Social-gaming entrepreneur Brenda Brathwaite delivered a rant at the Game Developers Conference that would have made a tent preacher proud. In a session where speakers were encouraged to lash back at critics among traditional game makers, Brathwaite lobbed a bunch of grenades back at industry bigots who think social games are evil.
All of the insults hurled against social-game developers in recent years &8212' chiefly that low production quality, knock-off designs, and cheap price points are destroying the industry&'s creative values &8212' have pissed her off. Her response: a kind of manifesto that may well convince more traditional game makers to move into social games. The game industry is undergoing a sea change, and Brathwaite welcomes those who want to pioneer games on a brand-new platform.
As a cofounder of Loot Drop, a social-game developer in San Mateo, Calif., Brathwaite has put a stake in the ground saying that social games are not ruining the game-development industry. Her stance: social games are still games. They&'re part of the same entertainment fabric. They aren&'t mature yet, like console games, but they are no less deserving of praise because they appeal to audiences that are different from the hardcore gamers who play on the consoles.
Brathwaite is a longtime game maker who worked at Siro-Tech for 18 years, building titles such as Wizardry and Jagged Alliance. More recently, she worked on Playboy: The Mansion and studied the thorny topic of sex in video games. In the spring of 2010, she crossed the divide between traditional game development and social games. She became creative director at LOLapps, where she co-developed Ravenwood Fair with John Romero. Her new company, founded with Romero and other traditional game industry veterans, will do social games with a focus on good design.
The GDC rant session included a number of other industry luminaries as well, including Zynga chief game designer Brian Reynolds and Digital Chocolate chief executive Trip Hawkins. But nobody really got the fire going like Brathwaite&'s fire and brimstone.
Here&'s a video of her rant in full. Note there is some profanity.
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Companies: Loot Drop
People: Brenda Brathwaite
Companies: Loot Drop
People: Brenda Brathwaite
Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
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