PixelVixen707

This year’s GDC has a good line-up of keynotes. You don’t have to be Leigh Alexander to melt at the thought of a Hideo Kojima talk. I mean, look at those glasses. And they even booked Neil Young! I dated a guy in high school who worshipped him. That Rust Never Sleeps tape never left the deck of his pick-up.

Oh, and there’s a Nintendo keynote. What valuable high-level nuggets will they drop on us about how we can reinvent the fundamentals of gaming, and tap a new audience, and there’s a blue ocean, and generations, and errrrrrrr … oh look it’s BOWSER!

But like I said, I’m the one with two cents here. And I have some thoughts on who would give the best keynote. I realize a keynoter can’t be too critical or incisive; otherwise, they would just book Jonathan Blow. And they can’t be an up-and-comer: we need a fixture of the industry, a name to beat all names. We need someone widely known and wildly popular, who’ll make the crowd rise to its feet and cheer.

Here are my picks:

Richard Garriott. Arguably no game designer is a greater world-builder than Richard Garriott. Almost no single designer gave as much to role-playing games or to graphical multiplayer online gaming. And he owns a moon rover. Yet because he hasn’t had a hit in years - and because Tabula Rasa stiffed so horribly - Garriott is perceived to as much pull as old gym shorts. But everyone gets kicked down at least once. And in a recession like this, we all have a boot on our chests. I know Garriott will come back. His fans know he’ll come back. He can tell us that everyone has a third or fourth act. And if all else fails? Flee to the moon.

A 13-Year Old Boy. Courted or scorned, targeted or dismissed, the 13-Year Old boy is the mythical demographic on whose acne-d back we’ve built an industry. We think we know the 13-Year-Old Boy - who else did they make Bikini Samurai Squad for? - but we also talk about how little we get him, and how much we’d like to break up with him. The median age of the American gamer has apparently hit 35, three times higher than the people for whom every mainstream expert blames Grand Theft Auto and jiggle physics. Let’s let the 13-Year Old Boy speak for himself for once.

The Butt. And along those lines … we often hear that the breasts are the most important sexualized organ in video games. But me? I argue it’s the butt. The butt is the visual focus of every third-person game, and the engine behind every avatar. It’s an equal-opportunity body part that brings pleasure to every gender. It’s muscular and powerful, whereas the breast only comes in handy in games like Baby Pals. Let’s hear from this magical appendage. I wonder what it’ll sound like?

Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade. Okay, let’s mature slightly. Jerry Holkins has talked about how out-of-place he felt at his first GDC - a superfan among Santa’s elves, discovering for the first time that he doesn’t speak elvish. The supersharp critics and unofficial fanboy ringleaders finally came around after they shipped their own game (which I still haven’t played, by the way - should I bother?). I’d like to hear them explain to a roomful of people with 80-hour work weeks and nothing but garbage on their resumes how they finally learned to respect what they do. Also, they’re funny and they’d bring comics. Maybe new ones.

Jonathan Blow. Oh the hell with you, cowards! Name one single designer who killed it harder than he did last year.

And don’t say Kojima.