Post Your PAX 2005 Panel Questions Here!

Robert Khoo

For the panels this year, we'll have about a dozen set questions per panel and open up the floor for audience Q&A. Like last year, the set questions will be gathered from you forumers and the best ones will be asked, so fire away.

Here's the Panel List:

1. Breaking into the Industry
2. Online Gaming
3. Gaming and Controversy
4. Marketing Games

Please ask your questions in this format if you could:

Panel #. Question.

Examples:

3. What do you think of this Jack Thompson fellow?
2. What do you think of buying and selling virtual items?
2. Where is the industry trending as far as online game types?
1. How do I get a PR position?
4. Where do these marketing guys come up with their ideas?
etc. etc.

Thanks!

Bongo

1. What sorts of things do you look for when hiring a Level Designer?

NotASenator

Panel 4. Given the mediocre run of games over the past few seasons, with big budget sequels and hastily produced clones dominating the market, what do you think is needed to reinvigorate an industry that is beginning to plateau?

futility

1. what do you think about the increase of academic programs surrounding the industry and do you think it completely and utterly insane of someone to try and say get a phd in such a field?

1. why are uneducated high school students preferred instead of overeducated literate and communicable gamers who love the industry and readily want to be abused?

3. Who the fuck cares? Seriously? You are all in a sense artists and should be allowed certain fredoms in what you do as long as your product has merit. If you create something wortwhile aren't people going to pursue it regardless of whether or not it's in a megastore? especially since the development of that inter... thingy... yknow the one where a 10yearold with enough guile to open his mothers purse can buy an x rated movie or ma rated game?

2. Co-op? with less than 100 bajillion assholes... y'know with just my friends... eh? eh?

4. so how many of you have bought a show on g4?

Øswald

4. Has the surge in blogging had any effect on the marketing of games? Is the gaming industry encouraging active blogging from their employees, or discouraging it for fear of company secrets being leaked?

Bendery It Like Beckham

2. Online Gaming. What do you feel would be the best way to regulate age limits in the online community. Regulation of age would weed out some of the annoying and worthless "STFU n00bs", do you feel this would ever be possible?

DaySleeper

From tezkah:

#3: "As videogames have matured into an industry larger than the movie industry, is there a reason why it hasn't gone through a period of extreme self-censorship like the comics code with Comic Books? Or are we heading in that direction now with this Hot Coffee business" - TEZKAH

ctishman

#1: Do you see an emerging need for dedicated story, environment and dialogue writers in games? If so, How would one build a resume towards this niche?

theclam

1. Do you think it's worthwhile to enter the industry right now? All I hear about are 70-hour work weeks, mediocre pay, and a complete sacrifice of personal lives. Are these things an exaggeration and if not, do you forsee them getting better in the near future?

Also, I'm not attending, so it would be cool if these Panels could be recorded an hosted (as a torrent, if no one wants to put forth the bandwidth).

Taramoor

1. How would one go about becoming a voice actor for video games.

2. Why do the majority of other people online suck and how come most games won't let me flag them to stay away from me?

3. Most of the controversy, in my opinion, comes from parents being alarmist and uninformed, how would you advise combating this? Is something like G4 the answer or will have it to go alot farther?

3. Why does it seem like the controversy is limited to the US (with some slight hiccups in Australia).

4. Why does G4 suck so bad? (You may want to reword this before asking it.)

super...

#4 With the arrival of digital delivery for PC games how will these games stay in the public eye and draw new players to the PC market as shelf space in retail stores is shrinking?

#4
With digital delivery allowing for small independent publishers like Garage Games to succeed on PCs. Do you think the next generation of consoles will allow for small publishers to deliver content in some non mass market fashion?

#4
What does the success of the Nintendo DS and nintendogs in Japan mean for you and the American market? Could this off beet title inspire more originality in the stagnate market place?

#4
What do events like PAX mean to you and how do they fit in with your marketing strategies.

Taramoor

3. If Jack Thompson succeeds in his stated goal of dismantling the ESRB, what do you think will happen?

Captain T Jerk

4. Is the number of cross-platform offerings for 'new' consoles likely to be affected by the increased divergence in programming approaches and complexity?

4. How is mid-term platform selection affected by the presence of the '360' as the lone top-spec console for up to a year? Will many games be targetted primarily to the 360 making them unviable for say the PS2, or is it likely that a broad platform base will be preserved, with a 'souped up' version of games for the 360?

BoBaBrain

4. Why not market more games to girls? It seems to be a resource as yet untapped by the marketing teams.

Robert Khoo

these are solid- keep 'em comin.

CombatCarl

1. Does experience in an equivalent (roughly or exactly) job in a related (or unrelated) industries transfer over, or is the video game industry exclusively insular?

LavaKnight

#2- In your opinion, do you believe the ever-growing appeal of online gaming for every genre has had a negative effect on the single player experience? If not, do you think the hysterical popularity ever will? (I'm definitely thinking about Halo 2, here)

Xenocide Geek

2. What do you think it's going to take to break the current trend of all MMORPGs essentially being the same?

degreesplatinum

3. Gaming and Controversy --> How do you feel about EA getting all the (or pretty much almost) exclusivity on the sports genre? Buying 20% of Ubisoft?

Taramoor

4. Can a strong cult following overcome lackluster sales when it comes to pitching a sequel to a game (see: Eternal Darkness, ICO, PN03)?

Bongo

1. What is the workflow for a level designer? How is an idea taken from concept to ingame?

Dog

4. Do you think sales of product placement by gaming companies to advertisers; will be able to fund development in artistic and niche games because of the lack of relience on sales numbers to make a profit?

apotheos

1. As development times for professional quality games skyrocket and budgets constantly surpass the million dollar mark, what recommendations can you give to a small independant development team that would like to make a mark and find some success?

Boreas

3 At EA among the piles of quickly churned out trash and sequels, there are gems, but even the gems are oft marred by lack of attention post release.
What do you think about EA's Super corporate approach to games? And having a poor structure for ensuring the longevity of a given title, ie, patches, content updates, rushed expansion release?

super...

#2 can we get a side scrolling MMO?

LogicLB

1. When hiring for a team of game developers, what qualities are you looking for? (College Degrees, Quality Portfolio, Personality, Super dedication and no personal life, the more specifics the better)

1. Can you give us some remarks on the current Colleges teaching game development and their programs? (i.e. Digipen, Guild Hall SMU)

1. Is professional level schooling becoming a requirement in the field?

R3V3L4T1ON

I think if Logic asks those questions I won't have anything left to ask.

Seriously you nailed all three of my questions.

Stabbity Style

1) With all of these MMO game out, there are still masses of people paying monthly fee's for them. This rules out half of the gamers who dont have as large of an income to spend on games. is there a chance of monthly fees for MMO's lowering or dissapearing to appeal to a wider audience?

2) With tools available to the general public such as the Valve SDK, people are making mods and maps left and right. I am currently aware of Valve supporting and even marketing mods (ie Counterstrike). Is there a posibility of this happening more often with more companies?

3) It seems that all of the original titles are coming from the same people, is there a posibility of another crash happening like with the atari years ago?

4) Do you view cell phones and PDA's as viable platforms to sell games on?

5) Eventually in many years, we will be at the point of photo realistic games. Do you think this will increase or decrease creativity in games?