Need a Good AI Programmer? Drop me a line....

People Talk About Me: It's embarrassing but true.....I'm mentioned a couple of times in The Fat Man's recent book on game music. I won one of the gold tickets to visit his ranch!

Steve Writes Books:

• Game Programming Gems 1: Well, you know they're scraping the bottom of the barrel when they ask me to do a chapter for a book. Read all about it over here....

• Game Programming Gems 2: Following up on the success of GPG1, I did a follow-up chapter for the sequel--lovingly entitled Game Programming Gems 2. Read all about it here....

• AI Game Programming Wisdom: In the grand tradition of GPG1 and GPG2, I did yet another chapter for an all AI-version of the Gems books, AI Wisdom. Read all about it here....

• Game Programming Gems 3: The cleverly named Game Programming Gems 3 hit the streets in July, 2002. It's another followup on the amazing success (thank you all!) of the various previous books in the series (above) and I'm really rather proud of it.
  
  This time out I didn't actually write a Gem but edited the AI section instead. It was a lot of fun, very challenging technically (those guys really know their stuff), and best of all--I got to read all the Gems before anybody else! Cool!
  
  Seriously this is another great book in an ever-better series of books. I really think we're making a difference to game developers. If you want to read more about GPG 3 , hop over to the list....

Steve Writes Stuff for Game Developer

• Game Developer 2002: It just keeps going! The incoming editor of Game Developer dropped me an email just after GDC 2002 and asked if I was interested in doing yet another article for their excellent magazine. Of course I agreed, and the article appeared in the June, 2002 issue. Game AI: The State of the Industry 2002 continued the trend of focusing on the state of the Game AI industry as of the 2002 GDC, and looked back on some of the trends portrayed in previous articles to see how accurate they'd been. I really enjoyed writing it; I hope you enjoy reading it!

• Game Developer 2001: In a fit of irrationality the new editor (at the time) asked me to do yet another article for Game Developer magazine! Published in the August, 2001 issue, it was once again entitled Game AI: The State of the Industry and once again focused on the state of the Game AI industry as of the 2001 GDC AI Roundtables. A very neat article, of course; read them all to get the collection!

• Game Developer 2000: Believe it or not they invited me to do yet another article for the August, 2000 issue of Game Developer magazine! It too focuses on the state of the Game AI industry and is entitled, cunninglingly enough, Game AI: The State of the Industry. As one might expect it's a followup to the 1999 article, updating readers on where the industry is and where it's going. It's based partly on my GDC 2000 AI Roundtables and partly on results taken from polls at this site.

• Game Developer 1999: Undoubtedly flying in the face of popular demand, Game Developer magazine asked me to do a second article for them! Appearing in the August, 1999 issue, it's creatively titled Game AI: The State of the Industry (sound familiar?). As one might expect it's a followup to the 1998 article, updating readers on where the industry is and where it's going. It's based in large part on the 1999 GDC AI Roundtables and various discussions with fellow developers over the horrid lunches GDC was serving.
  
  You can catch it here if you're interested. Enjoy!

• Game Developer 1998: For reasons that probably escape the truly rational, Game Developer magazine decided I was just the guy for an article on Game AI. It appeared in the October, 1998 issue, and was entitled Game AI: The State of the Industry. It's a good read, and they've been kind enough to keep it around online. Hop over and read it sometime, if you're interested. Heck, bring a copy to CGDC and I'll even autograph it for you!

Steve Does Roundtables at the GDC: I've given various presentations and conducted miscellaneous roundtables at the GDC over the years. These papers and moderator's reports are presented below for those who are interested.

• 2003 Game Developer's Conference, March, 2003 - The 2003 GDC continued the AI roundtables, and they were again very successful. We covered any number of topics as usual and they were all fascinating. A copy of my moderator's report can be found online here or if you prefer in Microsoft Word format.



• 2002 Game Developer's Conference, March, 2002 - Continued the grand tradition of co-moderating the wildly successful series of AI roundtables, covering all aspects of AI technology in games. Full transcripts are available via web here or in Microsoft Word format here, as you wish.



• 2001 Game Developer's Conference, March, 2001 - Co-hosted and co-moderated a series of AI roundtables, covering all aspects of AI technology in games. Full transcripts are available on the GDC Conference web site (we're under the "Game Design" track) or you can read the notes from my sessions here.



• 2000 Game Developer's Conference, March, 2000 - Co-hosted and co-moderated a series of AI roundtables, covering all aspects of AI technology in games. Full transcripts are available on the GDC Conference web site (we're under the "Programming" track) or you can read the notes from my sessions here.



• 1999 Game Developer's Conference, March, 1999 - Co-hosted and co-moderated a series of AI roundtables, covering all aspects of AI technology in games. Full transcripts don't seem to be on either Gamasutra or the GDC web site, but fortunately I've got them here.



• 1998 Computer Game Developer's Conference, May, 1998 - Co-hosted and co-moderated a series of nine AI roundtables, covering all aspects of AI technology in games. Full transcripts don't seem to be on either Gamasutra or the GDC web site, but fortunately I've got them here.



• 1997 Computer Game Developer's Conference, April, 1997 - The very first general AI roundtables at the GDC, covering all aspects of AI technology in games. Full transcripts don't seem to be on either Gamasutra or the GDC web site, but fortunately I've got them here.

Steve Gets Interviewed: I've done various interviews on the topic of game AI from time to time for magazines and newspapers which some folks out there might find interesting. Here's a list for anybody who's interested:

• Mind Games, IEE Spectrum, December, 2002 - A pretty neat interview done in the middle of 2002, it finally saw light in the final issue of the year. Very good overview of where game AI was as of the end of 2002, with bits from Steve Rabin (AI Game Programming Wisdom, Will Wright The Sims), Paul Kruszewki (AI.Implant), Michale Zaronoski (Spark!), and of course myself. A pretty good article that provides an excellent oversight on the industry.
  
  You can read it online at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/dec02/mind.html .



• Kasparov, Deep Blue, and the Games People Play, Pacific Connection, August, 1997 - Interview for the Japanese magazine Pacific Connection. Mostly aimed at discussing the impact of the defeat of Chessmaster Gary Kasparov by IBM's Deep Blue machine, there is some discussion of the relative complexity of chess vs. other games (such as Go) and the future of AI in games. The article suffers somewhat from translation from the original Japanese, but it's accurate.
  
  You can read it online at http://www.gihyo.co.jp/SD/pacific/SD_9708.html .



• Creating Intelligent Creatures, Computer Graphics World, July, 1997 - Interview on the future of AI technology in games. Based on AI roundtables at 1997 CGDC, it discusses the use of AI to differentiate games and provide greater flexibility and fun.
  
  You can read it online at http://www.cgw.com/cgw/Archives/1997/07/07story1.html .



• Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition (May 19, 1997) - Interview on the future of AI technology and the impact of multi-player network-capable games. It's probably not online anymore though; newspaper sites don't keep much around for long.

Geek of the Week: I somehow got picked as a Gamastura Geek of the Week one week in 1997...I have no idea how that happened....

Online AI Roundtables: I help moderate or co-moderate various online AI roundtables at a variety of sites, nearly all of them game-developer oriented in one fashion or another. If you'd like to be a part of it, check out the GameDev.Net and IGDA sites. I also participate in discussions over on Generation 5, which can be fun. These are yet more places into which you can delve deeply into the Mind of Steven. Drop by and participate! (You'll probably need to sign up, but it's painless.)

Games Using Innovative AI: In an effort to keep track of the current state of the industry, I'm maintaining two lists. The first tracks current and upcoming games that feature innovative game AI approaches, and the other details some of the classic games which have been "solved" via various AI techniques. Read and let me know what I've missed!