The East Coast Game Conference (“The largest gathering of video game professionals on the East Coast”) occurs annually in April in Raleigh NC. This is a description of this year's conference.
The text of the slides is below. As always, commenting based only on reading slide text is like commenting on a book based on reading the table of contents.
East Coast Game Conference (2014) Raleigh NC
Dr. Lewis Pulsipher
Pulsiphergames.com
What is a video game conference?
Not for game playing! (except in the Expo hall)
Gathering of professionals (and wannabes) to talk about better ways to make video games
Raleigh is home to some 1,200 vg studio employees
Epic Games
Red Storm
Insomniac
Many others
“The largest gathering of video game professionals on the East Coast”
Civic Center, downtown Raleigh, North Carolina (state capital), part of the Research Triangle (Duke-Durham, UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State-Raleigh
About 1,500 attendees this year
The strong majority of talk attendees were students, I’d say
Lots of video game education in the Triangle
6th annual, was preceded by smaller gatherings
Always Wednesday and Thursday in late April
(A vg conference is regarded as business, work time, for professionals, so occurs during the week)
Talks and Tracks
Mid-day Keynotes (Ken Rolston (Warner Bros at the time), Mary DeMarle (Eidos Montreal))
Seminar Tracks (three or four daily slots for each)
Production
Art
Narrative
Programming
Design
Career
WED Unreal Engine 4 for Everyone
THU Serious Games
Titles of some talks
Game Pitches – Ken Rolston, designer of Morrowind and Oblivion
Game Magic: A Game Designer’s Guide to Constructing Magic Systems - Jeff Howard (Author of book Quests)
Something Unexpected: Designing Systems to Foster Emergent Gameplay - Steve Emberton
Managing disciplines you don't understand - Dustin Clingman
Panel: Serious Games for Serious Students: Porter Stowell, former Governor Bev Perdue, Dr. Timothy J. Farley, Dr. David L. Roberts, Juan Benito
Developing successful 2D games with Unity 4 - Carl Callewaert
“On the Horns of a Dilemma” - Lew Pulsipher (creator of this video and author of the book “Game Design”)
Other activities
Exhibition hall
Video game studios
Colleges and universities
Vendors of equipment or individual games
Evaluation of student portfolios (“career lounge”)
Recruiting
Parties, VIP lunches, and other special events
Mostly, it’s talking about making better video games
Cost
This conference is non-profit, much done by volunteers (especially students who get a discount/ VIP lunch)
Compared with GDC it costs practically nothing
“Early bird” (before mid-Jan) $125, $99 student, $25 expo only – higher thereafter
If you’re coming from some distance, transportation and hotel costs as well
I live 45 miles away, so I go home each day, don’t know the rates
Some photos
Walter Rotenberry at the registration desk
Co-founder
Co-chairman
Head of game development
at Wake Technical Cmty. College
Attendees playing “Goat Simulator” in the Expo Hall
Student art show
All talks are videoed, but the conference has a very poor track record about making the recordings available online
2015 dates not yet available
http://www.ecgconf.com
https://www.facebook.com/ecgconf
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