This will be an highly interactive presentation that explores, from one long-time practitioner’s point of view, essential ways that ‘story’ is built. It exposes key story elements we all should be looking at when working in games and then – through real exercises – how gameplay changes significantly when ‘story’ is introduced. The goal: that story and interactivity are best ‘built’ together. Through a variety of exercises, the audience experiences how ‘story’ can change the nature, importance, and meaning of any and all gameplay and interactivity. What was once merely fun, can turn deadly serious, now turned crucial with the addition of key story elements. Not really a lecture….this presentation will use the audience itself to bring home all its points in a visceral, memorable way.

What is the best kind of MMO? Do people want a open sandbox to create their own goals, structures, and gameplay? Or is a MMO where players are told what to do next and shown how to level or grow the best? What if it is both?

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Broadband data connections for cell phones will change everything. This session examines how massive portable storage and speedy data transfer rates will affect interactive audio for mobile devices in general, and mobile game soundtracks in particular. The author presents an overview of the current state of the art, then discusses new cell phone features that are about to come to market. He concludes by making predictions about the future of mobile game audio, based on experience, and supported by analogies drawn from the development of PC/console games and the Internet.

The Holy Grail of the entertainment industry is to create a franchise – an intellectual property which can cross media from video games to film to TV to Toys, Comic Books and other ancillaries. Currently, most top franchises, Star Wars, Spiderman, Batman, Transformers, Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean have come from comic books, toys and theme park rides, very few franchises have come from video games. In this session, we will analyze what we as video game creators have to do to develop our intellectual properties so that they can become true cross media franchises

Guild Wars is a critically acclaimed and commercially successful MMO which updates with a unique streaming technology. This presentation will cover the approach to sound design for the game, including the combat, creatures and spell sounds. It will also go into depth on how the challenge of keeping data size small is overcome through the powerful and flexible scripting system, and the audio pipeline.