Game Over / Play Again

We participated in Game Over / Play Again, a one day conference hosted by The National Library of Sweden, attempting to start the discussion on how to best gather, protect and make available this culture of ours. Despite having some international speakers on the list, they opted to run the entire event in Swedish – always a missed opportunity, we feel.

The panel discussion

Vad händer med våra datorspel och vilken bild av spelvärlden kommer framtiden att ha? Kommer dagens datorspel kunna spelas upp om några decennier? Vad vill vi att vår framtid ska ha för bild av datorspelens utveckling? Vilka åtgärder krävs för att bevara och tillgängliggöra dessa spel?
 
Vi på Kungliga biblioteket vill anordna det här heldagsseminariet i egenskap av Sveriges nationalbibliotek och nationalarkiv för ljud och rörlig bild. Vi har i vårt uppdrag att samla in, bevara och tillgängliggöra datorspel med svensk anknytning för framtida forskning. Det känns angeläget för oss att få igång diskussionen kring datorspel som en del av vårt kulturarv.

 
Det är hög tid att skapa ett nätverk där bransch, arkiv, museer, intresseorganisationer, utbildningssäten, forskare, upphovrättsorganisationer m.fl. kan mötas och föra diskussionen vidare.

Program för dagen

09.00 Kaffe och registrering

10.00 Presentation av moderatorn Orvar Säfström

10.15 Andreas Lange, Computerspielemuseum, Berlin

10.45 Jakob Moesgaard, Det Kongelige bibliotek, Köpenhamn

11.15 Kaffe och mingel

11.45 Ann-Sofie Sydow, Game Assembly

12.15 Åsa Anesäter, Dataspelsgruppen i KLYS

12.45 Lunch

14.00 Jon Manker, Södertörns högskola

14.30 Martin Lindell, DICE

15.00 Bensträckare

15.15 Panel – Vilken bild av spelvärlden kommer framtiden att ha?

          Per Strömbäck, Dataspelsbranschen

          Henrik Erngren Othén, Repository Lane

          Johan Andersson, Paradox Interactive

          Angelica Norgren, P3 Spel

          Thomas Sol Sunhede, privatsamlare

          Peter Du Rietz, Tekniska museet

          Åsa Roos, Avalanche

16.30 Summering

Gamex 2013 press coverage

Teddy Sjöström, one of the developers behind Secrets of Grindea, getting interviewed in our booth at Gamex 2013.
Teddy Sjöström, one of the developers behind Secrets of Grindea, getting interviewed in our booth at Gamex 2013.

Just a round-up of publicity that we earned for our Gamex 2013 exhibition:

Gamex 2013

We have never done a better show than this! I designed a booth similar to this, but 6×10 meter. Håkan managed the booth’s internal layout and the student teams, while I focused on print materials, travel- & living arrangements, truck rental and planning our message. Felicia, Jerry, Adam, Marcus, Håkan and I came with from the staff. For the first time ever, we had a proper reception desk and constant staff representatives in the booth, which helped a lot!

4 of the 7 projects were first year groups. 2 of those are commercial projects (CoBots being released on Desura the day before Gamex opened). The interest from schools have never been lower. It was us, Skövde, BTH and one course presentation from KTH.

A genius move of ours was to bring our Oculus Rift.

Many, many people came to Gamex just to get a chance and try that. The “official” Oculus Rift booth (I believe it was actually PC Gamer) had *hours* of que. Since we never advertised ours, we only had 30 minutes or so at most. But it was enough to ensure our booth was constantly filled, and gave us a great, approachable audience. 🙂

King of The Thrill, one of the first year projects, is a clever browser based concept. You snap a photo of a QR code next to the monitor, and your phones browser instantly turns into a controller and connects you to the game. This team had so much fun with the people in line – often having 15-20 people simultaneously battling it out while waiting for their turn with the Oculus.

This happened a lot to our students. :)
And on that note, our teams were SO. FUCKING. GOOD. this year. Super professional. Helpful. No complainypants or slacking off at all. I was so proud of them that we arranged a spontaneous cake-party on the ferry, celebrating the good work on the way back to the island.

Coverage:
P4 Morgon
Svensk Indie på Gamex 2013: CoBots
Svensk Indie på Gamex 2013, King of Thrill
PowerGamer.se: Cobots & Tribal Marathon
GamingGrannar: King of the Thrill, Secrets of Grindia, Fly or Die
Sätrapôjk: CoBots, Secrets of Grindia
Linnéa Söderlund: Secrets of Grindia
Nördigt.nu podcast: GAME och King of the Thrill (0:39:20), CoBots (1:19:20)
Capishe.se: King of the Thrill
Capishe.se: Secrets of Grindea
Bossdungeon.com: CoBots
Bossdungeon.com: Fly or Die
Varvat.se: Little Warlock