EIEF 2006 Conference Sessions Announced

Organizers of The Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival (EIEF06) have confirmed details of two new conference sessions for the event due to take place in Scotland on August 21st and 22nd. In the first EIEF06 session, Professor Ken Perlin from the Media Research Laboratory at New York University will be making his second appearance at the event in a follow-up to last year’s session in which he demonstrated how to animate characters to make them both empathetic and believable. He will also discuss current cutting-edge research into creating emotional virtual characters in games. The second session, by Edge magazine editor Margaret Robertson, is entitled “Games That Make Me Cry” and also focuses on creating emotional content in games. Robertson aims to explore the games that have brought a lump to her throat and examine how they achieve their effects, while asking if making people cry is a worthwhile goal for gaming. “It may be at the expense of my dignity, but this session is an invaluable chance to get the industry to face up to how much emotion players already invest in games, whether developers realize it or not”, said Robertson. “Creating richer game experiences isn’t just about developing better techniques, it’s about forming a better understanding of why gamers care about their games, and I hope these examples will contribute to that.” The EIEF06 program of events also includes a number of game screenings open to the public on August 22nd as well as the Edge award (for which a shortlist of nominees has already been revealed) at a gala dinner and networking party on August 21st. Further information can be found at the official EIEF website.