Reality Panic

The small/close knit game development community in Australia made for a nice and informal conference. While still extremely small by E3/GDC standards, the <a href="http://www.agdc.com.au/">Australian Game Developers Conference</a> did attract upwards of 400 attendees (my guess) along with a handful of exhibitors, etc.

The first portion of the conference was their inaugural <a href="http://www.agdc.com.au/conference/academic_summit.php">academic summit</a>. This took place on the day prior to the conference proper. As always, it was great to see efforts made to bridge the academic/industry divide. The content of the day was split between research presentations (eg, NPC interactions, game communities, etc) and meta-level discussion topics (eg, state of research, curriculum development, etc). While it is always nice to listen to a broad range of content, my opinion is that focusing solely on meta-level discussions would have been best suited for this first time event: it was clear that folks were there, hungry for answers on how to best collaborate, communicate, overcome challenges, etc. I did a <a href="http://www.igda.org/academia/IGDA_2003_AustralianGDC_Curricula.zip">lecture on curriculum development</a>, which was much derived from <a href="http://www.igda.org/academia/events.php">past presentations</a> of the IGDA’s <a href="http://www.igda.org/academia/curriculum_framework.php">Curriculum Framework</a>…

To kick off the main conference, Victoria state minister Marsha Thomson made a brief presentation. She spoke on the growth of the game sector, its economic importance and the various government programs in place to support the development of the industry. It is quite impressive the degree to which the <a href="http://www.mmv.vic.gov.au/gameplan">Victorian gov stands behind their local game dev community</a>. And, to be fair the other states, like <a href="http://www.qldgamedev.com">Queensland</a>, do a fair bit as well… She also boasted about their recent mention in Wired magazine as a <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/start.html?pg=10">global game development hot spot</a>. It was good fortune that I had had dinner with one of the ministers the night before and showed them the article ;)

Overall, the conference presented some solid content. They did a good job of mixing local talent with talks from international speakers. Check out <a href="http://www.agdc.com.au/conference/conf_schedule_fri.php">the program</a> for a sense of what was presented. I did a <a href="http://www.igda.org/blogs/realitypanic/IGDA_2003_AGDC_BarriersToSuccess.zip">lecture on industry issues</a>, covering stuff like <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/15/1068674436769.html">censorship concerns</a>, piracy, diversity, <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20031121/fristrom_01.shtml">bad management</a>, quality of life, etc, etc… The lecture was well attended and well received – by mostly non-developers. Interestingly enough, whenever I talk about these critical issues, developers don’t seem to care or want to hear about them. I guess it is a bit of a “eat your veggies” syndrome. Oh well.

In a somewhat predictable turn of events, Seamus Blackley had to cancel his trip to the event due to more <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=2365">pressing matters</a> back home. In a move to replace the content, I was actually asked to help sub in on Seamus’ sessions: one was a keynote panel on convergence/divergence of games and Hollywood, the other was a panel to discuss various industry sore spots (eg, lack of originality, gender issues, lack of vocabulary, violence, etc). I enjoyed the extra opps to speak, but I think the Aussies were getting tired of me ;)

On the party/social front, the organizers did a good job of putting together several cocktail receptions, mixers, parties and other such networking opportunities. Of particular note, the conference banquet was fun. They brought in big screen TVs so we could all watch the Rugby World Cup final match, after which we were all given Nerf dart guns to blast the crap out of each other!

On a somewhat disappointing note, I was rejected from the “women’s luncheon”. They hosted a small lunch event for all the women in attendance at the conference. The IGDA does similar activities via the <a href="http://www.igda.org/women/">Women in Game Development Committee</a>. All the IGDA’s women stuff is open to everyone and so I figured the same would hold true in this case. I wanted to hang out, be supportive, talk a bit about the IGDA’s diversity work, etc. Even sadder, I was known as “that guy” who tried to RSVP for the women’s lunch. Laura Fryer (head of Xbox ATG) almost passed out from laughing too hard when she found out that I was “that guy”. Heheheheh.

To sum up, this was a very enjoyable trip. And productive! Aside from lecturing/talking a whole bunch, serious progress was made on setting the ball rolling for an IGDA <a href="http://www.igda.org/chapters/">chapter</a> in Melbourne! Also, it was just great to get a better sense of the game dev scene here in Australia. They are a proud bunch of developers, having succeeded over many years of hardship. Yet, like most developers the world over, they are a bit nervous over the current state of flux the industry is in and the impending transition to another generation of platforms…

Here are a few pics I snapped during my trip to Australia:<a name="pics"></a>

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<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_01.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>Head of Tantalus Tom Crago and his boys debugging an Xbox build of Unreal II. Tom was very nice in letting me hang out in the office to jump on their network to get some email/work done.

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_02.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>Before AGDC even got started, there was a project showcase of students from the Monash University School of Multimedia Systems . It was held at the very hip <a href="http://www.federationsquare.com.au/">Federation Square</a>.

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_03.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>An aerial shot of Melbourne. The conference was held in the white building at the bottom-right. Tantalus is in the reddish brick building to the top left of the bridge.

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_04.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>Ian Gibson, head of the Canberra campus of the Academy of Interactive Entertainment kicks off the Academic Summit.

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_05.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>Marsha Thomson, Victoria state minister, kicks off the conference proper.

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_06.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>Noah Falstein was on hand to present more of the <a href="http://www.theinspiracy.com/400_project.htm">400 rules of game design</a>.

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_07.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>David Hewitt and Andrew Bailey of Tantalus chat with PhD student Anthony Speed during the “Big Party”.

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_08.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>The expo floor was kinda small. Taking all of five minutes to traverse. My feet were grateful!

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_09.jpg" height=400 width=300><br>Phil Harrison, Sony’s head of development in Europe was on hand to provide one of the keynote speeches.

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_10.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>Bob Wallace (center) practicing his Counter-Strike skills…

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_11.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>…even the suits were getting into the action!!! (Andrew of Blue Tongue to be precise.)
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On my last day, I was free to tour around. I took the opportunity to go on a day-long excursion to the <a href="http://www.greatoceanrd.org.au/">Great Ocean Road</a> (which some rate as one of the top tours in the world). Hot damn, that was some pretty scenic coast line!

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<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_12.jpg" height=400 width=300><br>A mother koala and her cub in the wild. This shot was taken on the side of the mountain road.

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_13.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>Two of the "Twelve Apostles".

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_14.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>"Loch Ard Gorge", the site of many ship wrecks...

<img src="http://www.igda.org/events/images/agdc03_15.jpg" height=300 width=400><br>The "London Bridge" arch. There used to be a second arch over the gap, but it collapsed about 10 years ago.
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