There’s really no other book like it at all.
Yes, all the other attempts just turn out to be programming books. It is shameful that no
one has gone beyond that book.
Ever since you published that book, you have been very concerned with shar-
ing your thoughts about game design with the community. I’m curious why
that is.
There are two very separate reasons. First, sharpening my own thinking through writ-
ing, which I do a great deal of. And second, communicating ideas to others. There is
some overlap. Most of the time I write for myself. I have reams and reams of little
design essays on particular designs, where I muse with myself on design issues. How-
ever, I will sometimes write an essay solely for public consumption, put it up on the web
or something, and that is done with a very different purpose. But I often write with both
purposes.
So did your writings about game design lead to your establishing the Computer
Game Developers Conference?
I had started off by founding theJournal of Computer Game Design. That turned out to
be quite a success; it rose up to one hundred to one hundred fifty subscribers rather
quickly. And by the time it reached that level, I realized that it really would be possible
to have a conference, there were enough people out there. So I decided to have a little
miniature conference at my home. I just put a little notice in theJournal, saying, “I’m
going to put together a conference, it’s going to be at this date. And anybody who wants
to come, contact me.” We ended up having twenty-six people show up to this confer-
ence, one day long, and we all sat in the big room upstairs and talked about game design.
It was a very exciting experience! Everybody agreed, this is great, this is wonderful,
we’ve got to do this again. They all turned to me and said, “Chris, do it again.” I said OK.
I thought about it for a while and then I decided it would be really good if I broadened
participation in this by recruiting some other people to help me. I decided the only way
they were going to be really involved was if they had a sense of ownership. If I brought
them in as assistants to me, it would never really work. So I decided to create a corpora-
tion with a board of directors, and I invited five other people to be on the board. And to
give them a sense of ownership, even though I owned the whole thing free and clear and
had gotten it rolling with my own money, I basically just gave away ownership. Every-
body had an equal share in the conference. We set up the conference, and it was a huge
success, and it just grew and grew every year.
Did you foresee it growing to be the mammoth event it is now?
No, and to some extent that reflects a violation of my initial intentions. We had some
clear disputes within the board: is this a show, like E3, or is this an academic confer-
ence, like AAAI? My feeling was that the core of this is the exchange of ideas among
developers. We can have a show, but it’s got to be a sideshow. It’s always tucked away in
a corner. This conference is designed around people sharing ideas, and that’s why I
came up with the idea of the roundtables. Unfortunately, it is now a show, and the con-
ference is now a secondary activity.
Chapter 14: Interview: Chris Crawford 265