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AGDC 2008: Don't be a towel maker

Sci-fi writer and futurist Bruce Sterling urges game makers to not let themselves be chained to the factory-like mentality of making games that appease stockholders.

AUSTIN, Texas--At the San Francisco Game Developers Conference in February, renowned inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil delivered a thought-provoking keynote address on what's in store for the gaming industry in the next 20 years. Playing largely to the concept of Moore's Law--which dictates that technological capacities will grow exponentially as costs decline--Kurzweil urged game makers to develop their software to maintain pace with hardware. He also spoke at length about immortality and how humans are on the path to becoming cyborgs, as futurists are wont to do.

Sterling, doing his futurist thing.

That's all fine and well, but what about those 15 years after the next 20? Such was the topic of Bruce Sterling's keynote address on the second day of the Austin Game Developers Conference. A science-fiction writer and futurist by trade, Sterling has been credited as one of the originators of the cyberpunk genre, thanks to his Mirrorshades anthology, first published in 1986. Over the course of his career, Sterling has been honored with a pair of Hugo Awards--one of science fiction's premier honors--one for Bicycle Repairman and the other for Taklamakan.

"I'm not Bruce Sterling," began the man who bore a striking resemblance to Bruce Sterling. "I know you were expecting Bruce Sterling for the keynote today, but he couldn't make it. He sent me instead. Hi. The reason Bruce Sterling couldn't make your event today is because in the year 2043, Bruce Sterling is 89 years old, and he is a bit too frail to get into a time machine and talk to game developers, so he called on me. I'm one of his graduate students."

Such was the setup for Sterling's keynote address, spoken from the perspective of a man directly from the future, with firsthand knowledge of events both past, present, and future. To evidence his claim that he was from the future, Sterling whipped out a handkerchief, which he purported to be a personal computer from the future.

"It's cheap, and it's old, I've had it every day, and it's like the dullest thing in the world." he said. "But you all still think these things are exciting. They don't get it that all computers in 2043 are boring, everyday objects. They don't understand they're like towels."

Following Moore's Law, he commented, "My towel is as good as 320,768 of your best laptops, and it's about five years outdated." He went on explain the functionality of his "personal mediator," saying that the power cables are superconductive fiber, shape-changing threads, and so on. "It's a camera, a phone, can run some old-fashioned virtual-reality apps," he says, before placing the handkerchief over his head to raucous laughter from the crowd.

So do people develop games for this platform? "Of course they do, but they're not the kind that you look at those flat, glass screens you all use today," he said with clear mockery in his voice. Plus, the future has got 70 years of computer games, spanning "all kinds of dead platforms and dead intellectual properties [that] are occasionally revived." Tetris is apparently very popular in 2043.

Sterling then arrived at what he knew the crowd was waiting to hear: What's the next big thing that will make them rich in the future? "Is it going to be the Web apps? Console sales? Massively multiplayer online role-playing games? I don't know why you all can't invent a better word. We just call them crowd games."

So who are the rich guys? "Well, it's the bankers. It's the bankers and the financiers. You know entertainers can make a lot of money, but entertainers can't keep that money. They're not money-management people... So guys who go into this to make money aren't game makers. They're bankers." He then read a game FAQ from 2043, which is heavy on financial terms, marketing speak, and everything else you'd expect to hear in a current-day postearnings conference call from any given publisher.

"Does that sound like fun gameplay to you?" he posed to the crowd. "Financial services are incredibly boring. They are not cool, fun games. For most people, this kind of electronic commerce is a torture game, because you have to keep playing it or you go broke. Are the gaming bankers rich? Extremely."

So what other questions do smart people ask us time travelers? "What is it about the future that I did not see?" Sterling broke it to the crowd of video game makers that computer entertainment is not, in fact, what they do. "Those are just two old-fashioned words that you still use. The word 'computer' in the future just holds you back." Sterling then said that few probably understand the concept of game development as more than just for computers. He pointed out that there has been a shift to consoles, handhelds, and phones, "so you've almost escaped the computer bottle. But really it's not about the bottles. In the future, we don't have bottles. As you can see, I have a towel."

Calling up an old cliche, Sterling noted that the best way to create the future is to invent it. "The best way to understand the future is to study the past," he argued. "Your past once involved a futurist prophecy. A dark and painful prophecy that was made 35 years ago. And that prophecy came in two words: towel designers." Sterling then called up Atari's history, saying that games were fast out of the gates, drawing the attention of corporate overlords in the form of Warner.

In the wake of that buyout, "the geeks" at Atari argued that since they were creating all of the games, they should get a cut of Warner's wealth. Warner's boss, said Sterling, shunned them, arguing that his company owned Atari and "You guys are our towel designers." By that, said Sterling, Warner's boss meant that the people who made the games were just part of a factory, not a creative workshop for artisans.

What the prophecy left out, according to Sterling, was that "someday, the computer entertainment industry would be big, big enough and stodgy enough that it actually would employ towel designers. There would be oceans of money, and huge budgets on an industrial scale. So there would be room enough for armies of nameless creative guys who actually did create towels. Not visionaries, not game changers, not people reforming culture and changing the daily lives of the population."

"Creative disruption, radical innovations, genuine social and technological change: That is the problem with predictable, stockholder-friendly towel factories," he continued. "What kind of game developer is going to do a rude thing like that, ruin a perfectly good towel? It's not someone who fully understands the future. The kind of guy who could do that is a shameless kind of guy. He's got the nerve to understand himself. When he looks into the mirror, he never sees an obedient functionary. You can't chain him to a towel machine, because his head is not a towel factory."

20 Comments

  • BewilderedRonin

    Posted Sep 17, 2008 7:49 pm PT

    I love how he is essentially promoting the Wii. The analogy of the towel, something can be used in many ways, but typically is only thought of one way. The Wii: a console made of computer parts, yet defies the typical controls and operations of a computer.

    @ ShirkDawg

    And it's not possible to relate to the storylines in Final Fantasy? I understand that some feel the series is played out and dumb, and that's their taste. But who is to decide what's art and what's not? Final Fantasy still changes up their gameplay styles, the storylines are different, and they are usually very well made games. Yes, other games should attention, but blaming Final Fantasy because gamers didn't bother to check out another series? That's like blaming Friends for Strangers With Candy being taken of the air.

  • re4leonkennedy

    Posted Sep 17, 2008 2:48 pm PT

    Towels+Science Fiction reminds me of "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". I want to read a book written by Bruce Sterling, so if anyone has read a good book by him tell me what it is called.

  • Caer_Death

    Posted Sep 17, 2008 11:10 am PT

    I loved this! Remember, every generation of consoles (roughly 5 years), production costs go up by about 5 times, and that's what's caused much of the slowdown in the appearance of AAA games. It's also helped fuel the indie industry, but companies shouldn't forget that innovation in games should outweigh the need for more of the same, and satisfying the people who fund you isn't pushing the industry forward.

  • zombey1333

    Posted Sep 17, 2008 10:59 am PT

    Awesome. Simply, awesome.

  • starfoxmania

    Posted Sep 17, 2008 9:35 am PT

    wow - when I first read teh title I thought to myself - this guy must be incredibly smart, so smart that I would vote for him if he ran for president, but after I read his speech, I simply realized he is a moron. For the unfairness that exists in this world, about artistic people that are the real heroes behind a game, getting ripped off by the evil corporates, we have to also consider that millions of people are dying for food in the world and that French companies make African people pay for water in their own home, by means of an electronic card at water pumps, that we humans feast on cows and sheep after they have fed humanity for ages with milk and its byproducts, that we have killed millions of our own kind for religious and political beliefs. I mean it's clearly a f***ed-up world, and although I truly am a gamer at heart, I am not blind to see the larger issues at stake, but at the same time I'm not a writer or an intellectual like he is or pretends to be - weird huh? LMAO -pathetic.

    Now stop reading this idiot's thoughts and go read David Cage's interview. There you will find probably the most brilliant mind in the gaming industry as we know it.

  • Generic_Dude

    Posted Sep 17, 2008 6:28 am PT

    This guy might be the biggest geek in the world... but he's not exactly wrong. However, I do believe it's wise to release a few safe games here and there to guarantee cash flow into the company... otherwise the arty games don't get made.

  • ShirkDawg

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 11:47 pm PT

    In order to keep creative developers going, people need to support them. Instead of buying games like Lost Odyssey and Okami, people prefer to buy up every Final Fantasy spinoff there is because it has the name "Final Fantasy" even though it is not by the original creator anymore. Also, the Tales series has a lot of heart but most people in the west choose to ignore it, instead of trying a great new 50 hour RPG full of great character development and a story with themes people can relate to (that is if you ever get outside of the virtual environment).

  • PuhJesus

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 9:48 pm PT

    That speech must have been amazing to hear.. I wish I had been there.

  • BloodMist

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 9:36 pm PT

    Haha, i definitely have seen the trend that he's talking about in the games industry just become more and more prevalent over the years.Frankly it's starting to piss me off as it's pretty bad now in my eyes.I like to use perhaps a much more common term to describe it, "cookie cutter".More and more cookie cutter games are being released every year, and it's disgusting.It's gotten to where i maybe buy 3 games a year, because they're the only ones WORTH buying.Now if all you chumps out there would maybe wake up a bit and stop buying so many cookie cutter games yourselves, the trend might at least lighten up a bit.

  • ynfive

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 5:06 pm PT

    The games will go back and forth between being towels and whatever the hell is the opposite of a towel. Both will exist along side eachother codependantly. Quite simply, between both casual and core gamers there is one rule: it has to be fun or we wont buy it. The only exception seems to be that Madden crowd. In reality the financiers and stockholders aren't really the ones with the money, its the consumers. The consumers tend to dictate this industry by rewarding good game ideas, shunning bad ones, and sharing a community where we tend to throw our opinions at one another and the developers of those games. As long as we don't want our developers to not be lowered to towel makers we won't get as much towels.

  • liesandpies

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 4:16 pm PT

    Yeah, just look at what Activision is doing with GH/COD/James Bond games.

  • UnamedThing

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 3:50 pm PT

    Haha that was certainly....interesting

  • drewciferpike

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 3:29 pm PT

    It's so hard to make good, new, world-changing choices when the people holding the pen above the check can't think in good, new, world-changing ways...

    I don't know whether to be inspired or depressed: Here's a guy spelling it out, but do you think we're (read: gamers) going to get less "towels" over the next few years?

  • neovalkyr

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 2:58 pm PT

    What people dont understand about games is that to be successful in the video game industry, you have to do things no one in the history of human society has done before(as well as in the video game industry). You have to write code that no one has written before. Video games are Art, my logic: Photography = art -> movies = art -> CG movie = art -> CG video game = art.

  • KBABZ

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 2:20 pm PT

    Hey go easy on the towels. They're the most functional items the galaxy has ever known!

  • normsta

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 1:32 pm PT

    This is why i don't want anything to do with a publisher i want to take risks and be creative not haveing to gain someone's approval to make and sell a game.
    I'll never be another smuck building towel, just another guy trying to be creative and let his mind wonder outside the box society has created...

  • MonkeyWrench127

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 1:32 pm PT

    100% agree with him

  • LastPRmarine

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 1:26 pm PT

    He's a genius give him a Nobel Peace Prize

  • jadefury27

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 1:06 pm PT

    he's right. it's what most people think anyway. this kind of thought process brings us crappy sequels, and the collapse of great studios.(bring back clover capcom!)

  • GhostMaker1988

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 1:04 pm PT

    Very interesting.

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