Perth Chapter Meeting Report – 23^rd October 2006

Games, Prizes & Tokyo – IGDA Perth’s Second Meeting

The Velvet Lounge saw its second IGDA Perth chapter meeting on the 23^rd of October – the venue filled to capacity on the warm spring night. Besides the bar and networking opportunities, two Xbox 360s competed for the crowd’s attention. As in the previous meeting, a large number of door and raffle prizes were provided by various meeting sponsors. Some perspectives of the Tokyo Game Show were given, the next nullarbor competition was announced, and the hottest announcement of them all – Interzone Games are planning to set up a studio in Perth. The night started fairly quickly, doors were opened at 7PM (at which time a few early arrivals were already enjoying the atmosphere), and by 7:30 a sizeable crowd had built up. At 8PM, Paul Turbett – The chapter coordinator and Benevolent Interactive developer officially starting proceedings, welcoming guests and thanking sponsors
	Following Paul’s introduction, Martin Masek – the chapter’s newsletter coordinator and ECU lecturer took the mike. Besides being known for writing about himself in third person, he is also one of the people behind nullarbor, the game development competition and demo party. Following the success of the first nullarbor, held in February 06 (from a show of hands many of the meeting attendees had attended), the competition for 2007 was announced, located at the GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo at the end of March. The announcement promoted a lot of discussion among the crowd regarding possible entries. Entries are not limited to games, with a demo and intro category – and a new addition, a digital animation category. One guest was heard to remark something along the lines “don’t you know how much work it takes to make a digital animation? This is going to kill me!”. And yes, it may. The website, www.notrees.org contains information about next year’s nullarbor. In a great display of the collaboration that can arise from meetings, as soon as Martin stepped off the stage, he was approached by Interzone Games COO Robert Spencer, who offered to sponsor nullarbor.
The main event of the night was a rundown of the Tokyo Game Show. David Kazim, the chapter’s events coordinator and organiser of the GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo and Conference (www.go3.com.au) visited Japan recently for the Tokyo Game Show. The slide show – a mixture of still images and video clips conveyed the large scale of the expo. A few game previews were shown, along with many examples of display architecture, such as huge screens and helium balloons – shown in order to give those exhibiting at GO3 some ideas. Also put under the spotlight was the controversial topic of “booth characters”, with a photos and clips ranging from extravagant, painstakingly rehearsed performances to characters walking around handing out show bags.
	By far the most anticipated, was the talk by Interzone Games. Along with COO Robert Spencer, Mike Turner, Senior Producer gave an overview of the company and their plans to establish a studio in Perth. Although Robert is originally from Perth and expressed his wish to return, there is some competition between Perth and another city for the studio location. The company intends to produce AAA Massive Multiplayer Online games, and will thus require a large staff. The website for Interzone (currently a placeholder with some information on positions) is http://www.interzonegames.com/
The lucky winner of the major prize (right). The IGDA Perth Chapter would like to thank the sponsors for the event: GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo and Conference, Hardware House, Anyware Computers, GameTraders, Darkzone, Douglas HiFi, and Microsoft.