Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Back to work! (Unless you work for the US government)

cliffski

So Eurogamer is OVER, and the longest sustained 4 days of my gaming existence spent standing up is now over. Hurrah! It was fun for the first half day, then a bit tiring, then a bit exhausting then OH MY GOD WHEN DOES IT END. Not helped by the ‘DAGGA-DAGGA-DAGGA’ of incredibly rubbish arcade music blasting at 900 decibels nearby. Plus £7.50 for a pizza smaller than a Democracy 3 promotional badge. Bah humbug.

I never know what to think about the economics of trade shows. I don’t like the whole idea of them in principle, but i understand the purpose they serve (for those lucky enough to live nearby) and I can see how it makes the job of games journalists much easier, although frankly, I still think the best games will emerge if everyone could just send simple polished betas of their games to the press, without insisting on demonstrating them in person, with a lot of hand waving, excuses, blagging, and offers of free champagne to any journalists as they try to form an impartial view of the finished product. But ho hum…

Eurogamer is now behind me, and I can look forward to not one, but TWO (yes…count them..TWO!) games releases in the next few months -> Democracy 3 and Redshirt. Reaction to both at the show was great. We will be showing Redshirt at ComicCon in London soon, and if you are staggeringly wealthy and want to see me talk about games marketing (and who wouldn’t?) I’ll be talking at this event.

I’ve also managed to squeeze in a new patch for democracy 3 today, that fixes and improves and tweaks all kinds of things, so that’s rather good.

In the last few hours, something fairly rare has been happening, in that the US government has done it’s best to re-create season six of The West Wing by actually shutting down, although I don’t think there was as much dramatic music and Josh Lyman shouting in this case. Every cloud has a silver lining though, it means I can now run ads like this…

leaderboard_shutdown

Yay?

3 thoughts on Back to work! (Unless you work for the US government)

  1. “… the longest sustained 4 days of my gaming existence spent standing up …”
    I choked on my post-dinner cup of earl d’grey laughing.

    I’d look forward to a more “indepth”, day by day account of your experience – if for nothing more than sheer curiosity (after you’ve recovered obviously). I heard from a couple of people there and they thought that the indie section didn’t get that much “general” interest (maybe the London pizza prices kept them away).

    The ad banner is very smart.

  3. I loved being on the vendor side of the a trade-show counter… when I was twenty. One time I had two car accidents on the way to a show (the first one sort of… unsettled me… into the second), and I STILL had a good time setting up, handing out magazine back-issues and running Amiga demos through big speakers, and bumping out afterwards.

    I wouldn’t cross the street to VISIT a trade show today. I agree that the metaphorical barrel holding the metaphorical liquid of reasons for their existence has a couple of very long staves marked “MEDIA”, and the rest are very short.

    There’s this Intarweb thing today. You can, as you say, get your software to whoever you want without even having to post floppy disks to them, much less meet in person. If a journo wants to see your face, video chat.

    And yet, there the trade shows still are. Just as airports today only really exist to trick people into paying the parking fees, I think trade shows today are all a conspiracy to sell limp ten-dollar egg-salad sandwiches.

Comments are currently closed.