GDNet: Weekly Sitrep

Upcoming conference coverage

I suppose I should take a moment to look at the events we'll be covering for the rest of the year - two major and two minor conferences. Coming up first, in September, is the Austin Game Developers Conference. John Hattan and myself will be checking it out and reporting back. The very next week after AGDC, I'll be heading up alone into NYC for the New York Games Conference. Then there's a bit of rest until the end of November, where again the conferences come one after another with the Montreal International Game Summit, the second largest conference in the industry, followed that weekend by America's VideoGame Expo (VGXPO) in Philly (another easy trip for me in NJ).

By the time I'm done with VGXPO, although the conferences are done for the year (for me), I and the rest of the staff will by then already be in full-swing preparations for the 2009 GDC. In fact, winds are stirring in that regard even now.


Just sayin...

I realized this week how our 627 fans (and climbing) over at the GDNet Facebook page finally outpaces the 597 (also still climbing) currently over at the Gamasutra page. Not that, you know... it's a contest or anything but... just sayin'

Thanks one more time to everyone for their support! I promise to shut up now about Facebook until we reach 1000 fans. Really.


Attention audio people

Hey, audio guys. Yea - all 12 of you (hopefully more come around GDNet these days than last I checked ;p). If any of you have the notion of writing an audio chapter for a gems-style book on game development - let me know. Details will come after we're in touch.


New resources

* Casual Connect Seattle Part 1 - Coverage of casual games development from the Seattle conference of the Casual Games Association

* Casual Connect Seattle Part 2 - Final coverage of casual games development from the Seattle conference of the Casual Games Association

* Demo Night VIII - Coverage of the IGDA NYC chapter's eight bi-annual event showcasing local games in development by developers, for developers

* Invisible Walls - Immersion is a phenomenon in many kinds of media, though it is particularly relevant in virtual environments and video games. Immersion is a concept largely used to describe the player's status relative to the medium. However, there is more than one approach to how we define immersion.

* Maurine Starkey Interview - Maurine Starkey is a founding member of Westwood Studios. She has worked as an art instructor, lead artist, art director, creative director, producer and game designer for over 24 years. She is currently the Producer/Designer at SkillJam Technologies Corporation.


Next year events

Now that 08 is winding down, I'm looking to start filling the Events Calendar with 09 Events, so if you know of any please send em my way.