Spector, Walton Speak Out At Texas Indie Games Con

Today's Gamasutra main feature reports on the Texas Independent Game Conference, which took place in Austin over the weekend of July 22nd and 23rd. The two-day convention saw around 140 attendees, and included numerous speakers as well as keynotes from Greg Costikyan and Warren Spector. The following extract describes impressions and talks given by BioWare's Gordon Walton at the event, as well as his position on what is most important when pitching a game idea to a potential investor: “Gordon Walton, now of BioWare's Austin studio, though his long industry tenure includes working as an independent as well as for big game publishers, gave his own talk advising indies to think carefully about what they want to do as much as who they are. Working independently is a tradeoff with pros as well as cons, he warned, and indies must be passionate, dissatisfied and detached from the game market as it exists today, and perhaps most important, be at least a little crazy. Read all the books, absorb all the knowledge, but be brave enough to be irrational.” The report later adds: “Walton inadvertently got a frustrated shriek out of Spector when he suggested that successfully selling investors on a game project, in a market where 80 percent of game projects don't make a return on their investment, is a confidence game. Apparently, given his reaction, Spector would rather such things not be spoken aloud.” You can read the full Gamasutra feature for more, including more from the recent Texas Independent Game Conference (no registration required).