So, you probably know that alot of the wigs are at this 2005 GDC thing. (ffs, I just told you that yesterday. Blackout issues!)
Obviously, I’m not there or I’d be doing a crass live blogging schtick that would mostly fall flat but occasionally be killer … or so I imagine. Anytime a group of my arch enemies is gathered in a single location, milling about, I entertain prank fantasies.
This is what life has reduced me to … prank fantasies.
I present … (if I had all the time in the world and all the money, too) My Top Five List of GDC Pranks:
1. Order 30 Pizza Hut pizzas for delivery to one of the conference dinners.
2. Run around to the different Room Placards for roundtables and hourly sessions, etc. and tape a sign underneath that reads: IGE “Consultants” Reception in Room 1305, immediately following. Heh, I’d bag quite a few of the curious and rabid at the elevators … uncertain how to find Floor 13, but determined to do so.
3. A mysterious (and set to LOUD) ringing cellphone at a dramatic moment in the keynote speech: (answerer stands up in a panic and signals the speaker to pause) It’s God! His Warcraft server is down! (You just know some of the Blizzard Collective is there. Probably enduring all the snide dev jokes, too.)
For these next few, I’d need to infiltrate the convention center with a few props. Trust me, enough money, enough time, I can do anything. A booth, rented to the Dragons Online LLC (ffs, I don’t want to get sued).
4. Real life quests, kind of like Gaming Companies do at their own fan fests, but with a twist. They’re like gaming quests where the pieces never fucking drop. Examples: find an alcoholic drink under 3 bucks within 3 miles of the convention center, good pizza ANYWHERE in California (I speak the truth), and take a cab to a “questionable neighborhood” in Oakland and convince a homey out on the street after midnight to buy your box and purchase a 6-month subscription. (4TW on that one. Anyone that can do that wins EverQuest and a t-shirt.)
5. Set up a few computers at the Fake Gaming LLC booth with some DVDs looping. Examples: Napoleon Dynamite … tagline: A boy, some ligers, this could work!, The Ring … tagline: Become the undead, but not vampires, because that is so Darkness Falls!, Gladiator … tagline: You know you want to dual wield!, I, Robot … tagline: Be a human, be a robot — in the future, it’s all the same!, The Matrix … tagline: There’s still time to buy in on this one!.
If only designing pranks was a profession; it’s my true calling, I think.
No good pizza in California? Huh? wtfh!!11! Whatta you, some sort of Ultra Maroon(tm)? Granted, some of the Model-T high production pizza palaces (Little Caesar’s, Domino’s), sucketh mightily, may as well eat used kitty litter microwaved on a piece of oily garage-floor cardboard, but that sort of gastro-hell is available nation-wide, according to their commercials.. Ya’ll come on down to Insane Diego, meesa show you some pizza that’s most leet sah!! (heh)
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You joke about the IGE thing, but at last year’s Austin Game Conference they did almost literally what you describe, pasting up signs saying they were going to be at a conference room while it was unoccupied, implying that it was part of a “customer service” track.
Sadly I never got to talk to Mr. Jonathan Yantis, but I did spy him from across a room. It would have been an interesting conversation.
Wonder how long until the resellers become like organized crime and start offering “protection” services in exchange for some kickbacks. They could be working on that “deal you can’t refuse” right now in some shady San Francisco dive.
“I believe in Gaming. Gaming has made my fortune.” heh.
(That was a joke, but I would not be surprised at the lengths people will go when there’s a lot of money involved.)