Develop Conference Wrap Up

I’m back from the wonderful land of the United Kingdom, where hundreds of attendees and I were subjected to the virtual wind tunnel that is Brighton.

I spoke at the Develop conference on the first day of the three day conference, and it was my first time attending the event. I was impressed with the turnout at the show, and the solidarity shown by the UK gaming community.

When I first presented my ID, I was given my Speaker’s Badge, which had my company mistakenly recorded as ‘Meaty Media’ instead of ‘Beefy Media’. It provided me and the attendants a good chuckle, and I ribbed Susan Marshall (one of the wonderful organizers of the event).

The talk that I did was called ‘Round 2: Convergent Gaming’ which was a pretty boring title for my talk. I covered the Digital releases and successes that Capcom had during my tenure there, and then focused on where I believe the future of games is – Convergent games. This isn’t a new concept by any stretch, and even the moderator joked that we’ve been talking about this concept for 10 years, but I’m just shocked that nobody has *really* done it yet. I’ve got a master plan, but that’s a whole different set of blogs and updates.

The show itself brought out some pretty well known industry veterans, and provided a lil’ bit of controversy. During the show, Tim Schafer referred to Bobby Kotick as a ‘Total Prick’ and Mark Rein was called out as a ‘Jerk’.

Mark Rein ain’t a jerk… he just plays one at conferences

Now I’m not a big fan of name calling, but I do have respect for people who speak their mind (as many people know I do as well). I do think that a nice dinner with wine and conversation would solve all of these beefs – can’t we all just get along?

In regards to the Mark Rein comment, I know Mark personally and I’ve spent some time with him at many of these conferences. What Cliffski (the indie developer that accused Mark of the jerkiness) experienced was simply Mark Rein in his natural environment. Is he opinionated? Yes. Does he speak his mind? Hell yes. He’s one of those guys that loves to add in comments on every panel that he attends – Cliffski, it’s not just you… if you follow him into any lecture hall, you are sure to get entertained. But that’s what makes him Mark.

I don’t think that he’s a jerk, and I think Cliffski has misinterpreted his comments a bit – Mark has always been a fan of indie devs – he was a major supporter of Epic acquiring Chair. He also pushes UDK out to students and indies as much as he can. But at his root, he’s a businessman, so he’s going to spend the majority of time trying to land the big fish, and I don’t blame him for that.

My advice would be for Cliffski to send a dinner invite to Mark and get to know the man behind the banter… he’s a good dude.

Great people at the show

I met a bunch of really great new people at the show, and saw some old friends as well. I got a chance to catch up with Dino Patti, who was celebrating the launch of their new game, Limbo. I’m so proud of what he and the guys at PlayDead Studios have done.

I also got to catch up with Paddy Sinclair and some of the Proper Games crew who did Flock and Final Fight: Double Impact, and most recently worked on the DLC for Crackdown 2. Included in the catchup was hanging with my man Andrew “Smiffy” Smith, who has since departed Proper Games to start his own design consulting company, Spilt Milk Studios.

On top of that, I also got to meet some new members of the Monumental Games crew and see their new MMO tech. I was really impressed at what they are working on, as they’ve got some significant new tech that could make some waves pretty soon!

In the new people department, I met up with Tim Flett (twitter.com/timflett) from Escape Studios (this guy is rock effin solid), Chloe Giusti from SCEE (incredibly bright and witty), Chris Donahue from OnLive (iPad Labyrinth combat buddy), and many, many more.

The show was a total success – thanks to everyone at Tandem Events for letting me enjoy your conference!