread by Crev, who described accessibility at this year’s PAX East show for those who were considering going.
She calls out all the things PAX has done to make the show accessible, including early access for those who need it, waiting areas for those with medical badges, and describes how PAX has listened to feedback from previous years and implemented it. The whole thread is here, and it’s well worth a read. Great job, PAX!
4) Games done qui-
I am obsessed with speedrunning.
Games Done Quick is basically burned into my second monitor at this point, and while I’ve not worked up the courage to try running games myself, I have the utmost respect for those who dedicate their time to it.
GDQ was at PAX East, and next time I am absolutely carving out more time to park myself in the front row and take it all in.
5) Smell the fear
Okay, okay, hear me out. At GDC I did try out Game Scent, the viral AI-powered scent… box. Is it a gimmick? Absolutely. Was it pretty cool? Yeah, honestly. Will I buy one? Probably not.
It worked better than I thought it would, and as the demo driver started walking around in Far Cry 6, I could smell the leaves on the trees in the lush forest we were in. When the shooting started, I could smell the gunpowder. And… that was pretty much it, it has limited scents after all. Nevertheless, it was a fun start to my show.
I am still surprised they didn’t launch with a gross-out pack or offer Twitch integration, that seems like a shoo-in for streamers to connect with/be bullied by their community.
Game Scent, if you’re reading, you can have that idea for free.
6) I went to the Dark Side
At an NVIDIA meeting, I got to try out games featuring characters made with generative AI, to varying degrees of success. The Ubisoft demo was certainly the clunkier and least natural feeling one, and I’m sorry to the poor developer who looked baffled when I asked the character I was supposed to be bonding with if he was a child of divorce.
“That’s one way to get to know the character, I suppose.”
The NVIDIA demo fared much better. You had to infiltrate a hotel room and steal some documents, chatting to NPCs to get intel along the way.
The voices were more human and less Microsoft Sam, and the characters responded to prompts more appropriately, but the technology still has a way to go.
Voice intonation felt slightly unnatural (and that’s before you delve into the ethics of putting actors and writers out of work) and having to actually speak to your game isn’t going to work for everyone.
The demo also lacks the feel of a game designer guiding you to your objective, or spinning a finely crafted story. And the characters simply don’t have depth or weren’t memorable outside of the novelty of how they were created.
It was still impressive, but I for one will not be welcoming our new robot overlords quite so soon.
7) The history toys
Both GDC and PAX had fantastic offerings for game history fans, from panels to show floor representation. PAX had a retro games room with many consoles and TVs set up, and a large library to rent games from. We dropped in after a long day walking the halls, and it was the perfect way to kick back and unwind.
At GDC, the Video Game History Foundation had a prime spot next to the Epic Games booth as you took the escalator down to the expo show floor. They had an exhibit celebrating a range of games and developers that also featured playable games like Wabbit and SimTunes. As a reward for donating to the Foundation to support their fine work, you got a print out picture of yourself from a GameBoy Camera, which was a cracking idea, and had a line every time I went past.
After the alarming 2023 study that showed that 87% of classic video games are endangered, VGHF founder and director Frank Cifaldi took to the stage at the GDC Awards to remind attendees just how important game preservation is, and you should definitely have a watch (timestamped).
8) The dating game (conferences)
After years of attendees bemoaning GDC and PAX’s proximity to each other, PAX has finally moved its 2025 dates from March to May. While this won’t matter to the average PAX attendee, developers, PR, and media outlets are rejoicing that they will no longer have to do them both in one week. Lovely stuff.
News in brief
GTA Slips? Rockstar Games recently mandated its employees to return to office as work on the upcoming GTA 6 reaches the latter stages of development. And the hotly anticipated next entry in the GTA series has a 2025 release window… for now. According to a report from Kotaku, while the game was targeting early 2025, it may slip to later in the year, or even to 2026.
Xbox A-Go-Go. Xbox head Phil Spencer spoke to Polygon’s Chris Plante about the recent layoffs at the company, lack of growth in the video games industry, the economics behind exclusives, and Xbox’s hope for a handheld console in a wide-ranging chat.
Hail, Skydance. Amy Hennig’s new game, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra now has a release window, title, and brand new trailer. Details about the game were unveiled during Epic’s GDC showcase. It’ll see you play as Captain America and Black Panther, among others, and will be launching in 2025.
GTA objection, overruled. Speaking on Simon Parkin’s excellent podcast, My Perfect Console, Florida lawyer and professional Grand Theft Auto hater Jack Thompson calls video games “Arguably the greatest teaching tool ever invented. The interactive nature of video games is what makes them so incredibly powerful.” I think it’s fair to say that no one saw that coming.
Judas, Juda-ah-ah. A cheeky one because this comes from my podcast, Friends Per Second, but Ken Levine has lifted the lid on his next project, Judas. Ten years in the making (so far), Judas is more than just “BioShock in space”, it’s a roguelite pseudo-procedurally generated game that takes Ken’s narrative LEGO talk and puts it into practice.
Jobs, jobs, jobs
The fine folks at Netflix would love for you to become a Director, Business Development, Game Licencing for them in sunny LA…Epic Games is hiring a Senior Communications Manager to join their corp comms team…Microsoft is searching for a Lead Level Designer to join their team in San Francisco…Tencent definitely wants a Senior Product Manager this week...And The Makers Fund is looking for an Investment Associate for those of you with a venture-y bent…
Events and conferences
London Games Festival, London - 9th-25th April
London Developer Conference, London - 11th April
BAFTA Games Awards, London - 11th April
Reboot Develop Blue, Dubrovnik - 22nd-24th April
Nordic Game, Malmo - 21st May-24th May
Games of the week
Dragon’s Dogma 2 - Capcom’s follow up to its 2012 cult classic has hit the shelves, and players are already pushing its character creator to its limits
Rise of the Ronin - It’s not Ghost of Tsushima 2, but it’ll do
South Park Snow Day! - “Perplexingly boring” - IGN.com
Before you go…
Thank you for reading this week’s edition of VGIM, it was such a pleasure to put together.
I’d like to leave you with my new favourite piece of gaming trivia concerning Salmo from Oblivion: the baker who has been programmed to avoid bread (also me after hitting 30, am I right?).
George will be back next week, enjoy your gaming!
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