Ludology.org

Slamdance Guerrilla "Gamemaker" competition.

Damn it! Being on the road is great but sometimes emails pile up and then you end up looking at them one week later. Anyway, the deadline is not yet over, so there is still hope, guys! Slamdance festival is hosting a student game dev contest. The deadline is October 24th, so hurry up. More details here.

Upcoming game talks: Finland & Spain

I'll be giving two talks in November, just around the neighbourhood. The first one is in Finland (Tampere) on November 8th. I'll be talking about narrative in games (mainly about how to tell stories using minigames. Here's the abstract). A couple of days later I will be in Vic (relatively near to Barcelona) where I will be talking as part of E-Week 2005. It's been a long time since I have been to Finland and it'll be a great opportunity to see some old friends. About Spain, I go there quite often, but I can't get enough of it (specially Catalunya, the food is soooo good).

GameStudy.org speaks Korean (well, English)

Finally, now we can get game research news from Korea. This recently launched blog promises to keep us posted from the country that expanded the notion of "massive" in MMOGs. Of course, if you happen to be fluent in Korean (that includes my Georgia Tech pal, the one and only Doug Kim. Doug, where r u?), well, you can still read the original blog. For the rest of non-Korean speakers -but definitively Korean food lovers- there's the translated version, availabe at gamestudy.org/eblog/. Enjoy (via Terra Nova) Update: Actually, the English site is not a translation but original content.

Austin Game Conference

The Austin Game Conference is coming up next week, taking place at the same time that the Women's Game Conference. Those of you that will be in Texas next week can consider yourselves lucky.

CFP: Technology, Performance & Identity conference

The Department of Arts and Media at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College (UK) is hosting their 8th annual conference on Friday 28th April 2006. The conference is entitled "Mediation, Remediation and the Politics of Self". In spite of the title, they are interested in game-related submissions (after all, Tanya Krzywinska will be keynoting). They still don't have a website but I will update this post once they got it up and running. Meanwhile, you can ask questions and send 300 word submissions to greg.singh@bcuc.ac.uk or ewan.kirkland@bcuc.ac.uk

Manifesto Games: Greg has a dream and he wants it to happen

You may have heard about this, but the fact is that Greg Costikian left his job at Nokia to start his own company: Manifesto Games. His new quest is certainly heroic: creating a better world for independent games, a world larger than Bejeweled and other so-called casual games. What makes Greg's move specially relevant is that he is not just happy complaining about the state of the industry: he is willing to take risks and act accordingly. I really hope he can pull this off but, as all big structural changes, he will need as much support as possible. That means other people who are willing to take risks. In any case, I strongly recommend reading his posts about the whole process of getting his new endeavour off the ground. He's been really detailed and sincere about what he is going through and, that alone, is already valuable for readers interested in challenging the system. Btw, the logo that I posted is not the final one. Actually, there are dozens that have been submitted, but this one is certainly the funniest. In any case, long live Manifesto Games. We desperately need more things like this. More projects like Facade. More academics like Ian. More people who are not happy enough with talking. Talking is cheap. Making things happen is not.

White guys make your games

According to a new survey made by the IGDA, the vast majority of game developers are white males. Their age is 31 years old in average. While the survey was open internationally, the report explicitely warns about a likely North American bias (I would be surprised to read that all those Japanese game developers are white!)
rAs you would expect, some argue that this huge amount of white guys (over 80%) should come as no surprise. As one commenter argues, you shouldn't stop qualified people just for the sake of diversity. I agree but the million dollar question here is how do you define "qualified". Certainly, in order to produce the games that the industry is producing, white males are ideally suited for the job. The question is if the "job" is the right one. Maybe the industry is not diverse because the industry's offerings are not very diverse.

New Game Studies is out

A new edition of the Game Studies journal was launched today. Here's the link.

Sins of a solar empire

When a friend's game goes gold, it is well worth spreading the good news among other friends. My pal Alexis "Snooba the Wookie" Sabatovich has just completed, along with the folks at Ironclad, "Sins of a solar empire", a real time space strategy game. Snooba worked on many of the ships' 3D models and even the early renderings looked terrific. Congrats, Snooba!

Powerup Tees

Viva la DDR Revolución! Some former writers from The Onion set up their T-shirt store. Tees, about videogames, that are funny. Really worth a look.Update:until Monday morning, use this code to have 4 $ off the price of a T-shirt: "justinbailey"