A New York Quicky
I did a quick trip down to New York City last week for the "game profitability" conference. I was on the Hollywood panel to discuss how film has effected games and the game industry, and the growing parallels (and problems) between the two industries...
This was actually my first time to NYC, which by all means is just a massive never-ending city. I was only in town for about 48 hours, but did get to see Central Park (and The Gates), Times Square, Union Square and Grand Central Station. I also got to hang out with my buddy Eric Zimmerman, see a Cory Arcangel installation and attend the NY/NJ chapter demo night event. The chapter had an impressive turn out of ~100 local developers to check out six different game demos...
The conference itself was a bit spotty as a first attempt by the Wall Street Transcript team. There was some good content, but with only panel discussions it is hard to present meaningful data and best practices. Rather, it became a day full of sharing opinions along with some debate. Debate is good, but my sense was that most folks in the room were new to games and really didn't get into the issues that were being argued. Seemed like they were hungry for raw data and case studies, etc. Still, I had fun disagreeing with most of the suits on hand ;)
Here are some photos from the quick trip (people listed left-to-right):
A look inside the amazing gameLab.
Of all things, Eric Zimmerman (gameLab) was doing some accounting chores before we ran off to the IGDA chapter event.
A portion of the 100+ crowd within chapter hosts Large Animal Games. Local member Bill Folsom in checked shirt.
Producer from Majesco demoing the zany Tim Schaefer creation, Psychonauts.
Mandatory shot of Times Square.
Hollywood Reporter game columnist Paul Hyman hanging out in the lobby area of the somewhat stuffy Harvard Club, where the biz conference was held.
The ever-brooding Greg Costikyan...
A lot of suits in the room... IGDA member and IP Rights Committee contributor, Greg Boyd (front, blond, glasses) looks on.
The lively advergaming panel. Was interesting to hear the pro-advertising claim how gamers want "real ads in games to make their games more real"...
Eric made sure I didn't get lost in the cavernous Grand Central Station!
Some cool urban freestyle subway dancing. Most amazing move: not smashing their heads on the low ceiling...
Eric cuts a deal with John Welch (Play First) over smoked pastrami sandwiches at the famous 2nd Avenue Deli - all kindly sponsored by John's expense account!
Game hacker/artsy type Cory Arcangel was putting on a show/installation at Deitch. Here he's seen inserting Paris into a Doom mod. I must say it is really hard to explain/express what this form of fringe game culture activity is all about...
Source Art: all the source code to Cory's Mario movie hack was pasted on the walls of the gallery.
And, these are some of Cory's German buddies who were rapping/singing to self-compiled 8-bit music.
Orange gates everywhere...
Gates around the Central Park skating rink...
Gates by the duckies in the pond...
OK, OK, I admit to being an Apprentice fan :)
Posted on March 1, 2005 11:37 AM
Comments
Wow, you were at the chiptune event as well? FYI, I was that guy who screamed like he was at a Foghat concert up front the whole time.
Posted by: Matt at March 2, 2005 12:55 AM