Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Today I had to put on the WAR pants.

Paul Barnett, Creative Director for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

I don’t wear them every day - just for talks. I then had to trudge off to get my badge. I have never been able to shake off the sense that doom and gloom will descend on my life at any time, so I had already managed to ‘blag’ (British cockney slang for steal) two other badges just to be sure I would get in.

I was stunned by the amount of GDC advertising for other GDC talks. I had no idea they held so many.  Is there really that much to say about games?

I picked up my badge, had an extra IDGA member sticker added to the bottom of it, got given a bag of swag (mostly flyers and post cards), got handed an ‘exclusive’ set of playing cards that seemed to carry a load of terrible pictures of people who are on the board or seemed to have been viewed as highly rated speakers last year. I am unsure if this is supposed to be an incentive or not…

I then got given a free t-shirt (in XXXL only) and found my way to the press room to collect the first of my two free extra badges.  I assume my upbringing in the north of England is responsible for my desire to get free access to shows that cost a fortune. I think I live with some deep-seated fear that at any time I will have to revert to my basic instincts to ensure that I can gain access to places that are important without having to drop 2,000 dollars.

No matter! With the two extra passes secured, I hand one off to a young man who asked me to help him get access to my talk and I hold the other one for my PR handler. It may bruise your ears to find out that I have a PR handler, but EA can get quite jumpy when I am out and about giving talks.  They find my … candor... a little hard to take. So they assign some poor soul to walk around and be ready at an instant to slap tape over my mouth or to shout "THAT WAS OFF THE RECORD!"

Mostly I use them as an excuse to carry my bag and get me coffee.  My talk awaits, but along the way I will trip over Brütal Legend, Jeff Kaplan of Blizzard, Sulka51 (who loves my shoes), get roped into a podcast with Giant Bomb, pose for MTV and only THEN have the presentation from hell….

(Read all of Paul's GDC '09 blogs by clicking here!)