Meetings
Meeting 4 - 14th of July 2005
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Meeting 2 - 25th of January 2005
On
January 25th, the second IGDA Melbourne meeting was held at The Canada Bar. With
the aim of trying out different things, this second meeting centered around a
panel discussion, chaired by David Hewitt, which focussed on the future of the
games industry.
A summary of some of the points raised were...
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Smaller companies could make their living making specific technology like AI or
rendering, and large companies may use their tech or buy them up outright.
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Damian: One approach, which worked very successfully for him (his team sold
Team Fortress to Valve many years ago), is to simply make a product that you
want to make, and release it for free, like Viral Market, and hopefully reach
critical mass(rket), and sell it off once it "takes off".
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The future may have a much greater emphasis on modular development, where lots
of different teams work on different elements (modules) of the game, just as
many different effects houses work on the one movie int he film industry.
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Mark Bishop was a panelist, representing the Victorian Government's support of
the blossoming Victorian game development community. Mark was keen to get
specific interested parties to contact him and give feedback to the Victorian
Government Game Plan about what they think the community needs, because they
are proud of listening to the community in the past, and think they have
responded well. He wants to give a headstart to anyone who could be making
headlines tomorrow. They want to help produce success stories. You can find out
more at www.mmv.vic.gov.au/games
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Andrew, from EA, looked at things practically, and agreed that out-sourcing
would likely play a big role in the future. He was trying to set up an
international development team himself.
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Ben: The industry is splitting between the AAA and the value, their is no space
in between, which is where all the Aus companies currently are. Australia is
thought of as a cheaper competent bunch of developers who understand the
cultural references required for the US, however give it 5 years and
India/China/Eastern Europe will have eroded this advantage. We have no IP worth
buying, little new successful IP is being created. According to EA the next Gen
platforms are going to require teams, approx double that of the largest current
Aus dev house. EA's outsourcing will involve a select handful of providers (for
example Renderware) they can apply across all their games. In the future their
will be less titles, less publishers, bigger teams, less dev companies.EA will
use their monopoly to crush competition (ask Sega) while they can.
Next meeting, we may be back to the tried and true
"booze-up" format. I look forward to seeing you there!
- Murray Lorden
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Inaugral Meeting - 17th of November 2004
The first meeting of the Melbourne branch of the IGDA was held at The
Canada Bar on Wednesday 17th November. There was a big turn out, with more than
80 people attending. There was much fun, with chatting, drinking, a door prize,
and suggestions about where the Melbourne chapter could go in the future. All in
all it was a really positive beginning for the Melbourne IGDA chapter!
 The Canada Bar (aka The Plough and Harrow).
 Some
organiser-types doing what they do best: standing around talking.
 Game
developers get stuck into some drink and banter.
 The
crowd thickens.
 Roww.
 Game development at full swing.
 The
bar.
 "Great booze up, Edmond!"
 Mmm,
beer
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