Unfortunately, no press covered the event, but Denis was in Boston recently to give a talk about game design at prestigious MIT:

This afternoon the US GAMBIT lab is playing host to Denis Dyack, the founder and president of Silicon Knights (Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Too Human). In addition to guest-lecturing in a game design course or two, Dyack will also be giving a presentation on Games as the Eighth Art and Engagement Theory for the MIT CMS Colloquium series. The Colloquium lecture is free and open to the public, and runs from 5-7 PM this evening in building 2-105.

Denis Dyack is the founder and president of Silicon Knights. In this capacity, he oversees the creation and development of games, and continues to further the growth of the company. Dyack is a noted authority on interactive software development and offers valuable insight into the process of designing next-generation games that appeal to the masses. Under Dyack's direction, Silicon Knights has evolved into one of the top independent interactive software developers in the world. Dyack (B. Phed, H. B.Sc, M. Sc.) founded Silicon Knights in 1992 after publishing Cyber Empires in 1991. Since that time, Silicon Knights has moved from creating PC games to premiere AAA console titles, such as Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain for the original PlayStation. Working with Nintendo as a second party, Silicon Knights created the critically acclaimed Eternal Darkness. Together with Nintendo, Silicon Knights worked with Konami to create another critically acclaimed game, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. Dyack and his team are currently working with Microsoft on the Too Human trilogy for the Xbox 360, and developing an exciting new game for Sega of America.

Denis forwarded me a link to a new archetype video that was created by a fan on this site.  It's an example of how some want to see the RPG aspects marketed in the future:

Too Human Archetypes - promo example from Alex DiMella on Vimeo.

Part two of Denis Dyack's interview with 1Up.com has been published today, and for anyone in the management field, it's really an interesting read.  More than giving one an idea how Silicon Knights creates games, it gives one an idea of how they view their employees.

Dyack: Okay, well, Peter Drucker did a book called The Post-Capitalist Society. He talks about knowledge-based industries and how the economy is going to change over time. He says that current manufacturing is going to all go overseas. That was a long time ago that he said that. I think he wrote the book back in 1989 or 1992, so it's pretty dated. [EDITOR'S NOTE: According to Wikipedia, The Post-Capitalist Society was published in 1993.] The next level, according to Drucker, is going to be the service industry, banking and stuff like that. That's where outsourcing starts.

When you start outsourcing, in my eyes you're commoditizing your people. You're saying you can get other people anywhere to do this, because it's just a service. The knowledge engineers, which Drucker places as the biggest revenue generators for economics -- he's got all kinds of reasons why and has written many books on it -- they're the people who create ideas. Those are the people you really have to value. The people who create the games at Silicon Knights are all knowledge engineers. If you start outsourcing that, you're saying this is a service. You're de-valuing everyone's contributions. There are a lot of economic reasons why a lot of people believe Peter Drucker is right.

I'm not sure if Matthew knew what I was talking about when I brought that up or has had a chance to respond. Another person I'm interested in right now is Richard Florida, an economist who is basically the new Peter Drucker. He talks about knowledge-based industries and small businesses really coming to the forefront of the economy. Another person who I mentioned at the panel who's been a really big influence in my life is Ursula Franklin, who I consider a humanist. She's a physicist who survived the concentration camps during World War II. She looks at the effects technology has on society, and a lot of the things I'm saying about technology and commoditization are reflections on her studies.

When you take all these ideas together, I see outsourcing as de-valuing people. It's commoditizing us. Look at the Hollywood model. I said we have to fight the Hollywood model, we have to fight contract work, we have to fight unions. Maybe unions less so, but contract work, if you hire a writer contract, you're essentially saying anyone can write your story. What we're saying is, no, they have to be an integrated part of the entire studio to do it well.

 

1Up.com has a new two part interview with Denis Dyack covering a range of industry topics.  Among those, Denis's thoughts on how developers should be working together to improve their game creation processes.  Part two of the interview will be up tomorrow:

Dyack:  I also talked about flow back then. At the Austin GDC, man, I was so disappointed. I went to this one talk about one of the Ubisoft games, called "Designing Flow in Games." The guy who was talking said, "I'm really starting to look at getting flow into our level design and our story, because I really think there's something here, but someone beat me to it." I thought he was referencing one of my talks, but he was actually just joking about the game flOw from Sony. One of the problems with our industry is that there's no bed of research to rely upon, and there's not a consistent flow of ideas. It's almost like we're on this archipelago, each with our own islands, and no one can talk to people. With GDC and all these other conferences, we really need to make these places for people to talk and discuss. It really bothers me at these conferences when people start selling their games. That sets a really bad precedent. There's so much to learn and so much potential in our industry, I think we should focus on striving for it. I know that's a super-long answer, so I hope it hit on the right things.

Another post-GDC interview with Denis Dyack has surfaced over at Crispy Gamer.  If you have not heard of this site before, I do suggest checking it out.  They offer a pretty fresh take on the world of gaming journalism, and ask Denis a few good questions despite keeping the interview quite brief.  Part two will be available tomorrow.

Crispy Gamer: I got to play the game for a while, and there were a lot of positives, but some people said they had a hard time getting into it. Do you think it's difficult to demo a game like Too Human in such a short time period?

Dyack: There's no question. When we had a previous demonstration here at Silicon Knights, people played it for hours. Essentially I think we had 15 minutes on average with every person. The other thing is -- and I'm going to come right out and say it -- people are going to hesitate in saying anything positive right now because of our past showings. I think some people are taking a wait-and-see attitude. We've done a lot of focus testing and we're pretty confident that the game is strong. I don't know what to say beyond that. I think in general I didn't hear many mixed things -- I heard all positive responses. Maybe that's just what they're telling me.

Enjoy the interview, the return back here for more discussion in the forums.