Lifestyles of the Indie & Humble | IGDA Perspectives Newsletter | February 2011

PERSPECTIVES NEWSLETTER INDIE & HUMBLE FEBRUARY | 2011

IGDA PERSPECTIVES FEBRUARY | 2011

N E W S LE T T E R LIFE AFTER CORPORATE LIFE | PAGE 3 |

OVERHEARD AT THE IGDA | PAGE 6 |

MEMBERSHIP DRIVE WINNER! | PAGE 7 |

INDIE BY DEFAULT | PAGE 8 |

SIG SPOTLIGHT: INDIE | PAGE 10 |

DECISIONS THAT SHAPE BUSINESS | PAGE 12 |

MEMBERSHIP SPOTLIGHT | PAGE 14 |

CHAPTER SPOTLIGHT: PORTLAND | PAGE 16 |

MAKING OF THE IGDA INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION GUIDE | PAGE 17 |

ON EMOTIVE GAMES: Q&A WITH IGF FINALIST | PAGE 18 |

As we face unfortunate company closures internationally, the ever-present pressure to land and keep a job in game industry grows. As Su Skerl (IGDA Vancouver) believes, now is the time to step up and help one another. In the age of information, we have an opportunity to share—job opening announcements, alternative company models, strategies for revenue sources, and our stories.

In this issue, we have included several stories that highlight indie lifestyles or take indie beyond indie and into the world of freelancing. These are the voices that have risen out of past company closures and downsizing. These are stories of hope and success.

Mostly, we hope to provide some solid resources and reference points in these times. The industry is constantly changing, and with that, comes instability but also opportunity.

Special thanks to our regulars Mary Kurek, Sande Chen, Altug Isigan, and Nancy-Elizabeth Townsend. An especially special thanks to guest contributors Pascal Luban, Michael Lubker, Dmitri Salcedo, Sela Davis, Pawel Pieciak, Steve Marshall, and Tim Miller. Lisa Brunette and Sarah Woody impressed with this round of copyediting (it’s a big issue). Andy Lubrano pulled together our extra large events section. And a big thank you to our fantastic designer Cat Wendt.

To perseverance,

NOT JUST A PROGRAMMER | PAGE 19 |

AN INDIE EDUCATOR | PAGE 20 |

Beth Aileen Lameman Editor-in-Chief

CHICKEN SOUP FOR NEWBS: NATURALLY INDIE | PAGE 22 |

REFLECTIONS ON ROCKET 5 | PAGE 23 |

EVENT CALENDAR | PAGE 26 |

Our contributors include: Editor in Chief - Beth Aileen Lameman; Art Director - Cat Wendt; Authors - Mary Kurek, Sande Chen, Altug Isigan, Nancy-Elizabeth Townsend, Pascal Luban, Michael Lubker, Dmitri Salcedo, Sela Davis, Pawel Pieciak, Steve Marshall, and Tim Miller; Copy Editors Lisa Brunette and Sarah Woody. Art Contributor: Arturo Vargas. Events: Andy Lubrano.

Learn more about the International Game Developers Association at www.igda.org.

THERE IS LIFE

AFTER CORPORATE LIFE

Flickr/joxur223

By Pascal Luban

L

ike many “older” members of our industry (in which “old” starts at 30), I didn’t start my professional life in the games industry, and I hadn’t obtained a degree that would lead me (at least in any obvious way) to a game-related job.

More than 20 years ago, I was living on a strange planet where all inhabitants were wearing suits and ties, doing consulting and marketing work. But when the CD-ROM appeared with its “huge” data storage capacity, I saw that games were going to make a quantum leap in terms of content. I was already passionate about games, so I developed a game concept with a friend of mine for an action-laden game with a moviequality script (my friend was a movie director). The studios and publishers we saw didn’t want to develop our concept because its budget was huge for the time: $1.5 million!

My friend gave up after that, but I had contracted the design bug. I quit my comfortable but boring job and tried to make it as a designer. First, I wrote a new concept. I couldn’t sell it, but it attracted Acclaim France’s attention, whose boss recommended me to Virtual Studios, one of the largest studios in France at

the time. I was on a roll, and that was in 1995. My new life as a freelance game designer had begun.

Eight published titles later, I’m still freelance, which often comes as a surprise to many people. Being freelance did not prevent me from getting lead design jobs, including with distant clients. Judge by yourself: I was lead level designer on the multiplayer versions of both Splinter Cell — Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory,

lead game designer on Alone in the Dark — the New Nightmare, creative director on Wanted — Weapons of Fate and more recently, lead game designer on Fighters Uncaged, the first combat game on Kinect.

And every single one of these projects was done on contract.

There are not many freelance designers in this corner of the world, but I don’t see myself on the list of endangered species.

I just chose to do my job differently, and some studios or publishers find it advantageous. My status lets me offer a wide variety of services from consulting, coaching and auditing to full game and level design.

Today, I will share some of my experience with you. To studio managers who are considering employing a freelance designer, I’ll give my recommendations, and to those of you considering going freelance, I’ll give you my dos and don’ts.

A question I often get is, what type of company outsources one of the key positions in the development of a game to a freelancer? There is not one answer but three, as I’m essentially dealing with three types of clients.

First, we have the small studios. I call them the rising stars. Usually they’re already in the business and have some experience and a few games out. They want to grow, but they don’t have the money, or the clout, to pay and attract highly experienced designers. To them, I essentially bring expertise and manpower.

Thanks to my broad spectrum of experience, I can do almost anything related to the design of a game: The game concept, the

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“I quit my comfortable but boring job & tried to make it as a designer.”

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full game and level design, the tuning, etc.

I’m used to working with professional scriptwriters and game producers as well. Since I’m flexible, I can adapt the number of days I commit every week to the financial resources and needs of my clients. Sometimes, they ask me to do the entire design, from concept to level design, and follow up its development.

I did that for Gmedia, an Irish publisher of mobile games. For that company, I did The One Hope, an action-adventure for Nokia 60 handsets. More recently, I did the full game and level design for Version 2 Games, which is currently under development.

The second group of clients includes medium-sized, fast-growing studios lacking internal resources to meet a peak in demand.

I call them the conquerors. To them, I bring manpower. They often ask me to join their teams, either on a part-time or full-time basis. I usually work in their studios for sixto 18-month periods. I am embedded and treated like anybody else on the teams (same hours, same LAN parties at lunch time, same bad coffee, etc.).

The last group is made up of large studios or publishers. They are the powerhouses.

They usually have plenty of internal resources, but they seek specific know-how or blend of expertise. Thus, I was commissioned by SCEE or DICE to audit game and level designs.

Another question I get frequently is how I work with clients who can be located thousands of miles away. I’m based in Paris, France, but I’ve worked with companies as distant as the United States or India, not mentioning neighboring countries like the UK, Spain, Italy, Sweden or Belgium. I bring case-by-case answers to distant assignments.

For consulting or coaching missions, I either go on-site, or I work remotely, depending on the client’s requirement ... and budget. Going on-site is usually mandatory for audit missions because the game build cannot leave the studio and needs frequent debugging. I remember an audit mission in which I spent more time rebooting my machine and waiting for bug corrections than actually testing the build. On the other hand, consulting missions can be done remotely and followed by a stay on-site in order to detail my analysis and recommendations. Faceto-face discussion with the development team is very important if they are to use my analysis or recommendations. Together, we often find new solutions neither of us would have thought of alone.

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Coaching missions support this operating mode very well. I did a playtest coaching mission for 10Tacle Belgium a few years ago.

I went on-site several days to train its playtest manager, to show him how to use various tools and methods and even to run playtest sessions myself to show how to put my recommendations into practice. In between my stays, I held regular conference calls to keep track and coach. It did not cost the studio manager much, and the studio got top-quality training specially adapted to its needs.

For full design assignments, I can work remotely if the game scope is reasonable.

Mobile games, Facebook, iPhone, iPad, PSN or XBLA titles fit that description.

How is it possible? It works when my client entrusts the entire design work to me, from concept to level design. This gives me complete control over the content of the game and makes it easier for me to propose a coherent design that I can follow up and that’s achievable. Once the full design is done, I can stay in the loop and follow the game development. When the game is simple and there is a single person that takes the final decisions, a lot can be achieved with conference calls and document sharing.

This follow-up only demands a few days per week. It is also possible for me to test the current builds from my office, and if needed, I go on-site for key milestones.

Lastly, for the clients who insert me into their teams, I commute between my home and their studios. I stay on-site for a few days a week and work the rest of the week from my office in Paris. Could that be compatible for a creative direction assignment? I believe so. A creative director should be the person dedicated to the development of a vision regarding the player’s experience, not an “über designer” on top of every aspect of the game.

The creative director should spend most of his time on the two ends of game design: The definition of the player’s experience and design polish. He stirs the creative resources of the entire team and achieves the synthesis (which becomes the vision of what the player should experience). Then, his task is to make sure everything done in the game goes in the right direction (support the targeted player experience). Since he is not bogged down in organizational or writing tasks, he can spend time on the details of the game, all those little things that make you say, “That’s cool,” or “Whoa, they really thought about this.” I have two examples in mind: The red hot gun barrel in Gears of War 2 when you have fired FEBRUARY

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your entire clip in one go and the rabbits that you can spot from time to time in the pine forests of Arma 2 when you use night vision.

If you are in a position to hire or work with a freelance game designer, you will see it is not much different from working with an employee. A freelancer is not less loyal and trustworthy. Actually, if a freelancer wants to keep getting missions, he better keep a good reputation.

If you’re going to hire a freelancer to work remotely, on a concept for instance, I would recommend the following:

» Give clear, detailed and exhaustive design

constraints. Tell him what you are looking for and what you don’t want to see. Designers work better with strong constraints.

» Give time. Creative work cannot be

planned and shoehorned into rigid plan.

An outside designer can bring fresh ideas to your development team, but if you don’t give enough time, he will simply mimic what already exists.

» Don’t insist on him or her being on-site. I

had clients that contracted me to design game concepts, but they wanted me to be on-site, all day. That was a waste of time because you cannot be creative eight hours a day, sitting behind a computer. Actually, I am the most creative when I jog!

» In the contract, state how the contractor

will appear in the game credits and under what circumstances he can communicate on his work with you.

» Following the previous points, put

him or her in your game credits. Creative people hate not to be recognized for their contribution. If they believe they will not be credited for their work, they will keep their best ideas for themselves ... or for another client!

» If your contractor is to work with your

team remotely, to follow up how his or her design is implemented, organize a face-toface meeting with your team. It will create stronger bonds between them.

» Last, but not least, pay him or her well!

A freelancer depends on his mission for his living. If you don’t pay him decently, he’ll probably shift his time to more lucrative jobs.

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What if you want to jump in the fray and go freelance? Let me give you a few tips.

» First and foremost, always remember you

are not doing your game but your client’s game. You have the right to propose and fight for your ideas, but you also have the duty to execute your client’s demands, even if you believe you have a better idea!

» Think ethics. It is very important to build a reputation as a loyal and trustworthy partner, in particular ...

› Don’t kiss and tell. Keep for yourself what you’ve seen or heard while working with a client. › Don’t give names of client’s employees

to head hunters, at least as long as the person is still employed by your client.

› Never say bad things about your client, even after a mission is completed.

» Respect what you have promised to deliver: Budget, deadline, content, etc. If for some reason you believe you won’t be able to

achieve something, inform your client as soon as you see the problem.

» Be ready to work more than expected.

Always remember that a client contracted you to bring a solution to a problem, not write a document or be in his office from 9 to 5. Work until it’s done. It is only if the workload really gets out of control that you should tell your client and renegotiate your contract.

» Don’t be arrogant with your client’s devel-

opment team. Making a game is difficult; making a good game is very difficult.

Respect the work done by them, even if it’s not perfect by your standards. I had my own failures, so I stay humble.

» Respect the confidential agreement you

discussion with you on the topic. You can also contact me through my website and follow me on Twitter.

Having worked in the games industry in game or level design since 1995, Pascal Luban has worked for major studios, including SCEE, Ubisoft and DICE. In particular, he was lead level designer on the “versus” multiplayer versions of both Splinter Cell — Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory, creative director on Wanted — Weapons of Fate, and designer of CTF-Tornado, the leading multiplayer map of the UT3-Ageia Extreme PhysX mod. Pascal also works on mobile platforms. His first mobile game, an action-adventure title called The One Hope, published by the Irish publisher Gmedia, received the Best in Gaming award at the 2009 Digital Media Awards in Dublin, Ireland.

have with your client to the letter. It’s happened several times I had to stop myself from giving out information my client’s employees had already leaked!

This isn’t the end of my missive on the world of freelance game design. I’m also opening a post on my blog to continue the

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What 2 things do you think most strongly contribute to your quality of life?

Doing what I love and getting paid for it.

-Robert Anderson

1. Meaningful contributions to a high-quality project that ships 2. A team that loves the work as much as I do -@charliehuge

OVERHEARD @ THE IGDA ON FACEBOOK & TWITTER

Friends and family.

-Krissie Franco 1. Financial and emotional stability.

2. Good health.

-Bryanna Lindsey

Love and exercise.

-Christopher 'Jack' Nilssen

MEMBERSHIP DRIVE Winner of the Membership Drive and the grand prize - Warren Spector!

Great job everyone! From Cape Town to Shanghai to Caracas, New York City and Madrid, new members have joined from every continent! Unfortunately, there can only be one winner of the IGDA Membership Drive, so CONTRATULATIONS TO MONTRÉAL! Thank you so much to everyone who participated - you’re helping to make the IGDA a better place for all. Our members are our greatest asset.

Final Standings Overall: Montréal Americas Large » Montréal » Seattle » Toronto » Los Angeles » New York

Americas Small » Pittsburgh » Colorado » DC/New Orleans » Florida/North Carolina Triangle/Philadelphia /Wisconsin » Baltimore

Europe/Africa » Finland » Switzerland » London » Germany » UK Midlands

Asia & Oceania » Israel » Mumbai/Taiwan » Taiwan » Singapore » Japan/New Zealand/ Seoul /Sydney

INDIE BY DEFAULT

By Robert Madsen

I

n the computer world, default is the state of rest — that which occurs when nothing special is going on. It is the status quo. Over the past three years, it has been my experience the default state of employment in the games industry is unemployment.

Since entering the games industry in 2008, I have had a wild ride. First, Dallas, followed by a layoff in less than a year ... then a seven-month job search ... next, Canada, followed by another layoff within a year ... more job searching. You get it.

I’ve been unemployed about as much as I’ve been employed. Of course, I knew the games industry was infamous for such instability before I ever decided to point my career in that direction. I also realize there are thousands of others from the games industry who have faced similar or worse situations over the past several years.

Given the current economy, I realized that finding another job would be a multimonth adventure. This time, I wanted to do more with that time than just look for the next job. I also wanted to continue working at what I love: making games. After all, that’s why I got into the industry!

Before I entered the games industry, I had been self-employed. My longstanding joke was that a self-employed person is just an unemployed person with a business card. So here I was “self-employed” again.

When life gives you lemons ...

The first time I was laid off, my entire focus was on finding another job. Seven months and 300 resumes later, I found another job as a game programmer. Looking for a job was literally a full-time affair.

Eleven months later, I was laid off again.

After the second layoff, I decided to turn my disadvantage into opportunity.

to do with yourself? ” Since I already had some experience as an independent programmer, becoming an independent game developer seemed the next logical step.

I have to admit that having been selfemployed for the past 15 years made it

The opportunity of independence Anyone who has been involved in making games for someone else has also thought of ideas for their own game. But there are real barriers to making your own games while you are employed for another game studio. Generally, as an employee, you must sign nondisclosure agreements and no-compete contracts that essentially block you from developing your own games. What’s theirs is theirs. What’s yours is also theirs. Being unemployed generally means you are free of such agreements.

Another new resource you suddenly discover as an unemployed person is time.

Now that you’re not crunching 12 hours a day, what are you going to do with yourself ? Catching up on the last three seasons of Lost will only take so much time! The key is to find a way to balance what is es-

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a little easier. I had a lot of resources to fall back on, such as previous clients and online avenues of revenue. Since I was already familiar with the ropes of being self-employed, I decided to spend about 50 percent of my time working for pay and the other 50 percent working on my game.

Somewhere in there I would keep my eye out for promising jobs.

sential (such as making enough money to survive or looking for that next job) with what is desired (making games).

I realize that survival and looking for a job can be a full-time effort of its own.

However, with planning and discipline, you can make the time to keep making games.

Think about it: While you were working for the typical game studio, you were already working 12 hours a day. Why stop now?

Being unemployed can be a great opportunity. First, there is a good chance you are receiving some kind of short-term support in terms of unemployment benefits. You may have the support of a spouse.

If you were smart, you saved up some money while you were gainfully employed.

Second, even if you spend a lot of time on the job search, you probably still have more discretionary time on your hands than when you were employed. Finally, you are probably free of any contractual limits on your ability to make your own games. You’ve dreamed of making your own game ... now is your chance!

The new era of indie games I remember a time about eight years ago when I was first researching the games industry. The general consensus at that time was that the days of the small “garage” team game developer was over.

Games now cost millions of dollars to produce and thousands of man hours.

Furthermore, specialization was the norm.

Not only were there designers, programmers and artists, but also specialists inside of each of those fields. The conclusion: Making a game on your own or with a few talented friends was no longer an option.

Fortunately, the indie game developers weren’t listening.

Now, more than ever, the environment and technology are open and supportive to small, independent games. An abundance of tools have cropped up that target the small indie studio. Torque, Unity, XNA and PlayFirst are just a few examples of low-cost or free game engines. Just as important are the avenues of distribution that have opened up. Services such as Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, Kongregate and many others have come up that directly focus on smaller games. Finally, there are new platforms that make sense for the indie game, including the PC, Web, Facebook, iPhone and Windows Mobile. The point is the barriers of entry are now lower than ever.

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I’m not saying it’s easy. In fact, the competition is overwhelming on all of the promising platforms I named above. But there is one thing to keep in mind: Three years ago, few people took game development on the iPhone seriously. Now it is one of the most prolific platforms for games. The same is true of Facebook. If these examples are indicative — and they seem to be — there is a huge market for the more “casual” games indie studios are best at.

Focus testing No, I’m not talking about getting a bunch of kids in a room to play your next game. I’m talking about the need to focus, or you’ll never get anything done! There are so many variables to consider when first starting an independent game that it can be overwhelming.

“Being unemployed can be a great opportunity.”

Once I had decided I was going to get serious about making my own game, I was immediately lost in the details. What kind of game did I want to create? Which platform and language should I use? Should I use a game engine, or should I just start from scratch?

Decisions, decisions, decisions Ultimately I used two criteria to make these choices: experience and resources.

I asked myself, “What programming platform do you have the most experience with?” Although I am fluent in C++, I also did a great deal of development in Visual Basic and C# in my previous business. I had a lot of experience in .NET Web development as well. Knowing that anything done in C++ doubled or tripled development time, I decided to use C#.

I also decided to use the Web because I could leverage my existing knowledge of ASP.Net development. This would allow me to target the Web as well as Facebook with my game.

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knew the only resource I had was myself, so I chose the platform that would allow me to produce meaningful results in a reasonable amount of time.

I also knew my greatest limitation was art. I am no artist! So, when it came to picking a game design, I chose a type of game that was not art intensive. I needed a game in which even I could supply the art if needed, and hopefully, I could get a real artist involved at some point in the future.

So, there’s my focus: a Web-based game — written in C# and ASP.Net — that doesn’t need a lot of art. Having this focus is what allowed me to move forward. My advice: Moving forward is always better than not moving!

Moving forward I am a great believer in the game design document. Although the urge as a programmer is to get coding as soon as possible, I know the benefit of a good design document from experience. Without it, your ideas get fuzzy, and you end up doing a lot of programming that is wasted on fleeting ideas.

So, my first step was to start creating a game document. I found that completing the design document helped me turn my fuzzy ideas into a set of concrete specifications.

The accomplishment of getting that first page of the game design document inspired me. Now there was something concrete to show for my game idea. The more I wrote, the more progress I saw.

This is another benefit of creating a design document first: instant gratification.

Once I finished the game design document, I had a solid reference to use to begin programming. I’m the kind of programmer that tends to work in spurts.

One weekend a spurt happened, and I created the first prototype for the game.

The more I accomplished, the more I was invested, and the more I was motivated.

Alternate reality I don’t want to give you the idea this has been easy or that I have achieved all of my goals. The reality of survival has side-tracked me several times. It’s too easy to spend all my time on projects that actually make money.

Being independent is the world’s most complex balancing act. If you aren’t carePA G E 9

ful, you’ll find yourself back in the place in which you are doing everyone else’s projects but not your own. Once you start down that path, it’s easy to get detoured from your game. If you find yourself detoured, get back to the main road!

I’m not suggesting anyone be irresponsible. I understand human nature (and sometimes survival) means going for the money first. However, with discipline and planning, I have always been able to get the game project back on track while I survive.

Going public One final word. Just last month I had another spurt and created a Web page for my new studio. I immediately sent word to all of my friends, family and colleagues to check it out.

Twitter. Facebook. The whole deal.

Frankly, I was scared to death.

Going public meant this was more than just a dream or idle fancy. Now everyone who is important to me knows I am trying to make it as an indie.

Some of them probably think I’m crazy.

Others will understand and respect my decision. But the fact is, the word is out, and I’m really not good at failure. Now, more than ever, I am motivated to succeed because, in a way, I am accountable to those who are rooting for my success.

If you’re unemployed and wondering what happened to your game development career, I hope this article inspires you to do something more. Even if you already took that job programming for an accounting firm, you can still make a way to do what you love — make games.

Make your own game.

Independent by default. For me,

it’s either this or being bored. I now work just as many hours as when I was employed, if not more. The sense of accomplishment and the satisfaction I am still doing what I love more than compensates for the extra time.

Robert Madsen has been programming for more than 30 years, starting his f irst programming at age 17. In 2003 he decided to target the games industry and by 2008 had his f irst job as a game programmer. You can follow Robert’s adventure on Twitter @robertmadsen and @SynapticSwitch. His studio website is SynapticSwitch.com. You can also f ind SynapticSwitch on Facebook.

Feel free to contact Robert any time at rmadsen@synapticswitch.com. 

SIG Spotlight: INDIE

Flickr/Stanin Photography Flickr/

Interview with Michael Lubker What is the focus of the Indie SIG? The Indie SIG is actually in flux right now, and various people want it to go different ways. “Indie” means different things to different people and continues to change every year.

What are the SIG’s current initiatives and activities?

We are looking for manpower to allow initiatives and activities to happen. There’s not much going on right now, but you can contact me if you want to do something.

We have a big list of things we want to do.

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How does the SIG feel about the future of indies?

With the success of games like Minecraft, indies are definitely here to stay. With the introduction of the Mac App Store and the race to the bottom that may happen if Microsoft introduces a competing store, it will be interesting to see how big studios stay relevant as indie studios have less overhead and can afford lower prices on their games.

What are your hopes for the SIG in the future?

Is there anything the greater IGDA chapter community should know about the Indie SIG? We need volunteers. Plain and simple.

Michael Lubker is a producer, designer and business development manager working with several indies to produce great games. Most recently, he shipped Steel Storm Episode 2 with Kot in Action Creative Artel and will be shipping Purify Puzzle with Paper Child Studios later this month. 

That we can make something good happen.

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JOURNEY OF CHOICE:

DECISIONS THAT SHAPE BUSINESS

Flickr/Caitlin Francis

By Mary Kurek

I

t’s not always a “fork-in-the-road” we come across in making business choices; sometimes it’s more like tossing darts at balloons. Every decision that is made, however, leads to somewhere ... and, of course, we hope the “somewhere” meets our intentions.

If not we at least hope the surprise is a good one. In the case of Brass Monkey, it was really good.

Massachusetts-based Brass Monkey developed technology that transforms an iPhone or other smart device into an intuitive controller for Web-based single-player or multiplayer games. The decision to create the technology began while Brass Monkey team members were developing the Star Wars Trench Run II game for iPhone and Web. Company CTO Chris Allen tells the story: “Brass Monkey’s sister company got the contract to build the game for Lucas Film and THQ Wireless, and in the development, we found that the controls on the Web version were not nearly as fun as the iPhone version of the same game. The iPhone version used the accelerometer for flight direction, with touch events for firing.

In short, the keyboard and mouse were just not right for flying an X-wing. It

occurred to us that maybe we could take the iPhone and turn it into a controller, similar to the Nintendo Wii, and control the game running in the Web browser using the same gestures as the iPhone version of the game. Once our developers got it working, it just ballooned from there.”

Knowing other game developers weren’t satisfied with the limited controls a keyboard and mouse gives the consumer, the Brass Monkey team made another smart decision: It created an SDK (software development kit) for its technology and started a new company with the sole mission to provide developer tools for connecting mobile devices and displays.

Brass Monkey’s success can actually be attributed to a series of savvy, yet risky, choices. Initially, the company decided to self-fund the project, while maximizing exposure through partners like Alcatel-Lucent and Mediatile.

“Now,” Allen says, “we are looking to ramp up and are in talks with several interested VCs in an A-round of financing.

The response to the company’s offerings has been better than expected.

The Star Wars Trench Run version 2 with Brass Monkey controls came out

last July. Since then, the Suzuki Kizashi game has been released, with other projects awaiting announcement. But, interest in advergames and locationbased mobile gaming has Brass Monkey working on new decisions.

“There’s a convergence going on right now with increasing the interactivity through public displays, like jumbotrons in Times Square, and also with increased attention to companies putting their brands into online and mobile-based apps and games,” Allen says. “Brass Monkey is right in the middle of this, providing a bridge between location-based digital signage and online/mobile games.”

Ratrod Studios started in 2009, aiming specifically for iPhone and Web-playable games, since that was the area in which the founder, Pat Toulouse, had the most experience. However, the choice to branch out into developing for other platforms was almost immediate.

Toulouse credits Unity 3D Version 3’s release in 2010, which supports almost every platform, as the push that caused Ratrod to become a multiplatform developer.

One of the decisions Toulouse points to that has resulted well for Ratrod is its leaderboard feature.

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“Usually a PC or console game has its own leaderboard, meaning, that if a player plays an Xbox game and submits their high score, it will not show up to another user playing the same title on a PlayStation 3,” Toulouse says. “It’s the same idea for mobile devices; our Drift Mania Championship title reached over 3 million users across all platforms after its launch six months ago. Since drifting (a high-skill motorsport) is a competitive sport, our goal was to connect our iPhone, Android, PC and MacOS users together on one single leaderboard in order to bring together the top drivers of each platform. We were very surprised with the results; some of the “Career Stats” scores reached up to 50 million points, which easily means over 300 races were played. Another feature we included was the “Live Event” system, which users can select in the Option menu. If a special competition or event has been announced, users have to tune into the “Live Event” leaderboard, and during a pre-determined period of time, everyone tries to win with highest score and career total. Some of the competitions took place directly at the actual Drift Mania Championship event.

With a good start to Ratrod’s gaming future, Toulouse sees new decisions that will focus on creating a balance between building up its own IP base and developing for clients. With a core team of five, he envisions growing the team in order to expand capacities.

PadWorx Digital didn’t have the same first decision that faced Ratrod.

It singled out one platform and took an “immersive” approach to its work.

PadWorx creates interactive content for tablet and mobile devices. Not quite game-interactive, but awfully close, Padworx uses a special technology to develop experience-rich books ... a technology it created.

A 2010 Publishing Innovation Nominee, PadWorx chose as its maiden project a book so well-known it almost conjures images before you lay eyes on the first page: Dracula. The hybrid book/app, which made it to “app of the week” and was featured on television tech shows across the nation, allows the reader to engage in the story through touchscreen interaction, music IG

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and sound — an experience worthy of Bram Stoker’s haunting words. In fact, the Stoker family actually gave its name to the title, sharing with the PadWorx team they think Bram would have loved this version.

Jeffrey Alan Schechter, founding partner of PadWorx, says the choice to work in digital content was driven by the quicker pace in getting digital content to market along with the lower upfront costs.

“I paid close attention when Alice for the iPad was released,” Schechter says. “Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was still in the theaters when Alice for the iPad was released. The brilliance in using public domain material and

“It’s all part of the journey.” somehow tying it to movies or other hot properties helped me to sort of reverse-engineer the business model.”

Schechter says the Halloween holiday and affinity for the Twilight series was enough for his team to make Dracula the first choice. The team followed the holiday idea into Christmas, spinning out a steampunk-themed app for A Christmas Carol.

Knowing it had a fairly untested audience, PadWorx is calling its entree into this new business a success, but already expresses interest in diversifying its work to reach new audiences.

The company has been working on projects for children and titles that are more game-like.

“New decisions that we see coming at us involve creating good partnerships with companies that share our vision of what a reimagined reading experience can be,” Schechter says. “We want to be forging the right relationships now.”

There’s so much room in the games industry now there are no edges of the envelope — because there’s no envelope — nothing to close off creativity, vision and determination. The choices I’m sharing from developers here are representative of what I’m hearing from others. Developers are building FEBRUARY

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their own technology and then making choices on how to market that technology in addition to their titles. I’m hearing more and more developers pressing out to other platforms, working on partnerships, and many who are making decisions that focus as much on enhancing the actual hands-on experience as it does on the game content. These are pretty big decisions ... same as the one to start into business ... same as it will be when you ultimately decide what you’ll do with the business.

This week, I had an e-mail from a friend and developer who made the decision to close his company. It’s as if he was apologizing to me. I read his disappointment and wrote these words back to him, “It’s all a part of the journey ... this is just one decision amid many, both personal and professional, that will shape you. A talent like yours will find the next open door when it’s time, and what happens next will probably surprise you.”

Here’s to good choices and happy surprises this year.

A former North Carolina Governor’s Press Staff member and Chamber of Commerce Exec, Mary Kurek combined her media and marketing expertise into a business consultancy in early 2000. After several years of helping small businesses learn how to network for results and bootstrap their marketing efforts, she wrote a nationally endorsed networking book, Who’s Hiding in Your Address Book? released by Robert Reed Publishers in 2007. She writes regularly for IGDA and Casual Connect Magazine. 

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MEMBER SPOTLIGHT Sue Bohle based in Los Angeles, is a leader in the game media relations space and the founder of the Bohle Company. In recent months, she has lent her talents and the resources of her team to support and shape the IGDA’s pr initiatives.

Gary Mi first joined the IGDA in Singapore in 2004.

As a steering committee member, he organized events that allowed industry folks to connect, share and have a good time. Under the leadership of Allan Simonsen, Gary learned how to run a successful IGDA chapter. After a move to Shanghai in 2007, Gary joined the local chapter as a steering committee member and later became president in mid-2009. He believes in the IGDA spirit of sharing and cooperation and enjoys meeting people at IGDA events, including the record-breaking IGDA Shanghai party at ChinaJoy in 2010 (over 800 guests!)

Kiyoshi Shin is the chapter coordinator at IGDA Japan.

IGDA Japan was started in the spring of 2002, making this year the ninth anniversary! Ten local SIGs have grown from this chapter and recently their local Global Game Jam had172 participants who created 29 games. Kiyoshi is an excellent leader who works hard to improve IGDA Japan and support Japanese game development.

Ian Stead

became hooked on the IGDA after he visited the inaugural Albany IGDA Chapter meeting in 2002. Soon after, he started to help out with the chapter website and then became one of the Chapter Coordinators in 2005. In the last 5 years, he has helped organize many events like the local Global Game Jam. He has spoken with aspiring students about the game industry and built connections between developers in upstate New York, United States. His most recent IGDA endeavor has been to help lead the Visual Arts Special Interest Group.

Mike Worth, an Emmy Award winning composer,

has been an IGDA member since 2006. and has reinvigorated the game dev community in Philadelphia. In recent years Mike has expanded his efforts to cultivate professional development in the cities of the Northeastern United States, by putting together a one-day IGDA industry programs at GameX in 2010 and at PAX East this month in Boston. 

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| JOIN Why join the IGDA? The International Game Developers Association works to enhance and advance the lives and careers of game developers around the world. We are a volunteer-driven organization of game developers helping game developers.

By joining the IGDA you help support the leading industry group representing game developers and help to shape policies and best practices for the game industry as a whole.

The IGDA also offers numerous benefits including:

COMMUNITY

Local chapters - From South Africa to Finland to Shanghai, over 80 chapters worldwide!

Special interest groups (SIGs) - Focusing on topics as diverse as Sex in Games to Artificial Intelligence to Quality of Life Game industry events - Gain access and discounts to industry events, roundtables, workshops and receptions Voting rights and leadership - Shape the organization, or run for leadership and affect change even more!

KNOWLEDGE

Online webinar series - member only webinars featuring industry experts that cater to a wide range of interests Leadership Form - our annual event that brings the best of our global speakers together to share their challenges, solutions and ideas for the future White papers & publications - publications on a variety of topics and core industry positions

RESOURCES

Healthcare program (available to most US residents) Members-only discounts on books, numerous conferences, classes and then some Online profile - create a professional profile on IGDA.org to showcase your work and connect with other industry professionals

Learn, connect, share, and represent the video game industry: join the IGDA.

Get involved! | Stay current! | Expand your network! | Be heard!

Learn more here: http://www.igda.org/join

Chapter Spotlight:

PORTLAND

Flickr/pfly

Interview with Dmitri Salcedo How did your chapter get started?

Our chapter predates our IGDA affiliation into the hazy mists of the ’90s, formed under the ponderous but URL-unique moniker PAGDIG for Portland Area Game Developers’ Interest Group. For many years PAGDIG was a handful of us meeting at a small table at a local pizza place, bemoaning the dissolution of the small but functional Portland game industry and the subsequent brain drain.

However, in recent years, the meetings have steadily grown in size as the local industry has been making a bit of a comeback, in large part thanks to the iPhone and indie development scenes.

Who are your chapter leaders?

I organize the meetings and administer the website, Twitter, Facebook group and e-mail lists. Many of our initiatives have been spearheaded by various group members who take the lead in recruiting other members for a common cause.

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For example, Ed Kuehnel helped pull together an effort to look into lobbying our state congress for funds to aid in game studio startups, and Corvus Elrod has organized our chapter’s involvement in our local Global Game Jam for the last two years.

How do you recruit new members into your chapter?

Word of mouth mostly. We’ve had some new members referred by the IGDA site as well.

How often does the chapter meet?

Every month, usually last or next-to-last Thursday.

Does the chapter have a favorite place to meet, or does that change?

We currently take over several tables at the Lucky Lab Brew Pub in NW Portland. We’ve consistently met at this location for over a year now.

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What was your most recent event as a chapter?

Our last meet-up at the pub happened during inclement weather, but we still had a lively turnout despite all that. As far as more full-blown events go, we’ve held a couple of post-mortem presentations at the local Art Institute of Portland this past year.

How does your chapter support indie development?

Our mailing list and meetings often dispense helpful advice for developers, whether it’s coding advice on a certain graphics technique or people looking to hire for open positions. Start-up projects in need of an additional programmer, sound person, artist, animator and so on can often find a willing participant in our fold. Our members often bring in working prototypes to get some quick gameplay feedback as well. It’s good times. 

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THE MAKING OF THE

IGDA INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION GUIDE

By Sela Davis

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he IGDA wiki has been the home of the Independent Production Guide for the third year running. Produced by the Business and Legal Issues class in the Rochester Institute of Technology’s graduate program for Game Design & Development, the guide serves as an ideal single-point resource for aggregating information pertinent to independent developers. Developers can open the main page and immediately find data relevant to their most pressing needs.

Data is sorted so the reader can compare marketplaces, easily see which platforms support the tools they’re familiar with, find resources for their chosen platform or even find new tools to help them out.

This information ranges from the broad, such as where one can find low-cost assets, to the specific, like the file size limits on console distribution services such as WiiWare®. The general target markets of the guide are developers who need a quick reference or new teams at any point in the development process.

Although the guide is not meant to walk anybody all the way through the non-development processes of making a game, it provides useful and relevant information at any stage.

The guide has been revised and expanded annually by the second-year graduate students in Professor Stephen Jacobs’ class. Student Brian May took charge of the guide this year, and he led the class with a specific focus.

“In terms of what our philosophy was, I broke it down to the class like this when they would ask me if a piece of info should go in, ‘You have to ask, if I were an independent game developer, would I care about this information?,’” May says. “I drove that point more than anything else, and I think we ended up with some good stuff.”

When asked about the origins of the IG

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guide, Jacobs had plenty to say.

“As often as possible, I try to provide my students with assignments that can create real-world deliverables for a community larger than themselves and/ or their teacher; making websites for not-for-profits, educational games for the One Laptop per Child Community and others,” Jacobs says. “As it’s become more feasible in recent years for independents to create small studios and produce games for Web, mobile and console community sites, it seemed natural to teach my students about these opportunities

“Feel free to become the next content contributor.” by having them create something like the guide and then sharing the knowledge.

I’ve been active in the IGDA off and on, and it made sense to partner with them to make it available to the larger community of independents and students who could use the guide and ideally become, or continue being, members of the association.

“The first class to take on this project developed a solid foundation with as much data as they could aggregate,” Jacobs says. “They searched through resources online and attempted to contact developers and studios but were unable to get some of the information they wanted. Each successive year has tried to widen and deepen the information on the guide. Last year’s class added a broader range of data and a greater focus on Web and social game resources. This year’s group added resources such as outsourcing, mods and marketing, as well as fact-checking and updating the information already in the guide.”

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How can it be useful? Michael Moore of Muse Games found the guide came in handy when they began to discuss the possibility of porting their current project to Xbox Live Arcade. As two of the engineers began to get into an argument over what languages XBLA did or did not support, Mike pulled up the Independent Production Guide for a quick, definitive reference. The guide had the information he was looking for merely one click away, and he was able to quickly defuse the argument.

The guide was published as a portion of the IGDA wiki with the goal of it becoming a living document the IGDA membership would take over as its own, either through a SIG or an active chapter. Any class-based project is naturally constrained due to the scope of the class, the few weeks a year the students can devote to it and the fact the students are not yet members of the industry. So if you have any knowledge or data to share that isn’t in the guide, feel free to add it. Our industry changes so quickly, and today’s facts can become tomorrow’s misinformation in the blink of an eye. The guide is publically accessible to everybody, though if you want to edit it, you need to be logged into the igda.org main site. Feel free to become the next content contributor!

If your SIG or chapter would like to take on a group role, adding new sections or taking ownership of one or more, feel free to just go ahead and do so!

Sela Davis is an Xbox Live developer at Microsoft and currently lives in Seattle, WA, USA. In her spare time, she works with metal and creates audio for games. She served as co-founder and co-coordinator of IGDA Rochester until the end of 2010. 

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ON EMOTIVE GAMES:

Q&A WITH IGF FINALIST

By Sande Chen and Altug Isigan The following Q&A with experimental video game maker and IGF f inalist Daniel Benmergui f irst appeared on the community blog, Game Design Aspect of the Month.

GDAM is currently edited by Sande Chen and Altug Isigan, founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

How do you make emotive games?

I never set myself the goal of making emotive games. It just happened that both I Wish I Were the Moon and Today I Die were born out of intense emotional impressions.

Something I discovered with those games is that you can build important experiences that involve audiovisuals, text and (weak, to be honest) gameplay, without “telling stories.” There are very few of these “game poems,” which is a shame, because there might be a huge audience for them out there.

Do games have the necessary vernacular to tell powerful stories?

I think Jonathan Blow is right when he said that games are never going to catch up with cinema in telling stories like movies do. Any kind of interaction breaks storytelling horribly, despite the enormous efforts of designers to overcome it.

However, I believe there is a different kind of narrative, which is based purely on gameplay. That kind of narrative is very

unexplored, and we mostly stumble in the dark when trying to “author” that narrative that is constructed between players and gameplay.

For example, take games like Braid: a kind of magic happens, where you begin to understand and talk with the game in terms of gameplay, like learning a new language.

You watch the game objects, with their sprites and animations, but what you really see is how the puzzle works as a whole and all the possibilities of stuff you can try with the tools at your disposal.

Is there something important in that conversation, in the way a movie can be important? Or are you just learning to navigate a screwed-up universe and have learnt nothing that matters?

Those are important questions, but to figure them out, we have to keep learning the true language of games. We can’t expect to write good poetry in a language we scarcely understand!

But I think the appropriate question is, “What can this game make me discover about the universe and myself ?” Answering that question would involve a lot of emotions, both in the player and the game maker.

Is it even important for games to make players cry?

There are plenty of games that made a lot of people cry. Most Hollywood movies do that easily, given the proper audience.

But I would prefer games to shock people to the very core, which is something I know books and movies can do.

Then there will be crying.

Experimental video game maker Daniel Benmergui is the creator of Today I Die, an emotive game that brought him a nomination in the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival. He can be reached at his blog Ludomancy. 

What kinds of emotions can games generate in players?

Most games I’ve played involve either a high degree of abstraction (puzzle games) or a high degree of adrenaline.

It’s difficult to explore a vast range of emotions when you are pumped up or using logic brain functions.

CALL FOR ARTICLES The IGDA Perspectives Newsletter is looking for content for its March issue on “Positive Impact Games.”

We are looking for pieces of any length. Topics may include but are not limited to: » Motivations for positive impact games. » Stories about successful positive impact games. » Games for furthering social interaction and community development.

» Exploring possible genres of positive impact games. » Games for encouraging personal discovery. » Games for providing education to children and adults.

Please send article pitches to Editor-in-Chief Beth Aileen Lameman (beth@bethaileen.com) by Feb. 19 and final articles by Feb. 25.

NOT JUST A PROGRAMMER

By Pawel Pieciak

W

hen I was young, I always wanted to create and sell my own games. I’d made a few when I was 13 and wanted to sell them; of course, this wasn’t successful because the games were very simple and silly. Also I always wanted to work in the games industry, but in my country (Poland), there was no opportunity to show someone what I could do. For this reason, I chose a different route — when I was 18 years old, I wrote my first book about games programming. I struggled to find a publisher, however, so it took about two years before it got published.

Then I moved to the UK because there were lots more opportunities to work in games. My first UK job was as an electronics engineer, but this was a temporary job just to keep food on the table. I always knew what I really wanted to do: create games. While I was working there, I started to write my second book, a sequel to Programming Games, because readers really liked the first one, and I had already promised the publisher it would be done. This book was also published in Poland.

After finishing my second book, I left my job with a plan in mind. The plan was simple: Stay at home and start working on a game demo to get into the games industry. I was supporting myself financially just with my own savings earned from the first job, and after four months of hard work, my demo was finally finished. I “knocked” on several game companies’ doors and got some interviews, sadly with no success. Then I found an advert about a company located in Leamington Spa: Blitz Games Studios. I wrote to them and sent my demo. They invited me for an interview and tested my practical skills in programming, which I think is the best way of testing a candidate for any role, and I’m very grateful for that. It worked! I got my first job in the games industry. I was very proud.

My books were not a financial success, but I think they definitely helped

me get into the games industry even without university qualifications. Those books put me in the “spotlight” and sent a message to my future employer that I’m a candidate who has what it takes to create game code. Blitz Games Studios took me on board based purely on my practical skills. It was a great place to be, and I enjoyed working for them; I met lots of talented and friendly people.

I always wanted more, and before Blitz, I had a completely different idea of what it means to work in the games industry as a programmer. I imagined I would have more freedom and could use my design skills to put some of my ideas into the game. Unfortunately I was wrong — I was just a programmer.

I guess I wanted to have a programmer/designer role, which didn’t exist.

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“the only way to release my creativity would be to set up a studio” Of course I still could suggest my ideas but nothing major, only simple things that didn’t affect the gameplay. I know designers have more freedom when deciding how a game is going to work and what goes in, but when it comes to suggesting these to a publisher, that changes things. Some of the publishers just don’t want the game to be fun and are rejecting some of the best “fun factor” ideas. Oh, well, I thought, the only way to release my creativity would be to set up a studio and make games based on my own original ideas.

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giving me motivation to take matters further. Her specialty isn’t games development, but she knows the business administration side of things.

We’ve just started, and we know we can count on my previous employer — Blitz Games Studios — in terms of support. This is because of its great “Blitz1Up” initiative. It has also launched the “IndieCity” portal for indie games, which is another great place to seek support.

I’m the only developer at 2P Games, and I’m currently working on an unannounced title, which will be available in mid-2011 for iPhone and iPad. There’s some information about the game on our website. I’m also managing a blog in which I write about indie game business, and in the near future, I’ll post articles about how we prepared for a new venture as well as how it’s going at the moment with business and game development. I’ll reveal many details about my first game after its release, including sales statistics and marketing strategy. Our goal is to create a sort of a guide for all developers thinking about going into games industry as a small business supporting it with a first successful project.

Pawel Pieciak is a founder and games developer at indie games studio called 2P Games based in Leamington Spa, UK. In May 2007 Pawel got his f irst games industry job at Blitz Games Studios.

In January 2011 he opened 2P Games, an indie games studio, where for him, dreams become reality. His wife Julia is his partner in life and business. Together they believe in the success of their studio and wanting to contribute toward the indie games scene. Pawel is currently working on an unannounced title that will be available in mid-2011 for iPhone and iPad. 

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AN INDIE EDUCATOR

By Steve Marshall

I

always knew computer games had a hold on me, even from a very early stage. I would often draw, sketch and doodle my favorite video game heroes in my schoolbooks and even create my own. My friends and I used to play many computer games together, but I noticed I was much more intrigued than everyone else. I found more pleasure from sitting in on a sunny afternoon, playing Super Mario, than I did outside playing football.

I definitely fulfilled the stereotype of the gamer geek.

But as I look back on how growing up around computer games has shaped my future, I can say it has dictated my direction as an artist, as well as forged the drive to succeed within the games sector at both college and university. The more I sketched my own characters and made games using Lego pieces, the more I understood the magic and majesty of games — that they were going to be such a huge part of my life. I knew I wanted to pursue games as a profession, because although it would be cool to make video games, it would also allow me to be part of the magic. Truth be told, it actually is VERY cool to make video games; I can now say that from my experience so far. But how I got into the games industry is another story, too.

When I completed my diploma in games development at The Manchester College, I was determined to take what I knew even further. At the start of the course, I wanted to be a writer more than an artist. I loved the art side, but as I sketched and created my own characters, I also developed intricate storylines and ideas for them. I knew I wanted to stay within the games sector, but my focus had changed; I wanted to develop my writing skills so that perhaps I could become a games journalist. It was only when I completed the college course and within

the first few weeks of starting the Games Design BSc at the University of Salford that I realized I had entered another new dynamic world, one that immediately blew me away, one that upped both the competition and quality of those around me. The course quickly showed me there was so much more to creating a game than I had been shown. Programming, designing, art, sound, level design, scripting and much more. All of it interesting and enlightening. I so desperately wanted to succeed in everything. Little did I know I would eventually become an artist!

In my first year I demonstrated as best I could I was capable at art from my previous experience. I would undertake any

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“Little did I know I would eventually become an artist.� and all available art tasks in group sessions and in individual-based modules and pour heart and soul into anything I did (despite the fact on many occasions I was taught wisely to take feedback and not to hold precious what I had created).

My second year proved I could not only perform the tasks as an artist, but I could also flourish as a leader, both within art and for the team itself, which was a huge surprise to me. The course was excellently vocational and allowed students to create games; I was in charge of a 10-man outfit, working to create a complete and playable Unreal 2004 conversion in less than seven weeks. We did it, and we all passed with flying colors; the most elation I felt was not the grade itself, but that my team |

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made it to the end.

After that particularly challenging semester, I took a couple of days to reflect on the development period that had passed. The amount of artwork I generated was reflective of my personal dedication to the team, and most of all, I felt I had accomplished something very special. It was at that moment I knew that although I could manage and lead a team, it was the art discipline that excited me the most; I knew then I wanted to be an artist in the games industry.

My final year at the University of Salford saw me lead again, but this time, it was a much smaller team. I was also fortunate to be the lead artist; in the early stages of concept I put into action everything I had learned from my second year. I formulated a team focused on the correct core competencies; we worked into the early hours every night to make sure everything was completed on time, and we kept close communication on a daily basis.

Toward the latter stages of development, Zuby Ahmed, my lecturer throughout the course, worked very closely with the team to improve and evolve the game. It was our first main contact with developing an actual original IP, and upon reflection, it is one of my defining moments. I knew there and then my dream of being an artist in the games industry was now something tangible and achievable. All of this hard work again paid off; we completed our game and passed with the highest grade.

The best part was everyone loved playing our game, which we were all very proud of.

Since building great relations with Zuby, he approached me in my final weeks at the University of Salford. I attended numerous meetings in which ideas were discussed on existing ideas that were born from SmashMouth Games. During summer 2009, I went to a private instituPA G E 2 0

tion called Futureworks, which is home to a multimillion pound recording studio.

We were shown around the facilities floor by floor, and we finally reached a little pod room on the second floor. Little did we know at the time this room was to become the brand new SmashMouth Games office.

After the meeting, we discussed the feasibility of furthering one of SmashMouth Games’ products Ongaku. Before I knew it, I was already working on a commercial title, not only as an artist, but in a position of great responsibility. At the time, every day was a learning curve. In the space of a few weeks, I had already become accustomed to industry working practices, as well as developing some of my own, to streamline the art processes.

As time passed and Ongaku grew from strength to strength, I had become a fulltime member of SmashMouth Games.

Everything I had learned at university put me in a strong position in terms of my soft skills and core competencies. I found myself able to manage and direct the artwork, while injecting all input from the team and, most important, working closely with Zuby as he performed his role as our creative director. In the later stages of development, we hit a crunch period when all systems were running on overdrive. Ongaku was finally nearing completion, and in October 2010, Ongaku was made commercially available across numerous PC portals.

But things do not stop there working in an indie studio.

During the months of testing on Ongaku, the team began to develop another existing concept, known at the time as Neon Blaster. We had also gained a fantastic programmer, Gary Higham, who worked alongside another of our programmers to build an iPhone prototype for the game. I was made responsible again for the artwork and delivery for the game, but

this time round, I was already equipped with the necessary skills to manage output of artwork and also develop the brand.

Within the space of two months, we had completed and released our first iPhone game, which we renamed Drag Tag Smash so it fit in with the ideology of an instantly recognized name married to the form and function of the game.

In between working on Ongaku and Drag Tag Smash, I work evenings as a lecturer on the Foundation for Games Art at Futureworks. If I had known my life was going to be this jam-packed full of opportunities three years ago, I would have laughed out loud in disbelief. But I have found my place as a fledgling tutor,

“it is all about passion.” now nearing my second full year of course delivery on the art course. SmashMouth Games has also been brought in to teach the diploma in games development; I also teach the art strand on this course.

My hard work in both education and in the games industry has increased my confidence in all aspects of my responsibilities. The more experience you can get, the better it is. I know from experience there are many dangers and pitfalls when discussing artwork for games. I use reallife examples from my own experiences, from having worked on two commercially released titles, which focus on techniques and methods I have learned, and am now filtering this knowledge to all my students.

When I was at university, I had more appreciation for lecturers like Zuby, as they had experienced knowledge of concepting,

developing and releasing games, which added more credibility to their role. I can safely say now that as an indie games developer and lecturer, my students appreciate my development experience, too.

To sum up what it’s like to be part of an indie studio, well, I would say it is all about passion. You have to have passion about the company, passion about the team, passion about the product. It is also about developing the studio skills set, branching into other areas of responsibility, such as consultation and education, as well as promoting opportunities for budding games designers, artists, programmers and sound engineers. You have to look for opportunities everywhere in today’s current economic climate; it’s very tough out there, and you have to continuously think outside of the box! Ergo, the dynamic of an indie studio is to condense the requirements of larger studios into a smaller, versatile team, therefore producing individuals who excel in areas far beyond their initial skills set. This expansion of skills and qualities builds strength in character and ability, which can only serve to amplify drive and, most important, passion.

Steve Marshall currently works for SmashMouth Games as art manager. He also teaches two different courses held at Futureworks in Manchester. He graduated from the University of Salford with a 1st Class Honors in BSc Computer and Videogames in 2009. He has now been working at SmashMouth Games for nearly two years, seeing through the development of its first product, Ongaku (PC), and more recently its second product, Drag Tag Smash (iPhone). 

CALL FOR THEMES Have an idea for a theme for the IGDA Perspectives Newsletter? Let us know!

At request, April is dedicated to the East Coast (America/Canada), inspired by PAX East. May highlights the game industry happenings in Australia. Issue themes are flexible and are usually inspired by SIGs, platforms, genres, or regions.

Please send thoughts to Editor-in-Chief Beth Aileen Lameman (beth@bethaileen.com).

CHICKEN SOUP FOR NEWBS

NATURALLY INDIE

By Nancy-Elizabeth Townsend

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s student developers with limited resources, our contributions to the indie game world have usually been unpolished and/or simple and/or a complete disaster; mere stepping stones toward bigger and better projects once picked up by a company. However, there do exist some staggeringly beautiful exceptions that stand on their own and have captivated the industry, despite the lack of significant funding. These projects have been birthed merely by creator dedication and, in many cases, sustained by academic support within educational institutions.

Being students, we have the awesome ability to try something crazy and new, without too many repercussions should our experiments go awry. Below are some examples of successful games you may not have known were founded in a classroom and some tips on how you can wrangle up all the bare necessities needed to bring a brilliant game idea to life, ideally without having to stand on the streets with a “will fix your computer for food” sign.

not-so-painful yet not-as-convenient options do exist.

The past 10 years have shown great developments to the standard “American Dream” thanks to that marvelous little networking tool we like to call the Internet. People, sometimes mere inexperienced youths, have earned themselves fame and fortune simply by doing what they do best: spending an unhealthy amount of time stuck to the computer (assuming they’re not only playing with Warcraft, Starcraft, witchcraft, etc.).

Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) may be one of the most recognized examples of the geek supremacy phenomenon, being worth billions before the age of 30, but what about not Web but game developers? Some of the top youth indie

contenders who may lack billions but have no shortage on originality are the creators of titles such as Cloud (created at the age of 23 by Jenova Chen with a university grant), ARhrrr! (Augmented Reality Zombie Shooter by Georgia Tech and SCAD-Atlanta) and the creators of the infamous Façade (interactive story), which were all originated if not created entirely thanks to school backing. The question on many aspirants’ minds is how they managed such fabulous feats on a meager student’s time frame and budget?

Though these pioneers probably won’t have a biographical movie coming out that describes their grueling processes, here are some tips on how one can start paving the road to success, or at least mixing the cement for it.

The ideal support would come in the form of grants, i.e., a sum of money granted to you or your project or team with the simple purpose of helping experimental developers get off the ground.

Many institutions offer (relatively) to promising student projects large sums of cash, which can be spent on equipment, tools, conferences, peer contracts and sometimes personal living expenses.

Before attempting to go it alone and end up crying into the smoldering remnants of your $200 laptop after trying to load Maya, make sure to check for such listings on your school’s website. Some university labs also grant you access to their equipment in exchange for being credited as a benefactor.

Do note these are far from completely string-less handouts. Not only is a detailed proposal and budget needed, but also frequent reports, meetings and usually a guaranteed finished product, which may damper the exploratory spirit of some developers. Competition is also quite fierce so it is not recommended you design projects assuming you’ll receive vast financial cushioning. Luckily, other

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Indie-ana Jones: How Geeks Inherited the Earth

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Join the Club: Production Opportunities for (Poor) Student Indie Projects

On another, more realistic side, small sums of money are always available to student organizations aiming to bring prestige to the school through innovative projects. Most commonly this is referred to as “club cash.” For the low, low time sink of a short proposal, a few council meetings and an event or two, funding is often rewarded to students for the sole purposes of maintaining a community let alone a specific project (for which, as a sanctioned club, you can usually get additional support). Consider applying for and using said funds to, at the very least, bribe those with similar aspirations out of their parent’s basement by hosting a game-development jam with free pizza, as that is the most one can usually afford to do with a club budget.

However pathetic your resources, every little bit helps in the development of a student indie game, whether inside and or out of the classroom. Even with a budget that pre-teen babysitters would scoff at, if it enables you to build a website and forum, host a few events and, in the end, reel in those few others who share your vision, then that is one monumental step toward success.

Of course, none of these tips will yield anything if the creators themselves don’t have the drive to produce something grand or, most important, something finished at all. Prepare for wasted time and lost patience. At least with a little bit of help from institutions, you won’t have to graduate with impossible debt, and you’ll still find a little bit of fun in the process. 

REFLECTIONS ON ROCKET 5

By Tim Miller

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t’s the beginning of a new year, and what better way to start 2011 than to reflect on 2010. For myself as a developer and for Rocket 5 as a studio, 2010 can be defined with a single word: exploration. I dove head-first into iOS development because I wanted to see what the App Store was all about and to see what I could accomplish there.

Before going indie, I spent 13 years doing game and level design for small- to midsized game studios. Every game I worked on during that time took at least two years to develop, and a few times I worked on projects for a year or more that were canceled before ever seeing the light of day. I was seriously jonesing for some instant gratification — it got to the point in which making a sandwich was a satisfying development experience because the sandwich could be planned, assembled and consumed within a matter of minutes.

With Rocket 5, I didn’t set out to develop huge, drawn-out projects that would take years to make. Instead I chose to focus on projects with very small scopes that could be planned, assembled and consumed in a short time span, not unlike a sandwich. But of course the quality had to be high as well; it’s not my intention to dump crappy software on the market just so I have product on the shelves. Everything we do here is carefully handcrafted, and even though we aim for short development cycles, we don’t ship a product until it’s polished, bug free and, most importantly, fun.

Even with my industry background, I’m surprised by how much I didn’t know and how much I’m still learning about making it as an indie game developer. The biggest difference between working with a team in a studio and working independently is that you have to become a jack of all trades, or put another way “... you need to have an ocean of knowledge two inches deep.” I used to be able to focus all of my energy on design (level design, systems design, story and character development), but now I also take on the roles of producer, programmer, artist, interface

designer, sound designer, Web designer, animator and marketing team. The upside to all of this extra work is total creative freedom, which is one of my main motivators for going indie in the first place.

One of the downsides of being an indie who works from home is there isn’t a group of people in the office I can talk to about game design ideas. This was compounded for me as I moved to Toronto from San Francisco with my wife (a Toronto native) in summer 2009.

Working from home means I haven’t had the opportunity to meet many other game developers. Fortunately I managed to hook up with Kevin Feraday, an amazing comic book artist and documentary filmmaker, over the summer. I’ve also discovered Twitter is a good way to meet local developers (virtually at least) and a good way to keep up with info on IGDA meetings, Gamercamp, Hand Eye Society and various other local events. My wife is also a major inspiration and my go-to when I need help working out design ideas; she’s a veteran film and video game animator who works as hard as I do to keep the Rocket 5 dream alive.

For now iOS is still our main target platform, but lately I’ve been looking more closely at different platforms, including Android, Windows Phone 7, XNA Indie, Web portals and Facebook as avenues for game deployment. All of these come with additional investments in hardware, software, market research and education, so it remains to be seen which of those (if any) we’ll target in the future.

We shipped four apps on iOS in 2010: two games, one entertainment app and two photo/entertainment apps. The entertainment and photo apps were experiments (remember, 2010 was all about exploration) that have had mixed levels of success. The main thing I learned from doing those apps is that going forward I want to focus all of my efforts on making games, not apps. I was hoping to have a breakout hit in 2010, and while we had some very good success with Giant Moto and Alien Booth, we’re not quite making the big bucks yet. But as my wife is quick to point out, success isn’t measured by how much money we make but rather on more

important things like pride in the products we produce and the joy of knowing people like playing our games. Indeed. All of our games and apps have been well-received by the community, and four out of five of them have been featured by Apple on the App Store.

Here’s a look back at Rocket 5 in 2010.

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Holeshot Drag Racing

Even though Holeshot was released in 2009, it performed well in 2010, so I want to talk about it a bit here. When I started planning Holeshot, there still weren’t any great drag racing games on the iPhone; there were a few crappy reaction-time testers, but that was about it.

Building a drag racing game was an easy decision for me; I’ve had a passion for cars going back as long as I can remember, and I’ve owned a few hot rods over the years, including a 1972 Chevelle that I had in high school, a 1969 Chevelle, a 1970 Chevelle SS 454 (which was a project I never actually got to drive), and a 1968 Firebird 400. I even did a bit of drag racing back in the day at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., (now known as Infineon Raceway).

I believe the success of Holeshot (and Giant Moto, more on that later) is due to it being based on recognizable and popular keywords.

As we all know by now, it’s pretty hard to be seen on the App Store, and so it turns out keyword searches are a pretty good way to get good store visibility. People who are looking for a drag racing game are naturally going to type “drag racing” into the search field — type that into the App Store today, and Holeshot comes up in the top five results.

Giant Moto

Giant Moto is by far our most successful game to date with about 1.2 million downloads. However, most of those downloads came during a seven-day promotion in which I had the game on sale for free. So even though we didn’t get a financial windfall from all of those downloads, it’s still nice to know that over 1 million people have played a game that I made.

When I started planning Giant Moto, there wasn’t anything quite like the classic

Nintendo game Excitebike on the store, so I saw this as a good opportunity to put an update of a classic on the iPhone. Besides appealing to retro gaming fans, this type of game also benefits from being easily found with common keyword searches like “motocross” or “motorcycle.”

The initial release of Giant Moto took me just six weeks to make. Not long after the release, I updated it to v1.1 with the addition of four new tracks, and a couple months after that, I released v1.2, which included a brand new front-end interface and Openfeint leaderboards and achievements. Each of the updates took about one week of development time, so the whole game as it exists on the store now took about two months total to make.

Shortly after Giant Moto was released on April 13, Apple featured it under New and Noteworthy in the games category, which is about the best you can hope for when releasing a game on the App Store.

This gave it a pretty awesome initial sales boost, making it to No. 5 in racing games and No. 53 overall Top Paid Games in the United States. On July 2, Apple featured it again in Best Racing Games, which gave it another nice sales boost. In October, I set the game to FREE for seven days. During that time, it was downloaded just under 1 million times and made it to No. 3 Top Free Apps on the App Store (that’s out of all free apps). The game currently has 2,886 App Store ratings and 131 written reviews with an average of 3/5 stars.

Based on the success of Giant Moto while it was free, I decided to make a separate free ad-supported version, Giant Moto Zero. GMZ is the full version of Giant Moto, with the addition of a Mobclix and iAds banner at the top of the screen during races. I was initially resistant to the idea of putting ads in my games as it feels a bit corporate. But Rocket 5 is a business after all, so I need to be open to all potential revenue sources.

receive when you deliver the collected cargo to the space station. It’s a really fun game, and I’ve received a lot of great feedback from people who like it. It turns out young kids really like the game. But unfortunately, it got hardly any attention from the press and made just about enough money to pay for my iPad. Unlike Holeshot and Giant Moto, which people might stumble upon while doing keyword searches, Small Space is a game that’s hard to describe and difficult to define into common keywords. Sure it contains keywords like “space” and “alien” and “fun,” but thousands of other games use those same keywords, so Small Space is rarely found by accident or otherwise.

Even when the game is free (normally it’s $0.99), it doesn’t get many downloads. A few months after it hit the App Store, I ported Small Space XL to the Web; you can play it there for free.

Small Space marked our first entry into the (then brand new) iPad market. I made two separate versions of the app — Small Space for iPhone and Small Space XL for iPad. The main reason I didn’t try to make the app universal is that I wanted to keep the app size small enough that it could be downloaded over 3G. Also I still wasn’t sure if the whole universal app model was the way to go — it seems like the app world is still split on this. Shortly after its release on June 3, Apple featured Small Space XL (iPad) under New and Noteworthy Games.

app with more than 150 original dialogue lines (written by Kris Johnson and Kevin Feraday) and more than 25 interactive objects in the scene.

This is the first Rocket 5 app to have additional people working on it. Kevin Feraday did all of the art and voice recording; Kris Johnson did the voice work and co-wrote all of the dialogue with Kevin. We decided to make Walken a universal app for iPhone and iPad — if you play the app on an iPad, you get high-resolution graphics that fit the iPad’s 1024 x 768 screen resolution.

Since the app was already going to be well over 20MB due to all of the sound files, it made sense to just make it a single universal app since the addition highresolution art wasn’t going to affect the file size all that much.

Unfortunately, Walken is a hard app to market, and it’s another one of those apps that’s just difficult for the average person to find on the App Store. I think basically we were relying on people finding it by doing searches for Christopher Walken — and maybe that’s how most people find it today — but we overestimated the number of people who might be looking for an app like this on the store. Still it was a lot of fun to make, and we did the whole app in just a couple of weeks. Apple featured iSpoof Walken as a New and Noteworthy iPad app shortly after its release July 23.

iSpoof Walken

After completing Giant Moto, I was anxious to get started on a new game.

Small Space is based on a simple concept of risk versus reward. As you collect objects, your ship gets bigger. The bigger your ship, the harder it is to avoid the bad guys, but the more points you’ll

OK, this is a weird one. It’s not really a game, so I tend to refer to it as an entertainment app. The basic idea is that it’s a scene like you’d find in a classic adventure game in which you can click on different objects in the room to hear funny and/ or interesting stories about them. Our good friend Kris Johnson does an amazing Christopher Walken impersonation (among others), and initially, we were thinking of doing a straight-up, soundboard app similar to the iSamJackson iPhone app in which you just click buttons to trigger funny lines. But I wanted to do something more interesting with the whole sound-board genre (if you can call it that), so we came up with the idea to create an illustrated and animated scene depicting what it might be like inside Walken’s personal study. The result is a hilarious

Gaga Eyes is a photography/entertainment app that came from an idea Kevin had that was admittedly to cash in on this weird phenomenon in which girls were trying to replicate, in real life, the crazyhuge anime eyes Lady Gaga had in her Bad Romance video. We brought in my friend Darren Ensley to do the coding on this one. Apple featured Gaga Eyes under New and Noteworthy Entertainment apps shortly after it was released Sept. 26, but unfortunately, the sales weren’t quite as high as we expected.

Still, it does fairly well, and it’s a fun app that has received some good feedback from users. Part of the reason the app sells well, I think, is due to the Twitter and Facebook integration — people can easily post pictures to Twitter and Facebook from within the app, which basically makes the app promote itself on the Internet.

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Small Space

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Gaga Eyes

Alien Booth

Alien Booth was born from the work we did on Gaga Eyes but with a much cooler interface and a much more satisfying image editing experience. Alien Booth is another photography/entertainment app, but this one allows you to alter pictures of people to look like aliens.

Before Alien Booth, I hadn’t spent any real money advertising any of my games/ apps (part of trying to keep a low-cost overhead). But we felt like this app deserved to get some mainstream attention, so I created a press release through PRWeb as that seemed like a good way to get a lot of mainstream visibility at an affordable price. It’s hard to say if the press release had any effect on sales — the press release was spread by PRWeb across the Internet — but being visible doesn’t necessarily mean being seen. Marketing is a skill; it takes time and effort far beyond simply making a game and putting it up on the App Store (but that’s a topic for another article). Like Gaga Eyes, Alien Booth has Twitter and Facebook integration so it gets a bit of free word-of-mouth advertising from people using the app.

Other Games

Besides the games that did ship, there were a dozen or more games that never made it past the prototype stages. Some of them I still tinker with from time to time and may eventually see the light of day either on the App Store or on the Web. Kevin and I also took a few days to participate in the Game Prototype Challenge in December, where we made a small Web game prototype in four days called Snowball Jones and the Last Crusade.

Website

The Rocket 5 Studios website is our main marketing outlet with information and blog posts about all of our apps. The site received 20,983 hits in 2010, with an average of 57 hits per day. The most hits we had in one day was 1,117 on Nov. 13, and the most hits we had in one month was 8,072 in November. I recently started a tutorial series on making 2-D games with Unity3D. I plan to write even more tutorial/information posts as a way to “give back” to the indie game development community, which has given me so much over the last year and a half.

Tim Miller is a video game designer and founder of Rocket 5 Studios. Tim started his design career at LucasArts in 1996, where he worked as a level designer on Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine (PC, N64) and Star Wars: Obi-Wan (Xbox) and then later as lead level designer on RTX: Red Rock (PS2). He left LucasArts in 2004 to join the team at Secret Level, where he was lead mission designer on America’s Army: Rise of a Soldier (Xbox). In 2006 he moved to Nihilistic Software, working on Conan (PS3, Xbox 360) as lead level designer and as lead designer on Zombie Apocalypse (XBLA, PSN). In 2009 Tim started Rocket 5 Studios, where he’s currently developing indie games for iOS and the Web. 

EVENTCALENDAR February 17, 2011 IGDA Detroit February social Thursday, February 17 7:30pm Detroit, MI We’ll be having a social gathering at the TGI Friday’s in Troy, Michigan – bring plenty of business cards and be ready to network, socialize and toss back a few cold ones with your fellow Michigan game developers! The whole thing goes down February 17, at 7:30pm!

We’ll also be voting on IGDA Detroit’s Board of Directors, so bring your proof of membership so that you can vote! Looking forward to seeing you there!

IGDA Pune Chapter Meet Saturday, February 19 1:00pm Pune, India Jump Games invites everyone to the first ever IGDA Pune Chapter meet. We welcome anyone who is part of the videogame industry in India, in any capacity, to come and be part of this get-together. Please RSVP with your details and feel free to share this invitation with you peers and friends who work in the industry.

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IGDA NJ Game Demo Event Saturday, February 19 2:00pm Bloomfield, NJ Come one and all to see games from NJ Global Game Jam participants and other local developers. There are still slots open, so if anyone wants to demo a game please contact our coordinators: igda-nj-coordinators@ googlegroups.com

IGDA Austin - Career Catalyst Saturday, February 19 1:00pm – 4:30pm Austin, TX Career Catalyst will take place at J. J. Pickle Research Campus WPR Building, 3925 West Braker Lane in Austin, Texas. The event is a career development conference aimed at digital media, interactive, graphics, videogame, film, design and creative industry professionals and students.

Co-hosted by the Austin chapters of international industry and academic organizations IGDA (www.igda.org), SIGGRAPH (www.siggraph.org) and AIGA (www.aiga.org), the afternoon event will contain opportunities for portfolio and resume review by professionals (Portfolio Posse), keynote speakers, career networking and industry enrichment. Attendees, sponsors and exhibitors will hear career-boosting talks and be able to meet, connect, get to know and potentially hire people who are currently working in these vibrant industries.

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------Pre-GDC Meet-Up Thursday, February 17 7:00pm Los Angeles, CA Headed to GDC? Not going but wish you were? Not sure what the heck GDC is? Come out and join IGDA LA and share all the GDC tips and tricks with your fellow SoCal game developers. You might even find out about some of those secretive GDC parties!

February 19, 2011

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February 22, 2011 WIGI Women and Men (San Francisco) Tuesday, February 22 7:00pm – 10:00pm San Francisco, CA On the fourth Tuesday of every month, please join local video game and related industry folks at our monthly networking event. Eat, drink and socialize with old friends and new. Bring your business cards! WIGI promotes networking and career building for everyone in the video game industry, women and men.

February 23, 2011 IGDA Calgary Chapter Meetup Wednesday, February 23 7:00pm Calgary, AB Join us on the last Wednesday of every month. Come with your ideas, questions, and be ready to meet new people who want to work on game development. We will spend time learning about members, talk about game ideas, share ideas on what Calgary needs to help independent teams work on games, and have fun! We may will combine meetups with events and jams.

The idea is to get people out and to see what we can do together.

February 28, 2011 GDC Monday, February 28, 2:30pm – Friday, March 4, 3:30pm San Francisco, CA The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is the world’s largest professionals-only game industry

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event. GDC 2011 commemorates its 25th edition in 2011 and serves as a testament of how far the industry has come and as a celebration of its bright future.

The GDC attracts over 18,000 attendees, and is the primary forum where programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision-makers and others involved in the development of interactive games gather to exchange ideas and shape the future of the industry. The GDC is produced by the UBM TechWeb Game Network.

This market defining conference features over 400 lectures, panels, tutorials and round-table discussions on a comprehensive selection of game development topics taught by leading industry experts. In addition, the GDC expo showcases all of the most relevant game development tools, platforms and services helping to drive the industry forward. The conference also features the twelfth annual Independent Games Festival, where new, unpublished games compete for the attention of the publishing community, and the tenth annual Game Developers Choice Awards, the premier accolades for peer-recognition in the digital games industry.

------Game Localization Summit at GDC Monday, February 28 9:00am – 5:00pm San Francisco, CA More than ever, game publishers are realizing that their industry is not only benefiting from localized versions of their games, but is wholly dependent

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on high quality localization to drive revenues and increase gamer mindshare. The demand comes from a growing number of countries and emerging markets around the world, and has prompted publishers to partially or fully localize more products into more languages to maximize their ROI. The Game Localization Summit at GDC is supported and organized by the IGDA Game Localization SIG, and it is aimed at helping game professionals understand the critical details of how to plan for localization in order to minimize bugs and maximize ROI. Professionals from all departments and areas of expertise are welcome to attend this full day of lectures, panels and game postmortems.

March 1, 2011 Second Annual Games User Research Summit Tuesday, March 1 9:00am – 5:00pm San Francisco, CA Games user research is a growing area of interest within the industry. The objective of this summit is to gather userresearch professionals who work in the games industry, and share experience, knowledge and techniques. The summit will focus on the following areas (including but not limited to): » GUR in Practice: techniques and methodologies » Converting research findings into action » Evangelizing and management of game user research » Basic research into how gamers play games

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March 2, 2011 GDC Roundtables Wednesday, March 2, 10:30amFriday, March 4, 3:00pm San Francisco, CA The GDC SIG roundtables bring together developers from around the world to discuss the future of the industry. Groups review current challenges, talk about current SIG membership, and discuss future initiatives.

More than a State of the Union meeting, attendees will have the opportunity to help shape the future of each SIG. Attendees should come prepared to learn about their SIG and contribute to the discussion. This is a great opportunity to meet up with like-minded professionals and find out how the game industry will move forward in the years to come.

March 3, 2011 The Games We Play Thursday, March 3 – Saturday, April 2 San Francisco, CA ‘The Games We Play’ is the first in a series of art shows designed to showcase the fine artists of the video game industry.

The talented individuals who breathe life into these games more often than not have an artistic voice louder than what this industry can handle, and so keep that voice muffled for the sake of popular appeal. This gallery event and showing will broadcast these voices, presenting dozens of works from these extremely talented and now uninhibited artists.

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EVENTCALENDAR continued March 7, 2011

March 8, 2011

IGDA Colorado - March Meeting Monday, March 7 7:00pm – 10:00pm Denver, CA Join us at The Tavern Uptown for our monthly meeting. Come and meet your fellow local game developers!

Athens Chapter Meeting of the GGDA/IGDA Tuesday, March 8 7:00pm Athens, GA Guest Speaker: Chris DeLeon Georgia Tech School of Literature, Communication, and Culture Since 1996, Chris served lead roles for 45 PC freeware games, made 219 experimental projects (played by more than 380,000 and featured on JayIsGames), contributed to games for every major modern console (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii), co-architected an online game creation tool (PlayCrafter. com), and developed one of the top-selling games for the iPhone (Topple, voted a Top 10 iPhone game by Wired readers, with millions of downloads). He also created a game for a solar company, which has had more than 185,000 plays worldwide and has been covered by Water Cooler Games for innovation in coupongaming.

------IGDA San Diego – March Meeting Monday, March 7 5:30pm – 8:30pm San Diego, CA Guest Speaker Mat Broome, Visual Director of DC Universe Online, will be speaking about concept work created by Wildstorm and the process of working with Jim Lee; the collaboration of designing the work and executing the look and vision of the DC Universe in the latest MMO game from Sony Online Entertainment. Meeting is in room 117. Free parking.

------WIGI Women and Men (Los Angeles) Monday, March 7 7:00pm – 10:00pm Los Angeles, CA On the first Monday of every month, please join local video game and related industry folks at our monthly networking event. The party runs from 7:00 to 9:00 pm with extended Happy Hour pricing! Eat, drink and socialize with old friends and new. Bring your business cards! WIGI promotes networking and career building for everyone in the video game industry, women and men.

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March 11, 2011 PAX East Friday, March 11, 8:00am – Sunday, March 13, 9:00pm Boston, MA PAX East is a three-day game festival for tabletop, videogame, and PC gamers. We call it a festival because in addition to dedicated tournaments and freeplay areas we’ve got nerdcore concerts, panel discussions, and an exhibitor hall filled with booths displaying the latest from top game publishers and developers.

Even with all this amazing content the best part of PAX East is hanging out with other people who know their stuff when it comes to games.

Find the latest info on IGDA @ PAX by visiting www.igda.org.

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SXSW Screenburn Friday, March 11, 2:30pm – Tuesday, March 15, 9:00pm Austin, TX SXSW® Interactive features five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders, the incredible new SXSW Trade Show and an unbeatable lineup of special programs showcasing the best new digital works, video games and innovative ideas the international community has to offer. Join us for the most energetic, inspiring and creative event of the year, taking place March 11-15, 2011 in Austin, Texas.

SXSW ScreenBurn is the video game element of the SXSW Interactive festival that merges the new media, music, film and video game industries all in one place. ScreenBurn connects independent developers, publishers, consumers, digital media professionals, and internet trend-setters and taste-makers from all around the world who attend SXSW. Find the latest info on IGDA @ SXSW by visiting www.igda.org.

March 22, 2011 WIGI Women and Men (San Francisco) Tuesday, March 22 7:00pm – 10:00pm San Francisco, CA On the fourth Tuesday of every month please join local video game and related industry folks at a monthly networking event.

Eat, drink and socialize with old friends and new. Bring your business cards! WIGI promotes networking and career building for everyone in the video game industry, women and men.

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Does your cell phone die...

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How would you like to have a kiosk in your booth that charges any type of phone, and up to 16 phones at a time?

By the end of the day, all the traďŹƒc in the convention will be going your way and giving you 10 minutes of their time and attention as they wait for their phone to charge! goCharge makes this possible.

Visit the IGDA booth to charge your phone & see goCharge in action at GDC 2011!

Visit us online at

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for more information!