Game Development Giant

time flies.

The 2006 GDC Annual Game Developers Conference is approaching. Everyone who is attending this year knows that Jester Lee, who has not participated in this conference for several years, will once again attend the conference.

It is said that he will also give a speech.

This may be his last speech at this conference.

Because just over a month ago, Jester officially resigned from all his positions in Mars Entertainment, including the position of director of the WOW development team for more than six years. This position has now been filled by the creative director of Mars Entertainment. Rob Pardo is in charge, this is also an outstanding designer single-handedly selected by Jester.

Since Jester officially resigned from all his positions at Mars Entertainment more than a month ago, everyone in the industry knows it, just as he said back then.

He's really going to retire.

The legend who brought the dying video game back from the brink and created a prosperous generation of video games, the greatest game company president, helmsman and the greatest game designer, Jester Lee, is really going to leave him for it. I have been working hard in this industry for twenty-two years.

Jester's speech was placed at the closing meeting of GDC.

After the awards are over.

Previously, Hideo Kojima had just received his Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Game of the Year was undoubtedly won by Rock Star's masterpiece after GTA3, Red Dead Redemption.

Everyone is looking forward to Jester's final speech.

The whole place was silent.

Jester was dressed in casual clothes, his favorite outfit, and slowly walked onto the stage.

Casual clothing is his favorite clothing, and he once talked about in an interview the reason why he wears casual clothing on almost all occasions, because he feels that the most important thing for a game designer is freedom and not to be restricted by anything. Live, you can wear casual clothes as you like, whatever is comfortable for you, but a suit is fine. He also joked that the only time he wore a suit since he founded Mars Entertainment was at his wedding.

Even if he goes to Citibank's annual board meeting every year and the subsequent charity dinner. Just wear casual clothes.

Of course, for a person of Jester's level, no one is qualified to judge him.

Hello everyone, the last time I stood here and spoke was probably eight years ago.

Jester always likes to start his speeches in a humorous way. And sure enough, with his joke, the originally quiet and somewhat serious atmosphere suddenly became more relaxed.

The last time Jester was here, he talked about his somatosensory game plan, WOW development plan, and his retirement plan.

And eight years later, he will be here, with the video game career that he has been fighting for for twenty years. After saying goodbye, everyone was curious about what Jester would say.

I have been thinking about what I should say today. I thought a lot, but I didn't feel it was appropriate. In the end, I felt that it was the last time, so I just wanted to say something from my heart. So. This speech was born. For the first draft of the title this time, I chose a very simple name, ‘I’m just a player’.”

Jester smiled. Talk freely.

Many people will put a label on me, and these labels are diverse. They call me chairman, they call me president, they call me director...

But in my own opinion, I am just an ordinary game developer who came up with a trivial idea and was recognized by my peers.

Deep down in my heart, I'm just an ordinary player.

Same as the 100 million players of Mars Entertainment, players.

Today, I want to introduce our work and industry here. It may be a bit long-winded, and it may be a bit annoying, but this is the last time. I hope everyone can bear with me.

“I can’t remember the first time I played a video game, or which game it was. It might be Odyssey, or it might not be. In my memory, the first game that left a deep impression on me was Yada. Lee's Pong, I like this game very much. It was the first time I knew that a game could be so fun. I was very curious at the time and how such a magical thing was made.

At that time, I just entered junior high school. My father gave me an Apple computer. This computer was a second-hand item that was not used by one of my father's colleagues. But despite this, I was very happy because I was the first in the class. I have my own computer, which is completely my own, not because I can use this Apple computer to play a lot of interesting games that I saw in magazines where the code is directly published.”

“But I can use this computer to learn programming.”

The first game I made that was completely my own was completed when I was in the third grade of junior high school. It was a tennis game. I don't expect anyone to say 'the graphics of this game are really bad' because it itself There were no graphics and the game was just numbers. But my friends loved the game. That made me very proud.

This fueled my energy and passion for gaming. This passion for gaming ultimately defined my path in life.

In 1982, I went to UCLA, a very good school. I chose electrical engineering and minored in computer programming. After class, I didn't go back to the dormitory to rest, eat and sleep like other students. I rode my bicycle for more than ten kilometers to where my father worked to see how Atari arcade machines were produced.

When I was in my second year, very unpleasant things happened in the industry. As everyone knows, the ET incident and the impact of Atari were really a disaster. Everyone seemed to lose interest in video games in an instant. My ambition at the time was to work at Atari after graduation and become a developer like Eugene Jarvis.

If you have experienced that era, you will know how cool Eugene is. Defender is really an amazing game. It completely changed my view of games. I thought it was the best game before. It was just like Donkey Kong, but Defender showed me that the game screen can also move!

Yeah, a lot of people know this game, the side-scroller. Mr. Eugene's masterpiece, that was my idol at the time.

But the situation made me question, is there a future for video games?

There is always a voice in my heart that keeps reminding me, yes. I know that there was a Japanese company called Nintendo at that time. When everyone was not optimistic about the game industry, they released their game console. Then The host computer is called FC, and our North American model is called NES. I asked my father to help me get the FC in advance, because this machine had not yet been released in North America.

There were only three or four game disks. I was playing so much that I forgot about food and sleep. One thing suddenly dawned on me. That is, if the games are as fun as those on FC, then how could the game have no future? Where’s the industry?”

I convinced my father, and my father at the time, Mr. Mark Saini, who was my first partner.

I finished developing American Cube. I was inspired by a graphics game - it was so successful that I still remember the first five arcade machines with this game, and how my father and I made it by hand. After the creation was completed, I personally went to the arcade store in Los Angeles to sell them. Now these five consoles are in our Mars Entertainment exhibition hall. If you have the opportunity to visit, you can take a look.

It is worth mentioning that these five arcade machines are still running because we have maintained them well!

Of course, I founded Mars Entertainment at this time. Twenty-two years ago now, I developed my first console, Dreambox, and now the console with this name is about to release its fifth model, with a total sales volume of more than two 80 million units. It is the best-selling console in the world, no one. I am proud of this console.

To be honest, the game development work at that time really made me and my colleagues grow up a lot. Now it seems that the graphics at that time were much worse than now. It was very rough, so we would always think about it. , how to let players’ imagination exceed the limitations of the screen.”

It's a bit abstract. Let me give you an example. For example, we often think about this. If one day the graphics of the game cannot be further improved, what should we do?

There are other growths. For example, because of capacity, we must make our code extremely concise and accurate, without any slack. In fact, our best programmers now started working at that time. of.

There is a lot of growth like this and that. The space is limited, so I don't want to go into details.

The subsequent story is actually a bit cliché. Many people know that the fierce console war, one game after another, one developer after another, and one game company after another. What I want to say is that although many Things have changed over the years, but one thing has never changed in Mars Entertainment from the day it was founded to its current position, even though I have left the management position of Mars Entertainment.

That is, the first factor when we develop games is always fun.

Why doesn't it change? It's simple, because people's entertainment nature will not change. Like other media, our game industry also needs to create an 'emotional response' in order to be successful. Laughter, fear, joy, touching, Surprised, etc. In the end, whether our product can 'resonate' with players will be the criterion for judging the success of the product. At the same time, this is also the lowest line for 'measuring' success.

Actually there's one other thing that hasn't changed.

That is, we need to weigh the impact of the challenges and rewards set in the game on players. Different players have different levels of acceptance. A 'heavy' player can accept more challenges, but an average player can accept more Relatively few. We believe that it is the responsibility of Mars Entertainment to develop games suitable for all players. Of course, the 'all players' I mentioned here also include friends who have not played our games yet.

It seemed like I couldn't stop talking about this. Originally I just wanted to say that one thing had not changed, but I immediately thought of the second thing. But before I finished saying the second thing, the third thing popped into my mind. Come out.

Then let's talk about the third thing that remains unchanged.

The third thing that will not change is the 'importance' of creativity. Of course, this also includes providing new development ideas for existing games. However, the most valuable thing is to be able to come up with a brand new game idea. I am convinced that, There is such a genius in the audience today. This is the kind of genius our game industry needs!

The fourth thing is something that I have always insisted on and will never change. It is the sales model of 'selling hardware based on software'. People buy games to play the games they like. I like to speak out. Maybe I am so I said that it would make Mr. Kutaragi unhappy, and I despise the PS3's sales strategy of relying on DVD features to attract players.

Indeed, PS3 did sell many units through this method. But looking at their game sales, everyone knows that our total sales of Dreambox 4, as of the third quarter of this year, were 130 million units. PS3 also has 120 million units, which is not much different, but our total game sales are more than double theirs.

On this point, I agree with Steve Jobs's view that 'software is user experience' and 'software will not only promote the development of computer technology, it will also promote the development of the entire consumer electronics industry.'

Now that we have talked about what remains unchanged, we can talk about what can be changed or what has been changed.

When I think about this, one word immediately 'jumps' into my mind, and that's 'bigger.' In the Western Hemisphere, the gaming industry is getting 'bigger.' In North America. The value of gaming retail stores alone is Already approaching $17 billion. Last year, U.S. game sales once again had an 8% growth rate. Now games are everywhere. It's in your living room, in your office, on your PDA, on your phone, and of course It’s on your handheld device, and maybe it will be on your mobile phone in the future.”

Many media reports show that young people now spend far more time playing games than watching TV. At the same time, games themselves are becoming 'bigger' in different directions.

In order, larger development teams, larger development budgets, and greater challenges when facing release deadlines. In addition, 'bigger' also means that the original large development company has become a large development company by destroying its relatively smaller peers. We all know it. The development budget of the next generation of games will be at least 3 times that of the current one. The development cost of any game will reach 8 figures. With such a huge budget, only those with 'bigger' Only developers can afford it. Developers' 'greater' investment in key games will bring them more profits. This is very normal from everyone's perspective.

However, I don't know if you have noticed that the books, movies and TV shows that developers provide to every consumer are all the same. To this end, we will make our own 'unconventional' style in the game. We will help players fulfill their dreams and create their own exciting endings.

On the other hand, what is more obvious is the trend of 'downsizing' of the industry. Now, the risks we can encounter are getting smaller and smaller. It is getting easier and easier for us to define 'what is a video game'.

The types of games are also very clear: shooting, sports, puzzle, etc. However, who still remembers the last time we created a new game type? It was probably when I released somatosensory, right? Suddenly we find that when we have more and more games and make more and more money, we have fewer and fewer ways to interpret the games?

“Are the games we develop suitable for everyone?”

Do you have friends and family who don't play games? So what do they like to do?

I would like to ask everyone here: Have you ever challenged yourself and worked hard to develop a game that you don't want to play? I think these questions are a very important challenge for everyone here.

I can tell everyone. I have never done anything that I am not interested in. The games I make must bring me enough passion.

What kind of game can bring me enough passion?

I sum it up in the four I's.

The first I, truly innovative, has something in our game that hasn't been done before.

The second I, intuition, is how to naturally control the character and how to position the gameplay during game development all comes from intuition.

The third I is the charm of the game. Inviting, what will make you willing to spend time on the game? That is the charm of the game.

The last I, interface, Interface. What kind of interface can attract players? Can players start the game in a completely new form? In fact, there are few games in the game industry that can do these four aspects well at the same time. , including all the games I’ve made before.”

However, this is my standard for making games, in actual work. We actually use this standard for our software and hardware development. The most recent example is the WOW I developed, and many of you here may have played it. The game, there are a lot of interesting stories about the development of this game, but now is not the time to talk about it.

After saying so much and wasting so much of everyone's time, I think it's time to end it.

Everyone has a time to say goodbye. Twenty-two years ago, when I was nineteen years old, I released my first game. This year, I am forty-one years old, a father of five children, and a man who loves me. Wife, in the past 22 years, I spent almost all my energy on games, so I think it’s time for me to do something else.”

Of course, it wasn't just the complaints from my wife that made me decide to quit, but I felt that I had lost the inspiration for the game. I couldn't come up with those unique ones that I could do like before. Inexplicably exciting idea.”

I'm not a person who likes to walk the same path I've already walked.

I've made countless games. But I've only made one sequel.

Okay, there's a lot more I want to say, and I might not be able to finish it in a few days or nights, so let's just say this much. It's time to end it.

I like everyone here, even though we come from different parts of the world. Some are from South America, some are from North America, some are from Asia and some are from Africa.

Even if we speak different languages, even if we eat different foods, even if we have different experiences in games, even if our perspectives are left.

“But there is one very important thing that everyone of us here has in common today.”

That's what I'm trying to say.

“The similarity is that we all have a ‘player’s heart’.”

Thanks.

Jester finished the last word of his speech, bowed slightly, turned around, and walked towards the audience.

The tens of thousands of audience members in the audience stood up and applauded.

The applause was thunderous.

Some people's eyes even shed tears when they saw Jester slowly walking off the stage, because these people knew that the legend who had accompanied them through an era had left.

The era of a ‘god of games’ has come to an end.

Many years later, in IGN's selection of the 100 greatest game developers, Jester Lee was elected number one with an undisputed advantage, and was recognized by everyone as the 'God of Games'. In order to show their respect, IGN directly used the comments of Time Magazine's evaluation of Jester's entire video game career when it selected him as Person of the Year the year he announced his retirement as their evaluation.

Now, it would be ridiculous for a game designer to say that he had never been influenced by Jester Lee. It would be like a movie director saying that he has never seen a Hitchcock film. A writer has never read Shakespeare's plays. In the game world, Jester Lee is Hitchcock, Spielberg, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy. His designs rooted in human nature Ideas will be more valuable than all current or future technologies and will last forever.”

And when all this was happening, Jester was leisurely spending time with his wife and children on his private island.

Not caring at all about these things.

Since his retirement, he has not expressed his opinion on any game, nor made any suggestions for the development of Mars Entertainment, nor interfered with any of Satoru Iwata's decisions, because he knew that his era was over.

Mars Entertainment, under the leadership of Satoru Iwata, is also thriving, even better than before.

He just watches the ebb and flow of the tide every day, and sometimes plays some new games.

When watching the ebb and flow, the ups and downs, a song he likes always comes to mind.

The sea laughed, and the tide surged across the strait.

Ups and downs follow the waves, only remembering the present.

The sky smiles, and the world is full of tides.

God knows who will lose and who will win.

The country is smiling, the misty rain is far away.

After all the waves have washed away, the mortal world is full of beauty.

The breeze laughs, causing loneliness.

The pride is still there, and the evening light shines on it.

The common people laugh and are no longer lonely.

The pride is still smiling foolishly. (~^~)