Milia 2002

by Jason Della Rocca

This was my first Milia. Over the years, I had developed such a grand image of Milia, set in Cannes, where all the stars go to wine, dine and do business. Why should it be no less for the games biz? Not to say that I was disappointed, but Milia was not what I was expecting - especially the rainy weather...

Being its 8th year, Milia is a well run event (aside from the lack of usable direction signs). However, there is the distinct sense that they are struggling to focus and define who/what they are. With expo representation and conference lectures covering games, interactive TV, web, wireless, edutainment and everything in between it is quite hard to keep track of everything. This breadth is certainly one of Milia's strengths, but at times it feels that no one quite belongs.

Like many events, Milia is split into a conference portion - aptly named Think.Tank Summit - and an exposition portion. With the current economic and political climate, attendance at both the Summit and expo were down - especially from the Americas. All told, there were about 5000 attendees and 500 exhibitors (as reported at the BBC).

The good, the bad, the really freaking ugly

The Summit was hit and miss for the most part. The opening keynote by Takeshi Natsuno, who is responsible for i-mode strategy at NTT DoCoMo, was truly a great talk covering the strategy behind the success of their content driven strategy. However, the day-1 closing keynote by THQ president Brian Farrell (while impressive for someone who just landed 20 minutes prior to hitting the stage), was dry console and market sales stats along with a THQ pitch for the analysts in the room. Yet, this was nothing compared to the oh-my-god-is-she-really-saying-this-stuff appalling event-closing keynote from Joanna Shields, the euro VP of RealNetworks. She basically tried to sell the audience on subscribing to their new premium pay service. Tsk, tsk.

Other than the keys there were several good panel sessions throughout the two day Summit. The session on next-gen games - which included Sony's Phil Harrison and Jason Rubin of Naughty Dog among other notable panelists - was well done and insightful. Not surprisingly, they all pointed to Grand Theft Auto 3's immersive world and open-ended missions as a future path for games - and of course online, community driven gaming.

Their harking on the future of online gaming served as a nice segue into the day-2 panel I moderated on the future of massively-multiplayer online games. Joining me on the panel was Scott McDaniel (Sony Online Entertainment), Jung Hwan Kim (NCSoft), Thomas Kuefner (Neopoly) and Bernard Dugdal (Network Interactive Sports). We had a nice discourse on the cost structure of MMPOGs, design issues, technical challenges and keeping your audience satisfied.

Sadly, there were only a few game industry relevant sessions. And, the non-gaming panels were a bit too deep to get into. For example, hoping to get the skinny on upcoming trends in home multimedia appliances in the "Prospects for the Multimedia Home Platform" panel, I walked out on a very dry discussion of the MHP API... This was true of many of the non-gaming sessions, which were too in depth for those not involved in the given sector. And, I fear that the inverse was true for all the non-game developers (which was most of the audience) in attendance for the game sessions... Again, this is one of the dilemmas of attracting a very broad and diverse audience.

Vegetable Pong!

It is kinda sad when you leave the show floor thinking the coolest and most innovative thing you saw was vegetable pong! While the floor hosted small Nintendo and Sony booths, it was seriously lacking on the game front. With almost every second exhibitor being a CD/DVD production facility, and every other one a governmental business development association, it did not leave much room for anything else.

Gov and CD shops aside, Milia has to be commended for supporting student artists and independent game developers. The New Talent Pavilion and the Game Developer Village were two of the busier, and more interesting areas of the expo and provided a nice opportunity for upcoming talent to showcase their works.

The New Digital Entertainment Fast Lane was another cool event. Essentially an energetic pitch session for a dozen panel-selected multimedia artists (ie, web, wireless, iTV, etc). Each one was given exactly three minutes to demo and pitch their creations, with the audience grading each with wireless scoring gadgets. This was a fun way to showcase a lot of cool content in a short amount of time.

Night life, anyone?

Again, being my first time to Milia I was not familiar with event traditions - this included not knowing where everyone hung out in the evening. Thinking that the closest hotel to the convention center would be the hot spot could not have been more wrong. It took me two nights to figure out the scene was down a few blocks at the Martinez (thanks to Ed Bartlett and Mike Montgomery of the Bitmap Brothers and the boys from Edge for showing me the way). Once there, I saw many familiar faces - from Jez San (Argonaut) showing off with his magic tricks and the brothers Kingsley (Rebellion) hobnobbing with other industry heavies. It seemed that this hotel's bar held all the games industry people in Cannes - much more so than the Summit or expo.

That was when it hit me that Milia will always have a special place in the hearts of those developers who can afford the trip. Not to say that we are all lushes, but Milia makes for a great excuse to head down to Cannes for a few days to mingle with the gaming digerati.

Here are some shots I took during Milia (all names are from left to right):

...outside the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France. Nintendo conducted some heavy euro PR maneuvers.

Takeshi Natsuno, who is responsible for i-mode strategy at NTT DoCoMo, gave a great opening keynote, providing some insight into their successes (37million subscribers and counting!).

Interestingly, the press kept following me around Mathilde Remy (Joystick) and Joao Diniz-Sanches (Edge) - not to mention Owain Bennallack (Develop) and half the Future Publishing staff...

Emma Westecott (Interactive Institute) moderates a panel discussion on the future of broadband...

Phil Harrison (Sony) and other industry vets like Jason Rubin (Naughty Dog) try to define what a next-gen game truly is. Many pointed to Grand Theft Auto 3's immense worlds and open-ended story as a step in the right direction.

THQ's president did the closing keynote for the first day. While the relatively dry topic of console launch/sales data was well delivered, he inappropriately snuck in a healthy dose of THQ corporate pitch. Tsk, tsk.

A shot of the Debussy auditorium as it filled up for the "Future of MMOPGs" panel session I was moderating. It was a cool venue.

Post panel, Bernard Dugdale (Network Interactive Sports) and Scott McDaniel (Sony Online Entertainment) are questioned by Simon Price (IDG).

Also post panel, Jung Hwan Kim (NCSoft) discussed the success of Lineage (2.3 million subscribers in Korea) with an attendee.

A new French trade association for game developers was announced at Milia: Association Producteurs Oevres Multimedia (L'APOM). There main objective is to assist on the funding side of things, working with the French government on grants, etc...

The "Fast Lane" was a fun event, whereby 14 panel-picked new media developers were given 3-minutes each to present/pitch their works, with the audience electronically voting for the winners...

The game developer village was one of the few places with any developers/games... It is great to see Milia supporting independent talent.

Similarly, Milia had a "New Talent Pavilion" that hosted student developers and their works (it was mostly non-game stuff, but nice to see the support of young talent just the same).

Vegetable pong! A cam overhead took shots of the table, having a PC process the image - determining obstacle collision - and controlled a projector to move the ball of light. Whacky by cool.

Mathilde Remy (Joystick), Mike Gamble (MathEngine) and another MathEngine-ite welcome me into the Martinez bar...

Phil (Future), Scott (Future), Ed Bartlett (Bitmap Brothers), James (Future), Richard Holmes (IncaGold) and Dave McCarthy enjoying a pint at the Martinez.

- end -