ALPHA | EVENTS
Report: MIGS 2009 Over 1,500 attend annual Montreal game development summit by Ed Fear
IT’S THE FASTEST growing game development territory in the world, so perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised by the mass turnout to 2009’s Montreal International Game Summit – which this year moved to the lavish Hilton Bonaventure, ‘in keeping with the boutique nature of conference,’ went the official line. Over 1,500 people attended – a massive number for a local event, and a good proportion of the Montreal gaming scene in general. The turnout proved that the emergence of GDC Canada this year, taking place a few months earlier, seemed to have no negative effect on the conference. In quite a scoop for organisers Alliance Numerique, the conference’s opening keynote was provided by Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada – himself now in charge of a large Montreal development operation after his company’s acquisition of Eidos. Speaking about the Japanese firm’s new focus on providing games not for geographical locations but for lifestyles, Wada refuted the notion of a global market and announced that the Square Enix group’s first ‘global’ game was to be started in Montreal soon.
Elsewhere, Assassin’s Creed II lead designer Patric Plourde gave an honest breakdown of the sequel to what is still probably Montreal’s best known export. In addition to over 200 people working at the famed Ubisoft campus, teams were also established at Ubisoft’s other facilities in Annecy and Shanghai to provide support. The UK was represented by Media Molecule’s lead architect Paul Holden. who delivered an unusually in-depth talk about the problems the company found dealing with vast amounts of dynamic geometry involved with user-generated content and introduced HeapMon, an internal tool dedicated to tracking memory allocations. Valve director of business development Jason Holtman also gave a keynote regarding the digital-distribution market, giving concrete statistics on how continually updating Team Fortress 2 has helped increase sales. The game is now at a point where the active player base is still as high as when it first launched, completely bucking the quick falloff that most online games experience. He also highlighted how digital and retail sales go together, and how Steam sales actually spur purchases in bricks-and-mortar outfits.
DEVELOP DIARY february 2009 DICE SUMMIT 2010 February 17th to 19th Las Vegas, US www.dicesummit.org
GDC 2010 March 9th to 13th San Francisco, US www.gdfconf.org
It feels like the doors on the main 2009 GDC only closed yesterday, and already the shadow of its successor is looming large on the horizon. Returning to the Moscone Convention Center once more, the world’s largest developer event will again let the international community share techniques, debate, make new contacts, and showcase the cutting edge from the tools and tech sector. With plenty of sessions and panels already detailed at the event website, more is set to be annouced soon. A number of related conferences are also due to run alongside GDC, including the AI Summit and the IGDA education event. 08 | DECEMBER ‘09/JANUARY ‘10
march 2010
With at times six or seven sessions taking place, it can be tempting to question the wisdom of remaining a two-day conference for 2010 – but at least it means that your session planner will be full. www.sijm.ca
may 2010 GDC CANADA 2010 May 6th to 7th Vancouver, Canada www.gdc-canada.com
june 2010 FESTIVAL OF GAMES June 4th to 5th Utrecht, Holland www.festivalofgames.nl/site
AI SUMMIT March 9th to 13th San Francisco, US www.gdconf.com/conference
E3 2010 June 15th to 17th Los Angeles, US www.e3expo.com
NORDIC GAME 2010 April 27th to 29th Malmö, Sweden www.nordicgame.com
Above: An eager MIGS 2009 audience listen intently
YOUR COMPLETE GAMES DEVELOPMENT EVENT CALENDAR FOR THE MONTHS AHEAD…
GDC 2010 March 9th to 13th San Francisco, US www.gdconf.com
april 2010
Top: Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada makes his keynote.
july 2010 DEVELOP IN BRIGHTON July 13th to 15th Brighton, UK www.develop-conference.com DEVELOP AWARDS July 14th Brighton, UK www.develop-online.net CASUAL CONNECT SEATTLE July 20th to 22nd Seattle, US seattle.casualconnect.org
august 2010 GAMESCOM 2010 August 18th to 22nd Cologne, Germany www.gamescom-cologne.com
october 2010 CASUAL CONNECT KYIV October 20th to 22nd Kiev, Ukraine kyiv.casualconnect.org