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NLGD Festival of Games 2010 Coverage

Jun 02 2010 12:00 AM | Events For Gamers in Festival of Games

The Festival of Games gets underway tomorrow with an impressive speaker line-up, including Ian Livingstone (Square Enix Europe), Kellee Santiago (thatgamecompany), Martin de Ronde (OneBigGame), David Perry (Gaikai), Masaya Matsuura (Nanaon-Sha) and many more, so here are a few thoughts to kick off our special Festival event blog.

It's a week that's been prefaced by an illuminating industry media visit to the country, organised by the Dutch government's Ministry of Economic Affairs, showcasing some of the support that's on offer to companies based here, as well as introducing a sense of the 'plugged-in' nature of the business food chain - an apparently open-eyed approach that marries education to existing games companies, and one that supports both entrepreneurial start-ups and big businesses alike.

It's an interesting story that we'll present in part with news and interviews over the next couple of days and weeks, but in an economic environment that's likely to present challenges for the governments of more established games industry destinations in terms of fiscal support - the UK included - we're very likely to hear more of The Netherlands as a growing games hub in the next few years.

Anyway, that aside, tomorrow's Festival kicks off with a talk from Professor Toru Iwatani, the man behind the design of Pac-Man, 30 years ago - we'll publish an interview with him next week, taking in his thoughts on how the culture of games design has changed over the years, and what the Japanese industry needs to do to appeal more to the West... but meanwhile but notes on his talk will follow his session first thing in the morning.

Source: GamesIndustry.biz