PAX South 20105 in Photos. We attended PAX South 2015 and came away with a great deal of photos to share! This was the inaugural event in San Antonio, TX.
Just like any other PAX, you had a wide open show floor with larger booths that receded to smaller ones, and then eventually the tournament and competition areas. Upper floors had food services and meeting rooms, the diversity lounge, and several other areas of activity.
Click the image below to check them out:
D.I.C.E. Summit 2015 will commence on February 3rd, 2015 at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. Brandon Beck, CEO of Riot Games, announced to the press that he will be the keynote speaker at the event. Here is the list of other speakers that will discuss topics related to video games:
The panels will be streamed on Wednesday, February 4th at 9:30AM until 5PM PST. You can see the streams again on Thursday, February 5th at 9:30Am until 4PM PST. The D.I.C.E. awards will be aired on Twitch on February 5th at 7PM PST. Visit the D.I.C.E. Summit website for more information at the event:
The first ever Mobile Growth Summit now has its agenda all lined up and ready to go, keynotes and all.
Keynoting both days of the conference are, respectively, Dan Morris, Head of Publisher Gaming at Facebook on February 5th and Mike Ng, Head of Mobile App Promotion at Twitter on February 6th.
A sizable number of gaming-focused mobile developers and publishers on the marketing, monetization and sales side, at the heavy-hitter level, are represented here, including Sega, Electronic Arts, Glu, Storm 8, Zynga and so on and so forth. Unsurprisingly the focus of this two-day summit is on monetization, user acquisition and growth in mobile.
To view the complete agenda, including speakers and topics, for the Mobile Growth Summit, visit the link here.
Mobile Growth Summit, which takes places next week in San Francisco, also has extended to Events for Gamers an exclusive discount code to cut the cost of the gold pass to $95, until January 30th.
Microsoft’s Build 2015 conference moved all its tickets in record time.
Maybe it was all those fresh announcements at Microsoft’s January 21st Windows 10 press event, such as the HoloLens augmented reality/holography headset paired up with the recently acquired Minecraft franchise and the integration of Windows, Xbox and mobile gaming. Or, maybe it’s that Microsoft has a history of giving out hardware, like the Xbox One in 2014, and other perks at their Build conferences as an incentive to drive both attendance and software development.
Either way, the Microsoft Build 2015 conference sold out in about 45 minutes, on January 22nd, the day after the major press event, according to Mashable. Microsoft Build will be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on April 29th to May 1st.
Microsoft has joined the ranks of rock star developer conferences, like Apple WWDC and Google I/O, both of which have had to set up lotteries after registration sites have crashed and to manage fairer ticket distribution to all interested parties a la the Burning Man festival.
Still, fear not. If you have the $995 for the academic rate or $2,095 for the full pass rate, you may be able to attend yet, by joining the waitlist and crossing your fingers that Microsoft may be able to release more tickets.
SAN FRANCISCO – Jan. 27, 2015 – The 15th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA), the peer-awarded highest honors in video game development, has revealed its first two special award winners for this year.
The Ambassador Award, honoring someone who is helping video games “advance to a better place” through advocacy or action, is going to game designer and academic Brenda Romero, who has been a key figure in video games throughout more than three decades of standout game design, teaching and advocacy. The Pioneer Award, honoring breakthrough tech and game design milestones, is being awarded to David Braben, the co-creator of seminal 3D space exploration title Elite – now in resurgence with Elite: Dangerous – and co-founder of the foundation for the popular ‘hobbyist computer revival’ Raspberry Pi device.
Ambassador Award winner Romero, whose honor was bestowed after open nominations from the game development community, and voting by the Game Developers Choice Advisory Committee (http://www.gamechoiceawards.com/advisory.html) is an award-winning game designer and academic who entered the video game industry in 1981 at the age of 15.
She is the longest continuously serving woman in the video game industry and a 2014 Fulbright fellow for her work with Ireland’s game industry, game academics and government to improve the industry overall. As a designer, she has contributed to many seminal titles, including the Wizardry and Jagged Alliance series. Away from the machine, her analog series of six games, The Mechanic is the Message, has drawn national and international acclaim, particularly Train, which has been demonstrated at GDC on multiple occasions, and Síochán Leat (The Irish Game), which is presently housed in the National Museum of Play. Brenda’s work advocating passionately for games – and the role of women in them – over the past three decades made her a natural choice for this award. Romero co-owns Loot Drop and Romero Games, and is also program director of the UC Santa Cruzmaster’s program in Games and Playable Media.
Pioneer Award winner David Braben co-developed the seminal ‘open world’ 3D space trading game Elite with Ian Bell while at university in the early 1980s. The best-selling, startlingly expansive title had revolutionary 3D graphics and let the player make all kinds of intriguing moral decisions as they flew the known universe. Elite saw a number of sequels, including the crowdfunded, currently much buzzed-about Elite: Dangerous, and went on to be a big influence on games in the genre it helped create – from Wing Commander to No Man’s Sky and beyond.
In addition to his work on Elite and his more than 30 years as a game developer – latterly at his major UK studio Frontier Developments – Braben was also involved in the genesis of the Raspberry Pi, a ‘hobbyist computer’ which enables people of all ages to explore computing, and to program in languages like Scratch and Python. Braben helped to found the Raspberry Pi Foundation and guide the program through to mass production – with more than 4 million of the devices now manufactured.
Finally, as part of the awards evening that includes both the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Choice Awards, the team behind the Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’? video series, Ashly and Anthony Burch, will once again contribute brand-new videos to the Independent Games Festival this year. They augment the efforts of ceremony favorites, the video game sketch anarchists Mega64, again returning to make videos for the Game Developers Choice Awards this year.
The Game Developers Choice Awards are produced in association with the Game Developers Conference® (GDC) and will take place on Wednesday, March 4, 2015 at 6:30pm at the San Francisco Moscone Center and is open to all GDC badge-holders.
More information about the 15th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards can be found on the official website athttp://www.gamechoiceawards.com – and for information about the 2015 Game Developers Conference, please visithttp://www.gdconf.com.
Our team has traveled to hundreds of game industry events from all across the world, and have to say that the inaugural PAX South was special for several reasons. 2015’s event was obvious our first year attending this local Texan convention. We came away fulfilled that a weekend was well spent, and still admiring the great art statues, game key cards, and t-shirts that now fill our office.
What happened at PAX South 2015? A lot! Here’s our take…
THE SHOWFLOOR
We can’t avoid starting with the most obvious presentation at the event – the sprawling show floor and cosplay. We managed to sneak in a few minutes early before it started, so got a good look at what was on display. It may just be our imagination, but the entire convention was packed with games, games, and more games. There was also a vendor presence, extravagant cosplay roaming around, and developers ready to answer questions by eager fans.
We’ll describe one end of the vendor hall and then move to the other, starting at where the bulk of the food vendors resided on the halls outside. Any event attendee knows that a meal at the start of the day is required for the energy to walk all day long. There was a sufficient selection of snacks and dinner menu items to satisfy even the most ravenous comic fanatic. There’s nothing like snacking on healthy pile of fries as you shop for a Pop! character, or randomly running into a Deadpool cosplayer.
The main hall proper was filled with row upon row of gameplay booths. One of the most prominent right at the entrance beyond the t-shirt tables was the Grey Box booth. A massive 50×50 booth that contained two of their latest games; Grey Goo and Dreadnought. Just around the corner was the Twitch booth. These two mega presentations greeted you to so many more interesting PC, console, card, board, and more type of games within.
While computer games dominated most of the showfloor, there was everything from card and board games, comic books, Pop! characters, and of course an amazing array of trinkets and art pieces on display. Star Wars, Star Trek, and Dr. Who memorabilia were sprinkled throughout. We even happened across several interest booths promoting regional LARP events and tournaments. Did we mention Pop! characters? Yes, we’re a fan…
COSPLAY & GUESTS
Whether it’s comic, anime, or computer game themes, cosplay costumes were all across the board this year. Cosplay isn’t just for showing off on the showfloor either, as anyone can do that with a little bit of string, duct tape, and a can of spray paint. There was also a cosplay promotions and a couple of events where judges evaluated your costume and awarded the top winners some hefty prize money.
A PLETHORA OF GAMING AREAS
If you didn’t read the extremely prominent signs upon entering the main floor area, or the well designed guidebooks handed to at registration, you may have missed all the other cool activities that PAX South, and all other PAX events, tuck away in the bowels of the San Antonio convention center. The space itself is so large, it’s a bit daunting to get around.
Unlike with PAX Prime and its multiple floors, PAX South is mostly on a single ground level. A vast area that had way more room than was actually used, but perfect for space hungry events like League of Legends tournament, Dungeons & Dragons outings, and virtual reality glasses combat.
The Omegathon is also a special part of the event. It’s a three-day elimination tournament between randomly selected attendees who compete in games from any and every category (tabletop, console, PC) culminating in a live championship match on the big stage during PAX closing ceremonies. The final round is always out of left field and is completely insane.
SHOULD YOU ATTEND PAX SOUTH 2016?
In a word with a large exclamation point after it… YES! As we’ve already shouted out, PAX South is for all types of game fans. From PC, console, to card and board games, there is so much to see. We can confidently say that even if you dislike a certain type of games, there’s enough to enjoy elsewhere to appease you for the entire weekend.
Look for more about PAX South from us in January as next year’s event ramps up. We were so excited by this year’s turnout, that we plan to cover next years event in all its PAXY details!
SANDPOINT, Idaho, January 26, 2015 /MobilityWire/ — Kochava (www.kochava.com), the global mobile attribution analytics and optimization company, unveiled today a preliminary agenda, including new speakers and topics, for the second annual Kochava Mobile Summit to be held in Sandpoint, Idaho, February 11-13, 2015.
The invite-only Kochava Mobile Summit is an intimate, highly interactive event that brings together the best in the mobile advertising industry for a lively and thought-provoking discussion. Summit attendees meet with leading advertisers, publishers, and ad networks and get exposure to what savvy buyers are doing in their mobile ad efforts.
John Koetsier, Vice President of VentureBeat and VB Insight, will provide the event’s day one keynote address on the topic of, The Future of Mobile. Koetsier will also moderate the event’s Super Publisher panel session, How Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, Pandora and other Leading Publishers are shaping the future of Mobile Advertising. As the industry’s top publishers, these panelists will share their experience and best practices for driving innovation in buying approaches, measurement, targeting, retargeting, and engagement for mobile audiences.
Other confirmed speakers include: Havas Media EVP, Robert Griffin; Pandora’s Rami Richards, Priceline Director of Product Planning and Strategy, Scott Lake; Zappos Head of Mobile Marketing, Kedar Deshpande; Idle Games Director of Growth, Scott Bauer; AgeCheq CEO, Roy Smith; and Appnique CEO, Jai Jaisimha. Additional speakers and panel topics will be posted to the Kochava Mobile Summit website in the weeks leading up to the event.
Key sessions include Transition From Display to Mobile, featuring Priceline and Zappos; Location-Based Marketing: How to Make Location Your Ally; Super Pub Session – How Leading Publishers are shaping the future of Mobile Advertising¬; International Growth, featuring Chukong; and Harness the Power of Mobile Video, featuring AdColony.
To request an invite, or to see the most current agenda, visit: www.kochavamobilesummit.com.
Industry insiders looking for more information about the 2015 Kochava Mobile Summit should sign up to receive event updates here: summit@kochava.com.
When discussing Fallout 4, one can only discus speculations and rumors. There is one fan on Youtube whose name is MrMattyPlays; he has been giving information on Fallout 4 from various sources. Recently he said that Bethesda could announce Fallout 4 during PAX South 2015. PAX South 2015 is being held in San Antonio, Texas from January 23th until the 25th. If Bethesda does decide to announce the game, they are known for not saying the release date. MrMattyPlays also said that announcing Fallout 4 at PAX South 2015 would be early. Kotaku first revealed the leaked script for Fallout 4. Jason Schreier from Kotaku tweeted a possible announcement for Fallout 4 in the next few months. Visit the PAX South 2015 for more information on the event:
Valve first started sharing some news about the Steam gaming console in 2014, and the company was hoping to release the console in 2014, but they were forced to delay the console. A Valve representative told Gamer Informer recently that the company was initially going to unveil the Steam Machine at CES 2015, but they couldn’t because of technical problems. Valve now says that they are ready to unveil the Steam Machine at GDC 2015, which takes place in San Francisco on March 2nd through the 6th.
Valve already snagged the center and front portion of the event in order to attract all the developers and gamers. When Valve gave word of the Steam Machine online and at events, many gamers were very interested in it, but so far Valve only announced the concept during CES 2013 and CES 2014. It’s also possible that Valve will launch a new Steam controller along with updates to the Steam 0S.
A strange code was also found on the Linux system that deletes all your files from a PC that belong to a person’s account. The bug was first reported on GitHub. A good suggestion would be to back up all your files and avoid moving your Steam directory.
Visit the GDF website to learn more about the event:
We’re giving away 5 passes to the GameDevHacker event! All you have to do is retweet/share and include #GameDevHacker in one of the following posts for a chance to win.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EventsForGamers/posts/10153025621637505
Twitter: https://twitter.com/eventsforgamers/status/557337492383211520
Giveaway ends on Friday, Jan. 23rd at 11:59pm CST. We will be randomly selecting 5 winners from the above submissions between both social networks.
Visit the E4G GameDevHacker 2015 event page for event details: http://www.eventsforgamers.com/event/gamedevhacker-2015/
Good luck!
‘Early Bird’ Discounted Tickets on Sale through January 19
LOS ANGELES—JAN 16, 2015—IndieCade, the premier international festival of independent games, has detailed conference workshops, speakers and games selections for IndieCade East 2015, to be held in February 13-15 at Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. Details for the conference can be found online at www.IndieCade.com/east. Passes are available at www.movingimage.us/
“IndieCade East is an incredible opportunity for independent developers, aspiring creators, and video game fans to come see what’s next from some of the most daring and innovative people in the industry,” said Stephanie Barish, chief executive officer, IndieCade. “This is the place to discover and play the next wave of indie games and hear from the creators who are shaping the future.”
A Showcase of Amazing and Unique Games
The 2015 IndieCade East Game Showcase will feature a wide array of video games from dozens of independent game developers, including award-winning selections from the IndieCade Festival 2014. Games are for all major platforms, including PlayStation®4, PlayStation®Vita, Xbox One, Nintendo’s Wii U™ system, Leap Motion, PC, Mac, Linux and virtual reality. Additional games include tabletop games, sports, performance art, and more. The full list of games to be showcased at IndieCade East 2015 can be found at http://www.indiecade.com/east_
Mary Flanagan and Thomas Grip Round Out Keynote Speakers
IndieCade has announced the event’s two final keynote speakers: Mary Flanagan, a leading innovator, artist, educator, author of two critically acclaimed books, designer whose works have included everything from game-inspired art to games that shift people’s thinking about biases and stereotypes and founder of Tiltfactor game labs. Flanagan has been a member of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Academic Consortium on Games for Impact and been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Institute for Justice for game projects.
Thomas Grip, an indie horror developer for over 15 years, co-founded the independent studio Frictional Games in 2007, which has since developed the Penumbra and Amnesia series; games that have had a major influence on the horror genre. His primary roles in these projects include designer, art director and programmer. While the games he has been involved in are mostly known for their scariness, they have all also had a strong focus on narrative, a subjective that Thomas has written extensively about. He and the rest of Frictional Games are currently working on SOMA, a sci-fi horror game that will explore the mystery of consciousness.
Flanagan and Grip join previously announced keynote speaker — okidOKO’s Gonzalo Frasca, PhD. Additional details about the keynotes and the speakers can be found at http://www.indiecade.com/east_
Insightful and Educational Workshops for Developers and Aspiring Creators
This year’s conference workshops will tackle a variety of topics, from theoretical discussions to practical teachings about the industries. Examples include an examination of the representation of indigenous peoples in games, a discussion of the hardware and software of post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe, how to write better dialog for games, and how to market and promote an independent title.
Each conference session is led by experts in the field. Full details on the workshops can be found at http://www.indiecade.com/east_
Additional Activities at IndieCade East 2015 will include:
For more information and updates, please visit www.IndieCade.com/east or www.movingimage.us.
About Festival Passes
Festival passes provide access to all IndieCade East programs and events. Purchase now through January 19 to receive the early-bird discount: $100 public ($80 student/senior/Museum member). Order online at movingimage.us/indiecadeeast to reserve passes.
Beginning January 20, full festival passes will be $125 public ($100 student/senior/Museum member). Individual day passes will also be available: Friday, February 13, passes will be $45 ($35 discounted); Saturday, February 14, passes (including access to Night Games) will be $55 ($45 discounted); Sunday, February 15, passes will be $45 ($35 discounted).
For families: Children and accompanying adults will be able to access the IndieCade East Games showcase throughout the weekend as part of their Museum visit. Many of the games on view will appeal to visitors of all ages. Regular Museum admission is $12 adults / $9 seniors and students / $6 children (3–12).
Digital Media at Museum of the Moving Image
As the first museum to include video games as part of the scope of the “moving image,” Museum of the Moving Image is considered a leading institution in the exhibition of digital media. Changing exhibitions focusing on this subject area have included Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade (1989), the first-ever exhibition at any museum devoted to video games; Interactions/Art and Technology (2004), presented in conjunction with Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria); and Spacewar: Video Game Blast Off! (2012), a survey of the first 50 years of video games. Most recently in video game exhibitions, the Museum partnered with IndieCade in 2014 to present Indie Essentials: 25 Must-Play Video Games. The Museum regularly exhibits video games in its core exhibition, Behind the Screen.
EcoPayz will have an exhibit display at ICE Totally Gaming 2015. The event will be held at the London ExCel Centre from February 3rd until February 5th at stand N6-124. EcoPayz will showcase their expanding range of physical and virtual payments products that makes them a strong payment solution for top gaming providers. One of EcoPayz’s goals for the event is to show people the benefits of having more than 200 local payments options available through the EcoPayz Merchant and Business Accounts. Phil Davies, managing director of EcoPayz, says that their presence at last year’s ICE Totally Gaming gave EcoPayz the chance to improve their presence in the marketplace. To read more about EcoPayz, follow this link:
http://www.consumerelectronicsnet.com/article/ecoPayz-to-Exhibit-at-ICE-Totally-Gaming-2015-3704086
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