For those of you who don’t know who Ken Levine is, he is the founder and creative director of 2K Boston, and the keynote speaker for the 2008 Penny Arcade Expo. His impressive resume consists of System Shock 2, the Freedom Force series, Tribes: Vengeance and, of course, Bioshock.
I was not certain what to expect when Ken Levine took the stage, but the last thing I was expecting was his autobiography. Not only that, he talked about his adolescence and how he “wanted to have sex with the Scarlet Witch”. (This is not an actual quote, as I am censoring how he actually phrased it.)
Levine went on to explain how his love for comic books, video games, and other science fiction made him feel like a nerd to the other kids. However, he eventually found his “Tribe” in a group who played Dungeons and Dragons. Unfortunately, as his friends grew up, they became more interested in women than dice, and his group broke apart.
Levine then talked about his experience in Hollywood, and how he was commissioned to write a romantic comedy which, in his own words, “sucked.” He then began to work odd jobs, but by night, he loved video games.
Levine talked about how he had a sudden realization one day: “If I’m paying money to buy video games, there must be people who are being paid to make video games”. After getting a job at Looking Glass studios, he found his “Tribe” once more.
Like keynote Wil Wheaton at PAX last year, Levine reaffirmed that all PAX attendees are from diverse background, but they are all gamers. Unlike Wheaton, he added that we are all a “great bunch of f___ing nerds”.
Read [The Escapist] Also Read [Gamertell] Site [PAX 2008]
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