GamesCom 2010


We’re back again from the largest games trade fair in the world! One of the many ways in which we try to highlight our students and their projects from the Gotland Game Awards is to offer them floor space in our booths at various events. Largest of these by far is the annual Game Developers Conference and GamesCom. Let me throw some figures at you from this years event: 5 days and a total of 505 companies from 33 countries. More than 200 premieres. Over 4400 media representatives from 49 countries. A gross floor space of 120 000m2 and a total of 254 000 visitors. By comparison, the Tokyo Game Show draws around 185,000 visitors and the Electronic Entertainment Expo about 43,000.

Among the 18 900 trade visitors were 28 women and men from Gotland University, GAME. Our troop may have been somewhat smaller than for GamesCom 2009 but our presence was definitely not diminished. Our students got to build and man the 56m2 booth right next to Blizzard, Square Enix, Crytek, EA, Bethesda, BioWare and LucasArts, where we showed off some of our most ambitious projects to date; Abzolium, Colorless, Fumbies, Gods of Steel, Midnight, Pawns and the game of the year-winner Dwarfs, alongside several monitors looping computer generated animations.

Jonathan Lester over at dealspwn.com concluded:

it doesn’t get any more independent than Gotland University […] they’ve crafted some immensely promising experiences. Pay close attention, because these unsung games are quite unlike anything else you’ll see in the show.

Many thanks to Jonathan and all the thousands of visitors who spent time in our booth. We hope to see you all again in 2011!

For more photos, check out GamesCom 2010 official photostream.

GDC Europe 2010

Game Developers Conference Europe 2010 was larger than ever with record high attendance not only from the industry and media, but from speakers and exhibitors as well. GAME – a seasoned veteran – shared the 650m2 exhibition space with more than 40 companies from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, the UK and the USA. Our booth was right next to giants like Intel, Crytek, Bigpoint and Epic, and while it is called “GDC Europe” the 1,500 game professionals attending this year represented more than 45 different countries!

Speakers ranged from famed game developer Warren Spector of Disney’s Junction Point, to Hermen Hulst of Guerilla Games – the full schedule offered a selection of 170 international speakers, covering game development on PC, social networking sites, distribution, consoles and mobile platforms. 3 days chock-full of learning, networking, and inspiration – what’s not to love?

Video, audio, and presentation recordings from GDC Europe are available at the GDC Vault.
For more pictures, see the official GDC Europe photo set.
Gamasutra covered GDC Europe this year too.

Almedalsveckan & Best of GGA

Sage, at Gotland Game Award 2010What do you get if you gather all political parties, all lobbyists, non-governmental organizations and more than 350 journalists and television crews in one place? You get Almedalsveckan (The Almedalen Week) – Sweden’s annual rock festival for politics – right here in Visby. 😀

With 2010 being an election year the city will be absolutely packed for next week – there’s already more than 1041 events on the program, one of which happens to be GAME and our drop-in exhibit of the Best Of Gotland Game Awards.

Our Motion Capture studio will be open for the public 16:00 – 20:00, Monday to Friday. We’ll be showing Abzolium, Chubby Chase Race, Colorless, Fumbies, Gods of Steel, Midnight, Pawns, Sage & Walkabout. There will also be a drop-in cinema showing computer generated animations and movies.

The exhibit will be manned by our students so whether you’re interested in studying here or just want to take a break and play some games or watch some movies – you’re very welcome.

This is where you'll find the GAME Motion Capture Studio

Drop in for games, movies and some tasty popcorns! 16:00–20:00, Mon 5th – Fri 9th July



Welcome!

DreamHack Live

DreamHack (Winter 2004). Picture by Toffelginkgo (Wikimedia Commons), used under the GNU Free Documentation License.
DreamHack – with it’s more than 12 000 participants – is the worlds largest computer festival, held right here in Sweden twice a year. DH Summer 2010 is underway as we speak, and as always we have a bunch of students displaying their work and representing our education at the DreamHack Expo. Make sure to drop by, try our games and hang out if you’re at the event.

And if you’re not (for whatever reason…) in Jönköping right now – don’t fret! Swedish Television is broadcasting live from DreamHack and the stream is available online! Daniel Hagström – one of our first year programmers was interviewed yesterday and did a great job! Check it out for a glimpse of what we do and were this education can take you.

Starts at 00:52:20. The interview is interrupted for a segment about game music, and continues at 01:24:00.

Unfortunately no subtitles for our international visitors. 🙁

Want more DreamHack goodness? Check out their Flickr stream and YouTube channel!