IGDA Melbourne

Spring is in the air, and the Melbourne IGDA is moving home!

Following the closure of Embassy Hotel, we are pleased to announce that our new venue is the 3 Degrees Bar in the QV Building, off Swanston Street in Melbourne’s CBD.  (http://www.3degrees.com.au/)

The bar has lots of special deals for us,  and the evening is shaping up to be very exciting.

We’re still finalising details of the next meeting, and will post more information early next week. For now we just want to make sure that people know it will be happening…..

3 Degrees

Tuesday 7th of September

7:30 PM

Put the date in your diary!

Mark.

As most of you are aware, our most recent meetup was on the 6th of July. We hosted Tony Reed (Game Developers’ Association of Australia), Neil Rennison (Fraction  Studios, Tin Man Games) and Cameron Lee (EA Melbourne) as panel members for a night of industry and development dissection.

Apologies were accepted on behalf of Kevin Chan (Bluetongue) who unfortunately couldn’t make it due to impromptu overseas guests.

The night was kicked off by Paul Callaghan of Freeplay, who was very pleased to announce that the IGDA will be hosting the Freeplay after parties. This will in fact be counted as our next monthly meetup, so be sure to head along to Freeplay (it’s looking fantastic) and we’ll see you for drinks afterwards.

Now that the Freeplay program is out (link below), expect details on the after parties on August 14 & 15 very soon.

http://www.freeplay.net.au/2010-program/ (http://www NULL.freeplay NULL.net NULL.au/2010-program/)

The studio panel went well, with our three presenters covering a range of development and industry related topics, including… marketing, outsourcing, production and communication techniques, tips for startups, and much more. The end of the panel saw some great questions from the audience also.

On behalf of the committee and July’s attendees, a big thank you to our three panel members! Also, thanks to everyone who made it along on the night.

Stay tuned for more info on next month’s Freeplay after parties and other info bound to come out of the IGDA woodwork.

In order to increase our reach to important colleagues and potential partners in the tech community across the United States, we recently launched a new blog.

If you haven’t already, please take a look at our blog posts and let us know what you think. We hope you find it informative and come back often or subscribe to the RSS feed at http://games.blog.invest.vic.gov.au/feed/ (http://games NULL.blog NULL.invest NULL.vic NULL.gov NULL.au/feed/)

We are also now on Twitter (https://twitter NULL.com/bourne2game) , Facebook (http://www NULL.facebook NULL.com/pages/Xbox-Australia-and-New-Zealand/80142697363#!/pages/Melbourne-Victoria-Australia/Bourne2Game/129126110438512?ajaxpipe=1&__a=30) and LinkedIn (http://au NULL.linkedin NULL.com/pub/alan-gibb/8/750/554 ), tools that we are using to communicate and further grow our network with gamers worldwide.

We are committed to connecting people for business and we hope these online vehicles will simply create more opportunities for (not replace) person-to-person dialogue. I look forward to connecting with friends in Los Angeles to talk about Victoria’s games sector and the opportunities it offers. My colleagues Phoebe Belcher and Brian Carnahan, based in San Francisco (http://www.invest.vic.gov.au/contactus (http://www NULL.invest NULL.vic NULL.gov NULL.au/contactus) ), are also keen to engage further. I hope you will connect with us virtually – sign up to keep up to date on the latest from the center of Australia’s innovation economy: the city of Melbourne and the State of Victoria.

Earlier this week, the IGDA’s meetup for the month of June – a more relaxed coming together for networking and socialising – was another success! People showed up from many aspects of development, media, academia, and more. Many thoughts were shared as well as new meetings. It was a great time for those who’ve made friends and partnerships to solidify things in a relaxed atmosphere.

Due to the content of the night, there’s not much to report… except that a lot of scheming went on that paints an exciting picture for future IGDA initiatives and events.

Stay tuned for more! We’ll be sure to speak up when we can.

Look forward to seeing you all again at July’s event.

Much love, the IGDA Committee.

Apologies for the late update – life’s hectic, you know the drill…

Anyway, we’ll be having drinks at The Embassy on Tuesday 1 June from 7pm and hope to see you there.

The Embassy looks likely to shut up shop in June – announcements will be made when last drinks are called.

As a result, we’ll resettle around the corner at the BLVD Bar in July.  Details will be available that at this Tuesday’s gathering.

It’s looking like a good turnout according to facebook (http://www NULL.facebook NULL.com/?ref=logo#!/event NULL.php?eid=127915020556524)and we’d like to encourage you to invite fellow games folk along for a night of networking…and comparing notes on RDR

The trivia night went off with a bang on Tuesday the 4th of May (yes, there were some Star Wars related questions).

The game was host to over 100 players and it was roughly an hour and a half before the dust settled. The top ranking team was “The Fucking Volcano in Iceland”, those ever-tasteful fellows took away the grand prize of a PlayStation 3, generously donated by Big Ant Studios. The winners were followed closely by The Lavish Badgers (winners of a Wacom tablet, donated by Wacom) and then, coming in at third, was Colonel Mustard’s Lonely <3′s Club Band (winers of a copy of Expose 6 and also a membership to CG Society, all thanks to our friends at Ballistic Media).  A $100 drink card for the Mana Bar up in sunny Queensland was given to the team that finished last, who will remain anonymous (for obvious reasons). There were also three lucky winners, of the Heads and Tails games ran through the night, that received some fantastic GDC T-Shirts (thanks to Jenn Sandercock). The night was a huge success and a lot of fun was had by all, both in attendance and those participating.

Thanks to everyone who could make it, and a very special thanks to our wonderful sponsors, Big Ant Studios, Wacom, Ballistic Media, Jennifer Sandercock, The Mana Bar, and of course the BLVD Bar for being wonderful and giving the trivia night a home.

Stay tuned for news on next month’s event.

Gathering from 7 for catch up social shop talk.

8pm – Trivia starts

Teams include:

SARQAT
Touch my Pixels
The Voxel Agents
Colonel Mustard’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
*My Epeen is over 9000*
The Billionaire Skeletons
The Lavish Badgers
Tin Man Games
Team Rocket
Team 3
Tuckshop Lady Headbutt
The Red Barrels,
Team Rocket’s Blasting off again
Team Andromeda

More teams will be formed tomorrow night and anyone not wanting to play is welcome to hang about

It’s at the BLVD Bar in Southbank, just around the corner from The Embassy near the Macca’s. If all else fails The Embassy folk will help you with directions.

Great prizes, and also the possibility of a gold coin donation from trivia players towards a decent drink card for the winn ing team.

Also up for grabs are:

A PS3 thanks to Big Ant Studios (who have two teams vying for the prizes)

A Wacom tablet thanks to Wacom

A Ballistic book and online membership to the CGSociety

A $100 Drink card for the Mana Bar – save it up for GCAP!

Three GDC ‘collectors’ tee-shirts

Along with much revelry and merriment…

It’s time to make plans for how you’d like to be involved in Freeplay this year – be it as a speaker, volunteer or participant.

Paul Callaghan, Co-director of Freeplay, will be about before Tuesday’s  Trivia Night at the BLVD Bar in Southbank from 6.30, if you want to chat to him about how you’d like to contribute.

Information about the call for speakers and volunteers is available from the Freeplay website (http://www NULL.freeplay NULL.net NULL.au/2010/05/speakers-volunteers-exhibitors-oh-my/)

The slides from Simon Joslin’s Journey into Indie talk at April’s meet up:

There’s more about it all at the Voxel website (http://www NULL.thevoxelagents NULL.com/2010/04/inside-the-indie-story-year-1-retrospective/)

Thanks to the following folk for these most excellent trivia night prizes

Big Ant Studios
A PS3!!!!

Wacom
A Wacom

The Mana Bar
$100 drink card ripe and ready for GCAP or before

Ballistic Media
A book (?) – We’ll let you know when we know more on that one, and it comes with a year’s membership to the CGSociety

BLVD Bar
Drinks – details yet to be negotiated.. you’ll know when we do!

Jenn S
3 GDC Tee’s