Reality Panic

After the success of last year’s inaugural Ottawa Game Conference, was great to see the local community rally behind the second iteration. They added two extra days, and a bunch more activities to engage developers. And, with an indie showcase as part of the expo, we brought several of the Execution Labs teams to participate.

I got promoted to the opening keynote when it was discovered that Sony wasn’t going to make it… So, I put some last minute polish on my “7 (Business) Habits of Highly Effective Indies” talk and dove in. To quickly summarize the habits, they are:

1. Wear a suit > “play the role”
2. Always selling > telling your story
3. Make money > no shame
4. Open/sharing > doorway to serendipity
5. Well played/cultured > extrapolate…
6. Fearless/resilience > always get back up
7. Biz as game/process > just another problem to solve
8. Bonus: MAKE GREAT GAMES!!!

The message was well received by the local indies, many of whom are still figuring out the business side of things. And, just to say that the XL teams did great showing off their games and collecting feedback. We even ended up in a quick TV story on CBC :)

Double Stallion showing off Big Action Mega Fight!

Eric Angelillo and Stephane Beniak get interviewed by #GCTV.

One of the cool pieces from the art exhibition.

The long view on game history by Philip Glofcheskie (Fuel Industries).

Official suite parties, just like old school GDC.

Main party at the “old train station”.

Mathieu Dumont and Remi Lavoie of Pixel Crucible (along with their indie booth babes) showing off MacGuffin’s Quest.

Remi Lavoie (Pixel Crucible) gets interviewed for #GCTV.

Lightning Rod showing off Henchmen!

Tynan Sylvester lectures on simulation design (and pimps his new book ;)

The rumors are true. I did end up in the Swedish tabloids on my recent visit for the Nordic Game conference. It’s a long story that involves drinking champagne with the world champion Swedish hockey team and street fighting in Stockholm with Tommy Palm of King…

But I digress. Unity had their Unite Nordic event ahead of the main conference. I did a session on indie funding models that was well received. The Indie Night bridging the two conferences was bigger than ever and continues to impress. And Nordic itself, which was celebrating it’s tenth edition was full of excitement, including the delightful keynote by Tim Schafer. No major takeaways per se, just many valuable meetings and always nice to reconnect with the vibrant developers from the Nordic region.

Seeing pretty buildings on my first visit to Stockholm.

Opera House.

Lots of water around the city…

The Vasa Museum built where ships once docked.

The massive Vasa galleon ship from the 1600s that was raised from the bay and now has a museum built around it.

The sinking of the Vasa.

The streets were filled with people waiting for the super cars to zip by in the somewhat illegal Gumble Run street race.

Pretty streets in Gamla Stan (the old part of town).

Little winding alleys in Gamla Stan.

More pretty.

Hockey World Champions post game celebrations.

Champion Gabriel Landeskog (plays for Colorado Avalanche) with Tommy Palm (King.com).

Martin Bruusgaard and Ragnar Tornquist tell their post-Funcom story of starting Red Thread and The Dreamfall Chapters.

Michael Freundt Karlsen (Playdead), Natascha Roeoesli (Rock Pocket), Tim Schafer (Double Fine), and Dino Patti (Playdead) enjoy a drink at the speaker reception.

Indie Night party.

I didn’t show up early enough for Tim Schafer’s keynote, and ended up at the back. Most packed I’ve seen the Nordic main hall!

Kadri Ugand welcomes folks to the GameFounders demo presentations.

Frogmind wins the Nordic Indie Sensation Award for Badland.

Chiptune band with robot heads playing at the main party.

So, I just finished reading The Black Swan (the economics book, not the ballet ;) While it is a dense book, it should not have taken me nearly a year to read it (started in August of 2012)! My 2012 reading list was a paltry 7 books. Way, way down from my usual personal goal of 2 books per month.

For me personally, no other “metric” better demonstrates the intensity and all-consuming nature of starting a startup. Never mind the fact that at Execution Labs, we’re a startup helping other startups to start up!

Anyway, here are the few books I managed to read in 2012:

• The Nerdist Way - How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life)
• The Startup Game - Inside the Partnership Between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs
• The Ten Faces of Innovation - IDEO’s Strategies for Beating the Devil’s Advocate & Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization
• Fierce Conversations - Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time
• Good To Great - Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
• The Definitive Book of Body Language
• Startup Communities - Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

Hmm, nothing too noteworthy, sadly. I most enjoyed Startup Communities since it is directly related to my current efforts. Ten Faces is a nice high quality book, but nothing super new if you’ve read a few other books on innovation process. Good to Great is a Jim Collins classic that I was long overdue to read, but feels a bit dated now…

Sadly, I’ll be lucky if I finish 1 book per quarter in 2013 :(

Much like the GameON:Finance conference held each year in Toronto, the Videogame Economics Forum in Angouleme is an event focused exclusively on the business end of games. The two day conference presented a robust exploration of all things money, with a nice range of speakers and participants.

It was nice that they included a pitching session. But, sadly, like most game developers, they were really poor at presenting themselves as viable targets for investment (despite most teams having what seemed to be cool games). Meanwhile, I did double duty speaking on a startup funding panel, and presenting the Execution Labs model (with very positive feedback from the audience :)

Though, admittedly, the best part of the event was visiting the castle in Cognac! See pics below…

View from my hotel room in Angouleme.

The streets of Angouleme had many painted murals, like this one.

Frederic Cros (Magelis) gives the welcoming speech at the pre-conference reception.

The Cite International de la Bande Dessinee et de l’Image (and home to game school ENJMIN) was the locale for the Forum.

French game business pioneer Nicolas Gaume on building a strong game ecosystem in France.

Cindy Au (Kickstarter) on the crowdfunding revolution.

Some stats from Cindy’s talk.

Joseph Olin and Zack Karlsson (Capcom) point to coming trends.

Alain Tascan (Sava Transmedia) explores disruption.

EniGami presents their game Shiness during the pitch session.

Geoffrey Zatkin (EEDAR) discusses release momentum.

Zack Karlsson (Capcom) naps on his way to the castle…

The castle of Baron Otard. Mmmm, Cognac.

Tanu-Matti Tuominen (Vision+ Fund) on the castle tour.

The great hall fireplace.

Down into the cellar…

…where the 100+ year old barrels are stored.

The tour guide thought it odd that we were so amused by this particular poster ;)

One of their higher-end offerings!

The conference dinner in style.

Despite this being my 17th straight GDC, and knowing so many familiar faces, this was the first GDC that I felt that I was not there alone. With the Execution Labs teams in tow, there was more than just my personal experience to manage… It was a fun challenge, and the event was productive/valuable as ever.

Otherwise, this GDC was the usual flurry of meetings, sessions, parties, etc. Of special note, the annual rant panel that Eric Zimmerman and I coordinate was especially powerful. Wow. And, for a sponsored session, the “future of mobile” panel I moderated went surprisingly well.

Sadly, way too swamped with post event catch up to write more… Instead here are some photos from GDC week.

Chasing burritos at 2am with Ruben Farrus (Minority Media) and Pol Jeremias (ex-LucasArts).

Screening of the fascinating interactive documentary, 48 Hour Games.

Tim Symons (Nintendo) and Dan Murray (Foundation 9) consuming vast amounts of Chinese food.

Opening F2P Summit session on key trends from 2012.

Cracked up when David Edery stared discussing ideal prototyping team composition.

Is it just me, or you can watch others play/suffer at Super Hexagon for hours?!

Mmm, booze… The Office at Churchill for the Execution Labs investor/partner cocktail.

More XL VIP action.

Keith Katz (Execution Labs) with opening remarks and thanks.

Alain Tascan (Sava Transmedia) helping to promote several XL games.

Big lines to try to Oculus VR glasses. Word on the street was the demo impressed.

Kris Piotrowski (Capy) showing off Super Time Force at the IGF booth.

Henry Smith proudly displaying IGF nominated Spaceteam.

Most random moment of GDC: Cliff and Lauren walked by just as I was starting to stretch. They both got down to stretched and chatted for a bit.

Entering the swanky Sony party. Yummy food!

The way more controversial WarGaming party. Gas masks with bunny ears?

Richard Lemarchand (USC) decides to bounce on beds. Something about a Bruce Sterling short story…

Hero John Vechey (PopCap) fetched $500 worth of Jack-in-the-Box burgers for all of us with midnight munchies, including Ian Adams (Z2), David Edery (Spry Fox), and Nathan Vella (Capy)!

Best rant panel ever. Moving.

During Anna’s rant on quality of life, everyone started standing, those that crunched longer stayed standing…

Keita Takahashi’s game for the Experimental Gameplay Workshop.

Dinner with the Argentinians.

Keith Katz (Execution Labs) describing how to best rub your meat… uh, for ideal flavor and smoking.

Post party at Robin Hunicke’s place. Was fun until the cat prevented me from breathing… :(

The sixth, and what felt like the best, GameON:Finance to date was a valuable mix of informative conference sessions and elbow rubbing with game business bigwigs. I had the pleasure of interviewing industry veteran Lee Jacobson (formerly of Virgin, Midway, Atari, and now doing a metrics startup). It was a wide ranging discussion, though his comments on the demise of THQ and how publishers are bad at killing games got the most attention…

Additionally, I moderated the venture funding panel. It was informative, and brutally honest about the challenges of lining up angel or VC money. Though, the session on alternative financing sources (eg, Kickstarter), and gov support schemes, certainly cheered up the room. Also, just to note that Charles Hudson is a fantastic speaker!

Finally, was great that one of our Execution Labs teams was in the CMF Showcase. Lateef from Miscellaneum did a fine job pitching The Firemasters. Oh, and it was a blast to present at Bento Miso the night before. They are doing great stuff there to support the indie game dev community in Toronto.

For a more detailed summary, check out the write-up at Techvibes.

GameON:Finance was hosted at Toronto’s Reference Library. Shhhh…

Yann Suquet (BUF) on parallels between game and film funding models.

Some truth from EEDAR.

Quick dinner with Rob Caouette (EDC), Jim Ying (Gree) and Jesse Divnich (EEDAR).

Scott Simpson (Playbrains) ready for post dinner festivities.

Charles Hudson (SoftTech VC) on why VCs hate your game company.

Experts on alt forms of finance: Charles Hudson (SoftTech VC), Cindy Au (Kickstarter), Scott Simpson (Playbrains), Jason Bailey (East Side Games), Nathan Vella (Capy/IndieFund).

Lateef Martin (Miscellaneum) presents The Firemasters during the CMF Showcase.

Lateef Martin (Miscellaneum) busts out Beat It during post event karaoke.

Lee Jacobson (Apmetrix) with some silky smooth singing.