The Prince of Montreal
by Jason Della Rocca (February 2004)
This was the chapter's first meeting back from the holidays. 200+ developers showed up for the evening's set of presentations and socializing - not quite as many as were at the recent San Francisco chapter meeting (which I was at during a recent trip to SF), but still a good showing. It was nice to see folks from the new EA Montreal studio, as well as the IGDA's newest Studio Affiliate, Microids.
To get the ball rolling I quizzed the audience on the work of the IGDA. Sadly, a similar attempt at the SF meeting generated blank stares. Luckily, it would seem the Montreal developers are more attentive and were able to point out a good deal of the work and projects underway by the IGDA, above and beyond chapter gatherings. Stuff like: our Business Summit at GDC, academic relations, student outreach, addressing quality of life issues, anti-censorship lobbying, supporting women in the industry, etc, etc.
After my attempt at making non-IGDA-members in the audience feel guilty about not being members, Bart Simon of Concordia University took the stage. He spent a few minutes to describe the GameCODE research project they just launched, the aim of which is to look at the cultural and sociological sides of games and players. It was a simple FYI for the local dev community and an offer to get involved...
The real meat of the evening, however, was the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time presentation by executive producer Yannis Mallat. The lecture was a preview of his GDC lecture, and emphasized the need to understand what made the original PoP a critical and commercial success, as well as focusing on pre-production. One of the obvious lessons from the talk was that you really need to get your ideas in playable form (no matter how rough the art assets are, etc). Further he spoke about some the things that went right and wrong, in classic "postmortem" fashion. A few points being that you have to manage your assets wisely (ie, version control, check in/out process, etc), plan for platform ports from the start and keep team morale high - despite working 18-hour days!
Once all the presentations were done, members were treated to a raffle for some game dev books supplied by New Riders and many copies of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time that Yannis generously offered to the chapter :-) After all the goodies were handed out, everyone went to the nearby bar for the usual networking and socializing.
Big thanks to our sponsor
And, of course, thanks to our volunteers who helped out: Isabelle Marazzani (NAD), Jason Lacroix (A2M), Tristan Desjardins (NAD) and Ahmad Saad (Concordia).
February Gathering Pictorial
...here are just a few shots I took during the February gathering of the Montreal Chapter. (all persons are identified from left to right)
Professor Bart Simon of Concordia University gives a quick introduction
to his "GameCODE" digital cultures research project.
Yannis Mallat sits attentively, awaiting his turn to get up on stage...
Jason Della Rocca (IGDA) and Paul Norman (Discreet) chat at the
bar.
EA Montreal head, Alain Tascan (center), with some of his
crew.
Digital Fiction brothers Robert and Martin Lizee chat with Jodi Vitterl
and Julie of Discreet. Dominique Roussy (DC Studios) sneaks himself into
the shot...
Some chapter members have a go at DDR Extreme!
GameCODE researchers from Concordia University with their fearless leader,
Bart Simon (far right).