I think, in terms of design advice, there’s a huge gap in between the two commonly available schools of ‘recipe book’ style advice, typically targeted towards a general, mass-market style of design, and overly analytic academic writing, and I really appreciate that you’re doing some work on providing genuinely useful design advice which does not fall into the former, which only tells you how to do things other people have already done, or the latter, which doesn’t actually tell you how to do anything.

I hope you aren’t dissuaded by exclamation point fetishists from posting future lectures. It’s refreshing to hear someone discussing game design topics which are not solely about getting customers or grants.

I am glad that someone takes the time to “preach” to the un-enlightened masses including me.

participant NGJ08

Off-topic, that’s really cool that you took some inspiration from Einstein’s Dreams. That’s a great little book. I’m glad I’m not the only one who read it.

Giving a reasonably-coherent lecture, with material interesting enough to the audience, is a lot of work. I have been doing it for about 10 years (though more frequently lately). In the past, the only people who got to hear the lecture were those in the room, or (if it happened to be recorded by the people running the conference), then people who wanted to pay money for it afterward. That seemed like a big waste to me — to put in so much effort to put together a presentation, and then have it basically lost forever after that.

So I started making my own recordings of the lectures and putting them up on the web. I don’t see how this is narcissistic — it’s just a value-add for people who want it. If someone is interested in this kind of lecture, now they have one to listen to. If they aren’t, no big deal! Right?

As for telling people how to make their games… well, when people invite you to speak, they expect you to be able to say things that are somehow authoritative. If the Copenhagen IT University or the Montreal International Game Summit did not think I should be making these kinds of statements, they would not have invited me to give keynote lectures. So complain to them!

Lastly — I completely stand behind the things I say in my lectures. I feel that there is a ton of bad advice out there, especially for indies and hobbyists, and I want to counter-balance that by providing what I feel to be good advice. If it will make you feel better, I am not super happy with these last two lectures (Game Focus Germany and the Nordic Game Jam ones), at least not as much as my Montreal one, because I don’t feel they are as deep or important. But I do think they provide value, which is why I put them up.

So it’s not about me saying “These lectures are super awesome and everyone should listen to them!!!” as you seem to imply. Rather, it’s about each one making at least a small positive contribution to the world, even if it’s only relevant to some people.