In Part I of our interview, Game Developers Conference executive director Jamil Moledina discussed Apple's relevance for game developers as well as some of this week's conference sessions. Here, in Part II, he addresses our charge that last year's keynotes were more self-serving than they should have been, explains how GDC is growing in importance as a result of the collapse of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, and gives us further insight into the conference program. (Note: some of the information in the interview was embargoed at the time of the interview in January, but said embargo has since been lifted.)

One thing that I felt about last year's GDC keynotes by [Playstation worldwide studios president] Phil Harrison and [Nintendo CEO] Satoru Iwata--and I felt the same way about last year's key D.I.C.E. presentations by Harrison and [Xbox corporate vice president] Peter Moore, by the way--was that they weren't what I wanted out of a keynote. And while I can't speak for developers, if I were a developer, it's not what I would have wanted out of a keynote either. They were very much position papers, very press conference-like. You had Mr. Iwata get up on stage and basically demo games, some of which were shipping imminently. In the case of Phil Harrison, there was more mystery around the PS3, so anything he showed was of interest, but I felt that it wasn't until he got to talking about Singstar, and the evolution of games from discs that you fire and forget about to manging an ongoing relationship with networks of communities--that's when I felt there was something abstractable to the general interest of people in the room; primarily developers, and then by extension, journalists. I felt the same way about Mr. Iwata: there were definitely some lessons in what he was saying, but it was so tied to the products. So in some ways, I was like, "Why am I here for this?" Is there any direction--

Yes.

--that's been given to the keynoters for this year to speak more to the audience that's actually there rather than to their own corporate objectives, or at least find a way to both?

That's a very perceptive analysis of the challenge that we face as conference managers, in separating an editorial impact from a marketing impact. This is one of the key distinctions that we draw for GDC sessions of all kinds, including the keynotes: they must be editorially sound. You asked what kinds of guidelines are provided to keynote speakers. Well, each platform receives an identical first page of keynote guidelines for GDC. Last year's guidelines reflected an interest in seeing never-before-seen technology demos that showcased the capabilities of the platform, or the philosophy of the development of a key element of the platform, so that developers may extract from those philosophies how to create games that are ideally suited for those platforms. So the GDC keynote has a slight opportunity to promote the platform, in the context of the editorial value to third party developers and publishers who don't have that access.

All platforms received a similar set of guidelines this year, but they were more developer-tuned and developer-focused. Also, the platforms are really getting a sense of what the GDC audience looks for, the balance between inspiration, learning and general sharing of knowledge that isn't otherwise available anywhere else. I've been working with each of the platform holders for several months. In fact, I'm not sure there was ever a break in the discussion from the last GDC to the current one, given the product cycle of the show. I can't actually share with you what the guidelines were for this year, but let's circle back once the keynotes hit, and I can tell you exactly what they were.

The guidelines come from the attendees and the GDC advisory board, and I basically massage them into a coherent form, and offer a couple of suggestions to each of the platforms as page two. That's the general format. And they all really appreciate it too, because it gets everybody on the same page, so that they understand the GDC attendees interests, are able to map it to what each platform's own developer relations interests are, and figure out something that's going to work.

We now have D.I.C.E., GDC, the E3 Media Festival, and E For All; that makes four tentpole videogame industry events over the course of the year. Where does GDC sit vis a vis the other three?

I'll take that backwards in time. I'm not sure what the attendee expectation is for E For All, but that's a consumer event. Let's put that one aside, because it is a consumer event. Although I'm generally optimistic about E3, I'm looking forward to actually partnering with them in some fashion--we used to partner with E3 in terms of co-marketing and co-branding. We had a booth at E3, so we're actually right in there with the some of the folks that feel they may no longer have the opportunity to exhibit at E3, or may not get an invitation.

The interesting thing is that E3 and E For All have split apart. For a long time, a number of people in in the industry, myself included, were advocating a combined event, like Tokyo Game Show, that would have a day of business meetings, then open it up to consumers. Because then all of the key players have an incentive to be there. They need to conduct business. And then it is open to the general public to see what it is that we've all got going on. By splitting them into two separate events, I wonder how that dynamic is going to play out; if the same exhibitors that were at E3 would also want to go to a consumer-only event? I'd love to see how that works out. It's a bold experiment. We'll see how it goes.

But as far as how GDC fits into everything, of the industry-only events, GDC is now physically the largest one. We have received numerous inquiries from folks who were constituents of E3, either technology companies or international pavilions, that do fit into the core values of the GDC. So for those kinds of exhibitors, we have a home for them. Also, we've received numerous inquiries from publishers looking to find a way to have a continuous dialogue with the press and the consumer throughout the year, and are seeing GDC more and more as a way for them to platform their ideas and brands. Now this works out fairly well from the GDC standpoint, because all sessions have to be editorially sound. So we provide something of a filtering service to the development community and the press community by accepting only those talks that have editorial value to the developer community. So of the reveals that are happening at GDC--and this has actually ramped up considerably since Will Wright revealed Spore at GDC two years ago--there's a strong correlation between that and editorial value to our core attendees. Keep in mind, that is our number one value, delivering learning and inspiration to the people that create games. Any kind of large, deep pockets coming from other areas are a secondary interest. We care about the individual developers paying for individual passes. That's our economic bottom line.

But to get back on track, you will see a greater degree of interesting reveals at GDC this year. I think about 8-10 or so, that we will be able to connect and magnify, for both the developers and the press. Each of the publishers that's participating with us in this fashion is holding a press event, is helping to magnify and funnel the publicity from these kinds of events. We have a Fable 2 talk from Peter Molyneux, that includes a very interesting reveal, a Microsoft-sanctioned reveal. We have a very strong Lucasarts talk about the next-generation Star Wars game, that will include materials that--did you see the E3 behind-closed-doors thing?

Yep.

So it's the evolution of that, the use of third party simulation and particle-based technologies, plus the integration of ILM-developed technologies and other internal tools. We have a wonderful Final Fantasy XII visual arts post-mortem; a Viva Pinata visual arts post-mortem; and a Burger King business and management discussion about how that deal came about and how effective it was. We have a Twilight Princess post-mortem by Eiji Aonuma that we'll be announcing shortly. We have a retrospective on game music by Koji Kondo, who composed Super Mario Bros and most of the iconic Nintendo themes. We have a post-mortem of Loco Roco, provided by Sony Japan.

We have a Gears of War post-mortem on iterative design. We also have a sequence of sessions on controllers. Now the theme of GDC is "Take Control," so there's a literal element to it, which is about hands-on with new interfaces. So we have session on controlling for Wii; for Playstation 3 we have a Lair controller talk; and a tongue-in-cheek--well, I think it's tongue-in-cheek because we have it--a session on force-feedback in next-generation consoles, by Microsoft. [Laughs.]

"Take Control" also refers to the ability to see all of the choices that are on the table at once. For the last couple of GDCs, platform holders have been somewhat hesitant to go into real detail about how to develop and what the tricks are for developing for those platforms. Now, with all of the consoles out, now that we have a new generation instead of a next-generation, we're going to be featuring a lot more content on how to create for those platforms. Microsoft has its traditional developers day, and Sony has three sessions that will speak to the tools developed internally for first party, shared now with third parties. And this hasn't been done before. So this is a really cool reveal. We're really happy to be able to host this at GDC, because this is one of the things that we've been hearing a lot about from third party publishers and developers: the complexity that they're experiencing developing for the Playstation 3. So having these tools, being able to use all of the secret sauce that went into creating the beautiful look of Lair and Heavenly Sword and MotorStorm is all going to be on display.

One of the biggest trends that we're observing at GDC is the emergence of broadband as real practical element of games. Not only game design and game distribution, but gameplay and game interaction. We've all seen Gamerscores become something of a nerd cred element and there are developments going on that amplify this. One of the talks along those lines is called "Tip of the Iceberg." It's presented by Lars Butler, who runs Trion Networks, you know kind of what they're up to, right?

Yes.

So they're going to be expanding into a little bit more detail about how they're implementing their idea. Howard Marks, the CEO of Acclaim, is going to do a talk about how online is changing the reinvention of Acclaim. And Martin de Ronde is will have a presence at GDC. He's one of the guys formerly of Guerrilla, before they sold to Sony. He is creating an altruistic game called One Big Game. It's the equivalent of Live Aid, but in the videogame world. He is working on a core game, and then different very well-known designers will contribute some of their time and energy to customizing elements of it. The proceeds will go to charity. It's a very interesting twist for us as an industry to show that we are capable of giving back.

Similarly, one of our Serious Games keynotes is from the team developing the One Laptop Per Child. It's in the games industry's interest to develop games that have a small footprint that can be deployed throughout the world on PCs that a lot more people will have access to. And of course, that synchronizes with the stated interest by every platform to go into the blue ocean of a broader audience and not the same old pie that we've been feeding on for so long.

Part III: Moledina goes deep on the Super Columbine Massacre RPG! controversy, the debate over whether games are toys or art, and whether gamers and game developers may be the biggest obstacle in the way of this medium achieving its true potential.