Festival of Games 2010

Dear Reader,

We introduce you the 6th Festival of Games 2010, which is the effective business event for everyone who aims to boost profit with digital games. Festival of Games presents expo, conference, Business Fair and Career Fair.

Our primary primary goal is “Booming your business!”

The event is produced by NLGD Foundation and endorsed by the Province of Utrecht, Gemeente Utrecht, Ministry of Economic Affairs. Festival of Games is also supported by the major among 300 hundred Dutch game companies.

Festival of Games 2010 mission:

- bring together more than 170 companies;

- involve game development associations in many countries;

- get a strong position in the agenda of the board and dealmakers within gaming industry, IT, ICT fields.

Partnerships

Festival of Games is aiming to create a strategic partnership in many counties, including Central and Eastern Europe, USA and Asia. As a part of this campaign we have already arranged the partnership agreements with ACGI and IVDC. We will keep you informed on further development since we are planning to launch co-branded events.

Media partners

On behalf of Festival of Games we inviting media partners and press to attend the conference. Next year you will see the shift towards international press-communities and international publicity representatives.

Career Fair

Festival of Games 2010 hosts Career Fair as a part of an expo. This year we are planning to partner with the leading staffing companies. Currently the negotiations are being conducted. Career Fair will open up a high-profile recruitment database of the experienced professionals within the game industry.

Events:

Games@Film

During the Dutch Film Festival 2009, a short summit was held in Utrecht to talk about Character Building in games and movies. There were 50 seats available, and with 70 pre-registrations after just a couple of days, it was a bit crowded. Even at the door people were trying to get in, but when the number rose to about 80 people, the organizations; NLGD, NFF and Submarine had to close the door.

While others were still trying to get in, the summit started with the different presentations on the subject Character Building in games and movies. When does a character become a hero? Can a hero jump successfully from the white moviescreen to a videogame or vice versa? And what is the connection the player or viewer feels towards a character? What are the similarities and how does creating a game character differ from the construction of a movie hero?

A panel consisting of five people from either the games or movie-industry gave a short introduction on this subject and debated with the attendees on these questions.

Marjolein Beumer, screenplay writer of De Storm, stated that a character in a movie should always have an inner struggle. The hero should have anti-hero components as well, in order to make him more tangible. Simone van Dusseldorp, director of Kikkerdril, agreed with Marjolein Beumer and defined the statement with the notion that a character should learn from its conflicts and give an insight in life. According to Jan-Bart van Beek, art director at Guerrilla Games, games are more about the enemies in the game than the hero itself. This consists with the notion that characters are created by means of the characters surrounding the main character. Opponents actually create the story, give color to the hero and support its evolvement. According to Dimme van der Hout, MonkeyBizniz and the Utrecht School of the Arts, a character is not more than a vehicle for the story. In a game the characters function as the vehicle for action, while in a movie it shapes the emotion.

So now the question is whether we want to give along emotions with a game. Jan-Johan Belderok, Game Kings, proclaimed that the movie industry should bring intensification to games, because there are to many stereotypes at the moment. He even claimed that games would evolve into interactive movies, of which Heavy Rain is an example. All in all the discussion came to an end with the notion that there should not be a cross-over between movies and games, but that now is the time to create a new genre: interactive digital entertainment. So if you don’t know what to do, here’s the new niche!

Tokyo Game Show

The Dutch representation at the Tokyo Game Show was a success. Most attendees had an average of 20 meetings with Asian publishers.

The NLGD was present at the Tokyo Games to help represent the Dutch game industry and provide matchmaking services for the Dutch game developers at the Holland Pavilion. From these (matchmaking) meetings, attendees expect at least 5 serious leads from those meetings.

"This years attendance is a 1000% improvement over last years" stated one of the Dutch developers. There seemed to be a large interest in mobile games for the iPhone, casual games and console games. There was a lower demand for localization services and payment services for the European market. This contributed to the lack of awareness, not the lack of actual market demand.

Next year the Dutch developers will be represented again at the Tokyo Game Show 2010. There will also be a trade mission, to visit specific Japanese companies. If you are a game developer and would like to attend next year, please contact us through our contact form.