If you are a member of the IGDA, please make it a point to vote as soon as possible in the ongoing Board of Directors election.  We are still several hundred votes short of reaching quorum, so every vote not only counts a great deal, but will go towards making this a binding by-the-rules election.  Voting ends on 3/18, so there are only three days left.

We even have a local candidate running this year, Jeff Goodsill of Tencent Boston.

General election information is here:

http://www.igda.org/elections/

Candidate statements are here:

http://www.igda.org/elections/2011-candidates

Everyone who is an eligible voter should have received at least 2 emails from the IGDA with their personalized voting link. Anyone who didn’t receive an email but believes they should have should email Sheri – sheri@igda.org and she’ll help get it sorted out.

On Thursday, March 10th, 2011 the 3rd annual MIT Sloan Business in Gaming Conference (MIT BiG) will take place at The Seaport Hotel in Boston. This year’s conference will feature a full day of panel discussions and keynotes with speakers from Capcom, Turbine, Harmonix, Rockstar Games and other leading game companies. MIT BiG brings together video game industry professionals, local entrepreneurs and leading Boston area students and MBA candidates to address the challenges and opportunities facing the industry now and into the future. Insightful talks and presentations from panelists and keynote speakers will be featured throughout the day. Opportunities to associate with various industry stakeholders will be ample for all attendees.

You can find details on the conference at the MIT BiG site, and can register here.

Neoscape
330 Congress Street, Boston

Guests:

Grant Chang, Animator, Irrational Games
Speaking about the making of BioShock, including viewing of the trailer for the not-yet-released BioShock Infinite!

Mike McCarthy, Digital Effects Artist
Demo on Slate and CAT (Character Animation ) in 3D Studio Max

Modifier of the Month, demo provided by guest artist at Neoscape

Pizza & soda provided!

For more information:
www.facebook.com/BostonAAUGA
www.twitter.com/BostonAAUGA
http://neoscape.com/clients/AAUGA/

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!

This came in from Philip Tan of the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab:

MIT will be celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2011, so the MIT Museum is running apoll to select 150 objects to represent the institute’s history. Students, faculty members, alums, staff and other interested parties may vote for up to 10 items that have been nominated for the exhibition until January 1, 2010.

MIT’s role in the development of videogames (and the role of games in MIT) should not be forgotten! Here are some of the game-related "things" that were nominated.

Spacewar!
Zork
Eliza
Tech Model Railroad Club
Mystery Hunt
Assassins’ Guild
Metafield Maze

If you agree they should be immortalized, vote for them!

 

 

Here’s a message from WPI’s Rob Lindeman about an upcoming conference of interest:

The annual IEEE Virtual Reality conference is coming to Waltham in March 2010, just prior to PAX East. A major theme this year at the conference is how to get the gaming and VR communities to come together more. To this end, we are soliciting submission for PANEL, TUTORIAL, and WORKSHOP proposals from the gaming community for inclusion at the conference. The deadlines are approaching (but are somewhat flexible), so please see the IEEE VR 2010 Website for more info:

http://conferences.computer.org/vr/2010/

 

Since Boston is well known for MMO work, and this relates very well to VR, it would be great if this topic could be explored.

 

I hope to see you at the conference!

 

-Rob Lindeman

 

The official meeting announcement will go out a week ahead of time with more details, including the exact roster of speakers, but for now I’m sending this email so you can send any questions for the panelists ASAP! 

 Our October Post Mortem is coming up at 7pm on Tuesday the 13th. Jeff Ward of Orbus Gameworks will be giving a talk called, "I Can Slack Off, My Code’s Compiling!" Note that the meeting is not at The Skellig. It’s at Microsoft New England R&D, in Cambridge.

Here’s the abstract of Jeff’s talk:

How much time do you legitimately lose to compile times each day, and how much of that can be avoided?  How often do your programmers spend hours building, just to fail a five minute test and have to start all over again?  How much time do your artists and designers lose from bad engine builds or bad tools builds? This talk looks at the variety of ways a bad build system or build pipeline can damage your productivity, and the possible ways to fix it.

I should mention that this is a practice run of the talk that he’ll be giving at the GameX Industry Summit in Philly 10/24-25. The Boston Post Mortem is co-presenting the event and you should all try to be there. There’ll be great talks by our own Chris Foster, Clint Hocking (Far Cry 2), and others from Red Storm, THQ, EA Mythic, and other studios. For more info you can check out the GameX Industry Summit website.

Logistics:
Tuesday, October 13th
7pm @ Microsoft Cambridge (Directions)

There will be free soft drinks, but no alcohol or food available at the venue. We’ll probably hit Cambridge Brewing Company afterwards for beers, though.

If you’re coming from out of town we highly recommend taking public transit to the event (park at Alewife and take the Red Line in). There is a parking garage at MS Cambridge, but be warned, it’s confusing to park there and easy to get lost!

Whereas Massachusetts, a world leader in technological innovation, is home to one of the largest and most diverse clusters of video game companies and talent in the country, generating over $3 billion in sales in 2008; and

 

Whereas In 1961, MIT students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell and Wayne Wiitanen invented the game Spacewar!, one of the first video games ever created; and

 

Whereas Throughout the Bay State, innovative companies are developing new gaming technologies from diagnostics to social media.  Our universities feature programs and curriculum that support the growth of the videogame industry; and 

 

Whereas On this day, Harmonix Music Systems, the Cambridge-based inventors of Rock Band and developer of the original Guitar Hero games, is releasing The Beatles: Rock Band™, a game that will not only bring the creativity and joy of The Beatles music to countless people, but will introduce the Fab Four to new generations of fans, 

 

Now, Therefore, I, Deval L. Patrick, Governor of theCommonwealth of Massachusetts, do hereby proclaim September 9th, 2009 to be,

 

Video Game Innovation Day

 

And urge all the citizens of the Commonwealth to take cognizance of this event and participate fittingly in its observance.

 

Given at the Executive Chamber in Boston, this ninth day of September, in the year two thousand and nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the two hundred and thirty-third.

 

By His Excellency                  

Deval L. Patrick

Governor of the Commonwealth