Despite the odd hiccup, it seems that the inaugral GameCity festival went incredibly well over the weekend. Highlights included Sega composer Richard Jaques' live church performance, the rag doll kung-fu workshop, the B-Boy dance workshop and Lorne Lanning's controversial keynote. The tea party to celebrate Sonic's 15th birthday was apparently a huge success. A room crammed with hyperactive kids feasting on Sonic cakes dished out by the local WI(!) while having their photos taken with a man dressed as Sonic - you don't get that at GDC.
Oh yes, and Gamesblog's own Grumpy Old Games Industry event seemed to be well-received on Saturday night. Sadly Ian Livingstone had to drop out due to ill-health (get well soon Ian - for heaven's sake don't watch the Manchester City game tonight), but Oddworld co-founder Lorne Lanning manfully stepped in (centre right on the photo) to join myself (centre left) Traveller's Tales producer Jonathan Smith (left), Free Radical Design's David Doak (right) and Richard Jaques (hid from photographer).
The curry was great and the industry complaining lasted a vituperative two hours. We covered the uselessness of publishers, the idiocy of the media and the evils of pre-owned games, with all panelists sharing a disdain for major highstreet retailers who trade in pre-owned titles. From a developer's perspective these are worthless sales, so you can understand their frustrations - Lorne Lanning pointing out that the retailer is in a complete win-win situation here. Unlike the developer.
There were some fun anecdotes too - like the time Free Radical were dropped by the original publisher of Second Sight (possibly too litigious to relate in detail) or the day Oddworld's publishers managed to lose hundreds of thousands of copies of the developer's latest game 'in a warehouse in New Jersey'. Lanning also managed to compare PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi with George Bush in one of the evening's least expected juxtapositions.
Hopefully, we'll be running something similar at next year's event.
Photo by Jon Jordan. Cheers Jon
