Looking forward to the Montreal International Game Summit 2010

Besides Fanfest, I've never been to any other gaming convention. And though I do plan on one day attending E3, GDC, PAX East, and a few others on my bucket list,so far I haven't had the opportunity to attend one of those. But that is soon about to change, and it's a lot closer to home.

Actually it is home! Early this fall, on November 8th and 9th, I'll have the chance to attend MIGS 2010 - the Montreal International Game Summit. Over the years, this developers convention has grown into something quite important in the industry. With Montreal being a major game development hub, it's no wonder that the MIGS has grown to such importance.

So earlier last week, when they released their schedule, I was quite excited. See, despite the fact that I'm not a gaming developer, nor do I work in the video games industry, I've always been interested in going further than simply reading video games magazine or websites. Who knows, maybe one day I'll be part of it. For the time being, attending MIGS, and Fanfest 2011 for that matter, is plenty enough to satisfy my appetite. Anyways, let's get back to that schedule of mine!




So after perusing their program schedule, I started picking the sessions I was going to see. The following is the schedule for those 2 days, with session and the speakers name.

Monday, November 8th
11:15 Collective AI for Next Generation Gameplay (Jeff Orkin, PhD Candidate @ MIT Media Lab)
13:30 The Art of the Sell: Pitching Your Ideas (Chris Ferriera, Creative Director @ A2M)
14:45 Leaderboards Can Suck It: 7 Better Ideas for Visualizing Player Data for Fun & Profit (Todd Northcutt, General Manager @ GameSpy Technology)
16:00 Marketing and PR: The New Rules of the Game (Scott Steinberg, CEO & Author @ TechSavvy Global)
17:15 Positive Play, Real World Gains (David Edery @ Fuzbi, Ann DeMarle, Dante Anderson @ Seriosity, Genevieve Lord, Chris Crowell @ Woozworld, Michelle Hinn @ Pursuit of Happiness Foundation and Alex Hutchinson @ Ubisoft Montreal)
21:30 MIGS 2010 Party @ B-Side Bar

Tuesday, November 9th
11:15 Post-Mortem of Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (Stephane Gravel & Martin Rhéaume @ Beenox)
13:30 Feature Animation Techniques vs. Gaming Animation Techniques: Bridging the Gap (Samantha Youssef, Artistic Director @ Studio Technique)
14:15 Cloud Gaming is the Near Future (Steven Thomas, Senior Software Engineer @ HaiVision Network Video)
16:00 Building Your Game Studio (Greg Boyd, Attorney @ Davis & Gilbert LLP)
17:15 New Kids On the Block: Studio Heads Tell All (Ken Schachter @ Trapdor, Miguel Caron @ Funcom, Jason Della Rocca @ Perimeter Partners, Martin Carrier @ WV Games Montreal, Yannick Roy @ Bioware)

Quite a busy two days, but so many great topics to cover and learn about. I'm excited!

Back from Fanfest and asking for more

It's been 3 days since my return from Iceland, and a bit longer since the end of the 5th EVE Fanfest. Quantum Rise has been deployed and from all accounts, all has gone smoothly. Life is slowly returning to normal for me, though I'm still very much busy with the job hunt and taking care of the little family.

This last Fanfest was my first and, as I've been telling everyone and their mothers, hopefully not my last. Though the whole event was short, and I didn't get to enjoy the Icelandic scenery, the whole experience was a blast. I finally met face to face with folks I'd been chatting and emailing for over a year. And I also met with folks who were complete strangers, leaving with new friendships which are likely to last. Never mind 3 days of EVE Online news and discussions!

I still have got loads of notes and subject matter that came out of the Fanfest for about a dozen future posts. So expect more over the next two weeks. I just need a bit of time to wrap my head around a few ideas and get my facts together.

This Friday's Speedlinking post is likely to be one of the lengthiest, as I've put together the news of the last 2 weeks, which as you know, has been quite extensive. This one should go live early Friday morning. YoMma and I are scheduled to record the 4th installment of MicroWarpCast also on Friday morning, and with some luck, I should have the editing done by the end of the week-end.

I leave you with these two photos of me and some lovely Icelandic ladies with whom I had a bit of fun on Saturday night, during the Fanfest Party. Should convince a few of you boys out there to definitely make it to Fanfest next year!




All innocent fun, of course. I mean, I'm an honorable Canadian of course!

Cheers!