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.

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.

Sao Paulo played host to the inaugural Brazil International Game Festival, a first-of-its-kind event in South America. I was fortunate enough to be on the jury, and participate in this critical event. While most in the Western development scene are accustomed to celebrating games and providing opportunities for indies to connect, share, and do business, the Brazilian community jumped at their own chance to do the same.

The Festival took in approx 250 applications, from which 20 finalists were selected across a handful of categories. On a personal level, it was nice to be �forced� to play all the finalists on-site and have face-to-face jury deliberations to select the award recipients. There were some real gems in there, especially the overall best game, Unmechanical, from Talawa Games in Sweden.

There was a great vibe at the event and overall sense of community, as developers, publishers, and related industry folk, mingled and shared. And, there was plenty of opportunity to take in Brazilian culture (though we focused more on the food and nightlife, than museums or landmarks ;)

There is graffiti absolutely everywhere in Sao Paulo, and most of it quite nice/creative!

View from hotel room. The city is indescribably dense and sprawling.

Iain Simons (GameCity) has a hard time selecting beer at the specialty pub.

Hehehe, when I first walked into the restaurant, I actually thought that was melted cheese. Oh well.

Chris Avellone (Obsidian) approves his first caipirinha.

Amazing skyline view from the Skye Bar atop the Unique Hotel.

The rather unique boat-like shape of the Unique Hotel.

Somewhat threatening sign of the Z Carniceria bar (which fittingly was previously a butcher shop).

The even more threatening �cheese� on fries. It was Jim�s choice!

The Secretary of State of Culture, Marcelo Mattos Araujo, opens the Festival.

Chris Avellone (Obsidian) discusses the changing landscape of game publishing.

International publishers give quick �reverse� pitches (ie, �here�s what we�re looking for, and how we do business�). First up, Levi Buchanan (Chillingo). Waiting in the wings: Jim Ying and Amanda Cinfio (Gree), Careen Yapp (Konami), Fred Wester (Paradox).

Tech/platform companies provide overviews. First up, Henrique Schlatter Manfroi (Nokia). Next up: Daniel Trocoli (ClickJogos), Jay Santos (Unity).

No clue what they were joking about, but Careen Yapp (Konami) and Fred Wester (Paradox) didn�t stop laughing for like 30 minutes!

Band �circle� playing beautiful music at the samba club.

The B2B match-making room in full swing.

Part of the BIG exposition area at the Museum for Image & Sound.

Tali Goldstein (Minority Media) getting mobbed after her Papo&Yo post-mortem lecture.

The BIG crew opening the awards ceremony (from right to left): Gustavo Steinberg, Ale Machado, Melina Manasseh, Eliana Russy.

The award winners. Congrats!

Crazy good steak at Sujinho at the post-awards dinner. (Photo credit: Levi Buchanan)

At the Choperia karaoke bar for post-awards celebration. (Photo credit: Iain Simons)

Mmmm, dim sum at Ping Pong. Such good Asian food in Sao Paulo :)

All the way across town in Morumbi for a family BBQ in honor of Tali. Three of us who had not yet left, were generously invited.

Bamboo.

Now THAT is churrasco (aka BBQ). Sooooooo good. Easily the best meal all week.

Myself with Bruno (Tali�s brother), Florian Grolig (Black Pants), Tali Goldstein (Minority Media), and Robin Meijer (Ronimo Games) enjoy the family BBQ.