GameHorizon Conference 09

 The North’s premier games development conference returned this year with some more insights into the future of the games industry. Technology wise, Andrew Oliver of Blitz Games demonstrated their developments into stereoscopic gaming with a Ninja themed platform game; unfortunately it requires you to wear polarised glasses but worry not 3D TVs should be available in a couple of years.

We were treated to demos of APB from Realtime Worlds and Guillaume de Fondaumiere of Quantic Dream demonstrated the amazing looking Heavy Rain for the PS3. So a lot of great insights into traditional gaming but  the key focus of the conference was the advancements in online/download markets including Facebook and the iPhone – online/download is really allowing smaller developers to break into the games market.

What Comes Next?

Channel 4 Education’s summer conference opening with a fantastic keynote from Zenna Atkins, who you would almost not believe was the Chair of OFSTED. Zenna had an excellent insight into the challenges faced by the UK education system and the need for teachers and people in education to just be brave and innovate. 

Shaun Bailey, Mary Sharpe and Yvonne Roberts gave a great panel, demonstrating the need for more creative and digital solutions to help level the educational playing field especially for those from low income families.

Matt Locke & Alice Tayloralso demonstrated the great projects they have been working on over the past year including BattleFront and Routes. A great conference and no doubt we’ll see some more great projects from Channel 4 next year.

Showcomotion

I returned to the Showcomotion conference for the second year after realising it is about so much more than just TV. Showcomotion is a children’s media conference bringing together people from all sections of children’s media (TV, web, games, etc) and giving them a platform to share ideas. Peter Salmon the newly appointed head of BBC North opened the conference, talking about his passion for the North and excitement about the BBC move to Salford. The conference then continued for 2 days of exciting talks and rather than reinvent the wheel you can check out some great blog posts about on the Showcomotion website.

I believe that is all the conference I will be attending this Summer, so it’s back to the office to begin work on an exciting new project… more news soon.