Okay, clearly I am procrastinating from finishing an academic article, as evidence by this recent flurry of blog comments. ^_^

Here’s a gamasutra article about Ken’s talk. It mentions his mention of Facade:
“When you see a movie … the only reason you care about what happens (because remember, unlike a game you can’t even change anything) is because you care about the characters.” Perlin declared, before explaining how the emotional aspects of Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern’s Façade (which “takes the level of psychological violence much, much further than a shooter game”) led Perlin to ask, “What’s the simplest character I can make that you can get a sense of emotional interaction from the character.”

Er… um…