After the break you can read the text of an email that was sent out to Clinton Lowe and the attendees of our first Athens GGDA/IGDA meeting. Overall the event was very successful. I think we came away with a core group of people interested in making the chapter a success. I think the chapter itself will also be an excellent starting point for independent game development efforts in the Athens area. GameJam time!
I’ve been meaning to post these for a while, but we only recently got DSL up and running at the new place, so it has been difficult to get these posted somewhere. The full album can be seen here. We’ve posted some photos of the new house. Now keep in mind that this is pre-cleaning spree that we have been doing over the last couple of weeks. The house was a “short sale” which meant that it was nearly in foreclosure. That left little incentive for any work to be done on the place. See that big bush on the left in front? It’s actually 4 bushes.
The New House
The Inaugural Meeting of the Athens Chapter of Georgia Game Developers Association (which I’m hoping will be co-branded as an IGDA chapter as well) will be today, November 11th, at the Pub at Gameday. The full annoucement of the event can be found on the GGDA website. The synopsis listed on the site is:
The launch meeting of the GGDA Athens Chapter will focus on letting interested members of the Athens community know about these efforts and the role that the GGDA and IGDA plays in assisting the efforts of members. Dr. Casey O’Donnell of the University of Georgia and President of the Athens Chapter will be updating attendees of his and UGA’s gaming related efforts as well as discussing what he hopes will be a new pocket of game development and innovation. It is also an opportunity to gauge interest in participation in the Global Game Jam events on January 30th
I will post photos and event notes here after the meeting. The slides have been posted as a SWF file here.
Day 3 began with Pat Aufderheide of the Center for Social Media at American University delivering a keynote entitled, “Why the Digital Future is More Copyright Friendly than You Think.” The two words that she believes makes this difference are, “Fair Use.” It was an excellent talk, hoping to connect the worlds of digital media producers (the iDMAa crowd) with those of documentary film makers who have already united under the Center for Social Media in developing a set of best practices around Fair Use and Copyright.
Pat also mentioned that she is working with the ICA and communication scholars more generally in developing a set of Fair Use best practices for comm. scholarship. On November 11th, the SfSM will be releasing a set of best practices for Media Literacy Education.
What was perhaps most interesting about this panel was actually what was not said. The panel in many respects represented the (dis)connect between departments and disciplines surrounding (video)game development. One presenter seemed to even embody the kind of (inter)disciplinary divide. One panelist actually said they didn’t understand why they were even on this particular panel, though I thought it was abundantly clear why they were. The (dis)connect between code/engineering, design, and art, which are so prevalent in the videogame industry was perfectly represented between the presenters.
Day 2 started off with Ruben Steige of Millions of US talking about Social Experience Design. I think one of the key takeaway elements of this talk is that, “entertainment has always been social.” In part because of a second shift in how people interact with media Ruben spent the majority of his talk examining the role that game theory and game design has come to mean for all media. The interactive shift that the web represented five to ten years ago is now giving way for a second shift that is even more fundamental. That shift has to do with the shift toward social media.
iDMAa certainly started things off on the right foot. Though I gained membership in the organization when I joined the University of Georgia and the New Media Institute, I didn’t know much about the organization until Scott Shamp sent me his Podcast talking about last years events. It of course helped that the event was in historic downtown Savannah, GA this year at SCAD.
Moving into our new pad and hemoraging money. The closing went well, although the now separated couple across the table definitely made the experience tense. On the upside, since it was Halloween, there was a giant bowl of candy.
The new place is great, though we have been cleaning for nearly two days straight. The kitties are adjusting well, although the new washer and dryer will soon be invading their space.
More pictures soon.
Perhaps I’ve simply listened to too much Sting as of late. But my meditation has, as it often has of late, settled on the game, the geometry of chance.
I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that’s not the shape of my heart
Last night’s plenary session seemed to set the benchmark for talking about the state of the videogame industry more broadly, but also in the state of GA. In part, that is what has made the conference so far a particularly interesting one it demonstrates the kinds of intersections that occur between local activity and creative industries more broadly. But back to the Friday night plenary…