I'm suprised there's been no mention of how it went, did anyone from here go?
I went too, and had an awesome time. Learned heaps from the lectures, some were quite eye opening, esp. Ernest Adams and two about girls and gaming. It was cool getting to meet lots of people too, i got to know some guys from Sidhe quite well. I did the Ernest Adams workshop too, pity I didn't meet you, I would have recognised your name.
I spent the whole conference there and had an excellent time. There were about 150 attendees made up of industry, academics, students and a smattering of government. Funnily enough, despite the diversity of the audience there didn't appear to be any barriers between the groups and everybody got along really well, meaning some very interesting conversations were had.
Some highlights included
- Shari Graner Ray from Sony Online talking about gender issues in gaming
- Ernest Adam's workshop (though I could only stay for the start)
- The panel session on effect of games on society including the NZ Chief Censor
- Seeing the enthusiasm, talent, and work of emerging companies and students
- The Eyetoy and Singstar competition where just about everybody had a go :)
- The food, consistent high quality and volume throughout
All of our team came back inspired and enthusiastic.
Looking forward to the next one already.
I think one of the best things is that there wasn't any divisions of streams. For eg - I've often had to choose between one seminar and another at AGDC, but this time, everyone could just go to the one talk. Obviously, this is due to the smaller scene in NZ, but I think it worked really well.
I did find it hard sitting still for 2 hours at a time. Haven't done that since uni.
Here's hoping it's in Wellington next year.
Yep - it was really good. Pretty well organised too.
Did Ernest Adam's workshop on game design and got drunk pretty often too.
Will post more later.