Yes, that's right, there are too many games industry conferences in the Europe at this time of year.
As a bit of background, this August there was: Women in Games (Dundee, Scotland,) 8-10 Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland), 10-14 Leipzig Game Convention (Leipzig, Germany), 18-21 Games Market Europe (London, England), 31-1 Sept Game Developers Conference Europe (London, England), 30-1 Sept
That's more than one a week! Surely most of them can be joined under one roof??
Sure, the US has its industry glut (GDC) and its consumer hysteria (E3), Tokyo has its Game Show and others, and Australia has its own GDC, but these are cleverly spaced throughout the year in a nice, even fashion, rather than being smooshed up together in the month of August.
It seems very unlikely that much new was accomplished between the back-to-back booze-ups - I mean, conference sessions - with the same people, and it seems that it would behoove the industry to alow its top brass to take time off in August away from games without being saturated in networking and negotiations, rather than attending yet another shindig with more "thought" and "innovation" being introduced at ungodly o'clock in the AM after a night in the hotel bar. This is particularly an issue when there's so much crossover between the events in terms of speakers, PowerPoint presentations and seminars.
Obviously, the intent of these conferences are marginally different. The Women in Games conference's aim is clear enough, Edinburgh tried to look at the cultural and social elements of games while filling the gap that Game Stars Live left for consumers with its Screenings and Go Play Games tracks, Leipzig is Europe's E3 (made obvious by the XBox 360 pricing announcement), and GDC-E and GME cross the similar path of exporing the industry side of the equation. The last three it seems to me would be best merged, so European business can be played out in one locale.
Of course there are some politics floating around this, which has resulted in industry organisations and PR companies trying to outdo one another and confusing things in the process. The immediate fallout of this was the loss of two games events earlier this year, the flagship Euro show ECTS and the consumer-friendly Game Stars Live, plus a month or so of deliberation about secret shows, unveilings and impotent event promises.
Unfortunately, what this conveys to the rest of the world is a lack of a unified vision for the European games scene. As the third largest industry in the world, in terms of both production and consumption, it seems disruptive that it would be so fractious.
It's particularly interesting to note that the August show that garnered the most press was in Germany, which only had one show this year, rather than in the UK, which had four.
