(It has been a crazy summer for travel. So, sitting between SIGGRAPH sessions in LA is now the first chance I get to whip up some quick notes on my recent trip to Brighton for the annual UK confab, Develop.)

The Develop folks put on another great event. There’s just something about being next to the beach/sea that just makes things better. I particularly like attending Develop as it is a nice one-shot concentration of UK developers (ie, to catch up with, to nag, to pitch, etc).

Two underlying threads in the UK continue to be the education/talent issue. Which, despite having a dedicated event (Games:Edu) to discuss it in, just didn’t seem to move beyond the usual gripes. The other thread was a palpable antagonism towards Canada (Montreal in particular) due to the lack of similar government support programs in the UK.

Perhaps I’m overly sensitive since I’m from Montreal, but I practically got into a shouting match with one panel. I told them they were wasting their time, that tax breaks are not a silver bullet (nothing is when you are dealing with a complex ecosystem), and that they should be spending their time working on the things they can change (hint, hint, education and talent). Further, I “predicted” that even if the UK government showed up tomorrow with tax breaks, it would have no material impact on the state of the UK game industry!

Anyway, I’ll hopefully post something on that in more detail later. Meanwhile, here are some photos to enjoy.


Ah, nothing like seeing the sea and sail boats out the front door of your conference venue.

 


Mark Morris (Introversion) inspiring academics that bedroom coding success is still possible.

 


Ernest Adams talks smack (or rather rants on the things academia should not be doing).

 


Dawn Beasley (Black Rock) not impressed by Owain Bennallack’s (Develop) nice shirt.

 


Ed Fear (Develop) orchestrates the pub quiz (my team did horribly).

 


Damian Isla (Bungie) and Chris Kline (2k Boston) tanking up at the hotel bar.

 


The BioShock team leads interviewed as the opening keynote session. (Produces one of the best conference quotes I’ve ever seen: “We hire less virgins”).

 


The Dare to be Digital contest games on display.

 


The outspoken Chris Barnett (EA Mythic) on controlling creatives.

 


David Braben (Frontier) discuss the Lost Winds development process on WiiWare.

 


David Braben and other proud Lost Winds team members during the pre-awards cocktail.

 


Folks settling in for the Develop awards ceremony.

 


Jo Cook, George Bain (Sony) and Alison Beasley (Lincoln Beasley) making faces post-awards.

 


First mid-conference fire drill ever! Poor Matt actually tried to talk over the blaring alarms ;)

 


Some very loud band during the GamesIndustry.biz party.

 


Julien Merceron (Eidos) showing off his IGDA members-only t-shirt.

 


One of the Dare to be Digitial teams, along with mentors Adam Martin (red glasses/white shirt) and Vicky Arundel (Introversion).