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International Games Week Berlin 2014

E4G Admin
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International Games Week Berlin 2014

Berlin, 2 April, 2014.

The organisers of the INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK BERLIN 2014 and its individual events presented the varied programme during a press conference yesterday and provided facts and figures about the games market and its importance for Germany and Berlin.

Around 34 million people in Germany use computer and video games. According to figures by the German Trade Association of Interactive Entertainment Software (BIU), the industry posted € 1.82 billion of turnover in 2013. A strong industry which is experiencing global growth with a new generation of consoles, game titles, powerfully told stories both content-wise as well as technically and visually, and with cross-platform game experiences. Games have long since become an established and growing element of the global entertainment industry.

The comments of the GAMES WEEK organisers made it clear that over a dozen individual events under the auspices of the INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK BERLIN 2014 will not only be appealing to the professional audience, but are also targeted at an interested general public.

Berlin has a week of games entertainment on offer for everybody

The Gamefest at the Computer Games Museum and the International Independent Games Festival A MAZE. / Berlin have games entertainment on offer for all of those interested, players and non-players, in all the various facets and forms. With Let’s Play and Speedrun events, Indie Games to play, the Night of the Re-narrated Game, the Japanese dressing-up trend Cosplay, game plays, award ceremonies, performances, workshops, talks and parties, the GAMES WEEK has opened up itself much more for the general public than was the case in the past at the German Games Days. The visitors can play on over 100 games from around the world in the exhibitions.

Let’s Play, Charity Gaming Marathon, Game Play and much more: Gamefest at the Computer Games Museum (8 – 13 April, Computer Games Museum)

The Gamefest at the Computer Games Museum approaches the world of video games in a playful way with innovative and experimental formats and invites everyone to join in. The highlight on Saturday, 12 April, will be the appearance of the Let’s Play superstars Gronkh and Sarazar, whose MyVideo and YouTube channels have clocked up several million subscribers: Let’s Play with Fans will give fans the unique opportunity to see the two gamers live in action. The Charity Gaming Marathon from Friday, 11 to Sunday, 13 April, will have well-known speedrunners from across Europe competing against one another for a good cause. The aim of the speedrun is to get to the end of a game as quickly as possible  – by any means.

On Sunday, 13 April, the Computer Games Museum will be opening its costume and material store and inviting the visitors of the Gamefest to take part in the Cosplay. In the Japanese dressing-up trend, the goal is to depict a character from a computer game as close to the original as possible through the costume and behaviour. Analogous to a literary reading, the Gamesfest will present the Game play format which has been developed by the Foundation of Digital Gaming Culture and has a gamer’s game play commented live on stage by a moderator and a games expert (also on Sunday, 13 April).

A games trend originating in Budapest is conquering Europe: Escape the Room is the name of the game between digital virtuality and analogue reality where the players – locked in a real room and only connected via an ¨operator¨ with the outside world – have to solve a series of riddles in order to escape from the room.

In the following Night of the Re-Narrated Game, members of the audience can spontaneously come onto the stage and re-tell the complete story or an extract of a computer game as well as their personal experiences associated with the game. The winners of the competition organised in cooperation with the Berlin-based network Gamestorm will take home great prizes. The Gamefest ends with a concert by D’Artagnan who has arranged well-known game melodies in the style of gypsy jazz.

During the whole week, the GameFest will be presenting the exhibition Let’s Play! Computer Games from France and Poland where current computer games from both countries are exhibited in such a way that the visitors can play on them. The exhibition is being staged in cooperation with the Institut Français in Berlin, the Polish Cultural Institute in Berlin and the Instytut Adam Mickiewiecz and can be seen until 5 May. http://gamefest.computerspielemuseum.de

Play, Performances, Panels and Parties: A MAZE. / Berlin ( 9 – 11 April, Urban Spree & The WYE)

The 3rd International Independent Video Games Festival A MAZE. / Berlin will be presenting Europe’s largest and trend-setting international independent games exhibition on over 1,000 m2 in the Urban Spree with over 70 exhibitors from 20 countries. Visitors can play the 15 nominees for the A MAZE. Awards, which will be presented in three categories on 11 April, as well as a handpicked selection of unique independent games, playful installations and virtual reality experiences. A MAZE. celebrates the flourishing diversity, artistic interaction with technology and the cultural value of the most important art form of our age. The exhibited works by the independent games developers reflect the creative nature of gaming and the passion for developing digital game formats. The Local Multiplayer Picnic invites everyone to take part in a daily tournament, an interactive glitch game art showcase by the #weirdkids group and an appropriate music programme so that the Urban Spree will become the most exciting independent games location that Berlin, Europe, the world has ever seen. http://amaze-berlin.de

Europe’s largest professional conference for the games industry

GAMES WEEK is also about business. More than 2,500 professional delegates are expected at the various industry events. National and international games developers, publishers, distributors, investors and industry experts will be discussing current trends, new business models, economic developments, political prospects and legal questions as well as the current challenges confronting the games industry, but they will also use the opportunity to continue networking. Here are the most important industry events:

Opening Summit (8 April, Café Moskau)

The developments and trends of the global games market are the subjects of the Opening Summit on the morning of 8 April, which will officially open the GAMES WEEK. After the welcome address by Björn Böhning, head of the Senate Chancellery of the Land of Berlin, Brigitte Zypries, Parliamentary Secretary of State at the Federal Ministry for Economics and Energy, follows with a political keynote. The subsequent keynotes and panel discussions will see experts from Google and Amazon giving insights into their games strategies and prominent representatives of the independent entertainment scene discussing business strategies as well as the prospects for an independent entertainment industry. The speakers include Anne Beuttenmueller and Jens Bussmann (Niantic Labs/Google Cloud), Hemant Madan (Amazon Appstore), Dr. Klemens Kundratitz (Koch Media, producer and marketeer of digital entertainment products), Martin Hubert (Ströer Digital Media), Michal Boniface (Reloaded Games), the Finn Timo Vuorensola, producer of the sci-fi Nazi feature film comedy IRON SKY, Rami Ismail, founder of the Dutch indie game studios Vlambeer and the Canadian Jason Della Rocca, indie game developer icon and founder of the Execution Lab.

Quo Vadis. Create. Game. Business (8 – 10 April, Café Moskau)

International top speakers are also expected at the largest German game developer conference QUO VADIS, which kicks off straight after the Opening Summit: Matias Myllyrinne, CEO of the Finnish Remedy Entertainment, the developer studio of the globally successful games MAX PAYNE and ALAN WAKE, Robert Tercek, one of the most distinguished creators of interactive content, TV director, game designer, digital artist, new media consultant for, among others, Anthony Robbins, Oprah Winfrey, Deepak Chopra, founder of the Game Developer Conference Mobile Symposiums, Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of the Icelandic MMO game developer CCP Games (EVE Online, WORLD OF DARKNESS), the game developer and designer Bob Bates, known for such titles as TIMEQUEST, UNREAL II: THE AWAKENING, SACRED 2, responsible for almost 40 games, formerly Chief Creative Director von Zynga, Chris Taylor (Wargaming.net), Guido Henkel (G3 Studios) and game developer and pioneer Don Daglow as well as many other speakers. More at www.die-entwicklerkonferenz.de.

A MAZE. / Berlin (9 – 11 April, Urban Spree & The WYE)

Apart from its events for the general public, A MAZE. / Berlin will be presenting an exquisite selection of international speakers, well-known protagonists from the area of independent games development and the artistic indie scene. Already confirmed: Jonathan Blow (USA), Tale of Tales (Belgium), Cara Ellison (UK), Petri Purho (Finland), Major Bueno (Germany), Pippin Barr (New Zealand), David Calvo (France), Jessica Curry (UK), Christoffer Hedborg (Sweden), Fernando Ramallo (Argentina) and more. More at http://amaze-berlin.de.

Matchmaking Dinner (8 April, Spindler & Klatt, by invitation only)

The Matchmaking Dinner unites and promotes networking between the most important decision-makers from the games, information, communications and technology industries as well as the worlds of politics and institutions. A carefully selected seating arrangement ensures for relevant ‘matching’ and promotes sustainable networking.http://gamesnet-bb.de.

polishgamesday (10 April)

On 10 April, Poland will be in the focus of the GAMES WEEK. The events of the polishgamesday, which will devoted to the Polish games industry, includes the exhibition: “Let’s Play! Computer games from France and Poland” in the Computer Games Museum, a panel on the Polish games industry at Quo Vadis and at A MAZE. / Berlin, the screening of Polish games trailers and an exclusive presentation of the game “This War of Mine” by 11bit in the Cubix at Alexanderplatz, and the closing party in the Games Academy. Finally, the polishgamesday will also serve as the launchpad for the project BERLIN MEETS POLAND, which aims to create a dynamic and sustainable network between the Berlin and Polish games industries.

Pressekontakt:

Dr. Kathrin Steinbrenner/Kristian Müller

SteinbrennerMüller Kommunikation

T:+49 (0) 30-4737. 2191/.2192
E: media@gamesweekberlin.com

Facebook: www.facebook.de/gamesweekberlin.

Twitter: @gamesweekberlin // #gamesweekberlin

About the INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK BERLIN 2014

The INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK BERLIN 2014 is a leading cross-industry communication and networking platform for games business, development and culture. More than six individual events over six days offer a plethora of information on the topic of games. Participants include German and international game developers, publishers, investors and gamers as well as representatives of public institutions and the media industry. In 2013, more than 6,000 visitors came to the Games Capital of Berlin-Brandenburg. The INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK BERLIN 2014 follows in the footsteps of the DGT – Deutsche Gamestage – an event initiated by the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg in Berlin in 2007.

The umbrella brand of the INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK BERLIN 2014 from 8-13 April includes the following events:

– Opening Summit: the official opening event, April 8

– Matchmaking Dinner: VIP networking event, April 8

– Quo Vadis. Create. Game. Business: games business and development conference, April 8-10

– A MAZE. / Berlin: Independent video games festival, April 9-11

– Gamefest at the Computerspielemuseum: (Computer Games Museum), April 8-13

– Party of the European Games Award, April 9

– Kabam Media Reception, April 9

– polish games day, April 10

– Making Games Talents: recruitment event, April 12

and many more.

Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg funds the events. The INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK BERLIN 2014 is hosted and coordinated by Booster Space.

Event Partners: A MAZE., Aruba Events, Computer Games Museum, Foundation of Digital Gaming Culture, games.net berlinbrandenburg, IDG Media, Kabam Games, Polish Institut Berlin

Institutional Partners: G.A.M.E. Bundesverband der Computerspielindustrie, ACI Games Brazil, Afri GameZone Academy, Berlin Partner für Wirtschaft und Technologie, Digital Dragons Cracow, EGCA – European Game Conference Alliance, EGDF – European Games Developer Federation, GameIS, Malta Enterprise, media.net berlinbrandenburg, Polska – Botschaft der Republik Polen, Projekt Zukunft Berlin, TIGA – Representing the Games Industry, UK Trade & Investment, UKIE – The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment, WGK – Polish Conference on Computer Games Development

Funding and Sponsor Partners: Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, BIU – Bundesverband Interaktive Unterhaltungssoftware, Amazon, Blacklane, Creatives Loop International, EMC, GAN Ströer, PaymentWall, FundedByMe.

Main and Premium Partners of the Quo Vadis: Goodgame Studios, Bigpoint, Google Cloud Platform, InnoGames, King, Microsoft, Osborne Clarke, Wargaming.net

Main and Premium Partners of the Gamefest: Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur, Institut Francais Deutschland, Instytut Adam Mickiewiecz/Polnisches Institut Berlin, reBuy.de, Studio71/Let’s Play Together, Faces Veranstaltungstechnik

Main and Premium Partners of the A MAZE. / Berlin: ZKM, SAE Institut, Game Science Center, Unity Technologies

Media Partner: berlin poche, DW-Shift, develop, Der Tagesspiegel, FluxFM, GamesMarkt, golem.de gamesindustry.biz, in your pocket, making games, MediaXP, Studio71, MyVideo

Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson Added as New Keynote at GSummit

Paul Philleo
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Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson Added as New Keynote at GSummit

Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson has been getting a lot of people to think outside the box (if the Earth and everyday life on it was a box), in large measure thanks to a recent opportunity to pick up Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” television show mantle and continuing it with “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey“.

So, for many the cool factor for a certain conference will go through the roof, because Gabe Zichermann, the conference chair for GSummit, announced that Tyson will be leading a keynote at the 2014 GSummit.

Zichermann explained in an announcement email the value in Tyson’s keynote: “His singular achievement has been to make the impossible, accessible – and the complex, understandable for millions. In the course of doing this, he’s learned a thing or two about how to teach the hard stuff: how smart fun changes everything and can drive unprecedented engagement.

For all of us seeking to change behavior – whether we’re marketing products or driving employee engagement – there’s a lesson to be learned from Dr. Tyson’s experience. Just when we think our audience could care less, there’s a way to access their drive for higher purpose and trigger lasting change.”

GSummit is a gamification and user engagement conference, extrapolating and implementing game mechanics and other user engagement systems for industries outside of gaming. This conference will be in San Francisco held from June 10-13, 20014 in San Francisco.

SUBMISSIONS OPEN FOR DEVELOP IN BRIGHTON’S FOURTH INDIE SHOWCASE COMPETITION (PRESS RELEASE)

Paul Philleo
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SUBMISSIONS OPEN FOR DEVELOP IN BRIGHTON’S FOURTH INDIE SHOWCASE COMPETITION (PRESS RELEASE)
Develop in Brighton Conference, 8-10 July 2014 – www.developconference.com
Develop in Brighton’s annual search for the next big thing in independent games development is underway again as submissions open for its fourth Indie Showcase at www.developconference.com.

The conference’s Indie Showcase celebrates the very best of indie game development with an exhibition featuring the ten best entries as chosen by a panel of experts led by Assyria Games’ Adam Green. One of these 10 games will be judged overall Indie Showcase Winner by the judging panel, one will be selected by journalists in the Editors Choice Award and there will also be the chance for all delegates to vote for their favourite game during the event in the People’s Choice Award.

All 10 finalists receive two free Indie Dev Day conference passes, up to five Expo passes, pre-event publicity and a profile on the event website, plus the opportunity to show off their games to around 1,600 developers and publishers at the event.

Last year, a record number of indie developers submitted their games to the judging panel. Winners included People’s Choice award That Dragon, Cancer, a game created to help developer Ryan’s four year old son in his battle against cancer and financed by OUYA to launch this year; Editors’ Choice award Gunpoint, out on Steam which received an 83 metacritic score on launch and Indie Showcase overall winner Ibb and Obb which launched in Europe and America on the PlayStation Store a month after winning the award.

“It is fantastic that The Indie Showcase is back for a fourth year. Last year produced a record number of submissions and I think it is safe to say we are in a golden age for indie developers. I have high hopes there will be even more amazing games submitted this year and I can’t wait to check them all out,” said Adam Green, managing director Assyria Games.

“The showcase remains an excellent opportunity for indies to put their game in the spotlight at the Develop in Brighton Conference and get in front of publishers, the press and over 1600 delegates.”

Andy Lane, managing director of conference organiser Tandem Events, added: “For the last four years, we’ve been fully committed to giving a platform to the very best indie talent that’s out there. It’s completely free for indies to enter and the top ten games not only get the great opportunity to be showcased to the wider development community who come to be part of Develop in Brighton each year, but the shortlisted Indies will get direct feedback on their games from other developers playing them.”

Entry to the Indie Showcase is open to the following at www.developconference.com:
– Studios with no more than 15 people
– Studios – and games – that are non-publisher funded
– Games which are not published by a third party at the time of submission
– Games that have a development budget of less than £1million
– Games that are created in the “indie spirit”

The deadline to enter is 12 May 2014 and the Indie Showcase, Editors’ Choice and People’s Choice winners will be announced to press and delegates at the Develop in Brighton Conference on Thursday 10 July 2014.

Midwest Game Developers Summit Meets Kickstarter Goal

Paul Philleo
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Midwest Game Developers Summit Meets Kickstarter Goal

For those who attend game industry conferences as part of their business or to partake in the hobby of games, usually they find themselves on one coast or another. The West Coast — and the San Francisco Bay area in particular — where I am based, sees one conference after another, an endless procession of ideas, people and expo booths shuttled in and out of the SFO, SJC, LAS, SEA and LAX airports.

So what about the heartland of the United States? Where do the developers, publishers, vendors and hobbyists go, if they don’t have the time or money to invest in packing up and joining the roadshows east or west? There are a few events scattered throughout the middle of the US, but not many.

This regional game industry event void was a primary consideration by the two founders of the Midwest Game Developers Summit (MGDS) when the conference began life for them as an idea in 2012. The idea matured into a bootstrapped and sponsor-funded execution of an event hosted in Wisconsin for 2013, yielding 300 attendees and 40 speakers.

Yesterday, a Kickstarter funding run for the MGDS event passed its target of $8,000 to underwrite some of the essential costs of running a two day summit for hundreds of people.

For Ben Mathwig, one of the event co-founders and a programmer, the Kickstarter was an opportunity to take the event to next level. “This is the first year that we are running the conference by ourselves. The goal for this year is to expand our reach outside of the Wisconsin and Illinois area and to bring in a much wider array of developers from all around the Midwest. Going forward, we would like this summit to grow annually and hopefully fill a gap that has been missing from the Midwest for quite some time,” Mathwig stated.

The Midwest certainly has potential, whether one looks it the region as a whole as a start-up growth engine and the money flowing in or as an attendee-magnet, as the region has drawn its share of crowds at events like the Midwest Gaming Classic and Gen Con. The Midwest Games Developers Summit proved it could succeed in year one, enough to take it to year two and aim to do even more.

But if the conference is growing organically, one might ask, why complicate growing an event with the process of compensating individual micro-investors, too?

From Ben Mathwig’s perspective, it’s all about giving back and giving more to the regional community. “Crowd sourcing this year’s summit helped us reinforce our message: everyone should have access to a great conference and not be barred from the experience by expenses. Last year showed that it doesn’t take a large venue and masses of attendees to provide a great networking and learning environment. By opening up a Kickstarter and allowing the attendees to contribute to make it happen, those attendees can now say that it is their conference.

Generating funding on our own also released us from several restrictions and obstacles that came up last year. We now have the freedom to shape the conference into the way we would like it to be for the future.”

As for fulfilling the rewards to the current 140 backers, a phase which has bogged down many other Kickstarted programs, Mathwig is unfazed at the prospect of making good on their promises. “I would say the most time consuming part will be shipping out the T-Shirts to those backers who did not get a conference pass in their tier. All of our rewards are things that we already have in place due to the event last year. The most difficult part? Figuring out what to serve at the Keynote speaker lunch for our top tier backers.”

There’s currently in excess of $1,000 over and above the funding target in the crowdfunding bank for the organizers of the MGDS. Even without an official stretch goal added to the Kickstarter page, Mathwig asserts that the team will be adjusting event plans to add to consider what can be done with the additional support: “The extra funds that we acquire from the remaining days will go directly into this year’s summit and help us improve the conference quality as a whole. We have discussed several fun events that may take place during the conference, but we have not officially announced anything yet. Stay tuned!”

April 2014 Game Industry Conferences and Other Events

E4G Admin
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April 2014 Game Industry Conferences and Other Events

We’re rolling out a new feature! To help you plan for upcoming month’s event attendance and news tracking, we’re posting a consolidated list of game industry events at the beginning of each month, for that month.

Here are events in April 2014, sorted by the days they run within the month:

3-4: CounterPlay
5-10: Nabshow
7: Indievelopment
7-8: Cloud Gaming Europe
7-8: Unite Japan
8-10: Quo Vadis
8-13: International Games Week – Berlin
9-10: Unite Korea
9-11: A-MAZE
9-13: The Gadget Show Live
10: Digital Media
10: MCV Awards
11: Canadian Videogame Awards
11-12: Different Games
11-13: PAX East
12: Indie Arcade
13-14: Unite China
16-20: Copenhagen Games
17-18: Unite Taiwan
18-20: Sakura-Con
18-20: WonderCon Anaheim
18-21: Insomnia 51
22-24: Games For Change Festival
22-25: FMX
23: Game Marketing Summit
23-24: East Coast Games Conference
23-24: Festival of Games
23-25: EvoGames
24: F2P Summit
24-25: M2Games LatAm
30: Games & Crowds

This list is obtained from the main calendar. Did we miss an event? Please let us know!

Silicon Image Launches Dual Screen Android App Development Contest (PRESS RELEASE)

Paul Philleo
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Posted up during GDC, this press release (posted in part) was re-worked as collateral at NVIDIA’s GTC 2014. This $100,00 app development contest, begun at GDC 2014, promoted at GTC 2014 and likely to be promoted again elsewhere to keep interest rolling, will reach its finish line at GDC Europe 2014 in August.

Read on below for all the relevant details, especially if you happen to be an Android developer jonesing to show off your skills in developing gaming (or other) apps, with a specialization in mobile high-definition link or WirelessHD:

“SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Silicon Image (NASDAQ: SIMG), a leading provider of HD connectivity solutions, today announced that it is sponsoring a contest for Android application developers to enable dual screen experiences. The “Dual Screen App Challenge” promotes the creation of games, entertainment and productivity applications that leverage leading mobile-to-display connectivity technologies including MHL® and WirelessHD®. Submissions are now being accepted, and winners will be announced at GDC Europe (Aug. 11-12, 2014 in Cologne, Germany). The total contest prize pool is $100,000.

With an ecosystem of over half a billion MHL-enabled devices and a growing number of WirelessHD products, this contest provides a great opportunity for mobile game developers to showcase their creativity by introducing unique games and other applications for mobile devices when connected to external HD displays.

How to Participate:

  • Contest Dates – Submissions are open from Monday, March 17, 2014 until Monday, July 21, 2014.
  • Category – Submissions will be accepted in the following three categories:
    • Games
    • Productivity
    • Entertainment/Other
  • Technology – Submissions must showcase MHL or WirelessHD technology use cases between mobile devices and displays.
  • Other Criteria – Submissions will be judged on the following criteria:
    • Best use and display of different content and information on dual separate screens
    • Best use of Silicon Image technologies and features
    • Innovation & creativity

In addition, the public will be able to vote on all submissions starting on July 21st, at the conclusion of the submission period. The five submissions that get the most public votes will also win prizes. To enter your game/app or for more details about the contest, please visit the contest website at http://siliconimage.challengepost.com. Be sure to follow #mobile2screen for the latest updates on the contest.

“We are very excited to sponsor this contest for Android application developers,” said Jim Chase, chief evangelist and senior director of business development at Silicon Image, Inc. ”With the advanced processing and graphics power of the latest generation of mobile processors, smartphones and tablets with MHL and WirelessHD connectivity can enhance traditional mobile applications to enable a truly immersive dual screen, real-time, high quality video experience. These applications will establish a new category of compelling interactive gaming, productivity and home entertainment content for consumers.”

Judging Panel

All games and apps will be reviewed by a team of mobile industry visionaries, including:

  • Michael Bergen, Senior Business Development Manager, Silicon Image, Inc.
  • Magnus Ekenheim, Head of Developer Technical Services, Sony Mobile
  • Mark Murphy, Owner, CommonsWare
  • Mike Schwartz, Membership Manager, Application Developers Alliance
  • Neil Trevett, Vice President Mobile Ecosystem, Nvidia
  • Kristan Uccello, Developer Advocate, Google
  • Mike Yuen, Senior Director, Snapdragon Gaming, Qualcomm”

MIGS 2014 Announced Complete with Dates and Call for Speakers

Paul Philleo
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MIGS 2014 Announced Complete with Dates and Call for Speakers

The Montreal International Game Summit, organized by Alliance numérique and Connection Events, is an annual conference crafted as an instrument to “meet the needs of the Quebec video game industry, which currently represents over 9,000 workers. It aims to develop expertise and knowledge transfer as well as to promote trade and business development among all of the industry stakeholders.” But MIGS has become a noteworthy pan-North American conference in Q4 of every year for the last decade.

MIGS has been formally announced today for Montreal in November 10-11, 2014. The Expo Zone, Business Lounge and Conference will be the tent stakes anchoring the autumnal event. Other special events and areas at MIGS, including the Battle of the Studios, the Career Fair, Central Café and Photo Booth, will be returning as part of the package deal.

For the experienced game industry veteran who wishes to share their industry sagacious insights, this is the important part for you:

Expect to see 80 speakers covering sixty talks and six tracks (Arts & VFX, Audio, Business & Management, Game Design, Production, and Technology). The doors are wide open to submit a speaking proposal for MIGS 2014 — at least until April 30th, 2014.

To read up on the details about the event or to submit a talk, check the MIGS website here (English version).

The No. 1 ‘reason to be’ at the Game Developers Conference 2014: Diversity

E4G Admin
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The No. 1 ‘reason to be’ at the Game Developers Conference 2014: Diversity

Follow all of GamesBeat’s coverage from the 2014 Game Developers Conference here.

SAN FRANCISCO — The #1ReasonToBe panel at the Game Developers Conference 2013 was generally understood as a panel about gender concerns in the video game industry. Panel organizers Brenda Romero and Leigh Alexander made it clear through their slate of speakers for the 2014 edition of #1ReasonToBe that the panel is about diversity in the video game industry, which goes beyond concerns only about gender.

Romero’s opening remarks were a reminder as to why gender continues to be one of the highest profile issues in the conversation about diversity, however. “This morning, it’s shitty to wake up to Twitter and see that someone got groped at a party last night,” said Romero, referring to news that someone had been ejected from harassing women at a GDC party thrown by Sony the night of Wednesday, March 19. “It’s been a good year, but we’re still going, and we still have further to go.”

The discussion about the role of women in the video game industry has slowly built up steam over the last couple of years. In 2012, furor over booth babes, often-scantily clad women at expos and conferences whose purpose is to entice people to check out a company’s display, at E3 came to a head. Female developers felt booth babes created an atmosphere in which men assumed that women staffing booths couldn’t possibly be game developers, or that women developers weren’t taken seriously when they identified themselves as such. Female video game journalists were dismissed as being incapable of playing their E3 demos. These were not new problems, but in 2012 critics decided they were tired of dealing with these problems silently.

Read more at: VentureBeat

The DeanBeat: The questions to ask about the current state of games

E4G Admin
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The DeanBeat: The questions to ask about the current state of games

Follow all of GamesBeat’s coverage from the 2014 Game Developers Conference here.

This is an edited version of a speech I gave at the Digital River Monetization Summit at the Game Developers Conference last week. A lot has changed in gaming in the last week, and I’ve added a few remarks to reflect that. I hope you enjoy it.

I hope you are aware of the term opportunity cost. I am grateful that you are here and not somewhere else. You came here to listen to a talk on games from someone who has never made a game in his life. That also means I have never monetized a game in my life, except by writing game reviews or game news.

GDC 2014
Above: GDC 2014

You are missing out on something by being here. The best thing you could do right now is leave here, go straight the Changyou booth, and get a check from them. The Chinese online game company announced it would invest $600 million in mobile game developers. So leave early, and save me a spot in line. For the rest of you, I’d like to show you how I try to connect the dots for readers. We do that on our web sites, GamesBeat and VentureBeat, and at our own game conference, GamesBeat 2014, which will be held Sept. 15-16 this year in San Francisco.

After all this time covering games, I figured it was time to give my own talk, even if it is filled with the thinking of a lot of smart people and not so much my own original ideas. What I would like to do is toss out some facts in this talk, connect the dots, and answer some questions about the state of the industry.

My first statement is that numbers can tell you something.

That $600 million figure from Changyou is telling. Changyou’s value in the market is $1.5 billion. If you want to buy it, you have to pay that amount. Changyou is risking about 35 percent of its value on mobile gaming. Now that takes guts. The former CEO of HP got fired because he risked 20 percent of the company’s value on an acquisition that brought in 1 percent of revenue.

Read more at: VentureBeat

GTC 2014: The Future of Gaming Hardware at the Expo

Paul Philleo
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GTC 2014: The Future of Gaming Hardware at the Expo

NVIDIA began it’s life as a chipset and video card company in 1993, and over the years has evolved into an enterprising force that’s now billed itself as a “visual computing company”. The processing horsepower of the GPU (graphics processing unit) is a data-crunching beast in everything from the visuals in movies to solving problems across the spectrum of the sciences.

Despite that, NVIDIA built its foundation early on showcasing the bleeding edge of gaming graphics, and the expo hall at the GPU Technology Conference reflected that legacy in some measure.

NVIDIA themselves hosted a popular expo centerpiece of a racing game with a three-screen display, full standing automotive-style controls, on a powerhouse of a PC revving its engines with four pricey but powerful GeForce GTX Titan Black GPU cards.The GeForce GTX GPU class was on a pod on the floor, featuring Titanfall as the PC as the demo game of choice. G-Sync, NVIDIA’s display technology for synchronizing display refresh rates, was also shown off through the lens of a first-person shooting PC game. The NVIDIA SHIELD clamshell mobile Android (read gaming device) also was frequently showcased by NVIDIA themselves, even as a device to control the frequently in-flight Parrot AR Drone 2.0 via an app.

Let’s take a look at some of the game industry-oriented companies who are part of the NVIDIA ecosystem and what they were showing on the expo floor:

Silicon Image:

I met with Michael Bergen with Silicon Image, who showed off demonstration of their 60GHz WirelessHD chipset. In a nutshell, WirelessHD is a standard to provide a wireless and high-definition A/V connection for applications designed to be streamed to a display at a wired-level quality of display.

In this case the prototype demonstrated the potential of their technology in transmitting data between, between a SHIELD mobile Android device and a high-definition TV display. Currently, according to Bergen, they’re shopping the technology around for a company interested in building a market-ready product that will bring this technology between smartphones, tablets and other wireless-capable devices and HD-capable displays.

I personally tried the Riptide GP demo using the SHIELD, and didn’t notice any appreciate latency to my eye and reflexes. To whatever extent I succeeded (or not) in playing this game, it was due only to my skill, not the hardware — and not the wireless, and that‘s saying something. There are several other wireless standards vying for the even-high-speed wireless crown, but this demo was a pretty solid proof-of-concept what can be done to bring high-def mobile gaming to larger screens without wires.

NVIDIA has been partnered with WirelessHD since 2011, to ensure the technology standard integrates well with NVIDIA hardware.

Exvision:

Exvision is a start-up spun out from the University of Tokyo. Among the many projects in their portfolio is a gesture recognition chipset and software system optimized for the NVIDIA GPU. Their gesture system is “designed to run on a single high speed CMOS Sensor”. Zak Morimoto, a board member for Exvision, walked me through a demo of how precise the technology could be when applied to a game. Think a variation of Microsoft’s Kinect on a mobile device, but as integrated hardware and software rather than as standalone hardware.

Halfbrick Studio’s Fruit Ninja is a familiar touch-based game to millions of mobile gamers, but in this instance, a company representative sat several feet away in a chair and emulated the multi-touch gestures evidenced in the game, frantically waving his arms in a calculated flurry of motion to “slice” the fruit seen only to him on his mobile screen, but represented on a large screen. Other games Morimoto believes would be ideal are Cut the Rope and Candy Crush, and in fact, have tested about ten popular games with their system. Morimoto believes partnering with gaming platforms at the software level is a better way to introduce their version of gesture-driven gaming to software developers.

Once again, low latency in any games-related networking or remote peripheral is a necessary feature and Morimoto claims a latency of less than 30 ms for this system. The gesture system is past beta stage of development, nearly ready for market, and is currently being readied for Android and Windows platforms. In addition to reaching out to software platforms, the company is in search of hardware OEM partnerships to integrate their hardware.

Lenovo:

Lenovo usually doesn’t show its hand directly when it comes to gaming potential, but one of their televisions did show some of exactly that — but for China, at least for now. The Terminator S9 is a 50” smart TV with a super-duper high-resolution 4K display and a custom-skinned version of the Android 4.2 OS. The real brains behind the operations lies in a Smart Card, loaded with the Tegra K1 mobile super-chip, which claimed a lot of the thunder at the show overall.

Top-shelf games, of course, should run brilliantly on this all-in-one hardware, especially with the Tegra K1 enabled, provided it has a continued upgrade path for at least additional memory and storage.

Oculus Rift VR:

Oculus Rift VR once again drew the steady, sometimes long, lines to try out its developer-ready headset, evangelizing a convincing impression of pixilated immersive reality in stereoscopic vision. That much has been the way of things for the virtual reality hardware start-up’s roadshow from GDC 2013 onward, that I have seen.

What was different this time for the company, aside from the recent announcement of the estimated shipping date of the updated DK2 dev-kit, was the acquisition by Facebook for $2 billion amidst the GTC 2014. What attracted even more attention to this particular coincidence was the seemingly less-coincidental delay in Oculus’ Chief Software Architect Michael Antonov’s appearance to speak.

NVIDIA Announces GTC 2015

Paul Philleo
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NVIDIA Announces GTC 2015

Just before the final keynote of NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference kicked off, it was announced that the next seminal “visual computing” conference will be held a year — and about a month later — at April 28-May 1, 2015.

The slight of change in timing is intended to create separation from other events in March, such as GDC, which this year was held a week prior. While it didn’t apparently dampen attendance and new announcements this time around, this new timeframe for the conference should make it easier to position product and news announcements apart from other events in which NVIDIA is a major participant.

Read more about GTC 2015 at GPUTechConf.com.

Game Connection America Concludes with Record-Breaking Attendance, Dates Announced for Game Connection Europe 2014

E4G Admin
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Game Connection America Concludes with Record-Breaking Attendance, Dates Announced for Game Connection Europe 2014

Game Connection America 2014 wraps up another successful event in a very dynamic market and announces its return to Paris, for Game Connection Europe on 29-31 October 2014.

SAN FRANCISCO, USA – 27 March 2014 – Last week, Game Connection America 2014 came to a successful conclusion, after three days of concentrated networking, meetings and lively conversations, with a total of 1606 attendees from 48 different countries, including 260 exhibiting companies and 362 certified buyers. The Meeting Application saw an average of 20 qualified meetings per exhibitor and attendees’ enthusiastic feedback confirmed Game Connection America to be once again the most effective market place of the games industry in Q1.

“It’s the place in the industry at which you must be to get a snapshot of what it’s moving” said Ludovico Cellentani, Creative Director at Just Funny Games.

“Game Connection allowed me to meet more companies that I REALLY wanted to in such a short time and gave me the opportunity to meet with companies that would possibly have never met outside of Game Connection. I have never met so many great people in such a short time. Go to Game Connection!” Matt Munson, Game Executive at Ten Foiled Hats.

“Along with another excellent turnout in terms of attendee figures, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of growth with a lot of projects signed on-site and some excellent business perspectives for our exhibitors” states Pierre Carde, founder of Game Connection. ”

Game Connection Europe is announced to return to Paris, 29 – 31 October 2014. Once again, the event will feature cutting edge content, with speaker lectures, panels and Master Classes, for which the Call for Speakers is now live HERE – all in the mix with concentrated networking opportunities, optimized meeting schedules and the customary lively conversation.

Game Connection is also pleased to celebrate the Italian studio, Untold Games’ virtual reality adventure, Loading Human win of Game Connection America 2014’s Best Project 2014 in the Selected Projects indie game competition, sponsored by Microsoft Studios, Namco Bandai Games and Sony Computer Entertainment and supported by Develop. Chosen from 15 nominated game developers, based on innovation and market potential, Loading Human was awarded by the Game Connection Advisory Board and acknowledged for its achievements. Along with their additional win of Best Console & PC Hardcore, Loading Human was joined by other winners, Glowforth, for Best Mobile & Tablet Handheld game, with Last Inua and Gamester, for Best Social, Casual & Online game with Hordemaster.

Elisa di Lorenzo, Co-Founder of Untold Games, commented “Winning was completely unexpected, but proves that Loading Human is truly something different, experimental and exciting.”

Flavio Parenti, Game Co-Designer and Art Director said, “Winning two Selected Projects awards is an honor and we were excited to be able to show Loading Human to even more people during Game Connection America.”

Other award winners from Game Connection America 2014 include the recipients of the Game Connection Marketing Awards. The winners were:

Best Digital Campaign – Midnight Oil with the Saints Row IV Digital Campaign for Deep Silver
Best Experiential Campaign – iam8bit with The Great MMO Migration for ArenaNet
Best Gameplay Trailer – Paradox Interactive with Leviathan: Warships trailer
Best CG Trailer – Axis with Halo Xbox One for Microsoft Studios
Best Live Action Trailer – Team Xbox with Forza Motorsport 5 Filmspeed
Best Mobile Campaign – Enter the Studio with TRANSFORMERS Construct-Bots
Best Original Content – Cosmocover with Dark Souls 2 Forging a Hero for NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe
Best PR Campaign – Neology and The Redner Group with Seeing is Believing for Oculus VR
Best Social Media Campaign – Ayzenberg Group with Xbox One Product Launch for Microsoft/Xbox
Best Overall Campaign – Square Enix with Tomb Raider Overall Campaign
Best Marketing Team at Game Connection America 2014 – Team Xbox

Game Connection Europe 2014 takes place in Paris, 29-31 October. To find out more, visit www.game-connection.com

For more information:

– Visit the website: www.game-connection.com
– Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Game.Connection.Official.Page
– Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/The_GameCo
– Tune into our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/gameconnectionvideos/
– Contact: gpalmieri@connection-events.com

To find out more about Untold Games and Loading Human, please visit www.untoldgames.com

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