IGDA Calgary Chapter – Meeting Reports

Thank-you to every one that came out.

The 1st order of business was to discuss how to increase Calgary’s awareness of game development in the city.

There is a need for showcase events:

• Post mortems – Where a developer dissects their development pipeline / methodology. Discussing what went right, wrong and key learning from the experience
• Presentations – Game development requires a multitude of diverse talents. Delving into the creative process of artist, designers and programmers can give valuable insights
• 3^rd Party demos – Inviting companies like 3d StudioMax to come and give demos. This can be in conjunction with a local studio to give the community added value
• Indie Game Jams – In a nutshell developers get together for a weekend and go like mad to create something.

Common thread that runs through each of these suggestions is the need for better meeting/activity spaces. The pub meeting are great socially but cannot sustain the events or give our chapter the credibility needs to expand.

Florence Chan is looking at the possibility of ACAD hosting meeting & events. Shawn Thompson of Rare Method is looking into the possibility of hosting meetings at their offices as well. Another option is to rent space. To make this viable we need to create revenue for the chapter or seek out sponsors for the meetings. The sponsorship prospect leads directly back to our credibility & the value we would add for the sponsor.

The next item tabled by Jenn Pollack was a community Sketchblog Jenn has a thread to discuss it on the IGDA Forums - Sketch Blog.

To support the blog we will be moving the Calgary IGDA webpage to its own url. George Georgeadis has acquired the calgaryigda.com address and webspace to host it. This site will still be linked with the IGDA mainsite and forums but allow us to do things like hosting the Blog.

Next Meeting

Items tabled:

• Formalizing a leadership committee
• Establishing a $10 annual membership fee for IGDACalgary
• IGDACalary’s participation in con-version 22
• Establishing IGDACalgary's website
• Weekly update for members
• Update on alternate meeting spaces

Thank-you to every one that came out.

We had our biggest turn out of 15 people and it made for a great evening. We had folks from Blister Entertainment, Rare Method & a strong turn out from our freelance members.

Stan Melax was there showing off his newest work on a physics engines & interesting discussion on the changing roles of the programmers in game development.

Casual games was also a hot topic with Brent Lowrie leading the charge. It is an area of gaming sure to garner more attention from smaller studios as the technical requirements and ballooning budgets of the next gen systems take garage studios out of the running.

We called it an evening with commitments from all to make the next meeting.

Cheers,
Shannon McIntyre

Photos

Click a photo to enlarge it in a new window.