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Yesterday at GDC's final day, several noted video game industry developers got together to talk loose and curse a lot about the state of the business. While we did not attend, we acquired a video (!) of said rant, and then paid one of our slaves to transcribe it for your reading enjoyment.

This years kudos go to Clint Hawking of Ubisoft, who hit a few solid, F-bomb fueled notes about making games that "matter." Here's a snippet.

"I don't care what you say, $300,000,000 for Halo at $50 a copy means it's still only reaching one tenth of the audience of the The Lord of the Rings movies. Whether were talking about the books or the films, do you really think the things that moved people in The Lord of the Rings were a dagger that glows when orcs are near and fucking +5 rope? What people give a shit about in The Lord of the Rings is the fact that Frodo must trust Sam to hold the other end of the rope, and not drop him off a cliff and steal the fucking ring."

This is stuff I think a lot of us have been feeling/asking video games for a while, so its refreshing that it's coming to the forefront now.

If there were any crickets/tumbleweeds at the event, they were present during Jenova Chen's (flOw) exposition. For Chen, the problem is that we have too much "Three Little Pigs," and not enough..."The Little Prince..." Totally, man...Hit the jump for full transcripts. Clint Hawking (Ubisoft - Far Cry 2)

"The first thing that occurred to me, was to write about the stagnation in the video game industry. I'm a pretty fucking angry guy, but after thinking about that for five seconds, I realized it's such a tired, generic topic that I don't think I could get pissed off about it. Besides I'm not even sure there is a general stagnation in the video game industry."

"I haven't looked at it that carefully, certainly not scientifically or anything, but it seems to me that we have a considerably broader range than many other industries. And I bet if you even broke it down into any sort of acceptable measurement, you would find that we are pound for pound the most creative fucking industry in the world."

I think being creative is actually fairly easy, but to have the courage to make a game that challenges people, that's fucking hard. Why don't we make games that challenge people? We make all sorts of movies and books and paintings and songs that challenge people, why can't we make a game that fucking means something? A game that matters. We wonder all the time if games are art, if computers can make you cry. The answer is yes to both. Here's a game that made me cry. It really did. Here's a game that means something. Both are art, both were released this year, both made these in their spare time with an effective budget of zero."

"By parallel, the game industry managed to publish a dozen or so games that aren't about anything except... [unclear, something negative]...Why are we fighting? What have we learned from these smaller games? I'm not even talking about taking the action out of halo, I'm talking about using proven techniques for building compelling, investment in things that real human beings give a shit about, so that Halo will reach a real audience."

"

I don't care what you say, $300,000,000 for Halo at $50 a copy means it's still only reaching one tenth of the audience of the The Lord of the Rings movies. Whether we're talking about the books or the films, do you really think the things that moved people in The Lord of the Rings were a dagger that glows when orcs are near and fucking +5 rope? What people give a shit about in The Lord of the Rings is the fact that Frodo must trust Sam to hold the other end of the rope, and not drop him off a cliff and steal the fucking ring."

"The mechanics of trust are not harder to model and simulate that the mechanics of rope. Yet still, our games are full of: daggers, and rings, and cloaks, and bows, and staffs, and wands, and potions, and swords, and ropes, and armor. It's just surprising to me that the most meaningful relationship developed in a trip playing a title this year is with a fucking cube."

"Every time one of us fails to make a game about something real human beings give a shit about, we're letting ourselves down. We have the fucking pieces of the puzzle in our heads, we have the money, the demand is there, and fuck dude, it's code. We can do anything."

Jane McGonigal - (Love Bees)

"As an industry we've spent the last thirty years learning how to optimize human experience. We know that our brains were made for playing games, but recently the industry has made us remember that our bodies are a part of playing games. And we've always believed that our hearts are made for playing games."

"We need to start making games for the real environment. Running, being on a plane, playing fetch, communicating, annoying people. Here's how we're going to do it. If you have a Nike + system, you have a sensor in your shoe. It's giving you feedback about how fast you're running. If this were an MMO, and every time I went running for five miles I was earning, I was leveling up, gamers would be in shape, and they'd be happy and healthy and it would be awesome."

"In conclusion reality is broken. Can we fix it? The technology is there, yes. Can we make games that interface with reality? Should we fix it? Yes, it's our fucking responsibility to fix it. We're the most creative people in the world, it's our job. Hell yes, we should fix it. Will we fix it? I don't know, some of you might think I'm crazy, some of you might think I don't understand that games are for fun and that the whole point of games is that you're separate from the real world. Maybe you don't think I'm crazy. I don't know if we can actually fix it. These are some people who are trying to fix [shows a list of names]. These are all people who are making games right now that intersect with the real world, so maybe we're not in too much trouble. If you want to alter reality, please send me an email. I want to fucking save the world. We are the people to do it."

Jenova Chen (flOw)

"Before I start I feel disappointed because Click said most of my points, which makes me feel like an idiot. Can video games make you learn something? How count, or how to learn gravity? Can video games make you think? We don't need more of the Three Little Pigs stories. We need something like The Little Prince. Makes you feel, makes you think about your life."

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