Les Ateliers du Jeu Vidéo 2010 Lundi 11 janvier 2010 16h00

Les Ateliers du Jeu Vidéo 2010
Lundi 11 janvier 2010
16h00 : Jesper Juul, Assistant Arts Professor, New York University Game Center
Subject: "A casual Revolution":
With casual games on the web, with the Wii, and with music games, it seems that suddenly
video games are played by everyone. How did this happen? In this talk I will chronicle how
casual games revolutionized video games, and I will describe the core elements of casual
game design.
Bio:
Jesper Juul has been working with the development of video game theory since the late
1990's. He is a visiting arts professor at the NYU Game Center, but has previously worked at
the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Lab at MIT and at the IT University of Copenhagen. His book
Half-Real on video game theory was published by MIT press in 2005. His recently published
book, A Casual Revolution, examines how puzzle games, music games, and the Nintendo Wii
are bringing video games to a new audience. He maintains the blog The Ludologist on "game
research and other important things".
The company:
http://gamecenter.nyu.edu/
The mission of the New York University Center is to graduate the next generation of game
designers, developers, entrepreneurs, and critics, and to advance the art, science and culture
of gaming by carrying out research in an innovative and interdisciplinary environment.
18h00 : Dan Connors, CEO - TellTale Games
Subject : Episodic series in gaming reshaping videogames industry
Mardi 12 janvier
10h30 : Alexis Lang, Game designer, freelance
Sujet : "La narration à l'épreuve du jeu":
D'après Jenova Chen, game designer de Flower, le jeu vidéo est davantage concerné par le
story-experiencing (vivre une histoire) que par le storytelling (raconter une histoire).
(Réflexion relevée dans une interview donnée à Players only) Dans quelle mesure peut-on
soutenir que « jouer, c'est vivre une histoire ». Existe-t-il des jeux coupés de toute forme de
narration ? Et d'autres dont l'objet ne serait pas de vivre une histoire mais d'en raconter une ?
Ces questions nous permettront de confronter d'anciennes traditions aux concepts nouveaux
de fiction transmédia et de fiction participative.
Bio :
Vétéran du jeu de rôles papier, rédacteur en chef de Dragon Magazine VF, j'ai abordé le jeu
vidéo avec la conviction que le game play et le scénario étaient indissociables. J'ai conçu des
jeux de stratégie chez Cryo, puis des jeux d'aventure-gestion chez Kheops Studio. Les titres
qui m'ont laissé les meilleurs souvenirs sont Salammbô, qui se déroule dans l'univers
graphique de Druillet, Retour sur l'île Mystérieuse et Dracula 3, primé au Festival du jeu
vidéo.
16h00 : Frank Lantz, Creative Director and co-Founder of Area/Code
Subject : "Experiments in Game Design"
Over the past 5 years he has had the opportunity to work on a wide variety of interesting and
unusual game projects. From large-scale, cross-media alternate reality games to locationaware urban games to games on social networks. This talk will go over a number of these
projects, describe the challenges and opportunities they presented, and sketch out an overall
game design philosophy that ties them together.
Bio :
Frank Lantz is the Creative Director and co-Founder of Area/Code, a New York based
developer that creates cross-media, location-based, and social network games. He has worked
in the field of game development for the past 20 years. Before starting Area/Code, Frank
worked on a wide variety of games as the Director of Game Design at Gamelab, Lead Game
Designer at Pop & Co, and Creative Director at R/GA Interactive. Frank is currently the
Interim Director of the NYU Game Center. For over 12 years, Frank has taught game design
at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. He has also taught at the School of
Visual Arts, and Parsons School of Design. His writings on games, technology and culture
have appeared in a variety of publications. Over the past 8 years, Frank helped pioneer the
genre of large-scale realworld games, working on projects such as the Big Urban Game,
which turned the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul into the world’s largest boardgame;
ConQwest, which featured the first major application of semacodes in the United States,
PacManhattan, a life-size version of the arcade classic created by the students in his Big
Games class at NYU, and many other experiments in pervasive and urban gaming.
The company :
Area/Code makes cross-media games and entertainment. Area/Code takes advantage of
today's environment of pervasive technologies and overlapping media to create new kinds of
entertainment. Games and media define imaginary spaces that we enter into and explore.
Area/Code highlights the connections between these imaginary spaces and the world around
them.
These connections can take many forms:
- urban environments transformed into spaces for public play
- online games that respond to broadcast TV in real time
- simulated characters and virtual worlds that occupy real-world geography
- game events driven by real-world data
- situated media that corresponds to specific locations and contexts.
Area/Code works with advertising agencies, media firms, networks, universities, and large
consumer brands. Clients include: Nike, Disney Imagineering, CBS, Nokia, MTV, The
Discovery Channel, A&E, The History Channel, JWT, Cramer-Krasselt, Deutsch, SS+K, and
the Carnegie Institute / Girls Math and Science Project. Projects have been awarded at the
Clios, the One Show, OMMA and the Future of Marketing Summit. Area/code and its work
have been covered in the Wall Street Journal, Creativity, The New York Times,
Businessweek, The Chicago Tribune, MTV, Ad Age, and some of our favorite blogs
including boingboing and PSFK. The company was founded in early 2005 by Frank Lantz and
Kevin Slavin ; it has an HQ in Manhattan, NYC.
www.areacodeinc.com
18h00 : Evan HIrsch, vice-President and Creative Development THQ
Sujet : " Focus"
Being “creative” is easy. Building world class games in the age of connected and mobile
entertainment is not that easy. Creating exciting, cohesive and immersive experiences that
captures amd holds the imagination of users and players is tragically hard. Perhaps success in
creating great entertainment is simply a matter of being clear what you are creating?
Bio :
Evan Hirsch joined THQ as Vice President of Creative Development in October 2009 where
is he is responsible for raising the production values across the company’s portfolio of core
games. Prior to joining THQ he was the Creative Director at Microsoft’s Live Labs. While at
Microsoft he was also the Creative Director responsible for the launch of Surface the
computing technology that turns an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, interactive surface.
Before joining Microsoft, Hirsch worked in the entertainment industry in a variety of roles
and areas, including video games, visual effects and feature animation for major firms in
Europe, Asia and the United States. Hirsch is a the Chair for Real Time Rendering for
Siggraph 2009 and 2010, a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts as
well as the Industrial Design Society of America. He received his BFA in Industrial Design
from Rochester Institute of Technology.
The company :
THQ Inc. (NASDAQ: THQI) is a leading worldwide developer and publisher of interactive
entertainment software. The company develops its products for all popular game systems,
personal computers and wireless devices. Headquartered in Los Angeles County, California,
THQ sells product through its global network of offices located in North America, Europe and
Asia Pacific. More information about THQ and its products may be found at THQ's US
website at http://www.thq.com/ and http://www.thqwireless.com/.
Mercredi 13 janvier
14h30 : Bruno Bonnell, President Directeur General, ROBOPOLIS
Sujet: "D’Infogrames à Robopolis, la carrière d’un pionnier du jeu vidéo mondial":
Bruno Bonnell revient sur plus de 25 ans dans le monde du digital entertainment. Fondateur
d’Infogrames, un des géants du jeu vidéo mondial, Bruno a contribué à faire naître et
prospérer une véritable industrie du jeu vidéo français. Sans lui, nombre de studios existants
aujourd’hui n’auraient pas vu le jour, en particulier dans la région lyonnaise. Bruno revient
sur la saga Infogrames. Il évoque les « early days » des années 80, les moments forts de la vie
d’une société qui finira par acheter une des marques phares du jeu vidéo « Atari ». Il présente
également ses nouveaux projets et en particulier quelles sont selon lui les nouvelles étapes de
l'interactivité de loisirs. Il propose enfin une réflexion sur les objets interactifs et leurs
capacités a générer de nouvelles expériences de loisir.
Bio:
Bruno Bonnell, 50 ans, est le fondateur d'INFOGRAMES devenu en 25 ans un des leaders du
jeu video mondial. Il a aussi été à l'origine d'INFONIE, premier ISP francais en 1997 et de
GAME ONE la seule chaine de television entièrement dediée au jeu video. Depuis avril 2007,
il dirige Robopolis, société specialisée en robotique personnelle qui distribue et concoit des
applications robotiques, hardware et software dans les domaines domestiques, éducatifs et
ludiques.
La société :
http://www.robopolis.com/
ROBOPOLIS est la première société européenne de robotique personnelle. Elle distribue les
plus grandes marques de robots à usages domestiques, éducatifs ou ludiques : IRobot, leader
des aspirateurs robots, Fischer-Technics avec des robots utilisés dans l'enseignement,
ROBOTIS et le BIOLOID,....ROBOPOLIS conçoit des applications logicielles pour les
plateformes robotiques. Basée à Lyon, la société emploie 15 personnes.
18h00 : Ryan Wilkerson, Senior Art Director, Microsoft
Subject:" Two Sides of the Same Coin: The Relationship of Visual Arts to Game
Design in Modern Development":
Through the exploration of historical context, present-day analysis, and projections of future
methodologies, this presentation explores the concepts of reinforcement and resonance as they
relate to Artists and Game Designers. Can one discipline successfully exist without the other?
Is one of more relative importance, and how are customers’ perceptions, of both value and
fun, swayed by them? Using real-world examples, as well as theoretical study and conceptual
interpretation, the complex and very subjective nature of this relationship is examined.
Bio:
Ryan Wilkerson has worked at the forefront of the interactive entertainment and design
industries for the past 15 years, most recently as the Senior Art Director of Microsoft Game
Studios’ centralized publishing organization. Partnering with internal and external studios, he
oversees a team responsible for driving the visual quality bar of Microsoft’s first-party
gaming portfolio, across a variety of platforms. His current work ranges from XBLA, to retail
titles such as the award-winning Fable and Gears of War franchises, as well as experimental
work with Project Natal. Ryan holds a BFA from the University of Washington.
The company:
http://www.microsoft.com/games, http://www.xbox.com/
Microsoft Game Studios is a leading worldwide publisher and developer of games for the
Xbox video game system, Windows, and online platforms. Comprising a network of top
developers worldwide, Microsoft Game Studios is committed to creating innovative and
social experiences, including such franchises as “Halo,” “Fable,” and “Forza Motorsport,” as
well as the natural user interface of Project Natal.
Jeudi 14 janvier
18h00: Scot Brew, Director of Technology, Pipeline FX
Subject:"Automating Content Pipelines":
Creating content has become a very resource intensive component of developing video games.
Effectively creating that content is pivotal to the development success. Take useful pipeline
automation tips from the film industry and apply them to games to mitigate manual work,
increase time artists can create, decrease iteration times, and reduce mistakes. Distribute those
automated processes to further speed up the pipeline.
Bio:
Scot Brew has worked in the graphics and entertainment industry for over 10 years to raise
the bar for content and content pipelines in the game and film industries at studios including
LucasArts and SquareUSA. He has spoken at a number of events and conferences including
FMX and GDC on the topics of game/film pipelines, technologies, and directions. He
currently works for PipelineFX where he leads the development team, steers product
development, facilitates business and customer opportunities, and consults at studios.
The company:
http://www.pipelinefx.com/
PipelineFX is the leading provider of renderfarm management solutions for digital content
creation. PipelineFX has more than 350 customers worldwide including BBC, Digital
Domain, Electronic Arts, Fisher Price, General Motors, Herman Miller, Imagemovers Digital,
Laika Studios, Lockheed Martin, MTV, NBC, NHK, Rainmaker Entertainment Inc., Reel FX,
Smoke & Mirrors, Sony Computer, Sony Pictures Imageworks, South Park Studios, Starz
Entertainment, Technicolor and Telemundo. PipelineFX is headquartered in Honolulu,
Hawaii, and has offices in San Francisco, San Diego, and Las Vegas.
Vendredi 15 janvier:
10h30: Michel Ancel, Creative Director, Ubisoft Pictures - Montpellier
Sujet: "Les outils au service de la Création":
Depuis la nuit des temps, l'homme se dote d'outils pour réaliser ses rêves les plus fous. La
création numérique requiert la mise en place de nombreux composants et les données à
produire pour certains jeux peuvent nécessiter des dizaines de milliers d'heures de travail .
Pour libérer la créativité et ne pas s'enliser dans des développements trop lourds , il faut
inventer de nouveaux outils et plus important, il semble nécessaire de les adapter parfaitement
et indépendamment à chaque création.
Bio:
Michel est né à Monaco en 1972. Adolescent il découvre les premiers jeux vidéos. A
Montpellier où s'installe sa famille, il apprend la programmation et créé des petits jeux. Lors
d’un concours de jeunes talents, Ubisoft le remarque et lui propose un poste de graphiste,
nous sommes en 1989, Michel n’a que 17 ans ! Il participera à quelques petits jeux («
Mechanic Warriors », « The Teller »...) avant de sortir son premier succès, et celui d'Ubisoft
en 1995 : « Rayman ». Rayman deviendra la mascotte Française des jeux de plateformes 2D.
Une série d’épisodes s’en suivront, dont ceux avec les Lapins Crétins à partir de 2006,
Pendant le développement du second épisode de Rayman, Michel souhaite faire autre chose et
offrir un jeu où le joueur ne se sentirait pas limité, c'est alors qu'on entend parler de «
PROJECT BG&E », qui deviendra « Beyond Good and Evil » (sorti en 2003). Parmi les fans
de BGE, il y a Peter Jackson, qui demandera à Michel et son équipe de réaliser le jeu de son
film : « King Kong » (2005). Aujourd’hui, le studio de Montpellier a grandi et compte
environ 250 personnes. Plusieurs projets y sont développés, notamment « Les Lapins Crétins
et la grosse Aventure » titre sorti en Novembre, mais sans Rayman ! Et biensûr, il y a «
Beyond Good and Evil 2 », très attendu.
La société:
http://www.ubi.com/
Fondée en 1986 par 5 frères d’origine Bretonne, l’activité principale de l’entreprise sera
d’abord la distribution de logiciels ludiques et éducatifs pour des sociétés comme LucasArts,
Eletronic Arts ou Atari. Puis l’entreprise se lancera elle même dans la création de jeux, en
1989 Ubisoft son premier titre : « Zombi ». Mais c’est avec « Rayman » en 1995 sur
Playstation, qu’Ubisoft rencontre son premier grand succès commercial : à ce jour la licence
totalise plus de 22 millions de jeux vendus ! D’autres titres ont aussi rencontré un immense
succès comme « Prince of Persia », « Splinter Cell » ou « Assassin’s Creed ». Aujourd’hui
avec un chiffre d’affaire supérieur au milliard d’Euros, Ubisoft figure parmi les leaders
mondiaux en production, édition et distribution de jeux vidéo. L’entreprise compte peut
compter sur 6000 collaborateurs à travers le Monde : 21 filiales de distribution et 24 studios
de développement situés dans 28 pays (De nombreux pays d’Europe biensûr, mais aussi aux
USA, au Canada, en Chine, au Japon et en Australie).
16h00: Ian Bogost, Videogame designer
Sujet: "Learning from the Atari VCS"
By choosing a platform, designers and developers simplify development and delivery in many
ways. Their work is supported and constrained by what this platform can do. Sometimes the
influence is obvious: A monochrome platform can't display color, a video game console
without a keyboard can't accept typed input. But there are more subtle ways that platforms
interact with creative production, due to the idioms of programming that a language supports
or due to transistor-level decisions made in video and audio hardware. In 1977, the Atari
Video Computer System (VCS, or Atari 2600) did something very similar to what platforms
like Nintendo Wii are trying to do today: get friends and families, including the very young
and very old, to play videogames at home. The circumstances were different in the mid1970s, of course. Still, Atari games offer many lessons for today's designer. This talk shows
how titles like Yars' Revenge, Pac- Man, and E.T. show us how to look for the essence of
experiences for family play, by seeing how designers did so successfully, and unsuccessfully,
in the past. The talk takes a platform perspective, suggesting the ways the Atari's unique
hardware influenced and, in many cases, improved these games.
18h00 : 3 intervenants
- Neil Schneider, Founder of MTBS3D
- Habib Zargarpour, Directeur Artistique chez EA
- Andrew Oliver, CTO - Blitz Games Studio
Subject : " Stereoscopic 3D Gaming: The Here and NOW!"
According to the U-DECIDE Initiative, 93% of traditional 2D gamers want game developers
to support stereoscopic 3D gaming. A separate Gamesindustry.biz survery of 300 gaming
professionals described S-3D gaming as the most anticipated technology of 2009. 2009 also
marked the year that Sony revealed plans for 3D Bravia televisions with PlayStation3 support,
Electronic Arts announced development of an S-3D compatible game, and Ubisoft and Blitz
Games Studios released XBOX and PS3 console games with stereoscopic 3D support. Athome solutions include new glasses, 3D displays, head mounted displays, projectors, a wide
range of 3D HDTVs, and more.
Bio :
Neil Schneider, Executive Director The S-3D Gaming Alliance - http://www.s3dga.com/
Non-profit and non-proprietary in nature, The S-3D Gaming Alliance is considered the
official voice for stereoscopic 3D gaming. Neil Schneider has been featured in
GAMEINFORMER, Joystiq, Gamesinudustry.biz, Wired, and more. Neil also runs Meant to
be Seen (mtbs3D.com), the leading advocacy group and resource for S-3D gamers.
Neil will give an overview of the S-3D gaming industry. What do we know about its
customers? Who are the players? What challenges need to be overcome? What are the next
steps for the industry? Andrew Oliver, Chief Technology Officer Blitz Games Studios.
Andrew Oliver, Chief Technology Officer Blitz Games Studios http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habib_Zargarpour
Andrew Oliver is the co-owner of Blitz Games Studios, a leading game developer that was
founded in 1990. Its six divisions encompass mature titles (Volatile Games), Serious Games
(TruSim), family titles (Blitz Games), in-house technology (BlitzTech) and downloadable
games (Blitz Arcade) and its training division (Blitz Academy). With over 200 employees, it
is one of the world's largest independent video game developers. Andrew is also a member of
BAFTA, reflecting his ongoing interest in the future of entertainment, and has received an
Honorary Doctorate of Technology (DTech) from Coventry University for his major
contribution in technical aspects of the electronic games industry in the regional, national and
international forum. Most recently, Blitz Games Studios have taken a very aggressive leap
into stereoscopic 3D gaming, and launched Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao on
XBOX and PS3. Invincible Tiger is arguably the first console video game designed to work
with modern stereoscopic 3D displays.
Andrew will review the leading format and programming considerations that game developers
need to be aware of.
Habib Zargarpour, Senior Art Director Electronic Arts http://www.blitzgamesstudios.com/about_us/
Habib graduated with distinction in Industrial Design from the Art Center College of Design
in Pasadena in 1992 where he discovered his passion for design in film. He got his start
creating vfx for 3D stereo IMAX projects. Habib has over 12 years of experience in the visual
effects industry working on both games and film. Two of his projects, Twister and The
Perfect Storm, have been nominated for Academy Awards in Visual Effects. Other
memorable projects include the pod race sequence in Star Wars Episode I, Star Trek First
Contact, Spawn, and Signs. In his current role at Electronic Arts, Habib is responsible for the
visual aspects of leading projects including production design and the overall look. Need for
Speed Most Wanted received a Visual Effects Society Award in 2006, and he has earned
additional recognition for demonstrating Need For Speed SHIFT in stereoscopic 3D at
SIGGRAPH 2009.
Habib will share stories of his experiences with stereoscopic 3D technologies, and talk about
some core needs our industry requires moving forward.