Games and Grog, once a month

Just received this announcement that the second annual MIT BiG Conference has opened up for registration.

MIT Sloan School of Management`s Business in Gaming Conference (BiG) Registrations is OPEN! So, tell all your friends! Register here:  www.mitbig.com  Early Bird registration runs thru Monday March 29th, 2009 so sign up now! Keynoting the 2nd annual BiG Conference will be MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) pioneer Gordon Walton. He is currently VP and co-Studio General Manager at BioWare – Austin working on Star Wars®: The Old Republic™. 

Each of this year’s conference panels and several notable panelists have been set and Include:

 The Changing Face of Social Games

-          Panelist – Nabeel Hyatt, Founder and CEO of Conduit Labs

The Next Big Thing

-          Panelist – Andy Zaffron, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Sony Online Entertainment

Building and Fostering an Online Community

-          Panelist – Tom George, Director of Online Marketing and E-Commerce, Turbine

Hollywood: Converging Media and Blockbuster Properties

-          Moderator – Chris Weaver, Bethesda Soft works, MIT Faculty

Best Practices in Marketing for Gaming Companies

-          Panelist – Leonie Manshanden, Marketing Director, Irrational Games

How to Build and Finance a Gaming Startup

-          Panelist – Pano Anthos, CEO Hangout Industries

Gaming Company Financial Analytics

-          Moderator – Michael Pachter,  Wedbush Morgan

Mass Effect: The State of the Gaming Industry in Massachusetts

-          Moderator – Alex Aber, Foley Hoag

Follow us online at:
www.facebook.com/mitbigconference
www.twitter.com/mitbig

This year’s event will be held on Friday, April 16th 2010 from 8am-5pm at the Microsoft New England Research and Development (NERD) Center in Cambridge, MA. This conference is unique in that it focuses on the business side of the video game world. It will bring together industry leaders, game developers, game designers, academics, and students from leading MBA schools and will facilitate discussions of the latest business trends and future direction of the video game industry.

Sincerely,

Jason Domina
MIT Sloan Business in Gaming Conference Team Organizer
PR/Marketing
jason.domina.mitbig@gmail.com

We received this note from GAMBIT this morning about their new podcast:

Today is the official release of the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab Research Video Podcast Series. http://gambit.mit.edu/ Founded in 2006, the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab sets itself apart by emphasizing the creation of video game prototypes to demonstrate our research as a complement to traditional academic publishing. Our monthly Research Video Podcast Series serves to showcase our unique mission here at GAMBIT to not only the games industry but to those who still remain unclear as to the nature of video game studies. This Research Video Podcast Series helps make this process transparent. We hope you enjoy it. Best Generoso Fierro

If you haven’t voted in the IGDA Board elections, please go do so!  The election ends this weekend, and we have heard that we are still only half-way to a quorum.  Your individual vote definitely matters in this election!

In the last few days, the IGDA has done three webcasts with the various candidates – if doing the research while reading was more than you had time for, you can instead listen to the webcasts:

1st Meet the Board Candidates Webinar
2nd Meet the Board Candidates Webinar
3rd Meet the Board Candidates Webinar

Additionally, here are the links to the candidate statements on the IGDA website and the 23 profiles on the IGDA Board of Directors candidates Post Mortem Coordinator Scott Macmillan put together.

So, go vote!  Thanks!

A couple quick items about the IGDA Board of Directors elections:

• Elections are going on right now!  You can find candidate statements on the IGDA website.
• Post Mortem chapter coordinator Scott Macmillan has written up a series of 23 profiles on each of the IGDA Board of Directors candidates.  Many of the candidates have responded to the questions he’s asked, and he’s posted the answers.
• You can vote right here.

If you’re a member of the IGDA, it’s very important that you take part in this vote.  The only way we can make the IGDA more useful to all of us is by participating – and even if you can’t volunteer any time to the organization in general, most of us should at least be able to find an hour, research the candidates a little, and vote in these elections.

Thanks!

What: Complete Game Completion Marathon for Haiti

February 26-28th, GAMBIT will be hosting the 2010 Complete Game-Completion Marathon to raise money for relief efforts in Haiti. Teams of players will gather at our MIT lab to attempt to complete a game in one sitting. Participants will independently seek sponsorship on a dollar/hour basis with all proceeds going directly to relief efforts in Haiti through Partners in Health, and with support from the MIT Public Service Center. The labs will be open 24 hours a day through the weekend to accommodate the teams, with snacks and refreshments available for the players.

 This month’s Boston Post Mortem will be on Tuesday, February 9th at 7pm at the Skellig in Waltham. We’re having a multi-part presentation featuring presenters from our three Massachusetts Global Game Jam sites, where just last weekend many teams built a ton of games in 48 hours. We will also have a brief talk from Yilmaz Kiymaz and Alex Schwartz about their experience making the iPhone game Super Ramen BROTHers in just 24 hours!

 Post Mortem coordinator Scott Macmillan points out some recent highlights for the Boston-area indie game scene. A full third of the finalists for the Indie Game Challenge are from the area, Dejobaan’s AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard for Gravity was named ModDB’s indie game of the year, and we just wrapped up the 2010 Global Game Jam, with three sites in Massachusetts participating!

Check it out on the Macguffin Games blog.

I met with the Federal Communications Commission on January 14th, 2010 to discuss issues around net neutrality and game development. I was not alone: also present at the meeting were local game devs Matthew Bellows, Kent Quirk, Dan Scherlis, Jon Radoff, and Chris Dyl. The FCC published our meeting minutes as well as some extra comments we provided, which you can find here (PDF). There’s a post about it on GamePolitics.com, which does a pretty good job of briefly summarizing our meeting — although the original document only takes a few minutes to read, so I recommend you do that if you’re really interested in this issue.

As I stated on the record at the meeting with the FCC, I was there representing the Boston Chapter of the IGDA. I was not representing the IGDA as a whole, although some people on the IGDA Board and staff knew that I would be there, and I will be discussing these issues with them. I didn’t say very much: I was mostly there to listen and to pass things along to the IGDA.

 -Darius

The Chinese online game market is the largest single online market in the world yet over 70% of the games that make it to market fail financially. This presentation will discuss the Chinese market and help you form strategies to improve your odds of being successful.

Hope to see you there!