Trip to Manchester: IGDA Chapter, Academic Conference & TIGA
by Jason Della Rocca
In early April of 2002, I headed out to Manchester (a nice city in the North West of England) for a trio of activities: The IGDA's North West UK Chapter was having its first gathering, the University of Manchester was hosting an academic conference on game studies and finally TIGA was holding a meeting for the Education SIG and an open evening event.
Inaugural North West UK Chapter Meeting
This first meeting for the North West UK Chapter was a huge success, with over 60 developers in attendance. The vibe was good (in large part due to the Criterion sponsored bar), with developers being friendly and chatting away. The chapter coordinators were quite pleased with the turn-out, considering that they were keeping their fingers crossed hoping for a dozen developers to show... All in all a great start for the Chapter!
Playing with the Future
The University of Manchester and the Centre for Research on Innovation & Competition hosted a three-day conference titled "PLAYING WITH THE FUTURE: Development and Directions in Computer Gaming". According to their site: The overarching aim of this conference is to develop a better understanding of computer games, gaming and gamers at this rapidly moving point in the gaming industry. To this end the conference will bring together researchers from cultural studies, economics, sociology, psychology, computation, management and other disciplines, along with members from various sectors of the gaming industry such as developers, publishers and retail.
It was an interesting and informative three days, with about 80 academics in attendance. At times it was a bit surreal hearing researchers dissecting and analyzing our games, and at the same time very insightful. As Warren Spector has mentioned many times, the academic environment supports analysis and examination of the medium in a way the purely commercial industry has trouble with, providing space for formal and conceptual experimentation that is hard to justify in the market-driven world of shipping titles. The lecture and paper abstracts are up at the site and I encourage developers to check out the work that is being done.
I must admit that it was disappointing that no actual game developers were present for this conference. While I enjoyed sharing my thoughts in the two sessions I presented in, it would have been truly beneficial to have further participation from the industry. I suppose it will be some time before game developers see the value in attending events like this (a shame, really). The IGDA's own efforts with the Academic Summit at GDC is another good start in this direction...
TIGA Action
Finally, on the last day of the trip I headed into town to attend TIGA's EduSIG meeting, as a guest. Currently, their education efforts are heading in two directions: the first is a skills mapping effort, trying to better define the roles in the game industry and the skills needed to perform them, the second is looking in the area of using games for traditional learning (ie, math, reading, etc). The EduSIG is making good progress in both areas and I am excited to continue hearing more on their progress.
Overall, the trip was beneficial in forging further ties with the academic community, the local game dev community and our friends at TIGA. It was great to pack in the activities so tightly, with not a day to rest!
Here are some pics from the trip to Manchester:
Chapter coordinators Marc Wilding (Creations), Matthew Southern (ICDC), Richard Boon (International Hobo) and Chris Bateman (International Hobo) happy with the turn out!
Kostas Karanikolas, Mark Lomas and Simon O'Brien from nearby Evolution Studios having a good time...
The female hoard: MA Digital Games students from ICDC mingle at the chapter.
Sponsor Criterion's rep Jason Ashton (grey shirt) shares a beer with fellow developers.
Student Life: ...if only the Ethernet jack was working, I would not have cared about the lack of room service, TV, phone, etc... Really, I didn't know they meant dorm room when they said they would cover the accomodations 
Jesper Juul (IT University of Copenhagen) lectures on gameplay theory (much like the topics covered in the Game Studies journal).
Event organizer Jo Bryce (University of Central Lancashire) welcomes the attendees to the evening cocktail.
Crazy Danes: All I will say is that that is not a bottle of water...
Event organizers Jason Rutter (CRIC) and Jo Bryce (UCLAN) content with a successful conference as attendees filter out of the last session.
Sony Europe's Zeno Colaco talks shop at the TIGA evening event.
Warthogs Steven Law, Ashley Hall and Eric Elms chilling out at the swank restaurant/bar that capped off the TIGA evening.
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