A few nuggets from his talk, as best as I can remember it a decade later:
- He's bought several houses on his street and he's filled them with lots of stuff from various games he's made. He describes it as a sort of living museum to himself and his work.
- He said you shouldn't expect games to be fun when you first get them working. He described making Deus Ex, and said they spent years on the game and the first time they played it it wasn't fun at all. He thinks you shouldn't worry about that, and just make something with content in it and then make it fun to play at the end of the process.
- He seemed very pro-crunch. Like, to him it felt like the most obvious thing in the world that people would "work super hard" near the end of a video game project to make it the best it could be.
Its interesting - after hearing him talk about that I kinda get why his games turn out how they do. I've played a lot of his games. I grew up on Wing Commander. System Shock 2 is of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. But take Deus Ex - There were about 8 different creative ways to finish deus ex's first level. But by halfway through the game, it was very samey and the levels had mostly linear paths. The team obviously didn't have time to finish it properly. The boss battles were even outsourced to another team and they didn't fit the rest of the game.
But having seen him speak, I doubt that would have particularly bothered Spector.
He's clearly successful by any measure, but I still came away from his talk somehow not respecting the guy as much as I thought I would. My impression was that he cares a lot more about financial success and his personal image than he does making great work. Apparently Hayao Miyazaki rewatched Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind decades after making it and he was on the verge of tears, saying "Its still not done!". I can't imagine Warren Spector ever caring about his work like that. And thats fine - he can have whatever values he wants. But his values aren't my values.