IGD Symposium Speakers Announced

The Innovative Game Design Symposium, a meeting of speakers from the academic, artistic, and commercial sides of the games industry, will be held on February 18th at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The list of speakers and topics has been announced and is available at the rather complex symposium website. Celia Peace, appearing through online game There from the USA, will present "Playing Ethnography: CyberEthnography as Performance and Game," a talk about her observances of players migrating from one online world to the next while maintaining their tribal identity. Chris Crawford's presentation, "Bridging the Two Cultures Chasm," focuses on the importance of communication between programmers and artists to create balanced game worlds. Henk van Zeijts, from the Netherlands, will talk about the fundamentals of the information-based Waag Society. Ian Bogost, from the USA, discusses the value of videogames in understanding historical events in "At This Very Moment: Representations of Events in Video Games." Marnix de Nijs, from the Netherlands, introduces two of his interactive installation pieces in "Physical Engagement in the Virtual Representation of a City." Finally, Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey, from Belgium, present "In Spite of Wishing and Wanting: Developing a Game Inside and Outside the Game Industry," a cautionary tale for those with unrealistic expectations of the video game business. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, all presentations will be in English, and admission is 15 euros, 10 for students. Lunch is included.