We’re deep in prep for the launch of the GameCityPrize for 2012 at the moment, which means a lot of talking to very smart but mostly non-game cognoscenti people and hoping that they might get involved. This Wednesday at BFI Southbank we’re holding a launch-debate to kick things off, ‘What’s the point of videogames?’
As anyone who does any public speaking knows, it’s helpful to have some topical context to cast your remarks against – so I’m especially grateful to Jade Raymond for providing them. In an interview for Eurogamer, with pull-quotes highlighted on GI she cries out that it’s time for the industry to be kicked in the balls.
“Why is it that so many topics that are dealt with in other media are off limits or taboo in video games? Why can’t we deal with the things that matter? I can think of so many examples of topics that could be interesting, issues that could be addressed in games or that could be integrated into existing big IP if we don’t want to make them the centre of the experience.”
I’m saddened and fatigued by much of the discussion on the article, but then find myself also quietly grateful that this has happened as it so neatly illustrates the cultural backdrop for the Prize. Roll on Wednesday.
Holy Ground at Exeter Cathedral Sunday 13th May at 7pm
It is that time again and this Sunday we meet as usual in the Nave at Exeter Cathedral at 7pm. This month we are focusing on our wonderful yet vulnerable Planet Earth. In our worship, we shall reflect upon our stewardship of creation and our call to ‘co re-create’ with God as we live as Kingdom people right here, right now. Andy Robertson http://www.wired.com/geekdad/tag/andy-robertson/ will be facilitating an interactive video game throughout our worship where together we will enter a ‘virtual creation’ and bring our own touch of transformation to it. Gill Westcott will be with us in our Café helping us to get to the heart of the issue of sustainable living, environmental stewardship and how our discipleship calls us to respond. Gill, who together with her husband Tim, run a 15 acre smallholding with a flock of 60 Jacobs sheep, bees, chickens, fruit and vegetables, cider and wine making and occasionally, inadvertently, rather good wine vinegar. She is a part of the ‘Transition Town movement’ http://www.transitionnetwork.org/http://www.tedxexeter.com/videos/2011/1/18/rob-hopkins-my-town-in-transition.html and a member of the Iona Community. As always there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss and debate or for those hungry for space and silence Revd. Selina Garner and Jill Purser will be leading our contemplative prayer in the peace and justice chapel.
…having done something interesting at TEDx last week.
I’m really interested to see how the service works out, although I won’t pretend to understand a lot about the context. From a theatrical point of view, we’ve always steered clear of complex a/v in Church spaces as it’s so difficult to compete with the weight of the space as it exists already. Churches are amazing spaces that give you a huge amount for free, but you don’t necessarily want all of it.
It’s nice to read Andy referencing a festival experience as the inspiration for the event. The ‘Flower’ performance that Robin did in the old Exchange Arcade was one of the most surprising things we’ve done, not least because it validated the whole notion of having a ‘performance’, rather than a demonstration. Andy’s take on the performance was one of being a spiritual experience, a ‘gaming church‘…
And so we spend the next hour together. Lightly watching, quietly talking and absorbing the experience. And then we reach the end, and after a moment’s pause a stuttered clap turns into applause and we respond and make clear what was implicit from the start, we are all a part of what was going on here – our community, our shared passion, our gaming church.
It was really exciting to read that response to it, as it gave us a surprising new insight into the event. Ironically for us, it was important that the ‘Church’ was a shipping precinct as it’s so very difficult to disentangle videogames from the commerce that engulfs them, but I know Andy knows that too.
I’m really interested to learn what Jenova and SCEE think about the Sunday service.
I did a talk about our work (mostly the games industry and the civic festival space) in Loughborough today to a great group of undergrad students. Having talked them through the journey and development of the project, I showed them some of the materials from the launch last week – specifically Philippa’s new illustrations.
Unusually, the talk was to around 30 students, 90% female and very few of them considering themselves to be ‘gamers’.
During questions, one student commented “You see, if someone had said to me – this is GameCity, it’s a ‘videogame festival’ there’s no way I’d have come. But now you’ve shown us these pictures and explained what it all is and shown us the illustrations – I’m 100% coming. And bringing my friends.”
The thing is, I’m not usually there to explain to people long-form what the thing is, and in particular, the people who assume that they don’t want to go to videogame festival. The problem of course is that their mental picture of a videogame festival is actually just a big arcade – exactly the thing we’re trying to make the opposite of.
Are we making this too hard for ourselves here? The statement we used to pose saying, “we’re trying to find out what a videogame festival could be..” was a genuine pledge of intent, not marketing schtick – but perhaps the answer is actually staring us in the face. Maybe we’re just not a videogame festival?
There were a lot of people shouting, but these are the details that I remember us promising at the launch event last week…
Philippa’s new brand illustrations
Our festival look this year is being created by the amazing Philippa Rice, who you’ll know as the creator of My Cardboard Life.
In short, it’s looking lovely – and is starting to be launched over at the festival site.
Dates! 20-27th October! A whole week!
Here’s the rationale I gave to Keith at the Guardian which didn’t get used…
We’ve always run the festival during October half-term, which of course work great for us and the games industry – and historically we’ve always launched on the Tuesday or Wednesday thorough to the weekend.
It’s a tough year this year for everyone, particular those working in the arts and this is compounded by the Olympics. If you’re not doing something related to that event, the climate is a little tricky, and as I don’t work for McDonalds and *just* failed to qualify for the Bantamweight boxing division squad, we had to think of other options.
The temptation was to scale right back and produce an austerity festival, strip out the central venue, create something distributed across the city -and for a while we got really excited about that idea. Producing the event around a wholly distributed structure is an interesting challenge for sure – but the problem is that you then start to look forwards to 2013 and realise that it would be really difficult for us to recover the momentum and scale we’ve reached now.
So, perhaps slightly counter-intuitively, we opted to scale-up. In this way, for part of the audience we’re creating a real, viable destination for half-term which will add more value to the City economy itself, but for us – I think it’s about exploring a different rhythm to the event. One of the criticisms we get about GameCity sometimes is that it can be a little gruelling. By the time attendees reach the Saturday night party, they’re utterly-invigorated, over-stimulated, made lots of amazing new friends, been exposed to ideas and people who totally change the way they think about games and play – BUT – they’re often also over-tired, dehydrated and near-death.
We’re interested in giving the content a little more room to breathe, at least for those who want it. There’ll still be a super-intense-24hr-residential-crazy-track for those that want it too though….
ITAG conference
The academic arm of the project is also really ramping up this year with some brilliant speakers already confirmed. Not sure if they’ve been announced yet though, so I’ll keep my trap shut. I’m pretty sure the call for papers is still open though – so get over to ITAG and propose something insightful and brilliant.
OpenGameCity
I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Open the last few months, and we’ve currently got our head under the bonnet trying to make it work better. The basic rationale is to try and create an easy to use framework (and by extension, easy to use back-end of systems) for the festival across the City. Following the Prize launch, this is the thing at the top of my Omnifocus.
Here’s a short, and largely incomprehensible video about it…
This was a project that came together surprisingly quick. I met with the brilliant Chloe Varelidi in London a few weeks ago to discuss a few things, of which this was one. They’re running a competition for teams to create games that can be played across the whole of Athens during Plaython – the winning team is coming over to us in October to talk about and play their game with our audience. Good, eh?
Film Festival @ Broadway
Our lovely, attractive friends at the Broadway (where GameCity 1 was held, way back when…) are working with us to produce a full film programme which will run as part of the festival this year.
C64 Day & commemorative issue of Zzap!
You don’t need me to tell you that the C64 was the only serious computer for kids in the early 1980′s. We’re going to be celebrating it for an entire day during the festival, gathering together devs, playing some old games and bringing together the original editorial team of Zzap! to produce a one-off NEW ISSUE!
Also, I’m hoping to mobilise the internet to pressurise Martin Galway into finally succumbing to writing a new piece for SID chip. Details of how to help will be announced soon.
STEAM School
This is a HUGE undertaking which we’re just trying to find the boundaries of at the moment.
Here’s what it says about it in a handy PDF I wrote a few months ago…
Something new for 2012…
Alongside the full festival programme, we’re going to open a free-to-all festival school for the week.
This means a selection of long-form courses running all week, a few BIG projects that everyone can join in on and lots of drop-in classes which people can stumble upon and attend. It’ll be based in the centre of the Market Square, and also take in many venues around the City – libraries, cafes, churches, cinemas – just like the festival does.
Also, when we say ‘school’ – we mean ‘school’ – so we’ll be including essential activities like assemblies, nit- nurse visits , disco, school photos and an orchestra.
It’s targeting at both young people 12-19 who are interested in getting into making videogames and digital content as a career, but also (and importantly) their parents and senior citizens. It’s not just about how to make games, but also the why and what…
The staff will be comprised of some of the best names in videogame development, working with educationalists and teachers to inspire and engage thousands of people into discovering videogame culture in all its forms.
We’ll be working closely with the Nottingham Local Education Authority to make sure that the core classes and projects are marketing directly to those who most want to attend.
Building on the momentum established by the Livingstone-Hope review, with this unique initiative GameCity will translate videogames and cultural technology for even more people.
Peter Molyneux
Once again, here’s how I explained it to Keith…
We’ve been doing a videogame culture event in the World for seven years now, so it’s impossible not to notice the big, Peter Molyneux shaped hole in it if he hasn’t been yet. There’s a list of people that we *really* want to come to the festival, and Peter was at the top of it for this year. The shocking thing for me to be honest, was that the ask and the confirmation were all done within about 15 minutes worth of emailing. For anyone who’s every dealt with globalised PR and event management, you’ll know that the kind of timescales usually involved in arranging things like this are measured in seasons rather than minutes.
I sent Peter a few ideas through about the kinds of things that he could do, to consider and he was really excited by the invitation, because it’s kind of a unique one we like to think. We had a chat through the ideas on the phone one evening and he enthusiastically agreed to come up which is a complete honour for us.
The most exciting thing for GameCity and the audience who come this year though – is that the Peter Molyneux they’ll see is one who is completely independent, infectiously enthusiastic and in his creative prime. I’ve promised him that I won’t reveal any of the ideas we kicked around, but I can assure you that they will be untroubled by creative or practical restraint. I don’t think I’m giving too much away though, to say that you might need to bring Wellington boots along and some waterproof clothing.
GameCityPrize launch event
We’re just about to launch the prize for this year at an event in London.
It’s almost all ready, we’re a lot further ahead than we were this time last year – but it’s still something of a roller coaster ride…
I think that was it. If I inadvertently announced something not mentioned above, I hope it was exciting.
