I wasn’t able to attend Austin GDC this year, but here are a few articles about it that caught my eye:

Sulka Haro shares some insights into Habbo Hotel. Interesting quote: “Advertisers now understand that you can communicate with the teens, not at the teens. We’re putting out branded furniture which the teens love even more, oddly enough… rare items do value up in Habbo — some items value over $2000 each.”

Raph Koster talks about designing for everyone. Two quotes: “When you look at the kinds of problems we ask people to solve, and the things we assume them to do, it’s like we’ve given them a PhD in mathematics. No wonder you sit mom down and she asks ‘how do I move?” Also: “There’s no reason why WoW couldn’t be represented by anything other than an RSS feed, and if you could, it’d probably be doubled in users.”

Also, Raph’s take on the event as a whole. I think he makes some good points about major business and design assumptions that seem to be made (without reflection) by many within our industry.

Nabeel Hyatt, with his own good selection of conference quotes. One (of several) goodies: “Games are a one-night stand, you want a playboy bunny. MMOs are marriage, you want the girl next door. Still a little sizzle, and a lot of potential for the future.” – Damion Shubert

PS. Speaking of conferences: I’m attending TGS. Drop me a note if you are, too.