Welcome to State of Play, a new editorial column from Pixelated Geek. In State of Play, we’ll be dealing with major issues in the gaming community and reaching out for feedback and interaction. Our goal with State of Play is to create a respectful, professional, and insightful dialogue within a group of serious interested parties. Games are a serious business. They’re not just the largest moving part of the entertainment economy, they’re a form of expression where emotionally impactful stories are told throughout communities that grow and bond, as well as an important educational tool. We take games seriously, and the goal of this article is to seriously analyze the serious business of games.

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A few weeks ago, I went to a little convention called Dragon*Con in Atlanta. I won’t go into details about the convention, as that information is covered everywhere, but I would like to talk to you about a panel I attended entitled “Getting Into the Gaming Business.”  It was held by — most notably — Mike Capps, President of Epic Games (Gears of War anyone?), Eloy LaSanta (CEO of Third Eye Games), and Jason Bulmahn (lead designer at Paizo).

I am going to break it down into five parts: this introductory post, a post for programmers, a post for artists, a post for writers, and a post for table-top games.

Although they went into a lot of detail about every part, they gave four rules that apply to everybody, so read on to find them out!

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