Archive: 11th-26th August 2008: Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2008 / Gamasutra

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival actually only ran from the 10th to the 12th of August, but with the 10th being a Sunday and Gamasutra’s tendency to stretch show coverage out across weeks, I thought I’d wait until now until I posted my coverage. There might still be more to be put up, of course, but in that case I’ll just update this post.

Anyway, this was rather a nice conference to go to because covering the first “Edinburgh International Games Festival” (as it was known then) was my first foray into games journalism. It was perhaps bittersweet, as the conference really hasn’t improved or grown any in the intervening five years.

It’s a strange one, really. If anything, the competition from Develop as an industry event is far too strong for it to really compete unless it really goes all out, but if it did so I think it would miss the most obvious possibility – which is to concentrate on the events which are open to the public.

After all, the festivals in the month of August the Edinburgh is world famous for are all open to the public, and are part of what make holding a games festival in the city at that time attractive, so why don’t they run with that? This year they barely advertised the festival around the city and still managed to draw thousands of people to the public screenings and the Dare Protoplay event, so a properly run event (perhaps run across weeks, with events every evening) could really be something special – unique, even – and much preferable to the current festival.

EIF: Deering Says Only 3 Of 10 Games Recoup Costs
Halo 3 Wins Edge Award For Innovation, Online Integration
EIF: Codemasters’ Cousens On Why Britannia Rules
IGA’s Bartlett: ‘We Are Not Spyware, We Are Not Evil’
EIF: Guitar Hero, Nintendogs Better Educational Tools Than ‘Serious Games’
MUD Co-Creator Bartle Criticizes Gaming And Academia Divide
Nokia’s Foe: Marketing Is Warfare, Consumers Are Bullets
CCP Economist On EVE Online’s ‘Pure Capitalist’ Market

August 26th, 2008 : Gamasutra