It’s always good to learn new things. So it is that I head
off to href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/gdc09" target="_blank">GDC
2009, which for me is a difficult thing to do. I am not one
to visit GDC that often.  Indeed, of late I have been drawn
away to other shows like the one at href="http://www.liftconference.com" target="_blank">LIFT
where, last year, I gave a talk about MMO’s and how they
where sort of like the history of cinema mixed with Las Vegas.


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Paul
Barnett, Creative Director at Mythic Entertainment

Thus it’s quite a surprise to find myself asked to give a
talk at GDC 2009. And it’s not just a talk, but a lecture.
The very idea fills me with fear and dread. After all, only crazy
teachers at my schools gave lectures, and most of those sent me to
sleep or ended up with someone (usually me) getting in trouble for
talking. Now back in the day, that meant that a teacher got to throw a
board eraser at some young child’s head. I have no idea what
the modern equivalent is - I mean don’t teachers write on
digital tablets these days?



Anyhow, I digress; I had been booked not only to attend but to give a
talk.  For those who are unsure of what that means, allow me
to let you in on the dark arts. When a talk is picked, it’s
not actually picked by the person giving the talk.  EA as a
company, for example, offers up talks to GDC and then the GDC people,
in their infinite wisdom, decide who they would like to give a talk.
The effect of this on people like me is as follows:



I don’t think about GDC or giving a talk.  Then, if
I get picked, I get an email saying “You are giving a talk,
it’s going to be about this subject on this day.”
In effect, I was talk-ambushed, and my talk name was horrible and I had
made no plans to go.


So I chat with my boss and find out what it all means.  He is
wise and calm but definitive. Thou shalt go and thou shalt give a
talk.  Oh, and make it profound.



What follows is for me the painful duty of making a talk. Contrary to
what you might think, I do actually put a lot of thought into my
talks.  I figure out what I want to say, how best to say it
and then practice and iterate on it until I am happy. Basically, a talk
takes me about six weeks to work up. Right now I am working on two
talks, one for GDC and another for internal EA.  They both
have to say something.  They both have to reach a particular
audience and they are both new talks.



For the first time in an age I will be using PowerPoint in a talk, even
though I loathe the software and the idea of slides. I created all my
own slides, much to the horror of href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/e308/war"
target="_blank">Josh Drescher, who finds my
approach and
ability with PowerPoint to be little better than handing some crayons
to a goat.



I arrived at GDC on Monday night with the intention of finding a bar to
hang out in to meet and yak with other people from the
industry.  It’s my favourite part of these sort of
things.



I have found a cool clicker that seems to work at advancing the slides
easily and quickly, the clicker in question was suggested by one of the
people on the creative course I am attending.



It’s always good to learn new things.


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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